My scenario is a little unique in that I developed my start-up ( I couldn't find anything else in the market I liked )to help me launch a few other business ideas with more traditional businesses models. I did not Trademark my start-up name but I have been live for about 4 months and have made contact with over 800 interested artists/businesses ( I used Sonicbids.com to run a promotion to attract artists and musicians). I feel my intent to use this name has been shown. I have also developed a mobile app that plays off and works to compliment the start up name which reinforces the idea that re-branding is possible but not ideal.

I threw out a question to the team at Sprouter and this was their response.

"The good news is that just by making use of a brand name, you require certain trademark rights in it. Therefore, if you have made any public use of this name prior to Google making its announcement, you might possibly have certain common law trademark rights in it. However, if this is something that has merely been in development and you have made no public use of it, or even if you have made only limited public use of it, you will have some difficulty in asserting your rights against Google. Your best course of action at this point is to retain a lawyer who can review the specifics of your case and consider whether or not contacting Google at this stage is a good option available to you in order to reach some sort of co-existence agreement."

I question the idea of 'limited public use', in that I developed the platform to help me launch and market my businesses with the thought that any additional users of my platform would be a bonus as I don't need millions of users to make my model profitable.

Google is using the name for their Google TV 2.0 platform for Android and their first press release showed up around June 22, 2011. I'm using the name as a social network with a mobile app and have been live since mid March of this year, and although I have gained very little traction, the idea is I can prove the viability of my platform by using it to market my other business ideas (clothing, music and blog/app). Once that happens I will market my platform more aggressively to outside users with proven vs speculative results.

fishtank(google) vs. http://fishtaank.com (dave)

Any thoughts? Feedback?

"From the mountains, through the hillside the crazy river water flows. It takes my to my pot of gold buried underneath a little stone. I'll find a horse and ride away and take out across the open plains. I'll turn into the wind and go to find out what my story knows."

I always thought silicon valley is full of intelligent and open-minded people(just look at HN). But I am really SHOCKED by the IGNORANCE of the judges for Berkeley 2010 Hackathon.

One of the judges Vivek Wadhwa from TechCrunch revealed that
"One commented,If the villager has a cell-phone, why doesn’t he just call 911? This is really dumb. (Most of the judges didn’t understand that 911 services don’t exist in most places in the world, and that SMSs have become the internet of the developing world)"

Isn't this appalling? Did this judge never travel outside of US? What happened to all the other judges besides Vivek Wadhwa? They are supposed to be judging for an app for "social good" and they don't even have a tiny clue about what is going on in developing countries. Coming from a third world country, I understand how important and valuable it is for the presence of a system that enable villagers in developing countries to send SMSs to volunteers across the globe who provide emergency medical advice.

Here is the list of judges besides Vivek Wadwa:

Cadir Lee | CTO, Zynga

Scott Dale | VP of Engineering, Zynga

Trevor Blackwell | Partner, Y Combinator

Paul Twohey | Berkeley/CSUA Alum, CTO, Trumpet Technologies

Dave Fetterman | Facebook

Brian Harvey | UC Berkeley

To the judges listed above, Here is some common sense knowledge (in case you have never been to a developing country)

If a messed-up country can provide GOOD and EFFICIENT emergency medical advice and service to its tens of millions of poor citizens, chances are that they would have been recognized as a developed country already.

(I hope this post is not downvoted because the list of judges includes a YC partner)

About eight years ago, I worked at a mid-sized tech company with a senior colleague—let’s call him “Dave.” He was in his early 60s, had decades of experience, and preferred “boring tech” and object-oriented programming. I was more into modern, cloud-native solutions and functional programming, which led to frequent disagreements.

We clashed a lot. Dave thought my approaches were unnecessarily complex, and I thought his ideas were outdated and inflexible. Most of our arguments happened during code reviews, and while things got heated at times, I assumed it was all part of working in a team.

I left the company after a few years. It wasn’t because of him, and I didn’t think much about those conflicts after I moved on.

A few days ago, I got a message from Dave on LinkedIn. He said he’d retired and had been diagnosed with a fast-progressing terminal illness. What stunned me was that he blamed me for it. He said the stress of working with me and dealing with my code had taken a toll on his health, ending the message with, “You shortened my life.”

Before I could respond, his account was deleted. I don’t know if he deactivated it or blocked me, but now I can’t stop replaying everything in my head.

