A thing that removes thought loops from the brain
Hmm alcohol?
Alcohol makes it worse. Need permanent removal
Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
411–420 of 535 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
#412A paid Linux. To get stunning UX design, upstream bugfixing and excellent marketing. Let me explain myself. I love the levels of ergonomy and polish of Mac OS X. But it's closed-source software. If I use (and pay) Ubuntu, then great patches are sent upstream, which I can use in Debian on my servers and Arduinos. It becomes useful to everyone. With Mac OS X, we're not advancing the world. But when I used Ubuntu for wo…
That was Mandrake/Mandriva, yet the margins were slim and they went bankrupt.
There were a few of them in mid-2000's. Lindows/Linspire is the first that comes to mind [1]. SuSE also had paid versions [2] (the free download was delayed for some time after major releases).
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20030207074123/http://www.lindows...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20040803022103/http://www.suse.d...
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
#413A slim, networked, pocked sized computer with a physical keyboard, running android or Linux. These used to exist - albeit disguised as phones - but the marketing department decided we don't need no friggin keyboards, and remove everything but the touchscreen and call it a tablet. The result is a consume-only device, on which it is all but impossible to input large amounts of text. Nokia N900, Motorola Droid 3/4, HTC…
Will this not be solved, partly and in a sense, by hologram keyboards? It seems your wish for a physical keyboard is not due to an enjoyment of the tactile nature of it but rather that it's quite hard to type on an in-screen virtual one.
Hologram keyboards would still seemingly require a surface to type on, though, so it wouldn't solve everything. One might imagine a future where the phone is in your pocket but a hologram screen + keyboard appears (somehow) in front of you. I'm just thinking out loud here.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. It's baffling; we've "solved" email – anyone can have an account with any provider and is able to mail anyone else – why haven't been able to do the same with instant messaging already?
You would think it would be a no-brainer that everyone expects to work as it basically works to reach "everyone" in the world with far older technologies like physical mail, E-Mail and the telephone. We even have a standardized protocol (XMPP) to interoperate between IM services but it's largely unused because users mostly don't demand such a feature and big providers are better of locking everyone into a walled gard…
An open protocol can also lead to an inconsistent user experience.
In the year 2016 I still have no idea how to send an image from one XMPP client to another and be sure that the sending side will receive it.
In modern closed-off systems this is braindead simple.
Part of this is due to how fragmented XMPP is, which I would again argue is due to its openness.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
#415A good native gui based profiler. Essentially an affordable version of intel Vtune.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
#416A lockbox for real estate agents that has a built-in video camera and microphone+speaker. I mean something like Ring (1) plus MasterLock 5400D (2) plus embedded 4G mobile connectivity. It must not be a permanent installation (like Ring) and it should not require visitors to be pre-registered (like Supra Keys (3)) in order to access the property (for example contractors, repair staff, delivery personnel, etc) If somet…
Could you just attach a smartphone to a door, and have open one of those Supra lockboxes over Bluetooth? I guess the issue there is battery life. I make prototypes of stuff like this as a hobby. You could use a fairly inexpensive SoC that has Wifi/Bluetooth built in ($6), attach a module for 4G connection (~$50), and give it a huge battery so that it can lasts a few weeks. It would be asleep most of the time, and wak…
The cell phone + supra lockbox approach could work. One would need to be a realtor though. Supra only sells through realtor associations.
Thanks for the info regarding the components.
I wonder if there'd actually be a market for this kind of thing.. i.e. One person unlocking access to physical keys in a lockbox at a remote location so that another person can gain access to something. It would be used in a temporary installation, not like ring.com installed at a front door of a house or remote access tech built into cars these days.
Another case of technology in search of a problem... :-(
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about Dart + Polymer?
HTML+CSS+JS being the "assembly language of the web" is a terrible build target, I want a better foundation to build upon.
I think you're massively overstating how bad HTML+CSS+JS are, but how do you feel about WebAsm + WebGL as the target?
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would require internet access and a login and cookies and all the annoyances that go with these things. It seems rather unfeasible given the convenience that most ebook systems go for.
I agree, it would have to degrade gracefully back to a regular offline ebook if the online features are unavailable or disabled. Ideally the reader/protocol would have to work with existing book formats and just enhance the reading experience.
Kindles have a browser and various online features. If Amazon can do it so can someone else.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anonymous means your ISP knows that you connected to this network, and neither they nor anybody else knows anything else. Tor has a lot of weaknesses, but yes I'm just talking about a better Tor. What I want is a network designed so that it's mathematically impossible for person, government, or LEO to regulate the transmission of any given bit from one place to another. The whole point would be to eliminate all the p…
I'm not sure 100% fool proof anonymous digital communication can exist. You can always trace the source of a digital signal. Bitmessage is a pretty cool solution that is "close enough" in my opinion. You should check that out.
At a glance, that looks awesome. Thanks.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?
#420A single IM platform through which everyone can talk to everyone regardless of their IM service, and I mean I wanna be able to send a message to someone's iMessage from my Battle.net account, and then receive someone's Facebook message on my Slack or something. Obviously IDK how this would be possible, but IM is now broken beyond repair by companies that tried to "fix" it. The list of IM apps on my iPhone keeps growi…
Actually, in China, everyone uses WeChat. It is the ONE IM app you described.