If you're away at college in a college town, you could try getting to know the local government, businesses, and community. That would help solve the problem that has persisted to the point of stereotype: college students and administrators ignoring or looking down on the towns surrounding them.
Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
51–60 of 68 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
#52There are problems everywhere that need solving, from a few lines of code (bug fix), all the way to completely new solutions unlike anything known in existence. The real questions back to you are:
1. What are your resources? (Time, money, people, space, hardware, software, etc.)
2. Does the problem need to be profitable or is this philanthropy?
3. What motivates you to work? (World issues, local issues, tough mathematical problems, etc.)
Trying to find something that falls within the cross-section of all these problems, I would suggest working on problems that curve energy usage. Anything that reduces energy usage is almost guaranteed to be profitable, reduce carbon emissions and generally make the world a better place. Some ideas around this theme:
* Passive/intelligent cooling of small/medium sized spaces that can be retroactively applied to human inhabited spaces. Air conditioning boxes are ludicrously inefficient, there should be some very simple methods to greatly increase their effectiveness.
* Software to reduce desktop computer power usage - especially in offices where they effectively get left on all of the time over night. I think a ridiculously large number of office workers could also be working on passively cooled ARM based computers. (Windows did/does support a Raspberry Pi for example, so they've already done the legwork.)
Re: Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only vote if you're actually willing to understand what the policies are and what is currently being done. Otherwise you end up having people vote based on superfluous surface level details -- e.g., I'd have a beer with them.
This. I'd say young people should focus on educating themselves about the various issues in an academic sense, particularly if they're in college. Don't just read blogs, read studies and learn the statistics/background so you actually understand what they mean. Look up primary sources to get perspectives from people who have lived through whatever issue you're grappling with. Learn to write and how to think about the…
I’d say older people should focus on educating themselves about the various issues in an academic sense, particularly if they haven’t been exposed to the many new issues facing younger people that are often ignored by the many politicians catering to older groups.
Don’t just listen to cable news and partisan radio shows, read studies and learn the statistics/background so you actually understand what they mean. Look up primary sources to get perspectives from younger people who may face very different circumstances than you did at their age.
You have a whole life of experience that can help and hinder; take the time to understand the changing world instead of clinging to the past so you don’t just make things worse.
From my own experience it’s disappointing to see older people ignore or stall on a variety of social issues that no longer affect them because they’re set. Even worse, some ignore or pooh-pooh serious long-term problems just because they’ll be dead when the ill-effects kick in.
I’m not sure what to blame for this selfishness and myopia, but it’s important to remember that “uninformed” is not just an adjective that applies to the young.
Re: Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only vote if you're actually willing to understand what the policies are and what is currently being done. Otherwise you end up having people vote based on superfluous surface level details -- e.g., I'd have a beer with them.
This. I'd say young people should focus on educating themselves about the various issues in an academic sense, particularly if they're in college. Don't just read blogs, read studies and learn the statistics/background so you actually understand what they mean. Look up primary sources to get perspectives from people who have lived through whatever issue you're grappling with. Learn to write and how to think about the…
Learn to think, he says, and then he blames the school systems (instead of blaming the myriad fundamental problems that lead to screwed up school systems).
Re: Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
#55Politics. Seriously. We don’t need another high tech company or hedge fund. We need to fix our country. We need organized, voting young people.
Re: Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
#56Dating app with deep NN face generation to get the topology of what someone is attracted to. Get enough samples to generate a model for them so you can auto-rate photos.
Re: Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
#57Politics. Seriously. We don’t need another high tech company or hedge fund. We need to fix our country. We need organized, voting young people.
... to vote for whom? There are already lots of young people organizing and wanting to vote, although their preferences might not necessarily align with the generation above them. Populist movements (both the far-left and far-right) are taking over Western countries at the moment (as a reaction to the dire economic circumstances of the current generation), but the traditional political parties (mid-left/mid-right, but especially the mid-left) and the old media conglomerates are actively trying to suppress that.
Re: Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
#58Politics. Seriously. We don’t need another high tech company or hedge fund. We need to fix our country. We need organized, voting young people.
... to vote for whom? There are already lots of young people organizing and wanting to vote, although their preferences might not necessarily align with the generation above them. Populist movements (both the far-left and far-right) are taking over Western countries at the moment (as a reaction to the dire economic circumstances of the current generation), but the traditional political parties (mid-left/mid-right, bu…
I think he/she means to vote for “the right candidate”, possibly someone that will start a genocide in Yemen, drop more bombs than any other US president and go away with a Nobel peace prize, pictures with kids playing around in the White House and a bunch of emotional speeches?
Re: Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
#59Every category of product is filled with multiple companies offering their own version of the product. There would be clear market leaders and there would be the upstarts. the product features though vary, according to the company's business model.
So the opportunity here is to bridge the feature (or marketplace) gap between the products, eg- say build a bot for hangouts that is similar to some bot seen on slack, because slack bot company is not yet thinking about supporting hangouts. Now you don't need to come up with your own product ideas or think about the product distribution and you solve the problem for a lot of customers who are stuck with hangouts (because of whatever reason). If you build a lot of such micro-features, that ultimately adds up to a good amount of money.
Re: Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only vote if you're actually willing to understand what the policies are and what is currently being done. Otherwise you end up having people vote based on superfluous surface level details -- e.g., I'd have a beer with them.
That only works if everyone follows it, which they don't for a host of good and bad reasons. Imagine 100 informed people understand the issue; 60 vote for it and 40 against. But 500 uninformed people like the celebrity who opposes the issue so the final vote is 60 to 540. At this point, I'd be happy just to see that could-vote demographics are proportional to did-vote demographics. We're nowhere close, and it shows.
What is the value of a low could-vote:did-vote ratio in the absence of informed voters?
I can see why keeping this ratio high appeals to governments and politicians. It grants them more legitimacy, even if the votes are entirely uninformed. I also see why motivating particular demographics to vote appeals to certain candidates: voters in particular demographics tend to vote for particular candidates/causes/parties. But as an informed voter I'm better off if there are fewer uniformed voters, because my vote becomes more powerful. And as a citizen, I'm probably better off if the majority of voters are informed, even if they don't always vote in my personal best interests.