
YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide - craigcannon
http://www.ycgiftideas.com/?2016
======
xiaoma
The thing that really strikes me about this list is how nearly everything on
it is offered at a premium price.

One thing I loved about the tech world while I was growing up was that it was
consistently doing more with less. Wikipedia displaced Encyclopaedia
Brittanica by being both better _and_ free. Hotmail was a clear win over AOL
and Yahoo's offerings and then Gmail was faster and handled spam better while
giving more at every price point (including free). Computers became both
faster and cheaper. Amazon and Netflix broke down even the movie industry and
ended the $70 per tape movie sale price.

The offerings on the linked page are _mostly_ things that would be out of the
budget of an American family living on a median income. I won't call out any
specific examples or hurt feelings, but a random sampling of several companies
of any part of the list (other than non-profits) will show a clear trend.

It's hard to say if the same was true 20 years ago and those few companies
that broke out into famous successes happened to be particularly aimed towards
a broad appeal, but it's clear the current trend is doing more with more.

~~~
qmalzp
"Amazon and Netflix broke down even the movie industry and ended the $70 per
tape movie sale price."

Is that a typo? When were movies ever $70?

~~~
larrywright
In the 80s and early-to-mid 90s, most movies weren't offered for sale to
consumers. Big blockbuster movies sometimes were, but those were the
exception. Places like Blockbuster or your corner video rental store bought
VHS movies for around $70/ea and then rented them to consumers for $3 or so.
That changed somewhere around the late 90s, when people began buying movies on
VHS and DVD, and the price dropped significantly.

Source: I worked for a small video store in the early 90s.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Places like Blockbuster or your corner video rental store bought VHS movies
for around $70/ea //

Isn't that just rental prices vs consumer prices. It's a tort to by the
consumer copy and rent it out so large companies could never get away with
that instead they bought a more expensive copy that is basically the tape with
license to rent it??

Turns out it's more complicated than that: [https://entertainment-
industry.knoji.com/the-history-of-the-...](https://entertainment-
industry.knoji.com/the-history-of-the-vhs-movie-industry/) &
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=692441](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=692441).

Would be interested in similar info with global comparison, eg how was the
situation different in UK, Germany, etc..

------
koolba
Unless there's a significant financial incentive to do so (ex: 2-to-1 match),
don't give people gift cards. Gift cards are the biggest scam ever pulled by
the retail industry, or more specifically, perpetuating the idea that giving
cash is taboo.

The one exception would be giving a preloaded credit card to someone who
otherwise doesn't have access to one (ex: a niece/nephew that's far away) and
only if there are no fees associated with initially loading it. I think AmEx
has some kind of cyber monday promotion for that today. If you have to pay
anything more than $0 then forget about it though.

All that aside, Markhor looks interesting. I don't recall seeing them on HN
(guess it's less "tech" than most YC companies) but the loafers look nice.
Anybody here have any experience with them? Always on the look out for a
better pair of shoes...

~~~
dpark
> _Unless there 's a significant financial incentive to do so (ex: 2-to-1
> match), don't give people gift cards. Gift cards are the biggest scam ever
> pulled by the retail industry, or more specifically, perpetuating the idea
> that giving cash is taboo._

The problem is that cash often feels like not giving a gift at all. If you
exchange fifty-dollar bills with a sibling, it feels pointless. Gift cards can
alleviate that feeling. If you give your sibling an iTunes gift card it
doesn't feel like nothing was exchanged _even if_ they give you one back.

Gifts are also an opportunity to give someone something they wouldn't
typically buy for themselves. Ideally that would be a thoughtful gift but if
you can't think of one, cash is likely to end up in the "general fund", while
a gift card to a restaurant or a massage or a bookstore will be used for its
intended purpose (with some risk of it being lost or sold on some card resale
site).

~~~
soylentcola
My (to be fair, minor) issue with gift cards is that they're essentially
saying "hey, have some money...but you can only spend it at this one place of
my choosing, not yours".

