New Requests for Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: New Requests for Startups

#251

Post by jjoonathan » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 8:50 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #137

frandroid wrote: post #58

It's a fantastic list; I'd like to comment on how some of the problems are already solved (outside the U.S.) or not cast properly. > Healthcare in the United States is badly broken. We are getting close to spending 20% of our GDP on healthcare; this is unsustainable. That's mostly a policy problem, not a technology problem. Countries with single-payer healthcare spend massively less on it per % of GDP than the United…

> Countries with single-payer healthcare spend massively less on it per % of GDP than the United States with its pro-profit healthcare system Countries with universal coverage through other-than-single-payer systems do this, too. (every OECD country other than Mexico and the US has universal coverage -- but not all of them through single-payer -- and every OECD country spends massively less per GDP, let alone per cap…

But those systems tend to look like a "single-payer donkey with a free-market tail stuck on." The government decides the content of the basic packages, funds them for the poor, etc. If that sounds exactly like the ACA, you're correct, but you may have missed a very subtle and very important distinction -- take a closer look.

Page 6 of

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/F...

gives a very thorough overview.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#252

Post by wukix » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 8:51 PM UTC

akkartik wrote: post #32

> What comes after programming languages? I've been working on this for several years, though a startup seems the wrong vehicle for it. I think the description in the RFS is misguided: "We’re interested in helping developers create better software, faster. This includes new ways to write, understand, and collaborate on code, and the next generation of tools and infrastructure for delivering software continuously and…

I am the founder a developer tools startup and I've thought a lot about the future of programming. To be honest, the developer tools market is extremely competitive ("everything must be free") and it is not for the faint of heart. That said, if anyone wants to chat sometime in the Bay Area about future dev tools and/or startups around them, I'd be happy to meet. (contact info at https://wukix.com/contact)

Re: New Requests for Startups

#253

Post by sillysaurus3 » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 8:54 PM UTC

WhitneyLand wrote: post #246

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say quantum computing magically reduced anything. You've set up a strawman and proceeded to beat it with a hammer. I said that quantum computers can solve previously-intractable problems. We don't know what steps are necessary to reach AI, so we don't know what is or isn't a necessary step. Vision is a tiny part of cognition, as evidenced by the fact that there are fish which have no vision (or at least no h…

You're confusing computing performance intractability with conceptual intractability. Shor doesn't do anything new for AI, it just speeds things up.

Never would I have guessed that saying "Quantum computing may open up new avenues of exploration" would be so controversial.

I said quantum computing makes previously-intractable problems tractable, and that it's therefore interesting for AI. I used Shor's algorithm as an example of a problem which could not be solved on a classical computer, but could be solved on a quantum computer, not as an example of a new AI problem.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#254

Post by bcohen5055 » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 8:54 PM UTC

rcarrigan87 wrote: post #146

impendia wrote: post #114

Would somebody please disrupt the textbook publishing industry? http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susa... $264.39, for students that work part time jobs at $7.00 an hour (before taxes). Not only students are angry about this. Professors are angry, and authors are angry too. Bitter fights between professors and publishers are common. Everybody wants to see the big players in this industry fail .…

The bigger question may be why do we even still have "textbooks," at least in their traditional form? Are textbooks the optimal way to learn given all the technology we have today? I'm sure there are quite a few start-ups working on this problem.

I'd have to say there is a good use case for textbooks in engineering. Go into any mechanical engineer or chemical engineers cubical and you will find that they all have many of their college textbooks. Textbook chapters are a way better organized than websites when you are looking up values in tables, applying them to equations, and adapting example problems.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#255

Post by akkartik » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 8:54 PM UTC

dkarapetyan wrote: post #239

akkartik wrote: post #32

> What comes after programming languages? I've been working on this for several years, though a startup seems the wrong vehicle for it. I think the description in the RFS is misguided: "We’re interested in helping developers create better software, faster. This includes new ways to write, understand, and collaborate on code, and the next generation of tools and infrastructure for delivering software continuously and…

We already have the tools to deliver software continuously and reliably. They are called containers and virtual machines. The problem as usual is not with the technology. If you look back we had SmallTalk virtual machines some time ago that you could pause, ship over the network, and pick up where you left off. Reading is not the issue as well because most code is terrible and it doesn't matter how easy you make it t…

I didn't say we need to teach people to write elegant code. See my examples at http://akkartik.name/post/tracing-tests. I take this perverse joy in coming up with ugly code that is suited to its surroundings, and I'm extremely well-suited for programming because when it comes to code our aesthetics are like George Costanza's instincts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Opposite).

