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Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#291

Post by mstijak »

psadauskas wrote: post #39

A stack for building web applications in the browser. HTML and CSS are pretty good for documents, but terrible for in-browser GUI apps that we're all building, its just piles of hacks upon hacks. I want someone, probably Google since they own both a major browser and some of the most popular web applications, to re-invent the entire stack. Steal ideas from GUI-focused languages and toolkits, like QML, Swift, AppKit,…

Cx offers a complete set of desktop-like widgets.

https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=JHuzRB1C https://cx.codaxy.com/fiddle/?f=vwyHzOO1 https://cx.codaxy.com/docs/

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#293

Post by tajen »

bonoboTP wrote: post #232
tajen wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We can't do it because it's a different business model than Apple's" ;) ? From 9Gag to HN, Windows 10 is a recurring meme of disrespect for the -cattle- consumer, in a world of Snowden and Facebook where we don't even own our computers. I say there's a demand (with money available) for a trustworthy OS in the PC world, and for a open-source in the Apple world. Selling today's OSes might be impossible indeed. But a l…

Have you actually tried to talk about those supposed advantages to non-tech people? Try it. Even many tech people don't care about that stuff and get annoyed if you start bringing up this kind of democracy, privacy etc. stuff. People care about features and convenience. Getting stuff done and being entertained. Seriously, talk to "normal people" and see for yourself.

When I created my current startup, all product managers and bankers told me it wouldn't work. That was 3 years ago and I'm still living off it. (Can't disclose the details of the product because I've disclosed things that could be linked to my partners previously with the same account)

So I'd bet people have been bitten enough by Android, Facebook, LinkedIn and Windows 10 that they're ripe to understand that their OS is worth 50$/yr.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#294

Post by 4ad »

cm2187 wrote: post #289
4ad wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty happy with 802.11ac. It's the first time ever I don't bother with wired ethernet on my laptop. I still have to carry with me ethernet cables and dongles (since I use a Macbook without an Ethernet port), but when I find 802.11ac I don't use them. I hope one day it will be ubiquitous so I don't have to carry all that crap.

It depends on people's needs. Transfering a 4GB file over wifi is pretty painful. Transfering a 50GB VM... forget about it.

Do you have 10GbE on your laptop? I only have gigabit ethernet on my laptop, and 802.11ac is theoretically faster. In real life I get about 80% of performance of wired ethernet, and this number will only go up in the future. Today, I am very happy with the 80% I get.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#295

Post by djhworld »

ciaranm wrote: post #225
jagermo wrote: post #200

A smart bank account: I want to set up rules like "take 19 percent of every incoming transaction and save it to virtual account 'taxes'. Use this, account to pay invoices by $financialAgency" Banking hasn't produced any innovation since online banking, it seems

I guess you're not based in the UK, but monzo(previously Mondo) ( https://monzo.com/ ) sounds like the start of what you're looking for. Their API ( https://monzo.com/docs/ ) opens them up to all sorts of uses for your bank account.

I don't believe they have a full banking license yet do they?

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#296

Post by tajen »

gtirloni wrote: post #221
tajen wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We can't do it because it's a different business model than Apple's" ;) ? From 9Gag to HN, Windows 10 is a recurring meme of disrespect for the -cattle- consumer, in a world of Snowden and Facebook where we don't even own our computers. I say there's a demand (with money available) for a trustworthy OS in the PC world, and for a open-source in the Apple world. Selling today's OSes might be impossible indeed. But a l…

Nobody (as in the general population) cares about all of that, unless they have been personally bitten by it. Someone needs to take some Linux and focus solely on the desktop environment. Make it more beautiful than OSX and Win10 and that may drive attention. That's an awful lot of work (not only the apps but getting the ecosystem to cooperate). We've driven ourselves into the ground with our desire for free things.…

First let's not say "beautiful", it's associated too much with transparent glass panes and shiny transitions. Let's focus on "functional": Fewer technical details, more do-one-thing-well and designed experiences.

Second, people have paid enough with their privacy ("Ok Google, were you listening to me?") that they've started to understand that it's worth paying $50/yr for an OS.

Anyway I'm not a Linux expert, so I can't even tingle with a business plan. Someone needs to do that for me.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#297

Post by curun1r »

neilsharma wrote: post #235

1) More high quality news analysis content. Think NASA Earth Observatory, The Information, or the best articles you've ever read, and put them behind a paywall. Consistently making top notch content is hard, but I suspect it can be easier if writers are paid good wages to explore their interests and the news industry decouples itself from advertising. I'd pay for it, and I suspect that over time, enough people would.…

I don't want to sound preachy, but having felt nearly identically to what you've described in #4, I can tell you that I've found my answer in meditation. It's allowed me to slow down life and realize what's really important. It's hard to get caught up in those ego-driven things now that my sense of self and ego has so inexorably changed.

It has also helped with my posture too.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#298

Post by dschiptsov »

elihu wrote: post #196

An operating system with an interface that's a substantial improvement over POSIX. I'd like to see statically typed files and pipes, and a built-in file conversion solver so that if I have, say, a postscript file and I want it in pdf format, I can just tell the OS to use any conversion utility with a matching type signature and I don't have to remember what it's called. I'd like a process/thread to be able to have mu…

> I'd like to see statically typed files and pipes

You mean homogeneous files and pipes - only text, only numbers, etc - that kind of nonsense? Static typing falls apart with heterogeneous containers.

Or you are just putting that static typing everywhere because it is so cool - typescript, huh huh?

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#299

Post by jessriedel »

gtirloni wrote: post #213
jessriedel wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: what's wrong with email? Not in the sense of "you should just email rather than IM and stop complaining". In the sense of "Why doesn't someone build a dead-simple overlay that exploits the email protocol?" I'm thinking a simple tag at the beginning of the subject line that causes it to be auto-archieved in gmail. Is the latency too large?

Yes, the latency is too large. When I want really instant messages I've to switch to WhatsApp because Hangouts on my phone takes a minute or two to receive messages (tried all configuration tricks in the book). Just an example where latency with messaging apps is already too high.

Yea, Hangouts is garbage...

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#300

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

jessriedel wrote: post #150

Better reviews of everything. Solve (or ameliorate) the trust and incentivisation problem. It's stunning that something simple and non-optimal like Wirecutter is such an improvement, at least in the area of consumer electronics.

In Germany theres this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest

Not great, but it does a decent job. I use Wirecutter a lot, too.

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