I'm aware that this is pretty low on the list of problems you'd hate to have
but it's there nonetheless. Let's say a relative has heard me talk about some
Arduino project I'm messing with or something to do with building a computer.
They don't know much about either of those things but they know I like
"techie" stuff and gadgets so they get me a gift card from Best Buy, as that
is the only electronics store they're really aware of.

Now I've got a $100 gift card to a store that either doesn't sell any of the
things I'd want to buy or charges a hefty markup over what I'd normally be
willing to pay. Sure, I could sell the gift card to some bargain hunter for
$95. They'd get $5 off, I'd get most of the value to spend elsewhere...

...but that's a hassle and not at all what the gift-giver would want to
necessitate anyway. The other major option is to just suck it up and either
buy something I don't really want/need out of the available Best Buy catalog
or maybe buy that $100 item that I would've just found for $70 at Microcenter
or Newegg.

I think you nailed it when you pointed out issues of perception and tradition.
Giving cash to someone other than an aging/retired parent or a young child
comes off as odd. It's almost like you didn't care enough to think of a gift
that they would actually enjoy or shows that you know them. I just think gift
cards are about the same in that regard, only less desirable or useful.

~~~
AnOscelot
>"hey, have some money...but you can only spend it at this one place of my
choosing, not yours".

In some circumstances, that's actually an advantage, and works as a positive
for the recipient.

When I was in college, money was tight. Had to be very careful with every
dollar. When relatives would give me money for holidays, it would just go into
the general fund and had to be treated with the same care as the rest of it.
That money was certainly appreciated and made my life easier, but not a lot of
fun was had with it.

But when I'd get gift cards to Amazon or Best Buy or Borders, suddenly it was
a license to go crazy. To recklessly buy electronics, books, and luxuries I
couldn't otherwise justify. It wasn't just a gift of money. It was a gift of
money without worries attached.

~~~
cprayingmantis
That's why I'm buying my grandparents a Subway card. You can reload it online
and they love Subway they just don't want to splurge to go there whenever they
go in to town. I know if I load this up for them they'll have a treat whenever
they're out to a doctor's appointment. It has the added benefit of me being
able to reload it when they run low.

------
fpgaminer
Somewhat related: "Gift guides" is one service that I considered unsolved.
Every holiday (Christmas, birthday, father's day, mother's day, etc) I
struggle to come up with gifts for the people I care about. In many ways it's
demoralizing. If I care so much about someone, why can't I think of a good
gift for them?

There are lots of factors here, but I think it basically boils down to, as
adults we generally get what we need/want during the course of the year. So
gift giving is really the art of giving things people hadn't thought of, but
still would like. That's a tall order!

In recent years I've tried searching for "experience" gifts, which I believe
to have more value. Nights out to exciting dinners, fun shows, events, etc.
But the sites that serve those needs (Groupon et. al) are really rather
scummy. All the businesses on there tend to be poorly reviewed; just using
those sites to push polished turds of a deal.

I look all the time for gift guides and helpful sites and always come up empty
handed. The lists on Amazon mainly push Amazon's products, which are garbage,
or really common/useless stuff (there's no-one in my life who needs a kitchen
stand mixer; they all already have one). I've read idea threads on Reddit, and
those mostly boil down to "Man, all I want for Christmas is a pair of shoes.
I'm really poor." followed up by a bunch of helpful Redditors. Not that that
is a bad thing, but it's useless as a gift recommendation.

Before the deluge of rhetoric replies: yes, rampant consumerism, corporate
marketing holidays, donate in someone's name, etc, etc. I happen to enjoy
giving gifts, and would love to give more meaningful, personalized gifts (like
those experience gifts I mention). I'm just really bad at it. And regardless
of that rhetoric, can you honestly tell me that you would pass up an
opportunity to build a successful "gift guide" service? I can't even imagine
how lucrative something like that would end up being.

~~~
eggbrain
I think the main reason it's unsolved is that there's a lot of personalization
that needs to happen. If you (as a son, let's say), can't figure out what to
give your dad, how can a site? The reason why a lot of holiday guides give
common or useless stuff is because they have to generalize across age ranges,
ethnicities, locations, and preferences.

The best gift guide would also probably be one that gets to the core of what
you are lacking -- you might want a specific book, for example, but what
you're looking for is how to learn a language, and that specific book didn't
really matter (unless it was the best one to help you learn). This is really
hard to do though, unless you are Santa.

