
Ask YC/HN: What's a problem, any problem, you'd like to see someone solve? - Mystalic
Just name it -- something you want to see solved but hasn't been yet.  Political, technology, scientific...anything.<p>I hope to spark a discussion like the original version of this topic - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=442571.  More importantly, maybe someone will do something about your problem.
======
Eliezer
Safe liposuction. (Going to be a few self-righteous "just eat less and
exercise" replies to this one by metabolically advantaged folks who haven't
got the slightest clue how difficult it can be to lose weight when your body
doesn't want to cooperate.)

Alternatively, put some rats on Seth Roberts's set-point diet (aka Shangri-La
diet) and figure out the path of action, then develop it in pill form for
those of us where Seth Roberts's diet didn't work / didn't work well enough.

To make a lot of money, ask yourself where people aren't looking. Often the
place they're not looking is a place of moral blindness. Plenty of us would
pay just about anything to look normal. The moral blindness part is the people
being sanctimonious about fat being a sign of weak willpower and having no
concept of the actual science involved.

Another place to look would be fast, accurate molecule recognition array tests
for venereal diseases. Get it down to something the size of a vending machine,
$20, and thirty minutes (results sent via text message) and you'll get people
paying you every night. Again, moral blindness may be a reason why people
aren't looking as hard in this direction as they should to create lots of
hedons - sex is sinful.

Speaking of not looking where everyone else is looking, would it be too crazy
to ask people to do something that actually creates large amounts of value
instead of throwing sheep? Even if it involves doing something other than
computer programming?

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Safe liposuction. (Going to be a few self-righteous "just eat less and
exercise" replies to this one by metabolically advantaged folks who haven't
got the slightest clue how difficult it can be to lose weight when your body
doesn't want to cooperate.)_

Metacognition can help with this (at least until safe weight-loss pills are
invented).

The following worked for me: I taught myself to enjoy the suffering associated
with weight loss/fitness. Basically, I made feeling hunger/muscle soreness my
short term goal. When I didn't feel feel hungry/tired, I actively tried to
feel it.

Using that strategy, I went from about 300lb to 210lb. (Switching that
strategy off once I reached 210lb was also a bit tough. )

In the past year, I've used the same strategy (making muscle soreness my goal)
to gain about 15 lb of muscle.

To learn Eskrima (fighting with a short club), I also make bruises a short
term goal. This encourages me to fight people far above my level, which
teaches you far more than fighting people at your level.

------
kellogs
Making the publishing of negative data as prestigious and scientifically
rigorous as positive data.

~~~
maximilian
Make the publishing of anything scientific independent from Journals and
freely available to anyone.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Isn't that Arxiv.org?

~~~
natch
Do tenure committees and other such parts of the scientific establishment give
publication on arxiv.org the same weight they give to publication in
traditional scientific journals? They didn't used to -- has this changed?

~~~
kellogs
nope, it definitely hasn't.

------
albahk
"De-manufacturing" instead of throwing away things. A company that sells you
an item must take it back at the end of its life and break it down into
constituent parts to be re-used/recycled. i.e. cars, phones, computers,
fridge, house, office fitouts etc. Companies will seek to maximise profits and
so make things that are easily re-used/re-sold.

An example of a product like this is the 1981 Jeep CJ-7 I had when I was
young. I could swap in pieces from around 4 other models from a range of 15
years of production and they would work... nowadays the door panel from a 2009
BMW 323 won't fit a 2010 323, its ridiculous and leads to a lot of unnecessary
waste.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I don't like this idea for several reasons but partly because it implies that
no-one but manufacturers can actually "own" anything. In this model you are
only renting a product while you use it. This seems fine and dandy to you
because it means that you get to duck the responsibility of having to dispose
of it properly, and instead you get to put that burden on some "evil",
faceless mega-corporation. But if you go down this route you'll end up ceding
far more of your rights of use to the manufacturer than you'd like.

~~~
albahk
Just to clarify my original point, I don't suggest the consumer is forced to
return these products - merely that if I want to throw away my first
generation iPod then Apple should be the one that can take it back and reuse
or recycle it; after all they know exactly how it was made. I feel it's a real
waste to throw such a highly engineered piece of technology into landfill.

