This article talks about doing tasks together with someone else as a productivity hack for folks with ADHD. Anyone tried it? Would love to hear about your experience.
"ByteDance’s applications TikTok and Helo are hugely popular among India’s teen and pre-teen population, especially in smaller towns. Many Chinese apps, including TikTok, have come under fire not only in India but also in the US, the UK, Hong Kong and Indonesia for content that is often dangerously close to exposing children to nudity and possibly those who seek to coerce or groom underage users into committing explicit acts."
Saved you a click. The rest of the article is fluff.
In its petition to the Supreme Court [snip] The app was like any other social media platform, it said, adding that singling out TikTok was discriminatory and arbitrary.
Eroding freedoms based on "for the children" is a slippery slope but in this case I believe it is well justified. There is a gross amount of what I'd call sexual aggression in these apps between primarily older males towards younger, often underage, girls (and boys). Users treat these apps like porn sites, whether its to view public instagram photos, private messages, or even public comments. If you cannot police the worst of these activities I do not believe governments should allow companies to profit off them.
Something REALLY has to pique my interest for me to get into the flow state and once I'm there I have a go at it like no one will; and once I'm out of that state, its really hard to go back into it unless something picks me back up. What I discovered is:
1) Break down your project into bits that excite you all the way through and imagine being excited while you're planning it. Have someone else be there with you with to plan this with you while you do it - helps with the planning. This chunking of the project itself is the battle. You beat this and you've conquered most of the problem.
2) Work on two - three manageable projects at the same time. This usually has worked for me my entire life. Alternate between them. When you get bored with one, pick the other one up and plan all of them out so you have interesting bits chunked out throughout.
3) Always work with high-energy individuals who would keep the energy up throughout the project. When you feel tired or bored, they will find a way to pick you back up again.
4) Always find projects that YOU can find some value in YOUR life.
I'm not there and it doesn't apply to me but I came here to tell you what an amazing thing you're unto. I wish you all the good in the world and hope you have / had a great Thanksgiving!
That is an amazing concept! I just shared it with a charity organisation that works with people who are battling depression (@TWLOHA). I wish you the best!
I second your thoughts. Our application was turned down and I got the same email in my inbox this morning. In my case, I had a different reaction to the rejection though, in that, I decided to take on the challenge head-on. But then again, now that I think of it, I'm deeply devastated that I couldn't get any feedback from them.
I'm a very curious person and have been all my life. Part of what makes me unique is my ability to go to great, if not seemingly impossible, lengths to find out things that pique my interest. And, YC, finally seemed like a place where I could belong after feeling so very different all my life.
It is painful to see them return your application with a generic 'no' because I have no way of knowing what I could improve or what is it that made them look away in the first place. I'm pissed off because I care.
To quote from Don Quixote, "there were no embraces, because where there is great love, there is often little display of it."
I hope they could give me some feedback. For once in my life, I'd know, for a fact, than having to ruminate and speculate over it.
I fully support your initial reaction to not let it slow you down. Despite my post, I am not deterred or upset in any way. Disappointed sure, but then again I could list a number of reasons why we might be rejected on paper. So, I won't make assumptions about why they passed.
I just hate to see an opportunity for learning missed, whether I am the student or teacher. I would also like to evaluate whether there is a fundamental problem they perceive, large or small, or if it is an issue of communication. And if they do see a valid major flaw, I sure would love to know about it.
Perhaps, as can be inferred from their "it's not you, it's me" breakup-esque language, they are concerned about causing damage by providing rejection feedback. Perhaps they are concerned they don't have sufficient time to evaluate applications thoroughly enough to provide reliably meaningful feedback. Or perhaps they are concerned that their feedback might be taken more strongly than intended. Perhaps in reality it is more beneficial overall for them NOT to provide feedback. But given a choice, I would opt for feedback and believe I would benefit from it.
I agree that they're being too nice to the founders thinking if their feedback could alter their paths. I like how you draw parallels to a break-up. But even during a break-up pussyfooting around what made you break up with the other person just makes them generally sour and guarded.
I've seen a lot of people who speculate (often for a long time), at the reasons for their break-up and that ends up consuming them. It might lead to them questioning the very basis of why they started doing something in the first place.
