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Ask HN: Idea Sunday

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121–130 of 589 posts

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#121
post #44

A way for employees to push back against their coworkers when they email too much crap to too wide an audience. In other words, I wish my Inbox had a little voting widget next to each message: +------------------------------------+ | 4,376 people received this message | | | | [Cool, it was ] [It was a waste] | | [important and] [of my time to ] | | [worthy of our] [ read this ] | | [ time ] [ message ] | | | +-------…

There is an easy platform for this.

http://ideas.ozonebit.com/

Check it out!

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#122
post #108
post #31

Downloadable sounds for electric cars. Electric cars must make noise under new EU rules: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26857743

blink and sound when the pedestrian is detected is way better for him/her and the driver.

Would really make an impression passing along a crowded sidewalk :)

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#123
post #84

- When will the next bus/train be at this spot? - a non-DRM ebook reader with Project Gutenburg installed - auto convert from client/server to webapp or phoneapp - grocery delivery for us not in SV,Seattle,etc - reservation-only restaurants that have tables avail now - auto turn cell phone to vibrate in certain locations - auto forward cell phone to close land line (work/home) - old Google maps - a no wifi or cell Pa…

> - When will the next bus/train be at this spot?

I think Oona Räisänen solved that already: http://www.windytan.com/2013/11/decoding-radio-controlled-bu...

> auto convert from client/server to webapp or phoneapp

What? Client/server is a network model, webapp and phoneapp are applications. You mean like a web/phone app that you can use to talk to random server applications or something?

> old Google maps

More specific..?

> auto turn cell phone to vibrate in certain locations

There's an app for that

> auto forward cell phone to close land line (work/home)

You can do that with VoIP.

> forum software that filters idiots

That would be a major breakthrough. Hellbanning probably does a good job already though.

> shock nearby driver on cell phone not paying attention

The police calls that a Taser.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#125

Waiforpaperback.com Informs you when alternatives printings are available could monetize by showing similar titles in monthly summary emails

I've been thinking about a much more general idea recently: basically twitter, but for data (in JSON format), not just text.

A company could simply announce all new publications, and you could subscribe to that stream, filtering for paperback (and possibly authors you are interested in).

Of course, there are hundreds of alternative use cases.

(Interested in doing the project with me? drop me an email moritz@faui2k3.org).

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#126

Waiforpaperback.com Informs you when alternatives printings are available could monetize by showing similar titles in monthly summary emails

I guess the question is how big of a market is there for this service? You could have alerts for Kindle version, audiobook and/or paperback. The monetization would be simple through Amazon affiliates, and implementation could just scan Amazon periodically.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#127
post #89

A demo mode for browsers. Incognito / private mode kind of solves this, but form autocompletes, and browser history when I enter a URL doesn't always contain stuff I want to show in front of my clients.

If you're using Chrome (and I believe Firefox can do this too), if you go to the settings, there is a section for Users. You can add a new user to the browser and use that account for demo purposes. Our sales guys do the exact same thing.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#128

This is less an idea, more something for someone to think about. We need to figure out how to defeat the internet echo chamber effect. Notice how often, when a community gets started between a small group of people(such as early Reddit or HN), it's a place of intelligent, productive discussion, where people measure what they say instead of just spouting extreme rhetoric? Yet, once these communities grow, you inevitab…

I think you misunderstand communities. Vibrant communities are full of people who share a materially common set of opinions about various things. They engage and interact within that world view.

At the same time people evolve and communities evolve. Sometimes you move away from the community, sometimes they move away from you. Either way, you can end up feeling like an outsider in a group you once considered yourself to be part of the 'in' crowd.

Because a large part of anyone's current point of view is driven by past experience, communities often segment by age but sometimes segment by politics or world events (the mechanism is that people take away different things from the same experience, it "changes" them in different ways, and that puts into further out or closer to other members of the community.

The internet "echo chamber effect" as you call it is defeated by visiting multiple communities and watching and noting the differences. That your favorite 'hang out' on the Internet has become distasteful to you can no more be "fixed" than you can will your favorite eatery or bar to exist for all time.

Things change, people change, places change. Keep moving and an open mind.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#129

A search engine for knowledge and facts. I think there's huge value in a search engine of knowledge and facts, where all sources are verified. A search engine that is objective and contains no opinions, crappy blogs or tweets, content farms. A search engine where you can't game your rankings through SEO techniques or through higher add spend. Google is amazing. Google Search is going to be here for a long time. I dou…

I've previously said that I'd like to see a fork of Wikipedia.

The new version would remove the toxic meta community. It would focus on narrow and defined topics ("science", "art over 50 years old") and would have rigorous fact checking and sourcing. It would aim for truth and accuracy, not whatever the hell WP currently does.

It would also have much better introductory paragraphs for every article.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#130
post #73

A way to submit any legal document, and for a fee have it returned but explained in plain english. What do you guys think about this? And what do you think are the most common use cases/legal documents?

I've actually been working on this. Dutch, unfortunately, but here you go: http://lucb1e.com/rp/js/en%20dan%20nu%20in%20het%20Nederland...

Quick translation of the text on the page:

Title: And now in plain Dutch

Intro paragraph: Contracts are always written in a very cryptic manner. So what do they say in short, plain old Dutch?

Status of the project: beta. I've "translated" 2 out of 38 paragraphs from one contract I've received, and that was a lot of work already. Those paragraphs work fine now, but it still needs a lot more work.

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