Ask HN: Idea Sunday | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Idea Sunday

41 pointsIGN24 comments

The moderator, 'dang, has asked that these not get posted anymore:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7693262

("Something about having all these ideas in one place makes the whole less than the sum of its parts.", "Ideas are better in the wild. Let's discuss them as they come up organically, rather than try to organize an idea-fest.")

Bummer. I'd always found it to be an enjoyable read. A really dense thread of intelligent idea-exchange.

It'd be useful (to some people) if one account could post a once monthly thread for idea-dumping.

People often point out existing solutions, so that's useful. Restricting it to a single account and once per month avoids the other problems of those threads.

Only the 'whoishiring' account is allowed to make those threads and Dang has already rejected an idea one on that account.

I understand the idea has been rejected. I'm still gently, politely, mentioning that some people find the threads interesting fun and useful and hoping that the decision is changed.

I know that halfbaked covers some of the purpose, and there are probably reddit sub-reddits that do similar things, but still, and HN version would be good.

Ah okay cool, I agree that they were interesting - HN would be my preferred community to get ideas with I think. (Just say your karma, sorry if my original post was condescending!)

Will check out halfbaked, haven't heard of that. There's a subreddit /r/somebodymakethis which has occasionally had some interesting ideas (it led to RES) but there's probably better options.

There was a HN styled forum posted a while back too, (found it in the comments) http://firespotting.com/ - but it's definitely less active and a smaller community.

Seems a little heavy handed to ask people not to post them at all, as opposed to simply not officially endorsing it.

I put it up on /r/startups if there's interest.

http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/27nvm8/ask_idea_su...

An app that lets you track the last person to buy beer in a group of friends by taking their picture. With an in-app-purchase, you can ensure that the next time you meet that the app lists yourself as the last beer-monger (while still retaining the history accurately otherwise). Great for that manager or boss who never pays his share.

Don't buy rounds - they lead to excess drinking. People should be buying their own drinks.

But what about those of us who like things like lead to excess drinking?

An app that allows people to ask for favours from their friends and anyone within a certain radius. Could grow into a marketplace for local tasks (doing the shopping, giving advice, menial tasks etc). Any thoughts?

The Buy Nothing Project (started by a couple of friends of mine) is a successful model for this. It's not an app, but a network of Facebook groups.

From their 'About' page: "The Buy Nothing Project began as an experimental hyper-local gift economy on Bainbridge Island, WA; in just 8 months, it has become a social movement, growing to over 25,000 members in 150 groups, in 4 countries. Our local groups form gift economies that are complementary and parallel to local cash economies; whether people join because they’d like to quickly get rid of things that are cluttering their lives, or simply to save money by getting things for free, they quickly discover that our groups are not just another free recycling platform"

http://buynothingproject.org/

If I understand you correctly, this is for buying gifts for others and getting the same in return. I think the OP meant doing something for someone else, e.g. getting something from a store you're going to anyway, but being refunded.

I wouldn't be as inclined to gift something to a stranger as much as I'd be to grab something along for someone nearby. I don't need to be reimbursed for the effort, but I also don't want to loose money on it.

Buy Nothing Project (BNP) isn't about "gifts" in that sense. Here, the "gift economy" is "a mode of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

An aim of BNP is to build a hyper-local community where people give and receive goods and services with no money or bartering involved. You get to know the people involved in your group, because only people living within a certain area are allowed to be in the group. And yes, groups do indeed have people picking up things from stores for each other, or giving them rides, on occasion. Some groups including informal lending libraries, where you can borrow tools, equipment, household items an no charge.

Around here on Bainbridge Island, you often see tables on porches for BNB'ers (Buy Nothing Bainbridge members) to pick up stuff. The things (a garlic press; a pair of pants; a lawnmower) will have been listed on the group's FB page, probably with a photo, then there'll have been a few people saying they'd love to have it. Sometimes things go first-come, first-served; other times people get randomly selected.

I would advise against the acronym BNP - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party

https://www.taskrabbit.com/

Can't remember where I heard of this (maybe here), but apparently assembling Ikea furniture was a popular task ^^

We programmed exactly this concept for our software engineering class at Yale. We have a working prototype and will probably launch this year.

System for product/service idea evaluation. I spend lots of time talking with friends and other hackers about ideas and wish I had a system to create objective evaluations of ideas based on a series of metrics. Right now we use a shared google sheet but there is bias that occurs, for example if we score the potential for viral growth on a 1-10 basis, we see each others scores.

You mean judging an idea's viability by sitting around a table and guessing? When it comes to judging ideas errors by investors and "customers" during customer validation give prudence to the fact that no one knows which idea would really take off. A computerized system would make the mistake more difficult to accept.

Since the mods asked that these not get posted anymore, I would love a website for easy idea sharing/discussing

Your circle of friends (even better if they could be potential users), and a Google or Excel spreadsheet.

Halfbakery is a popular but not very serious one.

Accelerometer sensors to monitor natural gas fracking locations.

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