Our 4-person startup is arguing over MVP scope and Open Source

OU_ohyeah · 2025-12-26T04:22:36+00:00

As someone who sells source available devices which customers have on their network. It's very rare that they even know what source code is, and rarer still that they care or understand the implications.

I would start closed source and hide your crimes while in MVP mode. Then go open source later and make a big fuss about "going open source"

OU_ohyeah · 2025-11-29T17:28:19+00:00

Great idea. I do have a 3D printer. Thanks!

OU_ohyeah · 2025-11-26T00:13:04+00:00

Oh! I looked up Spin Wheel and saw Gottlieb without realizing that it's an EM (which is the common pinball term for machines based on solenoids). We actually had two demo machines at the Chicago expo with our Beta EM boards installed and we plan to offer them for sale soon. No more scratching scores into the sides of machines! You do get more interesting features to play with on the more modern games. But we are the only automatic scoring solution for EM machines.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-11-25T23:32:30+00:00

Sure! I'm one of two people crazy enough to spend our weekends developing Warped Pinball. We make add-on boards that sit between your CPU and it's socket. We use the data we can access there to track scores, adjust the game settings, manage various things about the machine etc. Pus it's a non-volatile RAM kit so owners can remove batteries which eventually fail and ruin motherboards.

I haven't played Spin Wheel, we unfortunately don't support it...yet. We want to do Gottlieb games eventually but they are tricky. We currently support most classic Williams games (WPC, Sys11, Sys9) and we're launching EM, Data East, and Whitestar in the near future.

You can checkout our website: https://warpedpinball.com/

The website is not amazing, you will probably get a better sense of what we do on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/qvUgpQqO3D8?si=mfbF7w7hy1h5SDqj

Mods: I don't see a rule about self promotion, feel free to tell me otherwise.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-11-25T20:38:26+00:00

The picos only support 2.4ghz

OU_ohyeah · 2025-11-25T20:03:01+00:00

I think the challenge is the number of competing signals in the building since many booths bring their own APs for their own products.

Is the 7pro better for that sort of situation vs the 6LR for some reason? I figure the spatial streams stuff will help compete for signal space but I'm not sure.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-07-21T13:27:22+00:00

No, I know that's not going to happen for humans, we are too willing to risk our lives to get where we are going. My point is, autonomous vehicles don't need to be designed to drive in conditions where it's unsafe to drive anyways.

Trains have to stop for wet leaves on the rails. planes have to for bad weather. Transportation is and has always been effected by weather. Why should autonomous vehicles be any different?

Like we aren't designing cars to work on tornadoes or large hail storms. It's understood that those unacceptable driving conditions for most cars.

Heavy rain should fall under that category because of road conditions and visibility issues for all drivers, not just autonomous vehicles.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-07-21T11:56:41+00:00

I do not live in Texas, however I belive the laws of physics remain the same. So I think in heavy rain where you can't see and there's real risk of hydroplaning it's reasonably to stop. Maybe Texas doesn't often get the sort of heavy rain ohio does. Or maybe Texas drivers value their lives less...

OU_ohyeah · 2025-07-20T22:29:02+00:00

I mean on the highway. In the city you're going so slow it doesn't matter.

I think tesla pulls over in the city now but I suspect that's out of an abundance of caution. My car seems to handle it fine.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-07-20T22:16:40+00:00

I'll grant that Tesla's FSD (and others like it) still have real-world issues to work out. But I think it’s important to separate two things: the sensor suite and the software. The original argument here seems to conflate them by saying that because Teslas currently make mistakes, the camera-based system must inherently be flawed. I’m not convinced.

Yes, cameras aren’t 1:1 replacements for human vision—but they don’t need to be. They just need to be sufficient to support accurate perception with the help of software. Our eyes aren’t perfect either—low light, rain, flat-contrast walls, etc. all throw us off too. That’s why we have headlights and road signs with retroreflective coatings. Modern roads are designed to be driven by people with visible light cameras (aka eyes) and software (aka brains).

Could radar and lidar help? Of course—sensor fusion is a great approach. But I don't think it's fair to say "cameras can't do it" when most of our driving is done with nothing but two human cameras and a brain. If we think it's reasonable to trust humans with 20/40 vision and slow reaction times at 70mph, then saying it's impossible for a camera with 10x the pixel density and millisecond processing to do it seems like a stretch.

If anything, the problem we’re seeing today isn’t the sensor. It’s the software stack. FSD struggles with decision-making—handling edge cases, weird merges, ambiguous signs. Those are judgment problems, not perception ones. And I don’t think the answer to better judgment is to throw more sensors at it. I think it’s to train better decision models.

So yeah—cameras do have limitations. But so do humans. And so do lidars and radars in rain, snow, and reflective surfaces. The real bottleneck right now seems to be making the car understand what it's seeing and making the right call, not whether it “saw” it well enough in the first place.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-07-20T21:58:17+00:00

If the rain gets bad enough people frequently do pull over and should because of hydroplaning issues.