I want programming to be like reading, with most people able to skim most article-length pieces of prose -- even if it's poorly written -- and get a sense for its global organization. That doesn't require teaching everyone to write like Shakespeare.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#256

Post by x0x0 » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 8:55 PM UTC

lnanek2 wrote: post #175

nerfhammer wrote: post #168

> It’s not a secret that saving money is hard, and that people tend to be bad at doing it. The personal savings rate has largely been falling since the early 80s. There already several startups in the "personal saving" space largely based on index funds, though some of them have large minimums. Complex schemes may not be worth the effort for those with only a few bucks to spare: https://www.wealthfront.com/ https://w…

I think you are kind of missing what the hard part is for many people, which is not choosing where to put the savings, it is choosing to save at all. Many live paycheck to paycheck, even go deep into debt on credit cards and payday loans. There's a whole broad class of apps like Mint, where it will show you all your costs and income and give you tips about how to reduce your spending, save more, refinance debt, etc..…

You're supposing that saving is a potential choice. Even a glance at income numbers in the US would fix that for you. For example, median household income as of 2012 is where it was in 1989 [1]. Of the increasing small middle with the ability to save, they seem to be pretty well served already.

[1] http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/20/by-the-numbers-the-incredib...

Re: New Requests for Startups

#257

Post by ethanhunt_ » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 8:59 PM UTC

Nicholas_C wrote: post #225

impendia wrote: post #114

Would somebody please disrupt the textbook publishing industry? http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susa... $264.39, for students that work part time jobs at $7.00 an hour (before taxes). Not only students are angry about this. Professors are angry, and authors are angry too. Bitter fights between professors and publishers are common. Everybody wants to see the big players in this industry fail .…

Is there no crowd sourced, open sourced textbook non-profit organization? Sort of like Wikipedia/Wikimedia but with textbooks. Ideally there would be a Wiki-like website with people constantly editing and revising and arguing over texts/chapters/paragraphs. A cursory Google search yields the site https://openstaxcollege.org/ , which appears to be supported by Rice University. This has open sourced texts, but not crow…

A wikipedia for textbooks? There's exactly that, though I can't comment on the quality. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Calculus/Limits/An_Introduction...

Re: New Requests for Startups

#258

Post by akkartik » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 9:00 PM UTC

wukix wrote: post #252

akkartik wrote: post #32

> What comes after programming languages? I've been working on this for several years, though a startup seems the wrong vehicle for it. I think the description in the RFS is misguided: "We’re interested in helping developers create better software, faster. This includes new ways to write, understand, and collaborate on code, and the next generation of tools and infrastructure for delivering software continuously and…

I am the founder a developer tools startup and I've thought a lot about the future of programming. To be honest, the developer tools market is extremely competitive ("everything must be free") and it is not for the faint of heart. That said, if anyone wants to chat sometime in the Bay Area about future dev tools and/or startups around them, I'd be happy to meet. (contact info at https://wukix.com/contact )

Hi Wes! I enjoyed your talk on Mocl at the Bay Area Lisp meetup last year.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#259

Post by johan_larson » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 9:04 PM UTC

gohrt wrote: post #132

impendia wrote: post #114

Would somebody please disrupt the textbook publishing industry? http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susa... $264.39, for students that work part time jobs at $7.00 an hour (before taxes). Not only students are angry about this. Professors are angry, and authors are angry too. Bitter fights between professors and publishers are common. Everybody wants to see the big players in this industry fail .…

There are plenty of less expensive books available for professors who care.

Yes, the problem is that the one picking the book (the professor) isn't the one paying for it (the student).

Some useful discussion here, including indications that cheaper options exist: http://suburbdad.blogspot.ca/2014/08/oer-erps-and-idea.html

Maybe what's required is a company that a) publishes cheap (probably older) textbooks, and b) rouses student organizations to push for their adoption.

Part b) is by far the harder one, and probably doesn't have a technical solution. It's a marketing/consciousness-raising thing.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#260

Post by arjie » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 9:04 PM UTC

impendia wrote: post #114

Would somebody please disrupt the textbook publishing industry? http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susa... $264.39, for students that work part time jobs at $7.00 an hour (before taxes). Not only students are angry about this. Professors are angry, and authors are angry too. Bitter fights between professors and publishers are common. Everybody wants to see the big players in this industry fail .…

Students are just pirating the books. If money issues are hindering your education, then it's easy to justify that.

Listen, Uber is an example: Not playing by the rules makes it easier to win and when you do a few will complain about your lack of ethics but only a tiny fraction will make that count against you.

JustFab? You may be upset about dark patterns but people love them. Apple, Google, et. al. intentionally breaking the law? No one cares, people still want to work for them. Intel's illegal anti-competition activities? Microsoft's? People still love them.

No one cares about the guy who worked his ass off so he could afford a book, if that work cut into the time needed to study, leaving him less educated. People celebrate the guy who, having pirated books, was able to concentrate on learning and has the free time to become better at many other things.