5 ms·

Ask YC: What are you working on these days?

52 points by raw-- 18y ago

What are you working on these days? I just met my co-founder, and we are working out the concept for this product idea I've had for a while, to help with email overload. Lots of fun!

flemdog 17y ago
This is the gayest crap i ever heard. You guys are a bunch of douches.
KLAW 18y ago
A kick-ass reputation monitoring tool... once I find the right lead developer / partner ; )
- tyohn 18y ago
  I think I like that idea. Now just add in a kick-ass reputation fixer module and you're set :)
  - KLAW 18y ago
    LOL, the spec doesn't cover that I'm afraid, though it would be a killer feature. I can think of various politicians that might want it...
    - tomjen 18y ago
      Woha, you have a spec - I figured there wouldn't be any of that on Hacker News.
      - KLAW 18y ago
        Don't worry, it's an agile spec. Very loose. Bullet points are amazing things.
- tocomment 18y ago
  That's a pretty cool idea. I'd like to hear more.
sfamiliar 18y ago
making online dating reasonable @ flowmingle.com. the balance of structure and expression is a challenge, but a fun one.
- greaterscope 18y ago
  is anyone aware of any non-dating sites that do a good job of helping you meet other like-minded people?
  - antiismist 18y ago
    meetup.com?
    - greaterscope 18y ago
      but that's kinda rigid (gotta choose your interest category) ... doesn't do the work of pairing you up with others based on a broad range of interests.
  - wehriam 18y ago
    Took a swing at this one a few years ago - http://whosgoing.com http://whosgoing.com
  - brlewis 18y ago
    http://friendfeed.com/ http://friendfeed.com/
  - pmjordan 18y ago
    I've actually met a few people (and some customers, actually) through Twitter, and one person so far through Hacker News (davidw) - I think a more organised/rigid approach would just be weird. But then I probably wouldn't use an online dating site either if I were single...
  - PieSquared 18y ago
    http://news.ycombinator.com/ http://news.ycombinator.com/
greaterscope 18y ago
I've been working on an online storefront product that should serve as a great starting point for web developers that need to roll some custom functionality for clients. All text can be multi-lingual, support for complex product options and pricing, multiple storefronts using the same code, and more. nothing to show yet, but more info here http://greaterscope.com http://greaterscope.com
- tocomment 18y ago
  How will you find the customers for it?
  - greaterscope 18y ago
    A friend of mine runs http://www.udm4.com http://www.udm4.com and we've talked about running an ad on there since its primary audience is developers (nevermind the fact that I don't really like the menu). Other than that, try to partner with good development shops that do online stores ... I have a few in mind. Any other ideas, besides taking out the obvious ad on google? I really don't want to screw with trying to get high keyword ranking via the SEO black-magic route.
steveplace 18y ago
Just started a video blog about stock options. Pretty fun so far. www.investingwithoptions.com
- truebosko 18y ago
  I watched a few of your videos, quite enjoyed them despite my small knowledge of markets. Keep at it!
  - steveplace 18y ago
    Thanks for the encouragement. It's something I'm passionate about, and I've received a ton of good ideas. If you have any suggestions, feel free to email me (see profile for address).
- bisi 18y ago
  I enjoyed your videos . Keep it up !
- LukeG 18y ago
  Do you know Zecco? They're always looking for good content, and I'm happy to put you in touch with someone there if you're interested. Disclaimer: didn't [listen] to your videos cause the I/O board on my MBP is fried and audio output doesn't work.
  - steveplace 18y ago
    I've been a big fan of Zecco's business model. I'd be more than happy to generate exclusive content for major providers. Any networking you can provide would be greatly appreciated. My main brokerage is thinkorswim and that's the platform I do screencasts from. Hopefully (crossing fingers) when I get some good traffic going I can get some advertising contracts with some financial service companies.
truebosko 18y ago
Unfortunately I don't have the time to do anything too crazy but here's what I currently got going: - Just about finished a small 2 week project that will allow indie game developers a place to host their games, upload media, and give status updates. Been done before (Infact, I made one of first incarnations the style of service about 6 years ago) but I need something to do with my www.gamecake.net domain and this was a fun way to learn more about django and give a little back to the community I no longer belong to due to time restraints. - Starting up a video cooking blog. My side passion is cooking and I would like to create videos of my recipes. I'm celiac/dairy-free so I have a niche to focus on. I've got a good camera now, and will probably shoot my first real episode this week now that I have some recipes nailed down strong. Not looking to make money on either of these, just for fun and learning. Plus they look good on a resume in my opinion.
maryrosecook 18y ago
http://theperceptron.com http://theperceptron.com - astute music recommendations And a site where you create your audio autobiography by uploading mp3s. Hello, RIAA.
- truebosko 18y ago
  Not bad, got some good recommendations. The UI needs a lot of work but I'm sure you're working on that ;) What do you use to fetch your library of artists/etc? Or is it selt built?
  - maryrosecook 18y ago
    Excellent! Glad to hear the recommendations are good. I find links between artists and recommend based upon that. These links include: being recommended by a human, being on the same record label, being mutual admirers, playing gigs together, being posted to the same mp3 blog, being on the same mixtapes and so on. I wrote a post on my blog that gives a comprehensive account of how the recommendation system works: http://www.maryrosecook.com/post/show/130 http://www.maryrosecook.com/post/show/130 And, yes, I know the UI is horrible.
- lliiffee 18y ago
  I got: Radiohead -> The Beach Boys You should remove that my any means necessary. I think the UI is pretty nice, actually. Very functional, feels like a "tool". Don't lose that when you make it more fancy.
  - jfornear 18y ago
    I would disagree, Pet Sounds is one of the greatest, earliest experimental pop albums ever.
  - maryrosecook 18y ago
    The "tool" feel was exactly what I was going for. Kind of the Google of music recommendations. However, I am desperately in need of someone who can work with me to make things both more functional and more attractive. Thanks very much for the feedback.
btw0 18y ago
I am working hard on pptimes.com every night, it's another next generation news site, I will announce here when done.
Anon84 18y ago
Building an infrastructure to model the spreading of epidemics (SARS, Bird Flu, etc...) on a global scale.
okeumeni 18y ago
I’m working on a great Google map application, that the most I can say for now (stealth rule).
pwoods 18y ago
