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

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

#141

Post by silentbicycle »

Freaky wrote: post #117
silentbicycle wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the computer is too old to run Firefox 3? Serious question. My fiancee was fixing up an old computer to give to our nephew, and when she tried to install Firefox, it refused, essentially saying, "Your computer is too old." * She grabbed a 2.x install file from OldApps.com, but many of the people still running IE6 won't be tech savvy enough to do that, and are likely to be running really old computers. (And ev…

Recommended configuration for Opera 9: Pentium II class system with 64 MB of RAM and at least 50 MB of free disk space

Fair enough. I'm just saying that a kneejerk "use firefox!" doesn't necessarily help: it isn't that simple.

Whether you should really need so much computing power just run a web browser is a different matter entirely. My cell phone probably has more processing power (and definitely has far more memory and storage) than my desktop computer did when I was in high school.

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

#142

Post by hrabago »

Shadow84 wrote: post #85

If you approach problems on a big scale I definitely would suggest solve the problem of developing nations and their misery. I know actually it is a whole bunch of problems but I think that there is a solution which could be successful in the long-run: Educating people. Let them know what is possible and how to achieve things. Help the people, e.g. in Africa, to keep up with the world and especially also their elite…

I come from a developing country where most people are fairly educated. Education is nowhere near enough. Opportunity is needed as well for some economic growth. Honesty in government is needed to encourage and support growth. In some cases, behavioral issues that are detrimental to a nation's progress is so embedded in the people that an entire change in generation is needed, otherwise the people who start climbing the ropes of success will deter others.

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

#143

Post by indiejade »

indiejade wrote: post #137

Elimination of Realtors as a profession! Real estate is something of an amateur gig where the "transaction costs" have been ridiculously inflated through obfuscation http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/nar.htm

From the Antitrust Case:

"M. “VOW” or “virtual office website” means a website, or feature of a website, operated by a Broker or for a Broker by another Person through which the Broker is capable of providing real estate brokerage services to consumers with whom the Broker has first established a Broker-consumer relationship (as defined by state law) where the consumer has the opportunity to search MLS data, subject to the Broker’s oversight, supervision, and accountability.

N. “VOW Policy” means the “Policy governing use of MLS data in connection with Internet brokerage services offered by MLS Participants (‘Virtual Office Websites’),” adopted by NAR on or about May 17, 2003, and any amendments thereto."

See also: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/business/28realty.html?_r=...

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

#144

Post by silentbicycle »

mynameishere wrote: post #118
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…

If you've been flamed for this recently, then you have probably been informed of the idea's utter bankruptcy. Why post it again?

The tendency of an idea to be met with knee-jerk flames says more about the responders than about the idea's merit.

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

#145

Post by Mystalic »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #6

Get people to stop using IE6 to visit sites, by any means necessary. Bonus points if you can take out IE7 as well.

I was just thinking about this one again, and here's a proposed solution:

Create an anti IE6 Coalition.

Here me out - you'd have one central website stating the purpose and all. If you wanted to join the cause, all you would have to do is place a javscript tag on your website. If it detects IE6, a message appears at the top talking about how IE6 hurts innovation, wastes millions of dollars a year, etc. and links to IE8, FF3, and Chrome for quick and simple upgrades. If you got a good deal of bloggers to use/talk about the script, you'd be able to spread the message. The goal isn't the eradication of IE6 usage, just enough demolition of IE6 that people don't feel the need to design around it.

Thoughts?

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

#146

Post by dmoney »

This may be several problems, but I believe they are connected:

* Some people have to work more than they want to.

* Some people have less work available than is required to meet their basic needs, even if they would want to work.

* Some people would choose to do different work if available, or if money weren't a factor.

* Or they would do the same work under different conditions.

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

#147

Post by yan »

oakmac wrote: post #119
yan wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that sort of site just turning into a mutual-masturbation forum with people continuously trying to justify their intelligence and not discussing anything worthwhile.

I can't know this for sure, but I would hope those sorts of comments/attitudes would be voted down. A modification on the idea would be to only allow a site with people who have a net worth greater than a certain amount or who are in certain positions of responsibility or power (like CEOs of companies with a market cap greater than 10 million). You could extend this for any classification system: people with doctorat…

What your advocating is exactly the opposite of the beautiful community that TED promotes and nurtures.

Advocating an IQ or net worth barrier of entry for discussion will filter discussion by, in my opinion, by all the wrong values. While I'm not saying everyone in a top position of a profitable company has nothing new to say, there are people who are just hard-working, potentially well-connected and knew how to hack the system for financial gain. Would heiresses and lottery winners be excluded? Where would one draw the line? Ditto for math degrees, would you care what a Chemistry PhD trying to create better ways for oil companies to make money has to say? Who would decide what fields are "worthy"? Is sociology okay? Is botology? Is computer science?

In my opinion, what made TED great is their dependence on the ideas themselves, and not credentials, to present to the world. The mix of people from all walks of life, from rural African villages, to dancers, to PhDs, to poets, to interns, to Nobel winners, to musicians, to Presidents (I can go on and on) is what made TED so great. Academic conferences existed before and will exist after, but very few will have the wide appeal and poignancy of TED.

Hoping that my comment above gets voted down is exactly the type of community I'm afraid of. What about my comment or attitude would you hope to have less of? Is being afraid of a community where potentially empty credentials (IQ, family, race, etc) are valued over ideas really so wrong?

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

#148

Post by adelle »

yagiz wrote: post #132
cx01 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's rather probable that speakers of different languages think different. So a unified language might lead to (more) unified thinking. I'm not sure if that would be a good or bad thing.

And the flip-side of this idea is that, to really make a unified language, you have to unify people's thought patterns.

Sounds like it would be double plus good.

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

#149

Post by lliiffee »

ieatpaste wrote: post #61
vaksel wrote: post #55

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.

http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/ has helped provide monetary incentive for longevity research. So far they have increased the lifespan of mice by 20%

The videos by Aubrey de Gray are absolutely fascinating. His solutions are (by design) risky and quite possibly will fail. However, the background he gives on problems is wonderful. This one, on cancer, mostly had the effect of convincing me that we aren't going to cure cancer any time soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROfCNrBv_00

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

#150

Post by icey »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #51
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...

They didn't hack education until it was free. They raised taxes until it was a shared cost paid for by every tax payer. The same is true for the healthcare systems there. (And everything else that's government funded pretty much anywhere... With the exception of oil-rich countries, I suppose.)
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