Random Chat, Thoughts, Posts, and/or Rants Thread

[Kid]

I hope this thread is an OK place for this - didn't seem worthy of a new thread.
When considering app development, especially for iOS, is it critical that you own a Mac?

I'm thinking of purchasing a Macbook Pro. I actually already hired someone months back to develop my app, but it's been sitting in a folder because I don't have a Mac, Swift, XCode or whatever Apple users use for development in 2020 (haven't used a Mac since 2010).

Any other ways to test it out and get it going?

Apologies if this is the wrong place for this random question.

Yes you need a Mac. To develop an iOS or macOS app, you need to use Xcode and have access to its SDK. Xcode is only available with Macs.

I’ve read about people making a Hackintosh, which is where you run a bootlegged version of macOS on a virtual machine, but this works very poorly and honestly isn’t even worth trying.

Not sure if its same as Hackintosh, but there was, i think Sierra, that could be launched on VM with just a some oneliner change to VM. It was slow to startup, even on 16GB ram that i had at that time (but with no SSD).

I didn't run XCode on it so i can't say how the experience is.

@Ninjakid what exactly "works very poorly" means?

And i don't know if cash is constraint for OP, but if so maybe buying old used mac would do?

 

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[Guest-5ty5s4]

Not sure if its same as Hackintosh, but there was, i think Sierra, that could be launched on VM with just a some oneliner change to VM. It was slow to startup, even on 16GB ram that i had at that time (but with no SSD).

I didn't run XCode on it so i can't say how the experience is.

@Ninjakid what exactly "works very poorly" means?

And i don't know if cash is constraint for OP, but if so maybe buying old used mac would do?

I've been holding off a long time on buying a Mac because they are so much more expensive than PC for the same hardware. Cash isn't really an issue, just the fact that I don't like to buy things

It sounds like it will probably be worth getting.

Apple is THE example of productocracy and CENTS, imo

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

Some scumbag called my granddad, said that I was in a car accident, & that he needed to get $4000 cash to him ASAP for my benefit. My grandfather (who is in his 80s) nearly did, but luckily he called his daughter first, who reached out to me, & we cleared everything up.

I told a friend in NY about it, and she sent me a screenshot of a FB post of her describing the same thing happening to his grandparents.

There are some truly disgusting people out here & I hope that sharing this story saves at least 1 person from getting scammed.

 

[Andy Daniels]

Some scumbag called my granddad, said that I was in a car accident, & that he needed to get $4000 cash to him ASAP for my benefit. My grandfather (who is in his 80s) nearly did, but luckily he called his daughter first, who reached out to me, & we cleared everything up.

I told a friend in NY about it, and she sent me a screenshot of a FB post of her describing the same thing happening to his grandparents.

There are some truly disgusting people out here & I hope that sharing this story saves at least 1 person from getting scammed.

Same exact thing happened to my grandpa. My theory is somehow they get access to the contacts on your phones, find the ones listed as Grandma or Grandpa, target them & so on.

Some people truly are disgusting. Shameful for sure.

I'm glad you guys got it figured out!

 

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[WillHurtDontCare]

Same exact thing happened to my grandpa. My theory is somehow they get access to the contacts on your phones, find the ones listed as Grandma or Grandpa, target them & so on.

Some people truly are disgusting. Shameful for sure.

I'm glad you guys got it figured out!

Of course this ripple makes the story worse. Though, I am more likely to believe that they just look people up online and find family relations and phone numbers online.

 

[becks22]

Obituaries have this information. If one grandparent passes away, that obit has all the information a scammer needs. Sometimes they will even list locations of where certain family member resides. The honest truth is, these scammers will never cease to exist. The only thing we can do is to educate and make people aware of these types of scams.

 

[Bekit]

Some scumbag called my granddad, said that I was in a car accident, & that he needed to get $4000 cash to him ASAP for my benefit. My grandfather (who is in his 80s) nearly did, but luckily he called his daughter first, who reached out to me, & we cleared everything up.

I told a friend in NY about it, and she sent me a screenshot of a FB post of her describing the same thing happening to his grandparents.

There are some truly disgusting people out here & I hope that sharing this story saves at least 1 person from getting scammed.

That's so terrible! So glad your grandpa got out of it before being fleeced. I've also heard of versions of this story where they claim that the grandkid is in jail and needs to be bailed out.

Not sure if your grandpa would watch Kitboga or Jim Browning on Youtube, but their channels are very educational for older people who tend to be the targets of these types of scams (and their scambaiting is pretty entertaining to boot).

