This question is interesting enough that I'd like to see it as a partner to the monthly "Who is Hiring" posting. This "What Would You Be Paying For (If Only It Existed)" is a question worth asking again and again....
Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
51–60 of 101 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
#52I have three windsport-related ideas for you. 1) weather analysis I'm a hang glider pilot, but this applies to all wind sports – windsurfing, kiteboarding, paragliding, sailplanes, possibly even surfing and skydiving. These sports require weather analysis. Is the wind blowing from the right direction? Is the cloudbase high enough? Some weather analysis tools exist like http://www.xcskies.com/ for hang gliding and par…
I'm also a (newbie) hang glider pilot. This idea is a little further out there, but if anybody experienced with aircraft design could build a hang glider that folded into a backpack, it would be huge. Lots of R&D and tiny market, but they would pay tons for it. That convenience is one of the big reasons paragliding is more popular right now.
Dammit, how did I forget that. This is more important than anything I've written above. Make a hang glider that packs to 2.5 meters max and doesn't take an eternity to setup and break down (15 minutes max). The performance needs to be somewhere between a modern paraglider and an intermediate hang glider. It would be revolutionary to the sport.
Lack of such hang glider is #1 reason preventing willing people from hang gliding. The popularity of paragliding is proof of that (a paraglider packs into a big backpack). You can't store a hang glider in an apartment because normally it packs into a 5 meter long sausage bag. And I can't even go travel with my hang glider because where do I leave it when I sleep in the hotel? Too risky to leave it on top of car. A small package also allows flying at some ski resorts and other perks.
Designing this hang glider would be primarily solving a configuration problem – how to arrange all required components so that they are foldable and yet strong enough. You have 40 years of HG designs to get inspired from, and don't forget Princeton sailwing, that's an old, under-recognized concept imho.
By the way, hang gliders are small enough that you can truck-test them on the ground to make sure they're strong enough and have proper stability attributes. Unmanned flight testing should also be possible, though not done currently. HGMA even has a list of certification criteria online that you can use as a baseline. What I'm saying is that designing hang glider is easier than designing a Boeing. You do need to know what you're doing, but you don't need a team of PhDs in fluid dynamics and materials science. All important hang glider components are free to use, not covered by current patents.
Re: Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
#53Photo storage /viewing that doesn't try to sync my photos to a computer (making me scared of losing them in a sync mishap) or share them. Electronic equivalent of a shoebox. Snapjoy did this but Dropbox bought them and shut it down. I haven't seen an alternative - maybe the new Amazon photos does this?
Hey, I'm currently working on keepallthethings.com. It's not specifically for photos but it does work well for that use case(wanting to tag my photos in a way without duplicating them all over the place was my original drive for creating the site). There is no autosyncing though I am planning on out of browser upload tools in the near future.
I should warn it is very early days and there is still a lot to do and a long list of todos to complete but if you want to try it out send me an email(in my profile) and I'll set you up with a free account.
Re: Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
#54I have three windsport-related ideas for you. 1) weather analysis I'm a hang glider pilot, but this applies to all wind sports – windsurfing, kiteboarding, paragliding, sailplanes, possibly even surfing and skydiving. These sports require weather analysis. Is the wind blowing from the right direction? Is the cloudbase high enough? Some weather analysis tools exist like http://www.xcskies.com/ for hang gliding and par…
If you think your flight instruments are overpriced, I should show you the bill for replacing the altimeter in my Cessna. A couple serious questions though: 1. Would glider-pilot software running on a smart phone, possibly with an attached sensor, be a viable replacement for the Flytec devices? 2. How do you feel about angle-of-attack indicators? Do hang gliders have a good place to mount them, and then wire them bac…
1. Possibly, but iPhone's screen is pathetic in sunlight, and it's speaker is probably not loud enough for variometer beeping. Also, not sure if it has enough battery power for 4 hours of such workload.
2. AoA is too low-level for me personally. I'd rather see my airspeed and glide ratio relative to the air. Hang gliders stabilize themselves at an optimal AoA if you stop providing inputs, but sometimes when I'm desperately trying to reach the landing field I want to know if I should increase or decrease the speed to get there (tradeoff between headwind penetration and sink rate).