------
lionhearted
I'd like to see a way to get a non-government based passport for travel, where
the organization issuing it does basic checks and certifies you're not a
criminal and can take care of yourself. It's a bit of a catch-22, but if you
could get enough places to start taking this sort of passport for entry, then
soon most places would have to. This would be good for people who like to
travel to interesting places that are dangerous to travel with their native
country's passport, and for talented people with dysfunctional/oppressive
governments.

~~~
rmc
Dual nationality? Try to get a passport for a neutral country like Ireland
(all you need is one Irish grandparent)?

An NGO passport won't work easily. It's much much too easy to set up a NGO.
It's much harder to set up a new country.

And if your government is doing things that make it hard for you to travel,
then it's up to you to try to fix your government. :P

------
ordinaryman
Corruption.

It is a huge problem in India, I wish it is solved using transparent
processes, aided by software tools.

RTI (Right to Information) act helps in bringing out issues to an extent, but
those who file RTIs get threatened or can even end up being killed..

<http://www.google.co.in/search?q=RTI+activist+killed>

Something like anonymous or proxy RTI filings can help and all the results
should be cataloged.

~~~
Tichy
I would guess corruption mainly comes about because individuals can be in
positions in power. Ie it is not a real democracy and the legal system is
defunct? Just guessing, but if that is so, I don't think transparency would
help. The bribes would probably never be entered into the computer database
either.

~~~
ordinaryman
The problem with knowing if corruption occurred or not is access to
information, which was not possible earlier.

With RTI, officials have to provide requested information within stipulated
time frame or face actions - including suspension from service.

But, this is pull model. RTI application needs to be filed to get information.

Instead it should be push.

All Govt. expenses, the authorization details for those expenses (who made it)
and the reasons for making those authorizations (details of tenders received
and why one was favored over the other), should all be made public. So that it
is easier to find foul play.

All this is related to corruption in Govt. expenditure.

Regarding bribes, usually applications/files submitted to Govt. offices do not
move if bribes are pending. Now one can file for information on why some
particular file has not moved and if that details given are not satisfactory,
one can use it to file a complaint.

------
Qz
A better way to communicate between cars -- honking a horn seems kind of stone
age at this point.

~~~
ottbot
This is interesting, what sort of thing did you have in mind?

I think a horn is more about communicating between drivers, not cars, and
seems like an good solution for this.. In the "hey, im here!" sense, rather
than "hey, fuck you buddy!". It provides an alert and rough location that
doesn't require much processing by the driver.

~~~
khafra
Here are some things that I've wanted to communicate to other drivers:

"You might want to check the air pressure in your right rear tire, it's riding
dangerously low"

"Your left turn signal's been on for three miles"

"Your gas cap is off"

"The speed limit in this section of road is 45mph"

"Your coffee mug is on the rear bumper"

etc.

~~~
nopassrecover
Flashing headlights is a common indicator where I live for alerting someone to
any of these problems.

~~~
clavalle
Yeah but then someone flashes their lights at me out of the blue and my
thought is 'Oh, s __*, what did I do wrong? What is wrong with the car? Is
there a speed trap ahead?' etc etc until I can stop and check things out...and
it turns out that they just accidentally bumped their brights lever. Kind of
the equivalent of grunting instead of talking. Would be nice if there were
some standard tone set for different common signals.

------
YuriNiyazov
1) ubiquitous public transport. 2) Safe bicycling in most cities. 3) Better
treatment for chronic pain

~~~
tynman
It might not be much safer than regular bikes, but electric bicycles are great
for expanding the non-car commuting range of the average suburbanite. I ride a
scooter-style ebike that has enough cargo room for a few bags of groceries and
looks more like a Vespa scooter than a 10-speed. The headlights, tail lights,
and turn signals make me feel safer than my mountain bike. Of course, cars
don't pay much attention to mopeds or motorcycles either, so it's probably
just a psychological safety net.

------
arethuza
Digital receipts - I hardly need to carry cash anymore, pretty much everywhere
I shop takes chip-n-pin cards so I use my debit card to pay for most things.

However, what you end up with is silly bits of paper that I end up carrying
round in my wallet or stuffed into folders at work or at home.

Why can't my payment card contain an identifier that allows the bank to send
me a digitally signed receipt - I could get notification by SMS or email that
this is in place before I leave the shop.

There is a lot of crypto tech that could be thrown at this problem and it
would end up more convenient and better.

~~~
vishaldpatel
Grocery chains / big box stores could add it as part of their rewards points
programs. -> Attach email to safeway card. -> Scan safeway card. -> Receive
receipts via email.

But this also means replacing hardware, which is a more expensive proposition.

