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

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

#111

Post by InclinedPlane »

albahk wrote: post #25

"De-manufacturing" instead of throwing away things. A company that sells you an item must take it back at the end of its life and break it down into constituent parts to be re-used/recycled. i.e. cars, phones, computers, fridge, house, office fitouts etc. Companies will seek to maximise profits and so make things that are easily re-used/re-sold. An example of a product like this is the 1981 Jeep CJ-7 I had when I was…

I don't like this idea for several reasons but partly because it implies that no-one but manufacturers can actually "own" anything. In this model you are only renting a product while you use it. This seems fine and dandy to you because it means that you get to duck the responsibility of having to dispose of it properly, and instead you get to put that burden on some "evil", faceless mega-corporation. But if you go down this route you'll end up ceding far more of your rights of use to the manufacturer than you'd like.

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

#112

Post by ahoyhere »

albahk wrote: post #25

"De-manufacturing" instead of throwing away things. A company that sells you an item must take it back at the end of its life and break it down into constituent parts to be re-used/recycled. i.e. cars, phones, computers, fridge, house, office fitouts etc. Companies will seek to maximise profits and so make things that are easily re-used/re-sold. An example of a product like this is the 1981 Jeep CJ-7 I had when I was…

This is already the rule for lots of things, in lots of countries in Europe. Including computers, bottles (both plastic + glass are reused, rather than broken down + recycled), batteries, etc. All vendors are required to accept them (in the case of bottles, give you the refund), and they are then compensated by the govt.

Which means that when I order a beer delivery online, they come to my door with 3x 6-packs, and then take away the bottles from last time, for free, and I rest easy knowing that A) I didn't have to take out the trash, and B) I'm helping reduce waste.

Yay!

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

#114

Post by InclinedPlane »

lurkerperpetual wrote: post #15

"Deprecate the base of Maslow's pyramid" Inventing cheap and healthy concentrated 'food' that would allow people to eat once a month or even more rarely. Almost all other problems have a root in our needing to eat (work and cars, pollution, corruption, fighting for social status and it's consequences). You'd have the autonomy and time to take long trips without needing to carry much.

This is a little silly. In the developed world food is remarkably cheap. Go into a grocery store and price a 5lb or 25lb bag of flour or rice, we're talking pennies per meal. It's incredibly inexpensive (less than a dollar a day) to feed oneself at a subsistence level, what is interesting is why so few people choose to do so, even when it would make economic sense.

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

#116

Post by ajb »

Qz wrote: post #2

A better way to communicate between cars -- honking a horn seems kind of stone age at this point.

Yes, although I think enabling subtler degrees of 'body language' should be the goal. Anything more conscious risks distracting the drivers.

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

#117

Post by tgandrews »

nopassrecover wrote: post #57
lurkerperpetual wrote: post #15

"Deprecate the base of Maslow's pyramid" Inventing cheap and healthy concentrated 'food' that would allow people to eat once a month or even more rarely. Almost all other problems have a root in our needing to eat (work and cars, pollution, corruption, fighting for social status and it's consequences). You'd have the autonomy and time to take long trips without needing to carry much.

There's no science in this unfortunately - if you gave someone a month's worth of food in one meal then they are going to put on a month's worth of food in fat in one day and spend the next 29 days starving hungry, consequently slowing their metabolism and making them fatter.

What if something was to break down slowly over the period of a month - possibly sitting in the stomach? Providing the correct sustanance on any one given day.

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

#119

Post by ajb »

chmike wrote: post #44

Making Scholar articles open to public access. Google scholar returned references are mainly to journal articles requiring a fee. This is useless. Science should be a collaborative work like wikipedia but with referees (not the narrowed minded one).

Google does indicate which you can get freely, it's just that for some reason they won't allow you to search for only those. A web site that searched google scholar for you and then returned only the free ones would be really useful...
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