mat_couthon's comments

mat_couthon | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: What's a good problem solving framework/method?

This is something I came up with. It’s an iterative method to come up with solutions at the right level of abstraction (usually people solve problems that are too specific, or feel powerless to solve problems that are too large).

I’m using here as an example the problem that India faced when they had massive heat waves. Solution in the end was to paint their houses (and maybe streets?) with a light repelling paint. Super cheap and super effective.

  1. Identify pain — What’s hurting me? What am I trying to solve? (people dying from heat wave in india)

  2. List assumptions — What are my assumptions about the problem/state of the world? (heat kills people / people dying is bad / heat waves will continue to occur / we have no control over heat at the scale of cities/countries)
  
  3. Challenge assumptions — Which assumptions, if removed, change the equation? (first 3 assumptions, if removed, result in deciding to do nothing; final assumption if challenged, opens possibilities)
  
  4. Restate problem, per challenged assumption — What is the new problem definition, if I remove this assumption? (how do we make the city less hot)
  
  5. If no solutions come up either do (3) again, or go a level higher by doing (1) again.

mat_couthon | 5 years ago | on: Ask HN: What's broken about the internet?

I’d say that the ad-revenue model.

I’ve written about this here: https://medium.com/anti-content/the-shape-of-the-internet-34...

mat_couthon | 5 years ago | on: Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

This is one of the best threads here!

I created a tool that lets you create ebooks from RSS feeds and send them to your Kindle.

I follow several long-form blogs, and I really prefer to read them on the kindle, so this was my attempt to solve this problem.

If anyone else has the same problem, I'd like to get feedback and feature requests!

https://github.com/mcouthon/r2k