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Ask: What would you do/make if you never had to monetize it?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask: What would you do/make if you never had to monetize it?

#31

Post by byrneseyeview »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #24

an virtual programmer ie a software or call it AI that creates software based on my desire. so i will give simple specification and it will turn it into software, i can refine the code, save, go back to previous version....

I think this describes every programming language, for some value of 'simple'.

Re: Ask: What would you do/make if you never had to monetize it?

#33

Post by ambition »

A bittorrent plugin for firefox with no UI. e.g. downloading a torrent has the exact same interaction as downloading a file over HTTP. Seeding == leaving it in your downloads list, advanced power user preferences are tucked in an about: page.

Bittorrent for the masses.

Re: Ask: What would you do/make if you never had to monetize it?

#36

Post by mosburger »

optimal wrote: post #32
mosburger wrote: post #25

bread. seriously. i think i would own a bakery.

mos, have you seen _Local Breads_, by Daniel Leader? Just got it from the library and will try his baguettes tomorrow.

I haven't, but I'll be sure to check it out now. I love cooking and gardening, but restaurants generally have one of the worst failure rates of any business. So it's all hacking for me for now...

Re: Ask: What would you do/make if you never had to monetize it?

#37

Post by rcoder »

I'd work on a free, secure set of tools for the IT needs of non-profit organizations. Hosted and LiveCD/appliance deployment options, and containing a full, truly usable stack for CRM, fundraising, event planning, and publishing.

There's interesting work going on in the problem space, (CiviCRM being the 500lb. gorilla) but no free turnkey solutions I know of. Some organizations literally have to beg to scrape up the money for a basic web hosting account, so monetization of the platform would be tough.

Re: Ask: What would you do/make if you never had to monetize it?

#38

Post by pius »

mixmax wrote: post #26
sabat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the more reason for someone else to work on it, and do it right.

i wouldn't worry about Microsoft actually developing something new and useful. Unless Apple did it first of course.

To be fair, WinFS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS) had some really exciting ideas in it. I distinctly remember being a sophomore in college, looking forward to "Longhorn" because of things like WinFS, but having trepidation about it because of things like Palladium. Of course, that was a good six years ago. They ended up gutting both of those features out of Vista to get the OS out the door and even then it was years late. But I digress. :)

Re: Ask: What would you do/make if you never had to monetize it?

#40

Post by frankus »

dkokelley wrote: post #16
Xichekolas wrote: post #8

An alternative to hierarchical file systems.

I've been thinking recently about that too. It's inefficient to use a traditional folder/file system, at least for your personal documents (for system and program files I think they're better off the original way.) What about folders that represent tags? I could tag a file (say a picture) with Danny (my name), Vacation, and 2007. The system creates 4 "folders" as we understand them, each one labeled with a tag, and t…

It seems like that would be pretty straightforward to add to any filesystem that already supports metadata.

I'm sure Windows has something similar, but on MacOS X.5 (a feature borrowed from BeOS, IIRC), you can create a Smart Folder that's basically a canned query for files matching a very large set of criteria. I'm not sure what the API is for extending the criteria, but presumably adding tags wouldn't be all that difficult.

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