

Solve your first world problems - mhlakhani
http://www.firstworldproblems.biz/

======
w3pm
I am very close to donating! This describes exactly how I feel about the
Silicon Valley publicized on HN. Surely there are plenty of start-ups solving
_real_ problems, _hard_ problems -- what can we do to make sure _those_ make
the front-page more often? I guess all of the Instagrams getting acquired for
hundreds of millions doesn't help.

~~~
jaredsohn
A good start would be to name some of them in posts like this -- both those
that are being solved and those that should be solved.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Hmm,

Small business gets reamed on store fixtures and any sort of furniture.

Creating a market for piece work (people working at home doing small assembly
/ sewing / Etc functions) with folks who want to do small production runs.

Fasteners on demand, making the kinds of fasteners you want how you want them
right now in reasonable quantities.

Inventory management for one/two person shops.

Phone customer support on demand.

Essential network service (DNS/Email/Web/File/Fax/Media) for small businesses.
(I did this once before but its becoming more relevant, could be a 'software
only' solution these days)

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swlkr
Selecting each one of those things and being redirected was killing me.

Here's a shortcut:

problems = document.getElementById('problems'); for(i = 1; i <
problems.length; i++) { console.log(problems[i].innerHTML + ': ' +
problems[i].value) }

~~~
mahmud
thank you for solving my most pressing 1st world problem.

------
Dove
We treated this as a quiz for how familiar we were with various startups. Got
a good chunk of them right, too. I may need to spend more time working and
less time on Hacker News.

~~~
omarchowdhury
Here's another first world problem solved:

<http://getcoldturkey.com/>

~~~
Firehed
Just added it, thanks!

------
VoiceOfWisdom
The entry for app.net is glorious. I should have known what it was just from
the title.

~~~
prostoalex
It's a play on <http://www.ihave50dollars.com/>

------
Matt_Mickiewicz
Too many smart people spending a whole lot of time, effort & cash solving
frivolous problems.

~~~
sneak
Rich people in the first world will pay a lot of money to have their trivial
problems solved well.

All business are solving the problem of "we don't have enough revenue". That's
the only metric, here.

------
hayksaakian
'I have $36' - my favorite

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StuieK
Hey guys Firehed and a bunch of us put this together. Feel free to submit a
pull request if you want to add something :)

~~~
z-factor
Did you consider just making it a list of links? If you want to hide the link
targets you can do that with JS. Dropdown list is kind of unnecessary, I
think.

~~~
T-R
If I recall, I think the over-styled but less-usable drop-down list was a
deliberate decision, much like the call to setTimeout.

(I'm a housemate of StuieK and Firehed, and also contributed to the page)

------
greggman
Hilarious. Maybe we could add

* Entertain me because I actually have free time -> the movie industry

* Entertain me at home because I'm too tired to go out -> the game industry

* Make me dinner because I'm too lazy to cook -> the food service industry

* Help be get where someplace in comfort -> the auto industry

~~~
w3pm
I think you're missing the joke. Most of these apps are some nth-derivative of
those industries. Instead of "make me dinner" it's "an app to aggregate apps
that help me find someone to make me dinner, plus social networking." At some
point the value-add is so small it's truly a "first-world problem."

~~~
Rinum
He definitely got the joke. The point is that you could apply this to
anything. Most of what we have now went through some kind of value-add
process. Isn't that how evolution works? That smallest "value-add" could make
room for bigger change later.

~~~
RegEx
You're not seriously comparing the usefulness of automobiles to Instagram, are
you?

~~~
Rinum
I am not. It's more like comparing the second iteration of the windshield
wiper to Instagram.

~~~
saraid216
Gilette Razor. NOW WITH SIX BLADES.

~~~
tripzilch
The Gilette Singularity

    
    
        The interesting curve is the hyperbolic one, for two reasons: One, it matches the 
        real-world data. And two, it goes to infinity in 2015. And how are you going to 
        get an asymptotically-accelerating number of blades onto a razor? Why, you’d need 
        godlike super-technology to do that.
    

[http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2006/06/the_gi...](http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2006/06/the_gillette_si.php)

------
D_Alex
Mine is "I can't even be bothered to fill out the sign-up forms for all these
web sites you redirect me to".

~~~
prostoalex
Launchrock needs to have a premium membership option.

------
mahesh_rm
I vote for this as best 2012 HN post.

------
marquis
Still no solution for ennui?

------
gtirloni
I would be interested in a third world version of this website.

------
SeoxyS
Soon, I don't think even Instacart will be able to help with my Twinkie
cravings, considering Hostess just went bankrupt again, and stopped
production.

~~~
chacha102
In my case, they can't solve my problem because they are only in Northern
California. :(

------
joejohnson
The "my high paying job makes it hard to find a girlfriend" one is broken. I
think there is a typo in the link: "wwww.sparkology.com".

~~~
StuieK
Fixed. Thanks!

------
kevinconroy
For everything else, there's www.globalgiving.org

------
azatris
I think this should be retitled to "Solve the problems you do not really have
using a website that is as useless".

~~~
saraid216
Pretty sure that's what it says.

------
jevin
Hey, I think you forgot to remove Techcrunch's favicon.

Otherwise, I really love the concept. Good going!

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smcnally
the option value for sparkology.com has one too many ws

<option value="[http://wwww.sparkology.com>I](http://wwww.sparkology.com>I)
graduated from a top university but my high paying job makes it hard to find a
girlfriend</option>

------
viraj_shah
This is funny.

------
zmonkeyz
I love "I have 36 dollars".

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vojant
Really funny

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emrekzd
So this is seriously #1 on HN right now.

