justinboogaard

Joined 12 years ago

Karma
82
Submissions
29
Member since
Sep 13
I work at GoGoGrandparent. A new startup that focuses on using technology to improve the lives of the elderly. We want to make GoGo so good we'll be using it when we're 80. If that sounds interesting to you, please email me at [email protected]
View on Hacker News

Recent submissions

Comment · 5 years ago
Glad they draw attention to the difference between “healthy years” and “just more years”. From our work at GoGo (GoGoGrandparent.com) our clients specifically value more time in the community they grew old in. As you age the trip to church every Sunday becomes what you live for, and taking that away so you can live more years in a retrofitted apartment building isn’t worth it to a lot of people.
Comment · 5 years ago
I don’t think the quote is saying objects have to obey laws because they are extreme (and therefore easy to notice) I think it’s saying all objects have to follow the established rules of physics, regardless of how unusual they are. It’s an interesting idea though! Known, “extreme” objects may be less fruitful places to study unknown forces because they have qualities that overwhelming drown out smaller less known forces.
Comment · 5 years ago
You (me, all of us) are (indirectly) paying for Google ads in the same way that we are (indirectly) paying for merchant credit card processing fees. If you paid for search, some businesses might be able to lower the cost of their products because they don’t have to pay for advertising.
Comment · 5 years ago
I’m not really buying this, so I thought of a way to disprove it.

This statistical outcome only holds for recessive genes on the X chromosome, but it doesn’t make men with the recessive gene “more extreme” than woman with the recessive gene. Just the number of people would be different. So if there is such a gene that makes people excel in their specific field, theoretically we could sequence the x-chromosome of the top women in that field and look for the common recessive gene. They would be more likely to share it if it mattered in that field.

This is interesting, but when you consider the scale by which men across the board receive different societal advantages over women, it feels trivial. The discrepancy should only appear at the top of every game, not with the middle management too.

Because of this I fear it is more likely other societal effects are at play. I try to be mindful of the ones I can directly control.

Comment · 5 years ago
+1 for tactile buttons!

Through our work at GoGoGrandparent.com (a service that helps older adults and people living with disabilities use Uber/Lyft, grocery services, meal services and pharmacy services reliably without smartphones) we’ve interviewed dozens of folks living with visual impairments.

The feedback that stands out the most was from a gentlemen in his 30s or 40s living with blindness since birth. Paraphrasing: “owning a smartphone was like living in a house where every time I entered a room, it was as if someone had just rearranged the furniture. Tactile buttons give me a literal feeling of control. If I get lost I can find my way.”

I thought it was really powerful.

Disclaimer: Our current landing page gets accessibility wrong in a lot of places and we’re in the middle of a site redesign to make it more accessible.

Comment · 5 years ago
Wow, Handprint.com is incredible.

I needed to spend some time clicking around to figure out what was where, but then just spent half an hour learning about which hue is actually the warmest (there is no universally accepted answer, but a common theme is scarlet).

Comment · 5 years ago
I think there are some jobs where the role of the job is to - for lack of time to come up with a better phrase: "help humans struggle with human things".

Yes, a nurse's role is to heal, but also to offer comfort to a patient, a teacher's job is to instruct, but also to try different ways of connecting with a student struggling to understand an idea.

I don't know if people think those types of jobs are bad or not. I think some of my family members would have had better hospital experiences if they could have had more attention from staff, so I don't think I'd call it useless.

I think that automation could lead to a world where more of the humans-dealing-with-human-things types of jobs are being done.

Comment · 5 years ago
I think status has as much value as what someone is willing to give you for it. If the YC “Badge” is a currency that opens doors based on its perceived status, that feels like a helpful bonus to founders. I agree that if someone is in YC for status, that trait alone is likely not sufficient to help them create a successful company. However if someone is able to get a meeting with a VC because of their enrollment in the program (or a PM with a larger company to discuss a partnership, etc) that seems helpful and worth preserving.

That being said, it’s not clear to me that YC is lowering it’s acceptance rate. By accepting companies from all around the world, it’s pool of potential applications exponentially increases. If YC accepts 100 more companies from 10,000 more applicants that still feels like a pretty exclusive acceptance rate.

What could be going on is that people are comparing the batch sizes now to the batch sizes in the past and assuming the same rate of company applications. I’m not sure if YC publishes their application data, but without it I think it’s tough to say based on batch size alone whether or not YC is statistically becoming easier to get into.

Comment · 5 years ago
This is a shame, we had the opportunity to meet with Bryce. He comes across as someone who has thought deeply about the space and was in it for the right reasons.

I’m struggling to imagine why LPs wouldn’t want Indie.VC investing in profitable companies. I had thought LPs had different buckets they try to invest their portfolio in. It makes sense that Indie.VC wouldn’t fit the mold of the “1% chance at 100x” but you would think they’d be a great fit for the “50% chance for 5x” bucket.

There probably isn’t a single reason, but I’d be interested in learning more about the LP <> VC dynamic in general if anyone has any insights.

Comment · 5 years ago
This is a great insight, I’m reading this from my iPhone now!
Comment · 5 years ago
Hi Dang, I hope you're well and always appreciate the context you bring to articles like this. Is there a way to turn this into a feature where similar submissions are linked?
Comment · 5 years ago
TLDR; conditions like depression may stem from a poor distribution of cholesterol in the neurotransmitter signaling process in the brain.

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton