Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

news.ycombinator.com

221–230 of 306 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#222
I was 17 and I built a portable mp3 player out of a computer and put it in a backpack. It ran linux and had a keyboard - no screen. It was way better than the available CD-ROM based mp3 players back then. Who wants to flip through 700 songs on a ff / rewind button anyway?

Sadly, I didn't have the thought or the money or the people to turn it into you know... the iPod. (technically, I was about 2 years earlier, but I'm sure they were working on it)

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#223

You improved the speed of something. It took 430ms before and now just 160ms. But how do you quantify that? https://how-much-faster.glitch.me/ gives you a few options for how to word things.

Sounds like it's already quantified? 160 ms vs 430 ms.

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#225
post #53

My Weight Loss Story 40kg in 40 Weeks (90lb in 9 months) Without Exercise [0] I didn't necessarily enjoy writing it, or the process, but thought it needed to be written because I have heard so many different weight loss suggestions through out my life. [0] http://40in40book.com

I get a “Too many redirects” error on that link.

Thanks @dave84. Looking into it now. Here is link to Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Q6MA3P8

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#226
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does it cost for a GPU accelerated VM in the cloud? It would be great if there was an automated way to spin up a VM, install your software and then destroy the VM when you're done. After all, GeForce Now and Google Play don't let you play your full Steam library.

I wonder if there even are a lot of clouds that provide consumer GPUs. I heard GPUs designed for computation doesn't perform as well in games

The dealbreaker is that consumer GPUs (and their drivers) have a terms of use prohibiting various aspects of datacenter usage.

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#227
post #138

https://www.lost-item.com I lose stuff a lot. It started as a URL ( https://www.lost-item.com/eric/ ) that I can put on a sticker on my stuff so that when people find my phone, wallet, credit card, keys they can contact me. I preferred that over my phone number or email address because I didn't want to put anything that identifies me on the items, so a form on the internet acts as a barrier. In general, I find that p…

> Yes, I am forgetful. If I were smarter, I would just not lose stuff.

It's really not about being smart, some people are just more forgetful and distracted than others.

What I found helps is to do a regular check that you have your stuff with you. Whenever I leave somewhere I check that I have my keys, wallet, and phone.

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#229

You improved the speed of something. It took 430ms before and now just 160ms. But how do you quantify that? https://how-much-faster.glitch.me/ gives you a few options for how to word things.

You need to find a way to weight it. Improving, by a huge percentage, something that is traditionally very slow can sometimes be trivial. Improving, by even a few percentage points, something that many different systems have spent decades trying to make as fast as possible can be much more significant.

For example, finding files in a big file system using standard file calls takes forever. Making this hundreds or even thousands of times faster is certainly possible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWIo6sia_hw

On the other hand, making general database queries run faster than the latest version of Postgres with proper indexes takes a bit of novel thinking. Even a 20% or 30% improvement should be considered a breakthrough, let alone 2x or better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVICKCkWMZE

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#230
https://friendle.gg

Something a couple of friends and I spun up during the Wordle hype. It's PvP Wordle, where you set the word for the opponent to guess and vice versa. The meta is quite different from regular Wordle, obscure words and repeated letters do well.

We were too lazy to market it and have just been playing with friends and family.

Post reply on HN