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Ask HN: Idea Sunday

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Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#201

Post by lnanek2 »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #131

I compiled different ideas over the week. coMarketing: I would like to see a solution that allows smaller companies that target a similar audience to be able to put their "little" marketing dollar together and have a better chance at fighting the big guy. Phone screen on my computer: When I am at my desk, I want to be able to use my phone from my computer. I can use the desktop interface to go through contacts, check…

Most Android devices can be rooted and a VNC server run on them so you can remote in. Some recent VNC server apps run even without root.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#202

Post by basicallydan »

fmax30 wrote: post #198
basicallydan wrote: post #181

I've been sitting on this gem for a while. I present to you: The Bruce Wayne Gap Year. Wealthy people with desires to become Batman can more-or-less do so. First they sign a waiver and an NDA, removing any liability from the Bruce Wayne Gap Year company. Then they'll pay the company tens of thousands of dollars to pay for what is to come. They'll be put into a real criminal gang [1], and taken around the world gettin…

This has potential , especially if you do it with the Matrix .

Good idea. The Matrix is definitely on the list of available experiences.

EDIT: If you take the red pill, you get to live Neo's life when he was still Thomas Anderson, go to his job and do all the stuff he would do. It'd be hilariously boring.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#203

Post by sroerick »

mden wrote: post #133

Idea: Tree of knowledge Ever been interested in a topic that once you google you end up with explanations(quite often on wikipedia) that rely on foundational knowledge you didn't even know you should have? And then you started working your way back by googling things you didn't know until you hit something you do know and from that point you try to inch your way forward to the original topic just to get discouraged a…

I think this is great. the biggest usability problem with Wikipedia for me is that I use it as a primer on a topic that I don't know about, but for some reason it is still stuck with the encyclopedia metaphor.

Academic subjects on Wikipedia are close to useless, if your goal is to actually gain a comprehensive knowledge of the subject.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#204

Post by bhoomit »

hrvbr wrote: post #127
personlurking wrote: post #19

Just going to throw this one out there. I live in Lisbon, it's tourist-central (I'm from SF and I've never seen so many tourists). Since I see a ton of lost people every single day there should be a way to digitally leave comments on things and places and a free one-stop shop to find such info (like Wikitravel). This info, although having a central repository, should be pushed out to an app that connects to one's pho…

I think it's being done by Caterina Fake's current startup: https://findery.com/ I'm not sure, though. The main page isn't clear about what it does exactly, and I haven't created an account.

Yes, I guess it does exactly same thing

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#205

Post by hackaflocka »

harryh wrote: post #146

Build a company around creating a best in class development environment that they can sell to other tech companies. This would involve everything from repository management (on top of git) to build & compilation tooling to automated testing and probably more than that eventually. Once companies reach a certain scale they inevitably expend some of their resources on building internal development tools. At Foursquare w…

Thing is, "best in class" means different things to different people (and companies).

E.g., which PC platform is best in class? OS X, Windows or one of the flavors of Linux?

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#206

Post by stonecrops »

jasoncartwright wrote: post #98
personlurking wrote: post #19

Just going to throw this one out there. I live in Lisbon, it's tourist-central (I'm from SF and I've never seen so many tourists). Since I see a ton of lost people every single day there should be a way to digitally leave comments on things and places and a free one-stop shop to find such info (like Wikitravel). This info, although having a central repository, should be pushed out to an app that connects to one's pho…

Have it work offline to avoid massive roaming charges.

Get close to this with BLE beacons at travel points of entry?

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#207

Post by LazerBear »

GitHub for mathematicians.

For every theory, define its axioms and valid logical steps. Let anyone build theorems based on these (validate them automatically), and allow people to fork others theorems to create their own.

It's probably possible to get a lot of proofs from projects like Mizar and Metamath to start with, then let the community build on top of it.

Maybe even a crowd sourced bounty program for unproven theorems, like P=NP. Let people pledge and automatically pay to whoever proves or disproves it.

I think this can really change how mathematical research is done.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#208

Post by harryh »

hackaflocka wrote: post #205
harryh wrote: post #146

Build a company around creating a best in class development environment that they can sell to other tech companies. This would involve everything from repository management (on top of git) to build & compilation tooling to automated testing and probably more than that eventually. Once companies reach a certain scale they inevitably expend some of their resources on building internal development tools. At Foursquare w…

Thing is, "best in class" means different things to different people (and companies). E.g., which PC platform is best in class? OS X, Windows or one of the flavors of Linux?

I agree that this is a potential problem. Is it possible to making something flexible enough to fit the individual needs of lots of different companies? I feel like it should be, but I certainly don't know for sure.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#209

Post by whatevsbro »

egypturnash wrote: post #190

Basically Yelp for transgender surgeons. I've been working on making the decision as to who I'll get to sculpt new genitals for me, and researching this on the web is a mess - every site comparing them is out of date, triggers my mental sketchy spam site detectors, or both. It'd be great to be able to go to a nice-looking site and say "all I'm interested in right now is MtF genital surgery", then see doctors who do t…

Consider going to Thailand for this. They've probably got the most experienced MtF genital surgeons in the world.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#210

Post by whichdan »

avalaunch wrote: post #174

A major pain point in my life is house maintenance and repair. I really miss having a (good) landlord. That's what I want - a single point of contact to manage the upkeep of and fix any issues related to my home. There's so much friction in the process of finding the various contractors needed to keep a home in good order. First you have to search on craigslist, angieslist, or google for contractors that service your…

I really like this idea. It would be great for renters, too, if the services could be opted for a-la carte at a slightly higher rate. For instance, in Boston, I needed someone to help bring over an in-window air conditioner from a friend's apartment and install it properly in a window. I had to spend the better part of an hour vetting different Yelp-style contractor sites, several actual contractors, and calling a few to see whether they'd be interested, available, and affordable. Being able to tap a few buttons on an app that sits somewhere inbetween Uber and Yelp would be amazing.

That said, whatever site mediates this, would potentially need to have 24x7 customer service, a billing platform (with payouts), and potentially some decent liability insurance.

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