Could I really have caused this? Can work stress lead to something like this? I always thought our arguments were just professional disagreements, but now I’m second-guessing myself. Has anyone else dealt with something like this? What do I even do with this kind of guilt?

----

Lucky Breaks In Music Career

I got such wonderful responses to my blog about aspiring artists. Thank you. And also, you're all welcome. I do quite a bit of journal writing anyway so this is my idea of a good time. Here's what what fellow had to say.

Emil Siravo wrote:
"why is it that successful artists can never say how they made the leap from poor and struggling to rich and famous.... theres always that mysterious step that they never explain. I guess cause its very unflattering, that step being 'someone with connections got my ass in the door and gave me a golden opportunity'. I wish more artists would talk about WHO gave them their career and less about trying to hide the fact that to make it in the music industry you must rely on somebody getting you 'in' the door. Sure you have to work real hard and you must be ready to prove yourself when the opportunity presents itself,,,, but that Lucky break is still a necessary component that no amount of hard work can substitute for."

Emil!
Ooooh am I gonna hand your ass to you now, bitch!!

Kidding.

You're not the first person who has said this, and so here's part three of my flying blogging streaming preaching ruminating mind numbing musings - to anyone who cares to read! You all know me. You'll know that I'm not editing this for easy digestion. Yeah. It'll be long. Real long.

I completely understand your frustration and anyone else's in your position. Boy have I been there, and I used to often wonder why some entertainers left that gaping chasm in their personal stories. Quite often though, you see the story of an entertainer boiled down to one fortuitous event (so in so heard them at a club, or was passed the demo at a party) and while it makes good print, it might not be helpful to take those stories too literally. I didn't call my piece "For Aspiring Successful Entertainers". I addressed it to artists (and myself). Actually, obtaining success in the music business might often make it even harder to stay focused as an artist. I don't think I'd know where to begin writing about how to make it.

I acknowledge that I'm a freakishly lucky bastard. Not just one time lucky but over and over again lucky. I've said before that it really doesn't boil down to one break. It's the succession, the cumulative effects of fortuitous and realized moments which are usually interruptions to the daily disappointments and frustrations. It's truly an up and down thing for anyone in the biz, no matter how successful. That's something I learned from my long time manager I was lucky enough to meet at the right time. Long dry periods of bummer certainly can lead to a state of mind that ceases to recognize a veiled innocent but significant opportunity.

As well as a lucky fool, I'm also a freakishly hard working bastard. I've been dangerously kamikaze and at key times the risk has met with incredible and lucky results. I didn't see anyone else risking it all to borrow to purchase a baby grand, learn how to move it and place it on tiny rock club stages for three years. That was insane, physically and financially but luckily landed on it's feet. What worked well for my career did not work well for everything else. My personal life from the beginning of my career, has been 20 years resembling one of those record breaking mile long car pile ups on a foggy mountain freeway - bumper into bumper with helpless bystanders wincing at the sound of non stop crunching thudding metal that continued, echoing repeatedly off into the distance. That's sugar coating it. haha. I enjoyed writing that bit...

Okay1 By request! Here's all the luck I can remember whilst catapulting through the sky at 35,000 feet:

I had independent thinking parents in a low income household. Lucky. I attended an unusual elementary school (we sat on floor, had no homework, were encouraged to incorporate music or art into projects). I had access to both poor and rich people, their attitudes and behavior. My band teachers were jazzers - one was quite the pot smoker. I had a few well traveled friends who brought back strange eccentric music from elsewhere - there was no internet then and I'd never left the state of North Carolina before college so my friend Rob introducing me to new music was big.

I had to endure musical rejection from labels and elsewhere after I lost my music scholarship and left university. That was lucky as earlier success for my green self would have likely been brief and tragic. I played a solo piano gig opening for an artist with label interest which resulted in a publishing deal with a small publisher in Nashville where I moved for a couple of years 1990-1992. This small publisher couldn't do anything with me and passed me to Sony who were on the verge of dropping me within a year. It was lucky that I met Kerry McCarthy in the New York office of Sony Pub and she kept me on - I moved to New York for a year.

