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Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

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Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#341

Post by smnrchrds »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #330
TrackerFF wrote: post #319

It IS being worked on, but things move quite slow - and there doesn't seem to have been much progress for decades, but: Cure for hair-loss. Some might say it's just vanity, but if someone could come up with a cure, and sell it affordably, that would be a multi-billion, maybe even trillion dollar industry. Going from quite balding (NW4-NW7 in balding terminology) to a full head of hair makes most guys look a solid 10-…

Out of curiosity, what is wrong with the solutions available today? I see Elon Musk before and after and his procedure appeared to have gone great. Is that just because he could afford a more expensive procedure?

It works for certain hair loss types. It wouldn't work for Jeff Bezos for example.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#342

Post by tabtab »

GUI's, such as a GUI Markup Standard. Mobile UI conventions stole the show, but IN PRACTICE gui's still rule the office and productivity world.

Yet, our current web standards are GUI and CRUD un-friendly. To be desktop-like in a browser requires giant JavaScript libraries which are clunky and buggy.

GUI's may no longer be sexy, but they still run the backlots of the world and that's not likely to change within the next decade or more. Mobile UI's are a sub-set of rich GUI's, which logically means they don't have the same full ability. I could list several UI patterns GUI's do with fewer human eye and finger movements.

So, let's create a state-friendly GUI markup standard so we can have rich GUI's in browsers without requiring bloated buggy JS/CSS libraries.

And somewhat related, our current web standards have too many "positioning problems" such that they can't replace PDF's. PDF's are needed because end users (non-IT office workers) want WYSIWYG documents; they can't afford to go to CSS school.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#343

Post by khrbrt »

wussboy wrote: post #141
tomatocracy wrote: post #114

Single subscription payment for news along the lines of the Spotify model. I'd happily pay a single subscription which gave me access to ALL the news websites, and divided payment up based on which articles people click on. Do that without tracking me between the different sites and I'm sold. Pressreader gets close but it only gives you yesterday's print versions (not current online content), it has a few notable gap…

Paying according to which articles people click on has already failed as a model for determining truth and relevancy. We need to think of “one weird trick” that will have the same “stunning” effect but without the incentive to appeal to humanity’s baser instincts.

Agreed. This will only make clickbait and sensationalism worse, and starve boring but vital reporting on local government.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#344

Post by tunesmith »

Well, it's tongue-in-cheek, but more than once I've thought abut the ability to move somewhere without moving there. Like, if I live in Oregon, there's nothing stopping me from going on vacation to another state for months out of the year. So why can't I "move" there without having to physically go there? I think about this in context of the red/blue voting divide. If a couple million people in safe blue states "move" to red states, then the Senate would be more representative of the population. Or even to counties across the same state to break up gerrymandering.

I'm sure it's illegal in a bevy of different ways, though.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#345

Post by ipnon »

carapace wrote: post #203

Human tissue regeneration. Imagine being able to regrow limbs and organs! For a long time Becker's book was about the only thing out there: "The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life" by Robert O. Becker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_Electric_(book) Now there's pretty serious progress being made at Levin's lab: "What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous System"…

I discovered only about 10 million people in the world are amputees, having recently become interested in biomechatronics. Most of them live in developing countries. I suspect this is the reason for the relative lack of research. There isn't big money in solving the problem although its solution would be immeasurably valuable to those it aids.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#347

Post by tidepod12 »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #330
TrackerFF wrote: post #319

It IS being worked on, but things move quite slow - and there doesn't seem to have been much progress for decades, but: Cure for hair-loss. Some might say it's just vanity, but if someone could come up with a cure, and sell it affordably, that would be a multi-billion, maybe even trillion dollar industry. Going from quite balding (NW4-NW7 in balding terminology) to a full head of hair makes most guys look a solid 10-…

Out of curiosity, what is wrong with the solutions available today? I see Elon Musk before and after and his procedure appeared to have gone great. Is that just because he could afford a more expensive procedure?

Musk had a hair transplant, which is quite expensive and a quite involved procedure. The results are also highly dependent on how bald you are, the type of hair you have, and even the doctor who does it. If you accidentally pick a bad doctor your hair transplant can end up looking awful. It also doesn't make your balding stop, so you may continue balding and need another hair transplant in the future. Hair transplants treats the symptom of hair loss but not the problem.

The holy grail would be a pill or lotion you could take and truly stop/reverse hair loss. There are some existing pills (finasteride) and lotions (rogaine) but they don't work for many, and have their own issues as well.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#348

Post by sjg007 »

baron816 wrote: post #243

In-person social organizations. Social isolation is probably the biggest cause of unhappiness in advanced countries. Having a strong social network has lots of advantages including providing better romantic and career opportunities, as well as improving physical and psychological health. Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too--country clubs and fraternities have…

Meetup.com doesn’t solve this? I ask cause I work remote and meetups are basically what I used pre-pandemic.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#349

Post by Maximus9000 »

joshuakelly wrote: post #283
libertine wrote: post #13

Elderly care... in fact this pandemic showed precisely the opposite: our elders were neglected, converted into a statistic that dies more then young people. A complete lack of humanity in a lot of developed countries. This is the example we gave to the upcoming generations, we're fucked when it's our turn lol. I've been reflecting a lot on this, and thinking of ways to solve this, but it's not easy - it's bigger than…

Strongly agree with this comment. We hide our elderly in sterile, grey corridors and leave them to die alone. We have totally de-socialized growing old and the process of dying, we've totally dissociated ourselves from it - and when it comes for us we will wonder why we said and did nothing about it.

Check out the "eden alternative". It replaces sterile, medical-like settings with settings more akin to a home. With dogs, cats, birds, etc. Also, they try to integrate kindergarten age kids into the home where possible. It looks amazing.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#350

Post by torbital »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #286
gjvnq wrote: post #135

Business automation. There seems to be so much that can be easily automated by simple scripts. We just need a better UI and a better way to teach people how to use it.

This so much. Also I'm a big fan of chat-bots. How about a chat-bot that answers typical HR questions for an organisation? "How much leave do I have remaining this year?" -> 16 days. "Book the dates 10/5/2021 to 11/5/2021 as leave" -> Confirmed. Request sent to your line-manager. etc... I've seen so many bespoke web pages for these sorts of tasks. Including emailing someone in HR to do it for you. I'm sure a system e…

I feel the opposite about chat-bots. It just adds to the clutter of the website (along with cookie notification, asking for email signup, etc).

If I need help, I'll go specifically to the "contact us" page.

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