Feedback helps there! I guess, the sheer volume of applications make it impossible for them to individually respond to every application, but, without feedback, it just seems grim and insincere.
Not enough time is a completely valid reason. But I haven't heard that from them.
About the breakup analogy: the similarities are many, like how each one is different, sometimes complete honesty could do more harm than good, and sometimes there is no reason other than "we're just not right for each other" or "I met someone else." And maybe I should add, breaking up over email using a form letter is cold shit. Haha, just a joke, I know they probably do have good reasons for it.
One reason for not giving out a reason is that with the reasons given, collected and analyzed one could try to game the system by eliminating all signals that YC uses to detect bad applications without actually fixing the underlying issues.
There was a post lately about PG giving an interview and giving some shred of direction as to what makes YC reject applications and there was a big discussion on that fine point. He also said in the discussion that it was just a single way to discern between good and bad applications and that he doesn't give them all out so as not to be gamed around the indicators that YC uses to reject applications.
This is the explanation of pg that says his accent indicator is the only one he's willing to talk about. There was a long discussion and many posts and comments on several posts about this topic, and pg explained his position on the matter more deeply on: http://paulgraham.com/accents.html
Ah yes, thank you very much! Karma coming your way. I had read that essay and seen pg's comment. However, I didn't notice his implication that he wasn't willing to talk about most criteria because they could be faked/gamed. Kudos to you or whoever spotted that. However, I don't believe he said it was the only one he would discuss.
I am very sympathetic to their need to keep some of their cards private. While I and others might just be looking for a little constructive criticism for its own sake, no doubt there would be some who would try to use the information to portray themselves as something they are not or hide something that would hurt their chances. If this reduces the amount of feedback they could provide to a level where it wouldn't be helpful or makes it a complicated and risky affair, then it's reasonable to just avoid it altogether.
I am not sure why they wouldn't just say that though. Perhaps to avoid catalyzing attempts to identify and game their criteria?
Oh, I don't think its a matter of right or wrong. They have a right to decide whatever they think is best. I'm just trying to understand it.
You are right though, it is what it is. I suppose I am just interested in understanding why people do what they do, and this was an intriguing topic of personal relevance to me, and I assumed potentially to others here at this particular moment. But, I agree speculation on the topic is exhausted at this point. Thanks for humoring me anyways.
If time isn't the limiting factor, and I saw on some other thread about pg saying how scalability isn't a bottleneck either (for now), not giving feedback is a choice they have retained. LOVE for pg to comment on this.
Personally, I'd love to use this if it can provide context to my photos. No one gets context right. Couple that with discovery and you have a winning proposition.
I don't think the rejection has anything to do with the product itself. I reckon they got a lot of applications this year they wanted to fund that drowned out a lot of the other applications (such as mine, to ally different story though:)).
Appreciate the feedback. The challenge seems to be wrapping a revenue model around what amounts to a feature (context). The obvious play is to provide the common utility (backup/storage) which puts me in competition with the big dogs and storage is a bad business when you really get into it.
Originally had planned this as an app but took the idea to a startup weekend competition (we won) and mentors there were pushing me to find a monthly revenue model.
Now that YC has came and gone I may revisit simply building this as an app.
NOOOOOO!!! Don't give up! You could, monetise context. So, for instance, I'm looking at a pile of photos from Glastonbury from when I was at university. If you can tag the photos as from Glastonbury and intuitively know that Eminem performed there in 2007 (he didn't!), you could enable commerce on the content itself - Eminem one-click song downloads from 2008.
Think about it.. Same goes for you being with someone whose birthday pictures you're looking at and you can provide a context to them. Gifting is an area you can charge advertisers for. Think fashion!!! We take pictures all the time!! If you could provide the context to where the pictures were taken, the store it was taken in, and how there is a discount going on in that store, it would be amazing! Use the context of the photos, for instance, as 'subscriptions' to these contexts.
To elaborate, think of this scenario. I took a photo at H&M on Regent Street in London and then at Next further along the road. Since I took at photo at H&M, you can 'subscribe' me into H&M offers, etc. And same goes for Next. So when there are offers, an ongoing sale or either of the brands just looking to reach out to customers, you could be the conduit for them!!!!!!!!! THAT IS WORTH A LOOOOOTTT OF MONEY!