While I was in New York I was lucky enough to meet a Mr Mark Fried at BMI. He told me the story of his writing a big hit song in the 60's and how he realized that he would be happier serving other writers and finding homes for their music. I reflected on how miserable I had become, trying to ingratiate myself to labels, being rejected, attempting to present myself in a way that would make me successful. I had a serious Come-To-Jesus moment my first week in New York and decided I would surrender my hard headed notion to become a recording artist. I would take back my dignity. (I have since sold my dignity and bought it back more times than I can count - like a pawn shop)

I was lucky and landed a gig in a small musical during this period. Relieved of the burden of expectations of success, I pragmatically did the bare minimum to keep my publishing deal (and the advances) but harbored no illusions that they would lead anywhere. I would not be a recording artist but I would take the publishing checks and play the showcases. I was tired of being a slave to it all. I would no longer be bitter. I LOVED my work in musical theater that year. I hadn't written a song in literally years but now I didn't beat myself up about it. I enjoyed life.

While visiting Kerry at Sony Publishing in 1993 I met the guy who would become my manager - in the elevator. Alan Wolmark. He was not the hottest ticket in town (sorry Alan but I wasn't either). At the same time I was becoming very inspired by music that I identified with that was becoming successful. It was as if my people were beginning to take over. Liz Phair, Nirvana, Archers of Loaf, Counting Crows, Rage Against The Machine and more. My kind of music was exploding for the first time in my life and I became open to the music biz again, but this time I would not let others or success determine my value. I would do exactly as I pleased. I would not make demos and I would not kiss ass. I had seen career failure and it was nothing next to artistic death.

Alan and I were soon scheming and decided I'd be better off moving to back home to North Carolina, starting a band and playing gigs. I wanted to hear my songs in a trio with a distorted bass guitar taking the place of guitar. Radical in 1994, the year of grunge. I considered an electric accordian for a fleeting moment. With the real estate/rental classified section under my arm in the winter of 1993 I ran into Darren Jessee in a coffee shop in Chapel Hill. We started the band without my actually hearing his playing. Robert Sledge was recommended by my brother and we jammed once in a music practice room at UNC-Greensboro. Having met Alan and Kerry was lucky timing because I nearly had my baby grand piano repossessed that month. I'd learned how to move it alone into a van and had theorized that if I could get it on stage in rock clubs, it would stand out. It did. I just needed a band.

BF5 had our first rehearsal in January 1994 and our first gig was in March. Darren was waiting tables at night and took off work so we could record a single (Jackson Cannery) with a b-side (Eddie Walker) which we sold at gigs as vinyl. A fellow named John Alagia had heard our music and was keen to record us in Charlottesville, VA too. He was also making recordings for an unsigned artist, Dave Matthews. I once babysat Dave's nephews on Halloween with a mutual friend while he played a frat house. John went on to do big things. Dave, you might have heard of.

By the summer of 1994 we were ready to play some NYC shows and Alan got a few small labels out. We played our butts off and I'm sure the 40 people in the audience and the labels thought it was a damn freak show if for no other reason than I had disassembled my piano within minutes after the set and was negotiating it with one other person through the audience into the van outside. That always got a second round of applause as the next band were setting up.
A small label called Caroline in NYC was interested and asked for a demo. We sold them single for a dollar. They signed us and before the release of our first record, a major label bidding war had started. We didn't go with the highest bidder with hip rock bands - we went with 550 a new Sony Label that had Celine Dion.

Meanwhile, a famous DJ in London loved Underground and made it BBC Radio One record of the week. Underground was picked up by Triple J in Australia and went to 3 on their yearly listener chart. Burt Bacharach had us on a TV special. Conan embraced us. We were critically acclaimed. Thats Luck. Our style of music was at the right place at the right time and we could do no wrong.

We made our second record in my house in Chapel Hill concentrating on the rocker songs since we were finding success live this way. All the rockers released from Whatever and Ever, Amen more or less flopped at radio - Battle, Dwarf, Dumped. Luckily, that drummer guy I met at the coffee shop, Darren, had written a chorus for a ballad which none of his friends had liked. I finished the song and we decided to include it on the album. As luck would have it, the modern rock radio format had decided that month that they needed a few token ballads in 1998 and Brick was one. Bittersweet Symphony was the other - in a big way. I should also add that 550 records was relentless in their promotion of Brick. The label head, Polly Anthony took the record personally to the major radio stations and would not take "no" for an answer. Lucky. right place at right time.

I could go on. I think that fills in something. My luck continues but very often, when my head's up my own ass, I miss things that I later wish I'd not passed up. In 1999 an unknown John Mayer (his producer, John Alagia actually) asked me to play piano on what ended up being Mayer's first hit. I passed and then cringed when I heard it all over the world for the next 18 months. It happened again a few months later when Train's producer asked me the same thing and I passed. It was Drops Of Jupiter and I couldn't get away from that song in any corner of the world. I passed on songwriter convention thing in Cuba while we were recording Reinhold - I felt I should concentrate on recording. They ended up having lunch with Fidel Castro.