 

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[Ninjakid]

Not sure if its same as Hackintosh, but there was, i think Sierra, that could be launched on VM with just a some oneliner change to VM. It was slow to startup, even on 16GB ram that i had at that time (but with no SSD).

I didn't run XCode on it so i can't say how the experience is.

@Ninjakid what exactly "works very poorly" means?

And i don't know if cash is constraint for OP, but if so maybe buying old used mac would do?

Because to run a Hackintosh successfully, your computer would need to be able to run the VM, with macOS, AND Xcode on it. Xcode alone is a very RAM demanding program as it is. Wanna run that on a VM? Yeah good luck with that... it will not only be painfully slow, but since you need to bootlegged version of macOS to run it on, there's no guarantee you'll even have all the right features available to you.

If you have a powerful enough computer, sure you probably could run it. But that computer will cost A LOT more money than you would buying a MacBook Pro that can just run Xcode natively.

You won't even need a MacBook Pro. You can buy a MacBook Air for cheaper than most gaming laptops and it will work just fine.

 

[ZF Lee]

Today, I truly underestimated how f*cked up college kids in business school are.

How so?

Enter my Integrative Business Practices unit in my current semester.

It’s a fantastic unit, where you can research markets and channels to create products and strategy with the canvas model and stuff.

The lecturer also gives lots of feedback and pokes lots of holes in your strategy straight-faced.

But what sucks?

The students I am paired up with for group assignments.

They aren’t the worst sort who ghost themselves or never contribute- but they just mostly pulled general crap from the textbook and they didn’t look at forums, markets, competitors and stuff to make the pitch presentation decent.

I was assigned to do an empathy map section for our latest presentation-and I nailed it by review-and-Reddit mining the hell out of the sleep/wake-up market, since our product was a sleep/wake up lamp.

Found out what books the target market would read (e.g habit books like Miracle Morning)

Their fears (e.g fear of landing a shitty job because of waking up late)

Their gains (e.g so happy to go to sleep or wake-up without phone-binging)

Since I was gonna have a trip for the weekend(it was last week), I sent in my work early to the group.

And that was the ONLY work that was done by us overall...across the 3-4 days before the presentation (today)

needless to say, they did last minute work all of yesterday...and let’s say my lecturer had plenty of feedback for us after our presentation.

Me thinks that could have been mitigated if we met even one time for lecturer consultations, but I was SICK and TIRED of ‘playing hero’ and shepherding around. I let someone else be the group leader, and she doesn’t have the iron-grip of Lee Kuan Yew, for some reasons.

I listened to the other presentations of the other groups, and I got the same

I realised that:

-most business school students had NO business starting a business, if they never did their research

-Group assignments DO NOT simulate the workplace, no matter how much the profs tell you they do.

I can’t fire, negotiate, filter as fast and furious as I do with freelancing.

we have anti-loafing measures like meeting minutes and peer reviews, but how much can they work? And the issue is not lazy kids, but simply because the folks taking the unit are WEAK.

By weak, I mean folks who only ‘do work’ and not bring new, powerful things to the table.


I’m not going to take over as group leader...I’ll let the current one continue as long the others don’t complain. I’ll just suggest ideas off and on, but I’ll just fill in whatever I’m asked to do.

Maybe it might make things worse, but in my last few semesters,over-delivering on my college work doesn’t even earn me extra money or a client testimonial.

This greatly enrages me because I’ve done similar business projects last semester (on my own) and in a social enterprise unit in college...with more solid-headed folks-to good results.

It also makes me real angry, seeing how business school kids fail-epic by starting off any work without even looking what their market thinks.

Not even a 3-5 min Reddit search!

That’s F*cking wrong, and your product is dead before it’s even born.

Looking at folks discuss fluff in their presentations is like seeing Noah’s flood in action-destruction and dismay.


Try that stupid shit as a copywriter in a John Carlton-era agency, and you’ll end up jobless and half-naked under a bridge in a few days.

If this is what I can expect from my current generation of business school students, I can’t blame employers for treating interns like cheap-chess pieces.


TLDR: Just F*ck group assignments and ignorant, ‘I’ll do the bare minimum’ business school kids who have poor time management skills and poor initiative to research (despite X hours of Business Analytics unit time)

This is one reason why I don’t want to enter the workforce and get a job. I don’t want to work with idiots like them.

All the more reason to freelance or do my own business or catch my own meat.

