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theforceawakens

34 karma · joined December 21, 2015

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theforceawakens··on Ask HN: What tools and services do you use to go paperless?
Thanks!

How do you manage your documents in OneDrive? (Folder Structure et al.)

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: How to get started in the field of VR/AR?
Thanks. Appreciate the info.

I guess the possibilities are endless. Want to get started understanding the basics/foundational elements and any dev kits out there.

How do people build the AR/VR experiences? (which are akin to games in the gaming world, imo)

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: How to develop an entrepreneurial insight?
Where to look for - Problems from your own life that you couldn't solve or suffered solving with existing solutions.

Books - Would suggest reading biographies.

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Oh man, that sucks to hear. I'm not sure if it's even legal for the employer to collect personal medical info (if you have a family covered under the insurance, potentially exposing theirs as well)...insurance companies might want that kinda info to determine the premiums. Do you know?
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Actually, that's the point of discussion - Is the ratio of (money spent on incentives):(money saved in insurance costs), high or low?
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Thanks. Makes sense.
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Aren't auto insurance (your choice of provider) and employer provided health insurance (no choice) tangential things?
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Agreed. In your case, it looks the ratio of info/value is really high. Honestly, this is the first time I have heard such an exploitation of personal health related data from an employer. Was this a large org? (Would understand if a small startup did this..perhaps lack of know-how. Still very alarming though.)
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
> There aren't enough primary care doctors and the work is being farmed out to nurse practitioners and physician's assistants

Thanks for the insight, but is there any empirical evidence here?

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Thanks for the insight. I think you bring a very good perspective to this.

Although I am not very sure, what you really mean by saying "a lot of lifestyle changes needed to promote genuine health aren't really incorporated"...do you mean the employers don't promote them? Or the incentives you are relating to don't fall under the "wellness program" benefits in general to receive a credit/discount (from the standpoint of insurance companies)?

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Thanks. From your info, I was able to surface that there could be tax implications (if the incentives are offered as non-fringe/taxable benefits), from an employee standpoint.
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Orthogonal issue but here is what I think -- While I agree that privacy is of great concern, I do think the way to approach this would be with more frequent health checkups. Our body is the best marker at the end of the day to measure our healthiness. Everything else doesn't matter, which is also the reason the allure of wearables is wearing out. (It's great, but what do you do now that you have all this data that you have gathered?)
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
(Hope this helps someone like me.) Here is a link I was able to find that throws some light on Tax Benefits/Implications: https://www.shrm.org/legalissues/federalresources/pages/fede...

Still looking for info on Insurance Benefits. (That seems to be a murky area....any info would be very helpful.)

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Thanks. Do you have any specific advice in terms of how this "better incentives-better rates" thing works?
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?
Thanks so much. Is there any documentation online that you know of which has more information?
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: How did Uber acquire its first customers?
Good to know! Thanks.

I may have observed this from a non-SF angle, but based on my own experience health, public and manufacturing verticals have the slowest rate of tech adoption. Partly due to aging staff and bucket loads of regulations.

theforceawakens··on Apply HN: Hairme – Programmable Haircuts for Men
Thanks for the feedback. That's a great idea!

Our goal is to make it super simple, and eliminate any manual labor.

Sorry no picture yet. We are hoping to release s video of the mock with the tech specs before the 04/27 deadline.

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: How did Uber acquire its first customers?
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing your personal story!
theforceawakens··on Ask HN: How did Uber acquire its first customers?
Great insight (especially regarding the "no need for a medallion" pitch to drivers, but I feel that would have come later during growth stages)! Thanks.

One question - When Uber first launched (think in early 2009), smart phones were not so ubiquitous (right?) especially for Black Car drivers. I'm just wondering if some guy selling them on an App at that time, would have worked. I just feel there was something more to it. May be "cheat" that side of the game (offer money to the Black Car drivers to join the App OR buy black cars and hire drivers maybe. Travis and Garrett were millionaires then already), since they knew there was demand anyways, knowing SF was a tech town and would be an easy sell to techies.

What are your thoughts? Am I making sense?

P.S: Would be awesome to get some insider insight into this.

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: How did Uber acquire its first customers?
Great link. Thanks so much. But it doesn't really talk about Travis' tactics to convince the initial limo companies to join his venture. Looking for a deeper insight. It is so hard to convince someone / incumbents, to join a platform where they might fear competition. Usually they don't look to grow, they look to not die. IMO.
theforceawakens··on Apply HN: Hairme – Programmable Haircuts for Men
Thanks for your feedback thus far. Just wanted to add some more info on the tech we are looking into for this project: (Still in very crude R&D stages. May or may not work. But using a single source of energy is something that we are interested in, at this stage.)

1. IPL uses light pulsated at a very high wavelength and high spectral ranges, which destroy the hair. We are looking at a lower wavelength of light (IPL-lite), which would target only the chromophore in the hair. This will also de-risk the case of skin burns etc.

2. Heating is one way of doing it, but I'm not yet sure how effective this would be, in terms of quality, pre-heating (time and energy) etc. We want to build a solution that only uses one source of energy (potentially), in this case light.

3. Ideally, the v0.01 we are working on will have a fabric attached to the inside of the helmet which will measure your head coordinates. The mechanical components will then adjust the height of the diodes (which are evenly spaced on the inside of the helmet) and then start the IPL-lite process.

4. We are consulting a prof specializing in light emission and also have an "advisor" in a dermatologist/scientist specializing in cosmetic laser.

theforceawakens··on Apply HN: Hairme – Programmable Haircuts for Men
Great points there! Will definitely consider these during our R&D process. Thanks so much.
theforceawakens··on Apply HN: Hairme – Programmable Haircuts for Men
Thanks so much for the feedback and thoughts. In a meeting and will respond to you in 30-45 mins.

And yes, serious about the project.

theforceawakens··on Apply HN: Hairme – Programmable Haircuts for Men
IPL is one way (which we'll be using) to eliminate potential dangers with blades/scissors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intense_pulsed_light
theforceawakens··on Apply HN: Hairme – Programmable Haircuts for Men
That will be solved with IPL, which has been invented decades ago. No need of blades.

Here is some more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intense_pulsed_light

Does this answer your question/concern?

theforceawakens··on Apply HN: Hairme – Programmable Haircuts for Men
:) It's a real problem. One you probably had as well (Regardless of Gender, Age, Race..)

Look forward to any feedback you might have. Thanks.

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: How do startups find their product-market fit?
Great practical advice! I like the way you have distilled it down to 3 responses - No, Yes, Hell Yeah!

Two questions: 1)And how do you convert Yes to Hell Yeah!? 2)What strategies would you apply to find those potential (or initial) customers?

theforceawakens··on Ask HN: Where do you get your startup tshirts printed?
Thanks. I reached out to them. Will share my findings here, in the hope that it benefits others.