Rocking The Suburbs was released on Sept 11, 2001 and was all but abandoned. I could no longer afford a touring band and was playing solo for 200 people after I quit BF5. Luck. Playing solo revived my career and passion as it made me face career death again. Audiences were desperate for relief from the news and sang along like their lives depended on it. Thus, the sing along for Not The Same, which was spontaneously sung by the audience to begin with. That sing along stuff led to a cappella world, which has been very rewarding. Damn it never ends. But the blog must..

.... so Emil and anyone who's stuck in the mud: Good luck with it. I just think that success as an artist is about seeing through the murk and feeling your way. Not being boxed in by your expectations or your ego. Being prepared and being relaxed as possible in your art IS within your reach - though it's very difficult and never gets easier. The luck part... thinking about that is bad technique. It's a waste of your energy in my opinion. To think you can manipulate those kinds of circumstances is to place a heavy burden on yourself and miss the real deal when it's in front of your face. Think of all the people who wish they'd invested a hundred dollars in this stock or that. In retrospect it all looks so easy. That's why I endeavor to be happy in my art first - my blogging is a reminder to myself to get back to that everyday because that's how often I forget.

I am headed home to be with my kids and will turn into a pumpkin. I'll read responses but I'll not be hyper-blogging until I'm traveling again. I also gonna try and find time soon to make a quick EP with a science fiction writer friend.

I knew him as a very funny and friendly near neighbour, and occasionally he'd tell some tales from computer history. He graduated from Cambridge and got his first job in Computer Science from an interview with Tony Hoare. It wasn't a technical interview in those days, it was a chat over lunch. This must have been the 1950s or 60s.

Amongst other jobs, he worked at Warwick University. He used to tell of the scramble to find people to teach computer science in the early days (I think he was Head of School?).

He has since helped many people start their careers in Computer Science, even until recently when he was a tutor for Open University. He was very sharp, but also had a great sense of humour, so I imagine learning from him was a pleasure.

He kept learning until the end. Before he started his cancer treatment he was worried it would affect his memory. He learnt Go so he could test his memory before and after.

Simon is survived by his lovely wife Eleanor. I think I just found his Phd thesis (https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/lazy-exact-real-computation) and his acknowledgements say this about Eleanor "I owe her more that I can say for this and for everything."

I just thought I'd mention his passing here in case anyone had interactions with him and would like to share them.

Today I’m excited to launch OpenNutrition: a free, ODbL-licenced nutrition database of everyday generic, branded, and restaurant foods, a search engine that can browse the web to import new foods, and a companion app that bundles the database and search as a free macro tracking app.

Consistently logging the foods you eat has been shown to support long-term health outcomes (1)(2), but doing so easily depends on having a large, accurate, and up-to-date nutrition database. Free, public databases are often out-of-date, hard to navigate, and missing critical coverage (like branded restaurant foods). User-generated databases can be unreliable or closed-source. Commercial databases come with ongoing, often per-seat licensing costs, and usage restrictions that limit innovation.

As an amateur powerlifter and long-term weight loss maintainer, helping others pursue their health goals is something I care about deeply. After exiting my previous startup last year, I wanted to investigate the possibility of using LLMs to create the database and infrastructure required to make a great food logging app that was cost engineered for free and accessible distribution, as I believe that the availability of these tools is a public good. That led to creating the dataset I’m releasing today; nutritional data is public record, and its organization and dissemination should be, too.

What’s in the database?

- 5,287 common everyday foods, 3,836 prepared and generic restaurant foods, and 4,182 distinct menu items from ~50 popular US restaurant chains; foods have standardized naming, consistent numeric serving sizes, estimated micronutrient profiles, descriptions, and citations/groundings to USDA, AUSNUT, FRIDA, CNF, etc, when possible.

- 313,442 of the most popular US branded grocery products with standardized naming, parsed serving sizes, and additive/allergen data, grounded in branded USDA data; the most popular 1% have estimated micronutrient data, with the goal of full coverage.

Even the largest commercial databases can be frustrating to work with when searching for foods or customizations without existing coverage. To solve this, I created a real-time version of the same approach used to build the core database that can browse the web to learn about new foods or food customizations if needed (e.g., a highly customized Starbucks order). There is a limited demo on the web, and in-app you can log foods with text search, via barcode scan, or by image, all of which can search the web to import foods for you if needed. Foods discovered via these searches are fed back into the database, and I plan to publish updated versions as coverage expands.

