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The Unexotic Underclass

miter.mit.edu

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Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#2

Post by pvdm »

Yes, absolutely. We need to import more H1-B workers to work on these very important problems of food, fashion, 'social' and gaming. Makes me want to delete my facebook account right now.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#3

Post by kyllo »

I noticed that devs on HN often sneer at CRUD apps because they're boring to build, but meanwhile a simple CRUD app could do something like make all these veterans' medical benefit claims paperless so that they can get filled out and approved in minutes rather than months, and they could get the care they need sooner. One could do a lot of good by just making CRUD apps for people who need them and can't afford to pay much for them.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#5

Post by kstenerud »

All of this moralizing and "solve big problems" talk is really getting old. On average, chances are pretty low that a particular individual will ever solve a big problem, so stop worrying about it! It's not for others to say how you "should" spend your energy anyway. The moralistic fluff is unnecessary. Those who aren't motivated will ignore it, those who are motivated don't need to be reminded, and the moralizers will use it to beat the rest of the would-be entrepreneurs into a perpetual state of indecision.

Condense the article down and you're left with this nugget of advice: You'll have a better chance of success if you target unsaturated, boring markets.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#6

Post by mikeash »

kyllo wrote: post #3

I noticed that devs on HN often sneer at CRUD apps because they're boring to build, but meanwhile a simple CRUD app could do something like make all these veterans' medical benefit claims paperless so that they can get filled out and approved in minutes rather than months , and they could get the care they need sooner. One could do a lot of good by just making CRUD apps for people who need them and can't afford to pa…

All the technology in the world won't make those veterans' benefit claims go through any faster. The problem there isn't the technology (it's not all that hard of a problem) but getting it into the right place, past all the gatekeepers who want to keep it out.

It's not that nobody is building the technology because they're concentrating on other things, but rather nobody is building it because they know it won't sell, because it would have to go sixteen thousand layers of red tape and many tours through Congress before anything got done.

I think there's probably a lot of scope for solving problems with fairly simple apps, but this example seems like a terrible one.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#7

Post by jckt »

dfc wrote: post #4

" I’m sweeping a fairly catholic brush " What is a catholic brush?

"catholic : comprehensive, universal; especially : broad in sympathies, tastes, or interests "

Note that he didn't capitalise the word.

Edit: sorry, I don't tend to read the article's author's name -- bad on my part. Sorry about that.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#8

Post by arkades »

kyllo wrote: post #3

I noticed that devs on HN often sneer at CRUD apps because they're boring to build, but meanwhile a simple CRUD app could do something like make all these veterans' medical benefit claims paperless so that they can get filled out and approved in minutes rather than months , and they could get the care they need sooner. One could do a lot of good by just making CRUD apps for people who need them and can't afford to pa…

The VA has the largest, best-maintained electronic medical records system in the country. It is open-source and available to the public.

The problem with vets is not the absence of software. I am rather tired of seeing this particular horse beaten.

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