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Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#151

Post by ed »

Timothee wrote: post #26

Something that produces iPhone code out of Flex/Flash code and vice-versa? That sounds impossible (I don't know either one) but if it were, it could be cash cow, no?

This is actually something I've considered working on. And no, it's not impossible!

It could be implemented as a flash llvm front-end with an objective C emitter. You'd also need to write a Flash VM in objective C, which I haven't looked seriously at but wouldn't be trivial.

Most importantly, a system like this would allow you write any application UI in Flash. A C developer, say, could then leverage Adobe's interface builders and the flex library without the need for disgusting hacks.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#152

Post by blurry »

tocomment wrote: post #36

Sell sunscreen in little packets (like ketchup packets) that can fit in your wallet. That way you'll never forget sunscreen. Should I patent* this? * I hate patents.

Individually wrapped sunscreen wipes are already in most pharmacies.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#153

Post by vaksel »

jcl wrote: post #137
vaksel wrote: post #50

a bugmenot type service...except it would act as a proxy. The proxy will be used to hide the actual login info, and to prevent the users from screwing around with the actual account.(basically I see this as changing the username to XXXX, not letting users go to pages like usercp.php etc). Right now bugmenot is pretty much useless, since all accounts are dead almost right away. This way the passwords etc will remain p…

I assume the accounts go dead mostly because the content providers kill them, not because individual users kill them. There isn't much you can do to stop a content provider from figuring out which accounts are bugmenot accounts and killing them... It's an arms race to see who will give up first.

more reason to keep the login info secret. Sure they can figure out the account by multiple ips...but that takes a little bit more effort.

Honestly, I think the user side portion is a bigger problem. Its all the psychology, people change the login info so that noone else would be able to do the same thing and prevent their access.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#154

Post by mcxx »

jjs wrote: post #126
mdasen wrote: post #99

So, many cities have bus systems and those bus systems now-a-days are usually GPS equipped for several reasons (notably that a central office can monitor the system and that the busses can announce ADA-compliant stop messages based on location without the driver being involved). I'd love to have something on my phone that would tell me where the next bus was on a cool Google Map (or other) and an estimated time to ar…

If you trust your local transit authority's posted timetables, then you could gather GPS coordinates for bus stops and write an app that correlates the two with your current location and time.

That's the thing - unless you're in Japan, you can't rely on timetables. Otherwise this idea wouldn't make much sense (it would still be cool to amaze your friends with it while waiting for the bus though ;)).

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#155

Post by mcxx »

limmeau wrote: post #79

A database of MAC addresses of stolen equipment. Participants install a client which listens for the MAC addresses of all computers in the local network, alerting the participant that the new possessor of a stolen MacBook Pro 15", 2006 edition, two deep scratches on the lid, seems to be nearby. Of course, you'd have to find a way of guarding against malicious entries.

MAC address can be changed.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#156

Post by rrhyne »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #78

Ad exploder. An add-in for FF and IE that lets you "explode" ads by clicking on them, complete with sound effects and animation (or not). After you explode the ad, you'll never see any more material in that spot again. I don't just want to not see ads, I want something with some visceral action, something to make the ads not want to come back! -- ie, something fun.

If you dropped the part about never seeing an ad there again, you could probably get display Ad companies to pay you for each explosion as a click, because if a user exploded it, then they saw the ad. Then, you'd LOVE ads!

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#157

Post by dcminter »

This thread (with some excellent ideas in it) reminds me of the half bakery: http://www.halfbakery.com/

The half bakery has some good idea, some mediocre ideas, and some very entertaining bad ones.

Already submitted here it seems but evidently didn't get voted up at the time - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135677

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#158

Post by coolnewtoy »

A twitter-like feed that sends text messages to cell phones that let first responders like police and ambulance folks recruit helpful bystanders to assist in managing emergencies.

For instance - I need an entrance ramp blocked so no more cars get on this highway - is there someone nearby who can park their car to block it and wave people around?

Or - how many people are stranded on the other side of this flooded road - can someone nearby give me an estimate?

There should be some well-known way to subscribe to the feed, and it should be able to recognize your physical location.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#159

Post by tptacek »

pudo wrote: post #59
tptacek wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, I'm an idiot; of course you run a market to solve this.

This is smart but I'm not sure what the fundamental transaction on such a market is. Keep in mind that there is no rivalry for karma (in an economic sense) and that people always keep their karma after giving to others (or possibly even increase it).

Not sure I agree; I think people are already using ad hoc methods to "price" karma; for instance, I have used such methods to "price" a Hacker News karma point as 1,000,000 reddit points.

The side effect of the market would be to rank discussion systems by credibility, or signal/noise, in real time.

It's also geeky enough that I think you could keep liquidity, even though there's no dollar value to karma.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#160

Post by tptacek »

dcminter wrote: post #76
tptacek wrote: post #5

Something that takes blog posts from a related cluster of blogs and presents them as a threaded newsgroup.

I love that idea. I'd use it.

Would you help build it?

I'd really like to eradicate blog comments.

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