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Ask HN: Your Favourite HN Comment?

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Re: Ask HN: Your Favourite HN Comment?

#241

Post by jeffreyrogers »

selestify wrote: post #185
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm fairly creative, but I've only had one or two ideas that weren't reinventions of something someone else had already done. Doesn't matter what it is: software, electrical circuit, some clever mechanical thing, it's almost always already been done. Even if you look at patent grants, almost none of them are truly novel.

So what did you do with those ideas?

One of them costs too much for me to pursue. The other I'm working on as a hobby, but don't expect it to bear any fruit for a couple of years.

My main takeaway though is that an idea doesn't have to be novel for it to be a good idea. Lots of things that were tried and failed could succeed with a new approach. And lots of things that're currently successfully could be redone in a better way.

Re: Ask HN: Your Favourite HN Comment?

#242

Post by seattledev »

Waterluvian wrote: post #147
SwiftyBug wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Testicles are naturally lumpy. How can you tell the regular lumps apart from a potentially harmful one?

I was once told, “as long as you check regularly you’ll know it when you find it.” I’ve also been told it’s very hard and dense feeing. Sometimes rough feeling. I think this helps a lot but it sure feels like insufficient training. This also gave me an app idea. I have very mole-y skin. Doctor said to keep an eye on new ones of significant size. I have a terrible memory. Maybe I need an app that I can snap photos of…

A good dermatologist will take photos, measure, and track your moles. You should visit them every year.

Re: Ask HN: Your Favourite HN Comment?

#243

Post by ycombinete »

kqr wrote: post #226
spacedcowboy wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been hit by a car three times when cycling (only when cycling on an e-bike, car-drivers seem to have difficulty assessing the different speeds involved). The last time, and the time that persuaded me to give up the e-bike resulted in [this]( https://0x0000ff.uk/imgs/hit-by-car.png ). That top impact is my head, smashing the windscreen. The lower impact is my arm (broken in two places). The side of the car was my…

That sounds like an awful experience. From the picture, it looks like the crumple zones on the car yielded very kindly to your momentum as well, which is incredibly fortunate. I'm glad you got out of it alive, if with some serious scratches and dings. I'm convinced anyone who would be wearing a helmet when driving a car, and narrowly escaping death in a similar way (e.g. a racing driver who is kept alive by their hel…

My uninformed guess would be that many head injuries in cars would not be helped by wearing a helmet. G-force related injuries, like whiplash, and being hit by the airbag.

It’s a hard line to draw. I remember reading a comment on HN a while ago. In it the commenter said that whenever he left the house he wore earplugs, and protective glasses. Earplugs because he got a bit of tinnitus once, and the glasses, because once he almost walked into a tree branch and almost lost an eye. He’d probably say that we should wear a helmet no matter where we are or what we’re doing.

Re: Ask HN: Your Favourite HN Comment?

#246

Post by superice »

ycombinete wrote: post #230
superice wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is ~250 cycling related traffic deaths per year in the Netherlands. Some 60 of those are e-bike related. Normalized per capita that is well above the EU average, but you shouldn't forget that we cycle a lot in the Netherlands, which means that per cycled kilometer, cycling in the Netherlands is still ridiculously safe even without helmets. It has been argued that forcing people to wear a helmet in law will redu…

I think our point of view is very different. Coming from a country where almost no-one cycles as a mode of transport, I view it entirely individualistically. I understand that the imperative 'should', has a far wider (even political) connotation in the context of the Netherlands. To be clear, I wouldn’t suggest forcing people to wear helmets, by law. My thinking is simple: it is safer to wear a helmet when cycling. T…

Fair point, you’re entirely right in that in other countries wearing a helmet can be much more important and indeed much more of that burden is placed on the individual.

I looked into head injury statistics, but it seems like this isn’t publicly available. Multiple sources (cyclist safety advocate groups!) claim these to be low numbers though.

The problem with wearing a helmet is not that is inconvenient to wear it though. It is a storage problem at your destination. Dutch high schools often only offer small locker spaces, I doubt full size biking helmets would fit. Considering >90% of middle and high schoolers are coming to school by bicycle, that would involve carrying around a helmet all day. Ofcourse it’s not an unfixable problem for schools, but this goes for every little trip: going to a bar? Leave your helmet at your table I guess? Going to the bookstore downtown? Walk around the store awkwardly with your helmet in your hands I guess? The friction for these trips would be a lot higher with a helmet, and these are the type of trips people tend to use their bicycles for. I live about 2km from the city center of a 150 000k city. Parking is 3 euros an hour, and it takes pretty much the exact same time to get to the city center by bike as by car. I’ll take the bike any day for all trips that don’t involve my carrying a bunch of stuff back, and this is a common sentiment. We’ve got free supervised underground bicycle parking lots. It’s a no-brainer :)

If you do end up moving I’d love to hear about your experience a few months in. Maybe we’re all indoctrinated into believing cycling here is super safe when it actually isn’t, but so far my experiences cycling in other countries have been terrifying (I really wish I had a helmet using the bike-sharing system in Belfast). An outsider perspective would be very interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Your Favourite HN Comment?

#247

Post by deadcoder0904 »

Highest signal sales advice I've ever seen:

Yes, there are tons of resources but I'll try to offer some simple tips.

1. Sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated as to be impossible or you can simply walk up and hit the ball. I've been leading and building sales orgs for almost 20 years and my advice is to walk up and hit the ball.

2. Sales is about people and it's about problem solving. It is not about solutions or technology or chemicals or lines of code or artichokes. It's about people and it's about solving problems.

3. People buy 4 things and 4 things only. Ever. Those 4 things are time, money, sex, and approval/peace of mind. If you try selling something other than those 4 things you will fail.

4. People buy aspirin always. They buy vitamins only occassionally and at unpredictable times. Sell aspirin.

5. I say in every talk I give: "all things being equal people buy from their friends. So make everything else equal then go make a lot of friends."

6. Being valuable and useful is all you ever need to do to sell things. Help people out. Send interesting posts. Write birthday cards. Record videos sharing your ideas for growing their business. Introduce people who would benefit from knowing each other then get out of the way, expecting nothing in return. Do this consistently and authentically and people will find ways to give you money. I promise.

7. No one cares about your quota, your payroll, your opex, your burn rate, etc. No one. They care about the problem you are solving for them.

There is more than 100 trillion dollars in the global economy just waiting for you to breathe it in. Good luck.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23285438

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