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Faraz Khan Profile
Faraz Khan

@faraz_r_khan

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1,608
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Building a modern kid carrying electric scooter for American cities. Former @screenhero founder previously at @slackhq , @voyage and @covariantai .

Oakland, CA
Joined July 2010
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
What I'm working on these days: A full suspension long tail all-wheel drive electric cargo bike since carrying your kids to school should not only be safe on bumpy roads but fun. Throttle only to allows safe starts on hills, integrated BT lock, giant 2kwh batt for 80mi range
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
9 months
@marshal Wow this is hilarious af why are you getting trolled so bad.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@stevegraham It makes sense. Clothes are for others while Mbp pro and chair are for yourself.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
10 months
It’s been crazy to see the way a lot techies have responded to this conflict. I thought the tech community would be this unbiased scientific community that only followed reason. But I’ve seen much doxxing , gagging and name calling for anyone not towing the “correct”line.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
@Suhail @elonmusk The dude is something else.He just cuts right to the chase.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
1 year
@chr1sa I can’t believe I’m saying this but guess who has the least opinionated headline here (aka journalism)
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
@Altimor This is the issue with self driving cars too - in the end you are basically replacing a $20-25/hr Uber driver after having spent billions in research and tuning. It could be feasible at (extremely) crazy scale though!
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 months
@Robot_Brains You literally make the world go round dude. This is awesome. I’m a software guy turned fabricator / roboticist and I always thought there was a team of hundreds who made these. But crazy that you do this all alone. Crazy!
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
5 years
Wife and I realized last night that a possible 5-day pge blackout is possible at midnight and started panicking. Then we realized that we grew up in Pakistan and this was like a Tuesday growing up 🤣
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 months
Lost my brother to alcoholism last year. He would’ve been 51 today. Alcohol abuse silently kills 3 million people like my brother in the world every year. 10x more than people dying in armed conflicts annually. Yet once you become addicted there is no real treatment that works.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
10 months
@AleResnik Calling people antisemitic for literally citing stats that doesn’t support your line of thought is similar to what a dictator would do. We aren’t in Saudi Arabia. Argue with him and disagree with facts if you want to have a unbiased discourse. Don’t call him names.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@kyleve An “IT” admin once blocked my requisition for $300 headphones citing “too much extra hardware expense” while I was working at a audio chat app at a popular decacorn. Not only was I being paid $180k/year but they had recently paid millions to acquire us 😆 The irony.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@auren This is the default in Pakistan and something I miss a lot in the US. The culture to schedule everything in life introduces so much friction that people don’t meet as often.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
Reverse engineered the reverse engineering that folks at @comma_ai did! I can now turn on the Corolla radar and make it give valid tracks straight from python. Code coming soon. I now have a cheap automotive radar to play with (these cost like $250 on eBay)
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
Got a good sub 100ms latency video stream going over 4g lte using gstreamer -> electron. Now if we can fix our steering control lag we should be good to go driving around.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
I've been heads down working on a custom construction robot alongside @ti_am_i for the past year. Not only did the robot materialize, it successfully did its job at a real live construction site in Oakland! 😱 A story on how it all came to be:
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
10 months
If you live in Oakland hills and don’t want your property prices going to zero due to low prosecution of crime go to the Montclair farmers market and get crazy idealistic folks out of office. #recallpamelaprice
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@jonty Wtf? I really thought the token contained the jpeg data somehow. What’s the point here otherwise? Can’t someone make another token pointing to a different url with the same or slightly modified data?
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 years
Made it! I don't think I was close to being this excited when I graduated from my (very) expensive ivy league college. Thank you @udacity !
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
1 year
@anshublog @firstrepublic Same! They gave me a mortgage when no other bank would when I was a founder with a w2 that didn’t go back enough. Awesome people. Supporting them through this and I hope everyone else does too!✊🏽
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
1 year
@thomasschiavone My dude Oakland city planner personally delayed my house for a year because the exterior profile didn’t match the aesthetic he had set for the zone. Yes that’s a thing!
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 years
I got to sit inside Voyage's self driving taxi today! Tingly feeling as it stops at a stop sign, observes traffic and proceeds when clear, autonomously 😯😎 Thanks @ericrgon @voyage
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
1 year
They made the bathrooms gender neutral in the chabot space center by making one of them worse for 50% of the people (Both bathrooms are still operating). How is this helpful?
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
@nihalmehta Clearly beating children till they become engineers or doctors is paying off 😅
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
There are few things as therapeutic for the mind for me as a camping trip. Lucky to have a family that enjoys it too! 🥰
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
8 months
You don’t need a bipedal humanoid robot. If you can deliver a general purpose helper like this for < $50k people will develop their houses and offices to be free of stairs/steps and with elevators just so that the robots can get around on wheels only.
