Ask HN: Critique my Mark Cuban submission | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Critique my Mark Cuban submission

scribd.com

2 pointshotpockets13 comments

Oh, I have some feedback for scribd. In case anyone there happens to read this. I loved the signup and upload interface.

However, it took me close to an hour (at 4 in the morning) to figure out how to get a pdf file that was readable in scribd. My pdf looked great on my computer, but 90% illegible in scribd. I finally figured out I had to tell my pdf program to embed the fonts in the file. I was using a latex program to create the pdfs (LyX).

Sorry to say I now have a fairly negative view of scribd. I suspect anyone else going through this would also. After all, scribd is all about pdfs right? Why can't it recognize when this happens and provide help? Why can't it display pdfs that look fine on my computer?

Given the marijuana-detection side of thermal imaging, I have trouble imagining that you could pull this off without spending a decade in court defending yourself against invasion-of-privacy lawsuits.

The DEA already does this from helicopters as far as I know. I don't think there's any privacy issues with that.

On the one hand, I don't really care if people grow marijuana, so I'm not sure I'd want to sell that data anyways. On the other hand it might save the gov money.

I don't know about the DEA, but I know police have been told that they can't use thermal imaging without a warrant because it constitutes a "search".

Interesting idea.

You really need to show Cuban his exit.

Also, you can't account for expenses without knowing the cost of GPS-imaging technology - do some research and get a ball park figure.

I submitted an idea to the Cuban idea request. Be interesting to get feedback on it. Thanks for any.

Do you have a non-scribded version, for those of us who don't use flash?

http://drop.io/cubester

I think that should work. Doesn't scribd have a download pdf option?

It's 3 pages of text, really less than that since it's a numbered list. Couldn't you just post the text directly in HN, or a link to an ASCII text file hosted on a website? All this downloading/flash is ridiculous.

I don't think it looks good saying "I don't know" about possible costs [GPS licensing]

that flash crashed my browser. Arguably that's a firefox or an Adobe problem, but just in case you have critical data in some other browser window save / submit it first.

I suggest trying to talk to potential customers and possibly making your first sales for even less than the full $12K in proposed startup costs.

For example: rent the camera for 1 day. Take the photos on foot, on a couple of residential blocks and a couple of commercial blocks. Approach occupants door-to-door, or via a low-res mailer with followup call/knock. Ask for a higher price -- but be flexible, you're trying to learn the right price.

If response is positive, there are lots of ways you could fund expansion beyond just Mr. Cuban -- including grants and investments from 'social' or 'green' enterprise groups.

I'd only do this if I got Cuban backing. I have other ideas I wasn't willing to post online.

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