I'm a layman, but in my opinion building quality software can't really be a differentiator because anyone can build quality software given enough time and resources. You could take two car mechanics and with enough training, time, assistance from professional dev consultants, testing, rework, so and so forth, make a quality piece of software. But you'd have spent $6 million to make a quality alarm clock app.
A differentiator would be having the ability to have a higher than average quality per cost. Then maybe you're onto something.
What do you mean by "cold start"? I can't figure it out, but are you saying because your site was very new google gave it more weight for those search terms and that's why you were ranking well on that competitive search terms?
Quite the opposite. A new site that Google is afraid to show for any normal queries. There is too much competition there. But there is a lot of space in the unique garbage results.
Most people I know wouldn't take Bart if it was free.
Dirty, noisy, and unsafe.
I can't imagine anything can be done to make Americans take trains at scale unless atleast the unsafe part is handled, and then the dirty part atleast.
I am dating someone that has a child in private school. First grade costs $4k+ a month, maybe even 6k I forget.
Nothing in the parking lot or talking even screams wealthy.
Every person I've met in the social circle, also send their kids to private school in the SF bay area. I haven't even met another adult that sends their kids to public school.
These are people that make $250k-$600k probably. But that's not "wealthy" in the SF bay area.
That's very believable; the kind of people who unnecessarily send their kids to an expensive private school when some of the best public schools in the country are nearby are the kind of people who would generally socialize together.
And $250k is wealthy. That's literally top 1.5 percentile in the U.S. They don't have to blow half of their income sending their kids to an expensive school. They choose to do so and that is the hallmark of wealth.
It doesn't matter what percentile in the US it is, when a 2 bedroom apartment is $3k+ and the average small house is $6k to rent.
Also. If you haven't been to a public school in California recently you really don't know what has changed. I went to public school all my life and then ended up in Berkeley. I'm 40. It was borderline negligent for my parents to send me there in my opinion as a kid knowing what I know now. But we were pretty hard up for money.
But if you told me, should someone lease two luxury cars or send their kid to private school.... You'd have to be nuts to think you'd gain more from the cars than the school.
After taxes (assuming single income, CA residence), $250k is $150k of spendable income.
$6k on a house is $72,000 a year, leaving $78k to spend on food, utilities, etc. Assuming for some reason you spend $1000 on utilities each month (presumably you run a cryptofarm in your closest and a weed farm in your backyard), you still have $68k to spend on food. Assuming you spend an average of $20/meal/person on 3 meals/day every day of the year that's still leaves $2000 for other stuff.
Or in other words, even with profligate spending you still have money leftover. Which brings us back to this: techies apparently are good at code but very bad at basic finance.
If you haven't been to a public school in California recently you really don't know what has changed. I went to public school all my life and then ended up in Berkeley.
Berkeley is considered one of the best universities in the world. If you don't think it's a good school, the problem is you, not the schools.
If you haven't been to a public school in California recently you really don't know what has changed.
I volunteer coach to various local schools (changes every season). My alma mater is (now) considered one of the best public schools in state and occasionally makes the national list; it sends a higher % of students to the prestigious colleges (Ivy League, Berkeley, Stanfurd) than the famous local private schools (Troy and Harvard-Westlake).
But if you told me, should someone lease two luxury cars or send their kid to private school.... You'd have to be nuts to think you'd gain more from the cars than the school.
This is a nonsensical strawman...which supports my first point.The choice is not to lease two luxury cars or send their kids to private school. Both choices are the wrong choice. The correct choice for someone making $250k who claims that they are living paycheck-to-paycheck is to send their kid to public school, and address any deficiencies with tutoring or extracurricular activities (both of which are more likely to benefit college admissions and academic performance than private school and cost a fraction of private school tuition).
TLDR: if you are in the top 1.5 percentile you are not, nor will you ever be considered living paycheck to paycheck. If you tell someone that, they'll smile at you politely and assume you have a severe mental defect.
I told you I went to public schools and made it into cal...while talking about people spending $4k a month of 1st grade..
And you decide to talk about the quality of UC Berkeley instead of the average 1st grade school in the SF Bay Area.
But yes, I have the mental defect.
It's all relative. Someone making $250k with a family in the SF Bay Area could be basically living paycheck to paycheck if they just try to appear casually financially well-off. Nice house, nice car, electricity is 4x more than Idaho for example so add bills, eat out a few times, and send one child to a $4k a month 1st grade and you're living paycheck to paycheck.