@zipengfu
Zipeng Fu
8 months
Introduce 𝐌𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐇𝐀🏄 -- Learning! With 50 demos, our robot can autonomously complete complex mobile manipulation tasks: - cook and serve shrimp🦐 - call and take elevator🛗 - store a 3Ibs pot to a two-door cabinet Open-sourced! Co-led @tonyzzhao , @chelseabfinn
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
The construction robot I've been working on for close to a year is being deployed at its job site tomorrow morning. Now boasting 5mm of absolute accuracy at the worst using roof mounted 4k cameras and some pathfinding. This is one of the many test runs (with lasers disabled).
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
@ryanmjohnson They also get us stuck in traffic jams, make us waste a lot of time finding parking and annoy kids who hate being in car seats but we love them! 🫤
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 years
Super excited to be joining @voyage to build self driving cars! 😎😮🤖🚗. Amazing team solving hard problems. Feels good to be doing something that'll make a direct positive impact on people's lives ✊
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
I've joined to help robots 🤖 see and react to changing real world environments. Lucky to have the chance to work alongside super smart folks like @pabbeel (amongst others) in figuring out one of the most impactful real world application of modern DNNs.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
1 year
@TheFederman Some people literally beleive the government is a monarchy and can release gold from the treasury at will.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
For reasons I cannot explain going to a remote area on a motorcycle through dirt roads to sleep in a tent and eat dehydrated food for days is extremely fun to a large group of people that includes me 🤷🏾‍♂️
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
1 year
@zebulgar Dubai proves that democracies are overrated atleast for building cities and economies. But have you actually lived in Dubai? It’s hot af 24hrs a day! If Dubai existed near Hawaii / cali / Spain it would be a instant yes from me.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
10 months
@Twolfrecovery @SenecaSpeaks21 Interestingly shanty towns in Pakistan look way poorer (no expensive trailers or cars being used as shelter) but are much cleaner and have 100% sane, working and drug free inhabitants. Next time I go I’ll get a video - this is NOT the result of poverty as many in the US beleive.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
@Austen I guess kids still hate school (like we did)! Maybe we can make school more fun so it's not universally hated so much? Is that possible or will it always be a drudgery mankind has to go through?
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 months
@SenecaSpeaks21 @MayorShengThao How can the mayor afford private security? Does the city pay for this?
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
1 year
@brezina SUVs only make sense if you are going majorly offroad. For carrying families the minivan wins hands down. This is a niche that Tesla has cornered with the model X: a minivan for folks who wanna keep 50% of the ego 🤣
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 months
@ruemcclammyhand I have a lot of friends with rich dads in Pakistan who say “eeww it sucks here”. But zero without rich dads. If you’ve fended for yourself anywhere in the world alone - the US is awesome.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
9 months
@LavanyaSunder This is great news! I will 100% take the train even if it was a tiny bit slower overall since they skip the whole TSA / checkin BS.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
I think this is going to be one of the most useful home robots I’ve seen this decade. No vision or AI just plain old mechatronics delivering fresh hot rotis (naans) from scratch on demand. Every desi household needs one. Good stuff @rotimatic
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
Whenever I sell something worth < $100 on Facebook marketplace I’m mostly just doing it to recycle efficiently. Anyone else in the same boat? There should be a service that picks up stuff for free then gives me 50% whenever it sells!
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 months
Another startup making a simple and instantly useful product. @Hoopfit_ catches, scores and returns the ball directly to you so you spend more time playing. Amazing to witness @farhadnoorzay go from a idea to an actual fully functional product. This stuff is hard.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 years
Testing our final carnd project on the Udacity SDC! 😮 @udacity @dsilver829 @mez_gebre @MVirgs44
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
Just donated to @bilalmahmood for state assembly and I finally understand why people donate to political campaigns: you must really believe change is badly needed.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 months
@TheFederman I always assume these folks fully understand the economics but sadly the average person does not - and they have to say stuff like this to get votes. Way easier for voters to comprehend a singular grouped enemy than the “system”.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
5 years
Working with robotics these last couple of years has been a humbling experience. Coming from a pure software background it's easy to feel like god from time to time. You are powerful and anything you dream up can be implemented with near 100% accuracy. Everything is certain.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
In 2017/2018 I was able to purposely change the direction of my life for the first time in 40yrs: 1. Had a baby 😮 2. Switched from native apps / saas developement to ML / Self driving cars / Robotics. 🤖 Excited about what 2019 has in store!
