Ask HN: What Are Your Problems?

#1

Post by shivylp » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 4:47 PM UTC

I love building things in my free time. But usually I build something technical or out of curiosity about a new tech/framework/language etc. Not exactly a targeted solution to a real problem (You can see my projects here: https://github.com/spy16).

For a change, I am looking to find problems that others are facing (that also interest me) and build something that solves those problems. Anything that can help fellow developers, product-managers, etc. in their day-to-day work life (I am also hoping, this thread itself can be a useful collection for others like me who are looking for ideas for their next project).

Re: Ask HN: What Are Your Problems?

#2

Post by night-rider » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

I’m being honest, I don’t have anything in mind that would be simple to build. I have one hard problem which is a Herculean task and that is filtering out topics from all forms of media at once, e.g TV, Radio, Social media, news outlet sites etc For example let’s say I never want to hear about Elon Musk, Tesla, COVID, etc ever again, what would a tool for filtering those topics out look like and could it be built?

Re: Ask HN: What Are Your Problems?

#3

Post by shivylp » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

night-rider wrote: post #2

I’m being honest, I don’t have anything in mind that would be simple to build. I have one hard problem which is a Herculean task and that is filtering out topics from all forms of media at once, e.g TV, Radio, Social media, news outlet sites etc For example let’s say I never want to hear about Elon Musk, Tesla, COVID, etc ever again, what would a tool for filtering those topics out look like and could it be built?

If I understood correctly, your ask is basically that you don't want to see/hear anything about specific topics - Selective media blackout.

Like you already concluded, this to me, feels impossible (May be someone will come up with a brilliant way to do it ). Even if we just consider the text based consumption via news and other websites, it still feels super hard because we are not talking about filtering out some keywords.

Re: Ask HN: What Are Your Problems?

#4

Post by EddieDante » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 10:11 PM UTC

night-rider wrote: post #2

I’m being honest, I don’t have anything in mind that would be simple to build. I have one hard problem which is a Herculean task and that is filtering out topics from all forms of media at once, e.g TV, Radio, Social media, news outlet sites etc For example let’s say I never want to hear about Elon Musk, Tesla, COVID, etc ever again, what would a tool for filtering those topics out look like and could it be built?

> For example let’s say I never want to hear about Elon Musk, Tesla, COVID, etc ever again, what would a tool for filtering those topics out look like and could it be built?

Sounds like you need benevolent general AI to filter media for you -- and hope the AI doesn't become malevolent after exposure to all of the toxic shit it's making sure you don't see.