Congrats, today you learned that most b school students aren't there to learn to start their own business - they're there to learn how to work IN a business.

They want that sweet, sweet corporate "security". A "good" job, a "good" salary, a pat on the head from parents & peers. Even plenty that say they want to start their own business - watch their actions come graduation.

Just like you wouldn't be surprised if a chemistry student wanted to work in a lab, or an architecture student wanted to work in a firm of architects. Sure, some will want to start their own lab or firm, but most won't.




Now, priorities are important, knowing when to pull back is important, but I want to present one alternative view point for your consideration - I'm not saying it's necessarily right for you right now. Right, enough caveating



You're - quite rightly - hating on "bare minimum" students who drag you down.



You're frustrated because your efforts to go above & beyond don't seem to be reaping you any rewards, not money or testimonials of course, but I'm guessing from your actual "clients" in this situation - your professors are probably not giving you extra credit or a higher grade, or even just verbally acknowledging "I see you there, doing better work than everyone, keep going."

Your response to this is:

BUT I'LL JUST FILL IN WHATEVER I'M ASKED TO DO​

I get your frustration, but there's a danger of you doing precisely what you despise.

Consider - there's a more important audience than your college professors, or student peers, or anyone else at the b school - YOU.

You are witness to all your actions & this affects your self-esteem, your mindset, your self-belief. You are constantly reinforcing or altering your identity with everything that you do.

Don't do something you hate.

As @Lex DeVille put it in his phd thread:

Get used to being the best.​

In fact, I just looked that bit up, & the whole quote deserves a repeat here I think.



Even if your professors don't notice or care, you'll notice, you'll care, & at some point someone else in the world will notice & care what you're doing, but this time they may be a client or an investor with a fat cheque, & they'll be watching you execute seemingly effortlessly, because by this time, your excellence will be a habit.


Believe me, I'm writing this post trying to reorient my own trajectory here as much as I'm trying to make the same suggestion to you.





Amen brother.

But the scary thing is sometimes group assigned DO simulate the workplace in the sense that you have to work with people you do not pick - if you're not freelance, or the boss.

You know what you have to do.


One final thing:



This reminds me of when I was doing some freelance work for a day at the headquarters of a huge multi-national company you would have heard of. The kind of place where you assume everyone has at least a "good" job & a "good" wage. It was a nice day so the canteen had decided to put on a barbecue outside - you just had to pay inside, get a little voucher, then you could hand it over to the barbecue team outside. They'd clearly printed a bunch of these simple vouchers to a standard page & chopped them up. No problem, it served a purpose. When I turned them over however, I noticed something - they'd stamped the back. I was immediately transported back to university where this is the kind of thing they'd do to stop cheap-a$$ student thinking they're funny & clever by photocopying the voucher to scam some free food. I felt so infantilised. Did they really have to do this? Here?! We're talking <$7. I was suddenly very aware of how much the giant office building felt like a campus, & how very, very glad I was that I'd moved on in life, & not just swapped one paternal institution for another.


@ZF Lee - how long to you have left till you graduate?

Alright, some updates on that college group assignment.

Here's the 'extras' I have done:

-Offered to send my team's questions to clarify at a Zoom consultation call with my lecturer
(70% of the team couldn't come together, for whatever reason)

-Ended up going alone to that call, as my group leader 'was busy all day', despite having to postpone a few meetings and copywriting stuff myself.

But now we have clarified some vital details for the project.

- Jotted down the meeting minutes (mandatory) for TWO group discussions
(again, I volunteered to help...my lecturer was complaining about the sheer lack of detail in our group's mandatory meeting minutes for the last hand-in...which was done by my leader)

I felt disgusted the entire time, but after all's said and done, I felt somewhat lighter and even a little pleased that at least some parts of the work were under my control.

We'll see how all these culminate for the upcoming group presentation...

 

[LordGanon]

I. Am. Never. Taking. Lion's Mane. Again.

I'm so damn aggressive for no reason, and now I can't sleep. My woman is probably really pissed off because I left the bed and am making the dog nervous.

But...I got time to read books on marketing now, don't I?

 

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[sparechange]

Bought some beer for an impromptu ''business meeting''

I don't drink, and oi this stuff tastes like piss (Canadian Molson) Much rather enjoy an ice cold Coca Cola hmmmmm, seriously don't get how people become alcoholics. Now snickers bars and soft drinks? I can vibe with that...

