skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: What next? Seeking ideas for my next project
This question is kind of the inverse to "Marketing gal/guy looking for technical co-founder".

I’m trying to figure out what I want to do next. I’m looking for ideas, interesting projects you need help on, market needs you’ve already tested, things you would like to see in the universe, pain points, etc. I give priority to large and difficult problems -- they’re just more fun.

I’m a full-stack engineer -- I’ve worked for a large tech company, I built a successful startup that was acquired.

I’m in SF.
Don't be a smartass. Loads of things are annoying or rubbish, and the fact that people can get sick and die doesn't change that.
How to Leverage LinkedIn Groups to Boost Your Online Presence
Unfortunately this is something that is intentionally designed to suck in almost all cases. It's even hard to pay someone else to do the canceling for you since you're generally required to offer up a lot of personal info to verify that it is in fact you that wants to cancel the account. I've personally had this range from phone number all the way up to SSN.
Not sure why you would want to compromise on browser support just to have some fancy CSS3 in there. Background image is totally acceptable (in fact, I think that was a great design decision). This library does exactly what the author claims it does.
In general there are two types of JS code bases you'll encounter, the ones for the Browser which end up putting everything into a single file and the ones for Node.js, which (in most cases) organize their code in the usual directory / file structures you may be used too from other programming languages.

There are also multiple camps which battle about whether too use semicolons at all and where to place commas that separate the individual parts of `var` statements. I'm not going to take any sides here, since I think that style is something everyone has to decide on their own :)

Now as for the code to read, there's obviously jQuery, but Angular.js is definitely a good read too these days.

https://github.com/angular/angular.js

If you're into parsing (or want to learn about it), there's also Esprima which is a JavaScript Parser written in JavaScript:

https://github.com/ariya/esprima

Taking a look at NPM might give you an idea of another syntax style, since commas are infront of the lines here and there are no semicolons:

https://github.com/npm/npm/tree/master/lib

And last but no least a shameless plug or two!

gbaasm this is a assembler for z80 GameBoy code (which takes assembly files and build a ROM) written by myself, it has a big focus on performance and is another example of lexing / parsing source code.

https://github.com/BonsaiDen/gbasm

For something short and sweet I got a minimal 2D physics engine here. Beware though, if you're new to physics simulation is can be quite hard to figure out what excactly is going on:

https://github.com/BonsaiDen/box
> It has been posted before [0], but I don't consider that to be sufficient justification

It is sufficient justification (edit: in this case) because the item has had significant attention within about the last year.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
Instead of "rest" (which the author mentions is a core function), the Clojure convention for getting the remaining items appears to be "more"; e.g. [x y & more]

I really like this tutorial.
Javascript is fine in itself as a language, but no one uses it like it's meant to be used. It's a prototype inheritance language and yet people try to use it like regular java (classes and instances).

The problem you probably have is with the DOM, not the language.
When talking with a remote clients/offices, we've found http://appear.in/ to be great. No hassle with adding each other on Skype/Google, just send a link. Even supports screen sharing when demoing. Not saying it will be a silver bullet for your listed issues, though.
Many times a day I want to share an url with my SO. I use a desktop, she uses a laptop and half of the time I just give up. Opening a mail client, or facebook, wait for the app/website to load, find a textfield on the screen, type her name, correct auto complete, no I don't need a subject, yes I want to send it... half of the time I give up.

I wish there was something like her picture in my browser toolbar and when clicked it asks me "send that page to X?" and I hit enter et voilà. It should not ask me if I want to send it via fb, mail, tw or anything (I would be okay with configuring it but only once. Ideally all our messages should be sent through a private hub that dispatch to the recipient's fb/tw/email but I disgress).

I might try hitting addons.mozilla.org/firefox/ after posting this.
You seem to applaud mushrooms for their fairly static appearance that a piece of paper laced with an unknown quantity of LSD doesn't share.

First, a "prankster" (ie in your description, someone out to commit criminal poisoning) could easily lace a mushroom with anything from potato starch to rat poison if so inclined.

Second, the main defence mechanism is that your legal, regulated drug would come in sealed, tamper evident packaging, and never on a little piece of paper from a potential "prankster".
IPMI firmware. It's insecure, unusable garbage.
S3 would be extremely cheap, and then it's easy to integrate Cloud Front. A project that's worth taking a look at is: https://github.com/laurilehmijoki/s3_website
I believe this was posted on HN a while back but check out this video and the jQuery repo. It's actually very, very interesting.

http://www.paulirish.com/2010/10-things-i-learned-from-the-j...
I'm not a lawyer but could something like temporary power of attorney be used here?
And like most drugs, it's usually bad for you. Say NO to Facebook!
Worse than PHP? :)
Of course. We demote duplicates off the front page. That is the whole point about duplicates.

