morganf

I did almost the identical project the OP did, for the same reasons, in the same style. Reading that article could have been (with 10% of details tweaked) about my experience.

The biggest difference in how the author approached and how I did: he did it monthly; I did it weekly. I found that made a HUGE difference in building community. If it's once a month, and people come on average 50% of the time, then you'll see these people 6 times a year. That's nice, but one of my goals was to build real, deep relationships with more people, and having a party where I speak a few minutes to each person (if you're the host, it's hard to get more than 30 minutes with one person) 6 times a year - you can't really build a real relationship. Also, once a month puts pressure on people psychologically to attend, but I wanted it low-key, "Come if you want, if not next week, or the week after - or never! It's all cool and you go live your life and you be you!" was part of the vibe I was going for, and it's easier to get that vibe when it's all the time, but the less frequent it is, the more subconscious pressure there is, and I wanted a low-key event (for example, imagine a wedding - that's very irregular, hopefully once in your life - so there's massive pressure to attend, and I wanted the precise inverse).

But my doing it weekly, made it a bit more like church/synagogue, in the best communal sense of the word: a place to go at the same time, same place every week, time to build real relationships, you always knew you'd have a place to go, etc. And because many of the people were the same week on week, it naturally led to longer, deeper conversations, both individual and group conversations.

I was also strict on a few rules. There were a few topics that were banned from being discussed ("politics, business, and sports" basically - and everyone knew going in those were banned) so that forced people to avoid those generic and tiresome topics that (politics in particular) just make unhappy. Also, I had a very strict "no cell phone" rule and I enforced putting cell phones into a box near the entrance.

It also became a HUGE success in my city. Mentioned in the media and featured in videos. Because it became known as the nexus of interesting conversations in a spot with cool energy. Many dotcom/tech superstars as well as ambassadors and other interesting and curious figures, when they were in my city for a few days for business, they'd hear that my apt was the place to be that night and they'd contact me to invite themselves.

It revolutionized my life and my social network. I'd strongly recommend everyone who is suffering from these same sorts of social challenges create their own sort of variation of this concept.

This lasted almost a decade, almost every Wednesday night from 2007 to 2016. Then... adult life happened: family, moving internationally, and... alas. I have a personal challenge these days that I should invest energy in figuring out: the best way to reboot this for me, but in the world I life in now, not only post-covid, but with kids and family life. Sometimes I think about rebooting it but in a public venue on my "date night", sometimes I think about doing a "Zoom" version of this where it's beers on Zoom, etc etc there are many possible ways to approach this challenge - but I haven't yet been inspired with the right formula for me.

There's a time and place for everything under the sun and this was a beautiful and life-changing era of my life.

If anyone is interested in creating their own version of this (particularly the OP), just drop me a line and I'm more than happy to Zoom any time with you and give you some tips. My email is morgan@westegg.com (I still love meeting people even if through email and Zoom!), and my personal website is westegg.com and I have an ancient and embarrassingly bad web page 2008 tumblr-style page about these events at: wnip.org - If the above sounded interesting, I'm always up for a brainstorm so ping me!

One of my main uses for LLMs is copy editing and it is incredible to me how terrible all of them are at that.

It doesn't compare to that coolness you just shared, but I'm from Long Island (right outside New York City) and I and everyone from my childhood town can differentiate a Long Island accent from a New Jersey accent (very similar but subtly different; a suburb on the other side of NYC) from a Queens accent (a type of NY accent from a NY neighborhood, whose most famous exemplar is The Nanny) from a Brooklyn accent (another type of NY accent, the Mel Brooks sort and how my dad speaks), etc etc. So, while, the US is nothing like Italy where every 3 miles there's a different language-or-dialect, the US accent isn't nearly as uniform as one might think, for even within cities and their suburbs, like my hometown in the above example, there is a comparable dynamic, where going not-that-far (these neighborhoods and suburbs aren't far from each other) people speak in accents that are notably different to locals, although surely people not from NY group it all together as "the NY accent" without differentiating the level-of-nasal-ness and other such contributing factors to the accent.

OMG. Just the name brings back memories.

Ad an expat/immigrant, I'll tell you my personal working definition, based only on my experience:

An immigrant is one who moves from a poorer country to a richer country. An expat is one who mixes from a richer country to a poorer country.

