As a counter point, the hat is a great way to protect against AC water drips.
My biggest fear about walking around any city (but NYC in particular) is an actual AC machine dropping onto my head. Maybe you could offer the choice to drop down a hard hat on streets with high AC unit density (and then pick it up when I leave the area).
My little sister was so afraid of her Furby that at one point she threw it off our roof to try to kill it. That didn’t work so she ended up putting it in the freezer.
Hi, I’m the OP. I shared this because from a practical perspective it seems that filling a car’s fuel tank is one of the most volatile and essential line items in a typical household budget, and when expensive housing (owned or rented) stretches household budgets, prolonged increases in gas prices could feasibly be a “straw that breaks the camel’s back”, as another commenter mentioned. I appreciate the far more educated perspectives available on HN, so given some of the current parallels (expensive housing, rising prices) and some of the much more unfortunate new variables (war, inflation, supply chain), I wanted to raise the topic for discussion.
I personally think that trends like increased EV/hybrid ownership and WFH could mitigate this issue in particular, but I don’t think these are trends that apply to all Americans equally (especially those with more precarious finances).
> filling a car’s fuel tank is one of the most volatile and essential line items in a typical household budget
With work-from-home I'm finding that this is absolutely not the case anymore. I do walk a block every few days to buy simple groceries that I didn't used to do. This isn't about the car and mostly as a way of making up for the exercise I don't get by going to the office every day and associated incidental walking/meandering.
The FedEx/UPS/Amazon/Doordash vehicles still require fuel. The trucks bringing food and supplies to your local grocery store use fuel. The fertilizer used to grow your food required fuel. The construction and maintenance materials for your current dwelling require fuel. The plumbers, electricians, cleaners, trash collectors, locksmiths, etc require fuel. The container ships that transport good from China require fuel.
Literally everything you use in life, even if you're the most shut-in Hikikomori on the planet, is downstream of fuel. If the fuel cost increases are transitory, you might not notice it. But if they persist, you absolutely will.
Yes, the cost of energy has been important since the 1970's energy crisis. That fact doesn't add much to this conversation. I thought that the point being made was the direct use of fuel was a major line item in personal budget (or near-direct if substituting Uber rides for own car) which doesn't have to be the case.
I actually felt that sharing this provided a more credible starting point for the discussion than my own viewpoint. I did not think to confirm whether the paper had been published so I’ve learned my lesson on that.
To be honest I’m a bit surprised by the strong reactions as today’s news is filled with different perspectives on the economic consequences of higher gas prices (as unimportant as that is relative to the war in Ukraine) but I appreciate the feedback. There’s no intent to be dishonest or self-serving here but I’m sorry if that’s how it was construed.
One of my mom’s friends has a great method for keeping in touch with people. He keeps one of those daily tear-off calendars (filled with cat/dad jokes) on his desk. Each day he looks at the joke and decides who it reminds him, then just tears that page off and mails it to the person, along with his business card. No further explanation or note involved. I guess he just needs a lot of stamps.
This seems awesome. Just this morning I discussed 2-3 projects at work where we’d want to do something like this to save engineering time, without even knowing this existed. :)
Hi HN, I shared an earlier version of this back in August. Conceptually it was based on the idea of creating a "GitHub for buildings", where you can create and analyze a version history of your home and all the changes you make to it over time. Based on the extremely helpful feedback I received, I've reimagined this as a collaborative home management "platform" instead, where project detail/history is just one part of the value proposition (on top of helping people take care of little problems around the house, taking care of their stuff, coordinating documents and people, etc.).
From the feedback, I think there's still some value to knowledge transfer between owners, but it's been completely de-prioritized in terms of roadmap work. I'm excited to help homeowners create "instruction manuals" for their homes instead.
Really appreciate any additional feedback - thanks
Hi HN, I shared an earlier version of this back in August. Conceptually it was based on the idea of creating a "GitHub for buildings", where you can create and analyze a version history of your home and all the changes you make to it over time. Based on the extremely helpful feedback I received, I've reimagined this as a collaborative home management "platform" instead, where project detail/history is just one part of the value proposition (on top of helping people take care of little problems around the house, taking care of their stuff, coordinating documents and people, etc.).
From the feedback, I think there's still some value to knowledge transfer between owners, but it's been completely de-prioritized in terms of roadmap work. I'm excited to help homeowners create "instruction manuals" for their homes instead.
Really appreciate any additional feedback - thanks!
Each property is completely private by default unless you want to make it public (and currently that feature isn't ready anyway).
Thank you also for your clarification on version tracking vs. control - I will change that now! And I do plan to describe it as something other than "GitHub for Buildings" eventually, but assumed that description might register more effectively here while I hunt for feedback.
No offense at all - this is the part that makes me the most nervous too, and I'd be very glad to help you self-host it (if you wouldn't mind emailing me at dstein@shinybuildings.com to discuss further).
My biggest fear about walking around any city (but NYC in particular) is an actual AC machine dropping onto my head. Maybe you could offer the choice to drop down a hard hat on streets with high AC unit density (and then pick it up when I leave the area).