Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

Do note that this twitter account is posting fake screenshots of product ideas.

Other posts include "Google Meet option to punish interrupters by sending them to meeting jail" "iOS camera lock if you record too much concert footage" and "Spotify feature to lock Christmas music until after Thanksgiving"

View on HN

Half of Soren Iverson's joke features are depressingly plausible and the other half are completely implausible but more compelling than any real "AI" product I've ever heard of.

> Uber option to let me drive

I'd like this one. I've had quite a few trips where I asked the driver (Grab/Gojek, not Uber) if I could take over, and they pretty much always don't have an issue with it. Would have been nice to get a discount for it.

Wait, what? You've successfully asked a stranger if you can take over driving their vehicle – presumably a vehicle they rely on for their income and one you're not insured for – and they've said yes!?

Yeah, quite a few times. Mostly in Jakarta and Bangkok. Common reasons include:

* Driver is hopelessly lost and stands no chance of getting to the destination

* Driver has no idea how to read a map

* Driver is obviously very inexperienced and can’t handle the chaotic traffic

* Driver is obviously too tired to drive safely (or reach the destination in a reasonable timeframe)

* Driver is too hungry to drive/read map/think at all (common in the afternoon during Ramadan)

* Driver is obviously high on meth or drunk (especially in Indonesia where there are no laws against driving under the influence)

I’m genuinely not sure how you rack up multiples of these without reconsidering use of the service.

I've had a Lyft driver in San Jose, CA, who was not able to navigate a closed freeway onramp. The GPS map told him to turn onto the onramp, but it was closed in real life. So he drove past it, the GPS routed him to make four right turns and come back around to the same onramp. He just kept going in that circle over and over like a robot, coming back around again and again to the same closed onramp. I'm not sure if he expected it to magically open up for him or what.

So I told him to either end the ride or follow my verbal instructions, basically take the side street up to the next freeway onramp. Once he got there, he completed the rest of the ride successfully.

How many times did he pass the onramp?

At least three times. I kind of lost count as I got this growing feeling of simultaneously being irritated and having pity for the guy.

Well the only alternatives are driving yourself everywhere (which kinda sucks in Jakarta), or hiring several full time drivers (which I have done in the past). All of the taxi/ride share services here are unreliable. But if you want to live in a developing country, you really just have to accept the fact that most things are highly dysfunctional and unreliable.

Having lived in Bangkok, I can say there weren’t great alternatives to Grab. Traditional taxis were as bad if not worse in my experience.

Let me guess. You are a white guy in South East Asia.

They have +6 bonus and Advantage to Charisma roll, what can we say?

You just nearly described Turo.

> one you're not insured for

Car insurance usually handles borrowing just fine.

Business insurance for non employees? When geico figures out you are using consumer insurance for business purposes and then letting the customer drive they're not paying out.

> When geico figures out you are using consumer insurance for business purposes

You can end the sentence here. If there already wasn't proper insurance, then switching drivers is not the problem.

Many of these are quite clever! I just wish he had a tumblr so I didn't have to scroll past a lot of unrelated twitter junk.

Some favorites:

- Hinge AR https://twitter.com/soren_iverson/status/1620799382495924226

- Contact name https://twitter.com/soren_iverson/status/1795470976555315429

- Message imbalance https://twitter.com/soren_iverson/status/1800166023829787009

- Uber quiet game https://twitter.com/soren_iverson/status/1799803638161789152

He also uses Instagram and/or Threads.

I also enjoy the Peter Molyneux parody Twitter account, "Peter Molydeux" (@PeterMolydeux), who posts ridiculous Molyneuxesque game ideas. Somebody actually ran a game jam where they implemented a bunch of them!

https://x.com/PeterMolydeux

Play More Than 200 Ridiculous Peter Molydeux Games Right Now

https://kotaku.com/play-more-than-200-ridiculous-peter-molyd...

Ever wanted to play a video game where you and seven friends control the legs of an octopus? How about where you play as a pigeon and fly from building to building, convincing businessmen not to jump to their deaths? How about a game where the "pause" button is your only weapon?

Thanks to last weekend's "What Would Molydeux?" game jam, you can now play those games and hundreds more.

What began as a tossed-off twitter joke exploded into a bit of a global phenomenon as hundreds of game developers worldwide pooled their talents in a nigh-unprecedented embrace of ridiculousness.

[...]

> "Google Meet option to punish interrupters by sending them to meeting jail"

okay but I need that!

Zoom has had it for ages, it's called the waiting room.

I'm particularly fond of the "Amazon option to ask your driver to stay for dinner and a movie" one

"Fake"? That's a disingenuous judgement. They're conceptual art.

Fakeness doesn't degrade art. Art elevates fakeness.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com