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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?

#231

Post by erikerikson »

dzink wrote: post #210
erikerikson wrote: post #106

How do we scale social accountability and knowing? This is expected to enable us to solve distributed coordination problems. Also, it should facilitate richer more meaningful relationships between people. Expected outcomes include increased thriving and economic productivity. [edit: consider the limit on how many people you can know and the relationship between how deeply you come into relationship with that populati…

The question is too far up in fuzzy space. Narrow down to several use cases and specific problems within those and search field will be more manageable. Examples: Social workers want to be able to handle more cases appropriately. How many cases can they handle without diminishing quality scores. Politicians want to appear caring to the needs of as many constituents as possible. How do they group needs into buckets to…

Like automating the analysis of a recorded argument according to Gottman institute and other social heuristics for augmentation of marriage counseling services?

[edit: i.e. count positive and negative sentiment statements assigned to speakers and compare the per speaker ratio to the experimentally determined minimum "healthy" ratios not yet replicated]

You're right that there needs to be a tractable starting place. This is not lost on me. I may have used a flexible definition of "close to solving" but one's interpretation also fits into the scope of the effort. I'm at least 10% into it! ;P

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

#232

Post by adriangrigore »

Web site building complexity, for now I started with a simple static site generator https://mkws.sh/. Right now, I'm not using any package manager, no config files, only one language for templates (sh), and obviously HTML, CSS, Js. I eventually plan to develop a simple CMS based on the same ideas. Ideas and code are welcome!

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

#233

Post by fbeutel »

zakary wrote: post #222

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…

Would something like Nanoscribe [1] work for you? The resulting structures are non-conductive. As part of our research we use it mostly for 3d-printing nanoscale optical elements, but we have also successfully used it for some mechanical support structures.

[1] https://www.nanoscribe.com

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

#234

Post by kroltan »

Economically sustainable and ethical monetization of user-generated-content games.

The closest most known example of this kind of game nowadays is Roblox, but I'm thinking of things more like Mario Maker or the older-generation Atmosphir/GameGlobe-likes.

Unlike "modding platforms" or simulators/sandboxes/platforms such as Flight Simulator, VRChat or ARMA, these games' content are created by regular players with no technical skill, which means the game needs to provide both the raw assets from which to build the content, as well as the tool to build that content.

Previous titles tried the premium model (Mario Maker), user-created microtransactions (Roblox) and plain old freemium (Atmosphir and GameGlobe).

I suspect Mario Maker only works because of the immense weight and presence of the franchise.

Roblox's user-created microtransactions (in addition to first-party ones) seem to be working, but they generate strange incentives for creators, which I personally feel taints a lot of the games within it. (The user-generated content basically tends to become the equivalent of shovelware)

GameGlobe failed miserably by applying the microtransaction model to creator assets, which means that to make cool content, creators have to pay as well as spend lots of their time actually building the thing, which means most levels actually published end up being the same default bunch of free assets and limited mechanics.

Atmosphir is a bit closer to me so I find some more nuance in its demise, but long story short, essentially they restricted microtransactions only to player customization, however it didn't seem to be enough to cover the cost of developing the whole game/toolset. Eventually adding microtransactions to unlock some player mechanics, which meant that some levels were not functional without owning a specific item.

---

In short, the only thing that can effectively monetize on is the game itself (premium model) or purely-cosmetic content for players. Therefore, to incentivize the cosmetics, the game needs to be primarily multiplayer, which implies lots more investment on the creator tooling UX, as well as the infrastructure itself. But this also restricts the possibilities for the base game somewhat.

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

#235

Post by gred »

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've spent some time on this problem -- classic space vs. time tradeoff. Usually if you're spending a lot of time on PNG encoding, you're spending it compressing the image content. PNG compression uses the DEFLATE format, and many software stacks leverage zlib here. It sounds like you're not simply looking to adjust the compression level (space vs. time balance), so we'll skip that.

Now zlib specifically is focused on correctness and stability, to the point of ignoring some fairly obvious opportunities to improve performance. This has led to frustration, and this frustration has led performance-focused zlib forks. The guys at AWS published a performance-focused survey [1] of the zlib fork landscape fairly recently. If your stack uses zlib, you may be able to find a way to swap in a different (faster) fork. If your stack does not use zlib, you may at least be able to find a few ideas for next steps.

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/improving-zlib-cloud...

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

#236

Post by tomcooks »

dbancajas wrote: post #129

How to find motivation/energy to do a long-term creative project when having a full time jobs + other responsibilities?

Wake up at 0430, exercise, take a shower and then work till you need to get ready for your full time job. If possible also dedicate half of your lunch hour to your project as well, together with half a weekend day.

It's quiet so early in the morning, so your productivity will skyrocket. I've coded my Paras this way while working a full time, heavy blue-collar job.

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

#237

Post by edmundsauto »

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?

I’ve also been thinking about this problem space. My approach is to help candidates build skills, demonstrate proficiency, in a loop with the recruiters.

Basically, take the whole “how I learned my data science skills” into something that can be done in public.

The recruiters can then see a wide range of examples, and can be better at picking up where people’s strengths and talents are.

(This is focused on analytics)

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

#238

Post by tomcooks »

cygned wrote: post #38

I try to find an agile project management tool that works for us. We run on what many would call Scrum (it’s not actually Scrum). We are on JIRA now, and it’s … JIRA. We tried basically any other tool, including Excel (yes, that is somewhat possible). My problem generally is that tools are slow, planning is cumbersome, visibility is limited and reporting for clients is often even more limited. Heck, I’d even write my…

Try Asana

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

#239

Post by franze »

ta988 wrote: post #202
franze wrote: post #122

https://share.securrr.app A secure client side encrypted document (Passport / Id) sharing service Needs a DSVGO lawyer as part of the team.

I love that idea, you should submit that on frontpage.

Can't. As the legal framework does not exist yet. That's why I need a lawyer in the team.

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

#240

Post by chabad360 »

adriangrigore wrote: post #232

Web site building complexity, for now I started with a simple static site generator https://mkws.sh/ . Right now, I'm not using any package manager, no config files, only one language for templates (sh), and obviously HTML, CSS, Js. I eventually plan to develop a simple CMS based on the same ideas. Ideas and code are welcome!

Have a look at stuff like Netlify CMS, or any of the already existing website builders like WIX or Weebly or squarespace Etc.
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