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
An update on my autopilot project: My kia now has MPC based jerk-minimizing longitudinal control 😍. This means it can maintain distance, stop and accelerate based on a lead vehicle. The green line below depicts a car moving at 6mph which I catch up to. YAS #SelfDrivingCars
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
20 days
How do you hardware folks doing prototypes get small steel parts fabricated? parts that require a 5 axis CNC that is. Do you all just use xometry (slow / terrible), build it in house on converted CNCs or use that VC money to buy a Bridgeport/haas or something fancy?
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@Austen Wow. My permit for my house in Oakland took 1yr and cost $80k in fees 🙄
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
10 months
@salahuddin @paulg It’s been crazy to watch how conformist the tech community in the valley can be. People are scared to cite these stats and I’ve seen one engineer and one VC being told to literally shut up or get fired on Twitter unless they say the “right stuff”. Insane.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 years
Step 1 to making my civic semi self driving.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
@Suhail Same old sad gatekeeping. I've seen programmers and native language speakers do the same thing to establish dominance over inferior beings 😄
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
11 months
My very first home made machined real part. It’s a alloy steel boss that will be welded to my bikes subframe. Complete with m5 threads. Making even tiny metal parts like this is crazy hard work but so extremely satisfying.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
8 months
@Appyg99 Was it weird being brown over there? I’ve never seen much diversity in any European city I’ve ever been to outside of London.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
I envy people who can learn by reading books and listening to experts. The only way I learn anything is to low key fail 1000x and slowly converge onto an answer.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
10 months
@AleResnik PG with a documented history of bias? I know him personally and have worked with him and was not unaware at all or would expect given his nature. Regarding the death tolls what are your facts? I would respond with that other than calling him names.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
Testing out our not so little autonomous racer at @makerfaire today. It completes a lap - albeit at very low speeds but baby steps! If you are at maker faire come check the autonomous power racing teams out (there are 3)!
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@Altimor I’m using @aalto to sell my house due to this. Total commission paid should be 2% (buyer and seller)
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
You can build robots, work on self driving cars or low level networking stuff but the first time your family will ever care about any of that is when you 3D print a broken baby stroller part and save the day 🥇😅
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 years
The new @comma_ai update is sexy af. Good job guys! Much design!
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
Angle based steering control using a simplistic PID on the Arduino. I can now dial a angle for the steering. Thanks to opensource, the code was contributed by a project member and it "just works" on my car! #SelfDrivingCars #robotics #OpenSource
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
New toys for a new gig! Back to (semi) autonomous vehicles only this time the focus is to enable a remote human to teleoperate safely.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
This is a $150 medical grade FDA approved EKG device (with analysis) by @AliveCor that you can buy today. Super easy to use and works in 30 seconds. I was experiencing what i hope are panic attacks so I thought I'll collect some data for my doc without going into a hospital.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
5 years
@Suhail Meta question: why do startups become 1k companies then if it's common knowledge that it'll suck once they get there?
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
5 months
@Austen My 5yr old says I’m dumb for going to work to get money since he can just get it from a cash machine in the wall! 😂😂😂😭😭😭
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
5 years
It's the polar opposite in robotics. Nothing ever is certain. The man made sandbox is gone and you literally have to deal with the Earth, nature and physics. There is no such thing as certainty and randomness is part of every algorithm.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@manishsinhaha @stevegraham It is true a lot of people care about how you look and it’s definitely not a optimal strategy around them - my solution is just not to hang too much with such people 😀once in a while though it’s okAy to dress up.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
Why is the human body so damn efficient? I literally biked up and down multiple mountains for an hour and my fitness tracker tells me I maybe burned that burger I ate yesterday. But not the fries. 😑
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@geoff_l @Austen Cutting out political / global news has done miracles for my non specific anxiety.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
Starting up something that I've wanted to do for a while: an opensource/open-data L3 highway autopilot system for normal cars. Currently rigging up a Kia Soul EV with the @PolySync OSCC kit. Join in if you want to hack on a real drive-by-wire car.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
The PCL library is AMAZING! I literally had no idea what to do with my depth cloud a few days ago but now I can do this. Thanks @jadalawa @emrahadamey for pointing me in the right direction! Segmentation done using just a RGBD camera's depth cloud and PCL 😇
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
I now have full drive by wire control of my Kia soul ev using @PolySync oscc for under $1000. Take a look at If you wanna join in and/or do it yourself! Mandatory test drive video: #SelfDrivingCars #Robotics #AutonomousVehicles
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
It’s crazy how quickly your body adapts to the climate you live in. It’s 85F in the bay and I’m dying. I grew up in Karachi where 85F used to be an amazing winter morning 😅
