The graveyard of good ideas
Solutions that were tried, and what stopped them.
Patents that were rejected or abandoned, products that shut down, projects that went quiet. Borrow the idea, avoid the dead end.
796 solutions
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: Have you ever witnessed or had a racist incident?
I'm not sure why there are no discussion threads about racism and what is currently happening. So I thought I initiate one. Sorry if this is not the place for it. Please state: 1 - Incident(s) if any 2 - Main issues that you think are causing/fueling racism 3 - what solution do you think of I'll start: 1- Incident(s) if any I was working and went out for lunch and had a sandwich and was coming back to work. the street was nearly empty. I saw a guy walking toward me who suddenly pulled his phone out and started talking and faking a conversation. He started using slur against my race and how they should get rid of us because we(as in me and my race) are not like them. He walked past me and continued with abuse. I was in schock and didn't process what was happening until after he left. He then did the same months later. I was advised to call the police on him, but was to
Why it failed: I'm not sure why there are no discussion threads about racism and what is currently happening. So I thought I initiate one. Sorry if this is not the place for it. Please state: 1 - Incident(s) if any 2 - Main issues that you think are causing/fueling racism 3 - what sol
Goesby
- startupShut down2020
Bitbucket deleting Mercurial repos June 1
Saw Graham Dumpleton's twitter https://twitter.com/GrahamDumpleton/status/1251815399848439810 and I had no idea this was a thing: https://bitbucket.org/blog/sunsetting-mercurial-support-in-bitbucket >After much consideration, we've decided to remove Mercurial support from Bitbucket Cloud and its API. Mercurial features and repositories will be officially removed from Bitbucket and its API on June 1, 2020. Unlike with code.google.com's shutdown and transition to long term archive, there's no archiving happening on the part of Bitbucket. Once June 1 hits, all repos are gone unless the project maintainers have migrated somewhere else. Makes me wonder how many Python libs and projects will be affected? Passlib at https://pypi.org/project/passlib/ is one such lib. How many others are there?
Why it failed: Saw Graham Dumpleton's twitter https://twitter.com/GrahamDumpleton/status/1251815399848439810 and I had no idea this was a thing: https://bitbucket.org/blog/sunsetting-mercurial-support-in-bitbucket >After much consideration, w
dd82
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?
This is very long so it continues in comments below: I am looking for some advice from someone smarter than me because about a month ago I got hit with intense crippling fear of death. It usually hits me in the evenings and started with just my thoughts wandering thinking about the lives of different people in different parts of the world. Eventually, these thoughts came back to me and my mortality. I started picturing the transition into nothingness. The fear of knowing that I am drawing my last breath. The different ways I could die. This started resulting in panic attack like symptoms that persist late into the night until I tire myself out and fall into short uneasy sleep. It got better for a week but is now getting worse again. I had this same crippling fear of death when I was 4-7 years old. After a while my mind focused on other things and at some point I discovered the concept of
Why it failed: This is very long so it continues in comments below: I am looking for some advice from someone smarter than me because about a month ago I got hit with intense crippling fear of death. It usually hits me in the evenings and started with just my thoughts wandering thinking about t
anonymouse71
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: I am “trapped” in a senior engineering role, how can I escape?
This is my first time speaking on this subject so I hope I am able to convey my position with reasonable coherence. I learned to build websites around 2011 when I was in my mid 20's. I had been working as a cleaner for some time and had come to realise I needed to escape that particular poverty trap. My father and grandfather were also cleaners for the majority of their working lives and often expressed regret before they passed. After some months self-learning I had amassed the courage to start applying for internships and junior jobs. No luck initially, though eventually I was able to begin a data entry job on a 12 month contract. I was finally able to sit at a desk and have a work assigned email address! Half-way into my contract I organised a dozen or so meetups at Google Campus. There I met people who gave me the inspiration to continue applying for jobs. I was a fish out of wa
Why it failed: This is my first time speaking on this subject so I hope I am able to convey my position with reasonable coherence. I learned to build websites around 2011 when I was in my mid 20's. I had been working as a cleaner for some time and had come to realise I needed to escape tha
throwaway16011
- startupShut down2020
There must be more to this
This is a story about my life so far and why I want to change things. I'm a Father of two with a regular 9-5 job. My daily routine is not unique in anyway. Wake up, head over to the gym, shower, head back home, get the kids ready for school and leave the house for work. Standard right? My Wife on the other hand works 9-5 but often the shifts are 12+ hours because of deadlines, constraints, priorities. This has really begun to bother me. I see my wife tired, mentally exhausted and almost like she's been defeated. Our children need mom and dad, want to play, explore and laugh with us. But, sometimes it's hard to muster the energy when work has taken its toll on you all day. How unfair is that for the kids? They expect our love, attention and company, it's so hard when they don't get that time or emotional support. This really has been eating away at me for sometime
Why it failed: This is a story about my life so far and why I want to change things. I'm a Father of two with a regular 9-5 job. My daily routine is not unique in anyway. Wake up, head over to the gym, shower, head back home, get the kids ready for school and leave the house for work. Stan
Ptrulli
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Datree (YC W20) – Best practices and security policies on each commit
We are Shimon and Eyar, co-founders of Datree ( https://www.datree.io ). We've built software to help engineering teams automate the adoption of development best practices, coding standards, and security policies. When I (Shimon) was the manager of a 400-developer company's infrastructure engineering team, we had an issue where a developer committed AWS secret keys into a public GitHub repo. We were very, very lucky that the bad actors who quickly got ahold of the keys "only" spun up compute instances to mine bitcoin. Mistakes happen and they happen to the best of us. No developer wants to make mistakes, especially ones impacting production. Those mistakes can be not only costly to the business, but emotionally painful for the developer. After finding out about the issue, I had to search for any other leaked secret in our repositories to make sure we were no
Why it failed: We are Shimon and Eyar, co-founders of Datree ( https://www.datree.io ). We've built software to help engineering teams automate the adoption of development best practices, coding standards, and security policies. When I (Shimon) was the manager of a 400-developer
shimont
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: Is hydrogen likely to be a major source of power in the next 10 years?
There has been hype around hydrogen fuel cells being a source of green power for decades, but the hype cycle is currently ramping up significantly. Hydrogen fuel cell stocks such as PLUG and FCEL have gone up 10x despite the lack of any significant new breakthrough technology and a history of loss making and value destruction. Just today, Bank of America research released a 103 page "Hydrogen Primer" in which they predict that the hydrogen space will generate $2.5 trillion in direct revenues and $11 trillion of indirect infrastructure potential. They believe that a tipping point is coming soon because of the falling cost of renewable energy and electrolysers used to produce "green" hydrogen, as well as better efficiencies in fuel cells. My question is for the experts in the crowd here, either based on engineering experience or on first principles and physics, does thi
Why it failed: There has been hype around hydrogen fuel cells being a source of green power for decades, but the hype cycle is currently ramping up significantly. Hydrogen fuel cell stocks such as PLUG and FCEL have gone up 10x despite the lack of any significant new breakthrough technology and
eigenvalue
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: 8 Days Left on SlateJS Android KickStarter. 50% Raised. How to Complete?
The Slate rich text editor for React is, IMO, the best designed rich text editor with the exception of one major failing, it doesn't support Android. My company spent CAD $50K developing Android support for the previous version of Slate with the hope that the community would take it up which I completed and which we contributed for free. This was after it was one of the most popular outstanding GitHub issues for 2 years. Unfortunately, several months later the creator of Slate did a major (and really great and probably necessary) rewrite but it removed Android support and it's non-trivial to put Android support back in and that's a big cost for my company (which didn't even get a chance to use that version of Slate yet) to burden alone. I proposed a paid plugin which many were in support of, but after receiving many requests for a sponsored model and a user committing
Why it failed: The Slate rich text editor for React is, IMO, the best designed rich text editor with the exception of one major failing, it doesn't support Android. My company spent CAD $50K developing Android support for the previous version of Slate with the hope that the community would
thesunny
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Reflect (YC S20) – No-code test automation for web apps
We're Fitz and Todd, co-founders of Reflect ( https://reflect.run ) - we’re excited to share our no-code tool for automated web testing. We worked together for 5+ years at a tech start-up that deployed multiple times a week. After every deployment, a bunch of our developers would manually smoke test the application by running through all of the critical user experiences. This manual testing was expensive in terms of our time. To speed up the tests’ run time, we dedicated developer resources to writing and managing Selenium scripts. That was expensive at “compile time” due to authoring and maintenance. At a high-level, we believe that the problem with automated end-to-end testing comes down to two things: tests are too hard to create, and they take too much time to maintain. These are the two issues we are trying to solve with Reflect. Reflect lets you create end-to-end tes