A LAMP & AJAX driven framework to assist small businesses who want put their data online. It is also good at giving startups backend functionality to their databases so that they can concentrate on the client front end.
- tocomment 18y ago
  Sounds cool. How will you sell/market it?
bollyscoops 18y ago
http://www.bollyscoops.com http://www.bollyscoops.com BollyScoops is a user driven bollywood community. The users share, comment, vote on bollywood related scoops.
siong1987 18y ago
Just finished a simple command-based search engine by using Yahoo APIs - http://geeky.siong1987.com http://geeky.siong1987.com. Now, I am working on trakify.com. It is not up yet. Need a partner desperately.. LOL...
robdor 18y ago
Making online customer support easy with Candlelight -- http://www.candlelightapp.com http://www.candlelightapp.com I've been working on it nights and weekends. Great respite from some of the less than pleasant activities of coding at my day job.
- greaterscope 18y ago
  sounds interesting and probably something I could use since I plan to offer email-only support at first for my online storefront product. i'll be keeping tabs on you guys. :-)
rickmode 18y ago
I'm working on an open platform for cloud storage. Imagine something like MobileMe, Microsoft Strata, or Carbonite, but without your data being trapped by a single vendor. At the moment we are considering Celeste as the basis for this platform. http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/celeste/ http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/celeste/ I've got the partner (alexkravets), now we're looking for funding to mitigate the risk of having no day job. We don't have a write-up online at the moment, but we firmly believe in the "ideas are cheap; execution is everything" philosophy, so we'll answer any questions.
- unalone 18y ago
  Question: how do you plan on making things sync as effortlessly as they do on MobileMe? I'm sure it can be done - look at Dropbox - but do you have any ideas on how to beat something that's built in to the system?
  - rickmode 18y ago
    Initially we'll side-step that issue. First we'll build the equivalent of an online mountable disk so it'll be a natural fit for online storage/backup and sharing. Building applications on top of this storage layer such as photo sharing and syncing will be next. As for how to compete, the magic sauce is openness on two fronts. Bandwidth and storage are commodities, and we want this storage tier to be a commodity marketplace as well. The storage providers will compete for end users while cooperating to store and serve up data. A user can switch providers and retain the same data in the system (cloud). Along with an "open" system, most (if not all) of the software will be open source. We envision a small hub of centralized services (identity and such), a storage provider ring, and the end users. So basically we'll beat the big guys by creating an open system with open software. Our company, then, will be taking a small slice of a big pie, rather than on these players head-on.
    - unalone 18y ago
      Our company, then, will be taking a small slice of a big pie, rather than on these players head-on. Very nice way of thinking about it. Good luck.
scumola 18y ago
* Still trying to improve the http://mediawombat.com http://mediawombat.com crawler * Working on better pre-caching scripts/SQL for http://mediawombat.com http://mediawombat.com search results * Working on how to charge a company that wants to use the http://mediawombat.com http://mediawombat.com API * Coming up with ideas for a back-end for a new auction-based concept that my friend and co-founder has come up with * Coming up with ideas for mixing/matching data when Google releases their RSS feeds for google searches * Trying to master CSS and transparency to make pretty boxes and stuff. I'm not very artistic. :) * Writing a play-by-email and play-by-web strategy game * Coming up with a way to keep a linux configuration on my laptop so when I do a fresh-install of Fedora 10 next month, I don't have to re-create all of my custom configurations from scratch (again) * Thinking of cool ways to use the WiiMote * Setting up my father's website (has an idea about improving K-12 education) * Keeping my older kid from injuring my younger kid * Keeping the wife happy * oh, and my actual paying day job :)
- nailer 18y ago
  Dude what's your website? You should include a link to it so we know what it is :^).
- lbrandy 18y ago
  > Coming up with a way to keep a linux configuration on my laptop so when I do a fresh-install of Fedora 10 next month, I don't have to re-create all of my custom configurations from scratch (again) Maybe you meant something substantially more complicated but.... ...just mount /home/ on a second partition, that way you can wipe and/or upgrade linux and keep all your personal settings.
Darmani 18y ago
I'm currently working on a system flexible to play the card game Mao and every reasonable rule that could be made for it online. I'm also working on a nice, comfortable, abstract way to create Turing machines in Arc, with the ultimate goal being to have one simulate a von Neumann machine (namely by having it able to interpret a sizable subset of the machine language for a modern processor). I've taken a long break from both to work on my college applications, though. To cut down on my total workload (and so my mother wouldn't complain when I worked on these projects), I'm using both for two different projects for the IB diploma program. As a result, I have to do the Mao-playing system in Java though.
tricky 18y ago
1) a new/obscure music blog - www.audioindie.com 2) a data tracking app for medical stats 3) clinical trial data management 4) getting my car ready for a DE event.
- delano 18y ago
  What is a DE event?
  - guruz 18y ago
    DE as in Deutschland = Germany. Maybe.
  - tricky 18y ago
    Whoops, sorry. Driver's Education - it teaches you how to drive at speed on a race track.
RKlophaus 18y ago
Great question :) Mostly working on Stitcho.com (http://stitcho.com http://stitcho.com) Stitcho is a desktop notification widget for your website, with support for Windows and Mac. Add desktop alerts to your web app in less than 30 minutes. Also, trying to build an Erlang community in the DC area (search for Erlang on meetup.com) Finally, putting together a presentation for BarCampDC this Saturday.
- rrival 18y ago
  We've been doing something like this with Growl - how does it compare?
  - RKlophaus 18y ago
    Stitcho is basically "Growl for the Web", but NOT in the sense of being another Javascript-to-Growl bridge (a few of those exist out there, protoGrowl, Growl mootools, etc.) Rather, Stitcho lets you send notifications from server side code that are delivered to your users via the Stitcho widget. The Stitcho server sits in the middle to route and deliver the notifications. Also, Stitcho provides widgets for Mac and Windows. (The Mac version can use Growl if it's available.) Does that answer your question? If not, please clarify.
    - nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
      Any plans for a Linux Gtk/Qt client?
    - rrival 18y ago
      Definitely - thanks!
- fbailey 18y ago
  cool - horrible from my personal perspective - perfect for one of my projects
djm 18y ago