We don't, however, stop an ongoing discussion from continuing. That is a significant difference.
Node.js is so last year.

But in all honesty, it's transformed browser development. Common JS is everywhere now
True, although I believe than in itself is only a slightly older (circa 1900) spelling reform. In older German books, you see Aesthetik/aesthetische/etc. instead. Lots of borrowing and adaptation...

Ngrams: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Aesthetik%2C%C...

Random example: http://books.google.com/books?id=7ZpJAAAAMAAJ&printsec=front...
Maybe start somewhere a little more basic.

I've got C+R "cards" for my google acct and treasurydirect. And thats it.

A little more might be nice.
There are a lot of terrible things out there but one that really bugs me is all the misinformation/propaganda that the internet causes. I didn't see it coming, I thought the web would make people more informed, not less.
Because the people that live in those developing countries are fellow human beings, and generally have no economic/political power relative to Facebook and other MNCs.
Thats a great point about California's water supply.

Just wondering, why do you think power grids are so challenged?
Also, does anyone know why the reddit post of this isn't working (0 traffic)?

http://redd.it/2cii9m
I've found this plugin showing your exact age to be pretty helpful. Shows up on the new tab page

https://github.com/maccman/motivation
You pay for the internet and only get facebook (while paying extra for other services) vs you pay for the internet and do whatever you want

and

you pay for the water and only get quick showers (while paying extra for flushing down the toilet, baths, taking care of your garden) vs you pay and do whatever you want.
Rocket science + brain surgery. This Urban Dictionary entry dates it to no later than 2004, so no, not that new :)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rocket+surger...
I am so happy I saw this post first. You made my Sunday.
Maybe a HN company can fix home automation. Home automation seems to be like personal computers around 1980: you can do it but it's expensive, you don't get a lot of functionality, and you have to do a lot of hacking yourself.

Some specific pain points: walking outside and pushing little buttons to adjust the irrigation timer. Walking outside to turn on the hot tub. Manually putting a light on a timer when traveling. Pushing little buttons on the thermostat (although now there's Nest). Alarm system not integrated with anything.

What I want is that when I buy a $40 irrigation timer from Home Depot, it "just works" with the internet. I shouldn't need to buy a $500 internet irrigation controller with proprietary software (e.g. CyberRain).

(Of course I shouldn't bother responding to threads that will get clobbered by the controversy filter for having too many replies vs upvotes. My explanation http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really...)
i wish i could vote this down
https://www.pushbullet.com/ (scroll till the end of the page, it works in the browser too)
no, it's a step away from completely commodifying water; and if someone offered that "package" i wouldn't for a moment believe they aren't making more money off of me in the long run than had they charged just a flat fee.

and i feel the same about internet access.
Sure. I'd rather use a PHP site with good, lightweight CSS than a site loaded down with AJAX and jQuery. Any day of the week, ESPECIALLY on mobile.

13-year-old kids still in high school styling themselves as "PHP Developers" is what gave PHP a bad rap. They're the reason PHP-Nuke existed. But novice developers produce mediocre code irrsepective of the language.

I'm not saying it's the best thing ever created. I've never used PHP 5 but there's not really anything fundamentally wrong with PHP4 other than clunky syntax and stupid choices in naming some intrinsic functions. It's certainly easier to hang yourself with, say, C than with PHP.
No, my problem is definitely with the language. JavaScript has some PHP-level horrors in it, especially when it comes to type coercion.
Don't you *DARE* break the chain–to make the productivity method work
Checked exceptions are possibly the worst feature of Java.

Why? I absolutely hate C++ codebases where all of a sudden you get yet another type of exception that was not documented, possibly because the exception was thrown ten functions down (up) the stack.

In Java, at the very least you know what to expect and can prepare for it. Unfortunately, even there people try to avoid exceptions by throwing classes that derive from RuntimeException.

Given that Java has no sum types, checked exceptions are really the next best thing.
Other people are already treating HIV with anti-retroviral drugs. Why can't we tackle it with shamanic healing ceremonies?

This is not evidence-based development strategy. This is a shot in the dark.
Bird? Plane? No, It's the Wedding Photographer
Are there any major rules you think are counter-intuitive or non-obvious there?
Thanks. Since the item had significant discussion within about the last year, we're demoting this one as a dupe.
I think I can discern for myself whether I dislike the DOM or Javascript, thank you very much.
You have to get to be a journalist in France? Can't you just, well, write? Falling back to a blog if necessary.
Their business revolves around supplying dedicated database servers...

It would be a very weird architecture for the average SaaS product.
PressTV – Southern China earthquake leaves 175 people dead #News -
Fair point about citizens in developing countries being forced to focus on the short-term. But does that mean it's right for Facebook to take advantage of them in a way that, in the long-term, is questionable at best?

