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ideas

kangae | a list of ideas

I'm not sure where this is headed, so be cool. Basically I wanted to publish some ideas because I'm not going to work on them.

(sort this, eventually)

  • A list or blog that curates the best free online courses on YouTube. This makes it easy to download them for offline viewing, without hunting individual videos or dealing with YouTube's messy interface.
  • An online shop with just BSD/Linux laptops and Cyanogen/Replicant phones. Some exist with some of the features, but usually it's either outdated hardware or pricey. (I understand the limitations, thank you.)
  • I had this idea called Utopia Labs, where people basically describe their dream world. The team puts those together with nice illustrations and raw designs of the thing. Could be useful as a moodboard of (utopic) stuff to work on. Maybe then discuss the merits and do pros/cons.
  • Personal finances are hard because most solutions are overkill. My bank tries to forecast the money I'll have later in the month, but it sucks very hard at this. If you know my avg. income/expenses, it can't be that hard, right? ~10% error margin is acceptable.
  • Small ways to improve the world. Naomi Klein has an interesting website along these lines, but where's the non-obvious stuff you can do? All my lightbulbs are energy-saving, thank you very much.
  • An automatic short URL expander. If you send me a bit.ly/asdfklj, that's very opaque, I'm not sure I trust your link.
  • An easy to understand list of popular websites being hacked. Or how easy some of it can be. I think people don't really understand how fucked they can be by a proper hacker. Even if not targetting them specifically.
  • A dynamic contacts manager. Small pics of people that are relevant to my context right now. i.e. when home, make work contacts fade away/be less prominent.
  • A todo list where you're forced to react. INCOMING! If you don't complete a todo, it goes away after 2 weeks. Same with emails. This basically makes you scared of not doing stuff. Right? I'm not sure it'd work.
  • Micro-learning: people make small pages about stuff they've learned on a topic. Just the gist of it. People should know at least a bit about physics, maths, etc.
  • Water with electrolyes/a bit of calcium/some ginseng/other stimulants. No sugar/crap.
  • Basic internet knowledge kit. Kinda like Mozilla's web literacy program, but people are prob. better knowing about phishing than JS.
  • Review books in the command line. 10 seconds to add a book I've just finished. Goodreads/etc. are super clunky.
  • I've this thing I want to do where every week I send out a poll on random topics. Results are published online and lightly debated. Just to get a better sense of some stuff/general topics where I don't know if my opinion is too conformist or weird.
  • Effective altruism for F/OSS and online rights/advocacy non-profits
  • App: I list the food I want, and it connects me with farmers that will grow it for me. Farmers sell packages of 1sqm and I can plant there whatever I want, they take care of it, and then send it to me. We share the risk, etc.
  • Code review tool: over time, developers can go through the code and mark things up for review. Instead of just when someone's pushing out something. Example: I open a file, see something funky, mark it for review (but since that's not what I'm working on, I move on, someone will review it later).
  • Basic tools/gear for the home. I'm tired of the crap appliances/tools that don't handle their core task right, and yet pile it up with useless extras. Smart TVs come to mind. Examples: alarm clocks with NTP sync, have temperature sensors, and multiple tones, per-day alarm, volume control, and a soft night light. Energy-saving plugs can consume more energy than they save (saw a study about this somewhere). Fans are noisy plastic blobs with an outdated design.
  • Monitor air quality indoors, but mostly pollutants and oxygen levels. Also, monitor if the humidity levels are right for humans, etc.
  • Self-hosted Stack Overflow for companies and small groups of people. Most of SO's features would be overkill in a smaller environment, but regular Q&A isn't as good as SO. Helps share best practices across teams, creates single-source-of-truth, moves information OUT of people's minds and INTO the shared mind. Stack Overflow themselves have built this.
  • Offline-first app with valuable snippets of information. Learn something on the subway.
  • Creativity exercises/stimulator/app. I use de Bono's "How to have creative ideas...", but pen+paper not always the best medium.
  • Something that lets disabled/elderly people call for help immediately. Like press a button on a wrist band and that's it, help comes.
  • Telegram Chat bot that suggests recipe with simple instructions. Accepts prompts for key ingredients and food restrictions (vegan, etc.)
  • Easy to repair/upgrade laptops, 100% Linux support. Laptops are basically disposable, and that's uncool. Most popular ones appear to be 11/13 inches. Lots of RAM.
  • API-driven commenting system, perhaps with built-in JS drop-in. Disqus and similar aren't great for privacy, because of their too broad PPs and multi-site tracking capabilities.
  • Aggregate ratings: every website under the sun now has reviews, but with differing levels of how easy it is to manipulate them. A 5* review on Facebook vs. 2.4* on Yelp might mean something's fishy.
  • A list of Trump lies. There are a few here and there, but we need a comprehensive list of is becoming one of History's greatest liars.
  • I had this idea for an app for safe(r) dating. When you leave for a date you turn it on, and you must regularly check-in confirming you are safe and everything is going well. If you a miss a check-in, the app alerts your designated security contacts. If you miss multiple check-ins, it might go ahead and alert the police. While you're on the date, it tracks your location, and if things go sour it lets your friends/security contacts know where you are (or your phone at least). It doesn't just have to be an app, you might not want to use the phone constantly. So maybe a bracelet you press to confirm you're safe. And maybe if you don't feel ok anymore, there's a panic mode that dials your friends and activated the microphone so they can listen to what's going on.
  • Environmental impact website, as a follow-up to the book How bad are bananas?. Some things have a much larger footprint than you'd think, and it would be nice to have some kind of community-funded NGO researching this topic as their core mission.

random thoughts

  • Bandcamp is fantastic. Why aren't more artists there, esp. the popular ones?
  • Why are our languages so inneficient? See, 2 n characters where 1 was enough (enof).
  • Decentralized storage that conforms to an API. Like I want to use Foursquare, but own my data/review/check-ins. Everyone could self-host on their devices, and it's then P2P to build the total website. Blockchain?
  • I have this idea of building a website that's fully accessible. Just as an experiment, to see how possible. It should cater to the blind, dyslexics, color-blind, etc. It should work well despite these conditions.

some resources