I'm also at the concept stage for a site providing some tools to help UK residents manage their finances with emphasis on debts. I have considered this idea a few times over the past couple of years as I work for an organisation that gives me a great deal of exposure to people in debt and the methodology typically used to assist them to address those debts. In the past I have ignored the idea as I considered it technically uninteresting but I have now found myself in the position where I am (a) wanting to jump into the startup game, (b) have relevant industry experience, and (c) it's the right time (credit crunch).
shafqat 18y ago
Fundraising for NewsCred! It's actually fun and not as depressing as all the blog posts make it out to be.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  I agree. So many free breakfasts, lunches, dinners, beers and even paintball too. All while meeting some very intelligent people.
  - fbailey 18y ago
    paintball?
    - fallentimes 18y ago
      Yeah Battery bussed ~70 us an hour away for an all day paintball/beer drinking/BBQ. It was awesome. They even gave us custom masks to keep.
DanielBMarkham 18y ago
I have a web application that manages agile/scrum projects for large organizations. I've beta-tested it at a large corp, but they're not going to be able to use it for a while due to legal reasons. So right now I'm finishing up version 1 this week and deciding whether to 1) start marketing version 1, 2) start on version 2 and then market, 3) wait for large corp to come around so I can continue usability testing and making the product better (it's clunky now), 4) Look for a partner and do any of 1-3 I'm not sure which way to go, to be honest. Anybody got any ideas?
tocomment 18y ago
Working on a place for hackers and artists to find short gigs: http://gigbayes.nfshost.com http://gigbayes.nfshost.com. I aggregate all the gigs sites I can find e.g., craigslist (all of them), sitepoint, elance, etc, and then use Bayesian filtering to bring the most relevant gigs for you to the top.
AlexeyMK 18y ago
* look.fo (http://look.fo http://look.fo) / str8.to (http://str8.to http://str8.to) - a sort of insta-tinyurl that uses Google search results to create on the fly links. For example, see http://look.fo/hacker-news http://look.fo/hacker-news and http://str8.to/hacker-news http://str8.to/hacker-news). Q: Isn't this just a shortcut for (http://www.google.com/search?q=hacker+news http://www.google.com/search?q=hacker+news)? A: Absolutely, but the shortcut makes it viable to create on-the-fly links to search results (or use str8.to's I'm Feeling Lucky option) in IM conversations, or on twitter, or in emails (I recently told a client to http://look.fo/how-to-use-ftp http://look.fo/how-to-use-ftp) without having to go look up a good answer. Stuff like that. Anyways :).
- bkudria 18y ago
  Neat!
dpapathanasiou 18y ago
A tag aggregator for blog/rss content: http://www.seeksift.com/ http://www.seeksift.com/
YuriNiyazov 18y ago
Working as a researcher on the DARPA URGENT project.
- Shamiq 18y ago
  How can I get to do something similar? DARPA has all of the amazing stuff coming out of it...
  - nostrademons 18y ago
    A friend of mine's working on a bunch of DARPA projects, and his path was: 1. Attend a top liberal-arts college (CS, Amherst) 2. Get master's degree from top research university (HCI, Carnegie Mellon) 3. Work for General Dynamics 4. Stick around long enough to get promoted, kick butt, etc. 5. Profit!!! BTW, he said that chances are, whatever the next big thing is will come out of DARPA. His bet was on pervasive computing - DARPA's apparently doing a lot with computers in clothes, computers in canteens, computers in backpacks, computers in visors, basically computers everywhere. The logic being that most of their troops are getting deployed to inhospitable environments (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) and if they can monitor environmental conditions for things like excessive heat, sandstorms, laser sniper sights, explosive residues, they can save lots of soldiers' lives. And of course, if it trickles down to consumer uses it could completely change how people use computers.
  - YuriNiyazov 18y ago
    There are two basic paths: 1) A lot of large research companies get DARPA research grants. General Dynamics (like nostrademons said), HRL, Boeing, etc. etc. You can get a job with them, and if the environment doesn't feel soul-crushing to you, you are golden. 2) A lot of CS research at Universities is funded by DARPA. If you are still in school, or if you are out but still have close relationships with your professors, you can always find out what kind of projects they have. DARPA projects are especially nice because they are large in scope and there's always a need for extra people. Don't expect to be paid much though. I chose route 2 - after my startup failed I wanted to do something that paid, was not as intense, and had nothing to do with Web 2.0 and Social Networking and all that, so I just e-mailed a professor.
ep 18y ago
Working on http://www.roomorama.com http://www.roomorama.com, a short term rental marketplace.
toby 18y ago
* Working on my second book for O'Reilly * Speaking about, and generally pushing for more interest in Open Data * Putting my entire life in a semantic graph: http://blog.kiwitobes.com/?p=73 http://blog.kiwitobes.com/?p=73 * Trying to figure out what programmers can do about risk management failures
- sundeep 18y ago
  > Working on my second book for O'Reilly woohoo ! (loved your first)
- fallentimes 18y ago
  What was your first book?
  - kirubakaran 18y ago
    'Programming Collective Intelligence' http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=210132 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=210132 Thanks Toby. Awesome book.
    - breck 18y ago
      I second that.
    - j2d2 18y ago
      Dang. I really liked this book.
    - toby 18y ago
      Thanks guys! I really appreciate it.
- nailer 18y ago
  And what will your second one be?
  - sundeep 18y ago
fallentimes 18y ago
Concerts, theater, http://news.ticketstumbler.com http://news.ticketstumbler.com and some other fun stuff for the http://ticketstumbler.com http://ticketstumbler.com mothership
teej 18y ago
Finishing my distributed memory list caching system. Think Memcached, but instead of storing an object, you store an array, and can CRUD it in an atomic way. Fast, simple, non-persistent. Usage case: caching a one-to-many relationship in a relational database.
timcederman 18y ago
Integrating www.trovix.com to www.monster.com
kaens 18y ago
Working on: * a web-site-as-service for customizing installation / install cds for different flavors of Ubuntu. * a customizable tetris-like game editor done in javascript, allowing people to create their own shapes / rules / etc. * slowly making an emacs-like editor in python * working on a web based store for the various media produced by the house I live in
catone 18y ago
Blogging at SitePoint.com, switching RailsForum.com over to vBulletin (no, Beast won't cut it), and working on a utility for educators (K-12 and post secondary).
ezmobius 18y ago
Working on the following open source projects: Merb Rubinius Nanite Vertebra Also working on some top secret engine yard projects that I will be able to talk about soon.