~~~
fpgaminer
Yes, that's definitely true, it's not a simple task by any stretch of the
imagination. I think the experience gifts is perhaps a more viable option. For
example, a mystery dinner type deal (mystery theater + dinner) I think is a
good gift for a lot of friends and family. Cooking classes are pretty general
too. I've been gifted cooking classes before and they were really fun (they
focus on making it date night sort of deal so it was geared towards couples).
But both of those I've had challenges gifting. I couldn't find any well
reviewed mystery dinner type deals, and the few good cooking class type things
I found did not offer a gifting option. Buying tickets to events, like
concerts, is tough too, again because they don't generally offer gift options.
If I could buy a "blank check" sort of ticket to the local playhouse, that'd
be nice.

My big gripe is the sites that get mostly there. They ask questions about the
intended recipient, like age, gender, and tastes. At the end of it, though,
the recommendations are really bland. I don't mind sorting through a list of
possible gifts, with only a few good results. But the results I get are the
kind of generic "gifts" you see on the end-caps of Kohl's during holiday
season. As I mentioned, people generally already have what they need. Gifting
often comes down to finding something the person wouldn't have otherwise
thought about. So it's necessary to show unique options. Again, the accuracy
doesn't need to be terribly high. If I only find one good option amongst 40,
that's fine. Instead I get 200+ kitchen stand mixers...

------
Jun8
What, no STEM toys!? Have you visited the toy gadget section of your typical
store, e.g. Target, BestBuy lately? It's full of crappy stuff marketed under
the buzzword "STEM" for unknowing parents. Examples: Construction kits from
Vex Robotics, WowWee's CHIP Robotic Dog, etc. etc. Problem with these "STEM
revolutionary" toys is that they are not open ended, even with the so-called
programmable ones kids get tired after a few hours of play. Another good
example of such a toy is the BB-8 robot. You love this when you get it but
quickly lose interest after you realize that it's a glorified remote-
controlled car.

For truly inspiring toys like this one
([https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/withpiper/piper-a-
minec...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/withpiper/piper-a-minecraft-
toolbox-for-budding-engineers)) you still have to hit Kickstarter or search
the Web. Why is that?

~~~
VLM
Erector / Meccano is a nice open ended STEM toy that could use some disruption
and metrication and modernization and no themed disney licenses please.

Unfortunately there is this strange attractor that sucks everyone who trys it
into "I wanna make kids version of 80/20 because 80/20 is both cool and
insanely expensive" leading to "heres my custom aluminum extrusion of immense
expense that works with nothing out there, but now I know why 80/20 is
incredibly expensive" leading to "remember those guys?"

~~~
vimalbhalodia
I personally think MakeBlock
([http://www.makeblock.com/](http://www.makeblock.com/)) does a great job of
being a modernized metricized replacement for Erector sets.

It's not particularly cheap - probably costs ~$300 to get a decent sized kit
or a smaller kit with enough spare parts to experiment.

All of the mechanical parts are machined reasonably well and fit together in a
large number of useful configurations - I really like them for rapid
mechanical prototyping.

The electronics are basically arduinos with beginner-friendly connectors -
haven't used them myself but have generally heard good things about them.

------
compumike
A note to any future startup founders reading some of the broadly skeptical
and pessimistic comments on this HN discussion thread:

The people commenting here are _not_ your customers.

For every 1 person posting a snarky comment, there are 100+ simply browsing
the gift guide. A few are saying "Hey, that's neat!", and a few are making
purchases today or in the near future, either for themselves or as gifts. It's
their behavior that you should worry about.

If you think you can make something people want, then please focus on that.
Don't let your non-customers discourage you.

(Disclosure: co-founder of
[https://www.pantelligent.com/](https://www.pantelligent.com/) \-- one of the
products on the gift list.)

~~~
horsecaptin
Couldn't agree more. I'd like to add: Don't let not-customers butter you up!
Find your customers and get their feedback. Lots of people will think yours is
a great idea: just not great enough to pay you for it!

