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Ask HN: Idea Sunday

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Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#91

Post by ShinyCyril »

bambax wrote: post #62
HorizonXP wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Isn't it easier and cheaper to run a VM?

It's not easier by a long shot; for multimedia programs that deal with large files it's always complex to set up "shared folders" or whatever they're called; and you run a whole emulated machine just for one program. Wine is fantastic but too limited at the moment.

You should take a look at VirtualBox's API. I have a couple of engineering programs that I need Windows to run. I have entries for them in my launcher which start up my Windows VM in seamless mode and launch the desired application. Apart from the different window decorations, it fits perfectly into my standard workflow.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#92

Post by th0br0 »

olalonde wrote: post #41
sdrinf wrote: post #39

A media browser for leveraging (browsing, and surfing) multi-terrabyte home media servers: Problem: I've got 2TB of videos, music, and images on my hard drives, and I've found my available tools to be too low-leverage on managing this anymore. Context: about 2 years ago, I've stopped the directory structure madness, and embraced search as first-order link for media files. As a byproduct of this, I notice I don't have…

Have you tried http://www.plex.tv ?

Plex isn't open source though, is it?

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#93

Post by theshadowmonkey »

thom wrote: post #50

Real-time Groupon. All sorts of businesses lose money due to last minute cancellations - give them a platform to advertise discounted slots in the near future.

That's an awesome idea. You can just create an offer in seconds and publish it. And have an app track you based on locations or checkins, remind you once you are in the restaurant.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#94

Post by sshine »

jchendy wrote: post #38

A dead simple way to remember where you parked your car and when you need to move it. Like this: http://jchendy.com/2014/04/10/dude.html

I could certainly use a better system for remembering where I park my bike.

One system: Take a photo of the bike every time you park it in a non-standard place (standard being e.g. "work", "home" or "girlfriend's"). Unfortunately, taking out my smart-phone every time I go grocery-shopping is bothersome, and I might only find out I need to suddenly go elsewhere when I've already parked the bike.

Ideally, my bike (or, through statistical inference, my smartphone) should just publish GPS coordinates. Unfortunately this drains the battery very fast. Perhaps a background service that uses the GPS a little more sparingly than the Google Maps app?

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#95

Post by sdrinf »

olalonde wrote: post #41
sdrinf wrote: post #39

A media browser for leveraging (browsing, and surfing) multi-terrabyte home media servers: Problem: I've got 2TB of videos, music, and images on my hard drives, and I've found my available tools to be too low-leverage on managing this anymore. Context: about 2 years ago, I've stopped the directory structure madness, and embraced search as first-order link for media files. As a byproduct of this, I notice I don't have…

Have you tried http://www.plex.tv ?

Plex shares the terminal disability (with itunes, and JRiver) of trying to be two things at once: a media browser, and a media player; quite similar to how file sync programs before dropbox were terminally unusable by trying to include redundant functionality ( http://qr.ae/rwZF4 ).

Regarding built-in media players, not one vendor takes usability of playback seriously. Specifically, when I hit "enter" on a file, that means I'd like to see it played back, like, now. Not "queueing", nor 5 seconds later. When I scroll left & right, that means I'd like it to go +-1 min / hour, like, now; and not 5-10 seconds "seeking". On my quadcore 3.4ghz battlestation, this remains a problem for every single native, and web-based app. MPlayer is, to date, the only one which consistently delivers on sub-second videoplayback, and it does so from cold start. (There are also major problems with how subtitles are handled by players, but I grant you that might be a niche)

Hence my strong requirement above for the app to go with shell.exec, instead of half-baked non-implementation of every single video codec under the sun.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#96

Post by dethstar »

olalonde wrote: post #36
HorizonXP wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Isn't it easier and cheaper to run a VM?

Not easier. You have to wait for the OS to load, login, find the app you want in your menu bar, etc. I think Wine just opens the app in you current desktop environment and it's presumably faster since it doesn't need to emulate the CPU.

They emulate the CPU if you're using a different architecture, that's why android emulator can be slow. You can just "hibernate" and have the application open in the VM at all times whenever you turn it on.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#97

Post by wengzilla »

thom wrote: post #50

Real-time Groupon. All sorts of businesses lose money due to last minute cancellations - give them a platform to advertise discounted slots in the near future.

That's actually been tried by Groupon in the past... It wasn't successful largely because it's hard to get merchants to adopt that way of thinking and also because people don't walk around with the Groupon app open all the time.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#98

Post by con5aak »

sshine wrote: post #90
con5aak wrote: post #84

A blogging platform with content delivered in interactive narrative way. Suppose, a user has a story with two possible versions depending on the decision made by the readers at some point of time in the middle of the content. Then provide him with such a platform to write a story in that format.

That sounds like an interesting idea. It reminds me of this XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1350/

Wow ... yeah absolutely... I m thinking on similar track. Anybody having an idea could write his blog this way.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#99

Post by rz2k »

gbrits wrote: post #60

Included this last week, but a bit late so less eyeballs. Hope it's ok to repost... 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 t…

Take a look at the older BBC "Connections" documentaries by James Burke.[1] They're really fascinating, however they have a strong editorial presence. In my view, like with Sagan's Cosmos, the presence of the series creator's point of view can make the content more interesting than a collection of data alone.

However, people do really enjoy TV tropes, so a huge effort to categorize everything could attract a huge audience, too. Such a site would be a good source of inspiration for new ideas incorporating older ones, too.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plgLCYha7pE&list=PLGi4Jd5YfR_...

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#100

Post by thom »

wengzilla wrote: post #97
thom wrote: post #50

Real-time Groupon. All sorts of businesses lose money due to last minute cancellations - give them a platform to advertise discounted slots in the near future.

That's actually been tried by Groupon in the past... It wasn't successful largely because it's hard to get merchants to adopt that way of thinking and also because people don't walk around with the Groupon app open all the time.

Doesn't really need an app, just needs a phone number. Even if your initial marketing list for a business is every customer they've ever had, you're still starting with something.
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