Why it failed: We're Fitz and Todd, co-founders of Reflect ( https://reflect.run ) - we’re excited to share our no-code tool for automated web testing. We worked together for 5+ years at a tech start-up that deployed multiple times a week. After every deployment, a bunch of our d
tmcneal
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: Owed Salary, Founder Rebranded
The short version of the story: I was a key engineer in a small startup. Towards the end of the startups life, the founder was involved in some sketchy business dealings with money. The other few employees and I worked IOUs for the final months while "promised money" was being wired, but never came. When I left, I was owed about $15k in salary. The startup is still in business with the state and re-filed their business information as "active." Recently, the founder started a new startup in the very same space, with the same mission statement as the old startup. I suspect he is using much of the same code, as we had basically a completed product before I left the old startup. It would take years to rewrite from scratch without re-using the old code. It seems that he is letting the old startup die, while using work that he never paid for power his new venture and raise
Why it failed: The short version of the story: I was a key engineer in a small startup. Towards the end of the startups life, the founder was involved in some sketchy business dealings with money. The other few employees and I worked IOUs for the final months while "promised money" wa
daenz
- startupShut down2020
Discussion on renaming master branch gets heated, then shut down
The discussion about renaming "master" branches to "main" or "default" in git for windows to address issues with "non-inclusive naming" has become very heated. The vast majority of developers argued against the change, some very vocal. This resulted in git for windows administrators to go full exclusive and shut down the discussion completely for non team members, block many users and delete or minimize a large number of tweets. https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/2674 The end of the thread looks like a massacre.
Why it failed: The discussion about renaming "master" branches to "main" or "default" in git for windows to address issues with "non-inclusive naming" has become very heated. The vast majority of developers argued against the change, some very vocal. This
jansan
- startupShut down2020
Robinhood has been down for over 12 hours
Support tickets have stopped going through as well. Looking forward to the postmortem. I personally had a few SPY calls expiring today and Wednesday that I couldn’t execute all day. https://status.robinhood.com/
Why it failed: Support tickets have stopped going through as well. Looking forward to the postmortem. I personally had a few SPY calls expiring today and Wednesday that I couldn’t execute all day. https://status.robinhood.com/
webo
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Speedscale (YC S20) – Automatically create tests from actual traffic
We’re Ken, Nate and Matt, co-founders of Speedscale ( https://speedscale.com ), a tool that automatically generates continuous integration (CI) tests from past traffic. Carefully scaling rollouts to ever larger groups of customers is the safest deployment strategy, but can take weeks. Even for elite DevOps organizations up to 15% of changes to production can result in degraded service [1] [2]. We met as undergrads at Georgia Tech and come from a DevOps and operations background so we’ve seen this first hand. Each of us has over 15 years of experience building high-reliability systems, starting in the early days with satellite earth station monitoring. As interns we once wrote a bug that caused a 32 meter antenna to try to point down through the earth, almost flattening the building we were in. It was a great environment to learn about engineering reliability. We leveraged this
Why it failed: We’re Ken, Nate and Matt, co-founders of Speedscale ( https://speedscale.com ), a tool that automatically generates continuous integration (CI) tests from past traffic. Carefully scaling rollouts to ever larger groups of customers is the safest deployment strategy, but
Inchull
- startupShut down2020
Apple requests Telegram to shut down 3 channels exposing Belarussian oppressors
Quote from Durov's Telegram channel: https://t.me/durov/135 ______________________________ Apple is requesting that we shut down 3 channels used by the people of Belarus to expose the identities of their oppressors. @karatelibelarusi @chatpartizan @belarusassholes Their concern is that publishing the personal information of law enforcers and propagandists may incite violence. I think this situation is not black and white and would rather leave the channels be, but typically Apple doesn’t offer much choice for apps like Telegram in such situations. Unfortunately, I assume these channels will end up getting blocked on iOS, but remain available on other platforms. P. S. Everyone is welcome to express their views and comment on this post provided they stay on-topic and use English. Thanks! ______________________________ It seems, HN automatically bans everything subm
Why it failed: Quote from Durov's Telegram channel: https://t.me/durov/135 ______________________________ Apple is requesting that we shut down 3 channels used by the people of Belarus to expose the identities of their oppressors. @karatelibelarusi @chatpartizan @belaru
fsflover
- startupShut down2020
Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology
This just landed in my inbox. The discussion on hackernews ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837 ) surely helped Triplebyte understand that it was a mistake to create public profiles of their users by default: Email by Triplebyte CEO, Ammon: --- Hi xxxxx, There’s no other way to put this--I screwed up badly. On Friday evening, I sent an email to you about a new feature called public Triplebyte profiles. We failed to think through the effects of this feature on our community, and made the profiles default public with an option to opt out. Many of you were rightfully angry. I am truly sorry. As CEO, this is my fault. I made this decision. Effective immediately, we are canceling this feature. You came to us with the goal of landing a great software engineering job. As part of that, you entrusted us with your personal, sensitive information, including both the fact t
Why it failed: This just landed in my inbox. The discussion on hackernews ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837 ) surely helped Triplebyte understand that it was a mistake to create public profiles of their users by default: Email by Triplebyte CEO, Ammon: --- Hi xxxxx,
trianx
- startupShut down2019
Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?
