Ask HN: Idea Sunday
Kick start the first Idea Sunday of May.
(PLEASE upvote if you like this post to be seen by more people, as someone in the previous Idea Sunday mentioned the post with less points than number of comments will be penalized in ranking. Thanks.)
208 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 272 ms ] threadThe 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. (possibly using third party APIs)
There also should be a way to deal with updates to the CMS version of the site, so that these changes are detected, compiled and processed into the static version of the site.
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2012/june/25/prose-a-content...
EDIT: Oh sorry, I didn't realize that Prose was based on Jekyll! I guess this suggestion is a bit redundant, but this way you don't need Github if you have your own server, I guess.
More general than a CMS, but the idea is similar.
This would have to work independently of the platform used to build the original site and ideally the service would also provide a means of getting the newly created static site onto it's hosting platform (be it Dropbox, Digital Ocean or whatever other platform you want to host the static site).
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.
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
[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mongoliad (Wikipedia because I think it better explains the nature of the project than the homepage)
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 to have a successful conviction.
The same can be applied to divorce, patents, property etc.
My idea was to use an Erlang map reduce system to help fan out the queries which are dispatched to an underlying Prolog knowledge base (Erlang supports something like Channels/Ports).
I have a bias towards ideas which have a social impact.
The business case is: In a country like India there are over 20 million pending cases in courts.
Imagine both sides of lawyers and the judge all having access to a system like this - cases could be resolved a lot faster and time spent building defense/prosecution would be a significantly smaller.
Implemented right, this could somewhat level the playing field and allow poorer people have access to some sort of legal advice, which today they would not be able to afford. Monetizing the system could be charging for queries as you probe deeper and deeper into the system/advertising for lawyers.
I think commoditizing law has immense potential and should have a very large business potential.
I always wanted to implement and Idea like this as Open Source, but here in India nobody would fund ideas like this. I'm putting it out there as I believe it's time has come.
I think the base idea is very inspired, but I'd avoid prescribing a technical solution at the beginning and just propose different approaches. The general goal of giving lawyers a formula for inputting a case with a certain grammar and format and getting a useful output of laws and precedence seems amazingly useful.
[0]http://thomsonreuters.com/westlawnext/
http://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2009/04/review-vade-mecum-...
[1] http://indiankanoon.org/
Take Argentina, a case I know far too well. As INC magazine pointed out, the tax rate on businesses goes up to 108% of your profit. (< http://www.inc.com/magazine/201106/doing-business-in-argenti... >). How's that possible? Here's how: the government purposely passes endless contradictory laws thus ensuring you are always breaking the law, just to survive. (A business can't pay 108% of its money in taxes and still survive!). Therefore, you live in a state of somehow doing something illegal. The result? If the government doesn't like you, they find the illegal thing you're doing (that you have to do, just to survive, since the laws are contradictory and unreasonable, like that 108%), and then punish you for "breaking" the law.
Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games ;)
Conclusion: If you step into the third/developing world, the key isn't what the law actually says -- but _how sh*t gets done in practice_.
A few months ago when I made some contributions to Go I realized I like their code review process and tools much more than the typical GitHub PR workflow.
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 their permission individually.
It is widespread and the norm for subscriptions.
We also have iPhone and Android app's where you can create these Masked Cards in stores as you're about to check out. Cashiers just need to be willing to type in the 16 digit # and expiration, which they usually are fine with.
Would allow discovery of new good content that hasn't employed growth hacks and will also differentiate between equally rated content.
https://aeolipyle.co (algorithm complete -- need to find good use for it.)
In terms of algorithm it's got around issues of merging incomplete Condorcet elections (as not everyone will compare or rank every item) and clustering.
Turning these partial elections into a single order ranking.
Essentially, you do binary search-insertion into a list, where the comparison function is a prompt to the user asking "Is A better than B?" (If it's too difficult to judge "betterness" between two items, you could just as easily swap in a different comparison. "Is A funnier than B?")
One thing that people always ask when I mention this is: "What if A and B are equal?" Well, then you answer no, because A is not better than B. If your answers are consistent, then A and B will end up next to each other in the list.
What you're describing technically would work when each person compares every item (and would fall into the domain of condorcet methods).
However in practice the election becomes a graph (rather than list or x/y table) with cyclical dependencies and conflicting comparisons -- it becomes quite hard to resolve -- but it can be.
Cyclical/conflicting comparisons are a function of faulty users, the algorithm can't take the blame for that! ;)
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 and tapping the one that they like more.