rokhayakebe 18y ago
Video communication, Mobile Communications...
hooande 18y ago
* real time news aggregation and moderation * sports data modeling * desktop notification app
jfornear 18y ago
I'm working on http://rawberry.tv http://rawberry.tv - somewhat of a platform for creating your own music video mix reel. It's not even close to being done, but I'm hoping to finish it by the time I graduate to help me land a job or something.
- jeffgreco 18y ago
  It's a nice looking design - what sort of functionality are you rolling in?
  - jfornear 18y ago
    Thanks, I think it's going to be fairly straightforward with twitter-like functionality at first. I'm not really planning to introduce anything technically groundbreaking. I just need to have a project to work on.
sreitshamer 18y ago
Working on a desktop app that keeps your photos safe (through sync/backup), and allows collaboration on a bucket of photos across multiple computers. Photos are stored in a peer-to-peer version control system like git. http://www.thephotothing.com http://www.thephotothing.com
zacharydanger 18y ago
Working on my startup, http://taskgravy.com http://taskgravy.com. A project management / collaboration suite that doesn't neglect the analytical side of project management. And also looking for a permanent gig, because I just got laid off. :]
- nailer 18y ago
  Best. Name. Ever.
plinkplonk 18y ago
Besides the day job (Program Manager), (a) Working through Cormen et al's Algorithms book. (b) Trying to learn how 3D game engines work by building one (in java). Rendering is completely in software. (c) Working through Rudin's "Principles of Mathematical Analysis"
brent 18y ago
Researching statistical machine learning algorithms.
rgrieselhuber 18y ago
Working on the next version of Gridjit (http://gridjit.com http://gridjit.com), which is turning out to be even better - and bigger - than I first imagined.
guitsaru 18y ago
http://redlists.com http://redlists.com A better methods for managing mailing lists.
LukeG 18y ago
Working on Job Alchemist (meetings, Startuply, JobSyndicate, fundraising(??)). Trying to figure out how to get smart kids to work for startups and cool companies in general rather than for the man. Thankfully, the Wall Street meltdown will help, especially as it works its way into consulting. Get a real job, squares (or "suits," as fallentimes would say). 'Bout to lease some space at a pretty rad SoMa office loft, to be joined by Eddie of Picwing - what's his HN name? Realizing it's way more fun when the odds are stacked against you.
- edawerd 18y ago
  his HN name is 'edawerd' Agreed...way more fun when the odds are stacked against you. See you in the office!
jakecarpenter 18y ago
Wow, pretty cool to see other people have a lot of irons in the fire too. Working on a (yet another) better financial management tool, raising a newborn, and the day job :).
guruz 18y ago
Working on a P2P app for LAN/VPN. See http://p300.eu/ http://p300.eu/ It is a "project" though and not a "startup" or "company". :)
known 18y ago
I am setting up a Bank.
- rms 18y ago
  Seriously?
  - steveplace 18y ago
    I hope so. There's a serious vacuum when it comes to small, niche investing banks. All the big firms are no longer in that category. Total i-bank market cap has been cut down by billions.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    I don't know if the parent is serious, but it is a good idea. New bank, no risky holdings. Everybody else is in trouble and refusing to lend. It's a great idea.
  - kirubakaran 18y ago
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=316769 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=316769 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=312260 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=312260 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=283813 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=283813 <- answering why he is a programmer :-)
  - known 18y ago
    I am serious and I already discussed this with PG.
- sabat 18y ago
  Obviously you're doing this on prosper.com. ;-)
greaterscope 18y ago
Damn, people are still commenting here and I forgot to mention the non-commercial stuff I'm doing. It all lives at http://greaterscope.net http://greaterscope.net. I'm taking a stab at: * Creating a foreign key based ORM for PHP5 * Creating a PHP5 database abstraction layer that's easier to use than PDO or the alternatives * An abstraction layer for html forms that generates, validates and even supports deeply nested "arrays of fields" * A console terminal multiplexer (GNU screen, but split-screen) in C for Linux Disclaimer: There are existing projects similar to many of the above, but I'm striving to make my APIs cleaner, code readable and more concise. Plus I enjoy learning by doing. I'm also extremely interested in wireless mesh ... anyone working on that?
ejs 18y ago
Still working on my website http://overtrainer.com/ http://overtrainer.com/ Doing other random hardware as well
EliAndrewC 18y ago
My friends and I run the Music and Gaming Festival (MAGFest: http://magfest.org/ http://magfest.org/ ) and for the past few years I've been tinkering with a webapp to help us get more organized. I've been to a lot of conventions, mostly anime conventions, and no one has a good integrated system for tracking attendees, staffers, shifts, events, inventory, budget, etc. My webapp does all of this, and I've spent a lot of my free time lately making the code cleaner and easier to read. After the next MAGFest in early January I'm planning on releasing this webapp as an open source project on Sourceforge or somewhere similar. I think a lot of other conventions might find this useful if they can find a programmer or sysadmin to make the small changes necessary to adapt the code for their purposes. I'm excited that some of our staffers are already planning on recommending this system to some of the other conventions they staff.
davidkellis 18y ago
A Masters degree in CS at Texas Tech.
petercooper 18y ago
I've launched (with Dan Grigsby) a blog for iPhone application developers - http://www.mobileorchard.com/ http://www.mobileorchard.com/ - or follow us at http://twitter.com/MobileOrchard http://twitter.com/MobileOrchard :)
arthurk 18y ago
http://code.google.com/p/yml2tex/ http://code.google.com/p/yml2tex/ A little python script to generate a LaTeX beamer presentation with some default theming/styling/etc. added. I tend to forget the LaTeX syntax because I don't use it very often. However, I really like doing LaTeX beamer presentations so I wrote a little script which basically provides me with something to start with.
jah 18y ago
* Porting my chess problem website (http://chesstr.com http://chesstr.com) from Rails to Django * Working on a new version of my chess engine. I've had various versions over the years with the strongest playing around ELO 2300 (master level) * Working on a chess engine that uses non-traditional searching/AI techniques. I'd be absolutely thrilled to get this thing playing as well as a child. * Teaching Intro to Computer Science at the local university - a tremendous experience. * Learning Doc Watson's version of Deep River Blues on my guitar

