You guys need to build more stupid shit | Hacker News Reader

You guys need to build more stupid shit

25 pointsgnarbarian17 comments

You guys are way to serious around here. Building stupid pointless shit is fun and it will teach you a lot.

I once built an obit scraper to build a db of local recent decedents. It was just to ease some work I was doing for a probate attorney.

I eventually set it to compare against a church roster. It emailed the leadership on matches and they'd follow up to see if it was the same person.

Sometimes they got notified earlier than they would have otherwise. But there were a few matches every year that would have flown under the radar (snowbirds or less active). It allowed leaders to make assistance and support available to the family.

Not stupid or pointless, just difficult (and kinda evil) to monetise. But perhaps that counts as stupid and pointless here?

It wasn't too hard. Probate firms scan obits to look for their own clients. This made that task less tedious.

'Difficult to monetise' is what I said. But maybe I'm wrong about that.

> 'Difficult to monetise' is what I said.

Sorry for misunderstanding. I could definitely sell it to local probate attorneys. I haven't because my coding is too weak for any kind of finished product. And because the data source is obit scraping, which isn't the best base upon which to build.

Not that difficult to monetise, dead people are not known for calling the cops for burglary and funeral homes, estate lawyers etc would pay for leads.

Given the audience on hacker news it's not even the worst thing people here do for cash because it's only one or so victim at a time instead of hyperscale. Old school artisan crime.

IIUC it's specifically for notifying the clergy, which would be a little sketchy to monetise. But the OP did say that probate firms already do this, so I'm guessing it's already a crowded market, which might make it difficult to monetise for other markets.

that's good.

Have you seen https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew

It has a mix of big and tiny projects, you may like some of them.

Because people are becoming more sensitive, everyone is scared of lawsuits.

it never stopped moot!

As if there isn't enough stupid shit; need to add more...

How about some not-stupid-shit for a change?

Why is it like so? What would it teach you to?

F you pay me

best I can do is a like.

I wish I had the time to build dumb shit

you should try working for the federal government and getting shutdown for a month.

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