~~~
arethuza
My bank already knows my email address and phone number(s).

I would expect that the easiest way of doing this would be for the banks to
handle it all - when I buy something my bank gets a receipt signed by the
shop's bank to say that I did buy item X at time Y at location Z. My bank
could perhaps then countersign the receipt to link that strongly to my
identity.

It would be particularly good if the format included a standard representation
of tax paid (VAT etc.) - would make filling out expense claims so much easier.

------
polymath21
Online elections. Think of how many more people would actually vote in the US
if it were _online_. The 2008 election had 63% voter turnout, which is
historically high, but is nothing compared to countries like Italy with 90%.

Obviously, there are huge security concerns and it would be a logistical
nightmare, but that's what someone needs to solve.

~~~
lurkerperpetual
If not proper elections at least a whole population simulation before the
polls. That way people could express their true preferences without fearing
that their vote will not count if it goes to a fringe candidate and would
reassure them that they're not as few as regular polls and eventual results
usually show.

~~~
Robin_Message
Surely the issue is voting systems that do not rationally incorporate each
voter's preference equally?

Unless you're suggesting iteration as a way to get around Arrow’s paradox? I'm
not sure if anyone has tried it - could be interesting? But if not, then
ranking candidates get you the same results.

~~~
lurkerperpetual
Few voters will express their true preferences and will go instead with 'the
lesser evil' when they fear their option will be in a small percentile and
discarded. It is not unusual to have systems where 5% is required for a party
to get into the parliament, or for a nominee to get into preliminary rounds,
etc. So one cannot expect a voting system to incorporate all voter's
preferences if they are very small but a warm-up voting would reveal that the
fringes that big media avoids covering can become popular.

------
todd3834
A better way to meet co-founders. Almost like a dating website but instead of
going on a date you work on an Open Source project together with someone who
would be a good match.

~~~
aneesh
fsav and I built <http://www.clusterify.com/> last year to target this very
problem.

Unfortunately, neither of us is working on it anymore, and the site is no
longer very active. But the code for the site is open-source, so feel free to
launch your own clusterify and build a community around it!

------
paraschopra
A better, no hassles international payment gateway

(I know Paypal exists, but I am not their fan)

~~~
natch
Spreedly? Or maybe that's a layer on top of gateways? I don't know much about
payment gateways, so feel free to enlighten me on why it's not a solution to
this, if it's not.

~~~
dan_manges
Spreedly is a layer on top of gateways, so it can only support currencies that
the underlying payment gateway supports. Gateways that Spreedly supports:
<http://spreedly.com/info/payment-gateways/>

------
wyclif
Job search is very broken. Monster/Dice/Craigslist &c are broken. Not sexy, I
know, but I imagine the people who solve that problem will become quite rich.

~~~
aidscholar
Isn't this covered by Indeed/Simplyhired?

~~~
owinebarger
The best opportunities aren't the ones being screened by HR. Most job postings
look like someone got a description of the job from the manager, looked for
the sentence fragments that could be classified as skills or experience, then
put those in as the list of requirements.

LinkedIn is probably a closer approximation to what's needed, but as far as I
can tell it's hard to get far out of your acquaintances with a basic account.

------
dpcan
Keys. Why, in 2010, do I still have 10 metal keys in my pocket. Why?

~~~
wyclif
Because of legacy hardware. Getting loads of locks re-cored is expensive.

~~~
nopassrecover
There's probably thousands of undeveloped patents preventing innovation too. I
have a naive idea of how to get around the legacy locks problem without re-
coring but I'm sure patents would stop any development.

~~~
nopassrecover
Not sure why I was downvoted. A 2 minute search yields just these patents:

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7069755.html>

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5701828.html>

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5974367.html>

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5999095.html>

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6325429.html>

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6867685.html>

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6483424.html>

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6609738.html>

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5886644.html>

------
rsaarelm
A practical, robust method for separating essential complexity from accidental
complexity in software engineering.

Trevor Blackwell has written about something like this:
<http://tlb.org/busywork.html>

