IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

Three prevalent themes in the discussion

  1. MapQuest’s low‑quality, ad‑driven nature
  2. “They're owned by System1, a bottom‑of‑the‑barrel advertising company where 1990s web brands go to die (Metacrawler? Startpage.com?? Dogpile?!?!). Their maps are OpenStreetMaps maps.” – wlonkly

  3. Commenters repeatedly note that MapQuest is now essentially an ad‑wrapper over OSM data, with poor routing and intrusive ads.

  4. Who should decide geographic names – government, popular usage, or corporations?

  5. “The government has no right to name geographic features. The names are established by popular usage, not the feds.” – bigstrat2003
  6. “I get why people want Apple and Google to push back but ultimately there isn’t any logical approach for them to operate that isn’t ‘name things as the relevant governmental bodies name them’. Otherwise what source of truth is there?” – afavour

  7. The thread debates whether tech companies must follow executive orders or can rely on popular usage / their own judgment.

  8. The executive order is viewed as a petty tantrum or deliberate manipulation

  9. “Problem with the 'childish' take is it waves off the admins statements they intentionally engage in this shit to rile up the terminally online lizard brains. This is intentional manipulation.” – d34db33ts
  10. “Dictators make spurious announcements in order to see who obeys and who doesn't, and then punish those who didn't, in order to further their own grip on power.” – amiga386
  11. Many see the renaming as a symbolic, attention‑grabbing act rather than a substantive policy change.

🚀 Project Ideas

NameToggle Maps

Summary

  • A map overlay service that displays both official government geographic names and community‑popular alternate names (e.g., Lake Ontario vs. Lake America) with a simple toggle.
  • Core value: lets users choose which naming convention they see, reducing friction caused by politically driven name changes while staying grounded in OpenStreetMap data.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Privacy‑conscious map users, travelers, educators, and anyone frustrated by unilateral geographic renamings
Core Feature Dual‑name tile layer with client‑side toggle; crowdsourced name suggestions and voting
Tech Stack Vector tiles (MapLibre GL JS), PostGIS with OSM + name‑alias table, Node.js/Express API, React frontend, Docker
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • HN commenters expressed desire for alternatives that “ignore this change just as MapQuest has done” (allturtles) and for “non‑profit FOSS apps that are also UIs over OpenStreetMap” (ndriscoll).
  • Provides a practical utility: users can instantly switch names without needing multiple map apps, sparking discussion on naming authority vs. popular usage.

DeepSearch Agent

Summary

  • A self‑hostable personal research assistant that runs queries across multiple search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, specialized APIs), iteratively refines based on result relevance, and returns a curated, annotated summary.
  • Core value: automates the “deep search” workflow HN users described (running many queries, evaluating, following up) while giving users control over sources and privacy.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Researchers, journalists, power users, and anyone dissatisfied with monolithic search results
Core Feature Multi‑engine query orchestrator with relevance feedback loop and result summarization
Tech Stack Python (FastAPI), Playwright or SerpAPI wrappers, spaCy for NLP, Redis queue, optional Vue.js Svelte frontend
Difficulty High
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Commenters praised “alternative search SaaS like Exa… pay per search… my agent looks at the results, includes some, performs more searches” (verdverm) and wished for an agent that “can’t save you from… slop” (bigfishrunning).
  • Enables discussion on search quality, bias mitigation, and offers a practical tool for users wanting transparent, controllable research workflows.

GeoName Commons API

Summary

  • An open API that aggregates official government geographic name datasets (e.g., USGS GNIS) with community‑contributed popular names and variant spellings, providing endpoints for map services to query preferred names per locale or user setting.
  • Core value: gives map developers a neutral, extensible source of truth for naming disputes, reducing reliance on unilateral executive orders.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Map product teams, OSM contributors, civic tech groups, developers building location‑based apps
Core Feature REST/GraphQL service delivering primary name, alternates, metadata, and usage scores; includes moderation UI
Tech Stack PostgreSQL with PostGIS, GraphQL (Hasura or Apollo), Python/FastAPI admin UI, Kubernetes, CI/CD
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • HN users debated “who maintains that list of experts?” (afavour) and wanted a way to “maintain a list of experts and conduct a poll” (vharuck); this API directly addresses that need.
  • Provides practical utility: map apps can integrate the API to let users toggle between official and popular names, fostering community discussion on geographic nomenclature.

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