52 points by raw-- 18y ago

What are you working on these days? I just met my co-founder, and we are working out the concept for this product idea I've had for a while, to help with email overload. Lots of fun!

flemdog 17y ago

This is the gayest crap i ever heard. You guys are a bunch of douches.

KLAW 18y ago

A kick-ass reputation monitoring tool... once I find the right lead developer / partner ; )

tyohn 18y ago
I think I like that idea. Now just add in a kick-ass reputation fixer module and you're set :)
- KLAW 18y ago
  LOL, the spec doesn't cover that I'm afraid, though it would be a killer feature. I can think of various politicians that might want it...
  - tomjen 18y ago
    Woha, you have a spec - I figured there wouldn't be any of that on Hacker News.
    - KLAW 18y ago
      Don't worry, it's an agile spec. Very loose. Bullet points are amazing things.
tocomment 18y ago
That's a pretty cool idea. I'd like to hear more.

sfamiliar 18y ago

making online dating reasonable @ flowmingle.com. the balance of structure and expression is a challenge, but a fun one.

greaterscope 18y ago
is anyone aware of any non-dating sites that do a good job of helping you meet other like-minded people?
- antiismist 18y ago
  meetup.com?
  - greaterscope 18y ago
    but that's kinda rigid (gotta choose your interest category) ... doesn't do the work of pairing you up with others based on a broad range of interests.
- wehriam 18y ago
  Took a swing at this one a few years ago - http://whosgoing.com http://whosgoing.com
- brlewis 18y ago
  http://friendfeed.com/ http://friendfeed.com/
- pmjordan 18y ago
  I've actually met a few people (and some customers, actually) through Twitter, and one person so far through Hacker News (davidw) - I think a more organised/rigid approach would just be weird. But then I probably wouldn't use an online dating site either if I were single...
- PieSquared 18y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/ http://news.ycombinator.com/

greaterscope 18y ago

I've been working on an online storefront product that should serve as a great starting point for web developers that need to roll some custom functionality for clients. All text can be multi-lingual, support for complex product options and pricing, multiple storefronts using the same code, and more. nothing to show yet, but more info here http://greaterscope.com http://greaterscope.com

tocomment 18y ago
How will you find the customers for it?
- greaterscope 18y ago
  A friend of mine runs http://www.udm4.com http://www.udm4.com and we've talked about running an ad on there since its primary audience is developers (nevermind the fact that I don't really like the menu). Other than that, try to partner with good development shops that do online stores ... I have a few in mind. Any other ideas, besides taking out the obvious ad on google? I really don't want to screw with trying to get high keyword ranking via the SEO black-magic route.

steveplace 18y ago

Just started a video blog about stock options. Pretty fun so far. www.investingwithoptions.com

truebosko 18y ago
I watched a few of your videos, quite enjoyed them despite my small knowledge of markets. Keep at it!
- steveplace 18y ago
  Thanks for the encouragement. It's something I'm passionate about, and I've received a ton of good ideas. If you have any suggestions, feel free to email me (see profile for address).
bisi 18y ago
I enjoyed your videos . Keep it up !
LukeG 18y ago
Do you know Zecco? They're always looking for good content, and I'm happy to put you in touch with someone there if you're interested. Disclaimer: didn't [listen] to your videos cause the I/O board on my MBP is fried and audio output doesn't work.
- steveplace 18y ago
  I've been a big fan of Zecco's business model. I'd be more than happy to generate exclusive content for major providers. Any networking you can provide would be greatly appreciated. My main brokerage is thinkorswim and that's the platform I do screencasts from. Hopefully (crossing fingers) when I get some good traffic going I can get some advertising contracts with some financial service companies.

truebosko 18y ago

Unfortunately I don't have the time to do anything too crazy but here's what I currently got going: - Just about finished a small 2 week project that will allow indie game developers a place to host their games, upload media, and give status updates. Been done before (Infact, I made one of first incarnations the style of service about 6 years ago) but I need something to do with my www.gamecake.net domain and this was a fun way to learn more about django and give a little back to the community I no longer belong to due to time restraints. - Starting up a video cooking blog. My side passion is cooking and I would like to create videos of my recipes. I'm celiac/dairy-free so I have a niche to focus on. I've got a good camera now, and will probably shoot my first real episode this week now that I have some recipes nailed down strong. Not looking to make money on either of these, just for fun and learning. Plus they look good on a resume in my opinion.

maryrosecook 18y ago

http://theperceptron.com http://theperceptron.com - astute music recommendations And a site where you create your audio autobiography by uploading mp3s. Hello, RIAA.

truebosko 18y ago
Not bad, got some good recommendations. The UI needs a lot of work but I'm sure you're working on that ;) What do you use to fetch your library of artists/etc? Or is it selt built?
- maryrosecook 18y ago
  Excellent! Glad to hear the recommendations are good. I find links between artists and recommend based upon that. These links include: being recommended by a human, being on the same record label, being mutual admirers, playing gigs together, being posted to the same mp3 blog, being on the same mixtapes and so on. I wrote a post on my blog that gives a comprehensive account of how the recommendation system works: http://www.maryrosecook.com/post/show/130 http://www.maryrosecook.com/post/show/130 And, yes, I know the UI is horrible.
lliiffee 18y ago
I got: Radiohead -> The Beach Boys You should remove that my any means necessary. I think the UI is pretty nice, actually. Very functional, feels like a "tool". Don't lose that when you make it more fancy.
- jfornear 18y ago
  I would disagree, Pet Sounds is one of the greatest, earliest experimental pop albums ever.
- maryrosecook 18y ago
  The "tool" feel was exactly what I was going for. Kind of the Google of music recommendations. However, I am desperately in need of someone who can work with me to make things both more functional and more attractive. Thanks very much for the feedback.

btw0 18y ago

I am working hard on pptimes.com every night, it's another next generation news site, I will announce here when done.