This is about more than just providing heating oil or railroads... this is about their entire information infrastructure, and they're in no position to negotiate.
Great stuff, we also made some flat style devices in css

http://marvelapp.github.io/devices.css/
The example with breakcycles seems to be broken on chrome 36.0.1985.125 (Official Build 283153) for windows. http://imgur.com/hd4REcG
Read your contract. It will almost certainly have a section on cancelling which will give a postal address. Write a short letter with your account details and whatever else the contract says to provide, and cancel by mail. It is faster than using the phone.

I've been doing this for years and it always works. Pay a tiny bit extra and get signed proof of delivery. This is helpful when the company 'accidentally' loses the cancellation. It's good enough to beat them in court and god help them if they ding your credit and you have proof you cancelled (and that they received your cancellation letter).
Google Ngram puts it even earlier: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=rocket+surgery...

And I started using it at least before then. It's too obvious to not show up quickly.
> A society without privacy wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, in fact I think it could even be Utopian.

Sure, in the same way Karl Marx's communism was ideal and utopian, too. In the real world, though, we'll get a much more corrupted version of it. And just like with the real communism, that was abused by those in power because they had so much central control over their countries, a "utopian" society where a few elites know everything about everyone will never work either, and it will easily be abused and often.
Yeah I'm probably just overthinking this, although it could be a nice small project.
I haven't been to a DMV since I took my driving test (a decade ago). I just go to the AAA. They can do almost anything a DMV can.

I think that the relationship between the DMV and AAA is a great example of what can happen when government "services" are treated more like a platform and less like a service. The government specifies what government/citizen interaction needs to take place, private businesses can compete to fulfill that interaction as a service to citizens/customers.

The biggest downside to government-as-a-platform is that the service providers my lobby to make that interaction more cumbersome than it needs to be in order to make themselves richer: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/27/turbotax-maker-funnels-mill...
The existence of a company that offers dedicated EC2 instances to their highest tier of customers (and no free trial on that tier FWIW) doesn't meaningfully challenge the GPs assertion.
I can't believe I'm having to stick up for javascript... I don't particularly like it myself, and I think the growth of node.js oven the past few years is one of the biggest jokes in our industry... But that said, every language has its surprises when it comes to coercion/equality/etc. When you move from Java to Ruby you get burned by the differences and when you move from just about anything else to javascript you suffer as well.

You as a programmer just have to know the differences between these languages and work appropriately.

Again... I can't believe I'm sticking up for javascript. I prefer strongly typed languages that can have projects with several dozens to hundreds of developers.

But I can see the appeal for javascript and other prototype inheritance languages. My first two languages were Dylan and Newtonscript.
Temperature: I can't stand more than 25 °C (well, I can, but I don't like it).

Big software: I missed the old times where you just needed a text editor and a terminal in order to "create" computer programs. Nowadays it seems that you need IDEs (specially in mobile development), frameworks, unit testing frameworks, CI servers; and you have all types of "mini software programs" you have to use just because your team says "it's great". For example: Jasmine, Bower, Composer, Rake, Pip, Grunt, Gulp, Browserify, etc. I know all of them are pretty useful (and I would say, indispensable). Yeah, I know that the new rule in software development today is "write big-readable-maintainable-scalable-featurable software"... but as I've said I miss the little less-featured programs (like "ls").

Money: not to be able to buy online without a credit card. I would love to go to a physical store and buy a "pseudo credit card": "Hey dude, here you have 50 euros, give me a temporary credit card for that value". And then go to Amazon or whatever online shop and use that pseudo credit card without give any of my personal information or have to link the pseudo credit card with my bank account (like PayPal does).

Politics: I would love to see some engineers or scientists working in politics. I only see lawyers, economists and the like.
If it is a static website I don't think making the source code public will hurt much ;)
I'm waiting for this bullshit to appear on ordinary routers...
The Lawyer’s Apprentice: How to Learn the Law Without Law School
Computers, tablets and phones. I'd like to spend less time peering at these backlit screens, wiggling fingers at primitive input devices.

If only they weren't so necessary to get anything done at the speed or scale that is expected today.
TLDR summary is they're narrowcasting to a local maxima that is shrinking. To be politically correct they attacked "boy movies" although there seems to be no shortage of angsty middle aged women movies, or at least my wife hasn't run out of them yet. The point isn't that they are narrowcasting to the wrong local maxima, the problem is they're narrowcasting in general.

AKA

"continuously catering to a demographic losing interest in the movies."

There was a bit of "its boring", no new ideas, all the traditional arguments.

Extroverted entertainment .. of, by, and for extroverts.

Too many execs trying their hardest to more perfectly copy each other. Like web designers but worse.
I would like to point out that any existing issues with web technologies (HTML/CSS/JS/PHP/your newest hyped web framework) are merely a symptom. The underlying cause, and the thing that actually sucks, is the fact that the web has been designed as a sort of document viewing system, as opposed to a cross-platform app execution system.

