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kvanderd

113 karma · joined January 22, 2013

Founder Gem Joy (gemjoy.com)
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kvanderd··on Ask HN: What technologies did you learn in 2018?
As a theater major who spent the last 8 years doing web development and web design I decided to start building augmented reality games using Unity, Vuforia and C#.

My best decision of 2018. I have never been happier with my day-to-day work.

The theatrics of it all take me back to college. The amount of creative freedom you have to build narratives, characters and effects is just so much fun.

Highly recommend for any one who was involved in theater.

You can see what I have been building here: https://codetocanvas.com/

kvanderd··on Writing copy for landing pages
6 questions that should be answered above the fold of the page. These questions should be answered again in different ways throughout the page using pictures, text and video.

1. What is it?

2. What does it look like?

3. How big or small is it?

4. Can it be delivered?

5. Can I return it?

6. Can I trust it?

People consume content in very different ways. And showing, telling and demonstrating the product/service helps achieve #6.

kvanderd··on Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages
I have been waiting for this conversation.

I do the grocery shopping in our house 90% in-store shopper (I like to pick out my produce and discover new stuff) 10% online delivery - San Francisco, Franklin Location. Here are the the things that they have gotten really wrong for me...

1. Quality Eggs. This is expensive. It requires sourcing locally and refrigeration at every step. I use to have options to buy from 3+ fantastic pasture raised egg options (almost farmers market quality). This has deteriorated to 1 option. I happily pay $9 a dozen.

2. Don't put the tofu with the dairy. They moved a lot of vegan/vegetarian favorites next to the milk and butter. Customers were complaining while I was in the store. They did not fix it. This might save on energy in the long run but is a tone def move.

3. Staying Local. I will stop shopping at WF if they don't carry local produce. This is expensive and managing each supply chain goes against lowering pricing.

I don't think Amazon wants to keep the demographic. I think they will be a Ralphs or Safeway in 5 years. The next conversation will be quality and keeping the historical whole foods demographic, in these early days I am not sure that is their vision.

kvanderd··on Ask HN: How to make this Net Neutrality simulation better?
I am going to be making updates to this all day. Any suggestions are appreciated.
kvanderd··on Ask HN: Anyone interested in having their Code painted (oil on canvas)?
I have received a few submissions - Thank you. I am standing by to answer any questions. :)
kvanderd··on Ask HN: Failed interview, feeling unemployable and depressed – what do I do?
Just want to acknowledge how productive/awesome this response is to a very vulnerable HN post.
kvanderd··on Ask HN: Are there actually any exciting companies in Seattle?
I would checkout http://www.ivysoftworks.com/. The CEO of this company was the CTO of a company I worked for. Extremely developer friendly, great visionary etc.
kvanderd··on Ask HN: How do your enterprise customers pay you?
fwiw -

Worked at a startup that served only fortune 1000 companies. Always late, late, late, late.....

Good side: Repeat customers. Getting in the door is hard but once you're in it is easy to stay in if you're doing a decent job.

Bad side: After 6 months of doing business with them you would finally get your first check. For a startup even with millions of dollars in the bank this sets your burn rate on FIRE.

kvanderd··on Confessions of a Pregnant CEO
Yes, they do. It is called Family Temporary Disability Insurance. More here: http://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/paid_family_leave.htm
kvanderd··on Confessions of a Pregnant CEO
"But it's scary to me to think that women feel the need to make these types of sacrifices, and not take care of their family."

Hmmmm ... the United States does not offer paid maternity leave. So if you needed the money, and weren't a CEO, you would have to go back to work anyway. She is making a choice, but for many other women the choice has been made for them. The US is the only developed country without laws providing paid maternity leave.

kvanderd··on Paypal has started banning accounts selling anything Bitcoin-related
Paypal is the worst way to process payments, no one should use them (use any of the alternatives). Paypal will never support anything like Bitcoin unless they absolutely have to because it involves "risk". I wish consumers weren't so use to the easy checkout process, because they're terrible to develop with and will stifle virtual currency adoption.
kvanderd··on PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds
I am sorry this happened to you. As a consumer I used to love Paypal, buy anything with one click. After using them as a business owner for online transactions I absolutely hate them.

I won't go into my situation but the horror stories are endless:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/directory/paypal-inc http://www.paypalsucks.com/

As a developer I won't use them anymore. I use Stripe now.

kvanderd··on Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas
Totally misleading.

We bought ours through the website. It is the ONLY way to buy one regardless of where you live.

kvanderd··on Google’s Matt Cutts: Don’t Be The Sucker That Buys The Spammy Domain
The Penguin update targeted spam links not Panda (the Panda update penalized thin/spun/lame content). It is confusing...they clearly don't support color diversity :).... In webmaster tools you can report incoming links that are spam. Google has along way to go. Doing a backlink analysis before a domain purchase is time consuming and most people don't know how to do it.
kvanderd··on Tesla Unveils New Finance Product
My husband and I traded in our old car two months ago for a Model S. We love it.

That said, the first month before the charge station was installed we could only charge 5 miles per hour with a regular wall outlet(we hardly drove the car). Finding someone to intall a charger and getting the approval of the HOA was a huge hassel (and we're in San Francisco). The cost of the charger / installation was 2500!