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Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

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Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#81

Post by basch »

jonahbenton wrote: post #52

Great question. My answer would involve so many things in the music space. These are mostly actually impossible right now, but being able to think about things that you want that should be possible and seem completely out of reach is a great technique for finding motivation. The world is much, much, much bigger and more full than our little brains with our little problems can usually understand. So, some of mine: 1.…

>Live noise cancellation for spaces.

I was thinking about if this being weaponized to suppress speech. If an array could be put on top of a protest to silence it. It's sort of the equivalent of shouting over someone. Would the supreme court find the government pumping out anti-noise a violation of rights?

Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#82

Post by basch »

Not an impossible idea, but project management for life.

Construction project at home? Punchlist, budget, progress tracking, vendor relationship, contract management, dependencies and blocking.

Comparison shopping? Gift lists, family research, nominations, voting, chipping in for purchases.

Cooking at home? Family nominates a recipe for dinner, cross reference pantry, add needed items to shared grocery list.

Transportation? Whos taking what kids to what events, in the event a plan changes, a push notification goes out to all parties (friends, drivers not in the family.)

Budeting? Projected cashflows. Asset allocation in multiple accounts is incredibly complex, with different family members having different roles. Being able to budget and save, while still giving extended family privacy. Signing a kid up for soccer, or starting a new construction project automatically updates the budget.

Calendars exist, task management like asana exists, financial management like mint and personalcapital exists. But tools are either too generalized or too specific to interact with other ultra specific domains. An app knowing when someone leaves work, knowing they are the best person to pass a grocery store and pick up kids en route from soccer. We have all sorts of complex interactions in life that require planning, and they are often extremely repetitive sequences. The apps that do exist in these specific fiends often dont facilitate collaboration with other families.

tldr: instead of generic task management, management with detailed workflows, workflow interactions, automation, consensus building.

Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#83

Post by ceejayoz »

thomasrognon wrote: post #72
ceejayoz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.eshakti.com/ does this for some clothes (not via Kinect, you have to enter the measurements). No personal experience, but it's nice to see folks trying it. It's baffling to me that Amazon doesn't have something like this. Every vendor of clothing seems to upload a size chart or puts it in the text description, and you wind up with stuff like "6x plus size dress" having a waist size of 32 inches.

It looks like someone is thinking about this at Amazon: https://qz.com/963381/amazon-amzn-has-patented-an-automated-...

I think that's probably a ways off.

I don't understand why someone can't put in a few basic measurements - waist, hip, bust, inseam - and filter clothing based on those, today. It wouldn't be perfect, but it'd be a damned sight better than putting "plus size dress" and getting keyword-stuffed listings made for a size 0.

Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#84

Post by dbetteridge »

csteubs wrote: post #74
dbetteridge wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you comfortable talking about the existing pipeline on HN? Do the cameras geo-tag the images into a GEOTIFF or similar at the edge? What sort of spatial resolution do you get on the resulting maps? Any chance of multi-spectral imagery in the future? would be amazing for doing remote-sensing projects Sounds like a awesome project.

Thanks! I can definitely elaborate on some of the strategy here. The cameras geo-tag the images at the edge and verify against the flight path using time stamps for accuracy. Resolution is a function of altitude (among other things), but tests have consistently demonstrated <1m resolution at common cruise (35,000ft) and <10cm below 4,000 AGL. Multi-spectral is planned, and the final the prototype is equipped with an…

Awesome stuff, This sort of data is going to be key for future planning/remote sensing work so great to see an alternative to satellite imagery popping up.

What sort of issues are you having with the ingestion pipeline? I have some amount of GIS/mapping experience and happy to weigh in if I can.

Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#85

Post by sharkfinsoupmix »

A bathroom-cleaning robot/s that can do tile floors, sinks, mirrors, counters, showers, and tubs. Cleaning bathrooms is a really, really sucky chore.

