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Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?

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Re: Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?

#41

Post by icey »

niels_olson wrote: post #39
ZehraNasif wrote: post #36

Teleportation --will pay double for the service.

you know all those random pixels you get in a fax or even a scan? Yeah. Do that to your brain. Or, more particularly, the wall of a high pressure artery, in your brain.

Excuse me while I put my sci-fi hat on...

I think teleportation will have to be an analog technology instead of a digital one.

By analog I mean manipulation of space/time fabric that you actually step through, as opposed to being scanned and reconstructed on the other side.

Re: Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?

#42

Post by ibsulon »

ivankirigin wrote: post #14

I want a desktop computer with a docked netbook. The files, programs, and program configuration on the netbook should auto-sinc with the desktop. Large files should be easy to stream from the desktop to the netbook. The netbook needs to have an embedded, fast cell network data connection. I might be able to build this myself with a MacPro, a router, a COTS netbook, hackintosh, dropbox, etc. I'd probably have at least…

I've thought about the same thing myself. (I'll make do with the 24 inch monitors, though. :) I'm surprised the Mac Pro doesn't have a way to dock the air yet, though.

There are a lot of usability pieces to think about. Do you really want program configuration to sync? I use programs differently on laptops and desktops.

Re: Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?

#44

Post by qw »

davidw wrote: post #2

Decent Mexican food in Europe:-) (BTW, "if it were available") Edit: if I ever 'made it big', and decided to stay in Italy, I'd invest a portion of my money in a good Mexican restaurant here. It would probably lose money, but what the hell.

Europe consists of more than one country you know :-) Please don't judge other countries in Europe based on your experience.

Re: Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?

#45

Post by electromagnetic »

Bachelor Chow (See: Futurama). It doesn't have to be particularly tasty, but a simple meal that has 1/3 of your daily nutrition (with 1/3 RDA of all your vitamins and minerals) would be great. Preferably without ridiculous quantities of preservatives and artificial flavours.

Re: Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?

#47

Post by JoelPM »

The ability to start up an Extra-Large EC2 instance running OSX and connect to it using NoMachine.

Combine it with a simple client that runs locally and rsyncs pictures/music/etc from a local HD with an EBS mounted to the EC2 instance.

(I want a MacPro so I can do photo processing and programming in the evenings, but I don't want to spend $3.5k for a machine that will sit idle 20hrs/day.)

(For this to be workable I'd also need a fiber connection - but I'd pay for that too, if it was available.)

Re: Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?

#48

Post by tsally »

Femur wrote: post #12
tsally wrote: post #7

A device that could accurately measure caffeine intake, levels present in the body, and the strength of your bodies resistance. I know if I have another cup of coffee at 4PM, the quality of my code will be much better. What I never know is if it will wear off in time for me to get a normal nights sleep. :)

A cheap and noninvasive device that can monitor and record a bunch of metrics would be great! I would love to be able to graph my cholesterol, BP, heart rate, etc. over time. It is a shame i can monitor my car more easily than I can my body.

Yeah, data on this stuff is great. The treadmills at our gym actually have a USB port that you can use to export your average pace and heart rate over a run. That's the closest I've been able to come.

Re: Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?

#49

Post by dmolnar »

0) Stylish sunglasses that act like the spexware in Bruce Sterling's stories, or like the smart glasses in Charlie Stross's _Accelerando_. I'd love heads up displays showing me peoples' names, maps, appointments, and all the stuff for which I currently rely on my phone.

The hardware is there if you're willing to pay. I recently learned about research in this direction aimed at helping patients with Alzheimer's (they also use audio prompts, as well). I don't know of anyone who has packaged up everything and written software to make this seamless, easy, and fun.

1) A battery for my phone that "never" ran out.

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