Anon84 18y ago

Building an infrastructure to model the spreading of epidemics (SARS, Bird Flu, etc...) on a global scale.

okeumeni 18y ago

I’m working on a great Google map application, that the most I can say for now (stealth rule).

pwoods 18y ago

A LAMP & AJAX driven framework to assist small businesses who want put their data online. It is also good at giving startups backend functionality to their databases so that they can concentrate on the client front end.

tocomment 18y ago
Sounds cool. How will you sell/market it?

bollyscoops 18y ago

http://www.bollyscoops.com http://www.bollyscoops.com BollyScoops is a user driven bollywood community. The users share, comment, vote on bollywood related scoops.

siong1987 18y ago

Just finished a simple command-based search engine by using Yahoo APIs - http://geeky.siong1987.com http://geeky.siong1987.com. Now, I am working on trakify.com. It is not up yet. Need a partner desperately.. LOL...

robdor 18y ago

Making online customer support easy with Candlelight -- http://www.candlelightapp.com http://www.candlelightapp.com I've been working on it nights and weekends. Great respite from some of the less than pleasant activities of coding at my day job.

greaterscope 18y ago
sounds interesting and probably something I could use since I plan to offer email-only support at first for my online storefront product. i'll be keeping tabs on you guys. :-)

rickmode 18y ago

I'm working on an open platform for cloud storage. Imagine something like MobileMe, Microsoft Strata, or Carbonite, but without your data being trapped by a single vendor. At the moment we are considering Celeste as the basis for this platform. http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/celeste/ http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/celeste/ I've got the partner (alexkravets), now we're looking for funding to mitigate the risk of having no day job. We don't have a write-up online at the moment, but we firmly believe in the "ideas are cheap; execution is everything" philosophy, so we'll answer any questions.

unalone 18y ago
Question: how do you plan on making things sync as effortlessly as they do on MobileMe? I'm sure it can be done - look at Dropbox - but do you have any ideas on how to beat something that's built in to the system?
- rickmode 18y ago
  Initially we'll side-step that issue. First we'll build the equivalent of an online mountable disk so it'll be a natural fit for online storage/backup and sharing. Building applications on top of this storage layer such as photo sharing and syncing will be next. As for how to compete, the magic sauce is openness on two fronts. Bandwidth and storage are commodities, and we want this storage tier to be a commodity marketplace as well. The storage providers will compete for end users while cooperating to store and serve up data. A user can switch providers and retain the same data in the system (cloud). Along with an "open" system, most (if not all) of the software will be open source. We envision a small hub of centralized services (identity and such), a storage provider ring, and the end users. So basically we'll beat the big guys by creating an open system with open software. Our company, then, will be taking a small slice of a big pie, rather than on these players head-on.
  - unalone 18y ago
    Our company, then, will be taking a small slice of a big pie, rather than on these players head-on. Very nice way of thinking about it. Good luck.

scumola 18y ago

* Still trying to improve the http://mediawombat.com http://mediawombat.com crawler * Working on better pre-caching scripts/SQL for http://mediawombat.com http://mediawombat.com search results * Working on how to charge a company that wants to use the http://mediawombat.com http://mediawombat.com API * Coming up with ideas for a back-end for a new auction-based concept that my friend and co-founder has come up with * Coming up with ideas for mixing/matching data when Google releases their RSS feeds for google searches * Trying to master CSS and transparency to make pretty boxes and stuff. I'm not very artistic. :) * Writing a play-by-email and play-by-web strategy game * Coming up with a way to keep a linux configuration on my laptop so when I do a fresh-install of Fedora 10 next month, I don't have to re-create all of my custom configurations from scratch (again) * Thinking of cool ways to use the WiiMote * Setting up my father's website (has an idea about improving K-12 education) * Keeping my older kid from injuring my younger kid * Keeping the wife happy * oh, and my actual paying day job :)

nailer 18y ago
Dude what's your website? You should include a link to it so we know what it is :^).
lbrandy 18y ago
> Coming up with a way to keep a linux configuration on my laptop so when I do a fresh-install of Fedora 10 next month, I don't have to re-create all of my custom configurations from scratch (again) Maybe you meant something substantially more complicated but.... ...just mount /home/ on a second partition, that way you can wipe and/or upgrade linux and keep all your personal settings.

Darmani 18y ago

I'm currently working on a system flexible to play the card game Mao and every reasonable rule that could be made for it online. I'm also working on a nice, comfortable, abstract way to create Turing machines in Arc, with the ultimate goal being to have one simulate a von Neumann machine (namely by having it able to interpret a sizable subset of the machine language for a modern processor). I've taken a long break from both to work on my college applications, though. To cut down on my total workload (and so my mother wouldn't complain when I worked on these projects), I'm using both for two different projects for the IB diploma program. As a result, I have to do the Mao-playing system in Java though.

tricky 18y ago

1) a new/obscure music blog - www.audioindie.com 2) a data tracking app for medical stats 3) clinical trial data management 4) getting my car ready for a DE event.

delano 18y ago
What is a DE event?
- guruz 18y ago
  DE as in Deutschland = Germany. Maybe.
- tricky 18y ago
  Whoops, sorry. Driver's Education - it teaches you how to drive at speed on a race track.

RKlophaus 18y ago

Great question :) Mostly working on Stitcho.com (http://stitcho.com http://stitcho.com) Stitcho is a desktop notification widget for your website, with support for Windows and Mac. Add desktop alerts to your web app in less than 30 minutes. Also, trying to build an Erlang community in the DC area (search for Erlang on meetup.com) Finally, putting together a presentation for BarCampDC this Saturday.

rrival 18y ago
We've been doing something like this with Growl - how does it compare?
- RKlophaus 18y ago
  Stitcho is basically "Growl for the Web", but NOT in the sense of being another Javascript-to-Growl bridge (a few of those exist out there, protoGrowl, Growl mootools, etc.) Rather, Stitcho lets you send notifications from server side code that are delivered to your users via the Stitcho widget. The Stitcho server sits in the middle to route and deliver the notifications. Also, Stitcho provides widgets for Mac and Windows. (The Mac version can use Growl if it's available.) Does that answer your question? If not, please clarify.
  - nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
    Any plans for a Linux Gtk/Qt client?
  - rrival 18y ago
    Definitely - thanks!
fbailey 18y ago
cool - horrible from my personal perspective - perfect for one of my projects

djm 18y ago

I'm also at the concept stage for a site providing some tools to help UK residents manage their finances with emphasis on debts. I have considered this idea a few times over the past couple of years as I work for an organisation that gives me a great deal of exposure to people in debt and the methodology typically used to assist them to address those debts. In the past I have ignored the idea as I considered it technically uninteresting but I have now found myself in the position where I am (a) wanting to jump into the startup game, (b) have relevant industry experience, and (c) it's the right time (credit crunch).