One cool feature of my definition is that it explains a lot of the cultural subtleties in comparing these groups: how immigrants adopt the local ways much more than expats do (expats retain that touch of superiority) etc etc

On average, every situation is different, this is just my general rule of thumb pattern I've observed.

Wow an actual topic on HN that I know about. I spent 3.5 years studying the history of UPenn - including writing my thesis in its history - and it is definitely not a land grant university.

Bena, the post you are responding to was joking. "It always was something different" - gaslighting - is the entire point of the Mandela Effect.

And well done, GP: I laughed outloud!

Yea, I loved the book as well (without commenting on where I agreed or disagreed with him; agreeing or not, great read and full of insight.)

And yes it is huge. It is a few inches thick. Maybe 2 or 3 inches thick.

Then sibling post saying it is 8mm thick is misguided or confusing his units. He did say he read it on his phone so maybe that's the thickness of his phone ;)

Coincidentally, I just bought two copies to gift to friends who are in serious leadership positions.

What makes you think this is a problem in Google's eyes? If you can't reasonably see the street names then you are much more likely to use Google Directions, which is the precise behavior they want to encourage in this case. From your and my eyes and all users this is a real frustration and a detail all of us hate; and clearly Google could fix it easily if they wanted to. But knowing how they benefit from making the street names hard to find - for the reason in my first sentence - why would they fix it?

I've long argued that Nietzsche is actually a comedian. Agree or not with his ideas, he is hysterically funny, in this smart and subtle way, a lot like George Carlin.

I’m sorry I wasn’t clear in my original wording. I meant that my GenZ friend argued that this was a common pattern in his generation and my post here was intended to elicit other feedback and stories and insights and observations to help me calibrate if this is indeed likely to be turn out to be a real pattern or not…

Wow this was amazingly interesting. Thank you for sharing your personal experience.

It’s a whole new world out there…

newscracker, I just want to say THANK YOU. Ever since the iPhone has made this change, it's been a minor frustration of mine, like a constant pebble in my shoe, since I have the habit of going into Airplane mode with wifi on every time I go inside to a venue with wifi (b/c the health consequences of having such a strong 4G signal so close to my body are unclear to me; better to be safe than sorry) and the lots of clicks (settings, cellular data, turn it off; settings, wifi, turn wifi on; etc) has been this pebble in the shoe pain. But I had no idea you could define a shortcut for these and I never thought to. I just designed shortcuts to turn them on and off and put it on my homescreen and it is AMAZING. So, thank you, newscracker, for sharing this tidbit.

Why are Marxists Marxist?

Or said differently: when you have a hammer, everything is a nail.

And our belovèd HN, as amazing and as addictive as it is, is a community by for of “the software developer-entrepreneur” and this by definition, with the hammer of “your mind tries to reduce everything to algorithms” (the personality type which is attracted to writing software just for that very reason!) of course they will do that for humans as well.

Of course, I’d love an HN of poets but that would have the problem of the other extreme: empathy emoting so it would be hard to turn that into clear concise cutting and actionable insights…

Don’t their managers ask them in the stand-up-s? How do their managers handle it?

Ooooh sadly I’ve seen this too many times too

I agree with you and don’t think they are in bad positions at all!! Also, I think companies need to fire deadweight at some point or else the company will collapse - and crises are the “less bad” time to fire the deadweight you want to, as compared to good times.

Note: I’m not supporting this and I’m not saying I think this is a good move; I’m just observing there may be this more subtle logic at work, in the minds of management making these decisions.

Good point! I would theorize that it is much much less bad for employee morale, of the employees who aren’t fired, to think “the economy is terrible and the company is in a difficult position and everyone is doing layoffs” when their colleagues are fired as compared to the times are good version, “the company is growing and making more money and we’re doing awesomely - why did they fire my colleagues who I always thought did fine work”

As a human being, it can be very useful to separate out “moral” behavior from “legal” behavior. Even if Apple or John Smith acts perfectly legally, that doesn’t mean they’re acting in a kind or good or well-intentioned or fair way. The law - no matter how comprehensive - can never legislate kindness. In fact, if you are sophisticated about it, you can be a world-class Greatest Of All Time A—-hole while still technically complying with every law in your jurisdiction.

