
Beans make you gassy, and other advice from last night's first YC dinner - jonathanbgood
http://1000memories.com/blog/34-beans-make-you-gassy-and-other-advice-from-last-night-s-first-yc-dinner
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cperciva
_Beans make you gassy_

Much less so if you soak them (ideally in a slightly caustic solution) and
cook them at high temperature (i.e., boiling under pressure). The former will
leach oligosaccharides, and the later will break them down.

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euroclydon
I have a five gallon container of NaOH that I intend to make soap with one
day. Should I use a little of that, or is there a more tame kitchen staple
which is caustic?

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cperciva
If you throw beans into concentrated NaOH they probably won't be edible any
more. A pH of 8.5 is probably good -- try baking soda.

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tptacek
Check out what happens if you mix a very little bit of baking soda with eggs.
Alkalinity speeds up maillard reactions.

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prpon
_By meeting frequently with the constant push of “have you launched?” and then
“can I see your chart?”, PG and Harj helped us focus on making the right
trade-off to do what it takes to make a great product but not a perfect one._

What chart is he referring to here?

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Bretthuneycutt
For us, it was our page and user growth charts -- the two main charts to show
traction.

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davidw
I'd offer to cook up some honest-to-goodness Italian pasta (with something
like pesto, amatriciana or ragu` alla bolognese) just to be able to hang out
at one of those events, if I were ever in the area.

~~~
pmjordan
I suspect the main challenge is cooking for 100+ people.

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davidw
Good point. I guess I could get some help or advice from my brother: he's a
chef.

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pmjordan
Tangential: there's probably a difference between preparing food for catering
vs restaurants. In catering, and presumably at YC dinners, everyone starts
each course at the same time (but eats the same food). I'd imagine this to be
a different challenge from providing different meals to an equal number of
people, but staggered in time, as you would at a restaurant.

In any case, pasta-based meals are probably good candidates for scaling to
catering-size dimensions as most of the components aren't overly time-
sensitive. I could still see it ending in a disaster if I was doing it for the
first time with no professional help.

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elai
Does having a startup, or being in YC feel like your cramming for exams, not
enough time, too much to do, and no time for a good amount of sleep and proper
food?

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techsupporter
"At our first meeting with Paul, we showed him a PDF presentation and he sort
of freaked out and it was really awkward for about 10 minutes as he tried to
digest why we had made a presentation for him."

Why is that? I'm genuinely curious to know what would be uncomfortable about
having a presentation, especially at a first meeting. It seems like that would
be a good way to say "here's where we're at" in a few quick screens.

~~~
tptacek
Wild-assed guess: it's something people working on projects at BigCo's do in
lieu of actual work. It's pantomiming execution instead of executing.

We have a company all-hands this week, flying everyone in from NYC and SF;
we're launching a new product and I have to do an hour on it. I don't think
I'm going to do a deck. Why bother?

~~~
colbyolson
_It's something people working on projects at BigCo's do in lieu of actual
work. It's pantomiming execution instead of executing._

This is, generally, how I feel about ToDo lists.

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pyre
How so? Some people need todo lists to keep them focused. Otherwise they
forget things that they were supposed to get done, or allow themselves to get
distracted by other things.

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rcavezza
I like the blogpost. Is 1000memories.com down? I got pointed to an
"Application Error" page when I tried to access it.

~~~
edanm
Seems to be up now

