Blake Burch

@Austen Watched the demo day live yesterday. Based on the projects, shifting towards a YCombinator-esque model would work well. Job placement first, but if you'd like to continue a businesses built during the program, Gauntlet owns a %. You could double as an AI startup incubator.

I think for the next cohort of Gauntlet AI we start or turn around 4-6 companies during the cohort. Teams of 3-4 people. Students keep all cash generated during the cohort. If companies are successful students can keep running them or take a $200k+ salary (or sometimes both)

Uhhh, hate to be alcohol's defender here, but saying taste is an excuse is wild. People like the flavors of all sorts of things. For myself, don't enjoy the tipsy feeling, but I do enjoy the taste of a well made german beer or a sweet syrupy bourbon barrel imperial stout. I usually have one or two and I'm done. Wish I could have the taste without the feeling. Won't drink "common beers". They're terrible.

@falld3v_ Because it makes you feel happy after, and then it has an addictive property that makes you want to drink more to keep that buzz up The taste thing is an excuse so people can lie about it not being about getting tipsy or drunk, it is for everyone

I don't know anyone who still regularly drinks alcohol A year ago or so, we had an old friend who was a daily drinker visit our little beach village He obviously had an alcohol problem, but he also said he didn't feel like changing that, spreading his arms wide during the dinner I had with him shouting "I LOVE ALCOHOL" and then buying shots for the waiter staff and forcing them to drink it 🤦‍♂️ Every time we met him alcohol was involved Since he had zero plan to change that we stopped hanging out with him I've seen A LOT of families around me destroyed by alcohol and I have zero plan to go the same way It seems people can handle alcohol fine until life gives them setbacks and then it spirals out into a full blown addiction, at a time frame of 40 years everyone's life will have setbacks so that's a massive risk Me and my friends are all in our 30s and slowly designed our life around making cool things, being financially independent from making those things and then enjoying life, hanging out with each other, and health: fitness, sports, sauna, good clean food, no processed junk (okay but only very very sometimes ;) and almost never ever alcohol Having someone come into the healthy community you built for years and try to get everyone to fuck up again was an interesting experience Luckily nobody was interested to participate Not a judgement thing btw, I think you should do whatever in your 10s and 20s, but in your 30s it starts actually affecting your health Which is also cool if you want that but I don't want that personally nor do my friends One photo of that night, everyone drank sparkling water except our guest I'm personally very happy to see alcohol dying out

🎙️ "Dashboards don't pay the bills; decisions do." @BlakeBurch_ on @datadotworld Catalog & Cocktails pod w/ @juansequeda & @TimGasper. If you're tracking pipeline health instead of revenue lift, pour a drink and press play! 🍸 bit.ly/4irxLW2

@FitFounder That's why black coffee is the best coffee! All the energy, none of the calories.

A lot of people are taking in 300 calories in their coffee without realizing it.

@nickgraynews Private business chooses who they want to do business with. More at 11...

friendly reminder that SXSW in Austin is a left-wing organization that banned military and defense startups from participating as well as cancelling their Army and defense contractor sponsorships

@dhh I had been planning to buy an air quality monitor for the home office for a while now. Your presentation just pushed me over the edge. Thanks for doing the research and sharing the knowledge!

And we've had tons of cases were people found serious problems with their ventilation or pollutants. One employee had a new stove that was installed wrong, poisoning the whole house. The Awair caught it. Now I have one in every room in our place. It's saved us multiple times!

Dealing with this lovely dilemma in a new apartment right now as well. CO2 concentration is bad in itself, but it's also the canary in the coalmine for all other air contaminants, like chemicals (VOC). There's only one remedy: Ventilation with fresh air.

@dvassallo What you're effectively saying is "If the personal risk is small, it's ok to break the law". Some people aren't as comfortable with that stance.

y’all, “merchant of record” is a psyop. If you’re a small merchant you have nothing to worry about outside your jurisdiction. And if you’re a big merchant, you’ll want your accountant to handle your taxes not your payment processor. Also, many states in the US define the merchant of record as the one who sets prices, handles customer support, processes refunds, is responsible for recalls, etc. So from a legal perspective, the merchant of record is still you, regardless of what Stripe marketing tells you.

@Austen Yes, but only if you let people in Austin join live. 😉

Should GauntletAI hold a public demo day to show you all our capstone projects?

TIL you can create SVG animations with Cursor. They aren't beautiful, but they do the job. @rileybrown_ai Do you know of any tool that specializes in making really strong animated graphics like this?

@evisdrenova Agreed. What do you feel is the right wedge to get people to break away and try something new?

I wish someone would build a better LinkedIn. There are so many blatant product enhancements to make. But the network effects are too strong. Would need to somehow break through those to even stand a chance.

I see people double post events on luma and Meetup. Meetup RSVPs are usually 2-3x.

I had someone ask me last night - "Wait, people still use Meetup? I find all my events on Instagram" While the popularity is lessening, it's still the easiest way to reach people for public events.

@cahouser BRB, switching to work outdoors on a projector.

The Cathedral Effect says you have "bigger" thoughts in rooms with high ceilings. I think this applies to screen size as well. You will have smaller, more constrained thoughts on mobile. Medium-sized thoughts on laptop screens. Your biggest, most expansive thinking will happen when you work on huge monitors.

@asmartbear Agreed that the bags are bad UX. You can't tell until you pull up. The top and sides of the pump need LED light strips. Green if available, red if not. Bonus points for coordinating with the overhead lighting. Would be great to see the ground be red if you can't use it.

The universal sign that the gas pump is out of order is still the thin plastic bag haphazardly stuffed around the handle. Really? No better way to communicate?

Anyone know of free SXSW events worth attending for data/AI? Haven't done any research yet.

@FitFounder Before wearing Vibram toe shoes in college, I couldn't use the muscles in my feet to spread/close my toes. So they do something!

I'm doing a test where I'm wearing toe shoes for 30 days straight to see their effect on my feet. Not sure what I expect to find but will report results in a month.

@jacobmparis @theo When two search engines love each other very much...

@BlakeBurch_ @theo Please tell me what !banging is I’m too embarrassed to ask publicly

I may or may not have just made my own search engine...

@jacobmparis @theo Just do Kagi. It's nice to pay for no ads + personalization. With DDG I was !g banging almost constantly because of bad results. Haven't ever needed to with Kagi.

@theo is it good? because I've switched to duck when I got zen and so far the lack of personalization brings up way too much non-dev results (which google was good at)

Tag onto this. I'm still sad that the St. Elmo Food Hall in Austin fell through after the pandemic and the facility got bought by a bowling/arcade franchise. 🤮

America really needs more food halls. Great 3rd place to spend time without purchasing pressure but many options when you're in the mood.