Even though most domestric lounges are hit-or-miss, it's a way to trick myself into getting to the airport 30 to 45 minutes earlier than I would. That way, if I'm running late, worst case I miss the lounge or cut short the time.

For those complaining that lounges are overcrowded with mediocre food, it's true and getting worse. However, it's buffet style - select a healthy salad option with a reasonable protein. Non Priority Pass options are somewhat worthwhile -- United Clubs have gone through a massive upgrade post Covid and so far haven't been too crowded. They also allow access upon arrival, if you really need to fire off some emails and hydrate upon landing.

As for in-flight, for former gaming geeks, try classic emulators. They won't require internet and drain very minimal battery life on your latop.

The adjacent hack is to bring an empty water bottle in your carry-on, which you fill once you clear security. Then, you have a full bottle of water and can decline everything from the "beverage cart" on your flight, meaning you never need to worry about managing a precarious open cup of liquid and ice sitting on your in-flight tray.

I tell locals I can "speak, read, and type", but only have 1st grade writing abilities in Mandarin. The key is typing -- you can chat on Line, WeChat, email, or any mobile apps to accomplish day-to-day tasks. But the typing is phoenetic either via Roman pinyin, zhuyin, romaji, etc.

So yes, this problem only comes up in languages where drawing the characters are mostly independent of the pronunciation. You don't need to type individual words, you can type phrases and the input tool presents choices sorted by most commonly used. Therefore, even sending communication is closer to a reading exercise rather than a writing exercise.

Of course, after reading through I'm convinced enough of the mainstream conclusion.

The WARN act requires large enough employers "provide at least 60 calendar days advance written notice of a plant closing and mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employment."

Ok, so say everyone laid off clearly worked from home for the past 12 months. There was no single site of employment with 50 or more employees. It was just 1 or 2 employees cut from each of 3000 different sites of employment... their own homes?

Obviously, this logic has little chance of working, but I welcome more clarity around whether every w-2 employee needs to be tied to a company office address, and how labor laws might need to change for remote-work situations.

But I remember watching Hikaru Nakamura stream once playing through each of these bots (and beating them fairly easily). He commented that several of the bots were doing things the real players would never do, both in style and even the opening move (1.e4 for a player that almost always opens 1.d4)

It was fairly early after the personality bots came out, so maybe they've fixed it by now.

Homeowners that locked in 30-year fixed rates might not be too concerned at first. But eventually, even they may need to move or sell someday. Wages or buying power will need to catch up to avoid some downward price pressure.

Andrew Welch was uneasy about the idea of scaling up, especially when they could survive as they were just fine off their utility products

Way back in the day, YC always said not to worry about competitors raising tons of money (not sure if that's still the rec). The 2008 DHH boostrapping talk during Startup School is still one of the most influential videos on my career as a founder. But that path is increasingly less popular! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

Lastly, for all the bolo comments out there, I remember the huge transition from modems to school ethernet that made it playable - it was honestly one of the reasons I was looking forward to dorm life!

Does that mean they need to freeze lots of the seafood? Is the food less fresh by Day 6 and 7?

I gravitated to those who were chill, and perplexed anyone who tried to play the Status Game by losing on purpose. If it was the chess equivalent, I fall into Fool's Mate on move 2.

Unfortunately, there ARE times when it helps to be able to quickly convey to new acquaintances that you are legitimate and worthwhile for further collaboration. But most of the time, best to turn it off.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21609572

Points: 109

# Comments: 245

That is, will medical images of diseases we diagnose in the next 20 years look a lot like the ones from the past 20 years, or is there a danger of over-fitting on an evolving data set? Could either the technology or the biology of the disease evolve?

In a prior life I was a quant trader, and financial market data is notorious for having the non-stationary problem. On top of market rules and structures changing all the time, once someone discovers a profitable trading idea, their own actions change what the data looks like for everyone else from that point forward.

I remember PG saying NYC had clearly overtaken Boston as #2 startup up in the US, partly because Boston investors were more risk averse and focused on the late stages. Then he asked whether NYC could rival the Bay Area for #1.

I don't think he made a definitive conclusion one way or another. I even remember him saying the unstoppable force of the startup revolution would hit the immovable object - that NYC is already known as many other hubs (finance in particular).

The one concept that stood out was his argument that "chance encounters" with people who can help your startup are crucial. Good luck sometimes hits when you least expect it, but NYC at the time didn't have all the ingredients in place the way the Bay Area had. A month later he wrote this down more formally in "Why Startup Hubs Work"

http://www.paulgraham.com/hubs.html

Passengers can find a cheaper ticket flying JFK->TPE->HKG and ditching the final leg (carry-on only). However, if an airline "knows" a passenger will skip the final leg, then they are helping the individual evade a legitimate tax.

Quant funds are in a good position to put on a large basket of long and short positions (with leverage), and therefore can separate individual stocks from their confounding market factors. Of course, it presumes the fund has a strategy giving them enough conviction to bet on individual stocks / securities.

However, the acquiring company usually wants to retain some of the team. The founders often receive an employment offer, and that offer can contain anything negotiated, including signing or performance bonuses.

There can be some conflict of interest and negotiation ugliness if the investors view the employment offers as too generous at the expense of shareholders. In practice, most decent investors would prefer to spend their energy on their big winners rather than optimize a small loss into break-even.

http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html#f12n

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12130826

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

When we applied, most of our business was in NYC (and it still is today), but we had to move Mountain View for the 3 months of the program. As it turns out, moving was hugely beneficial because it also forced us to free ourselves from many random obligations from our daily lives. I would fly back to NYC regularly, but for specific and determined purposes, which minimized time for distraction.

Some say the equity deal is bad, and in summer 2009 it was an order of magnitude worse (6% for $15K). However, 94% of a success is much better than 100% of a failure, and I am absolutely sure YC saved us from failing multiple times.

If there is ANY true negative consequence of participating in YC, I would say you are placed into a peer group of overachievers that values fundraising for high growth. While there is a LOT of upside to close interaction with dozens of other founders, the negative is that we naturally tend to compare ourselves to our cohort. I never felt any outright competitive pressures from my batch, but at the end of the day, the universal yardstick seemed to be how much funding you could raise from the most prestigious investors.

To be fair, the YC partners stressed that fundraising is a silly measure of success and that getting ramen profitable and default-alive is more important, but it's still demoralizing when (seemingly) all your friends raise money and you are grinding along at a bootstrap pace. For RentHop it was absolutely the right play - our revenue hockeystick didn't begin until 3 years later.

I figured out in 2009, when I was working at a hedge fund trying to bid on the assets of bankrupt banks post financial crisis.

Basically, every branch loses money to gain depositors. All the fees on monthly accounts, safety deposit boxes, ATMs, cashiers checks, etc. do not offset the cost of the office and employees. However, if the loss is small compared to the volume of deposit money the branch attracts, then the bank headquarters has "borrowed" money at a very low cost.

I think a typical suburban Countrywide or Washington Mutual branch was losing about $100K/yr but had deposits of $20M; not bad at all considering Fed Funds had been around 5.25% until fall of 2007, and that having the capital was the life blood necessary to do all the profitable operations (originating mortgages, credit cards, student loans, EDIT: meet regulatory capital requirements, etc). In Midtown, those numbers might be multiplied many fold, so very few retail stores can compete and stay profitable.

https://blog.ycombinator.com/founder-ethics

https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/

  "To maintain our community, if a founder behaves 
  unethically during or after YC, we will revoke their YC  
  founder status. This includes access to all Y Combinator
  spaces, software, lists and events."

  "We will stand behind you no matter how much your company
  struggles, as long as you behave ethically."