 

[Kid]

Unlimited ideas, if you ever would have shortage

Startup Ideas powered by OpenAI

Ideas AI is an A.I. that generates startup ideas using GPT-3 by OpenAI

ideasai.net

 

[Daniel A]

If you meditate or want to get into meditating, check out this Indiegogo campaign I backed.

inHarmony - Technology to Optimize Your Meditation

 

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[ItsAJackal]

Ever since the forum was redesigned, I've never been able to figure out how to filter and only read the gold threads and notable threads. Was that option removed? Maybe I'm just blind, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to just find those tags.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Ever since the forum was redesigned, I've never been able to figure out how to filter and only read the gold threads and notable threads. Was that option removed? Maybe I'm just blind, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to just find those tags.

It's on my list of things to do, to make more visible. Even I forget they are there...

 

[ItsAJackal]

It's on my list of things to do, to make more visible. Even I forget they are there...

View attachment 34794

Is that an INSIDERS only feature? My options stop after the unanswered header.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Is that an INSIDERS only feature? My options stop after the unanswered header.

View attachment 34797

No it is not, let me check.

EDIT: It should be viewable now. Thanks for the heads-up on this, it was a permissions error.

 

[ItsAJackal]

No it is not, let me check.

EDIT: It should be viewable now. Thanks for the heads-up on this, it was a permissions error.

Yep, that worked. Thanks!

 

[sparechange]

Went to some open houses here in West Vancouver, one for rent at $50k a month and the other for sale at $20,000,000. Ended up staying there for a night.

Lovely being in two places that are completely different, it's like switching through alternate realities, hours prior I was filming some content in the DTES watching heroin addicts OD and kill them self on the streets, then a few hours later watching the moon in a $20m property listening to ocean splashes enjoying life, peace and quiet. Saw a cute little mink or weasel crawling around that approached me, being far away from people and connecting with nature having peace and solitude is the real value of wealth.

Looked kinda like this, never seen one before.

 

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[ZF Lee]

Alright, some updates on that college group assignment.

Here's the 'extras' I have done:

-Offered to send my team's questions to clarify at a Zoom consultation call with my lecturer
(70% of the team couldn't come together, for whatever reason)

-Ended up going alone to that call, as my group leader 'was busy all day', despite having to postpone a few meetings and copywriting stuff myself.

But now we have clarified some vital details for the project.

- Jotted down the meeting minutes (mandatory) for TWO group discussions
(again, I volunteered to help...my lecturer was complaining about the sheer lack of detail in our group's mandatory meeting minutes for the last hand-in...which was done by my leader)

I felt disgusted the entire time, but after all's said and done, I felt somewhat lighter and even a little pleased that at least some parts of the work were under my control.

We'll see how all these culminate for the upcoming group presentation...

Alright, the group presentation was finished just now.

We missed out a few parts like a VRIO table (which NO ENTREPRENEUR HERE ON TFLF USES), but I noticed we had much fewer complaints from our tutor.

Our tutor mostly touched on a few minor details, namely sustainability elements and investors (self-funding vs external).

Better than the last presentation in the sense that I didn't have 3-5 pages of feedback and shortcomings to settle this time...only had just a few liners worth of issues to settle for the real business report.

I stayed on to watch the other groups' presentations.

They were missing out on more crucial elements of the pitch, like competitive advantages of their product, and choice of relevant stakeholders.

So, a win for us?

Not really.

I was reading some email from Rich Schrefen the other day:
'Leaders live only by tomorrow's victories, not the wins of the past.'
(heavily rephrased)

So I still have to keep my eyes open, especially when the semester has not ended yet.

Yesterday night, my group leader was talking to me about one of our members, who was clearly skimping on her sections on product comparisons. Poor research, poor details, and of course she missed the VRIO table on her watch. And she's a MARKETING MAJOR.

I'll ask my leader to try to switch up roles for the next presentation...maybe I should try to take more marketing-related or 'Big Idea' sections.

BTW, r/ShittyGroupMembers is a thing.
If students are willing to pay more (rather than steal Chegg or CourseHero subscriptions), I'd do an info product targeting that segment, considering how group assignments are a torn in the college-flesh.

 

[ItsAJackal]

Didn't think this was worth a whole thread, but what type of programming language do you have to know for a site like draw.io? I have a niche idea for something like this but would also do some calculations as you adding things to the drawing, and the ability to modify those base values as a user.