shafqat 18y ago

Fundraising for NewsCred! It's actually fun and not as depressing as all the blog posts make it out to be.

fallentimes 18y ago
I agree. So many free breakfasts, lunches, dinners, beers and even paintball too. All while meeting some very intelligent people.
- fbailey 18y ago
  paintball?
  - fallentimes 18y ago
    Yeah Battery bussed ~70 us an hour away for an all day paintball/beer drinking/BBQ. It was awesome. They even gave us custom masks to keep.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

I have a web application that manages agile/scrum projects for large organizations. I've beta-tested it at a large corp, but they're not going to be able to use it for a while due to legal reasons. So right now I'm finishing up version 1 this week and deciding whether to 1) start marketing version 1, 2) start on version 2 and then market, 3) wait for large corp to come around so I can continue usability testing and making the product better (it's clunky now), 4) Look for a partner and do any of 1-3 I'm not sure which way to go, to be honest. Anybody got any ideas?

tocomment 18y ago

Working on a place for hackers and artists to find short gigs: http://gigbayes.nfshost.com http://gigbayes.nfshost.com. I aggregate all the gigs sites I can find e.g., craigslist (all of them), sitepoint, elance, etc, and then use Bayesian filtering to bring the most relevant gigs for you to the top.

AlexeyMK 18y ago

* look.fo (http://look.fo http://look.fo) / str8.to (http://str8.to http://str8.to) - a sort of insta-tinyurl that uses Google search results to create on the fly links. For example, see http://look.fo/hacker-news http://look.fo/hacker-news and http://str8.to/hacker-news http://str8.to/hacker-news). Q: Isn't this just a shortcut for (http://www.google.com/search?q=hacker+news http://www.google.com/search?q=hacker+news)? A: Absolutely, but the shortcut makes it viable to create on-the-fly links to search results (or use str8.to's I'm Feeling Lucky option) in IM conversations, or on twitter, or in emails (I recently told a client to http://look.fo/how-to-use-ftp http://look.fo/how-to-use-ftp) without having to go look up a good answer. Stuff like that. Anyways :).

bkudria 18y ago
Neat!

dpapathanasiou 18y ago

A tag aggregator for blog/rss content: http://www.seeksift.com/ http://www.seeksift.com/

YuriNiyazov 18y ago

Working as a researcher on the DARPA URGENT project.

Shamiq 18y ago
How can I get to do something similar? DARPA has all of the amazing stuff coming out of it...
- nostrademons 18y ago
  A friend of mine's working on a bunch of DARPA projects, and his path was: 1. Attend a top liberal-arts college (CS, Amherst) 2. Get master's degree from top research university (HCI, Carnegie Mellon) 3. Work for General Dynamics 4. Stick around long enough to get promoted, kick butt, etc. 5. Profit!!! BTW, he said that chances are, whatever the next big thing is will come out of DARPA. His bet was on pervasive computing - DARPA's apparently doing a lot with computers in clothes, computers in canteens, computers in backpacks, computers in visors, basically computers everywhere. The logic being that most of their troops are getting deployed to inhospitable environments (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) and if they can monitor environmental conditions for things like excessive heat, sandstorms, laser sniper sights, explosive residues, they can save lots of soldiers' lives. And of course, if it trickles down to consumer uses it could completely change how people use computers.
- YuriNiyazov 18y ago
  There are two basic paths: 1) A lot of large research companies get DARPA research grants. General Dynamics (like nostrademons said), HRL, Boeing, etc. etc. You can get a job with them, and if the environment doesn't feel soul-crushing to you, you are golden. 2) A lot of CS research at Universities is funded by DARPA. If you are still in school, or if you are out but still have close relationships with your professors, you can always find out what kind of projects they have. DARPA projects are especially nice because they are large in scope and there's always a need for extra people. Don't expect to be paid much though. I chose route 2 - after my startup failed I wanted to do something that paid, was not as intense, and had nothing to do with Web 2.0 and Social Networking and all that, so I just e-mailed a professor.

ep 18y ago

Working on http://www.roomorama.com http://www.roomorama.com, a short term rental marketplace.

toby 18y ago

* Working on my second book for O'Reilly * Speaking about, and generally pushing for more interest in Open Data * Putting my entire life in a semantic graph: http://blog.kiwitobes.com/?p=73 http://blog.kiwitobes.com/?p=73 * Trying to figure out what programmers can do about risk management failures

sundeep 18y ago
> Working on my second book for O'Reilly woohoo ! (loved your first)
fallentimes 18y ago
What was your first book?
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  'Programming Collective Intelligence' http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=210132 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=210132 Thanks Toby. Awesome book.
  - breck 18y ago
    I second that.
  - j2d2 18y ago
    Dang. I really liked this book.
  - toby 18y ago
    Thanks guys! I really appreciate it.
nailer 18y ago
And what will your second one be?
- sundeep 18y ago

fallentimes 18y ago

Concerts, theater, http://news.ticketstumbler.com http://news.ticketstumbler.com and some other fun stuff for the http://ticketstumbler.com http://ticketstumbler.com mothership

teej 18y ago

Finishing my distributed memory list caching system. Think Memcached, but instead of storing an object, you store an array, and can CRUD it in an atomic way. Fast, simple, non-persistent. Usage case: caching a one-to-many relationship in a relational database.

timcederman 18y ago

Integrating www.trovix.com to www.monster.com

kaens 18y ago

Working on: * a web-site-as-service for customizing installation / install cds for different flavors of Ubuntu. * a customizable tetris-like game editor done in javascript, allowing people to create their own shapes / rules / etc. * slowly making an emacs-like editor in python * working on a web based store for the various media produced by the house I live in

catone 18y ago

Blogging at SitePoint.com, switching RailsForum.com over to vBulletin (no, Beast won't cut it), and working on a utility for educators (K-12 and post secondary).

