I really like their UI and deploying over the web - that was like magic. But I was having a weird issue with loading images in Pebble.JS at first. I came back a week later and the image load worked just fine under the same conditions. They're still in early stages, but it's an awesome platform.
This is awesome. I was planning on doing custom boxes for us someday, but I put it off because of the headache of dealing with existing companies in the industry. Excited to use Pakible, and to be able to test out different designs without sending a freaking fax (or 20 emails).
Really excited to see the MVNOs getting better service by licensing multiple Tier 1 networks. I'm still using AT&T on a family plan, but only because they've followed T-Mobile's strategy almost verbatim for the last year.
I grew up in Alaska (now in Colorado), and my parents in Anchorage don't have home internet. Even in Anchorage, a city with 300,000 people, $60/mo will only buy you 10Mbps of download speed with capped bandwidth, through the only cable internet service in town. Now, with AT&T's rollover data I get about 45GB of cellular data usage per month. I'm on the 30GB/mo plan, but most months we only use 15GB, so the other half rolls over. Now, when I travel to visit my folks, I can tether without any concerns. It's actually worth paying the AT&T premium to be able to tether hassle-free. AND, in Alaska the LTE is way faster than the entry-tier cable internet plans. For many people with cellular service, it might actually be cheaper to use your phone as a hotspot in Alaska than to have cable internet.
Glad to hear so many of you are having good experiences with T-Mobile and MVNOs though. I'm so psyched for the future of data access!
This is a cool project - must have been fun to do the research on and build. Are you using any optimization techniques for AdSense? Would love to hear them if you don't mind sharing.
It's great fun, and the research is never-ending. Up to ~1,300 unique 'Days' at the moment, and tons more to research. Loads of months, weeks and years to do too, which have taken a back-burner.
No AdSense optimisation at all; barely touched the account. The most sophisticated it gets is that it's using the async code (which we got access to quite early on), and there's a bit of conditional logic which fires to determine which size to serve based on the viewport width. Love to hear any ideas you have - though AdSense is really a temporary cost covering measure while we grow the email database, develop the app, etc. We'll bin it when we're large enough to move reliably to other methods.
+1 It's a good format. The honesty and genuine voice from This American Life - and the episodes don't give you much resolution at the end. Just feels real.
I organize a drone enthusiasts group in Fort Collins, CO, and we have some members working on similar custom racing rigs. One member has his own CNC and is designing frames for around ~$200 cost of materials that can jet around at 60+mph. It's incredible to watch.
I've focused more on building a custom rig for getting great video of backcountry skiing, but there's a lot of overlap in the video/radio tech. If anyone has drone questions, feel free to send them my way.
Unfortunately I don't have a video of his frame - My goal is to get one at our next meetup. It's hard to capture because the thing is zipping around so fast!
My videos (trying to iterate on getting better cinematic quality) are at www.vimeo.com/bnzelener
I believe his frame is CNC'd steel. It's really malleable, so when he crashes he'll just bend the bent arm back into place. He uses SunnySky 2300kv motors, KissESCs, a MultiWii flight controller, and a 1300mAh 3-cell battery.
Agreed. I really like listening to Paul Graham's longer responses. I'm left wondering how he and Jessica elaborated on most of these questions (if they did).
Hmm..classifying a motorised skateboard as a possible solution to public transportation's last mile problem is a far stretch.
The folks that could really benefit from a solution are the elderly, physically disabled and young kids. For the life of me, I would find it difficult to see the majority of these folks riding a skateboard.
I don't really see the analogy. MS bootstrapped fairly naturally (with the help of a great deal of luck along the way) from BASIC to progressively more sophisticated OSes, each of which closely followed well-established pre-existing models. AFAIK (I'm not an expert) there are no viable existing models out there for a big next step from the Boosted Board.
Even assuming infinite battery life, what's the form factor? A wheelchair won't cut it. A Segway-like thing won't cut it. A unicycle won't cut it. A conventional bicycle won't cut it. A recumbent bike or trike won't cut it. Roller-skates won't cut it. Exoskeletal legs won't cut it. Many of these things are of proven usefulness, but they've never been general-purpose substitutes or augmentors for pedestrianism. A version of some of the above which folds into something unprecedentedly small and light might begin to cut it, but how is that achievable within present-day engineering constraints?
You're looking at a solution that solves the problem for 100% of people. Most products don't do that. The popularity of bikes proves that.
You only need to solve the problem for the majority of people ( >50% ) to be considered a good solution. The solution may prove to be elegantly simple.
Well, it makes sense that they'll keep focusing on the last mile - but I'm hoping the next product will appeal to more people. Boosted boards are amazing, but few are going to experience them because of the learning curve and style of longboarding.
I believe their ambition is solving the problem presented in one of YC's requests for startups -- specifically short-distance personal transportation for everyone.
This caught my attention as well...he said it with the same kind of passion that Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos had for Segway. Obviously Segway didn't live up to the anyone's expectations. Hopefully pg isn't nearly as far off the mark as those guys were.