~~~
compumike
Very true!

------
pswilson14
I see that Acre (a home construction company) is on there. Kind of odd for a
gift giving site.

"Merry Christmas! I bought you a house!"

~~~
antisthenes
And like all "modern prefab" houses, it is extremely overpriced.

$400k for 1200 sq. ft is nuts.

~~~
andrewksu
It's all relative. In Des Moines it's outrageous (although still worth it!),
but in the Bay Area or similar market it's a steal. Comparable homes out here
can be 2-3x.

We did our fist home at $145K for 1200 sqft and can offer than again late next
year. Margins are too slim to grow at that rate, re:Tesla.

~~~
antisthenes
You're confusing the value of land vs the value of the structure itself.

The $1 million properties in the bay have structures on them that are worth
maybe $150-200k tops, whereas the rest of the value is in land.

A high land:structure value ratio is not uncommon for the US coasts, in high
demand areas (especially that have older houses, built in the 20s and 30s that
will need significant renovations to be brought up to a safe living standard)

That's why it's outrageous. If you're considering paying 400k just for the
structure, that means you already own a piece of land worth at least $800k
where to put it. So we're talking about being a millionaire to be able to
afford something like that. So let's be honest for a second and not pretend
like you're not targeting the top 1-1.5% demographic here.

I noticed you're a founder for the company.

Construction is a perfectly competitive market. It shouldn't have economic
profits, which means it should be paying your costs and salaries and that's
it. I'm not sure what was the rationale for your getting into the business,
but the modern prefabs are a dime a dozen and the thing they all get wrong is
affordability. If you don't think I can go to another state and bring 4
construction workers to build the same type of structure for $200k, sourcing
my own materials and paying them salary, you're just deluding yourself.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that companies like that go bankrupt by the
dozens, because they all miscalculate the economics of the market.

But I do wish you good luck in your business.

~~~
andrewksu
Most of the value is in the land, and the homes are no different than $200K
homes in the midwest. However, they are worth more and cost more because of
very high demand and limited supply of labor and land. Putting a standard new
home on a property that just sold for $1.6M (a home that should, anywhere else
cost $300K) allows you to flip that property for $3.2. That's in Redwood City
in a decent, but not over the top (for the Peninsula) neighborhood. Same home
in a different market is worth quite a bit more.

Bare minimum for non tract construction is about $250/sqft or 3x the rates in
the middle of the country. For high performance homes, $600+ /sqft is not
uncommon.

Construction is not perfectly competitive, especially here in the bay. Guys
(builders/trades people) pick their rates because demand on them is so high.
Regulation, permitting and crazy processes mean the barrier to entry are
higher than ever before. It's not fixable with day labor and a spunky
attitude.

That said, our current line is the Tesla Model S of homes, late next year
we'll be able to offer our Model C range for a much broader market.

Thanks for the well wishes!

------
kabes
"A monthly subscription to The Flex Company will make a relieving gift for any
ladies on your gift list who suffer from menstrual bloating, cramping, or
leaking." I couldn't make this up.

~~~
antisthenes
Make sure to never tell them about it for maximum creepiness. Imagine how
delighted your extant female friends will be to start receiving tampons in the
mail.

------
kdamken
I feel like I'm looking at a Sharper Image catalog. Lots of neat, expensive,
completely useless things (for the everyday person) that I'm surprised anybody
buys.

