kyro

Spaced repetition is indeed awesome. For a month now I've been working through a deck of hard English vocabulary using Anki, and already my speech and reading comprehension capabilities have increased dramatically.

If you guys find this stuff interesting, when you're in NYC be sure to pop into The Evolution Store in SOHO, and the Hunterian Museum if you're in London.

> Sometimes a more hands on approach is required, especially when dealing with the elderly.

I'd say that extends to far beyond the elderly. I did the majority of my clinical training in hospitals all throughout Brooklyn, and poor compliance/follow-up was evident across the board for a number of patient populations. Persistent hounding by social workers only proved successful half the time. There are cultural and educational factors at play, in addition to blatant laziness, that I think if addressed would yield improvement.

Like you said, many of the patients just aren't tech savvy, but I'd say more are just not well-informed, educated properly on the importance of continued adherence, and actively engaged in their care. Patients are usually given a card with appointment details scribbled on for when to next see their cardiologist for their CHF, or whatever that is. The period between them walking out of their cardiologist's office to their next appointment is, I guarantee, almost never spent reflecting on their condition or actively taking steps to mitigate the complications, save for taking pills. A patient's conditions are only serious problems to them within the walls of their doctor's office. Once they leave, they're forgotten, understandably, out of fear and comfort and the chaos of life. That's why I think it's critical that a patient receive continuous education and encouragement in the interim between check-ups, to close the gaps and help maintain continuous patient self-conern.

Met Benjamin at a health event in New York, and was really impressed by him, the team, and the service. Really smart guys tackling one of the biggest issues in healthcare, patient compliance and follow-up. Congrats on the press and funding!

Thanks for leading the way here, Google.

Is descending further down towards the bottom of the barrel to leech on more publicly available, easily harvested and/or less scarce items to sell at a markup a rising startup trend? It seems building novel value into a product is becoming less important to a segment of the startup industry. We now have selling of public parking spots, dinner reservations, and now email addresses. And while this model isn't new, there appears to be a popular reemergence of it.

And there is rarely a novel aspect to these harassment cases that is worthy of repeated discussion here. That's certainly not to say these cases aren't newsworthy, but the discourse typically generated here regarding this topic devolves into speculation, generalizations, and crude remarks.

Pretty clever idea. My 4-letter nickname, Kyro, gets mispronounced 10 out of 10 times. It's pronounced kero, like hero, but most pronounce it kairo. At first it was irritating, but I later realized it was a great conversation starter. "Kairo, where are you from?" "Egypt" "Haha, like Cairo! Have you been?"

Happy it worked out that way...

To say this response is unnecessary and unfounded is disingenuous. Marc Andreessen (whom I respect) tweeted "Run a web site, measure anything, make any changes based on measurements? Congratulations, you're running a psychology experiment!" I could not disagree more.

This isn't simply a matter of looking at metrics and making changes to increase conversion rates. The problem is that the whole of users have come to expect Facebook to be a place where they can see any and all of their friends' updates. When I look at an ad, I know I am being manipulated. I know I'm being sold something. There is no such expectation of manipulative intent of Facebook, or that they're curating your social feed beyond "most recent" and "most popular", which seemingly have little to do with post content and are filters they let you toggle.

What FB has done is misrepresent people and the lives they've chosen to portray, having a hand in shaping their online image. I want to see the good and the bad that my friends post. I want to know that whatever my mom or brother or friend posts, I'll be able to see. Someone's having a bad day? I want to see it and support that person. That's what's so great about social media, that whatever I post can reach everyone in my circle, the way I posted it, unedited, unfiltered.

To me this is a disagreement between what people perceive FB to be and how FB views itself. What if Twitter started filtering out tweets that were negative or critical of others?

And you work for an education company?

Can someone provide insight on life after a failed startup, in terms of career prospects? Often depression can make you feel as if you're failing on all fronts, that nothing will get better in the foreseeable future. Most of the time that really isn't true. You're often stuck in a temporary rut that your mind drastically exaggerates. But for a founder who's going through a dark time and whose startup ultimately fails, is it easy to pick yourself up again? Can you realistically transition into a more stable job where you'll have more energy to improve your life? I've heard from quite a few that the years spent on a failed startup do not improve your career options, and for a founder that may find themselves depressed running a company, I can't imagine such poor prospects lending any hope.

I agree. My own cynical view is that PHRs, in terms of their role in healthcare, are only good for entertaining the average patient and satisfying their curiosity with hopes of leading to engagement. I don't see them useful to physicians or providers whose management decisions are becoming increasingly evidence-based.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Apple will soon supplant apps like LoseIt because consumers will want the Apple experience and integration. And I suspect that eventually integration with HealthKit will be considered a requirement for apps by consumers, so if the data you're capturing is in parity with Health, there's no reason a user would use your app over Apple's.