~~~
silverlake
Thanks for the pointer. Basically, Trevor wants the distraction of low-level
tweaking so he can think about the high-level problem. That's the weakest
argument for low-level languages I've ever heard. But Python fits the bill:
Python for high-level, C libs for performance and low-level tweaking.

~~~
rsaarelm
The big solution I was thinking of would have to go a bit further than
Python/C. Basically you should be able to write a description of the actual
essential functionality of a program without going into data structure and
algorithm implementation that isn't relevant to the problem domain. Something
like Prolog or Haskell here, Python isn't all that declarative compared to
them. Then you could write the bits that need tweaking in a lower level
language, but you should be able to automatically verify that the low-level
implementation matches the high-level description, at least through extensive
QuickCheck-style automated testing if a full automatic proof isn't feasible.
You don't get anything like this with a Python/C style solution.

------
chmike
Making Scholar articles open to public access.

Google scholar returned references are mainly to journal articles requiring a
fee. This is useless. Science should be a collaborative work like wikipedia
but with referees (not the narrowed minded one).

~~~
vishaldpatel
As far as I know, academic institutions have a pretty large budget for
subscribing to journals. If a member (prof, staffer or student) wants access
to a certain journal that isn't available, the librarian can arrange for it.

So in terms of accessibility to each other's scholarly articles, scientists in
academia or larger industries don't suffer from a lack of collaboration. Since
this covers most practicing academics, there is little incentive for the
scholarly publishing community to change.

That said, there are many Open Access Journals out there - I guess you're not
alone in your sentiments that science should be collaborative.

~~~
bricestacey
You can also visit just about any university and use their resources for free.
Most scholarly databases and journals restrict by IP address and many
universities don't require people on-campus to authenticate.

~~~
chmike
What if you aren't in a university or if the university is not that rich to
have an access to most popular scholar journals ? You are not aware of the
luck you have if accessing scholar journals is as simple as that for you.

------
maxklein
Something that prevents all this dust from gathering up in my home.

~~~
vishaldpatel
Let me know when you want those locks changed and the keys thrown away :P

------
petervandijck
Something (website) to replace my new car's manual with something that's
actually useful: teach me about my new car, common probloems, how to maintain
it myself, etc...

~~~
dagobart
IMO it should split up the manual into pieces below the level of a level so
one could collect those lesson snips one needs and skip the others. Could
apply for any other kind of stuff to be teached too.

------
d4nt
Solar powered 3D printers that use the carbon in CO2 to make stuff.

~~~
olalonde
Greatest would be if the printers could print (replicate) themselves. A new
life form :)

~~~
shmichael
There's already a CNC printer that can replicate itself. You just have to buy
the raw material. For example, see this

[http://blog.reprap.org/2008/06/reprap-achieves-
replication.h...](http://blog.reprap.org/2008/06/reprap-achieves-
replication.html)

------
petervandijck
A _good_ photo management system for Windows that is designed to be useful
over 10, 20 years (ie. keeps your photos stored, backedup, organized in a way
that's not too proprietary). Picasa is powerful but has a CRAP ui, iPhoto is
much better, but Mac only.

~~~
listic
Actually, any technology designed to be useful after 10, 20 years is pretty
impressive in our times. Which is pretty scary, if you ask me.

I've meant for quite some time to write an article about the fragility of
human technological innovation.

Here are some examples that I can think of:

\- I think I read about this case in a computer magazine: when the personal
computers just started to be available they scanned and recorded in the
digital form some ancient holy book so that it will be better preserved in
digital form from then on. The year was 1982 maybe, the computer platform was
not the one that would become mainstream and the recording media was some kind
of digital laserdisc I think. The irony is, some 20 years later they had a
really big trouble finding the computer to read the data back. (this is from
my memory, can't find the source)

\- Web platform once considered cutting edge (Macromedia/Adobe Shockwave),
cannot run on modern operating systems (Linux) 15 years later. No replacement
or emulation solution in sight; users depending on it are left in the cold.

\- Geocities was shut down on short notice, with no exit strategy for its
users 10 years after being bought for $3.5 billion

\- Belt-clippable, battery-operated mp3 players like iRiver T10 (an
achievement of its own, if you ask me) are nowhere to be found 5 years after
they appeared (appeared ~2003, obsolete in 2008)

------
petervandijck
Easy to use tracking of stolen car (I live in Colombia): put small device that
costs about 60$ somewhere in your car. If it gets stolen, activate via
internet service and it tells you where your car is.

~~~
silverlake
In the US, you can buy a $20 kit that includes a cheap GPS enabled phone and
some software that would give you this functionality. Hide the phone deep in
your car. When it's stolen, the software will locate it on a map.

