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Ask HN: Idea Sunday

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Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#491

Post by lawncheer »

vyrotek wrote: post #194
avalaunch wrote: post #174

A major pain point in my life is house maintenance and repair. I really miss having a (good) landlord. That's what I want - a single point of contact to manage the upkeep of and fix any issues related to my home. There's so much friction in the process of finding the various contractors needed to keep a home in good order. First you have to search on craigslist, angieslist, or google for contractors that service your…

This sounds very attractive to me as someone who just discovered my lawnmower won't start, a tree died over the winter, and 3 sprinklers are busted. I don't have time currently to deal with it. Could it operate like Uber in a way? This service would attract a lot of handy/service men looking for work. It definitely would need a review system.

As a customer, do you want to take the time to dig through reviews, or would you rather the service "just work". I am in the finishing stages of developing lawncheer, which is a service for lawn and garden work; one of the areas I struggled with, was the trade-off on transparency and the contractor development cycle; ie, lawncheer, handles everything, and there is little interaction between the contractor/customer and we have a big stake in making sure the contractors perform perfectly, or the site just facilitates a transaction, where contractors go through a basic vetting process, but the reviews are what will count. One is obviously much more easily scaled (review functionality is easy to program, onboarding and training is hard).

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#492

Post by Dwolb »

sahil_videology wrote: post #488
Dwolb wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool that you agree. Are your projects structured similarly?

When I worked in the defense industry doing development using the waterfall software process methodology, we did stuff that fit the V-model. We used DOORS / Excel for requirements tracking, wrote long design documents, and had a QA person who wrote lots of HTML test documentation with clearly defined acceptance test procedures. All of these tools don't talk to each other. An IDE like this could be applicable to any m…

It's funny that defense and automotive are so similar in terms of tool chains for requirements.

I like this IDE from an engineer standpoint, but I think the killer app will be automatic report-outs. I wouldn't have to spend hours making status updates in powerpoint for every type of audience in the corporation.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#493

Post by neilsharma »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #473
neilsharma wrote: post #289

Problem: Completion rates for online courses are dismal and engagement with other students and faculty is low. Idea: Weekly online, live discussion sections to accompany self-paced video lectures. Discussion sections have 5-10 students and are facilitated by Teaching Assistants How it works: Students taking a MOOC course sign up each week for a discussion section. There can be multiple discussion sections to accommod…

Is it really a problem that completion rates are low though? I'd argue that most people's time is better spent on things other than taking online courses. I'm a proponent of making education accessible, but it seems that it is fairly easy to find good resources to learn just about anything online, particularly if it is related to computing. The real problem I think is motivation. Most college students don't try that…

I think you're right that low completion rates aren't a problem. I don't have specific numbers, but I'd presume that most students who fail to complete an online course aren't motivated going in and are merely sampling or browsing. They'd probably drop out regardless and skew the completion rate horridly.

For everyone else, I'd imagine the motivation level is higher because of voluntary enrollment than a college student's who is forced to take certain classes.

Also, the current iteration of online education can survive on unassisted self-motivation. I can't recall the specific stat, but I believe 80%+ of students taking coursera classes already have a bachelor's degree. Most classes tend to be technical, where online resources are free and plenty. And given the self-paced nature of online classes, most students who learn best in group environments are probably pre-filtered and never sign up.

Perhaps discussions would be even more relevant as online education becomes more mass-adopted? Group tutoring for home-schooled kids, KUMON classes taught online, K-12 education where students need more hand holding, liberal arts classes where answers are subjective and can't be auto-graded, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#494

Post by neilsharma »

notduncansmith wrote: post #362
neilsharma wrote: post #289

Problem: Completion rates for online courses are dismal and engagement with other students and faculty is low. Idea: Weekly online, live discussion sections to accompany self-paced video lectures. Discussion sections have 5-10 students and are facilitated by Teaching Assistants How it works: Students taking a MOOC course sign up each week for a discussion section. There can be multiple discussion sections to accommod…

This isn't a bad idea at all. I'd be very interested in discussing it further. Hit me up on Skype (same username) or email ( http://notduncansmith.github.io/#contact )

Will do. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#495

Post by danvoell »

fest wrote: post #276

Ordering prototype (3d printing, CNC machining, lasercutting) parts, reimagined. It's a major pain just to get a few parts made- first you find a company that does that, e-mail them their design, they get back to you with a quote and you either accept it or go back to step 1. What if you could just upload your design, select a material from catalogue and receive an instant quote. If you're happy with it, order the pa…