Also, yard trimming/cleaning robots/drones more than just lawnmowers. Bonus points for cleaning-up after olive/plum trees and sculpting topiaries.

A sink/dishwasher robot combination that can clear plates, separate food waste and optionally compost, load a dishwasher, and "hand"-wash what cannot be dishwashed. Bonus points for clearing the table and putting away clean dishes automatically.

A good, automatic gutter cleaner robot and/or an inexpensive, modular, micromesh stainless steel gutter guard that doesn't suck.

A quality full-tower/super-tower case (similar to what CaseLabs produced) that actually holds an EATX or Supermicro server board comfortably, can support water cooling with an optional distro plate, can hold 11 3.5" drives, 4 2.5" drives, 2 5.25" bays, 6 200mm fans, 2 double-wide relocated GPUs, and options for RGB, temp monitoring, and fan controls that work under Linux, FreeBSD, hackintosh, and Windows. Options for color and tempered glass windows.

Harbor Freight-alike that has better quality, is online-only, no coupons/gimmicks, and ships must faster. Between HF and a McMasters. (HF ecomm, customer service, and shipping are a clusterf.)

Smart home integration amongst different brands and complementary products, preferably with open standards or a "Dolby NR"-meets-AWS for smart home APIs. For example, I bought an Awair IAQM only to discover they were dropping all of their integrations, including with their parent company's thermostat, Emerson Sensi. My Filtrete Smart air filters should work with Nest and Emerson. An IAQM should be able to turn on the central air fan if the indoor particle levels are high or if a smart smoke detector detects experiences a false alarm.

Also, turnkey smart home integration modules for Arduino, RPi, ESP32, and general electronics.

Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#86

Post by sharkfinsoupmix »

rkwasny wrote: post #55
hyzyla wrote: post #27

Fully automated restaurant

+1 however making a robot that can chop ingredients and make a simple stir-fry looks quite possible now

I want the home game version, Chefbot 9 million. Serious. I don't feel like cooking all the time and end up eating unhealthily. As long as its bumper doesn't get stuck or battery runs out before cleaning up the kitchen and docking at the home charger.

There are a lot of complex physical jobs people perform that could be automated with enough enginerding and dedication.

Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#87

Post by majewsky »

benologist wrote: post #70
majewsky wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason for the commercial success of Pokemon is the huge array of readily available merchandise and anime/movie tie-ins. How would you go about replicating that with a crowd-sourced competitor? How would I be able to obtain a plushie for my favorite crowd-sourced character without paying the high prices associated with custom commissions?

It'd be open source so you'd get plushies, figurines, videos etc after someone else made them because permissive licensing let them use the art and ideas to do whatever they want. There would be nothing preventing a plushie company or a person or a DIY project making them affordable.

Yeah, but economies of scale couldn't apply as much, increasing unit prices.

Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#88

Post by [deleted] »

majewsky wrote: post #87
benologist wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be open source so you'd get plushies, figurines, videos etc after someone else made them because permissive licensing let them use the art and ideas to do whatever they want. There would be nothing preventing a plushie company or a person or a DIY project making them affordable.

Yeah, but economies of scale couldn't apply as much, increasing unit prices.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#89

Post by crobertsbmw »

I want someone to build a better linkedin. A database where I can search "people I know that speak French." Or "people I know that know something about digital marketing". Or "people I know that know how to cook well." Everytime I have gone to linkedin to try and find someone that has a particular skill, it has failed me. This is probably challenging to do well because linkedin is already trying to do this, and because of privacy issues.

Re: Ask HN: Impossible Ideas?

#90

Post by crobertsbmw »

majewsky wrote: post #87
benologist wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be open source so you'd get plushies, figurines, videos etc after someone else made them because permissive licensing let them use the art and ideas to do whatever they want. There would be nothing preventing a plushie company or a person or a DIY project making them affordable.

Yeah, but economies of scale couldn't apply as much, increasing unit prices.

But competition could be much higher, pushing down unit prices...
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