I love Insync! Very underrated and I wish more people knew about it!!

…and a huge thanks to @dang as well!

Yeees. Make a phone with a keyboard as easy to type on as that one and I'm customer number one!

I second that love for Insync! And I'm also not affiliated.

Whatcha talking about, Willis?

Hehe ;)

Abruzzi -- I'm 45 and only started dreaming in the last 5 years. I don't know why or how but I do now. It's incredible. Maybe you will, too!

Super super interesting and I'd love discuss - drop me a note (contact info in my bio) :)

This looks awesome! Do you have any info about publisher payout rates, or how the revenue earned (like RPM) compares to, say, Adsense? I'm psyched to try it :)

Um. Last year, I re-read Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and my favorite chapter (written in such a funny way!) is his detailing how his wife was having sex with everyone under the sun, and everyone in Rome knew it. Except for Marcus Aurelius himself; he lived in such a bubble, he couldn't see the reality in front of his nose. He was so unable to teach his son, Commodus, that when his son became emperor... well, Commodus turned out to be one of the most cruel and evil emperors in the history of Rome.

This made me question the "wisdom" of his Meditations (which, as a kid, I loved reading and whose advice I used to love): knowing this is how he lived and ruled and raised children, and those were the consequences... are we sure it's good advice? I'm not anymore.

Text here: http://sacred-texts.com/cla/gibbon/01/daf01013.htm

So here's what "they" don't tell you: building a successful startup -- even by moderate definitions of "successful," such as, "reaching a point that lets you only work 4 hours/week" -- is what economists call a "superstar economy." Kinda like being a musician or a basketball player: 99.99% of the starving artists or guys in the neighborhood playing hoops make $0.00 from it, but one-in-a-million make a killing. There's a small "middle class" in the ecosystem (people who don't strike the goldmind but do just fine) but, for all practical purposes, it's really, really tiny, too.

So, therefore: building your own app and putting it into the app store is helluva lot like trying to make your garage band a big hit. You must remember these three things to start your own band (or your own startup):

1.) Expect your band will never make a dollar. (Similarly, expect the startup to never make a dollar.)

2.) You must love creating music and feel such a deep calling to create that music, that you will obsessively create that music with the band, even remember #1, that your band will never make a dollar. (Yup, you must be so obsessed with your company's mission and vision that you'll do it even expecting it to fail.)

3.) You must be emotionally ready to play the lottery. If you're not emotionally ready for the lottery, stay home.

4.) Similarly, you must instinctively feel like you are blessed by Fortuna, because luck needs to be on your side not just tonight but for the whole journey.

5.) It's a f---load of hardwork to get people to notice what you do, and to get them excited about it. Are you prepared for that overwhelming, intense, nonstop amount of hardwork?

6.) You know what's even harder about the hard work? There's no one to tell you what to do. You don't even know if what you're doing is the right thing or not. There is a way to change what you're doing and create something that will get people peeing in their pants with excitement. But you need to figure it out. No one will tell you, ever. In other words, more painful then 24 hours/day of work is 24 hours/day of work and not even knowing if you're doing the right work....

7.) Unless you happen to have a very strong mentor or model, it makes the incredible amount of hard work still even harder. Jimmy Page was the highest paid studio musician in England before he went to start his own band. He had a series of great mentors to teach him the path. A good mentor will teach you what to listen to and what to ignore. You probably want to ignore this rambling post here.

Okay, 3 minute break over, back to work.... :)

morgan

Modern parallel:

My business partner and I have a weekly brainstorm on Tuesday night (not quite by campfire) that's focused on us coming up with wacky and crazy creative ideas. We often do it over wine, we let our imaginations run wild, we try to come up with extreme concoctions that might just be able to work, and we have a space to be creative and no idea is bad during that time. Surprisingly, we've found that this really helps our creativity for the other 99.9% of the work-week: sometimes, our crazy ideas come back to us (in more reasonable forms, less extreme) that we then implement and make happen!

In other words: we realized, too much of our day-to-day work is concerned with tactical issues, so we've created a space around a virtual fire to unleash our creativity, which then helps us in the day-to-day.

Maybe this work due to evolutionary forces on humans since these paleolithic days!