Ask HN: Idea Sunday • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#31

Post by neilxdsouza » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:37 AM UTC

zodiac wrote: post #21

neilxdsouza wrote: post #17

A search engine for the legal system. I had sent this idea to YC 2013 and they asked me to submit a video, but I felt I don't have the creds to apply. Take each section of a country's law and convert it into prolog clauses. Queries can then be run on the legal engine. For defendants it gives you insights on how to build a case and for prosecution it identifies relevant sections and evidence that needs to be provided…

Lots of what lawyers and judges do involve interpreting and arguing for a certain interpretation of laws - eg, whether Aero is merely renting an antenna to individual consumers or performing a work publicly to all of them as a whole. Case law also sets all sorts of legal "tests" that involve human judgement (eg proportionate force in response, what a reasonable person would believe). How will your search engine deal…

So at this early stage, I am not talking about replacing lawyers. Their interpretation would still be required. However if there are 5 possible interpretations, the engine should present all 5 possibilities to the lawyer. This will help her prepare for the case better.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#32

Post by KnightHawk3 » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:37 AM UTC

Fizzer wrote: post #27

A/B testing for the masses. Here's an example: Say a someone is deciding which shirt to wear. They whip out their smartphone, launch the A/B app, takes a picture of themselves wearing each of two shirts. Within 30 seconds, they have an answer of which shirt hundreds of people liked better. While they're waiting for the reply, they're prompted to rate other people's pictures. This is as simple as seeing two pictures a…

What happens if both of them are told they are bad? (or you are just not very attractive)

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#33

Post by syerram2 » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:40 AM UTC

mjnaus wrote: post #2

A service combining the flexibility and ease of use of a CMS site (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, etc) with the speed and security of a static HTML site. The CMS version would be a private site (not accessible by the general public) which is compiled into a static HTML site which is publicly accessible. There should be a way to deal with formerly dynamic elements, such as contact/comment forms, site search, etc. (possibl…

Are you thinking of something similar to http://cloudcannon.com/?

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#34

Post by drsim » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:40 AM UTC

GavinB wrote: post #20

A service that sits between my bank account and subscription services that only accepts charges that I've preapproved. This would let me keep track of the services that I have so I don't end up with subscriptions to sites or services that I've forgotten about. It would also let me revoke permission to charge the account at any time. No need to cancel a card if one won't cancel or changes the fees--you just revoke the…

Direct Debit in the UK does this. You can cancel any instruction at any time, usually through your online banking where all instructions and charges are listed.

It is widespread and the norm for subscriptions.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#35

Post by lpolovets » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:42 AM UTC

Fizzer wrote: post #27

A/B testing for the masses. Here's an example: Say a someone is deciding which shirt to wear. They whip out their smartphone, launch the A/B app, takes a picture of themselves wearing each of two shirts. Within 30 seconds, they have an answer of which shirt hundreds of people liked better. While they're waiting for the reply, they're prompted to rate other people's pictures. This is as simple as seeing two pictures a…

One of my friends started a website that mostly fits what you're describing: http://www.pickfu.com/

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#36

Post by minimaxir » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:43 AM UTC

Fizzer wrote: post #27

A/B testing for the masses. Here's an example: Say a someone is deciding which shirt to wear. They whip out their smartphone, launch the A/B app, takes a picture of themselves wearing each of two shirts. Within 30 seconds, they have an answer of which shirt hundreds of people liked better. While they're waiting for the reply, they're prompted to rate other people's pictures. This is as simple as seeing two pictures a…

There was a startup that followed your example called Fashism. (yes, really)

It received venture capital, but died a painful death.

http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fashism

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#37

Post by Huhty » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:43 AM UTC

doubt_me wrote: post #4

Hacker news 2.0 An actual tech news column with reporters and a sleek website and or maybe a podcast here and there I mean seriously why hasn't that happened yet

Try http://tech.snapzu.com

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#38

Post by Fizzer » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:44 AM UTC

KnightHawk3 wrote: post #32

Fizzer wrote: post #27

A/B testing for the masses. Here's an example: Say a someone is deciding which shirt to wear. They whip out their smartphone, launch the A/B app, takes a picture of themselves wearing each of two shirts. Within 30 seconds, they have an answer of which shirt hundreds of people liked better. While they're waiting for the reply, they're prompted to rate other people's pictures. This is as simple as seeing two pictures a…

What happens if both of them are told they are bad? (or you are just not very attractive)

Voters just select which picture is better, so the only thing being tested is the difference between the two photos.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#39

Post by softbuilder » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:44 AM UTC

neilxdsouza wrote: post #17

A search engine for the legal system. I had sent this idea to YC 2013 and they asked me to submit a video, but I felt I don't have the creds to apply. Take each section of a country's law and convert it into prolog clauses. Queries can then be run on the legal engine. For defendants it gives you insights on how to build a case and for prosecution it identifies relevant sections and evidence that needs to be provided…

I've thought along similar lines, but with a slightly different intent: to refactor existing sets of law. I started off thinking about trying to improve & streamline the law, but eventually realized there might actually be a market as a analytical tool for lobbyists. In any case, trying to build a useful constraint system or search engine, etc. out of human-muddled laws sounds very messy and fun from a programmer's point of view. The actual legal aspects might be intractable, but I'll leave the naysaying to the lawyers. :)

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#40

Post by mjnaus » Sun, May 04, 2014, 5:45 AM UTC

syerram2 wrote: post #33

mjnaus wrote: post #2

A service combining the flexibility and ease of use of a CMS site (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, etc) with the speed and security of a static HTML site. The CMS version would be a private site (not accessible by the general public) which is compiled into a static HTML site which is publicly accessible. There should be a way to deal with formerly dynamic elements, such as contact/comment forms, site search, etc. (possibl…

Are you thinking of something similar to http://cloudcannon.com/ ?

No, not really. CloudCannon allows you to build static websites on Dropbox (if I'm not mistaken). What I'm after is means of building and maintaing a site using your CMS of choice (Wordpress, Drupal, etc) and then have this site compiled into a static HTML site (on request or using some sort of timer/interval) and uploaded to wherever I'm planning to host it.

Looking to get away from the speed and security issues of CMS based sites but still having the flexibility and ease of use when building/maintaining a site. Basically using any CMS to build and deploy static HTML web sites.