I think the market will shift to favor health/fitness apps like RunKeeper and Strava that offer very specific feature-sets for a niche audience.

This focus on health from Apple is a big move. It's a signal that, for now, the digital health/QS space is here to stay.

They're taking out a large chunk of general wellness apps. Apps like Fitbit, LoseIt, etc, will be rendered significantly less useful with Apple now controlling the experience for the majority of commonly captured health data (calories, sleep, nutrition, etc). Wearable and other health companies will have to find a way to differentiate their app offerings by including features well outside the scope of Health and HealthKit (think Strava and RunKeeper). Apple is also going after the PHR space, specifically Microsoft's HealthVault. The PHR space has historically struggled to catch on (e.g. Google Health), but I suspect both Google and Microsoft's products were ahead of their time. Although I have concerns about whether PHRs are actually useful, Apple with its marketshare might finally make them mainstream. I can see them extending their new Family Sharing features to family PHR management.

However, I'm struggling to think of how Apple may be able to crack the barriers to data access on the provider/EHR side, if they aim to.

Partially agree, but you still have rap/hip-hop club-bangers with misogynistic undertones that hit the mainstream every so often by the likes of Weezy, Lil' John, Flo' Rida, A$AP, Snoop, etc.

Hey all,

For anyone interested in health tech/startups, I created a HackerMed team on Slack (really neat chat app), with a handful of rooms that'll make (hopefully) for some interesting discussion. It's informal, and I figured a nice place to hang out and meet others.

You'll need to click on the link above and submit your email address for an invitation (that's just how Slack works).

Anyway, it'll be an interesting experiment. A few health hacking sites have gone up before but have received little activity. Maybe something more casual would work better. We'll see.

Hope to see you on there!

While this makes little sense on the surface, I suspect the folks at Apple are far from stupid. There's likely a solid reason behind this move, and instead of doing the easy thing by saying "b-b-but their headphones are crap!", it'd be more productive to explore the underlying motives.

I actually think this is a smart move. Beats first and foremost is a fashion company. The majority don't buy Beats for sound quality, but for the style and image. I see people wearing Beats in all sorts of colors every day on the train. NBA players are seen sporting them at practice or in the locker room. It has become the fashion icon for audio-wear. In the context of Apple's recent fashion-binge with hires from Burberry and YSL, this move may provide further evidence of Apple creating/entering the wearable-tech fashion market.

This could also be a response to Apple losing ground in music streaming. Rdio, Spotify have become the default source of music for so many, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has seen a hit to their music sales. They also botched social music up with Ping, which is an area the aforementioned services are doing pretty well in. Beats may have the connections, the brand and marketing capital, to help make Apple a formidable competitor in this area. But I read here yesterday that the Beats streaming service only has 200,000 low-quality subscribers (ie they joined because their phones came preloaded with the service), so I'm less inclined to believe Apple dropped 3.2 billion on them for this alone.

Maybe it's a combination of both, or for a different reason altogether. It's intriguing, nonetheless.

from mypackage.settings import settings

What was most off putting on my last trip to SF was the juxtaposition of the yuppie and homeless worlds. It wasn't uncommon to see long lines for local chic coffee shops full of young, well-to-do individuals while the homeless begged, urinated and defacated on the same stretch of sidewalk to often no acknowledgement by the former group.

I live in NYC so I see homeless people every day, but here you don't see such an unsettling and stark contrast between them and the non-homeless.

Who's an example of someone you believe is a great communicator?

Sort of off topic: What program was that? And what were some of the most influential/important/essential textbooks/resources/projects available to you? I'd like to piece together a similar curriculum for myself.

Can they follow an online tutorial? Sure. Could they find converting their cash to BTC with the proper safety measures in place too cumbersome a process to make the experiment worth their time and, if not careful, their money? Absolutely, and that doesn't make them idiots.

Some people really like tinkering with new tech and are willing to put up with a lot. Others have a low threshold of frustration and might not see it as appealing. This isn't about intelligence, but ease and convenience. And anyone that says with a straight face that setting up BTC for even the average MIT student is a simple endeavor is severely underestimating the complexity and risks involved, especially when the alternative is using the established and relatively risk-free system you've grown comfortable and intimately familiar with for years.

What's a wallet? A digital one? What the hell? Wait, there's a paper one too? What's the difference? Store the paper ones in a vault somewhere and use my digital one? How does that work? How do I encrypt these wallets? What is encryption? And I'm responsible for storing my wallets? I can't just pay someone to take care of them for me? Oh, I can, ok, are these companies insured and trusted? Let's just take a step back, how are Bitcoins stored in these wallets? I mean, what is a Bitcoin, really?