- Search & Explore: https://www.opennutrition.app/search

- Methodology/About: https://www.opennutrition.app/about

- Get the iOS App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opennutrition-macro-tracker/id...

- Download the dataset: https://www.opennutrition.app/download

OpenNutrition’s iOS app offers free essential logging and a limited number of agentic searches, plus expenditure tracking and ongoing diet recommendations like best-in-class paid apps. A paid tier ($49/year) unlocks additional searches and features (data backup, prioritized micronutrient coverage for logged foods), and helps fund further development and broader library coverage.

I’d love to hear your feedback, questions, and suggestions—whether it’s about the database itself, a really great/bad search result, or the app.

1. Burke et al., 2011, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3268700/

2. Patel et al., 2019, https://mhealth.jmir.org/2019/2/e12209/

Problems faced:
1. It didn't have context about the system/file-folder structures. So had to implement the indexing. Though it doesn't do the work fully rn.
2. Improper commands. Sometimes it generates commands that don't make sense. It can be tackled with search through predefined commands and feeding to the AI I guess.
3. Combining all this, I want to make it more intelligent so it can take actions even with vague commands.

I'm not sure if it works well with macos/linux. Please let me know. I'll continue this project. And give a star :)

They tried to hire their spouse and I requested a proper process or documentation so it was defensible to the board. I intentionally did not go to the other board members so there was no perception of discord. Ultimately, the cofounder agreed and their spouse then decided to drop out and not join the company. My cofounder even agreed their spouse joining would have ruined the company. Since then, things have been strained.

The CEO is also committing to some fairly high CAPEX in things we don't own without any formal board approval. I have raised concerns only for my cofounder to get angry and dismiss me telling me to "stay in my lane." These CAPEX items have caused us to move multiple times and create a lot of chaos and questions from the staff which go unaddressed. Or, worse -- we are unable to acquire the things we need to be successful with those purchases being blocked for more "vanity" purchases like repainting the outside of our building multiple times. Additionally, we have another executive that is ineffective (my observation, and their subordinates) but is loyal to my cofounder. However they were loyal to me when their job was threatened by the spouse.

Recently I was hit by a surprise meeting including one board member and placed on paid leave with no contact to employees. They also requested I relocate back to the state I came from prior to relocating for the business. I stated this wasn't anything I wanted, which surprised the board member. I have been complying as I figure out next steps. Employees are confused and I have been reassuring them. I am contemplating a letter or discussion with the other board members to get some truth/other perspective out and hopefully work through this with some legal guidance.

Any advice? I am leaning towards an approach where I exit and advise because I don't think I can recover the business long term from the chaos unless I get a new leadership team with me.

YC w24 company here. We just pivoted from drone delivery and on-demand GPU rental back to our original idea - using AI for language learning.

The Sayso app uses interactive Stories, really good AI Phone Calls and immersive community posts to create a fantastic Spanish learning experience.

Sayso lets you “shop around” for the lesson/story you want to do. Each story contains - well - a fun story that lets you see Spanish used in real world contexts, has you say a few useful sentences out loud so you practice pronunciation and ends with a short phone call that puts you on the spot. At the end, new words are added to an FSRS5-powered flashcard stack (most efficient memorization algorithm). I can tell you, it’s a lot of fun, words just stick and you gain a lot of knowledge quickly.

Stories and phone calls are made to be fun and useful. E.g., instead of “how to order a coffee”, we do something like “a waiter spills coffee on you” - you can choose to be nice or yell at him. This way, phrases just stick really well.

There are also community posts, which are short videos in or about Spanish with a short exercise that lets you say a sentence out loud in the end. And there are phone call scenarios that are a bit longer.

As additional motivation, there are Amazon gift vouchers for the leaderboard toppers every week!

How did we get here?
We were part of YC w24. We applied to YC with AI language learning initially but decided to work on drone delivery during YC given our ML & engineering backgrounds. Turns out, no one needs that and the unit economics simply don’t work out. Then we launched gpudeploy.com and got #1 on HN [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40260259]! But this didn't work out either - we turned into glorified car (Nvidia GPU) salesmen which we were not good at. So we went back to our original idea, language learning. We launched an initial app last year and now took the learnings and recently launched SAYSO.

It is available on iOS only for now.

Enjoy and have a nice rest of the weekend!