Show HN: A cross platform terminal library in Racket https://ift.tt/3c92cC0

Show HN: A cross platform terminal library in Racket https://ift.tt/3ohK1wz January 25, 2021 at 10:39PM

Launch HN: Aviron (YC W21) – High-Intensity Peloton for Rowing https://ift.tt/3ojdQwB

Launch HN: Aviron (YC W21) – High-Intensity Peloton for Rowing Hey HN! I’m Andy, founder of Aviron ( https://ift.tt/3cbfrC3 ). We make a high-intensity version of Peloton for rowing, with competitive games, live races and strength programs. Our content puts a focus on HIIT (high intensity interval training) due to its physical and cognitive benefits. I feel like sometimes this pisses the hardcore rowers off but I’m not a rower, I’m a tech guy. I also think fitness is important and have been working out all of my adult life. Before Aviron, I worked full time and long hours so I did a lot of my thinking during late night gym sessions. Like many people I avoided the rower because not only did I not enjoy cardio but damn that machine was hard and boring. There was a moment at some point in 2016 when I realized I could do something with this. The connected fitness market in the US at that time was small but growing rapidly. Aviron is a rowing machine because it’s the most efficient and effective workout you can have in a short amount of time on one machine. The rowing motion is low impact, engages 85% of muscles, is very difficult and as a result can also be boring. This makes the rowing machine an ideal ‘candidate’ to pair with the gaming-inspired, competitive content I began to envision in 2016. The research was telling me there was a definite potential market niche I could fill but what I didn't know was that no manufacturer would speak to me. I probably called and emailed 50 manufacturers. I eventually kickstarted a few conversations and finally a relationship, by flying to Taiwan, connecting with a local who could translate, and knocking on doors in person. It sounds reasonable in hindsight but the process to finalizing a production contract start to finish took me a full year. A year of trying to understand the manufacturing landscape, developing relationships and convincing potential suppliers that I would eventually be worth their time. Ultimately my key takeaway is that Taiwanese manufacturing relationships are just that - relationships. Manufacturers are looking for long-term trusting partnerships and they are much less motivated by money than my initial assumption. I’m reminded of this constantly - this month alone I have received emails re: product delays twice - and I stupidly tried to throw money at the problem, in the process offending the Taiwan team by implying they would work harder if money was on the table. Finding and building a solid relationship with a production partner was challenging but I would give it a 7/10 relative to the hurdles that came later. The manufacturer had no experience or interest in getting the machine to work along with our custom android touchscreen. As much as I see myself as a “tech guy”, I don’t have an engineering degree. My dad does and so does my brother but I went the business degree route. Long story short, figuring out the details of making these two pieces work together was a nightmare. Again, in hindsight, it’s kind of cool - I understand my machine inside and out; I’m confident I could take it apart down to the screws and put it back together. I can also work comfortably with an oscilloscope and understand how most of the components work on a typical fitness equipment circuit board - there was a lot of circuit board soldering trial and error at one point. I knew that I was taking on a lot with a software and hardware venture but what nobody tells you is how many miles you’re going to drive and fly when you’re taking on hardware. During our slow tip-toe pivot from B2B to B2C sales, we discovered home customers would find 10x the problems a gym would. There was a week in 2019 I drove to a customer’s home 6 hours away multiple times a week for nearly a month. Each trip I thought we had found the solution; the ride back was crushing. This was one of many problems we faced. I’m happy to be able to say the bugs are mostly worked out! Our customers navigate a 22” touchscreen to browse 250ish content options - like my favorite and the first game we ever developed - Last Hope, an end-of-the-world inspired game where you’re being chased by zombies. As your row to escape the Ai will benchmark your fitness output and adjust the zombies’ speed to maintain a challenging pace for your fitness level. The content for Aviron was developed with strength training and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) in mind. For example, one of our 6 workouts categories is “Pros vs. Joes”, a program that allows you to compete against pre-recorded Olympians and professional athletes in a race. Our customers are fitness enthusiasts who don’t enjoy long cardio workouts and crave the competitive and challenging pace of activities like CrossFit and F45, at home - especially throughout Covid. HIIT workouts tend to be shorter, have been proven to improve cognitive ability and help slow the aging process via preservation of DNA. To me, the dual cognitive and physical benefits were really key. I began to work out in my teens, physically I felt better and my self esteem improved. Cognitively, I went from dealing with undiagnosed ADHD and struggling my way through school to slowly noticing an improvement. People told me I was “growing out of” ADHD - which is probably partially true - but something clicked when I was researching fitness programming for Aviron. Learning about HIIT and it’s (data proven) benefits, I started to realize that my commitment to consistent and challenging physical fitness had likely paid a large part in my “growing out it” as well. Currently, we have bootstrapped Aviron to a good place; we’ve sold nearly a thousand rowers to gyms, hotels, schools and even Nike headquarters as well as homes. Or churn rate is <1% and our customers are telling us they’re happy. And they’re paying their membership every month so we believe them. :) We are continually working on Aviron to improve the software, content and customer experience so if you have a chance please check us out and let me know what you think. I’m excited to hear from the community. I’ll be hanging out in the comments all day. January 25, 2021 at 10:23PM

Show HN: Does.Design – An inclusive community for designers https://ift.tt/3c8J86O

Show HN: Does.Design – An inclusive community for designers https://does.design January 25, 2021 at 10:16PM

Show HN: Jel, the Video Game for Collaboration https://ift.tt/3qNsEVS

Show HN: Jel, the Video Game for Collaboration https://jel.app January 25, 2021 at 09:59PM

Meet Manny Yekutiel, New Addition to the SFMTA Board of Directors

Meet Manny Yekutiel, New Addition to the SFMTA Board of Directors
By Lori Phelan

On Tuesday, January 14, Mayor London Breed officially welcomed small-business owner Manny Yekutiel as one of two new members of the SFMTA Board of Directors. The appointment fills the sixth of the seven SFMTA board positions.

