Another tip, be cognizant of the difference between sustained drawing amperage, and spikes; when a server starts up, it can spike to 1.5+ amps. I've seen many circuits trip because, while the draw should have been in an acceptable range, spinning up a number of servers at the same time was too much.
There is a big difference though, and it revolves around choice. A casino owner can not claim, that a roulette player can choose to get better. At some point, the "house" gets to a theoretically optimal edge (either by fixing the broken roulette wheel, or kicking out card counters). They will always have that mathematical edge.
In a poker game, any player can choose to get better, so much so you get to a a point where both players are playing game theory optimal. At that point, there is NO edge.
I just launched https://www.lawncheer.com, I'll be honest, I am modeling everything I do after homejoy. All of Adora's articles/interviews etc, have been super beneficial and insightful, along with bookmarked.
Site loads for me. However I recall seeing your site many months ago, and I think it's a great idea, but misspelling "guarantee" on the homepage really gives it an illegitimate feel. Aside from that, best of luck. I think you've got a good idea.
I am from St. Louis where there is currently a restraining order due to conflicts with the local taxi union. My understanding was that Lyft had the argument of "we arent a real taxi service since the amount paid is optional, and its peer to peer", which is why they felt they could launch in markets that let taxi commissions monopolize a market. Doesn't this just turn that gray area into black and white?
In many cities, the black-car market is regulated differently from taxis, and if Lyft Plus fits the definition of a black-car service that might sidestep the regulatory concerns.
I am not a Steven King fan really, have only seen 1 or 2 of his movies, and never read anything by him; but I randomly picked up 11/22/63: A Novel, and read through it in 2 days, it was awesome.
As a customer, do you want to take the time to dig through reviews, or would you rather the service "just work". I am in the finishing stages of developing lawncheer, which is a service for lawn and garden work; one of the areas I struggled with, was the trade-off on transparency and the contractor development cycle; ie, lawncheer, handles everything, and there is little interaction between the contractor/customer and we have a big stake in making sure the contractors perform perfectly, or the site just facilitates a transaction, where contractors go through a basic vetting process, but the reviews are what will count. One is obviously much more easily scaled (review functionality is easy to program, onboarding and training is hard).
I guess it depends. Are we talking about a flat fee or is there an opportunity for the contractors to bid for my job? The more involved I am in the process, the less I expect to pay. But I might be fine with accepting individuals who have less experience/reviews if they will accept a lower rate. I do think the goal should be to find a specific contractor who will consistently service my yard. Meaning, I don't think I would be a fan of a new person showing up every week. That sort of thing works fine for a taxi service but I think the trust relationship changes because they're coming to my home.
Interesting; for the time being, my goal is actually the opposite. My goal (at least until data starts coming in more reliably), is to provide you the user w/ repeatable, affordable, and reliable lawn care. If I am doing my job right, the contractors from my customers perspective should be interchangeable; you build a trust relationship with lawncheer, my job is to shield you from any potential disasters. Plan is to do a flat percentage fee, for each mowing, and I will be setting the prices.
DevOps, at least imo, is not about technology. It is about culture, and applying practices to speed up the various loops across organizational groups (marketing, sales, developers, ops). Of course there will always be trade-offs, if you don't have the budget to hire both an expert in the technologies that, say for example, speed up configuration management, and prevent snowflake servers AND someone to develop the code for the product, the person you do hire, will have to either pull double duty, or the org will have to plan for the fact that it is probably going to be doing "stuff" slower.
A police officer friend once told me, to put your hands out the window when you get pulled over, and leave them there, until the office tells you to stop. Then you casually say sorry and mention that an cop-friend told you to do it, to put their (the cops) minds at ease while they walk up. Anecdotal evidence on my end, suggests it works.
I have heard to just keep you hands on the top of the wheel, and when they ask for license and registration I say "Ok, my license is in my back pocket, and the registration is in the center console. I am getting the license out first." Then I move my hands off the steering wheel.
The trick with the other guy's thing is that he gets a reason to mention a cop friend. It's a conversation trick.
Situation 1: Cop walks up. You mention your cop friend. Trouble will ensue because you're obviously trying to say "I'm friends with policemen."
Situation 2: Cop walks up. Asks why you're doing obviously bizarre thing. Say it's because your cop friend asked you to so that police can know you're empty handed. You've now responded to a question and managed to mention that you're a friend with the police. He can't hold that against you because he's the one that asked.
The "bizarre" thing, he was referring to is holding your hands out the window. Not everyone does that typically; and one of the most important things you can do is to keep your hands where the officer can see them as they approach. It's like a "social cue" that tells them you are clued in. They might be a little more willing to let you go.
