Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve?

news.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 41 posts

Re: Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve?

#31
post #30

I get pissed when reading an article on CNN and end up clicking a few click-bait type articles or videos in the right column. It takes ALL of my self control to avoid some of these. Maybe a browser plug-in that removes all these annoying recommended things which have NOTHING to do with the article.

https://www.readability.com/‎ Have you ever heard of readability? It's a plugin that removes link-bait crap and reformats articles into a standard format.

I've heard of them, let me try them out.

Re: Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve?

#34
post #23

Saran Wrap. I hate the stuff. This is not a software problem though haha.

I hate it too! I've started using reusable wraps, like Bee's Wrap ( http://www.beeswrap.com/ ) or Abeego ( http://abeego.com/ ).

Those both look pretty awesome - great suggestion! I might just purchase some because of your suggestion. I absolutely loathe using plastic wrap haha.

Re: Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve?

#35
post #7

Sending money internationally. Comparing products across brands (they all have specs but the way they sort the specs is different and it's a pain to flip through tons of tabs). Finding a chair to fit my kitchen table (given the dimensions of both). Diagramming my bedroom to try to figure out if I can build a better bed. Finding furniture that fits in a given volume (in my case, I want to find a trolley or counter tha…

Y combinator startup regalii is working on the first point. https://www.regalii.com/en On point 3, have you tried Autodesk Homestyler? I used it for a similar purpose :)

> Y combinator startup regalii is working on the first point.

They seem to be aiming to pay bills from the US; I want to send money from another country to the US and just do whatever I want with it.

> Autodesk Homestyler

I looked it up and it doesn't quite seem to be what I want. For one thing, I live in Japan, so none of my furniture is in the catalog.

For another, want to find a chair that physically (not cosmetically) fits my kitchen table. This goes back to my complaint about comparing specs, actually. :)

Re: Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve?

#36
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate it too! I've started using reusable wraps, like Bee's Wrap ( http://www.beeswrap.com/ ) or Abeego ( http://abeego.com/ ).

Those both look pretty awesome - great suggestion! I might just purchase some because of your suggestion. I absolutely loathe using plastic wrap haha.

They're so so great. Unlike plastic wrap which inevitably gets wrapped in itself and you have to cut it and mess with it, this is really substantial, you just pull it out of the drawer and you're done. And I have no problems washing it. I was using foil before I found this and that's even more of a waste...

Re: Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve?

#37

Well here's my idea: A shopping list, but the trick is it knows where the food is in store, and arranges the list so that items on list are located close in store. For example, this is original list: apples, milk, hotdogs, chips. Lets say store has milk and meat on one side, and apples and chips on the other side. The app will rearrange to: apples, chips, milk, hotdogs. And perhaps give you a little map of store to s…

This is a great idea (had it myself at one point); the problem is you would have to have buyin from the grocery store itself, and like a casino...the more time you spend in it the more money they make.

Re: Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve?

#38

Moving my single-player game progress between computers. A few months ago I completed a game on an old Windows PC. Recently, I acquired a new PC, and had to unlock all the levels of the game again by playing through the game from beginning to end. It's just a minor inconvenience, so it doesn't really "piss me off"; it is just something that would be nice to have.

Use a Virtual machine? I hope your old PC is not so old that VM is very slow.

Re: Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve?

#39

Well here's my idea: A shopping list, but the trick is it knows where the food is in store, and arranges the list so that items on list are located close in store. For example, this is original list: apples, milk, hotdogs, chips. Lets say store has milk and meat on one side, and apples and chips on the other side. The app will rearrange to: apples, chips, milk, hotdogs. And perhaps give you a little map of store to s…

This is a great idea (had it myself at one point); the problem is you would have to have buyin from the grocery store itself, and like a casino...the more time you spend in it the more money they make.

That's a good point. Still, it's probably manageable to accomplish for major stores by manually mapping some out (or letting your app users map it out). I usually go to bigger stores, because you can find everything in one store. People who shop often wouldn't need the app, since they remember where everything is.

The same idea expanded a bit, could be to optimize for money. For example, if your list is going to be $200, you might save 20 dollars by shopping in two/few separate stores (accounting for gas), and app could divide the list into multiple lists per store. This is way harder, because prices change all the time (store layout doesn't change as often), and usually you can't look up prices online. The app could take into account any store coupons (assuming manufacturer coupons could be used in any store). The target audience for this are people who are willing to trade in time to save few dollars. I'm not sure they will have smartphones.

Re: Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve?

#40
post #27
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, just out of curiosity, what do you find not sufficient enough to support this with existing systems like facebook?

One of my main use cases are company email chains of 50 or so employees where I think it'd be annoying to send a link asking for everyone's opinion but requiring them to sign-up for a quick, one-time voting. For Facebook, not all of us are friends, and a few of them don't have Facebook, so it might seem a little rude to request that.

Interesting.. I've ran into similar situation before although it was not at a work environment, more like an email thread that contains ~30 friends to ask for opinions on some activity, and not everyone is facebook friends with each others. I do find email threads create "spams" for people who do not have as strong of an opinion on the topic, but it didn't seem annoying enough to piss anyone off. Are there something else that you really dislike about using the email chain itself to ask for opinion/suggestions?
Post reply on HN