 

[sparechange]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5oFScrxoIU


kid in a candy store

 

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[sparechange]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=-wnBhRne_RE&feature=emb_title


The new normal

 

[Rabby]

I hope this thread is an OK place for this - didn't seem worthy of a new thread.
When considering app development, especially for iOS, is it critical that you own a Mac?

I'm thinking of purchasing a Macbook Pro. I actually already hired someone months back to develop my app, but it's been sitting in a folder because I don't have a Mac, Swift, XCode or whatever Apple users use for development in 2020 (haven't used a Mac since 2010).

Any other ways to test it out and get it going?

Apologies if this is the wrong place for this random question.

I published a number of iOS apps some years back. It's enough of a pain doing it with a proper Mac... with a Hackintosh, I might have to hire a genius just to keep it running My advice: it's cheaper to buy a Mac than to go on that adventure.

One thing you can do though, if you're early in the process and this works for your app... develop the application for multiple platforms, and start out by compiling it for Android, desktop, or whatever other platform you plan to publish for.

For example, Appcelerator, Xamarin, or React Native. Or for more graphical applications, maybe Unity or something. I'm no longer up to date on which frameworks are the best, but that's likely how I would re-start with mobile app development, if I were planning to do it. Especially if the application even remotely lends itself to cross-platform development.

 

[Maxios]

Question on email & websites

I'm a Realtor switching brokerages. My old one supplied private email address & website. Now I must do so myself.

99% of my clients come from other sources. They don't even look at my website. I had a website just to add it on my business cards.

Should I get a website any ways for trust/legitimacy?
What is your experience using an [at]gmail.com vs [at]private-email.com email address?
Do these things matter or am I being paranoid on professionalism/actual value to people?

My living expenses will increase soon. I'll be broke until I make a sale, this is why I'm asking. Otherwise I'd get everything just in case

Some scumbag called my granddad, said that I was in a car accident, & that he needed to get $4000 cash to him ASAP for my benefit. My grandfather (who is in his 80s) nearly did, but luckily he called his daughter first, who reached out to me, & we cleared everything up.

Same exact thing happened to my grandpa. My theory is somehow they get access to the contacts on your phones, find the ones listed as Grandma or Grandpa, target them & so on.

Just had a scammer pretend he's a client, he sent me a link to a phishing page for Facebook.
I also recently joined 35+ sales groups. Bastards will try anything

 

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[Mutant]

Here's the 'extras' I have done...
___
I felt disgusted the entire time, but after all's said and done, I felt somewhat lighter and even a little pleased that at least some parts of the work were under my control.

This is my final semester. So we'll finish up end of this year.

So I still have to keep my eyes open, especially when the semester has not ended yet.

Keep plugging my man! The end is in sight.

Then you never have to work with any of these again!
Just make sure you don't have to work for anyone like them either.

You got this

 

[ZF Lee]

Should I get a website any ways for trust/legitimacy?
What is your experience using an [at]gmail.com vs [at]private-email.com email address?
Do these things matter or am I being paranoid on professionalism/actual value to people?

Yeah, even a simple website with decent blog content, good CTA and details of your services and testimonials help with the trust factor.

Yet, there's another very important element to think of: Control.

While I can set up a LinkedIn or Upwork profile to fill in the important details like a regular website, the platforms ultimately own the page. And the platforms have the final say in determining if my page actually turns up on search results, even though there's always stuff I can do to optimize SEO.

And of course, the platforms can shut you down for whatever reason.

So, have your own place to store your content and details.

On the email thing, I've usually used Gmail, and my clients didn't bat one eye.
And I've also seen professionals use Gmail addresses for work without any adverse effects.

But if you want to make sure business-serious emails are separated from personal/inner-circle emails, getting a private business email helps.

While I can toggle filters on Gmail to separate them out in a similar fashion, I'm still cluttered up in one inbox.

 

[Deleted78083]

Making choices is hard. Life tempts you and you have to say no to stay focus on what you want. That requires a high level of vision, confidence and self-discipline.

 

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[LordGanon]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5oFScrxoIU


kid in a candy store

I still remember the day he told me: "Just don't try to become a professor. It's not that I don't believe that you have what it takes. You have that. But you're male and white. There won't be tenure for you for a long, long time."

And now they wonder why there's no respect for women or minorities in science.

 

[Andy Daniels]

Huge fires are ravaging Oregon right now. For now I'm safe in the N. Portland area, but I have family and friends who have lost their homes already.

Last I checked, the largest fire in Marion Co. is 0% contained.

Hoping you all are doing well!