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Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Always bet on text (2014)

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Text's Superiority for Comprehension, Longevity, and Sharing Ideas

Text excels in efficient absorption, searchability, and timeless preservation over audio/video.
"Text wins hands down at sharing the ideas of one person, with many, across space and time. I can read the thoughts of a philosopher who lived on literally the other side of the world, several thousand years ago." - awesome_dude
"The older I get, the more I appreciate texts (any). Videos, podcasts... I have them transcribed because even though I like listening to music, podcasts are best written for speed of comprehension." - sixtyj

2. Text vs. Binary Formats: Readability and Efficiency Trade-offs

Text (e.g., JSON/base64) prioritizes human readability and versatility over binary protocols' minor bandwidth/CPU gains.
"You can store everything as a string; base64 for binary, JSON for data... The holy grail of programming has been staring us in the face for decades and yet we still keep inventing new data structures... All to save like 30% bandwidth; an advantage which is almost fully cancelled out anyway after you GZIP the base64 string." - socketcluster
"Penny-wise, pound-foolish. This effect is absolutely out of control in this industry." - socketcluster (on binary optimization obsession)

3. Text's Limitations for Visual/Procedural Skills and Intuition

Non-text media (video, graphs, notation) better conveys spatial, performative, or intuitive knowledge like repairs, music, or data viz.
"Youtube videos that show you how to access hidden fasteners on things you want to take apart... sometimes it's nice to be able to do so with minimal damage." - zephen
"Graphs? Those are worth a thousand words. They communicate so much so fast... Try network graphs." - godelski

🚀 Project Ideas

Podcast-to-Text Transcriber

Summary

  • Converts podcasts and videos to structured, skimmable Markdown transcripts with timestamps, speaker labels, and key phrase highlights, solving the frustration of slow audio comprehension during commutes or multitasking.
  • Core value: Enables "reading" audio content at reading speeds with searchability and git-friendly versioning.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers, researchers who prefer text over podcasts/videos (e.g., "podcasts are best written for speed of comprehension" - sixtyj)
Core Feature AI transcription (Whisper-based) with auto-summarization, export to Markdown/Org-mode, and diffable revisions
Tech Stack Whisper/OpenAI API, Markdown renderer, Electron/Node.js for desktop app
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: Freemium ($5/mo pro for batch processing)

Notes

  • HN users rave about text's superiority for info transfer ("Audio is horrible... reading is where it's at" - awesome_dude); this delivers instant transcripts for train reading.
  • High utility for daily workflows; sparks discussions on LLM-enhanced text fidelity.

Binary Doc Reviver

Summary

  • Scans and converts proprietary/binary documents (e.g., old Word Pro, PDFs) to plain text/Markdown via OCR, format detection, and AI reconstruction, addressing lost accessibility of legacy files.
  • Core value: Future-proofs archives with grep/git-friendly output, preserving content across decades.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Archivists, researchers, devs hoarding old docs ("My old 1995 MS thesis... nothing to read it" - beej71)
Core Feature Auto-detect format, OCR/extract text, AI-refine structure into Markdown; batch CLI/GUI
Tech Stack Tesseract OCR, Pandoc, LLMs (GPT-4o), Python/CLI with Electron GUI
Difficulty High
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Resonates with text maximalists fearing binary obsolescence ("I wish it were plain text!" - beej71); quotes durability needs.
  • Practical for HN's Unix/text fans; fosters talks on long-term data portability.

Text Protocol Visualizer

Summary

  • Web/CLI tool to ingest binary protocols (Protobuf, custom), render as editable JSON/base64 text, and visualize diffs/hex, easing debugging of opaque binary vs. readable text formats.
  • Core value: Bridges binary efficiency with text transparency, enabling human/LLM inspection without schema lock-in.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Backend devs debating Protobuf vs. JSON ("lose human readability" - socketcluster)
Core Feature Upload binary/parse to interactive text tree; export JSON/base64; real-time GZIP comparisons
Tech Stack WebAssembly (Protobuf.js), Monaco Editor, Rust CLI backend
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: Open-source with $10/mo cloud hosting

Notes

  • Directly solves "complexity... to save 20% bandwidth lost after GZIP" rants (socketcluster); HN loves string supremacy.
  • Utility for API debugging; ignites protocol wars discussions.

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