Hacker News: not_that_noob

Slum kids win startup pitchfest

not_that_noob — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 17:09:27 +0000

Article URL: https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/14k4ibz/hosted_a_startup_pitch_fest_where_these_kids_won/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36495798

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by not_that_noob in "YouTube’s Algorithm Incentivizes the Wrong Behavior"

not_that_noob — Sat, 15 Jun 2019 00:52:33 +0000

YouTube also leads you down radical rabbit holes as that keeps the algorithm happy. How many of the recent terror attacks (ISIS or New Zealand type incidents) were fostered by YouTube watching?

New comment by not_that_noob in "Google to Acquire Looker"

not_that_noob — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 13:34:27 +0000

No mention of the purchase price - tho Looker was likely flying in unicorn heights.

New comment by not_that_noob in "Ask HN: Non-VC backed founders, any tips on growth?"

not_that_noob — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 21:33:27 +0000

There are investors out there who don’t insist on control. I know of at least two - IndieVC and Earnest Capital. Their investment can be paid back in cash over time from earnings.

New comment by not_that_noob in "A course that has brought women even with men on a spatial cognition test (2016)"

not_that_noob — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 00:07:31 +0000

I mean, mass immigration with no borders is exactly how humans spread out from Africa to populate the world. Seems it’s worked out great for humanity.

And speaking as a resident of the Bay Area, I greatly appreciate the diverse people I meet. Not to mention the wide food choices.

New comment by not_that_noob in "Analyst who exposed Vancouver's real estate disaster"

not_that_noob — Sat, 30 Mar 2019 16:30:49 +0000

Real estate remains one of last few asset classes where ownership can be obfuscated reliably. This makes it ideal to park money of dubious provenance. If you bring transparency to the system - much like know-your-customer did to banking - this phenomenon will largely disappear. The local residents have reached a point I think for this to happen in Vancouver - and it could spread to other similar cities.

New comment by not_that_noob in "Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity"

not_that_noob — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 22:24:24 +0000

I wonder if the type of instrumental music makes a difference. I find that soft techno like dub techno helps me focus, while classical does not.

New comment by not_that_noob in "Atrium Raises $65M"

not_that_noob — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 21:52:27 +0000

+1. I feel you. The only upside - it made me read everything more carefully. Significant deal points can be missing, or subtle giveaways that negate the actual deal term two paragraphs up. And the best part - they charge you by the hour for correcting their damn mistakes! Yeah I'm not buying what that partner's selling.

New comment by not_that_noob in "Atrium Raises $65M"

not_that_noob — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 20:58:58 +0000

@justin - congrats! How do the fees compare vs a traditional law firm? I love the price-predictability part, but can you shed a bit more light?

New comment by not_that_noob in "What went wrong at Social Capital"

not_that_noob — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 16:02:41 +0000

Index funds have beaten most active management over the long run. If you think about it, YC is a huge index fund in startups. The problem is not data-based prediction - just that it is impossible to pick winners a priori, no matter how much data you have. Ergo the clearly viable long run strategy is to invest in as many as you can. This is why YC is maximizing volume, with the latest being the Startup School.

The other option of course is to invest large amounts into startups that are well on their way, but Sequoia and AH have a corner on that market. And now YC wants to play there as well, with their larger fund.

So there's no oxygen left for a lot of the VC firms in the valley. There's no shortage of money looking for VC funds, as returns are low in general asset classes. So you have this imbalanced situation, where dinky startups get incredible valuations, and there are too few genuine investment opportunities to go around. SC are one of the marquee victims, but other walking dead abound, though they dress snappy so it's hard to tell they're really dead.

New comment by not_that_noob in "Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First"

not_that_noob — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 17:39:26 +0000

This is one of the best articles I've seen on climate change. We are now looking to a 3 degree rise in surface temps by the middle of this century - well within our lifetimes. Miami is headed underwater. I wouldn't be buying real estate in any low-lying area if I can avoid it.