Yekutiel is currently the owner of Manny's, a restaurant, bar, coffee shop, political bookstore and civic social gathering space built at the corner of 16th and Valencia in the Mission district. He is also a member of the city's Small Business Commission and board member of the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association.

"I'm excited to nominate Manny Yekutiel to serve on the SFMTA Board of Directors," said Mayor Breed in a tweet. "He knows how to bring people together, and I am confident in his ability to bring a fresh perspective to the Board and represent the needs of SF small businesses and residents."

In Mayor Breed's press release he was quoted saying, "I am deeply humbled and honored to be considered to serve the City I love as a member of the board of the SFMTA."

"Mobility is freedom and it's my belief that a City like ours should aim to create access to that freedom to everyone, everywhere. Our transportation system can and should do that. The relationship between our transport system, streets, workers, and small businesses has never been more important. I've seen firsthand how decisions made by the SFMTA, in the case of temporarily closing streets to cars, has given small businesses a fighting chance to survive this crisis. If given the opportunity to serve, I promise to be a fierce advocate for all San Franciscans and will bring my perspective and my passion as a small-business owner to the Board."

According to his profile in Milken Scholars, Manny's was awarded Small Business of the Year by the California State Senate and has been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle during its first year in business. The business has served more than 55,000 cups of coffee and tea, hosted over 500 civic events for the community, including over 150 local nonprofits and 17 of the 2020 democratic presidential candidates.

The restaurant is run by the nonprofit Farming Hope, which runs an apprentice program for formerly incarcerated and formerly homeless individuals and places them into full-time employment.

Before founding Manny's, Yekutiel was the proprietor of ESY Strategies, a political and philanthropic consulting organization.

Born in Los Angeles, he worked for President Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign during 2015. As a San Francisco resident since November 2012, he is part of the area's active Jewish community.

Yekutiel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Williams College and was honored as one of the leaders under 30 years old in field of law and policy nationwide by Forbes magazine in 2015.

SFMTA Board of Directors

Twice monthly the agency's board of directors meet at City Hall to discuss and provide policy oversight for safe and efficient transportation in San Francisco in accordance with the city charter and the Transit First Policy.

This seven-member board, appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, typically meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 1 p.m., unless otherwise noted. Meetings are open to everyone and are streamed live through SFGovTV. Additional information such as agendas, resolutions and legislation passed by the Board can be accessed through our public-facing website, SFMTA.com.

Published January 25, 2021 at 09:40PM
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Show HN: I coded a web augmented reality engine with tensorflowJS https://ift.tt/3phsJk9

Show HN: I coded a web augmented reality engine with tensorflowJS https://ift.tt/39dMxj4 January 25, 2021 at 09:16PM

Show HN: Retrospective on having my “Show HN” on the front-page https://ift.tt/3chGrjk

Show HN: Retrospective on having my “Show HN” on the front-page I was lucky enough to have my site trending on Friday (https://ift.tt/3p909l9). It’s an icon site that lists open source icons. I wanted to share some stats on the results after 3 days. Worth noting was that I submitted it on a Friday morning (at which point I went for a walk and a coffee; eek). - 24,997 page views. I (embarrassingly) didn’t have GA set up when I first submitted it, so this is probably missing a few hundred page views - 21 “feedback” emails (half of which were spam). I assume such a high percentage of these were spam because my Feedback form didn’t require email addresses. - 5 note-worthy emails from people which may result in some sort of collaboration - 10 mailing list subscriber sign ups. Running through MailChimp, and it’s not emphasized at all (eg. just a link in the footer). Purposefully not email-gating people to download, since I want this to be a very developer-centric site, and it feels a bit unsettling to email-gate other people’s digital content. - 2,670 icon downloads - 74 comments. A big caveat to this one: I replied to almost every comment. The thinking is that if someone took the time to comment (even just a “thanks”), I wanted to take the time to reply to them as well. Also, I purposefully didn’t reply to people who were commenting on their own alternative services. Perhaps a tad uncouth, but I didn’t want to shine a light on a comment that was designed to detract from my submission. I would have made an exception if there was substance to those comments beyond the detraction. - One founder from a related (and leading) service (Flaticon) jumping into the comments. I really appreciated this. Similar to how Patrick Collison (of Stripe) is often seen replying to comments on Stripe-related posts. This founder submitted thoughtful replies to people’s criticisms, which I thought was quite considerate. January 25, 2021 at 08:39PM