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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?

#151

Post by trjordan »

staticshock wrote: post #125
chris11 wrote: post #97

Something like a Netflix for books and articles. I'd pay just to rent textbooks for general education classes. It would need to have a gigantic library though, big enough to guarantee that I would be able to find any book through there if it wasn't in a library. PDF versions of the books would be nice to, so I could access the book anywhere immediately. And it would need a good selection of scientific books. I have a…

This is an interesting thought. Does anything already exist as a service for college students to rent textbooks?

It would be hard to maintain, since a lot of textbooks change version number relatively frequently.

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

#152

Post by Scriptor »

moe wrote: post #77
terragb wrote: post #33

A dead simple, cheap 8.5x11 e-ink device with no wifi or touchscreen or anything like that. Just the ability to page through my already owned pdfs. Some of them are scanned images, not text so no text conversion. Even if the only way to get the docs on it was via some kind of virtual printer driver I'd be happy. I'd basically like a way to read stuff on e-ink as if it had been printed.

Seconded. Just today I looked at ebook reader devices again because I really want one - but the prices are ridiculous. $359 for a kindle? Come on, that buys me about 35 physical books - close to 2 years of reading material. Give me the kindle and 20 books included, then we might be talking.

Some flexibility would be nice here. I'm sure there'd be a few books I'd like to read in the future, so maybe 10 books with the reader and 10 free ones I can choose later would be nice.

Still, the XKCD on the Kindle made me really want to try one, if only because of sentimental reasons.

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

#153

Post by mingyeow »

tokenadult wrote: post #74
mixmax wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I would settle for a site that matches you up with intellectual folks...

HN suffices to provide online conversation with intellectual folks, but I suppose that you and the person to whom you replied have a more specific meaning of "match up" in mind. The difficulty of face-meeting people for intellectual conversation is indeed what keeps a lot of online discussion groups going.

I actually mean for DATING. lol

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

#155

Post by Harkins »

chris11 wrote: post #97

Something like a Netflix for books and articles. I'd pay just to rent textbooks for general education classes. It would need to have a gigantic library though, big enough to guarantee that I would be able to find any book through there if it wasn't in a library. PDF versions of the books would be nice to, so I could access the book anywhere immediately. And it would need a good selection of scientific books. I have a…

Ask your local library system about interlibrary loan. You may have trouble with books released in the last 6 months (it's peak borrowing time, libraries like to hold them for their local patrons), but otherwise you can get basically everything.

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

#156

Post by wheels »

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.

For that you have to come to our apartment in Berlin for our startup dinners. We've done about 5 of them (one being a Berlin news.yc meetup) and they all feature enchiladas or fajitas.

Sure, Berlin's a bit out of the way from Italy, but some things in life simply take priority.

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

#157

Post by ivankirigin »

ibsulon wrote: post #126
ivankirigin wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a laptop for my "desktop", so I don't see the problem. I run firefox, terminal, textmate, tweetdeck, and iWork. No configuration changes needed. Maybe for VM software - which I just wouldn't run on a netbook.

I use different font sizes for my work on larger screens, for one example.

That's interesting. I routinely switch from a 17 inch laptop screen and a 30 inch monitor screen, and don't change the font.

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

#158

Post by blender »

johnm wrote: post #53
blender wrote: post #19

Single serving cat food tins. i.e. Half the size of regular tins. You might think I'm joking, but I'm not - I looked for this earlier today online. Cheers

There's already 3 Oz. cans and vacuum packs. Or do you really want 1.5 Oz?

I want 1.5 Oz

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

#159

Post by blender »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #109
blender wrote: post #19

Single serving cat food tins. i.e. Half the size of regular tins. You might think I'm joking, but I'm not - I looked for this earlier today online. Cheers

I had the same issue with my cats but they sell lids that seal the can well enough for a day or so of storage. Just put it in the fridge and you're good.

I have tried the lids. My cat is so fussy that it just will not eat it once it has been in the fridge.

I'm very serious about the 1.5 Oz cans - I'd be a customer immediately.

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

#160

Post by phr »

johnm wrote: post #53
blender wrote: post #19

Single serving cat food tins. i.e. Half the size of regular tins. You might think I'm joking, but I'm not - I looked for this earlier today online. Cheers

There's already 3 Oz. cans and vacuum packs. Or do you really want 1.5 Oz?

I use 3oz cans, feed my cat 1/2 can at a time, and still have quite a bit left over.
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