HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

jordank

278 karma · joined April 14, 2011

Product strategy + UX advising, consulting, and investing.

Early involvement at DuckDuckGo, Evidation, and Springshot among others.

jordan at duck dot com

submissionscomments
jordank··on How Hertz’s bet on Teslas went sideways
Having rented a Tesla via Hertz last year, here are some quick remembrances:

-The car was not charged fully when I rented it.

-I had to park in a pay parking lot at a shopping mall to charge the car. Charging to 100% cost me $7 but took 30 minutes of my time.

-The UX of most of the basic car functions was much harder to learn than a typical rental car. I'm sure that Tesla's UX quirks start to feel normal after a while, but I had trouble locating basic car functions and had to text with Tesla-owning friends for advice.

None of these things made me want to rent a Tesla again.

jordank··on 01 Light: a voice interface for your home computer
Has anyone found any basic specs (e.g. around battery life) for the 01 Light device?
jordank··on Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school
“The tuition for full-time students who are Arizona residents will be paid for by the state at no cost to families.

Students who live in the US, but outside Arizona, will pay $9,900 per year tuition. Students who live outside the US will pay $12,900 per year.”

jordank··on How I Became a Libertarian
Are there any examples of current or past successful libertarian governments?
jordank··on Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
I routinely recruit highly targeted people for 1-on-1 interviews via services like userinterviews.com to help validate concepts. These services take care of incentives and scheduling, making this process fairly painless.
jordank··on Sony’s wearable air conditioner is pretty cool
Regarding the ice cube technique, I found some freezable bandanas on Amazon that have the same effect as holding an ice cube or using this Sony device.
jordank··on Fast-Growing Remote Startups
DuckDuckGo should also probably be on this list (and is hiring for a couple director-level technical roles IIRC).
jordank··on Clearview AI helps law enforcement match photos of people to their online images
Yes, and in contrast with OP’s assertion some states are actively regulating privacy (i.e. California) and there are plenty of statehouses that would likely be amenable to regulating this issue.

It’s a mistake to think about US regulations as purely federal.

jordank··on Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100
One factor missing from most analyses of scooter companies are the sheer cost of insuring scooters long term. Insurance rates are likely based on the assumption that scooter companies can disclaim against any user damages (injury, death, etc) but companies can't disclaim against gross negligence and there are many, many legal actions against Lime and other scooter companies (disclaimer/source: I'm a plaintiff in one of these actions).

Failure rates are known to be fairly high and accidents are common [1]. I was on a Lime that had a brake failure and I was pretty badly injured. Lime themselves have indicated that the failure rate was around .00045%, but that's still 450 brake failures per million rides [2].

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/scooter-use-... [2] https://www.li.me/blog/safety-update-february-2019

jordank··on Game Builder: Create 3D games with friends, no experience required
“You can build your own cards with Javascript. Game Builder comes with an extensive API that allows you to script almost everything in the game. All the code is live, so just make a change and save it, no compiling required.”
jordank··on Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada
It appears we are talking about place of origin of accounts, at least in my wife’s case.
jordank··on Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada
Right, which should also indicate that this trip to Cuba wasn’t part of a pattern but rather an anomaly.

I understand the complex legal frames that this exists in, but they appear to have the data to be way more precise here.

jordank··on Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada
My wife’s Slack account was closed yesterday.

She created the account while traveling in Cuba (legally) years ago and hasn’t been back to Cuba or any other sanctioned country since.

She is a cofounder of an org that uses Slack heavily and has now lost access to all her messages and files from the past couple years of work.

There appears to be no appeal process here.

jordank··on Is Hyperloop the future of travel?
These are good points — many have tended to look at just the consumer applications. It may be that the economics lend themselves more to industrial transport or logistics than they do to moving bodies.
jordank··on Show HN: Experimental “Text-To-Color” engine I wrote for fun
Cool idea. Tried Crimson and Sage but didn't see results
jordank··on The abandoned college campuses of Second Life
I'm not a Second Life apologist, but it seems like (from comments on the OP) that some of these environments are successful, just maybe not on a full-time basis.
jordank··on We should host the Olympics in the same place every time
Or alternatively, why must the Olympics be held in one place at all? The infrastructural burdens of large events are massive. The World Cup distributes this burden throughout cities and even regions.
jordank··on Why $53M Wasn't Enough to Scale Good Eggs
A couple more points here:

1. A lot of people who care about organic and farm-to-table ethos already live in areas with significant market coverage. Those people will tend to have existing behaviors — GoodEggs sought to displace these. This can be hard if existing players do good-enough job.

2. The paradox of some delivery services is that the people who need them most are sometimes the most economically unviable customers (because they are geographically spread out, because they are lacking in funds or both).

jordank··on Show HN: My seven minute workout timer evening project
Would love to make the URL bar disappear in mobile Safari. Love the idea, I will do this workout now.
jordank··on Two More Patients HIV-Free After Bone Marrow Transplants
Arguably more importantly, this gives researchers a very strong new lead on developing therapies that have similar effect to bone marrow transplant.
jordank··on The Type of Companies That Publish Future Concept Videos
Sometimes the products that companies need to buy aren't yet being made (and can't yet be purchased as components). In this case there is some financial risk associated with producing a new product — videos and other materials can help convince this player to take that risk.
jordank··on The Type of Companies That Publish Future Concept Videos
Publishing videos to the world may have issues, but these sorts of videos can have extreme internal value (the OP mentions this). I've worked on quite of a few of these — they've turned out to be useful tools in securing budgets and coordinating teams.

These concept videos can also be useful when an ingredient brand wants to push other players in their industry forward. When company A needs company B to buy into building new types of hardware, far-out concept videos can go a long way. By publishing concept videos, firms can essentially create reference designs for the future.

jordank··on Don’t stop calling yourself a UX designer – it’s working
Interaction designer was previously the preferred title for many designers...until it became completely co-opted.

I wouldn't get too attached to the title UX Designer either, since that term will no doubt get diluted as well — but as the article states it does give people something to grasp immediately.

jordank··on The curious case of DuckDuckGo
DDG.gg
jordank··on The curious case of DuckDuckGo
We find that our users really like disambiguation. I find it most useful on searches for people (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Doug+smith) or places (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Deerfield).

Re: local search, we're bringing in datasets from services like Yelp. For an example see: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Wood+tavern. We're always looking to improve, so if you've got interesting local data, please reach out.

jordank··on Chris Hughes's Startup Jumo ‘Acquired’ for $0 and a Graceful Exit
Legal folks, can a non-profit be acquired for more than $0?

It's a great deal for Good as they get the fruits of $3.5 Million in charity for free, but I'm not sure how they would pay unless the IP was locked up in a for-profit licensing-centric holding company.

jordank··on How DuckDuckGo got in Time's best websites
We put all of our query numbers up at http://ddg.gg/traffic.html.
jordank··on Scientists find evidence of salt water flowing on Mars
Another choice comment:

On each planet is something ice on one, sand, lava, on another, etc., This is where we get our weather from in some ways. Our Earth is in the solar system of these other planets revolving around them.

I'm just not sure that's how it works...

jordank··on Munch On Me (YC S11), a deals site for restaurants, expands to West Los Angeles
I'd love to hear the experiences of people who've used Munch On Me. I've never bought a coupon for a specific food item before, and am wondering if that feels normal.
jordank··on The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed
I wonder if there is a reporting bias for people who have had bad AirBnb experiences, given that renting out your apartment is not always legal.
Page 1 of 2Next →