"Three-degree warming is a prescription for short-term disaster: forests in the Arctic and the loss of most coastal cities. Robert Watson, a former director of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has argued that three-degree warming is the realistic minimum."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/clim...

New comment by not_that_noob in "In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him"

not_that_noob — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 19:58:55 +0000

Jobs was IMO a High-Functioning Sociopath - http://www.md-health.com/Sociopath-Traits.html

He turned his charm on when he need to accomplish something, but there is no real empathy for anyone who was not useful to him in some way. The sad reality of Lisa's situation was that he didn't need her. So he treated her very badly, and then as is typical with sociopaths, turn around and blame her for his behavior. I truly sympathize with her.

New comment by not_that_noob in "How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao"

not_that_noob — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 19:03:24 +0000

Some of this is of course the Chinese government placing its thumb on the scales in favor of local businesses. It does this for a lot of reasons, but it's clear it happens.

However, compare the situation to other more open countries (e.g. India, Japan, Indonesia ) There are culture, social and language specific nuances that local entrepreneurs understand far better than outsiders, and that accounts for a significant portion of these copycat business success.

I think American business generally have a tough time accounting for the latter into account when they go overseas. IOW, not all of Jack Ma's success stems from the government being on his side.

New comment by not_that_noob in "Facebook stock drops more than 20% after revenue forecast misses"

not_that_noob — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 07:16:09 +0000

I wonder how much of the European decline was driven by GDPR rules, especially opt-in requirements. GDPR-like laws are being debated on and passed here in the US by individual states. Probably a tough environment to expand on MAU right now.

New comment by not_that_noob in "Shocks to military support and subsequent assassinations in Ancient Rome"

not_that_noob — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 18:27:01 +0000

The parallel to the fall of the Soviet Union is interesting. The state slowly ran out of money, and couldn’t pay the military complex, including the army. The army’s loyalty to the leadership essentially disappeared, and then the empire fell.

Also note that the militaries of Burma or Venezuela are always well provided for, even when the people are repressed or starving. I feel successful dictators have an instinctual grasp of this relationship.

New comment by not_that_noob in "PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding"

not_that_noob — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 18:58:13 +0000

I don’t know man - the Internet is distributed and last I checked it was doing great.

New comment by not_that_noob in "PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding"

not_that_noob — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 18:50:32 +0000

This one I think has legs. Quite a few content creators are upset with YouTube policies, and can drive users to PeerTube using other social services. Once you have a core group of users, others see that it’s viable and adoption rises.

New comment by not_that_noob in "How the BBC and ITV are fixing delays on World Cup live streams"

not_that_noob — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 04:40:21 +0000

It's not a problem that can be fixed. The endpoints - encoding at the transmitter and decoding at the device - can be with the efforts underway made somewhat equivalent between both modes. However, the problem is the path between them - the Internet was never built for realtime delivery of media streams. The many layers and devices along the route add delay, and on top of that network congestion can add more. Unless the path is more or less dedicated (as happens in broadcast, satellite or cable TV), there is no way to ensure realtime delivery.

[PS Before anyone mentions RTP, this is a known problem with RTP - see: https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/rtp/faq.html

"RTP does not ensure real-time delivery. So how come it is called a real-time protocol? No end-to-end protocol, including RTP, can ensure in-time delivery. This always requires the support of lower layers that actually have control over resources in switches and routers. RTP provides functionality suited for carrying real-time content, e.g., a timestamp and control mechanisms for synchronizing different streams with timing properties." ]

New comment by not_that_noob in "A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time"

not_that_noob — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 20:03:13 +0000

The number one thing that kills a startup is lack of market demand. His real genius is in determining market demand ahead of time, and in a low-cost way. This separates true entrepreneurs from the wannabes.

The Critical Importance of Time Restricted Feeding in Weight Loss

not_that_noob — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 07:36:05 +0000

Article URL: https://medium.com/@drjasonfung/the-critical-importance-of-time-restricted-feeding-in-weight-loss-fe1dad80d279

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17203343

Points: 4

# Comments: 0