~~~
nilkn
And the few things here that seem legitimately useful (the sous-vide
circulator, for instance) are competing with proven, solid, reliable products
(e.g., the Anova precision cooker: 4.5 stars on Amazon with 1100+ reviews).

~~~
salgernon
It made me remember that I as considering buying a sous-vide circulator as a
gift. So I clicked through, found that this one in particular was out of
stock, and ordered the Anova instead at half the price. So, +1 for
advertising, -1 for fulfillment execution :(

------
mcintyre1994
Some of these look pretty cool, I'd never have put most of them as YC
companies. I wish there was a way to filter by location I'm in, or even just
say "Not in SF" and see what's still visible. I assume anything subscription
is out, and I'm not going to click individually through everything that
requires shipping and see who has sane/any shipping prices to the UK.

------
nooron
Super excited to see Watsi on the list of suggested donations. I became a
monthly contributor a year and change ago, and every time I get a raise, I
raise my contribution. I love the work they do, and the way they'll select the
patient for me -- I find the process of combing through each one emotionally a
bit too onerous!

------
zzleeper
+1 for MTailor. Not affiliated at all, but I ordered several shirts and a suit
in the last year and it fits amazingly (and it's quite convenient to order
from the app). Do be aware though, that it will take ~ 4 weeks (slower than
buying from a store, but as fast as getting it tailor-made)

------
scotchio
Never heard of Click and Grow before this. Seems really cool and will
definitely consider for gifts

------
jaoued
Awesome idea this list. What an impressive (quantity and quality) - list of
companies. Some of them are known to me as YC portfolio companies - because I
buy from them or have heard of - but loads of them, I would not have guessed
that they are YC funded.

------
Ayraa
Random: I'm surprised that Boosted Board is still using "perfect for the last
mile of your commute" in their marketing slogan.

All the influencers I've seen with it (like Casey Neistat) use it to commute
pretty long distances! Their biggest benefit is, you can quickly travel from
point a and b, especially in a conjested city, on something that you can carry
under your arm or in a backpack. No need for bikes, public transit or cars.

------
dpiers
I'm a big fan of Boosted, but I wouldn't put them on a holiday gift buying
guide. Shipments have been halted for a month due to a quality issue, and even
if they fixed it today, the waitlist is so long there is no way you would
receive a board this year.

------
pnathan
Interesting mix of gift stuff. Some of it definitely piqued my interest and I
will probably return and consider it. It's all sort of semi-luxury goods, but
that's, well a holiday gift kind of thing. And it's hard to make money selling
to people who don't have a lot of money.

Wheely's Cafe is probably the most _interesting_ gift there to me. It appears
to be a franchise-in-a-box. I wonder if there's one in Seattle! Probably an
_ideal_ gift for an 18 year old with a work ethic and lack of academic
passion.

------
greg7gkb
Soundboks link does not work. It points to
[https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/974](https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/974)
which is locked.

~~~
buechs
sorry about that - fixed!

------
gamache
Aside from the Donations section (YC's nonprofits), having much of the YC
portfolio collected like this really deflates a lot of the cachet about YC,
its companies, and its place at the Silicon Valley cool-kids table.

I look at this list and I see problems that never needed solving, middlemen --
sorry, _curators_ \-- reselling cheap Chinese crap, and a cult of jamming
Bluetooth and USB into just about anything that holds still long enough
because IoT.

There is no magic, "man I wish I'd thought of that" moment here, just a few
"that makes sense" products in a sea of Valley bullshit.

Perhaps YC was always like this, but they hadn't presented that information in
such an easy-to-consume list before.

~~~
dang
YC has funded 1500 startups. You're generalizing from a narrow selection,
which is clearly bogus. (Did you expect quantum computing on a Christmas list?
Well I guess this _is_ HN.)

Also bogus is drawing conclusions about companies' long-term strategy
("problems that never needed solving") from a holiday gift guide.

Just because some of us aren't big on consumer goods is no reason to throw out
basic logic!

~~~
gamache
I am commenting on the narrow selection that YC itself assembled.

I realize there are many YC companies missing from this list, and from the
consumer goods and services industry in general. But if this [ahem] curated
list leads to the kind of generalizations I made, the list itself may share
some blame for that.

If appeals to "basic logic" and wait-for-the-pivot are YC's best shot at
getting me excited about the 2016 YC Holiday Season as presented by YC, then
by all means carry on.

~~~
dang
> I am commenting on the narrow selection that YC itself assembled.

That's patently untrue. You commented on YC.

~~~
xiaoma
At least the way the comment read to me, gamache's meaning was closer to "this
is bad marketing for YC / this dilutes the brand" than "YC doesn't fund anyone
solving real problems".

~~~
dang
Your interpretation is more charitable than mine. Well done!

