I wouldn't even accept these businesses as design clients. Gross.
YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
211–220 of 229 posts
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#212A note to any future startup founders reading some of the broadly skeptical and pessimistic comments on this HN discussion thread: The people commenting here are not your customers. For every 1 person posting a snarky comment, there are 100+ simply browsing the gift guide. A few are saying "Hey, that's neat!", and a few are making purchases today or in the near future, either for themselves or as gifts. It's their be…
Couldn't agree more. I'd like to add:
Don't let not-customers butter you up! Find your customers and get their feedback. Lots of people will think yours is a great idea: just not great enough to pay you for it!
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Couldn't you just give kids prepaid Visa/MC cards instead? Those come with expirations, a variety of fee structures, etc.
Don't all gift cards?
No. In fact, on regular gift cards these things are prohibited by law in some jurisdictions, including California.
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would question someone's actual motives if they demolished a house so they could build a new one in name of sustainability. How much time would it take to recuperate that full rebuild vs. just retrofitting the already existing house?
Embodied energy is certainly worth considering, but major retrofits of homes built in the 60's or earlier are hugely inefficient and result in a home that looks better, but performs no better energy wise. You CANNOT retrofit to Zero Energy with out significant cash outlays or at all. Putting a new carb and a dash mat on a 70's Oldsmobile will not justify the embodied energy argument. Melt that sucker down and build a…
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Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would question someone's actual motives if they demolished a house so they could build a new one in name of sustainability. How much time would it take to recuperate that full rebuild vs. just retrofitting the already existing house?
Embodied energy is certainly worth considering, but major retrofits of homes built in the 60's or earlier are hugely inefficient and result in a home that looks better, but performs no better energy wise. You CANNOT retrofit to Zero Energy with out significant cash outlays or at all. Putting a new carb and a dash mat on a 70's Oldsmobile will not justify the embodied energy argument. Melt that sucker down and build a…
Maybe I'm wrong, but my assumption is the difference between "standard home" and "standard home with solar + other easy wins" (such as tearing out your lawn in SoCal, where I live) is overall "better" than going from those easy wins to a Zero Energy home. I would guess it's also location dependent though.
Under that assumption, I would have a hard time justifying tearing down an existing home to build a Zero Energy home, as opposed to just implementing those easy efficiency wins and investing the money saved in other environmentally friendly pursuits - perhaps even helping a friend to finance similar changes to their home. Or, letting someone else buy the already built home and build somewhere I don't have to tear down an existing structure.
Of course not everyone would think this way, and people are free to do what they wish with their money, but it's how I weigh the options.
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#216I just want to mention that Le Tote and Vet Pronto are awesome. We use them both and they make life easier and more pleasurable. Always great things to wear and our cat doesn't have to leave home.
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#217A note to any future startup founders reading some of the broadly skeptical and pessimistic comments on this HN discussion thread: The people commenting here are not your customers. For every 1 person posting a snarky comment, there are 100+ simply browsing the gift guide. A few are saying "Hey, that's neat!", and a few are making purchases today or in the near future, either for themselves or as gifts. It's their be…
Couldn't agree more. I'd like to add: Don't let not-customers butter you up! Find your customers and get their feedback. Lots of people will think yours is a great idea: just not great enough to pay you for it!
Very true!
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#218The thing that really strikes me about this list is how nearly everything on it is offered at a premium price. One thing I loved about the tech world while I was growing up was that it was consistently doing more with less. Wikipedia displaced Encyclopaedia Brittanica by being both better and free. Hotmail was a clear win over AOL and Yahoo's offerings and then Gmail was faster and handled spam better while giving mo…
Peter Thiel recommends creating monopolies in Zero to One. That's basically what YC companies are doing.
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have a sewing machine it takes less than 15 minutes to tailor a shirt down (just put it on inside-out, pin, and sew). Made-to-measure mail-order dress shirts are an idea from the 1990s AFAIK. A while back I collected some promotional offers from in-flight magazines and online and ordered a big stockpile of white made-to-measure dress shirts. With the promotional pricing it came out to less than $20 a shirt. As…
The issue in my case is not the trunk. I'm a 'gentleman of size' (6'3 300 lbs) which means to find something that fits my neck, I have to buy a shirt large enough to accommodate another large person inside of it with me. I also, do not have a sewing machine, nor do I have a good place to work, or time to do it. I've had trouble finding a place locally that will do bespoke clothing. I would rather not dress like a slo…
Some libraries have sewing machines. Your task sounds simple enough to DIY using GP's method on a shirt large enough to fit two.
http://www.mv-voice.com/news/2014/09/02/a-stitch-in-time-at-...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/sacbee.relaymedia.com/amp/news/...
http://sandiego.communityguides.com/content_mobile.php?pid=4...
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think gift cards are a big conspiracy from the retail industry that primarily perpetuated the idea that cash is a bad gift. It seems more likely that cash became unpopular independently. And for good reason! Trading cash during holidays really ruins the fun! Perhaps the retail industry was just responding to demand - the market may just want gift cards!
http://nytimes.com/2007/01/07/magazine/07wwln_freak.t.html >As for gift cards — well, let’s just say there is good reason that they are known within the retail industry as a stored-value product: they store their value very well, and often permanently. The financial-services research firm TowerGroup estimates that of the $80 billion spent on gift cards in 2006, roughly $8 billion will never be redeemed — “a bigger im…
And while true, if that came out today it would probably be called "clickbait"
Yes, 10% sounds about right for un-redeemed gift cards. But tell me, how often do you wear your xmas sweater? Have you ever gotten a gadget from a well-meaning uncle that just seemed stupidly dangerous and worthless?
Gift cards aren't inherently a bad gift. Bad gifts are. If someone gives me a Victoria's Secret GC and I am not in the kind of relationship where I would buy my SO lingerie, then it is not going to get redeemed (and I will forget about it by the time I would have an opportunity to). Whereas, if someone got me a GC for Amazon Kindle or Steam I would use that pretty gosh darned fast.
And obviously a store is going to push the GC. Even if it is a 20 buck card and you buy something for 19.99 they turn a profit. And more likely you'll spend 25 or 30