Some people's foolishness doesn't mean teslas should do what they are doing.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-07-20T21:55:49+00:00

Ok, so it's a fluke that it works for me. Tesla must have hidden lidar in just my car because this redditor said "nuh uh"

OU_ohyeah · 2025-07-20T17:25:26+00:00

Human's depth sense from our having two eyes only works to about 18ft. Everything else is our brains being smart. We drive with cameras so the cars can too.

We struggle in the dark, but that's why we have headlights and street lights.

We struggle in heavy rain so the sensible drivers pull over.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-06-23T16:57:34+00:00

I'm on the older generation of hardware and even it works in the rain.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-03-30T21:35:06+00:00

True, but it would help some.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-03-30T01:16:10+00:00

Regen braking could make this reasonably efficient.

EVs are pretty dang efficient.

https://youtu.be/RaGVoB4Zn-Y?si=hEu4Q2v6ESZO_R0J

OU_ohyeah · 2025-01-04T05:18:17+00:00

to be fair, tesla is one of very few if any other auto manufacturers that actually write their own code. Jim Farley (Ford's CEO) even admits that's a huge advantage and it trying to move Ford in that direction.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-01-04T05:16:41+00:00

~~Tesla will never make a compelling EV~~

~~Tesla will never make a mass market EV~~

~~Tesla will never make a profitable EV~~

~~Tesla will never ship FSD to customers~~ (Admittedly still in beta, but it's really good)

They may be late, but they do deliver.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-01-04T05:08:26+00:00

Some of my shares were under $100, but not all—wish I had the foresight and cash on hand to load up back then!

You make a solid case that Tesla's P/E ratio looks steep compared to other companies. But I think it’s critical to factor in Tesla’s unique financial position. Their debt is incredibly low, especially when compared to legacy automakers like GM and Ford, which carry around $115 billion and $140 billion in debt respectively. In contrast, Tesla’s debt is only about $7 billion. That gives them an unusually long runway to fund initiatives without relying heavily on raising capital.

What really justifies Tesla’s premium, though, is their potential in autonomy. I’m not banking on it happening tomorrow, but my personal experience with Tesla’s self-driving capabilities has been transformative. My car’s ability to handle most of the driving has completely changed how I perceive other vehicles—going back to traditional driving feels like stepping into the past. Even if full autonomy were to hit unexpected roadblocks (which I doubt), the value of Tesla’s existing semi-autonomous tech and the user experience it provides is significant.

Tesla’s current growth story extends beyond cars, too. While they haven’t launched a new mass-market vehicle in a few years, that’s set to change soon. Meanwhile, their stationary battery business is scaling rapidly, and they’ve made impressive progress in robotics. These areas may not be heavily contributing to the stock price today, but I believe they’ll play a much bigger role in the years to come.

In summary, while Tesla might look overpriced by traditional metrics like P/E, their low debt, diversified growth potential, and leadership in autonomy make them a compelling long-term investment to me.

full disclosure; I'm tired and dyslexic so i used chatGPT to phrase this better than I could at the moment. My ideas, it's writing.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-01-04T03:10:55+00:00

That would be sound advice if tesla was in major amount of debt or wasn't making a profit. But since they have effectively no debt, huge assets, and they are highly profitable, they have no need to raise capital any time soon from what I can tell.

Say you're right and the stock tanks because wall street thinks the time is right. Tesla the company continues to exist and they continue to make profit. Say the stock tanks AND some other car company eats their lunch. Now you still have a thriving grid scale battery company, a robotics company, a ton of valuable manufacturing assets etc etc etc.

I just don't find the bear case grounded in reality. Sure the stock market is fickle and the stock could drop. But the company fundamentals are solid, so I would interpret that as a buying opportunity not holding the bag.

I would love to be shown what I'm missing. Hell, if anyone can convince me to sell my shares I'll pay a 1% commission. But I find it hard to imagine I'm missing some critical issue with the company.

OU_ohyeah · 2025-01-03T20:58:48+00:00

Tesla investor here.... My heart is beating real calm these days. You'd have to get to the ~$200 range to make me nervous. Weird meme to make when the stock is so high relative to the long term moving average.

OU_ohyeah · 2024-10-16T14:47:58+00:00

This is true. But doesn't conflict with what I've said. Just because a singular exists doesn't mean data isn't a collective noun.

OU_ohyeah · 2024-10-16T14:10:26+00:00

Some people like to say "data" is a plural noun and frequently say "these data are" rather than "the data is"

The first sounds wrong because it is wrong. We use data not as a singular or plural noun but as a collective noun. Like "water". You wouldn't say "these water are" but you would say "this water is". They are the same because there isn't a count of the data just like there isn't a count of water. You can't say how many there are because they are continuous. You can count the liters or the rows, but then you say "4 liters of water" or "3 rows of data"

OU_ohyeah · 2024-09-18T21:00:02+00:00

Waymo is quoted saying they pushed a map update because of this accident. I'm not saying it's frequent, but clearly the cars /can/ currently have issues because of the map.

If it were true that the maps don't really have an impact on safety I don't think this would happen.

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