We were among the first Paper users (starting from the private beta). We loved the product for the first few years, but then it stagnated. We finally switched away from it a year and a half ago.
Their export feature has been broken for over a year. Support hasn't helped, and our data is still trapped.
Recurse Center (YC S10) | Career Facilitator / Full-Cycle Recruiter | Onsite | Brooklyn | Full-time | $70-135k + good benefits
We operate a programming retreat with an integrated recruiting agency.
We're hiring a Career Facilitator to support our mission to transform lives by helping people direct themselves. This is a full-time, onsite role in Brooklyn with meaningful work, good benefits, great colleagues, clear goals, and a healthy culture.
We're a small, privately held business with no outside investors (except for YC, which invested ~$17k in 2010). We do not plan to raise money or go public.
I don't agree with your characterization of my post, but I do appreciate your sharing this piece (and the fun flashback to old, oversized issues of GWS). Thanks for sharing it! Such a tragedy that Holt died shortly after he wrote that, I would have loved to hear what he thought of the last few decades of computing.
Same, after reading your post, it sent me down reading all sorts of guest articles he did left and right, and it really made me wonder what he'd think of all this. I feel like his views on technology changed over his lifetime. He got more.. I dunno, cynical over time?
This was a really fascinating project to work on because of the breadth of experiences and perspectives people have on LLMs, even when those people all otherwise have a lot in common (in this case, experienced programmers, all Recurse Center alums, all professional programmers in some capacity, almost all in the US, etc). I can't think of another area in programming where opinions differ this much.
As a recurse alum (s14 batch 2) I loved reading this. I loved my time at recurse and learned lots.
This highlight from the post really resonates:
“ Real growth happens at the boundary of what you can do and what you can almost do. Used well, LLMs can help you more quickly find or even expand your edge, but they risk creating a gap between the edge of what you can produce and what you can understand.
RC is a place for rigor. You should strive to be more rigorous, not less, when using AI-powered tools to learn, though exactly what you need to be rigorous about is likely different when using them.”
Recurse Center (YC S10) | Career Facilitator | Onsite | Brooklyn | Full-time
We operate a programming retreat with an integrated recruiting agency.
We're hiring a Career Facilitator to support our mission to transform lives by helping people direct themselves. This is a full-time, onsite role in Brooklyn with meaningful work, good benefits, great colleagues, clear goals, and a healthy culture.
We're a small, privately held business with no outside investors (except for YC, which invested ~$17k in 2010). We do not plan to raise money or go public.
Yes! I've noticed it's 10x worse for my professional email address than my personal one; nearly all of the spam that gets through Gmail's filters is (horribly targeted) B2B marketing. Is that what others are seeing too?
Submitter and author here: My friend Dave and I made this over a decade ago, and I just stumbled on it again. I found it to be a fun walk down memory lane, and more broadly, an interesting time capsule of HN's culture and tropes.
Thanks for making this. I saw it back then and thought it hit the nail on the head. It still does -- if you hadn't put (2012) readers would think it was made today.
It was awesome! I think it misses just two things: "Coder's Generalizations on Software Architecture/Careers in Tech", or "Venture Investor's Generalizations on Society".
Oh, forgot: "Another Very Long New Yorker Article Philosophizing on Their Local Stuff"
If you attend RC and want a new job afterwards (either right away or years later), we have a team to help you. We can suggest specific openings (after discussing and hearing your preferences), review your resume, set up mock interviews, and provide whatever support you’d like throughout your search.
All of this is optional — there’s no requirement you get a new job after attending RC, and there’s no requirement you work with us exclusively or at all if you do look for a job.
This all works (and we can keep our retreats free for all participants) because we have contingency recruiting agreements with a number of tech companies, and those companies pay us a fee whenever they hire someone we refer to them.
I saw a subway ad for this a few weeks ago and immediately downloaded it. During setup, it asked for my home and work addresses so it could save my commute.
I trusted the app when it said, “We won’t share this info with anyone.”
After setting it up I wondered how a free app with no ads or in-app purchases and which didn’t share your data could possibly make money, so I googled it.
I discovered that Pigeon is made by Google. I went back to the App Store listing to see how I could have possibly missed this and found there is no mention of Google anywhere in the App Store or the app itself unless you click through to the Privacy Policy.
There are, however, plenty of reviews from people confused why an app like this would only support sign in with Google.
FAQ Questions (now?) mention Google, but imply it’s a local team in “Google’s workshop”:
Q. How started?
A. After years of living in New York City and commuting on the subway, the Pigeon team knows first-hand that public transit can be frustratingly unpredictable. So when we started this project, we decided to create a product that lets subway riders help each other avoid delays, crowds, and incidents that make can make commuting so stressful.
Q.Who created this?
A. Pigeon is lovingly designed and built by a small team based in New York as a part of Area 120 - Google's workshop for experimental products. For the Pigeon team, being a part of Area 120 means we have the opportunity to create a new, experimental product that we can continuously test and improve to make sure it’s something that our users love. For our users, it means you get a chance to experience our app in its early stages and help shape the product as it grows.
Q. Only for New York?
A. Pigeon’s dream is to make it easier to get around all cities. But, since Pigeon is new and the team still has a lot to learn, we decided to start in our own backyard of NYC: home to the largest subway system in the US. We think starting here will help us figure out what works and what doesn’t as we move toward this goal.
Q. Android?
A. We’re currently focused on learning and testing with iOS users in NYC, but we hope to bring Pigeon to Android soon. Please sign up for our Android waitlist to be notified when it becomes available.
The Transit Heroes FAQ may be clearer:
Q. What would I get?
A. An opportunity to meet up with the Pigeon team and other Transit Heroes at the Google NYC campus.
> why an app like this would only support sign in with Google.
To be fair, they developed an iOS app first and there currently lacks Android support. The Google Sign-in could just be a matter of prioritization and it's easier to implement this boilerplate at Google.
Well, you haven't given any new info to Google on that case, at least. If you have an Android phone they could guess your work and home address from your commute patterns.
Their export feature has been broken for over a year. Support hasn't helped, and our data is still trapped.
A sad end for a once promising product.