<http://www.accutracking.com/kit.html>

------
tel
Engaging lay science journalism that doesn't suck.

~~~
TrevorBurnham
What about The Economist's science section? Or do you mean something a bit
more lowbrow, or with more multimedia?

------
jokingfeynman
Where is energy going to come from when the irreversible decline of oil
production worldwide begins?

------
lurkerperpetual
"Deprecate the base of Maslow's pyramid" Inventing cheap and healthy
concentrated 'food' that would allow people to eat once a month or even more
rarely. Almost all other problems have a root in our needing to eat (work and
cars, pollution, corruption, fighting for social status and it's
consequences). You'd have the autonomy and time to take long trips without
needing to carry much.

~~~
nopassrecover
There's no science in this unfortunately - if you gave someone a month's worth
of food in one meal then they are going to put on a month's worth of food in
fat in one day and spend the next 29 days starving hungry, consequently
slowing their metabolism and making them fatter.

~~~
tgandrews
What if something was to break down slowly over the period of a month -
possibly sitting in the stomach? Providing the correct sustanance on any one
given day.

~~~
nopassrecover
You're right, combining with a hunger inhibitor would be a great start.

------
adrianwaj
\- negation of the UN Human Rights' council obsession with Israel

\- Cold Fusion

\- medical imaging that can detect emotional patterns and spiritual energy

~~~
Robin_Message
I'm sorry, what?

\- I can't think of any civil words here, so I'll restrict myself to the
numbers 1440 and 13

\- That would be great, but since everything we know about science makes it
impossible (chemical binding energies orders of magnitude below nuclear
binding energies), why even ask for it? Why not ask for workable hot fusion?

\- We already have these technologies. Well, Paul Ekman did some really good
work on facial analysis, as did John Gottman, and they claim to detect
emotions from facial expressions. This could be done by machine vision. And a
dowsing rod is an excellent for detecting spiritual energy, although you're
right, a dowsing CAT scanner would be even better. What's that, the rod only
works when a physic is holding it? Damm.

------
krmmalik
I'd like to see someone solve the problem of (snail) mail. Its the one thing
that is really preventing me from living a digital nomad lifestyle. I still
have to visit my office at least once a week just to pick up mail, half of
which is often junk and half of which im normally too late for.

~~~
dagobart
The Deutsche Post is just about to introduce email that's guaranteed to reach
the addressee. <https://www.onlinebrief.de/> That would invite everyone to use
e-mail rather than snail, except for the (iirc) ¢20 price tag per mail.

------
niyazpk
I want to be able to use the internet without being really worried about
installing the operating system, maintaining and updating it. Heck, I don't
want to SEE the OS. Just abstract it away from my view. I don't want to see it
any more. (The same can be said about web browsers)

~~~
olalonde
That's pretty much the direction Chrome OS is taking.

------
Mc_Big_G
How about improving medical forms. I recently signed up with a new doctor and
literally filled out 5 pages, which all asked for the same information. Name,
address, social sec. #, insurance, signature etc... I felt like I was back in
1980. SO frustrating!

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
This should be a very simple iPad app...

------
s3graham
No keys, no wallet, no fobs, no cards (unless the internet-device wants to be
card sized).

------
vishaldpatel
Problem: Status updates and notifications from my bank, facebook, meetup,
server crashing etc.. aren't really e-amils but are being sent to to my inbox
because there isn't a better place to send just the updates. Also, if I want
to say, temporarily turn off status updates from facebook going to my inbox,
this involves going into my facebook profile and turning notifications off
there and then going back in there in the future and turning it back on.

My membership and communication information for many websites is also burried
deep inside my inbox somewhere when that isn't really email either.

~~~
abi
Check out notify.io and oovertheair.appspot.com. Would love to hear your
feedback.

------
DanielBMarkham
I'd like to be able to have lunch and chat one-on-one with a dozen or more
angels that have mutual interests and experiences as me, without having to
move to California or win some startup beauty contest.

