Good to see someone point out a flaw on basing the success of the site on the dependability of the 1k+ group. They need not all be benevolent dictators (or even interested) in spirit.
Do you realise that although you "lost 2-4 years of your career" you created a few dozen higher quality lives?
I think you have achieved a major life goal already that most in Silicon Valley do not. I don't know if HN is the place to praise such deeds, but you did your small part in hacking the world to make it better. Kudos to you, don't ever let it feel as a wasted effort. That's so wrong a way to think.
There are people who want to help others and their repeated attempts fail. You just went and did something that's working for 7 years.
That's a pretty successful startup in my book. It can't go viral for obvious reasons, but it's mature and stable. And you did it without HN :-)
Agree 100% with you. I never for a single moment regretted spending the time in Tibet. It was literally a life-changing experience.
A lot of times it is said that you should pursue your carrier while you're still young and without many responsibilities. But the same goes for creating something meaningful with your life, for exploring the world and widening your perspective on life. It is much easier done when you're young and it beneficially affects the rest of your life.
> The other type is startups that sell something (product / service, one time or subscription), in this case you can have revenue from day 1, so I would recommend this route,
This is good advice. A few years delayed, but slow, steady, stable growth or your mental self as well as your brand and of your team is a pretty good platform to launch something bigger.
This is very helpful. For something as important as how to make money, a long answer and detailed one like this is welcome. I'm currently at a technical skill level between "freelancer" and "consultant" (loosely speaking, that is). This is useful advice. Thanks.
I expect the latter, they aren't known to give up big dreams so easily. Consider for instance that India and Russia have had numerous failed launches for various rockets and / or space probes and both countries continue to try again and eventually succeed. Why would China not try again? I pray they do. Chinese or American or Russian or Indian, I want to see a minimal human habitat on the moon in my lifetime. Our species deserves that much, for all the work done so far.
There is no such thing as deserve, especially in cases like this. There is no ice cream for failure.
Well I mean you can go out and buy ice cream if you're at mission control and not dead. And I guess you can eat some astronaut ice cream as your air runs out or you freeze to death if you are in space.
Suppose China were to send another Rover up in the next 5 years, and it found this one. In theory, could this one be repaired? Or will the "electronics self-destruct" be thorough by then?
• The RTG in Yutu (the rover already up) will last that long
• Yutu does not move, get struck by a meteor, or other normal events in space that will damage it further
• The team who understands Yutu is still around in 5 years
Then China could, in theory:
• Assemble a rover with the repair parts on board
• Launch it to the moon
• Land on the moon intact
• Locate Yutu
• Do a remotely-operated repair
There's a lot of risk in each of those steps. It might be an interesting mission to push the boundaries of tele-operated robotics etc. Realistically it seems less expensive to launch a second rover that has been improved based on the lessons learned from Yutu. Hopefully China can think of lots of things to improve the second time.