No, that's just bad financial management. Spending $48000 to send your kid to a private school is a choice that parents can make when they're wealthy enough to do so.
"Living paycheck to paycheck" means that you just barely make enough to pay for food and rent, and don't have any spare money to cover unplanned costs like medical care. Spending a ton of money on vacation and private school is by definition not living paycheck to paycheck.
No it doesn't. Living paycheck to paycheck means you don't have any left over each paycheck, and the worse version of it is that you don't even have emergency savings left over in case unforseen costs come up.
IMO this used to even be the value proposition for blue collar trade service companies.
They had expertise, they had advanced tools and equipment, they had some economy of scale buying in bulk... So they would give you prices for things that even a DIYer would look at and go "well geez, that price is so fair I don't even think I could compete doing it myself. Where do I sign??"
Now that is totally gone, partially I think to tradesman/small business owner social media influencers, and prices are set as high as the market will bear. Sure, they're so high way fewer people are installing new sliding doors, but hey when they find one they make an extra $3k in 7 hours. Why do three jobs a day and make $2k profit when you can wait for the wealthier or more desperate person and make it all at once and go home?
Yeah, I see billboards all over for fast same-day water heater replacement. I wondered WTF they were advertising such an easy job all of the time, every company. It's because they are charging people thousands of dollars to roll in a new water heater. Quick, easy, barely any skills required. Apparently no one can handle it.
Mine runs on gas and used to be soldered directly into the plumbing . Last time it went out I converted everything so that anyone with an adjustable wrench could do the job in 15 minutes. $500, new water heater done. The hard part is going to pick it up from the hardware store.
I got my AC swapped out for $3000. Single post to Facebook was all it took to save $7000. Being helpless is expensive.
Personally most Trump supporters I know can only hope for a more Trumpian successor to Trump. Basically if JD Vance continues on his path he is looking like a sure thing for the Republican nomination obviously, but if any of Trump's tactics work he has a decent chance overall to ride that wave.
It’s clever to pick the word “prosper” rather than grow, or stabilize, or build, or strengthen. It’s also clever to slip Vance into it, which assumes either he wins the ongoing succession, or loses it and moots your bet.
JD Vance, and Elon Musk for that matter, and really everyone else lacks the one thing even Trump haters admit Trump has: charisma. Even my feminist ex-wife loved him on the apprentice. Even to this day she think's he's a funny guy and is entertained by him. Fact of the matter is his charisma has formed a cult of personality around him.
JD Vance, Elon Musk, Ron DeSantis, all of these guys who think they'll be able to take over the cult lack the key ingredient - the personality. Musk has a sort of cult among specifically the HN crowd, but we are small and generally people clock him as a weirdo creep.
There is no successor to Trump, his movement dies with him. His age is our saving grace.
I have a feeling your dislike of Trump and possibly even conservatives is clouding your judgement. Vance is well liked by basically all Trump supporters.
If Joe Biden has proven anything, it's that voters will vote for someone they barely like if they think it's helping their cause.
The only issue in play here is how many voters think lower crime, less wasteful spending, less racist hiring practices, and less illegal immigration is something they like. If they decide those things matter to them, JD is more than likable and capable enough for them to get behind.
I'm actually more conservative in my politics than conservatives these days. What's happening in government now is not conservative in the least, it's incredibly radical. US supporting Putin over Ukraine is not a conservative position, for instance.
JD Vance has nowhere near the charisma of Trump. Being "well liked" within the context of Trump isn't sufficient to maintain the personality cult of Trump. Ron DeSantis had more solid conservative support than JD Vance and he also was unable to get control of the MAGA cult.
My Chevy volt has 199k miles and it's original brake pads and rotors are definitely almost new looking, but I'd say to be conservative they are 60%.
My cheap Chinese Walmart tires have lasted me 50k miles and are due to be replaced soon, but I spend zero attention to driving smoothly or in an eco mindset.
Correct. Buying things manufactured in China is not the same as a CCP controlled a social media algorithm. They're extremely different things with extremely different impacts. Thus one can be ok and one can not.
The issue isn't money going to CCP. The issue is data and CCP control of the algorithm.
A differentiator would be having the ability to have a higher than average quality per cost. Then maybe you're onto something.