Ask YC/HN: What's a problem you'd like to see someone solve? • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by rokhayakebe » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 5:56 AM UTC

CaptainMorgan wrote: post #35

The rising cost of education. I've yet to receive a response from my institution or others that I've considered, of why it is they keep raising their fees, tuitions, etc.., especially in a recessed economy. It seems to me to be counterproductive - folks are losing their jobs, therefore losing their finances, and now possibly finding out that they need more training or they need to enter a new field, thus requiring ed…

Move to France or Germany. They hacked Education to the point where it is free, and in some cases you will get money for books,etc...

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

#52

Post by rokhayakebe » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 5:56 AM UTC

A web based programming IDE.

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

#53

Post by mechanical_fish » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 5:58 AM UTC

tlrobinson wrote: post #13

nx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually one of my childhood fears. Just that they were live beings, not machines.

Self replicating living beings? Wouldn't that cover just about all living beings?

This is another of those things that amuse me: People who think of tiny self-replicating nanomachines as a vision of the future, rather than as a reflection upon our mutual family history.

I, for one, am pretty sure that I'm a colony of several trillion self-replicating cells, whose parts are self-replicating nanomachines. And that is an amazing realization. But not especially futuristic.

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

#54

Post by blogimus » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 6:00 AM UTC

sachinag wrote: post #19

Really? No world peace? No world hunger (where dwarf wheat has saved literally millions of lives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug )? How about happiness? Comfort? Love?

peace, hunger, education, heath, democracy (in basically that order). Enabling peace and reducing hunger are essential foundations for a more enlightened existence. With enlightenment, one is empowered to improve health, through all the avenues this implies (the environment, eating habits, exercise, lifestyle choices, and not necessarily in that order). With good health and even when of modest means, one can chose and (if sound mind), focus on developing and improving democracy, which helps everyone, even the very elite, because as the poor do better in a sustainable way, everyone else will benefit too.

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

#55

Post by vaksel » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 6:02 AM UTC

Longer lifetime...200-300 years. There is just too much to do and time flies way too fast. One minute you are a 20 year old college student, the next minute you are 40 years old, running out the clock.

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

#56

Post by ddemchuk » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 6:42 AM UTC

Universal language...there's no reason why people speak different languages anymore, they only create barriers now. In our newly technologically connected world, our languages we speak should not be getting in our way anymore...

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

#57

Post by statictype » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 7:04 AM UTC

P=NP

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

#58

Post by yargseiks » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 7:07 AM UTC

CaptainMorgan wrote: post #30

mrtron wrote: post #21

I got flamed for suggesting this recently, but I'd like to see it: Equal wages/prices for all regardless of geography, brought on by a single world currency and the internet? That would solve world hunger (which is a money issue, not supply issue). edit: Awesome. It's getting downvoted here too? What the hell is wrong with the concept? edit 2: Oh I was completely blind to the obvious here...I mean equal wages in term…

I didn't down or upvote simply because I think it's an honest suggestion. But it's impractical because the diversity is too vast to warrant an equal playing field such as you're suggesting. There are those that try really hard and succeed magnificently, while there are those that sit back and are too lazy to get anything done and would rather collect welfare. There are polar opposites too, those that try really hard…

I find it strange that the majority of people thought the OP was referring to equal wages regardless of effort. It was pretty clear to me that he was referring to the difference in salary between countries for the same type of work. It disheartens me sometimes hearing that entry-level programmers in the US make $20 an hour, while I, with more than two years of experience, make about $30 a day. People don't realize how vast the disparity of living standards are across the globe.

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

#59

Post by tomjen » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 7:12 AM UTC

damienkatz wrote: post #44

Wifi debugging tool. Something that can tell me why the hell my signal drops 30 seconds every 10 minutes, etc.

I read that as wife debugging tool. Might be more useful.

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

#60

Post by wastedbrains » Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 7:15 AM UTC

Just a small problem on macs, when I switch from single monitor to dual and visa versa I want the previous state restored. I want it to store the state of the windows and restore as many as it can from the last state... It would be great to keep all my terminals in the same location.