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Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

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Re: Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

#221

Post by yboris »

pgroves wrote: post #218

How to make png encoding much faster? I'm working with large medical images and after a bit of work we can do all the needed processing in under a second (numpy/scipy methods). But then the encoding to png is taking 9-15secs. As a result we have to pre-render all possible configurations and put them on S3 b/c we can't do the processing on demand in a web request. Is there a way to use multiple threads or GPU to encod…

I'm unsure if this will help, but the new image format JPEG XL (.jxl) is coming soon to replace JPEG. It will have a lossless and a lossy abilities. It claims to be faster than JPEG.

Another neat feature is that it's designed to be progressive, so you could host a single 10mb original file, and the client can download just the first 1mb (up to the quality they are comfortable with).

Take a look: https://jpegxl.info/

Re: Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

#222

Post by zakary »

I’m working on a MEMS problem. I need to be able to 3D print micron (or even sub micron) scale features for a very high aspect ratio MEMS which uses electromagnets to actuate. Only problem is the leading candidate technology EFAB (electrochemical fabrication) only works with conductive materials.

Does anyone know of a technology which provides similar abilities to EFAB but can also print features with non conductive materials?

Re: Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

#223

Post by whoisjohnkid »

alecmgo wrote: post #193

I want to make technical recruiters better at their job. Many sourcers and recruiters don't have a technical background and find it very difficult to hire software engineers, especially in the current labor market which is very tight. I'm starting off simple: writing recruiting guides from a software engineer's perspective that are easy to understand. Are there other ways we can make technical recruiters better?

> Are there other ways we can make technical recruiters better?

- list salary range for positions

- emphasize tech stack

- emphasize number of rounds

I’ve wasted my time in the past going through the interview process only to find out the company’s budget for the position was only up to X after getting the offer; a valuable lesson I’ve learned to avoid since then of course.

I also see some recruiters only talking about what the business does … leaving out the tech stack.

If these points are clear and easily visible to recruiting leads they might get higher quality candidates.

Just my two cents. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

#225

Post by inamiyar »

csydas wrote: post #200
101008 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a software problem? There are a lot of open sources (with their differences) platforms. From old forums, to more modern, etc. I think the problem is that people don't want or don't know how to use a forum. This is based in my experience: - Old people: They started to use internet recently so they are used to social networks (Facebook, Instagram), and newspapers websites. - Young people: Hard to make them use…

>- Young people: Hard to make them use the browser, if there isn't an app (Instagram, TikTok), you are lost. If they want to discuss a topic, mostly Twitter through hashtags, YouTubers or Discord. I disagree on this take. GenZ can do long-form discussion and they use forums frequently, but for specific discussion(s). Content consumption is done via forever-scroll apps because it's good to kill time; Tiktok, Instagram…

this vaguely aligns with my experiences

Re: Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

#226

Post by evandwight »

chriswarbo wrote: post #184
evandwight wrote: post #101

I'm trying to make social media moderation more democratic and using that to decide fuzzy questions like "should this post be censored", or "is this misleading" [0]. While the crowd's answer won't be perfect it will help sort through a lot of the noise and feel better than the decision of whatever mod happened to create the subreddit. The problem: how can I make decisions based on a sample with a binary question. I t…

This might be a good use-case for the "bayesian truth serum" http://economics.mit.edu/files/1966 This applies when our questions are not just trying to learn about the world (e.g. 'Our survey discovered that 10% of posts are considered misleading'); we are going to use their answers to decide on actions , e.g. removing posts, attaching warning labels, etc. Those answering the questions know this, and (if they have a…

That's a very interesting system! I've been reading about it but I'm not sure how it applies.

> (if they have a preference over which action will be taken) are incentivised to give more extreme answers.

With yes and no answers, how can answers become more extreme? If you are asked "Is this misleading? Yes/No" and it's only marked as misleading when "Yes" is the majority, then you are incentivized to answer with your true opinion. If you want the post to be marked misleading, then answering yes increases the chance that it is marked as such.

The bayesian truth sereum information score makes sense when you are trying to reward people for truthfully answering your questions; for example by paying them [0]. When asking "Is this misleading?", how do you use the information score to compute who won?

[0] - http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/cs286r/courses/fall10/papers/DW0...

Re: Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

#227

Post by dzink »

Working to enable users of https://www.DreamList.com to record audio of any length and see it transcribed, ideally at the same time as the recording, while the recording is also saved. The goal is for grandparents to save stories for loved ones and not worry about quality of the transcription - just talk. When the recording is saved, the transcription can be redone or tweaked if needed later, but the memory is not lost. DreamList is web and soon native apps, so WebRTC connected to a cloud transcription service is my first instinct, but there are benefits to native iOS apis as well - especially being able to keep share stories while listening to other streams also on iOS (families talking and digging into stories together). What architecture/transcription approaches would you suggest? Any gotchas you've seen dealing with similar problems (accuracy given accents, do we train our own transcription based on gathered data, etc)?

Re: Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

#228

Post by sabageti »

graphcolorer wrote: post #219

I have a graph with weighted edges. I want to remove edges to make the graph colorable with N colors (e.g. N=40) such that the total weight of removed edges is minimized. If I'm able to solve this problem, that will complete a project I've been working on for years now to make a working keyboard for a person I know that has cerebral palsy.

What are the needs in time?

Re: Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

#229

Post by lightcatcher »

pgroves wrote: post #218

How to make png encoding much faster? I'm working with large medical images and after a bit of work we can do all the needed processing in under a second (numpy/scipy methods). But then the encoding to png is taking 9-15secs. As a result we have to pre-render all possible configurations and put them on S3 b/c we can't do the processing on demand in a web request. Is there a way to use multiple threads or GPU to encod…

I have no experience in PNG encoding, but found https://github.com/brion/mtpng The author mentions "It takes about 1.25s to save a 7680×2160 desktop screenshot PNG on this machine; 0.75s on my faster laptop." which makes me think your slower performance on smaller images either comes using the max compression setting or using hardware with worse single threaded performance.

Although these don't directly solve the PNG encoding performance problem, maybe some of these ideas could help?

* if users will be using the app in an environment with plenty of bandwidth and you don't mind paying for server bandwidth, could you serve up PNGs with less compression? Max compression takes 15s and saves 35MB's. If the users have 50mbit internet, then it only takes 5.6s to transmit the extra 35MB, so you could come out 10s ahead by not compressing. (yes, I see your comment about "don't say to use lower compression", but no reason to be killed by compression CPU cost if the bandwidth is available).

* initially show the user a lossy image (could be a downsized png) that can be quickly generated. You could then upgrade to a full quality once you finish encoding the PNG, or if server bandwidth/CPU usage is an issue then you could only upgrade if the user clicks a "high-quality" button or something. If server CPU usage is an issue, the low then high quality approach could let you turn down the compression setting and save some CPU at the cost of bandwidth and user latency.

Re: Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?

#230

Post by exdsq »

davehcker wrote: post #48

I have posted this here before- hexafarms.com. I am trying to use ML to discover optimal phenotype for growing plants in vertical indoor farms to a. have the higest quality produce b. to lower the cost of producing leafy green/med plants, etc. within cities itself. Basically, every leafy green (and herbs, and even mushrooms), can grow in a range of climatic condition (phenotype, roughly) ie temperature, humidity, wat…

That sounds awesome. I’d love to work in this field. Any tips on where you learn this stuff? Currently a software dev in crypto.
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