
Thngs – a place for every thing - alexkon
https://thngs.co/
======
mthoms
The CC licensing of the images on this site is more than a little suspect. I'd
love to know how this user
[https://thngs.co/users/4](https://thngs.co/users/4) owns the rights to
thousands of professional catalog shots spanning the last ~100 or so years.

It's one thing to lift images for use on your site but quite another to
release those stolen images under a CC license.

~~~
dawnerd
I learned this the hard way myself. Bad idea to blanket license user uploaded
content without some kind of verification in place.

~~~
kbody
Sounds interesting, I was going to use this for a project, mind sharing some
wisdom?

~~~
dawnerd
Not really much to share other than you can get you in some legal hot water.
Luckily for me it was caught before I got in too much trouble. Now my terms
just say something along the lines of "images are property of their owners".

Same could apply to text too. If some user comes and pastes an entire section
of a website that's also not good. I haven't run into that yet so I'll have to
see how that turns out.

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vinchuco
With the cryptic HN titles, I like to make a guess on the content behind the
title, then compare. [x]

Expectation: _A system for organizing things around the house by attaching
programmable chips to things, tracked by a device /app that notifies if out of
place._

Reality: _A catalog database of products, old and new, with descriptions and
attributes (manufacturer, materials, prices, etc). Like a Pokedex, [1] but for
things._

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay_of_Pok%C3%A9mon#Pok.C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay_of_Pok%C3%A9mon#Pok.C3.A9dex)

[x] Edit: Apparently there IS an HN:TL;DR [https://github.com/Bachmann1234/hn-
tldr](https://github.com/Bachmann1234/hn-tldr)

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devishard
> Thngs is a simple tool for the preservation and structuring of data about
> physical things.

Not much data...

It's clear that the data is geared toward a graphic design/visual artist
mindset rather than a engineer mindset. When I see something like the Optima
M12[1] all I want is to see what's inside, but they never open it up.

[1] [https://thngs.co/things/7666](https://thngs.co/things/7666)

EDIT: Infinite scroll that breaks your back button remains an anti-pattern. I
scrolled down to Asimo, clicked Asimo, and after reading a bit, clicked back,
only to discover myself at the top of the page with none of the content I had
already looked at loaded. Cool, I guess I'm done looking.

~~~
cavin
Sorry for scroll, I can't do everything at one time((

~~~
alexkon
Please fix the footer when you are at it. It keeps jumping away from my mouse
cursor as new items at the bottom of the page are loading.

~~~
cavin
Thank you for reporting!

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elcapitan
So is this like a curated catalog version of Google image search?

It certainly is very cool, I clicked on the Olympic torch on the home page,
then clicked on the category of the item's page, and got a whole list of
Olympic torches -
[https://thngs.co/search/Typology%3AOlympic%20Torch](https://thngs.co/search/Typology%3AOlympic%20Torch).
This is something that wouldn't work as nicely with image search.

On the other hand, this is restricted to "things", but that kind of search is
something I do for all kinds of terms.

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creed
First of all: I think this is a very cool idea. It's like a generalised
Pokedex! Imagine you could just take a foto of something with your phone and
ask the Index what it is, how cool's that? :D

So yeah, I get why people are connecting this with wikipedia but to me that's
not the point. Wikipedia is a knowledge base of important stuff people want to
seriously look up.

With the pokedex I can just snapshot some sneakers the guy next to me wears on
the tube and get the some infos and maybe personal opinions. It's way more
silly and informal but thats what you get when you can add ANYthing.

Think about it, I could add my old Gameboy and have people share their
memories and good ol' stories about "back in the day". You could even add your
old dog and if somebody asks the index about your dog it will say "That's
Dave's dog" xD

This "thing" is way more personal, individual, informal than Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is as steril as an OR, with sharp knowledge like a scalpel.

This is just things. Simple, but I can definitely see a trajectory where we
end up thinking: how did people live without it? :D

(not this particular version, but if you take the idea and turn it up to 11)

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anoplus
This looks like a big idea.

Features that come into my mind:

-Locations where the "thing" is currently available.

-Advanced visual search of "things" by drawing dimensions (I need something of this shape and color, made from that material).

~~~
cavin
I can open you a small secret - there is fully dynamic structure of things.
Also there are "renderers" for any kind of special inputs in editor and they
are easily extendable. (editor:
[http://imgur.com/wPgJ27L](http://imgur.com/wPgJ27L) )

I love your idea about visual search! We already have idea of visual "ruler"
to mark known dimensions directly on photo.

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chowes
Why not just add all of this to Wikipedia?

~~~
ars
Wikipedia would not accept it, the things are not notable.

Wikipedia does not bill itself as a datastore about everything, but rather
only about the important things.

Also the data they store about each thing, is not everything about the item,
but only the most important things about each item.

A lot of people have issue with this: After all, it's not like they are going
to run out of space. But nevertheless, that is what they do.

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frogpelt
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

\- Steven Wright

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yoasif_
Reminds me a little of [http://openfoodfacts.org](http://openfoodfacts.org)

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brandoncordell
This reminds me of an app my friend of of mine built (or started to) a few
years ago. skore.org (SSL isn't current). The idea was basically similar,
except it included people and was meant to include connections (e.g. Bill
Gates associated with Microsoft).

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krisdol
With a name like that, you should pivot to thongs. Clearer message.

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king_magic
This is really neat. Immediately made me think of the virtual arcade museums
in Ready Player One.

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widowlark
Great idea, would love to see this integrated into Wikimedia or something
similar

~~~
cavin
how to integrate it?

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merqurio
I feel like the objects I found in the page are only the ones that are notable
due to something (design, popularity.. ). It's an example of survivor bias..
Do not misunderstand me, It's a great idea, but maybe a title like "Awesome
Thngs" would be more appropiate.

edit: typo

~~~
cavin
here are ordinary things:
[https://thngs.co/starbucks](https://thngs.co/starbucks)

~~~
merqurio
I do not consider Starbucks an ordinary brand, do you ? It's full of hype

~~~
cavin
I mean that Thngs consists of everything that could be considered "thing" \-
from subway cards to ancient artifacts, from japanese cola bottles to Vespa
scooters. I really don't know if hamburger is suitable "thing" for this, but
salmon in a can surely is!

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ChrisGranger
The links at the bottom of the screen promptly disappear as the next batch of
infinite scrolling loads. That's pretty annoying when trying to click them and
I'm always surprised when this kind of thing survives to production.

I love the general idea of this site though. A friend asked if it was possible
to view items by year, but I didn't see any way to do so, and searching for a
given year doesn't do it.

~~~
joshvm
Use date of appearance:

[https://thngs.co/search/Date%20of%20appearance%3A2001](https://thngs.co/search/Date%20of%20appearance%3A2001)

