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Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

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Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#31

Post by rokhayakebe »

tjmaxal wrote: post #27
rokhayakebe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine suggested truly distributing companies. His theory is that if you can outsource payroll, then you should be able to outsource everything, everything, that is not core to your business. In a sense that is what the App Store does. You build the software (your main skill) and you do not even need a website. You could take it further and pay another company x% of revenue and they take care of marketing,…

Most companies don't do this because it is too expensive to out source everything especially when you are just starting.

You could outsource on a revenue sharing model, this way both parties' interests are aligned.

Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#32

Post by jcromartie »

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #29
jcromartie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single Information Systems graduate that I've met has made a horrible horrible mess of every piece of code they touch. I hate to stereotype, but when it's all you have to go off of, it's all you can do.

The capstone project for my class had a teacher that required we used Blackboard as a code repository system instead of me setting up Github or beanstalk. She also asked that we use stored procedures for MySQL, which no one was familiar with and would take way longer. The code was horrible, the design was ugly, and half the class was spent designing by committee. It was all for an app that should have taken a couple…

That's really amazing. What was her title? Was this supposed to be a programming professor? How can anybody who purports to be teaching the practicalities of software construction require you to use the wrong tool? Blackboard has terrible handling of file uploads... as of fairly recently two users couldn't two different files with the same name.

Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#33

Post by dsc »

I think a problem that bugs me a lot is how I see lots of people wanting to do lots of cool things, but they lack the appropriate guidance. We do that on a day-to-day basis, but what about the other folks out there who don't know about this place?

Usually forums, IRC, blogs help in getting immersed with anything, but I have a feeling that a startup with the primary purpose of "Enlightening" its users has yet to come.

edit: Basically what I'm shooting for is: how to get rid of the crappy forums and allow a truly easy and fun way to go about learning new things.

People go to college to learn about how things should be, but not how they are. Waste of time and money, sometimes.

Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#34

Post by secret »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #10
edw519 wrote: post #6

Enterprise software sucks. We don't talk about it much here at hn, but think about it. Every man-made object you encounter every day was manufactured somewhere. And moved, more than once. Now add in all the sales, marketing, customer service, operations, accounting, finance, human resources, etc., etc., etc. needed to support that manufacturing and distribution. Next, add financial markets, healthcare, energy, entert…

A friend of mine suggested truly distributing companies. His theory is that if you can outsource payroll, then you should be able to outsource everything, everything, that is not core to your business. In a sense that is what the App Store does. You build the software (your main skill) and you do not even need a website. You could take it further and pay another company x% of revenue and they take care of marketing,…

It's interesting that you bring this up. I was an econ undergrad, so it made me think of how this will change because of technology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm

Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#35

Post by edw519 »

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #18
edw519 wrote: post #6

Enterprise software sucks. We don't talk about it much here at hn, but think about it. Every man-made object you encounter every day was manufactured somewhere. And moved, more than once. Now add in all the sales, marketing, customer service, operations, accounting, finance, human resources, etc., etc., etc. needed to support that manufacturing and distribution. Next, add financial markets, healthcare, energy, entert…

Ed, do you feel this same principle applies to all business software, not just enterprise software (ie- large companies)?

Yes. The problems are different, but the source is the same: software that sucks.

(I probably should have entitled grandparent, "Enterprise/SMB software sucks" to be more precise.)

Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#36

Post by dsc »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #8
logicalmind wrote: post #3

It depends on how big of a problem you want to tackle. The biggest problem I have every day is that I get tired and have to go to sleep. This time spent sleeping could be better used by doing more productive things. Finding a solution to the "sleep problem" would be a huge win in many ways.

I had a conversation with a friend and asked him if sleeping was a disease. I firmly believe that one day human kind will solve both the need to eat, sleep and death. Meanwhile you can stop trying to be more productive. It is really overrated. Try taking a Saturday off and do nothing but read, watch good movies you have been putting off, and just relax overall.

Meditation FTW!

Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#37

Post by stcredzero »

peteforde wrote: post #7

As it turns out, humans are really bad at answering questions about what they need. Often if they knew they needed it, we would be competing to provide the best solution for it. This is the difference between inductive and deductive analysis. Deductive would be tasking a student with applying pattern matching to a known domain to find an expected result. Inductive analysis is when you don't actually know if there's a…

As it turns out, humans are really bad at answering questions about what they need. Often if they knew they needed it, we would be competing to provide the best solution for it.

I think today's problem is that people figured out the needs and figured out how to satisfy them while making a profit. What's left are the needs that are hard to fulfill or the ones that we weren't aware of before.

Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#38

Post by sjs382 »

steveklabnik wrote: post #11

I live in Pittsburgh. We have a huge lack of talent at the moment. There are tons of startups with funding that are looking to hire people, but a huge lack of skilled people around. We've got companies paying $1,000 bonuses to anyone who can get a hire. It's crazy. I'm not sure how to properly attract and keep talent in the city.

Are you hiring? ;)

Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#39

Post by keefe »

CytokineStorm wrote: post #14

Someone needs to prove that P != NP. Want to understand why that's important? Read this: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/9/38904-the-status-of-the...

it's also extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to prove. This is a problem for researchers, not people looking for ideas for startups.

Re: Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

#40

Post by stcredzero »

tjmaxal wrote: post #24
orangecat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it will continue to be until we institute severe rationing, or cure aging. I vote for the second.

"curing aging" would actually INCREASE the cost of healthcare to nearly infinite.

Not necessarily. http://www.sens.org/
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