And it sucks in particular that 20 years ago, when there was still room to steer things into the right direction, it seems that nobody was smart enough to anticipate the change of requirements or got the courage to stand up against existing authorities and bring the traditional web model into question.

Whenever I see some web demo of a particularly flashy CSS trick or the newest WebGL effect on HN, something inside me cringes because nobody of the hype crowd would ever consider giving a wet fuck about it if the demo was running in a native app.
Previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7931674

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7689579
Thank you very much for explaining to me what a DLL is, I had absolutely no idea.
Of course. Sorry. Stupid me, I should know it's not possible. What an idiot, huh?

Hey did you do the search on YouTube? Guess not. Sergei and Larry should've just given up too. They were told search is a dead end. They were also super stupid, not listening to people who totally knew better...
No one will actually care if they're making more money overall if the end user is saving because they spend less on water/data because their usage is lower. The sooner ISPs start charging based on usage the better. Low usage customers have been subsidizing heavy users for a long time.

The alternative is having heavy bandwidth services subsidize their customers' data use which would also work.
>Common JS is everywhere now

That's not a good thing.
Ah, didn't notice that. Appears to be working now.
You only talk about client-side related features. Nothing about the language itself. I don't mean to be autistic - I now understand what you meant but it wasn't clear from the start of your post.
"and Gazans are not Israeli citizens"

And what country are they citizens of? Does that country provide them with freedom of unmolested cross-border travel, commerce and stuff?

Unless there's a clear answer to those questions Israel is going to be a poster country with ghetto problems.
Most any post, tutorial or README that includes memes as part of the content loses my respect a little. It instantly dates the content and alienates those who perhaps approach software more seriously. Imagine viewing man pages with embedded cat photos in 15 years.
Sorry. I realize the example was symplistic, I was trying to illustrate the way computers have changed and undermined an old information economy. I didn't mean to imply it was the only way it changed that information economy.

You can get around bandwidth bills through distribution. open source is very good at that.
Half-Life 1 did this so well. It was primarily a shooter, but if you followed closely you could get a story arch. You never lost control of you character and every cutscene was optionable( except the very first and last, you still need some pacing ). This is why I consider Half-Life 2 an inferior game, even though it does everything else better, you constantly get into situations where the main characters talk for several minutes and you can only watch and wait. HL1's gameplay flows, HL2 is a stop-and-go.
Reminds me of Roko's basilisk:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko's_basilisk
This article adds to substance to Elon's cryptic tweet in favor of a cryptic reference to the Tron mythology. It seems to me though that the premise of strong AI warrants a degree of caution by its very definition. It would apparently be capable of all the things we are. But more likely it will be capable of all the things that we can program it to be capable of. the consequence of these actions remains underexamined, in my opinion.
It's telling that I find it less frustrating to find a stop sign or parking lot, than to suffer thru using speech. Error rate is too high. Getting angry while driving is no fun.

Also I can call someone with one button press on my car. Much less distracting, and much faster, than trying to text/email.
Yes! Years ago, processor speeds evolved slowly enough that it was practical for game developers to write all animation delays in their games something like this:

for (i=0; i<400; i++) ;

They would test their delay value and then increase their loop count as necessary. This was a lot easier than doing clock-based delays. I'm not sure how it was on Windows/DOS at the time, but around the same era on MacOS, you couldn't even get millisecond accuracy without a lot of effort. The standard time unit on a Mac then was the tick, or 1/60th of a second, and some things didn't look too nice at tick granularity.

So this kind of time delay in games and other software was common practice. When processors did start getting significantly faster, some games became unplayable or bugged out altogether.

Along came the turbo button: it didn't actually make your computer faster, it made it slower. Because of the confusing name, the turbo button was usually rigged so that you would leave it on by default -- using your processor's manufactured clock speed -- but if you wanted to play an older game that relied on processor speed for delay timing, you would deactivate the turbo, slowing your system clock speed down to something that matched older hardware.
Health insurance. All the terms (co-pay, co-insurance, deductible, premium, etc.) with non-obvious meanings. The delicate dance between me, the insurer, and the health provider when a bill needs to be paid. The whole thing feels scuzzy.

I would probably be more proactive about seeing a dentist or getting a physical if I knew I didn't have the headache of dealing health insurance on the other side of it.

And this is with good (I think) employer-provided health insurance! I can't even imagine the situation on the individual market.
Check out http://grasswire.com (I'm the co-founder). It's a newsroom that's fact-checked and curated by everyone. We're just getting started and have a lot of work to do, but we've had some pretty good success so far crowd-sourcing the news and debunking misinformation/propaganda that tends to spread like wildfire on the internet.
If this were the case, surely you'd have no problem answering the sibling to this subtree, posted nine hours before your comment.

But that would be hard.