The number of use cases is endless. You could be shopping for eyeglasses and trying to figure out which look better - just try on both right there in the store and get a response from the A/B app.
It's not limited to fashion, as people could use it for any subjective comparison.
Pickfu also charges for their service, which I don't think would work for someone wanting to simply choose their wardrobe. It'd have to monetize in other ways (ads, or charging for getting gender/age breakdowns of the results, more results, allowing to compare more than 2 photos, etc.)
This is the part I don't understand. You would need to have a whole lot of scale and incentive for people to give their feedback this fast and often. Jelly can take a while to get a response, for instance.
Rating photos is very fast -- just look at two photos and tap one. All network lag can be eliminated by pre-caching the images. I'd bet the average rating speed is one per second (it's all snap judgements).
As long as the app has 30+ people using it at every moment of the day, you'll always get a response of at least 30 responses within 30 seconds. Plus I suspect people would enjoy voting and would spend time doing it even while not waiting on their own response, meaning you'd get more than you put in.
I think you'd get enough votes if the app was in the right format. It would have to be like hot or not, where you have 2 photos, pick one, and instantly get another 2 photos along with the results from the first set. This gets people trapped in the just one more click mindset.
Focus it on fashion and clothing, people will vote to see more photos, to judge the outfits of others (a lot of people enjoy doing this for fun), and to get inspiration for themselves.
Also, allow users to select what gender and age groups can vote on their photo.
For example, something that should be 15-2 votes, ends up being 95-82. You'll be applying a large number of votes to both sides, and pushing everything towards a 50/50 rating. This doesn't help anyone, the goal is A/B testing, and you're making it more difficult to get accurate data. 15-2 shows a lot of promise for A, but then you add 80 random votes to both sides, and 95-82 seems like a tie.
It's all in the presentation. If you just highlight one image and stamp "WINNER" next to it, most people won't even look at the numbers. Crowning a winner is more important than being scientifically accurate.
I suppose the question then becomes: will the end user notice or care if the votes are random? Do the votes need to come from humans at all?
Instead of showing the user 95-82, or 25-12 you tell the user "others prefered shirt A 2-to-1 or shirt b 66% to 33% or whatever might be appropriate.
Anyway, again, I'n not suggesting any particular techniques are the right ones, just that there (almost certainly) viable techniques available to mitigate the problem.
Some people would do this, but as long as you randomize the order of the pictures their data won't alter the winner since each image would get an even number of bad votes.
You can also detect when people are doing this and start throwing out their votes, or just don't even prompt them to vote and show them ads instead. I'm pretty sure this would be a minority, since most people would understand that they want to get real results for their own photos, so they need to give real votes to other photos.
It received venture capital, but died a painful death.
http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fashism
http://betabeat.com/2013/09/fashism-struts-off-to-startup-gr...
This takes a lot more effort than simply tapping one of two photos without reading anything. A/B responses can be given in less than a second. It's all snap judgements -- no reading is necessary.
Suddenly... #HopeInHumanityRestored
The advantage of having two images is the voter doesn't even need to read a description or know what part of the image they're supposed to up/down vote. They should be able to easily see the difference between the two and just make a snap decision in less than a second. Not having to read text makes it more fun, I would think, and also provides a lot more results for the picture-taker.
The value for the poster is clear; what is the value for the voter?
It would also be important to make it very fast. Cache all the images before the voter gets there, and send the results asynchronously so they don't need to wait. One could easily do a rating in less than a second. It's all snap judgements.
I think the key is in the constraints you have outlined.
Obviously it's a mobile app. You take two pics and post. You then vote on other's ABs. Every vote you make on someone else's AB earns you a vote on your own. If you want a bunch of opinions on your AB you keep voting on other's. You can post to your social networks to get your friend's opinions as well. Maybe it ties into the social APIs and reads comments to extract out votes for A or B. Maybe some viral growth potential there.
I like this. I might use actually use it. Wondering if it is important to be able to choose a target segment of voters for your own AB or if the classification of "human" is good enough in most cases.
http://gotryiton.com/
I'd pay to use something that gave me a sample of 500 or 1000 responses.
To just an app for two photos, which is better, and let people make of it what they will. Would need decent facebook integration, so you can ask your friends, not just random strangers.
I know that's ambiguous, and I'm not sure how it'd be implemented. But I often listen to podcasts when working from home and often wish for a way to consume Hacker News in the same way.