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
5 months
@AleResnik @ycombinator If you call anyone who speaks against Israel antisemitic people will see through it. YC associates with the smartest people in the world and PG is one of them.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
I would pay $25/month (or maybe even more) for a email service that intelligently categorize spam and growth hack marketing emails and just gives me useful actionable emails.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
Getting started w/ web3 dev using @_buildspace ! The plan is to: ✍️ write my own custom smart contract 💰 build a "connect wallet" flow. 🚀 deploy it to Ethereum Let's do this! Thanks for putting this together @FarzaTV @_buildspace
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
5 years
A random robotic platform I'm working on to help a client-friend (frient?). My first instinct was to solve this using code and reading robotics research papers. In the end I found out it's ALL about the correct choice of hardware.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@Austen For entrepreneurs yeah - but only because our parents/environment installed the “productivity is your only function” ideal deep in our brain.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
It’s alive and working well. Toddler loves how he doesn’t feel bumps anymore. I love how it rides. You know it’s something people want when anyone with a cargo bike stops to asks what it is and whether it’s more comfortable / safer than theirs (it is by far)
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
Only in Silicon valley does a security patrol car pull up next to you and says: "no driverless testing allowed in this area guys, liability issues" 😮🤔🙄
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
5 months
After 2 successful 5-10x exits from investments I made in the last 5 years I can totally understand why everyone wants to be an investor. You make so much more money without doing any actual work 😂😂
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
@Suhail Talking to users definitely doesn't work for products that open up new use cases or are too similar to existing ones. When prior to screenhero we asked users whether they would want awesome screensharing many responded "nah Hangouts works just fine".
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 months
@ImSamThompson The HOA I used to live in San Leandro contracted one such tow yard for their “automatic towing” service. In this the tow yard patrols the HOA every night and auto tows cars that violate HOA policy. Needless to say many many cars were wrongly towed and lots of money made.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
1 year
@YayAreaNews Can she drive over them in this case? Would it be self defense?
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
Every single time I have a friend or relative complain that they can't get a job even after they went to fancy school X for a non tech degree I just tell them to ignore the sunk cost and go to @LambdaSchool What a great idea!
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
22 days
If you are in SF and need an inspiration boost may I recommend a Waymo ride. It was 🤯🤯🤯🤯. I would pay s premium to ride in this vs a Uber/lyft.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
Much respect for these guys. They just quietly keep shipping (and making money off of) extremely complex shit. They might be the most complex startup I know of that actually ships a usable consumer product. 🥇
@comma_ai
comma
3 years
Introducing comma three. See 360° with 3 cameras on our beautiful new hardware. Starting at $2199.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
Working on hardware is kinda like software except a runtime exception means you die! 😱☠️ Last weld is in and my battery pack is alive (and so am I)
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
Why is this salt called “Himalayan”? All my research suggests it comes from the khewra salt mine in Pakistan which is near Lahore and has been producing rock salt since the middle ages. These guys just skipped the refining process. It’s like calling Lahoris “Himalayan” 🤣
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
4 years
I hereby cancel all my plans for making a laundry robot. Just have a kid instead! More fun 🤩
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 months
My most functional and strongest precision 3d print to date. A drill guide. @Polymaker_3D Nylon PA612cf is no joke.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
For the first 40 years of my life these numbers were mostly 0. Crazy it took a pandemic to get me off my ass. The absolute numbers don’t mean much but the growth from last yr is very encouraging- specially at 40 😅
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
7 years
Racing autonomous cars in Oakland. This particular one was a dnn based donkey car. Thanks @3DRobotics @chr1sa
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
8 months
@TheFederman Oops. Had no idea this was illegal 😅
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
10 months
@AleResnik Having lived in a place where taliban have a strong hold (Pakistan) I can tell you that no capitalist country likes terrorists. They are always bad for business and bring nothing but doom. Only psychopaths work with and for them.
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
2 years
Is there a startup making good purpose built electric cargo bikes for the US? Most ebikes seem to target the EU market and end up being kinda gutless due to regulation. We need a US focused electric cargo bike - high torque, full suspension, more range, twist throttle, anti theft
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 months
@Appyg99 Seriously. These women seem just fine to me. The folks complaining about them are the actual problem 😄
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
6 years
I've recently discovered Python + pybind11 + C++ + cppimport. It makes extending your python with C code surprisingly easy (way easier than cython). Cppimport autocompiles C code on change and even links in external libs. Bliss!
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@faraz_r_khan
Faraz Khan
3 years
@Suhail Congrats on making something new and useful dude. I can tell that none of the haters have done that or ever aspire to. Fuck em.
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