Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 831 posts

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#351

Post by livre »

chiefmcloud wrote: post #294
livre wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Picture Reddit, but with the ability to anonymously share ideas with other people in your social circles. > something new, that lets you talk with people you actually know. Anonymous Facebook? The problem with that is this: > so places like Twitter end up filled with unreasonable narcissists That's also a problem among the people you know and have added on Facebook, many of them are unreasonable narcissists and the…

You’re not wrong when you say it’s hard. I have been struggling with the problems you’ve brought up for awhile. Re:anonymous fb, I’m not going for exactly that but let’s imagine I was and consider the problem for a second of the homophobic/racist/etc Uncle. The simplest solution for not getting that content is to remove them from your list of contacts. But I also have a theory that this is where there could be a glob…

> The simplest solution for not getting that content is to remove them from your list of contacts.

People already have the chance of doing that on Facebook (not anonymous) or Twitter (relatively anonymous), there's a reason they don't do it. It's probably something to do with human nature or psychology, this is likely an area that requires more study (or for which I don't have enough knowledge about).

> I believe some people are trolls not because they’re anonymous but because they’re not. Their identity is basically a troll

I agree with this, but considering your example:

> think the guy who wore a MAGA hat to a recent BLM protest.

I wouldn't call those people "trolls," they are closer to the definition of a antagonist. They are against something beyond reason and logic because it's part of their identity. That's why they love their symbols (the swastika, the Confederate flag), symbols don't require logic or thinking, they only require faith. This brings us to the next issue:

> If that person was allowed to, maybe they would want to change their opinion.

They are unable to listen to opinions or try to change theirs. There's a quote that applies to them:

> You cannot reason people out of something they were not reasoned into.

Online discussions generally don't work because they are not about two people sharing opinions, they are usually about people trying to impose their opposing faiths.

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#352

Post by _wldu »

jawns wrote: post #170

I hope this counts as weird enough ... PROBLEM: If time travelers from the future were to visit you, it would be difficult for them to quickly prove their authenticity. SOLUTION: Temporal passwords. At the start of each year, you devise a new password. You commit the password to memory, but you never write it down or divulge it to anyone until Dec. 31, when you submit it to the Temporal Password Registry, which publi…

Wouldn't it be easier for them to just tell you what the Dow Jones Industrial Average will close at the day of their visit. If that's not convincing enough, they could do it for two or three days in a row.

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#353

Post by SCHiM »

Gurten wrote: post #134

I've been tinkering in the reverse-engineering space. My problem amounts to reusing compiled binaries by combining them in novel ways. That is, I would like to take algorithm/subsystem X from software Y, combine it with something else. The goal is to have a library of components which I may be able to combine. It has lead me to investigate a few technologies I have been meaning to invest time into, like llvm, qemu. T…

Very interesting. I'm trying to do something closely related for other reasons.

One thing I'm thinking of is that it might be possible to brute-force the semantics of short snippets of code using genetic algorithms. A similar technique has been demonstrated a few times by author of [1].

I want to use this to eventually rapidly search a large number of binaries for insecure behavior. But to do that I need to be able to formulate questions like:

"Find me a function where attacker controlled data is marshaled to a size type and then used to allocate memory, to which a different attacker controlled amount of attacker controlled data is written".

Basically this: https://github.com/Battelle/PaperMachete

[1]: https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/sandsifter

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#354

Post by ashilfarahmand »

_wldu wrote: post #352
jawns wrote: post #170

I hope this counts as weird enough ... PROBLEM: If time travelers from the future were to visit you, it would be difficult for them to quickly prove their authenticity. SOLUTION: Temporal passwords. At the start of each year, you devise a new password. You commit the password to memory, but you never write it down or divulge it to anyone until Dec. 31, when you submit it to the Temporal Password Registry, which publi…

Wouldn't it be easier for them to just tell you what the Dow Jones Industrial Average will close at the day of their visit. If that's not convincing enough, they could do it for two or three days in a row.

Their arrival may change it!

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#355

Post by Gabriel_Martin »

patwillson22 wrote: post #279

I'm working on an fully open source Physical Vapor Deposition System which is capable of producing thin flim solar cells, Ex(CIGS,CDTE) at efficiencies in the range of 15- 20%. The system is designed to produce one 10 watt cell for every 45 minutes. I could go into further depth here but for obvious reasons It would take me a while to explain everything.

Well if you're waiting for an invitation, it sounds very interesting!

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#356

Post by shadeslayer_ »

I'm trying to build a storefront experience for building customized home improvement services. These services can be anything between a new set of curtains, new tiling for your kitchen or a false-ceiling throughout your home. This is difficult because these services are dynamic in nature, and as such we cannot sell fixed SKUs like normal e-commerce services do.

We are trying to develop a unified service-building experience wherein the user will be able to punch in their requirements and get a product tailor-made for them, along with the estimated price (which comes with ~10% tolerance). It's tough, but we're getting there.

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#357

Post by jierenchen »

Figuring out how to fill the gap between code search and static analysis (code checks.)

Right now the tools we have for programmatically reading through code are: 1. Code search, which is fast, but inaccurate/heuristic. 2. Static analysis, which is slow to run and difficult to write, but very accurate.

I'm building a tool that is as fast and easy to use as code search, and is as accurate and expressive as static analysis.

Still just a landing page [0]. Looking to get a public playground people can mess around with this week.

[0] https://sourcescape.io/

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#358

Post by damowangcy »

alixanderwang wrote: post #311

Document software design 10x better. The foundation is flowcharts, with support for individual layers distinguishing levels of abstraction, and scenarios for exploring use-cases. From there: - Live data. We look at metrics on dashboards but it doesn't put into perspective how they relate to each other. Imagine seeing on your flowchart of servers, that one worker has an anomalous CPU reading, and you can click into th…

This has a lot of potential, usually enjoy flow charting things on draw.io. One thing though, the export to PPT is a big feature because most people will present through that but it is losing the navigation between each frame.

Also I suggest to not only market to Software engineers but people who work with data like drop-shippers, digital marketing agency, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#359

Post by chiefmcloud »

joshuamorton wrote: post #345
easterncalculus wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with the extreme example of nazism or something like that, or most less extreme examples of prejudicial behavior, especially when that person is managing or just in any way talking to others. The problem is that it isn't so cut and dry. Too many of these people either aren't actually doing anything wrong (Some truck driver with his hand out the window) or have done something that is comparatively mini…

> permanent Can you give an example of incorrect permanent punishment? Sacco found a job almost immediately. The truck driver may have a more difficult time, but not because this event will follow him, but because the labor market at the moment is shitty. (And to be clear here I'm not saying what happened to him was right or just). > The problem is that it isn't so cut and dry. Sure but now we're in a very fuzzy area…

The story about Wadi from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firin... is pretty horrible. I mean they all are, but maybe it’s the most clear permanent damage.
Post reply on HN