Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#211

Post by s1mon » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:27 PM UTC

FartinMowler wrote: post #159

Kiosk Banking. Back in the 1990's, just before the web became a thing, it was an idea to bring banking to consumers without the bank buildking, which they called "brickless banking". Kiosks would be placed in public locations like malls. Customers would enter the kiosk, close the curtain or door, then connect via video-call with one of the agent in the call centres. Depending what product the customer wanted (mortgag…

Wells Fargo has something they call a "digital branch" which, despite the name, is a brick and mortar location, just with fewer services. Like, you can't get change, and they don't have real tellers. They have a few ATMs and some people who must be there to walk you through some things, but overall it's pretty useless. It's one of the reasons we're moving our banking to Chase.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#212

Post by psion » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:27 PM UTC

I was hired to design and build a loan platform from scratch. The company that hired me was a marketing agency that build WordPress and Magento sites, not scratch built platforms. but they took the bid from a large company and hired me to build it. I came in and started developing various microservices, and asked for more developers to assist. I got freelancers in other countries who usually build WordPress themes. I worked hard to keep these people building the right projects for months. then I was asked to help out with a couple of WordPress tasks for other clients. More and more of these, and finally I was called into the office and told my project was cancled by the client. They got bought out and was told that they were spending too much money on this platform before it even went anywhere. All my work got scrapped. I believe most of my code has been deleted.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#213

Post by pjdesno » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:27 PM UTC

fatnoah wrote: post #14

My very first full-time job was to adapt a COTS ATM protocol stack to run on embedded devices to power a truck & satellite network. The deadline was 1 year to get the stack running on the hardware, and would be the first of 4 annual milestones related to the project. After about 6 months, I was mostly done the work when I found out that the project was moving to a single release at the 4 year mark. Ok, not so bad, ex…

Started my career on ATM. Good way to develop an enduring cynicism about industry hype.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#214

Post by QuercusMax » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:27 PM UTC

I spent the better part of a year re-documenting a piece of medical device software that was going to be taken over by a different division of the company. We didn't build any new code, just documentation. This was originally supposed to take 3 months and was going to be done by a single contractor who was supposed to just update documents with new templates.

When we were just a month from completing this project, they laid off everyone involved in the project except for me. I don't know for sure how much this boondoggle cost, but it was at least mid-single-digit millions of USD just based on the number of folks involved.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#215

Post by blantonl » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:28 PM UTC

LaserDiscMan wrote: post #124

I once worked on an in-house ERP system which had been developed over about 15 years by various developers. It was the engine of the entire company, everything passed through it. The CFO and some senior leadership erroneously blamed it for their shortcomings/used it as a scapegoat. When new management took charge, an initiative was started to replace the system with an industry standard solution. Both myself and the…

Consulting:

If you're not part of the solution, be part of the problem.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#216

Post by alexthehurst » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:28 PM UTC

ragnese wrote: post #118

windowshopping wrote: post #90

I built the best site out there for playing magic the gathering online. It's way better than any other available option. I've never shared it with the magic community because I think wizards of the coast would just send me a cease and desist, so three years of work is just sitting idle. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Off topic, but I recently looked in to playing MtG again because my son expressed interest. But, I was a bit taken aback by how different the environment is. I last played when they still had numbered "base sets", e.g., "9th Edition", and then rotating "blocks" of three smaller-but-more-advanced sets. I was assuming I would go in and buy a couple of starter decks from the most recent numbered "edition" to start teach…

I recently got into it with my son. I bought an arena starter kit from Amazon and it came with two 60-card decks, which seemed to work pretty well in play against each other. I bought another one long – same result. No focus on the commander format at all. I would suggest that route.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#217

Post by dgfitz » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:28 PM UTC

shaftway wrote: post #117

Any time you feel useless, remember that it's someone's job to install turn signals into BMWs.

Someone once told me "as a current BMW driver, the whole 'BMW drivers don't use signals' is complete bullshit, I didn't use them before I drove one!"

So I wonder if someone not using turn signals in a non-BMW is a leading indicator that they may buy one in the future.

Shower thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#218

Post by blantonl » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

psion wrote: post #212

I was hired to design and build a loan platform from scratch. The company that hired me was a marketing agency that build WordPress and Magento sites, not scratch built platforms. but they took the bid from a large company and hired me to build it. I came in and started developing various microservices, and asked for more developers to assist. I got freelancers in other countries who usually build WordPress themes. I…

Dogged a bullet for being blamed for something that probably would have never left the ground anyway.

Or, missed opportunity to develop and sell the next Rocket Mortgage Platform.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#219

Post by blantonl » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:32 PM UTC

CommieBobDole wrote: post #205

I worked on a six-month contract project for a large US retailer; the fact that everybody else I worked with was laid off the second week probably should have told me something was wrong, but they kept paying me so I kept showing up. Anyway, the only task they ever gave me was to build Cisco router ACLs to match existing traffic in the stores; they needed to implement access control but wanted to make sure they weren…

So that was six months of my working life >> /dev/null

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#220

Post by delecti » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 9:32 PM UTC

jokethrowaway wrote: post #182

delecti wrote: post #155

It was at Amazon and I don't remember exactly what the service was called, I think it was AdSomething. It was while I worked on the Kindle Special Offers (taking advantage of the "off" screen of an e-ink Kindle to show ads) project. I find that to be one of the less offensive forms of advertising, so I was generally pretty happy on that team for a time. But there was a service, AdWhatever, which let users go onto a s…

Slightly off topic but I never logged in on my kindle so I don't get ads. I just load ebooks on it with my computer.

Yeah, the ease of avoiding the ads (not logging in, jailbreaking it, or just getting a cover) were all big parts of why I felt like kindle ads were so much less offensive than most online advertising.