Also, personally I'm not going to install anything requiring long wires. There's just too much hassle already in setting up a hang glider... I just want to put the whole device with any sensors in clean airflow and forget about it.
Oh, one more thing I would like is a G-force meter. I'm not supposed to exceed 4G positive on my glider, but I have no idea how it feels like. I'm not going to reach it with normal flying but once I start doing wingovers and loops, I would like to know the numbers I'm getting.
Re: Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
#55Tax evasion as a service. Target the same legal loopholes that big corporations use to avoid paying taxes like "transfer pricing". You set up the offices and shell corporations in Ireland and the Netherlands for a Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich. You then share those resources (offices, staff, lawyers, accountants, etc) between your clients & charge a percentage of the tax savings as your fee.
This won't work. Tax authority will simply not accept tax deductible expenses which allow you to transfer profits to Ireland and will issue you new tax bill. Why big corporations can get away with this? It comes down to people. Little guy working at tax office doesn't have enough confidence to oppose Apple or Google but will have world of confidence to scrutinize unknown small businesses. I see companies like this po…
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Re: Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
#56Tool to constantly monitor domains I'm interested in keeping an eye on (competitors, etc). Crawl their site every day and email me smart diffs (ignore timestamps, randomized content, etc) of every page that changed.
There are existing services that provide services similar to what you request. Just Google for "track your competitors".
Is there anything specific that you need that current services don't provide?
Re: Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
the irs would hit any partners you use to transfer funds very quickly with deep audits at the very minimum if this gets even a little traction, i'd think
The goal is to get shut down. Best case, you draw enough attention to the issue to create some real reform in our tax system and bring awareness to the fact that we're hurting innovation by giving big companies far better tax rates than startups.
I'm not trying to be "provocative", but do you have any examples of this ever happening? And by that I mean any examples where a company has purposefully broken a law, was shut down and then laws were changed as a direct result? I've seen it happen the other way (technically no laws against it, shut the company down anyway then passed laws against it) but what you're proposing sounds improbable.
Re: Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
#58Please make my brain work better. I need a way to organize information that I come across online, get control of my schedule and find a way to manage my general learning process. Maybe a mix of bookmarking, google calendar and anki, with some event discovery thrown in. Then add some Tinder style social functionality so I can get a date or meet new friends. I wouldn't be able to throw money at you fast enough.
What is it about the current solutions that leave you cold? It sounds like google calendar, anki, evernote and Tinder could all work together to do exactly what you suggest. I'm curious what you think is missing, the X factor that another solution would be able to address?
Re: Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
#59Peace of mind. Take care of all my trivial stuff for me. Bills, taxes, money management, politics, corruption and other stupid distractions that stop me from focusing on people that matter. How much do you want?
There's a company where I live that does some of these things regarding your bills and saving money. You go in for an interview and you show them all your expenses, incomes, etc. They will work out a budget for you, pay your bills, save money for your goals, send you a bit of spending money for groceries, etc. negotiate with your credit card companies, banks and what not if things are really bad. They set up a bank account which your income goes into, but you can't immediately access it to withdraw funds. Instead you have to call/email them and ask for it, which is good for preventing impulse purchases. Fees are a few hundred dollars for setting up, which is worked into your budget so you don't have to pay upfront, then around $25 a week ongoing.
Re: Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm also a (newbie) hang glider pilot. This idea is a little further out there, but if anybody experienced with aircraft design could build a hang glider that folded into a backpack, it would be huge. Lots of R&D and tiny market, but they would pay tons for it. That convenience is one of the big reasons paragliding is more popular right now.
Dammit, how did I forget that. This is more important than anything I've written above. Make a hang glider that packs to 2.5 meters max and doesn't take an eternity to setup and break down (15 minutes max). The performance needs to be somewhere between a modern paraglider and an intermediate hang glider. It would be revolutionary to the sport. Lack of such hang glider is #1 reason preventing willing people from hang…
A bit off-topic, but not much: I always wondered why paragliders don't have inflatable compartments like kitesurfing kites do... My theory is that it would help with wing stability.
I have no experience with hang gliders, but as long as you have rigid skeleton you have problems with trasport and storage. Could this skeleton be replaced with an inflatable one?