nswizzle31 (u/nswizzle31)

nswizzle31 commented on Leaving Meta and PyTorch soumith.ch/blog/2025-11-0... · Posted by u/saikatsg

numice · a month ago

I read one post on his blog and found that Adam Paszke reached out to the author and got an internship. I wonder if it was that easy to get an internship at FAIR. I thought that they hire only PhDs.

nswizzle31 · a month ago

I was pretty involved in the PyTorch ecosystem in the early days around 2016 and Adam was nothing short of a genius and prolific developer whose contributions to the codebase and community were immense. I think he was like an undergrad in Poland at the time. My understanding is that his contributions came before the internship, but I don’t know.

My memory is that Souminth was really open to other people’s contributions and questions, no matter their credentials. He was a great leader who felt approachable to the open-source community.

nswizzle31 commented on Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2025) · Posted by u/david927

alabhyajindal · 3 months ago

Love the idea. From the FAQ section on the website:

> Organizers can keep a portion of sign-up or event fees

Isn't this a given? Don't event organisers expect to keep the entire sign-up fee for themselves when they host an event? The website banner reads:

> Build an IRL community. Get paid for it.

I was under the impression that onthe.town will pay the organisers from their own pocket for organising the event, but that does not seem to be true.

nswizzle31 · 3 months ago

Really appreciate the feedback. The idea right now is that you set up a club and attendees pay a small amount for each event, and then we take a small (~10%) fee for selecting the venues, doing the matching, and handling payments for you.

But I do love your idea and it's something I'm pursuing. We are matching people to meet at venues (restaurants, golf courses, etc) and it makes sense for venues to pay to be selected. That money would go to organizers and the events could be free. It's just a harder B2B problem to convince companies to sponsor communities.

Ultimately, clubs will have the flexibility to be run in multiple ways - from free, to business-sponsored or attendee-funded, to even onthetown-sponsored as you suggest.

nswizzle31 commented on Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2025) · Posted by u/david927

nswizzle31 · 3 months ago

I'm trying to incentivize people to build IRL communities instead of AI-related apps because the demand for human interaction FAR outweighs the supply. My platform (https://onthe.town), is basically Shopify for social experience clubs. Anyone can start a club and create events based around bringing random people together IRL based on shared interests. You get your own website and infra that handles signups, payments, and matching.

It's largely based on platform-izing the extremely popular Timeleft app that simply matches 6 random people for dinner. With onthe.town, anyone can create a Timeleft-like app around any concept they're interested in. Some clubs people have created include a golf club (get matched with 3 other people to play golf with), a vinyl record sharing club, a lunch club for biotech networking, and a club to meet other parents for dinner.

nswizzle31 commented on Show HN: Patio – Rent tools, learn DIY, reduce waste patio.so... · Posted by u/GouacheApp

GouacheApp · 7 months ago

Thanks a lot for sharing all of this! That’s a really thoughtful approach — and very aligned with how we’ve been thinking about it too.

The neighborhood-level model is especially compelling — tools within walking distance, built-in trust, and someone local acting as a tool steward or mini-hub. We’ve been exploring similar ideas, including ways to support individuals or organizations that want to take on that role.

Disrupting the traditional tool ownership model while creating new local economies is exactly the kind of long-term potential we see here. Would love to hear more about your original thinking — feel free to reach out at julien@patio.so!

nswizzle31 · 7 months ago

A local hub to go get tools is the only way this works, in my opinion. Your current offering is obviously compelling from the renter’s perspective. I am renovating a cottage and would love to go pick up a chainsaw, brush cutter, etc for half the price of Home Depot (they have everything and great service).

But I just don’t see it from the tool owner’s perspective. My suburban aunt has two chainsaws sitting in the garage that she doesn’t use anymore. An extra $150 a month isn’t enough to deal with the hassle of coordinating meetings, dealing with damage, etc. And she definitely wouldn’t be giving a free tank of gas, PPE, etc like Home Depot does. She would gladly drop it off at a local spot, make passive income, maybe go grab it herself once a year when she needs it.

Ps - great website design. Looks beautiful on mobile and works really well. What are you using on the frontend?

nswizzle31 commented on I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic wave3.social... · Posted by u/nswizzle31

smaudet · 7 months ago

Hmm, I have used sites like this in past to some effect to make real world connections.

Signed up, but despite asking if I lived in one of three cities and selecting "other", it seemed to stick me in some event without a location?

There could be room for another app, e.g. Meetup has gotten particularly money hungry. If this is just a prototype I guess good luck!

nswizzle31 · 7 months ago

Thanks, I've fixed that now! I added the "other city" option as a way to let people express interest and if there is enough people + someone willing to show up then I'm happy to expand. Just want to focus on creating a good experience first.

nswizzle31 commented on I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic wave3.social... · Posted by u/nswizzle31

Esophagus4 · 7 months ago

The idea of needing to impress an in-crowd enough to get an invite to join reminds me of fraternities in college (which I withdrew from half way through the process) and well-heeled yacht clubs or country clubs.

I’d much rather make friends where I can just show up and have a nice time with someone based on a shared interest (like my local cycling club, where I’ve met a few folks I hang out with regularly… or even social dance clubs for those into ballroom or Latin dance). Meetups are obviously too transient, so I join clubs with consistent regular attendees.

But maybe there are people this program will resonate with. Obviously, exclusive invite-only clubs like fraternities and country clubs are popular and I know many who joined, and even met life long friends there.

…I guess, just not me. I probably have some weird outsider-exclusion-from-popular-kid-club complex that is well beyond the scope of this comment :)

The same reason I won’t show up with a navy blazer to a yacht club social event to beg sponsorship from some commercial real estate agent with a chip on his shoulder because he has a quarter-zip polo from the club store and a member number like S29 he can use at the bar.

That being said, good luck with the company, I hope it is successful and you meet a lot of great people.

nswizzle31 · 7 months ago

Totally get your perspective and appreciate the thoughts. In full transparency, this idea comes directly from my experience joining a fraternity and making a group of ~10 lifelong friends that I still get together with a few times a year.

We have so little in common interest wise, but we bonded over just being in the same place repeatedly. I'm not in contact with anyone from my engineering program. That says a lot to me about shared interests as a (non-)driver of lasting friendships compared to shared EXPERIENCE, but I'm just one person.

Obviously "frat culture" has an extreme negative connotation, but I will just say that not every fraternity is full of gym bros... they exist for every type of guy and I truly think the socially awkward guys I know who joined fraternities made significantly more meaningful relationship than the cool, good-looking guys who didn't.

nswizzle31 commented on I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic wave3.social... · Posted by u/nswizzle31

cogogo · 7 months ago

I find it ironic that the site is missing information about its creators and their background given the mission/goals. Presume OP is the Nick in the contact at the bottom. If OP is reading I’d definitely suggest adding something about yourself and anyone else involved and why doing this matters to you.

nswizzle31 · 7 months ago

Thanks for this comment - I created the site quite quickly to gauge interest in this cause that's really important to me... the response has been overwhelming. I am adding some real pictures of myself and friends, along with more info about me both on the page and in the eventual instagram page.

Little about me just for kicks - I'm early 30s, married, recently moved to Boston with a great tech job and a really solid group of friends from college that I unfortunately don't live close to anymore. I've made some good friends since moving here but it has all been through someone taking a herculean level of initiative to plan things and invite people to stuff. I want to lower that friction to have consistent IRL interactions with interesting people - whoever those people might be for a given person.