Ask HN: Idea Sunday • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#211

Post by dceddia » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:32 PM UTC

It could be useful to have a site where researchers could post their failed attempts at solving difficult problems, a sort of "Journal of Failed Ideas".

I saw this suggested in a reddit thread a while back, might've been the Bill Gates AMA, but the comment was something to the effect of, "What if cancer researchers could post things they've tried in some central location, without the overhead of publishing papers in a journal?"

This wouldn't have to only apply to researchers. I had a similar idea while ago for a site where motorcyclists could post how they got into an accident so that others could avoid the same fate, like an informal NTSB-style accident report.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#212

Post by mudil » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:33 PM UTC

Open source ad serving platform. Or P2P ad serving platform . Basically like Google Adsense minus Google, the middle man.

I have a site, and every month I get a check from Google with a seemingly random amount. Yes, it is connected to traffic, but what cut Google makes is a complete mystery. In my opinion Google Adsense is an unfair scheme for millions of publishers.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#213

Post by danieltillett » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:40 PM UTC

mudil wrote: post #212

Open source ad serving platform. Or P2P ad serving platform . Basically like Google Adsense minus Google, the middle man. I have a site, and every month I get a check from Google with a seemingly random amount. Yes, it is connected to traffic, but what cut Google makes is a complete mystery. In my opinion Google Adsense is an unfair scheme for millions of publishers.

Couldn't your problem be solved by Google just being more transparent? My thought why they aren't is to avoid people over optimising their pages.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#214

Post by zimbatm » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:41 PM UTC

th0br0 wrote: post #192

Stwerner wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to see this here, I had this idea a while back and have been discussing it with people before I go on validating/invalidating it. In my mind anyway, the idea is something like https://railslts.com/ but for potentially every other gem in your gemfile. We would provide security patches, bugfixes, features, documentation, training, version upgrade scripts/documentation and so on to subscribers. I really like…

I've also had this on my mind for quite some time. How would you actually implement things though? After all, you're essentially trying to sell "support contracts" for open source projects via the platform. You could implement these by a) "hiring" the project owner to work on specific bugs/features or b) hiring freelancers to fix requested bugs. Furthermore, how would you ... * determine the value of bugs/features? *…

One important part as a provider would be to have a way to collect all the dependencies on which a customer depends on. This helps you priorities your maintenance work if the customer doesn't have any requests (auto-pilot mode). Is is also useful as way to sell: "see all the things you depend on". And finally it lets you take decisions on which project maintainer to poach.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#215

Post by digisth » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:43 PM UTC

A service that figures out how to create and deliver healthy (meaning not extremely salty, sugary, etc.), same-day-prepared, vegetarian-friendly meals for $10 USD per day or less. The service would make one or two dishes so that they can be prepared in batch (maybe one non-vegetarian, and one vegetarian), and deliver them at a predetermined time. The current services in this industry tend to cost a lot more than this and/or require you to do preparation yourself (i.e., they supply the ingredients only.) Even better: if you can accept the delivery soon after "cook time", you can get your meal warm, assuming it's not a cold dish to start with.

For people who don't, can't, and won't cook, and realize that much restaurant food isn't focused on trying to balance taste and health, this would be a great service. $200/month, 5 days a week. The logistics part seems feasible based on what's current in the marketplace; the economics are an open question.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#216

Post by tbsmartens » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

Hey everybody, and maybe something in particular for the Berliners: We started a meetup exactly about that "IDEATALKS" - this Thursday we are hosting the next event, feel warmly invited to join at

www.techpeople.eventbrite.com

(use fullofideas for a free ticket)

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#217

Post by hashtag » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:46 PM UTC

hershel wrote: post #144

Lack of eye contact in video chats greatly hurts the experience and is probably the source of the difference between it and face to face chat. Using something based on [1] but a bit better(for example , let's you cover maximum screen area) could be a decent solution for this. [1] http://hacknmod.com/hack/laptop-mod-eye-contact-video-chat/

Saw this awhile back, related:

http://videos.huffingtonpost.com/tech/software-gives-the-ill...

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#218

Post by pearjuice » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:47 PM UTC

hbt wrote: post #152

A site to organize systems. There are plenty of "List of frontend development tools" or "list of git tools". I want a site where users can build lists, share them, vote on them, categorize the content and update it with the new tools. alternativeto.net is a partial attempt at doing that but it doesn't take a systems thinking approach

http://getthinglist.com

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#219

Post by aaron987 » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:50 PM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #76

Calendars & Events as a Service (aka "Stripe for Calendars") I'm sick of dealing with scheduled events, timezones, future background jobs, etc. in almost every app I build. I want a service with an elegant API and nice libraries that would let me: * Create multiple calendars (it would have an ID I could then save with my user model or whatever) * Add events to a calendar by just passing it a timestamp and other metad…

This is definitely something I would use. I hate messing with date/time. Timezones, zillions of different date formats, etc. all make dates and times a pain. A slick "Stripe-like" way to handle all of that would be awesome.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#220

Post by foolinaround » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 10:51 PM UTC

mhp wrote: post #95

Open source US tax filing application. Basically TurboTax but free.

The hardest part is putting out a MVP for the 1040, but allow it to be extensible. I believe that it will be very popular and forks will come in very fast.

At the least, it should allow import of data from other providers ( turbotax, etc ) so that data can be stored for as long as one likes.

A big advantage is to allow amended returns ( example I need to amend my 2009 return ) - One just pulls out the 2009 code base, put in the previous data from turbo tax and amend it.