wrd

Walking onto a set without permission is inconsiderate and disruptive because the crew is working very, very hard to make something happen and his presence isn't helpful. He effectively got lucky that he didn't mess something up and accidentally force the crew to work longer and harder than they have to. There's a reason the entire job of some production assistants is just to keep random people off set.

Definitely don't do this. Film sets are very controlled / precise environments and an innocuous piece of equipment can be INCREDIBLY expensive ($200k+). The chance of messing something up as a rando is very high and you'll just end up making the crew work longer and harder than they need to.

If you're thinking about doing like this guy did, please don't.

Film crews are incredibly overworked, underpaid and work in absolutely terrible conditions. Film production is an intricate machine that requires everything to be perfectly in place in order to get a shot and things very frequently go wrong even without random people walking on set and gumming up the works.

Distracting people or touching / moving things can absolutely hold up a shot and bring the entire set to a halt. The result of that is you'll end up keep a very tired crew out for much longer than they need to be. It can also easily cost a production assistant their job.

Film production isn't a secret. You can watch a documentary on it, read about it in forums or even get permission to observe a film shoot where they'll place you safely out of the way. There are much better ways to satisfy this curiosity than just walking onto a set.

>>> What’s interesting, though, is that even experienced meditators can see the value of a quick meditation in the middle of their day, like during their lunch break or right before an important phone call.

Yeah! I think that's a great aim. Cultivating a mindset of constant mindfulness is key. As an "experienced meditator," though, I have trouble seeing the value in using this app to do that. IMO there's little need for technology beyond a simple notification to remind you to bring your awareness back to the present, not unlike a bell during meditation. But, I think this is a case where I'm just not in the target demographic since quick guided meditations aren't part of my practice. I'm sure there are folks out there who also qualify as "experienced meditators" and who would find a 5 minute guided meditation valuable.

On further reflection, another thing I might be reacting to is the language surrounding meditation vs. mindfulness. These two things are really just different flavors of the same thing, but to me "meditating" means something much more specific -- i.e., a formal sit. We can meditate at any time, but when I hear "meditate" I think of sitting in a particular way and focusing long enough to at least quiet my mind. Since this _always_ takes longer than 5 minutes, I find the idea of "5 minute meditation" difficult to understand. But, "take 5 minutes to bring awareness back to the present moment" makes lots of sense to me. I think it might be an issue of semantics, and if your positioning is confusing to me it might be confusing to others as well. Just a thought!

Cool app! Thanks for sharing. I think this is great for an introduction to meditation and to help build a habit.

One difficulty I have with apps like this is that they're not necessarily incentivized to produce good meditation habits. If a user builds a real meditation practice then they're likely not going to want to use an app like this -- they'll probably want to meditate in silence and for much longer than 5 minutes. I'm curious how you think about what the ideal end-game is for each user and if you're concerned about churn? How do you plan to serve users who grow beyond 5 minute meditation?

Custom fields in tasks will be out in early 2016!

I'm a similar way in that I don't like to say something unless I'm pretty sure of it. When the loud, boisterous, assertive types try to push something on me I'll either question them a lot to test the depth of their knowledge or I'll just flat out tell them, "I'm not able to evaluate what you're saying since I don't know anything about it." When said with a bit of edge it's a great conversation stopper ;)

I was just in Manila a couple of weeks ago and found the Internet to be infuriating. I could simply not find a place with decent Internet. Even the mobile Internet was terrible. I left Manila and one point and went to a remote-ish island and got faster mobile Internet there than I did in Manila.

From my understanding, the reason for the slow speed is both infrastructure and business. Apparently all traffic in the Philippines is routed through California or something weird like that. On top of that, Filipino telecoms are corrupt and have little incentive to provide good service.

Internet is going to be spotty all over Asia unless you're in South Korea. The only reliable trick I've found is to find a local coworking space that caters to the tech startup scene. Typically these spaces have good, reliable Internet.

Otherwise, to deal with the censorship and monitoring VPN is the way to go.

When it comes down to it the wearable fitness tracker market has essentially no barrier to entry.

Can someone else make a similar device? Yes. Is there any reason someone has to use FitBit? No. Can someone else operate more efficiently? Probably. Does another company out there in the same space have better customer loyalty than FitBit? For sure.

This all spells major trouble for FitBit. Apple could easily achieve a much better economy of scale than FitBit and in the long run win a war of attrition. Even if Apple doesn't succeed in this space, the fact that the barriers to entry are low suggests that FitBit will never be wildly profitable. Any competitive advantage it currently has will not last.

I've lately spent a lot of time trudging through 10-K's and financial data, so this is really cool! I've almost made this exact service myself on a number of occasions but stopped due to the unreliability of XBRL, which meant that even if I had a sweet API I'd still have to go back and double-check the numbers by hand.

For me, Excel integration with products like CapIQ is good enough -- for now.