ezmobius 18y ago

Working on the following open source projects: Merb Rubinius Nanite Vertebra Also working on some top secret engine yard projects that I will be able to talk about soon.

rokhayakebe 18y ago

Video communication, Mobile Communications...

hooande 18y ago

* real time news aggregation and moderation * sports data modeling * desktop notification app

jfornear 18y ago

I'm working on http://rawberry.tv http://rawberry.tv - somewhat of a platform for creating your own music video mix reel. It's not even close to being done, but I'm hoping to finish it by the time I graduate to help me land a job or something.

jeffgreco 18y ago
It's a nice looking design - what sort of functionality are you rolling in?
- jfornear 18y ago
  Thanks, I think it's going to be fairly straightforward with twitter-like functionality at first. I'm not really planning to introduce anything technically groundbreaking. I just need to have a project to work on.

sreitshamer 18y ago

Working on a desktop app that keeps your photos safe (through sync/backup), and allows collaboration on a bucket of photos across multiple computers. Photos are stored in a peer-to-peer version control system like git. http://www.thephotothing.com http://www.thephotothing.com

zacharydanger 18y ago

Working on my startup, http://taskgravy.com http://taskgravy.com. A project management / collaboration suite that doesn't neglect the analytical side of project management. And also looking for a permanent gig, because I just got laid off. :]

nailer 18y ago
Best. Name. Ever.

plinkplonk 18y ago

Besides the day job (Program Manager), (a) Working through Cormen et al's Algorithms book. (b) Trying to learn how 3D game engines work by building one (in java). Rendering is completely in software. (c) Working through Rudin's "Principles of Mathematical Analysis"

brent 18y ago

Researching statistical machine learning algorithms.

rgrieselhuber 18y ago

Working on the next version of Gridjit (http://gridjit.com http://gridjit.com), which is turning out to be even better - and bigger - than I first imagined.

guitsaru 18y ago

http://redlists.com http://redlists.com A better methods for managing mailing lists.

LukeG 18y ago

Working on Job Alchemist (meetings, Startuply, JobSyndicate, fundraising(??)). Trying to figure out how to get smart kids to work for startups and cool companies in general rather than for the man. Thankfully, the Wall Street meltdown will help, especially as it works its way into consulting. Get a real job, squares (or "suits," as fallentimes would say). 'Bout to lease some space at a pretty rad SoMa office loft, to be joined by Eddie of Picwing - what's his HN name? Realizing it's way more fun when the odds are stacked against you.

edawerd 18y ago
his HN name is 'edawerd' Agreed...way more fun when the odds are stacked against you. See you in the office!

jakecarpenter 18y ago

Wow, pretty cool to see other people have a lot of irons in the fire too. Working on a (yet another) better financial management tool, raising a newborn, and the day job :).

guruz 18y ago

Working on a P2P app for LAN/VPN. See http://p300.eu/ http://p300.eu/ It is a "project" though and not a "startup" or "company". :)

known 18y ago

I am setting up a Bank.

rms 18y ago
Seriously?
- steveplace 18y ago
  I hope so. There's a serious vacuum when it comes to small, niche investing banks. All the big firms are no longer in that category. Total i-bank market cap has been cut down by billions.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  I don't know if the parent is serious, but it is a good idea. New bank, no risky holdings. Everybody else is in trouble and refusing to lend. It's a great idea.
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=316769 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=316769 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=312260 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=312260 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=283813 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=283813 <- answering why he is a programmer :-)
- known 18y ago
  I am serious and I already discussed this with PG.
sabat 18y ago
Obviously you're doing this on prosper.com. ;-)

greaterscope 18y ago

Damn, people are still commenting here and I forgot to mention the non-commercial stuff I'm doing. It all lives at http://greaterscope.net http://greaterscope.net. I'm taking a stab at: * Creating a foreign key based ORM for PHP5 * Creating a PHP5 database abstraction layer that's easier to use than PDO or the alternatives * An abstraction layer for html forms that generates, validates and even supports deeply nested "arrays of fields" * A console terminal multiplexer (GNU screen, but split-screen) in C for Linux Disclaimer: There are existing projects similar to many of the above, but I'm striving to make my APIs cleaner, code readable and more concise. Plus I enjoy learning by doing. I'm also extremely interested in wireless mesh ... anyone working on that?

ejs 18y ago

Still working on my website http://overtrainer.com/ http://overtrainer.com/ Doing other random hardware as well

EliAndrewC 18y ago

My friends and I run the Music and Gaming Festival (MAGFest: http://magfest.org/ http://magfest.org/ ) and for the past few years I've been tinkering with a webapp to help us get more organized. I've been to a lot of conventions, mostly anime conventions, and no one has a good integrated system for tracking attendees, staffers, shifts, events, inventory, budget, etc. My webapp does all of this, and I've spent a lot of my free time lately making the code cleaner and easier to read. After the next MAGFest in early January I'm planning on releasing this webapp as an open source project on Sourceforge or somewhere similar. I think a lot of other conventions might find this useful if they can find a programmer or sysadmin to make the small changes necessary to adapt the code for their purposes. I'm excited that some of our staffers are already planning on recommending this system to some of the other conventions they staff.

davidkellis 18y ago

A Masters degree in CS at Texas Tech.

petercooper 18y ago

I've launched (with Dan Grigsby) a blog for iPhone application developers - http://www.mobileorchard.com/ http://www.mobileorchard.com/ - or follow us at http://twitter.com/MobileOrchard http://twitter.com/MobileOrchard :)

arthurk 18y ago

http://code.google.com/p/yml2tex/ http://code.google.com/p/yml2tex/ A little python script to generate a LaTeX beamer presentation with some default theming/styling/etc. added. I tend to forget the LaTeX syntax because I don't use it very often. However, I really like doing LaTeX beamer presentations so I wrote a little script which basically provides me with something to start with.

jah 18y ago

* Porting my chess problem website (http://chesstr.com http://chesstr.com) from Rails to Django * Working on a new version of my chess engine. I've had various versions over the years with the strongest playing around ELO 2300 (master level) * Working on a chess engine that uses non-traditional searching/AI techniques. I'd be absolutely thrilled to get this thing playing as well as a child. * Teaching Intro to Computer Science at the local university - a tremendous experience. * Learning Doc Watson's version of Deep River Blues on my guitar