Hi there, I'm at the end of my MSc. studies in CS. At the moment, I can choose to graduate in a month or two, or stay-on for another 9 months doing research in interactive theorem proving that will potentially lead to a PhD opportunity. I'm doing my MSc in a foreign country and I'm very unhappy here. Another ~9 months seems like a huge hurdle to me. The current situation is if I choose to graduate soon, I will likely surrender my chance for a PhD. I don't particularly love studying. I think interactive theorem proving is quite cool, but the actual practice of studying/research hasn't been that enjoyable to me, but I enjoy having the knowledge once I've acquired it. In many ways it seems like "the future" to me, and it'd be really neat to be one of the first passengers on that train, so to say. I have no desire to become a professor/r
Why it failed: Hi there, I'm at the end of my MSc. studies in CS. At the moment, I can choose to graduate in a month or two, or stay-on for another 9 months doing research in interactive theorem proving that will potentially lead to a PhD opportunity. I'm doing my MSc in a foreign cou
foopdoopfoop
- startupShut down2019
Ask HN: How do I make the move to consultant?
I sort of stumbled onto a consultancy job two years ago in cryptocurrency that's sadly just come to an end... going back into an office full time feels like a step back at this point. I also don't really want to be anywhere near cryptocurrency for a while... and to make matters worse I live halfway around the world from my home in a country that doesn't speak English - I'm a reliable remote worker but I know that's going to put people off, how to alleviate concerns here? I'm planning to fly home tomorrow, I rented somewhere for a month and I'm already printing business cards and trying to get myself out there on local subreddits. Perhaps other social media too? Anything I've missed? How can I advertise myself out there? I absolutely kick ass on cloud migration and architecture (and while I know they're not everything, had the certifications to
Why it failed: I sort of stumbled onto a consultancy job two years ago in cryptocurrency that's sadly just come to an end... going back into an office full time feels like a step back at this point. I also don't really want to be anywhere near cryptocurrency for a while... and to make
Monotoko
- startupShut down2019
Ask HN: Startup failed after years of work – Can I even get a job now?
I quit college to work on my startup. After 7 years of work, it's almost game over (will be shutting down in a few weeks). I haven't worked for anyone in years and I don't have a degree, but I've been coding for a long time, shipping real products to real customers... How do you think I should prepare for the job market? I'm 31 if it matters at all.
Why it failed: I quit college to work on my startup. After 7 years of work, it's almost game over (will be shutting down in a few weeks). I haven't worked for anyone in years and I don't have a degree, but I've been coding for a long time, shipping real products to real cust
perfect_loop
- startupShut down2019
Ask HN: What’s Your ROI in Browsing Hacker News?
I currently feel like I’m in a place where the cool stuff is something I can’t use because it’s too technical, not fully dependable, or just a cool concept at the end of the day. What value have you gained from hacker news submissions or comments that has helped you in your life? This is not meant to make HN look bad.
