sheepdog

Correct. Reduced smoking, alcohol, and other behaviors have been documented. There's a complex relationship between the gut and certain behaviors. These drugs slow down gut processing, and delay the reward mechanism. With slightly less reward from the body, the scales may tip slightly in favor of self control.

Source: currently using GLP and seeing reduced positive feedback from alcohol (incidentally)...

I didn't get any LLM vibes from the comment at all. I'd heard of "off label use" and other incidental use-cases. So the comment makes a lot of sense...

Agreed. A laptop also comes with battery backup, screen, and input devices out of the gate. Granted, it consumes more power than RPi. But a laptop is definitely a solid choice, based on my experience with RPi resets and corrupted SD cards, etc.

Internet connectivity is the main thing that's prevented me from going down this path. Zoom meetings and file transfers really suck up a lot of bandwidth. But a lot of hotels have more casual internet. And many places that would be amazing to visit are quite rural. Perhaps something like Starlink will become a good solution for this?

We did something similar with a move to Columbus, GA. Cost of living was super-low, but 200k people means you get theater, airport, etc.

One thing to keep in mind as you get older: smaller places may not have all the medical facilities you need. For example, if you get an unusual cancer or need a transplant, your family will be regularly shuttling you 2-3 hours to the nearest large city.

I think that being ~50-60 minutes south of Atlanta would be nice. It's small enough, but you can hop right up to one of the world's busiest airports and get a flight to about anywhere.

I can't log on to the console for us-east-1. But our api gateway seems to be working, so I guess production is still up...for now...

Interesting that he mentioned the $300,000 model...

Hypothetical question for US-based folks: I wonder if there is a non-traditional path for people who can afford to research without the need for a stipend?

Technologists tend to be in the upper income brackets. For a lucky few, it's possible to achieve financial independence in their 40's. At that point conducting research may seem like an attractive intellectual pastime.

These hypothetical PhD students can sustain themselves for 4-6 years without a salary. I suppose there would still be some grant-seeking, depending on the scale of the research. Technically they could actually pay the university, becoming a funding source instead of a burden...

If someone had $2-$3 million in their retirement accounts, it seems strange to scratch and claw for $300k of research stipend funding.

Has anyone heard of such an arrangement? Is this a thing?

For larger user counts (and budgets), Salesforce.com is a workhorse. Builds tabs, data views, filters, dashboards, great auditing, security, etc. I've used the force.com platform to track everything from dog daycares to coffee shipments to hospital patients. It's an acquired taste, but it's a huge toolbox that gets the job done.

I'm a young guy, but this presents an interesting question: what's the best path to modernize your skill set?

Imagine being a Cobol or dBase III developer. You recognize that some new technology (say AWS Aurora) is in demand.

So you study a whole bunch during your off time. You do tons of courses, hobby projects, and even take the applicable certifications.

Here's my question: then what? You have textbook knowledge of this new skill, but no actual production experience. What's the best way for these re-skilling workers to make the jump from learning to earning?

Interesting. I didn't realize these were shipping yet. Seems like a good option for exploration!

I'm super interested in using this for my masters thesis. But their github docs are terse at best. I have no confidence that I'd be talented enough to figure out their api, and the mention of the broken website form further deters me. Too bad; I love the concept of quadrupeds for navigating stairs and other urban obstacles.

I'm disappointed about the reluctance on Lidar. It seems like a great safety net, allowing the car to say "I don't know what this large white blob on the camera is, but it's solid and coming up fast, so I'm going to do an emergency stop..."

I suspect this is cost-cutting more than anything else.

In your case, a great partner might be a handful of VC firms?

I'm not sure I'm in the "heathy pipeline" stage. But I have a small number of repeat clients, and have landed a good number of $49k to $60k projects over the last five years. I currently do most of the work and use 2-3 subcontractors as needed. And during year one I did a lot of sub-contracts for 5-10 person shops. So I've been able to see what works.

I guess the TLDR version is that you need partnerships.

For example, if you are working primarily with AWS or Oracle or whatever, you need to have really good relationships with their account executives.

You'll also need partnerships with other agencies. For example, if your projects are often referrals from marketing or web design shops, you'll need to cultivate relationships with several of those. And that usually means referring web-design projects to them as well. (I'm not great at sales, so many of my projects came from this source.)

But if your projects run <$50k each, you'll never build a $1M sales pipeline without a sales team. Hire somebody with existing relationships in your industry, so they can open up their address book and land 1-3 clients right out of the gate.

My partner account execs are constantly telling me to focus on a niche. I work with a specific SAAS product that's a bit higher-priced. So that naturally brings me clients with some semblance of a budget. But they recommend even more specialization, such as "growth clients in the fintech space with A round funding". That's tough for me, since I'm a generalist and like to work everywhere.

Lastly, remember that it's ok to be small. If you don't have a huge team, you can pick and choose projects to ensure maximum success and minimal stress. People always ask me "what's your growth plan", and are surprised when I tell them that I don't plan to grow this year.

Good luck!

Agreed. I can confirm; hunted pigs get educated and super skittish. It's like tracking the Viet Cong or something.