There is a need for this type of product outside of 3D printing and laser cutting. The quoting process is way too cumbersome with large swings in pricing and quality. I run a small wire component manufacturing company. The only website I have seen who tries to hit upon the larger manufacturing market is mfg.com. And like other web companies that cater to manufacturing companies (thomasnet) they charge too much. If you ever decide to pursue this further don't hesitate to reach out. You could probably start out just mailing a list of projects to manufacturers.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#496

Post by lesterbuck »

DanBC wrote: post #334

== Dying Skills, Lost Tech == I knew a chap who could roof a home with Cotswold stone. He knew how the stone was quarried (but he didn't do that bit) and how it was made into roof tiles (but he didn't do that bit very often) and he knew how to roof a house using those tiles. There are not that many people who can do that anymore. There's a meme about the NASA Saturn V rockets that says we've lost the paperwork and th…

This sounds similar to the BBC Mastercrafts series:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qvrcj/episodes/guide

It came highly recommended to me, and the six episodes are sitting on my disk, but I haven't gotten around to watching any yet.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#497

Post by vyrotek »

lawncheer wrote: post #491
vyrotek wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds very attractive to me as someone who just discovered my lawnmower won't start, a tree died over the winter, and 3 sprinklers are busted. I don't have time currently to deal with it. Could it operate like Uber in a way? This service would attract a lot of handy/service men looking for work. It definitely would need a review system.

As a customer, do you want to take the time to dig through reviews, or would you rather the service "just work". I am in the finishing stages of developing lawncheer, which is a service for lawn and garden work; one of the areas I struggled with, was the trade-off on transparency and the contractor development cycle; ie, lawncheer, handles everything , and there is little interaction between the contractor/customer a…

I guess it depends. Are we talking about a flat fee or is there an opportunity for the contractors to bid for my job? The more involved I am in the process, the less I expect to pay. But I might be fine with accepting individuals who have less experience/reviews if they will accept a lower rate. I do think the goal should be to find a specific contractor who will consistently service my yard. Meaning, I don't think I would be a fan of a new person showing up every week. That sort of thing works fine for a taxi service but I think the trust relationship changes because they're coming to my home.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#498

Post by lesterbuck »

yzhou wrote: post #176

Here's what I want: A cheap text ssh terminal with wifi,or cellular, nice keyboard hardware, with extremely long battery life (or solar powered), which i can just throw it in my car and forget it. Whenever I am away of my computer I can always log in to my cloud server and write codes or do some quick fixes.

At least one developer dumped his MacBook and switched to an iPad + Linode server for at least a year:

http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-...

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#499

Post by lawncheer »

vyrotek wrote: post #497
lawncheer wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a customer, do you want to take the time to dig through reviews, or would you rather the service "just work". I am in the finishing stages of developing lawncheer, which is a service for lawn and garden work; one of the areas I struggled with, was the trade-off on transparency and the contractor development cycle; ie, lawncheer, handles everything , and there is little interaction between the contractor/customer a…

I guess it depends. Are we talking about a flat fee or is there an opportunity for the contractors to bid for my job? The more involved I am in the process, the less I expect to pay. But I might be fine with accepting individuals who have less experience/reviews if they will accept a lower rate. I do think the goal should be to find a specific contractor who will consistently service my yard. Meaning, I don't think I…

Interesting; for the time being, my goal is actually the opposite. My goal (at least until data starts coming in more reliably), is to provide you the user w/ repeatable, affordable, and reliable lawn care. If I am doing my job right, the contractors from my customers perspective should be interchangeable; you build a trust relationship with lawncheer, my job is to shield you from any potential disasters. Plan is to do a flat percentage fee, for each mowing, and I will be setting the prices.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#500

Post by lesterbuck »

gbrits wrote: post #316

Related to @mden's Idea: Tree of knowledge. Chrono: chronological inventions and academic breakthroughs of mankind as a dependency graph. This is a lingering idea that has been coming back to me a couple times a year over the last decade or so. What if there's a kind of semantic wikipedia that is built upon a dependency graph of inventions and academic breakthroughs. What led to the invention of the internet, to nano…

You will love watching the old BBC series Connections, which is exactly about the thread of inspiration behind many inventions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_%28TV_series%29

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