In other words, you're being disingenuous as to how simple it really is to get set up for Bitcoin. There are countless threads on Reddit and the like by confused geeks asking for advice and instructions on wallet generation/encryption/storage/etc.

I'm not a huge user of Buffer, but I really like them because they've given us great insight into running a startup that's not a smash-hit-media-darling. VCs weren't knocking down their doors with truckloads of cold cash, they weren't beating journalists off their backs, etc, you get my point. They've had to stick to business fundamentals from day 1, methodically approaching issues like profitability, marketing, business development, growth, with only $500k of investment. They've been up and running for a few years now with a team of ~17 who're being paid competitive salaries. They've no doubt learned a lot and have been open about it. And this is just another example of their strategic biz dev, marketing and transparency they've become pretty masterful at.

I should add that this is also a great move by Baremetrics, who are likely to gain much more out of this.

Downloaded. Really well-designed app. Love how it's for web and mobile. Any chance you'll support Sketch files?

Edit: Another comment here implies you already do. Went to go confirm but your menu button doesn't seem to be working (iPhone 5)

I think `dang recently mentioned* that he's found the majority of downvoted and greyed out comments to be noncontributory. If that's the case, then there's little reason for them to be read.

*He did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7642127

Do people have a hard time sitting alone at a restaurant table for 2+? More often than not I prefer to eat lunch alone; it's my time to think, wind down, escape from my constant interacting with others at work, and fully enjoy my meal without distractions. I've never felt uncomfortable or have been treated differently for eating alone. I do it almost every day. It's an experience that's been achievable for some time now and I'm having a hard time understanding why this is noteworthy. It's OK to eat alone, anywhere, maybe except at grandma's on Thanksgiving.

I agree. I've struggled for years with programming. I would complete every Codecademy-like course or tutorial I could find, only to be left feeling as if I just learned how to go through the motions of programming. I always knew there was a significant void in my understanding that prevented me from both fully grasping the basic ideas underlying programming and making any meaningful progress. The cliche advice people had was "ok, now create your own project," which is much, much, much easier said than done for a beginner. I have a million projects I started and never finished because I got sick of just not understanding what I was doing. SO answers were utterly baffling and copying/pasting them got me nowhere. What is a data structure and why are they using that one? Why would one algorithm be better than another? And for web programming: What're the basic components of the internet? What are HTTP requests? What are all these protocols? How much should I know for the task at hand? It was so overwhelming. Thankfully I found a set of books that have been wonderful in methodically building my knowledge and skills.

There is so, so much more a beginner should be exposed to than for loops and cleverly slicing lists.

Edit: For those asking for books/resources, here is what I would suggest to someone just starting out. I chose python for myself because I wanted a language with broad potential (ie web development to statistical and biological computation). It's absolutely critical that you complete every exercise provided.

Programming basics:

- How to Think Like A Computer Scientist - http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.html

- Think Complexity - http://greenteapress.com/complexity/thinkcomplexity.pdf

- SICP - http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

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Web/Development basics:

- Team Treehouse modules on git, shell commands, DNS, etc -http://teamtreehouse.com

- How Does The Internet Work? - http://www.stanford.edu/class/msande91si/www-spr04/readings/...

- Udacity Web Dev course - https://www.udacity.com/course/cs253

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Django basics:

- Getting Started with Django - http://gettingstartedwithdjango.com

- Two Scoops of Django - http://twoscoopspress.org/products/two-scoops-of-django-1-6

While I do suspect that he might not have paid close attention to warnings of surge pricing (I'm an avid Uber user, and I've always known if price is surging), I do think he is right to be irritated at the company's lack of response. Even if what he's claiming is totally false, there's a good chance he fully believes in his side of the story, whether out of malice or honest misunderstanding, and Uber should treat this as an opportunity to reacquaint a user with their service, rebuild a relationship, and minimize any possibly damaging PR.

The lack of customer support is a problem with many of the software-eating-the-world startups, one that I think will hinder wider adoption. When you're automatically charging customers variable prices for services of variable quality that often deal with your safety or personal property, you should probably provide customers with effective recourse.

Do everything you want to excel at everyday.

One big problem I've learned with not working consistently at any one task is that after dropping and returning to a project, I find myself being familiar enough with areas I last touched that I want to speed through them to reach a point where I begin working on new ideas and concepts. But in most cases, those areas I left off at were the very reasons I jumped ship, either because they were too difficult or mind-numbing to wade through, leaving them incomplete/unlearned, and resulting in me having to take a few steps back to fully refresh myself before I can continue building, which leads to a lot of frustration and feeling like I'm wasting a ton of time.