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Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve?

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Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve?

#161

Post by albahk »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #111
albahk wrote: post #25

"De-manufacturing" instead of throwing away things. A company that sells you an item must take it back at the end of its life and break it down into constituent parts to be re-used/recycled. i.e. cars, phones, computers, fridge, house, office fitouts etc. Companies will seek to maximise profits and so make things that are easily re-used/re-sold. An example of a product like this is the 1981 Jeep CJ-7 I had when I was…

I don't like this idea for several reasons but partly because it implies that no-one but manufacturers can actually "own" anything. In this model you are only renting a product while you use it. This seems fine and dandy to you because it means that you get to duck the responsibility of having to dispose of it properly, and instead you get to put that burden on some "evil", faceless mega-corporation. But if you go do…

Just to clarify my original point, I don't suggest the consumer is forced to return these products - merely that if I want to throw away my first generation iPod then Apple should be the one that can take it back and reuse or recycle it; after all they know exactly how it was made. I feel it's a real waste to throw such a highly engineered piece of technology into landfill.

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve?

#163

Post by imgabe »

vishaldpatel wrote: post #77
Qz wrote: post #2

A better way to communicate between cars -- honking a horn seems kind of stone age at this point.

Stone age technology is still good technology if it does the job well. In the USA / Canada, people seem to get angered / offended when someone honks at them, and similarly people often honk out of anger. Having phone numbers on license plates comes to mind... so you can call people and tell them to get out of the way =) Things work slightly differently in India: most of the time you tap lightly to tell people that yo…

I noticed this in the Middle East too. The horn is used just to announce your presence so they know to look out for you. It's an interesting cultural quirk. It was also common to flash your lights when you're changing lanes on the highway to pass someone, which is considered rude in the US as well.

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve?

#165

Post by arethuza »

portman wrote: post #129
arethuza wrote: post #45

Digital receipts - I hardly need to carry cash anymore, pretty much everywhere I shop takes chip-n-pin cards so I use my debit card to pay for most things. However, what you end up with is silly bits of paper that I end up carrying round in my wallet or stuffed into folders at work or at home. Why can't my payment card contain an identifier that allows the bank to send me a digitally signed receipt - I could get noti…

YMMV, but here's what I do: If it's a personal expense (90% of my purchases) I immediately throw the receipt away. If it's a business expense, I take a picture on my cellphone, tag it in Evernote, and throw the receipt away. This used to take me about 3 minutes (awkward) but now I can do it while I'm walking, so it adds no time burden to my day. Receipts of any kind are obsolete, IMHO.

I don't fancy facing auditors or the taxman with a picture of a bit of paper.

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve?

#166

Post by nopassrecover »

khafra wrote: post #130
ottbot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting, what sort of thing did you have in mind? I think a horn is more about communicating between drivers, not cars, and seems like an good solution for this.. In the "hey, im here!" sense, rather than "hey, fuck you buddy!". It provides an alert and rough location that doesn't require much processing by the driver.

Here are some things that I've wanted to communicate to other drivers: "You might want to check the air pressure in your right rear tire, it's riding dangerously low" "Your left turn signal's been on for three miles" "Your gas cap is off" "The speed limit in this section of road is 45mph" "Your coffee mug is on the rear bumper" etc.

Flashing headlights is a common indicator where I live for alerting someone to any of these problems.

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve?

#167

Post by nopassrecover »

tgandrews wrote: post #117
nopassrecover wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no science in this unfortunately - if you gave someone a month's worth of food in one meal then they are going to put on a month's worth of food in fat in one day and spend the next 29 days starving hungry, consequently slowing their metabolism and making them fatter.

What if something was to break down slowly over the period of a month - possibly sitting in the stomach? Providing the correct sustanance on any one given day.

You're right, combining with a hunger inhibitor would be a great start.

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve?

#168

Post by silverlake »

petervandijck wrote: post #137

Easy to use tracking of stolen car (I live in Colombia): put small device that costs about 60$ somewhere in your car. If it gets stolen, activate via internet service and it tells you where your car is.

In the US, you can buy a $20 kit that includes a cheap GPS enabled phone and some software that would give you this functionality. Hide the phone deep in your car. When it's stolen, the software will locate it on a map.

http://www.accutracking.com/kit.html

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve?

#169

Post by silverlake »

rsaarelm wrote: post #33

A practical, robust method for separating essential complexity from accidental complexity in software engineering. Trevor Blackwell has written about something like this: http://tlb.org/busywork.html

Thanks for the pointer. Basically, Trevor wants the distraction of low-level tweaking so he can think about the high-level problem. That's the weakest argument for low-level languages I've ever heard. But Python fits the bill: Python for high-level, C libs for performance and low-level tweaking.

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve?

#170

Post by clavalle »

nopassrecover wrote: post #166
khafra wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some things that I've wanted to communicate to other drivers: "You might want to check the air pressure in your right rear tire, it's riding dangerously low" "Your left turn signal's been on for three miles" "Your gas cap is off" "The speed limit in this section of road is 45mph" "Your coffee mug is on the rear bumper" etc.

Flashing headlights is a common indicator where I live for alerting someone to any of these problems.

Yeah but then someone flashes their lights at me out of the blue and my thought is 'Oh, s*, what did I do wrong? What is wrong with the car? Is there a speed trap ahead?' etc etc until I can stop and check things out...and it turns out that they just accidentally bumped their brights lever. Kind of the equivalent of grunting instead of talking. Would be nice if there were some standard tone set for different common signals.
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