nick007

Very thoughtful analysis. I particularly like the insight around the industry metrics and Goodhart's Law. “DAU” and the like align with social media companies’ interests of increasing attention and time on site, which lead to more ad revenue. But, they are at odds with their users’ interests, or at least don’t consider user costs (ie time). I wonder if a social product could thrive based on the principle of “efficient” usage, a la the platform works on my behalf to keep me efficiently informed on what’s going on in my network and considers the cost tradeoffs of my time and attention. I suspect I could feel very “up to date” on the things I care about most by checking into a social product ~weekly with a thoughtfully curated digest of content.

I am a PullRequest user/customer. I shared some of your concerns when I first heard about them, and was admittedly the least on board them trying them vs the others on my team. In short, I didn't believe that an outsider could provide adequate reviews and that, at best, an outsider would supplement our internal review process. I was wrong, and have learned several things about code review from this company.

1. Once ramped up, PullRequest provides consistent reviewers for project, even down to fairly granular sections of the codebase. i.e. we’ll get the same reviewer or sets of reviewers who review code for backend architecture changes, a different person (but consistent) who reviews security code even within a monolithic repo. These reviews feel like a real part of your team after a while, but fully focused on providing quality review.

2. It’s true that the reviews are not involved in initial planning conversations, but in practice this turns out to be moot or even a net positive. This is because they are providing a removed perspective on the review. I can think back to one time very specifically when the team planned to implement a feature in a specific way. An engineer went off and did so as had been planned by the team. An internal review from any of the original teammates who had planned the feature with him would have immediately approved the PR since it was exactly to the original spec. However, our PullRequest reviewer caught a MAJOR VULNERABILITY that the feature’s architecture had presented. Thus, a fresh set of eyes from an outsider who knows our codebase but is not involved in planning/implementation discussions was critical. IMO this is one of PullRequest’s greatest value-adds and why I will always advocate using them /other services like them no matter what team (though I don’t know of any comparable services, though I suspect more will arise and 3rd party review becomes table stakes, but that’s a different discussion).

3. The people that PullRequest gets to do reviews are top notch. In some ways, overkill from what would be required to actually develop a feature from soup to nuts, but it gives us more confidence to let junior developers run more freely on larger features knowing that they will have to pass code review from PullRequest.

+1 for the NYT feature -- that piece really does a good job at introducing your vision, worth the read

Super excited for this, and I am planning to relocate from SF to Tempe for [mostly] this reason. It's about time there was a truly novel offering in the world of residential living, and the Culdesac crew are doing in in the right way! Been a huge fan from the sidelines ever since their YC days.

Agreed, this is fascinating and potentially huge. This comes months after the Pentagon released UFO footage for the first time (not necessarily alien, but unidentified). Wonder if there could be a coordinated effort to slowly disseminate the information to the public slowly instead of all at once.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/politics/pentagon-ufo-...

I finished all the Missions in a few weeks, forget exactly the days. It could definitely be done faster but I spaced out one Mission every few days (I think there are 8 or 9 of them).

Yes, I can attest that the course and company are first rate. See previous comment -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508974

No videos, it's written content with questions to answer/reflect on.

There's also a way to write in to a real-life person/team with follow-on thoughts/questions after each section. I've done this a number of times not really expecting much, but have been blown away with how fast and thoughtful a response I've always gotten. Almost feels like you're getting personal coach (which they are really underselling IMHO).

DISCLAIMER - I am a customer.

I found Capsule very valuable. The content is 2nd to none, they boil down some huge concepts that span thousands of pages across multiple books/papers into dense and digestible bites of material. Very high bandwidth and efficient.

I see a lot of commentary about the price being high. I'm not sure whether they have the right price point or not, but what I would say as someone who considers myself pretty frugal, I would compare the value I got from Capsule to a series of books and probably therapists that would've cost hundreds or thousands of dollars (and many more hours).

I’ve really enjoyed using https://www.createcapsule.com/ for this. Has been helpful with everything from practicing better CBT, to relationship communication in both personal and professional settings.

They do an amazing job of condensing down a lot of material into very succinct and digestible lessons (aka missions). Everything is also referenced so if you want to deep dive into a specific topic you can.

The whole course is short enough to finish in an afternoon, or can also be broken down in 20 minute slots.

Love that Drew posted this from the stock exchange floor this morning

This is a big new open sea of a platform with tons of potential and it sounds like Mr Urban is thinking about it correctly.

Solid advice. I recommend this blog to many people who ask me for job search/interview help.

Yes we do. Our median member is on a weekly frequency, but we have people getting filled-up more and less frequently than that depending on their need.

Yes it's possible. If you sign-up with your address our team will be in touch if we need more info or there's an issue.

Yes actually we've gotten a surprising number of requests for this

No need for key handoffs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12073211

Nice idea. I don't think they do

We don't have an API yet that something like automatic can report your gas gauge to. Though it's something we're thinking about.

However, the way that the service works now, it wouldn't save you anything in the average case. We come by and fill your car up regularly (usually once or twice a week) without you having to "order" when you need it. Unless you take a long trip and need a fill-up off-cycle, you shouldn't need to ever use the app to call for gas once you are setup.

We take this seriously. We comply with all regulations (local/state/federal). The Bloomberg article was a little... off... on a number of things. And we actually go above what is required by law on a number of things relating to safety. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12073856

Hm, I like this idea. But our customers aren't usually at their cars while we're filling them up, so the coffee might often get cold

We offer both regular (87 octane) and premium (91/93, depending on the market) grade. Not ethanol free but it is high quality ("top tier" in most markets).

Safety is our #1 priority. Our trucks and all of our components have been inspected and approved by several industry experts and authorities.

There are a lot of details here, but the "tldr" is that transporting gasoline and refueling cars requires caution, but it's a solved problem.

We let you set the PSI that you want your tires set to. We'll show your the factory default, but you can adjust it to whatever you'd like.

Don't want to share too much about oil changes yet, as we're still trying to figure out a lot of the details ourselves and are only testing this in a very limit scope right now.

Our price per gallon is competitive with gas stations in your area (actually a bit below the AAA average).

Yep, it's not mentioned in the article but we actually air-up your tires and service them (if needed) as well through a recent partnership we made with Firestone. Depending on the market, we're also offering oil changes and other maintenance things too. Working on expanding these wider.

Yes, we actually do do this, and we're now a corporate perk at several companies in the areas we service. We also let people sign-up and start getting serviced at lots where we aren't sponsored by a company too.

Not quite... I like that idea better, it's just a lot harder unfortunately. We're starting with stationary fill-ups only

Good question. We created a device (that we call a "Fuel Vault") that we can install in your car's "gas flap." We'll require that you leave your car's gas flap popped open for your first fill-up so that we can install it. After that, we'll be able to get into your gas flap anytime. It doesn't require any permanent modifications to your car, and can be removed anytime.

Hi, I'm one of the founders. Happy to answer any questions!