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Ask HN: What is the most impactful thing you've built?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the most impactful thing you've built?

#441

Post by tpankaj »

kloch wrote: post #347
ignoramous wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think would have both the ability and the incentive to keep it online. Ability? 5M/day for "what's my ip" is not much, and I'd wager most of us on this site would be able to keep it up and alive just fine. As for incentive... in addition to the Mozilla Foundation, orgs like Calyx, NLNet, Quad9 come to mind.

You are correct it uses very little resources, especially since most queries are http instead of https. Since there are no user accounts and it doesn't track anyone it doesn't even have a backend database to connect to. Just a couple dirt simple programs written in C with some very easy to remember domain names. I'm not getting any younger so it's really about survivability. Transferring to another individual HN'er p…

I'm 25 and I'd totally take it on, but you're probably looking for an actual nonprofit if you want true survivability. As someone who has used this tool for at least 10+ years (as long as I've known what an IP address is), I'd love to help make sure it stays around.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most impactful thing you've built?

#442

Post by tjpnz »

I built a system which would notify VFX artists when their shot would be played during dailies. Prior to that there would be lines of people waiting outside of conference rooms. Afterwards you would show up, get feedback from the supervisor/director for ten minutes and then leave. When you've got a crew of thousands those time savings add up.

Very simple implementation wise: get the media player to push the playlist together with what was being played to a REST API and then have a webapp poll it (websockets weren't standardised at that point).

Re: Ask HN: What is the most impactful thing you've built?

#443

Post by friend_and_foe »

_9za9 wrote: post #2

For some people the most impactful thing they have done in life is create something that makes obscene amounts of money. I designed and built nanoshelters.com to help homeless people secure uninterrupted sleep. I should be worth more than most of you 'money is god' programmers but we live in a world that values how you much money you make rather than how you treat other humans.

I take offense at this. I value other humans, I help other humans. Most people do. But I take care of myself and expect other people to mostly do the same.

I think it's telling that you frame your most impactful work in the context of how much better you are than other people, and how the world owes you something other people have because it's an unjust place, and the mindset probably does more harm to you than you'd realize. If you want to help people, do that, focus on that.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most impactful thing you've built?

#445

Post by xrayarx »

patio11 wrote: post #367

I kickstarted and was the CEO of a non-profit which functioned for about six months as the shadow covid vaccine location data infrastructure for the U.S. during the early months of the 2021 rollout. We worked with Google, the federally-blessed initiative, California, many county health departments, etc. My best estimate is many millions of Americans were successfully vaccinated as a result of data we sourced, collate…

Please elaborate. What did the next evolution look like? Why was ruby not sufficient?

Re: Ask HN: What is the most impactful thing you've built?

#446

Post by madaxe_again »

I wrote a long reply, and then decided a short one was better.

I stand atop mountains and throw pebbles at the snow - I’ve only had 25 years or so of being really active in the world, but I’m satisfied that some of the pebbles I’ve thrown have turned into avalanches - either the thing has been an idea which proved popular, or it has been something which enabled someone else to do something else, or it was the collaborations and partnerships I spawned through the people I put together in my past ventures. Some of the things I flung out into the aether changed the world. For instance, in ‘03, I cheerily introduced SMS based microblogging, along with proof of concept code and the ability for friends to subscribe, and I know, based on who used it, what it went on to spawn.

I rode an avalanche once, and it was hard work - it’s just as satisfying to watch them from afar, and know that you were a key component to making that causal chain occur.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most impactful thing you've built?

#449

Post by patio11 »

xrayarx wrote: post #445
patio11 wrote: post #367

I kickstarted and was the CEO of a non-profit which functioned for about six months as the shadow covid vaccine location data infrastructure for the U.S. during the early months of the 2021 rollout. We worked with Google, the federally-blessed initiative, California, many county health departments, etc. My best estimate is many millions of Americans were successfully vaccinated as a result of data we sourced, collate…

Please elaborate. What did the next evolution look like? Why was ruby not sufficient?

One of our engineers has a good writeup: https://simonwillison.net/2021/Apr/12/porting-vaccinateca-to...

Re: Ask HN: What is the most impactful thing you've built?

#450

Post by desaiguddu »

In 2019 - Built an App for Child Health & Growth Tracking. Helped over 400,000 users & answered 7,00,000 Queries in their child growth & development tracking. So far, it is completely free. We were able to help parents from India, Bangladesh, Kenya & multiple countries who have limited access to child healthcare.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inikworld....

On commercial side, I have been part of founding team of a Sports Startup. This is an underdog team & with the tech product that team won a SuperBowl. Not sure, how impactful this is.

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