- think about how google maps show you the time a given route would take in the current traffic. What I want is the possibility to see what the time would be in a future date and time, based on historical data (no, google maps does not have this);
Also have them posted by an "official" account so it doesn't turn into a karma grab.
Now think about how cool it would be to have the type of frozen fly-around video that you see in moves like The Matrix. In fact, it should be super easy to create such a thing. Instead of just a photo, why can't we have a frozen moment in time, virtually in 3d?
In fact, I first thought of this idea in terms of wedding photography (an industry in need of a lot of innovation, btw.)
What I propose is a "string of cameras" that you can easily place anywhere, and will simultaneously shoot a photo. All of those photos are then instantly turned into a video.
Cameras have become low-cost enough that a product like this could be produced at a mass market price. Yes, it is a niche product, but so is the Go Pro. But, the best argument for this idea is that it would be really damn fun to play with one.
Someone, please steal this idea. All I ask is that you make it happen.
When you move to a new home or office, you can keep the same "Postal Domain Name", but change the address associated to it. Once.
Not sure how to convince all the big entities to use it, but it could catch on if you could convince some smaller companies to allow users to use it in their account settings.
I've never heard of anyone being able to send mail to a person using only their name on an envelope.
You would have a unique "ID" which you can assign to any physical address. This is all you ever give out. If you move, you update one record, and your mail will come to the right place.
It's similar to a website. If HN moves to another server, everyone doesn't have to update their bookmarks to point to a new IP address. Instead, they visit the same URL as always, and it automatically sends everyone to the new IP.
<his nickname>@<division>.<company>.<country>
so it should have been fairly easy to route.
I'd also wonder if financial institutions can use such a service at all, they probably have some stringent requirements to change the address of a person and are obligated to keep an address on record (at least in Israel they are).
Cap'n Proto is a great piece of engineering that got quite a lot of things right. (For those who aren't familiar, Cap'n Proto is a data serialization format that is able to be very fast by encoding data in the same way modern processors encode data normally - with fixed width data types and pointers.) I think it would be nice to have a data serialization protocol that uses the same general concepts, but addresses a couple limitations in that format, including:
- Cap'n Proto doesn't allow you to edit messages in a robust way. You can't change the size of a list/string in a message, you can't replace one object with another without leaking "garbage", etc. The data model is simply not designed with fast editing in mind. - The data model is document based so it is inconvenient or impossible to capture certain kinds of relationships with a schema.
My idea is to address these limitations using the battle tested relational model and the massive amount of knowledge that's been accumulated about how to efficiently implement relational systems. In this serialization format, a message would be a veritable relational dataset, complete with a schema and multiple tables. Messages would be organized into pages, each page representing a node in a b tree, as in a normal rdbms. You can add, edit, and delete rows as necessary, and just send the binary encoding of the database over the wire directly. The utility of this system is obvious: a client could, for example, read an entire database from one server, add a row to a table (without parsing the rest of the message, which are in other tables on other pages), and forward the new database directly to another server. Being able to quickly edit even large datasets in this way would be a huge boon.
Last week:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7654771
2 weeks ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7616910
3 weeks ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7582077
4 weeks ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7541601
Market validation and iterative development for hardware can take a long time. Product developers are jealous of the fast iterations involved with software development. I've recently learned that despite being lower quality, people value the novelty of 3D printed goods. And we know that consumers value co-creation [1].
We know that early adopters tend to be early adopters of multiple kinds of technology. So if your user base for a new physical product also largely have 3D printers, you could bring your users into your prototyping process. Send out 2+ versions of your product without them knowing which version they received.
You can ask for feedback within 2 days of pushing out a design with real users. From the feedback you can start a new iteration, which you can then push out to your users as a tangible update within a week. You could even pay for the small cost of material used.
This platform could start with STL files, and then in the future use a common 3D printing API such as the one we're building called PrintToPeer. Early adopters would even be incentivized to get a 3D printer to be a part of the development cycle of new products.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect
http://money.stackexchange.com/
Not exactly a startup idea, but something that can be useful, eh?
I personally want to make more OSS contributions, but often I find it hard to find projects where I can contribute meaningfully. Meaning specifically that they are projects that have problems that match my expertise, are actively maintained (my patches will be appreciated), and have unresolved tickets where assistance would be useful (they are looking for outside help).
I imagine there are at-least some OSS maintainers who would like to recruit more contributors as well, and a site that would help match both would be beneficial for everyone.