~~~
xiaoma
Well, I'm sure distance makes it 1000x easier! Your job is one not many could
do.

------
Joof
I'm glad you guys are making this stuff, but I was really hoping for things
that I might personally want or enjoy.

------
CPLX
I always wonder how people can say things like this: "They've created a wifi-
enabled immersion circulator called the Nomiku so every home chef can prepare
simple, Michelin-starred meals."

I mean, I bet that literally zero Michelin-starred meals have been prepared
with this device. And the phrase "Michelin" or "Michelin-starred" is
trademarked and has a clear meaning. If I was a marketer for this company I
would feel uncomfortable using a phrase like that.

With that aside, it's odd to see so many YC companies on this list with the
same faddish business models of "send some stuff to you every month you don't
get to pick the stuff but trust us" and "do something that's already pretty
simple in your kitchen or home but now using an overcomplicated device with
machine learning and wifi"

The former model isn't really a technology empowered business model at all,
it's really a buying or deals club driven by marketing. And the latter is
ostensibly technology but it doesn't seem to have really any of the
accelerative effect on efficiency that real genuine networked software based
businesses have.

Seeing all of them in one place like this, backed by YC, is pretty
disheartening.

~~~
joncrocks
Not this specific device perhaps, but Sous Vides (as I understand it) can form
part of a commercial kitchen, at high-end restaurants.

A quick google shows: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/10/michelin-
restaura...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/10/michelin-restaurant-
ends-up-in-hot-water-over-sous-vide-hygiene/) \- A Michelin starred
restaurant, which uses a Sous Vide. They are generally quite expensive to by
for home use.

I won't comment on the rest, but I'd agree that the list doesn't exactly fill
me with wow.

~~~
CPLX
But that doesn't make sense. If I'm selling a stainless steel bowl like they
use in commercial kitchens can I say "now every person ever can whip up
Michelin-starred omelettes" or something?

I mean I suppose I could, but it makes me sound like an idiot. It's also
plainly factually untrue. No Michelin reviewer will ever see my meal, no meal
I make will receive a Michelin star. It's literal nonsense.

And Sous Vide has been around awhile and totally solid units can be had for
about $100. I remain confused about what value-add YC and/or this company is
bringing to the space.

~~~
lmm
> But that doesn't make sense. If I'm selling a stainless steel bowl like they
> use in commercial kitchens can I say "now every person ever can whip up
> Michelin-starred omelettes" or something?

People who are selling, say, chef's knives absolutely say that kind of thing.
It's kind of silly but not obviously more so than any other marketing puffery.

------
sytse
I just want to mention that Le Tote and Vet Pronto are awesome. We use them
both and they make life easier and more pleasurable. Always great things to
wear and our cat doesn't have to leave home.

------
gina650
YC backed Scaphold.io is a backend as a service platform powered by GraphQL
They have a freemium mode to check out as well as $25 code "HappyHolidays2016"
(exp.1/15/17) Visit their slack channel that the founders use to teach you how
to start scapholding!

[https://scapholdslackin.herokuapp.com/?email=](https://scapholdslackin.herokuapp.com/?email=)

------
jansenv
I wouldn't even accept these businesses as design clients. Gross.

------
omni
YC admins: The "S" in Sixa is linking to Doblet.

~~~
buechs
thank you kind stranger! updated.

------
mark242
on edit: There are so many of these companies that are basically stylized
versions of Alibaba listing pages or are basically re-skinning of some
business process that, turns out, doesn't actually need to be disrupted.
Transporting gasoline to fuel up someone's car? Really? We're going to be
energy wasteful just to shave 10 minutes off someone's week?

The other disturbing thing is how many of these gadgets are IP enabled. I
really hope YC has some kind of IoT advisor who insists upon security at a low
level.

~~~
dang
Snarky dismissals of other people's work are not welcome on HN, so please
don't post like this.

I tend not to post as many moderation scoldings in YC-related threads, but
that was such a bad HN comment that I'll break the pattern for it.

Edit: you rewrote your comment to make it (somewhat) more substantive and less
snarky. In principle that's fine, but it would have been more respectful to
preserve the original context for the reader.