Why it failed: I currently feel like I’m in a place where the cool stuff is something I can’t use because it’s too technical, not fully dependable, or just a cool concept at the end of the day. What value have you gained from hacker news submissions or comments that has helped you in your life?
slipmagic
- startupShut down2019
Ask HN: Are You Hopeful About the Environment?
I guess this is sort of an open-ended question, but I just wanted to know if people on HN were hopeful about solving environmental change/damage. Last June is now officially the hottest June ever recorded. I guess you can add that to the laundry list of environmental issues we have. My worry is that its looking more and more like we need some sort of technological miracle (or everyone everywhere just stops buying most stuff ). And tech seems to be a step function - sometimes you get big things like the Internet and the Engine which can spawn lots of smaller things. But those big things historically have seemed to come about by chance and happenstance as much as hard work. I sometimes worry that we might not solve the environmental crisis because we just won't get lucky. Does anyone else feel this way? Or are people here mostly hopeful that this thing will all work itself out (p
Why it failed: I guess this is sort of an open-ended question, but I just wanted to know if people on HN were hopeful about solving environmental change/damage. Last June is now officially the hottest June ever recorded. I guess you can add that to the laundry list of environmental issues
_fol8
- startupShut down2019
Show HN: Recordings of phone screenings for employment
I have installed a program on my phone called ACR, which records all incoming and outgoing phone calls. I have recorded 26 phone screens from the past 3 or 4 months of trying to find a job as a full stack web developer. Some of the interviews are non-technical screens, some of them get technical. I have not gone through and beeped out any names or personal details. I maybe should have, but it was bad enough I had to live through these moments once, I didn't want to have to relive them by listening through them again to add in the beeps. Some people may get mad at me for giving away their company's interview details, but it is what it is. The main reason why I'm posting them is because there's this myth that is commonly spoken about on the internet that the unemployment rate is at an all time low, and that companies are dying to hire developers, and if you're a de
Why it failed: I have installed a program on my phone called ACR, which records all incoming and outgoing phone calls. I have recorded 26 phone screens from the past 3 or 4 months of trying to find a job as a full stack web developer. Some of the interviews are non-technical screens, some of th
freework
- startupShut down2019
Ask HN: How to get a job after a failed startup?
I worked it for 8 months. I've now completely exhausted my savings. Our product is live but the growth is super slow. There is no way I can see it reaching product market fit. Investors are not interested with such low numbers. I am a product guy with moderate level tech skills. Should I keep the startup on my resume (with reason for shutting down + lessons)? Or should I leave it out from my resume and instead add the product we built as a 'project'? I'm looking at product management jobs or software engineering jobs.
Why it failed: I worked it for 8 months. I've now completely exhausted my savings. Our product is live but the growth is super slow. There is no way I can see it reaching product market fit. Investors are not interested with such low numbers. I am a product guy with moderate level tech ski
startuplife01
- startupShut down2019
Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
I keep categorizing ideas that I really want to execute into groups like work, personal life, projects etc, and then try to allocate time to them. But even when I try to focus and narrow the list of things I want to do, life still gets in between. So how do you go about it? In the end I spend more time reorganizing my ideas than working on them >.<
Why it failed: I keep categorizing ideas that I really want to execute into groups like work, personal life, projects etc, and then try to allocate time to them. But even when I try to focus and narrow the list of things I want to do, life still gets in between. So how do you go about it? In th
mezod
- startupShut down2019
Ask HN: How to get this fraudulent copy of our website shut down?
I run AutoTempest.com, a car listings search engine. A few weeks ago, someone registered autoStempest.com, with an extra 's'. They copied our logo and branding, as well as faking other information, such as their team and location. (For example, their "CEO" is actually the CEO of Edmunds.) They've taken other steps to appear legitimate, such as creating a fake Yelp profile and reviews. From what we've heard from our users, they're creating fake craigslist listings, and when people contact them, they're directing them to links on their site, claiming to be "Auto Tempest". Then they solicit payments (presumably reservations or down payments, if not complete sight-unseen purchases), while using our name recognition to gain trust. We've determined that their registrar is Namecheap (as is ours, coincidentally), and they are hosted by a com
Why it failed: I run AutoTempest.com, a car listings search engine. A few weeks ago, someone registered autoStempest.com, with an extra 's'. They copied our logo and branding, as well as faking other information, such as their team and location. (For example, their "CEO" is
tempestn