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Ask HN: Idea Sunday

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Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#551

Post by 3rd3 »

arjie wrote: post #194
[deleted] wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Well, that's okay, isn't it? It's the idea that counts, so the discussion will still occur. It doesn't matter that it is centred around your comment that came after mine. EDIT: Context for those who come after: Some other commenter said he downvoted my comment because he posted something similar. I assumed he said that to illustrate a flaw in my proposal and that he did not _actually_ downvote me. Since I can't find…

Oh, I see we completely talked past each other. This is the comment I was talking about:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7542140

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#552

Post by 3rd3 »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #404
quaunaut wrote: post #47

This is less an idea, more something for someone to think about. We need to figure out how to defeat the internet echo chamber effect. Notice how often, when a community gets started between a small group of people(such as early Reddit or HN), it's a place of intelligent, productive discussion, where people measure what they say instead of just spouting extreme rhetoric? Yet, once these communities grow, you inevitab…

I'm currently building a solution to this which is still in very early beta. Using machine learning, I'm working on solving the Goldilocks problem of community affinity (not too close, not too disparate), aiming to fix the hivemind problem that reddit has and the strictness that topical communities like HN have. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you have a few moments to spare! Code: http://code.fraction.io Beta: htt…

That looks great. I think they experimented with this idea on reddit aswell at an early stage. However it didn’t turn out to be beneficial. I unfortunately don’t know the details, I read about it in some comment on HN a while ago (I unfortunately don’t remember where exactly).

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#553

Post by Jemaclus »

* Hearing aids that can run off body heat. Not even sure if this is possible, but I've heard of watches that can recharge their batteries from body heat. You know how expensive and annoying it is to buy batteries for a hearing aid?

* A better credit report system than Experian/TransUnion/etc. The current system is flawed on a number of levels -- not the least being that someone can file a claim against you and you have very little recourse. Something with a little more accountability and a little less emphasis on distant history. For instance, if two years ago I lost my job and fell behind on bills, but now I've had a steady job for a year and have been paying down my debt, that shouldn't rule me out for buying a car or a house. In other words, just because I might have been financially unstable in the past does not mean I'm financially unstable now.

* a HUD for subtitles/closed captioning on TVs, so hearing people don't have to see subtitles while deaf/hard of hearing people can see them. This would be especially awesome in movie theaters.

* A Fitbit clone that actually figures out what I'm doing, rather than just counting steps. (For example, it knows my height/weight/gender, and it knows that I took X steps in Y minutes, so it should be able to calculate Z pace and conclude that I'm running.)

* Something that makes tracking caloric consumption EASY. For instance, I'm at a friend's house and we have some mac 'n cheese. I open up my LoseIt app, and I see several options: Kraft Mac 'n Cheese, Velveeta Mac 'n Cheese, KFC Mac 'n Cheese. Well, you know, we made this mac 'n cheese from scratch. Which one of these is the most analogous to what I just ate? At this point, I'm just guessing, right? So make an app that makes those guesses for me. "What'd you eat today, Jemaclus? On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being super healthy, how healthy do you consider what you just ate?" Then check out all the values for macaroni and cheese, identify the options that most closely match the health scale I gave, run some calculations, and come back with an estimate on what I ate. If at the end of the day you say "You ate somewhere between 1900 and 2150 calories today," that's better than saying "You ate exactly 1937 calories today," when honestly, I was just guessing about those portions to begin with.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#555

Post by kzisme »

jansanchez wrote: post #484
mzemel wrote: post #374

A website that lets you watch the second episode of many television shows. The pilot episode, I feel, is usually not indicative of the direction/feeling of the show, or is concerned with setting up the backstory, whereas the second episode sets the direction for where the show is going.

Couldn't you already do this with Netflix or Hulu? Just start with the 2nd episode?

Yeah you can just select the second, or whatever episode you want to watch. I'm not seeing the point of this.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#556

Post by PavlovsCat »

RobAley wrote: post #506
pritambaral wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overflow completely overrides the effect of S-bend. There is a (pretty important) reason behind S-bends.

Simply add an additional S/U bend to the overflow. Less likely to get clogged as the overflow is hopefully rarely used.

The overflow is only for water, right? Then a filter at the overflow entrance (or just the opening being narrow enough, two/three small holes maybe) could make positively sure the overflow bend cannot possibly get clogged.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#557

Post by kzisme »

gorax wrote: post #39

- Movie Quote Search - Search for a movie quote and it brings up the part of the movie where the quote starts. User can then adjust the length of the clip they wish to share. No longer than 30 seconds. - Mobile App - Timed Deals for local businesses. Company registers their deal and how many they wish to offer. A potential customer who follows certain types of products may get the promotion, The catch is, Promotion o…

The time deals one seems interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#558

Post by jansanchez »

jon-wood wrote: post #489
jansanchez wrote: post #485

Netflix for Sports. But not quite the same. There wouldn't be just 1 subscription were you get all. You would be able to pay per game and as well a pass for all games of a certain team. You would be able to watch any games live or any other time of your convenience. It would be cool also to have just 'a show main highlights of the game'. Prices per game should be relatively cheap, like 1.99 or 2.99; except some cases…

> I would try first to secure the rights to show some of the European soccer leagues and championships as they should be easier to get than any of the main American leagues. Maybe the Lithuanian 3rd Division. European soccer leagues cost a fortune to get rights for: UK Premiership: £1.78bn [1] UK Third Division: £88mn [2] Annoyingly I couldn't find actual costs on much else, but my point is that European soccer is hu…

While the Premier League rights seem to be quite expensive, I wouldn't go to the Lithuanian 3rd Division :) Bundesliga seems much more approachable [1]. Rights costs are €70 million in the current cycle, and close to €150 million in the next. I am sure that the portuguese and italian leagues would also be more affordable. It would be quite interesting to know costs for La Liga (Spanish). One may also be able to approach the rights owner with some more interesting ideas, like instead of paying all upfront, they will get a high % per user that purchased a match. Not sure how would that go.

Anyway this is just an idea, and it would take someone with good financial resources to undertake this project.

[1] http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/bundesliga_to_double_inte...

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#559

Post by dcposch »

callmeed wrote: post #364

API documentation tool: If you have a REST(ish) API, the tool would allow you to: * Describe the authentication * Enter all the objects, methods, URL endpoints, and parameters of your API The tool would then: * Generate pretty documentation, including example requests/responses * Include a working web-based API console (like Mashery has) * Auto-generates client libraries in Ruby, Python, PHP, Node, Obj-C, etc. and ke…

I like Apiary a lot so far

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#560

Post by shiftpgdn »

caw wrote: post #518
raldi wrote: post #44

A way for employees to push back against their coworkers when they email too much crap to too wide an audience. In other words, I wish my Inbox had a little voting widget next to each message: +------------------------------------+ | 4,376 people received this message | | | | [Cool, it was ] [It was a waste] | | [important and] [of my time to ] | | [worthy of our] [ read this ] | | [ time ] [ message ] | | | +-------…

>"Your coworkers spent a total of 36.4 hours reading your message. It cost the company $1458 in employee time. " This in itself could be a nice plugin for your mail. You need 3 values to be able to calculate it: * Number of employees the mail will be sent to (hard with aliases, easier with Outlook PDLs) * Average fully burdened cost of employees (managers should know this, or you can default to something like $120K)…

That's pretty brilliant. Imagine showing an HR department their worthless emails cost the company a million dollars in man hours.
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