~~~
cndksjc
Have you considered that these companies might not actually be that innovative
and that the parent comment was a legitimate criticism?

~~~
grey-area
It's terribly easy and not very useful to dismiss things in a vague way like
this, and it's often wrong, particularly if talking about an entire category
or market.

e.g. google could have been dismissed as _just a search engine_ but it turned
out eventually to be exactly what a lot of people wanted.

~~~
baka
(As written now) I think it can be legitimate critic. Google really grew out
of making a better search engine algorithm and all. Some of these businesses
are essentially reselling things and not really focused on innovating the
substantial part of the business. That can also work of course, but I can see
why it's less interesting.

------
qwertyuiop924
Man, I was hoping for books. The YC staff book recommendations are usually
good.

As it is, there is nothing of value on this list. Most of these are absolute
rubbish. But most outstandingly rubbish is Vidcode. It claims to teach code to
teens/tweens, but speaking as one myself, this looks like the same kind of
condescending, manipulative, "we be down with the kids, yo" crap that attracts
teens the same way that a man covered in shit attracts high society.

Look, if you're going to try to attract teens, or any group, to coding, don't
try to look hip, or trendy. Treat them like they're regular people (not just a
bunch of cretins that you have to stick sparkles in front of every five
seconds to keep their attention), give them real tools, and allow them to
attain the knowledge to build what they want to build. That's what works.

And how do I know that it works? Because that's what I got, when I decided I
wanted to learn programming. That's what countless kids got in the 80s, where
children would, through self-motivation, learn assembler, and type in opcodes
by hand.

And maybe those people are the minority. In fact, they almost definitely are.
But you'll never get the majority, because the majority _doesn 't care_.
Making things that look like they're designed to appeal to an insipid
stereotype won't change that.

~~~
dang
> _It claims to teach code to teens /tweens, but speaking as one myself_

I'll cut you some slack for that reason, but you need to (re-)read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and nip that internet rant thing in the bud ("the same way that a man covered
in shit attracts high society"?) if you want to continue commenting here.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
Yeah. Sorry dang. I'll go re-read that now, seeing as I quite clearly need of
a refresher.

And there's no need to cut me slack for my age (although it's nice of you to
do so): I broke the rules, and I'm responsible for my actions. Just like any
other member of HN.

Twice in three years is too many times to have to say this to you.

 _bows head in shame_

~~~
exolymph
Bummer that your apology got downvoted, since this is a gracious response to
being called out. Kudos. We've all been jerks on the internet — the key is
learning how to curb that behavior, which it seems like you're doing pretty
well.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
>Bummer that your apology got downvoted

That trend has reversed. Dramatically. I suspect your comment has something to
do with it.

As for why I wrote GP in the first place, it's an important part of _qwerty 's
code of internet interactions_ (yes, I have a private code of internet
behavior: so do you, most likely, whether or not you've formalized it. And
yes, I made up that name on the spot. It sounds pretentious, but it needed a
name so I could reference it, and all the others souded equally pretentious.
So there you go):

"If you were wrong (whether in your argument, or in your manner), then take
the appropriate action, whether that be an apology or a concession. Do so
graciously: There is no shame in being wrong. There is shame in refusing to
admit it, or accepting it poorly.

They're words to live by. And you can trust me on that, because I've lived by
them (or tried to), and it pays off.

Was I irritated about a product aimed at my demographic, and how dramatically
it missed the mark? Yes. But that doesn't excuse my expression of that anger.

------
hyperopia
Pick up one of these for the hacker/developer/AI enthusiast in your family:

[https://getasteria.com/](https://getasteria.com/)

~~~
VLM
WRT the whole christmas gift theme, "Estimated delivery date: Summer 2017."

The explanation of why it can't run on a phone and why it needs a new currency
is a little unconvincing.

"asteria can connect with any bot, command any service" But it can't run on a
phone, why?

Certainly "its an open alexa/siri/now" sounds very interesting.