------
petervandijck
An _easy to use_ tool to connect my blog to all my various accounts (twitter,
facebook, buzz, bla). that really focuses on letting me post easily. The
current crop doesn't really seem to work for me.

~~~
fragmede
As you said, (bad) tools for this do exist. What problems do the current crop
of tools have that prevent you from working?

------
joss82
Senescence. Although death is a good motivation for getting things done.

------
olalonde
University Research 2.0. It seems like universities are so lateeee on adopting
new technologies. Most of them are still working with printed scientific
journals / email / static HTMLs + GIFs from the 90s. They still do a lot of
stuff through the mail and the count goes on... If you don't trust me, just
take a look at <http://arxiv.org/> or MIT's website. I'm pretty sure there's
room for amelioration! If anyone wants to brainstorm on the topic, feel free
to contact me.

~~~
Dejen45
There's some progress, although research, and implementation/execution are two
very different concepts.

<http://futurity.org/>

~~~
MLnick
Mendeley may not be exactly what you have in mind, but perhaps starting to
take some steps in the direction of more collaboration / social approach to
research (including a personalized recommendation engine):
<http://www.mendeley.com/>

------
chmike
Lowering the barrier to share data and information between my different
telecommunication tools (phone, PC @work, PC@home, lap tops, internet caffe,
...).

------
braindead_in
Speech Recognition. Enough said!

~~~
EventHorizon
Thought recognition would be much more useful. And a bit scary.

~~~
dagobart
Then, why not push it one step further -- some generalized recognition,
independent of field of 'expertise' (well, we're talking about a
machine/software here)

------
dmfdmf
The problem of induction. No one has answered Hume, except Kant and he dodged
the question. This is the big question, underlying integration of QM/GR, the
nature of time, P=NP?, AI, a stable credit-money system, scientific ethics,
chicken or egg?, etc, etc. Once this is resolved, I feel sorry for future
generation (not really) because its "only" applications forever after.

~~~
khafra
ET Jaynes solved it indirectly in his book Probability Theory: The Logic of
Science(1). As a tl;dr, it turns out that knowledge--as it's defined in the
problem of induction--doesn't exist.

(1) <http://www-biba.inrialpes.fr/Jaynes/prob.html>

~~~
dmfdmf
I agree Jaynes made some significant, important progress. However, the
conclusion that the problem does not exist comes from Kant, its a dodge. The
problem is still open because Kant's theory of knowledge is a denial of ALL
knowledge.

------
rsaarelm
Establish conventions for academic publications that maximize easily machine-
readable content instead of looking good when printed to a paper journal.
Build a search engine that can answer advanced queries about existing research
based on the citation links, machine-readable datasets and formal description
language descriptions of the main contents of the articles.

------
natch
Balancing the real and significant perils of unfettered free markets with the
real and significant perils of meddling with free markets.

------
petervandijck
Take the concept of a cheap car (like the one they did in India for about
1000$) and expand. No reason cars need to cost 15000$ and up.

~~~
natch
How bad are the emissions on that car?

------
Ixiaus
Disclaimer: most of these aren't anything new or earth shattering things that
need to be solved.

I dislike having a gazillion different Instant Message accounts with contacts
that "only use MSN" or "only use AIM". SMS messaging may be a rip-off but
there is one thing it has achieved: uniformity.

Craigslist is great but it caters to the lowest common denominator - which can
be frustrating.

~~~
bpick
_Shameless self-promotion disclaimer_ I have taken baby steps in trying to
build a more intelligent classified site at yourgrounds.com

I too feel your pain, and any feedback you have would obviously be incredibly
worthwhile - especially if you want to help solve this specific problem.

------
faramarz
A better online shopping experience.

One area especially is customer reviews and feedbacks. I don't want to read a
review by anyone who buys the products.. that doesn't help me. I want to know
if that someone is like me. has the same taste in music, or food or whatever
variable that is closest to my interests.

This will help me speed up the decision making on the purchase in question.

------
chegra84
Personalized Movies. Based on your past viewing history, it creates a new
movie that no one else has seen and you can possibly share with your friends.

So it will notice your love for sci fi but it will notice you like comedy too,
but you dont like your comedy mixed with your sci fi. :D Using this info
generates a hollywood standard movie

------
dwwoelfel
Cheap and thin electronic paper. I'm talking about e-paper as thin as regular
paper and bound into notebooks. Then I can buy ~5 notebooks that each have to
ability to display any e-book or text based file. I also need the ability to
write in these notebooks so that I can store my notes electronically.

------
petervandijck
easy to setup music system: buy x speakers, just put them where you want them
(connect to electricity), decent music quality (varying sizes of speakers),
they all play music from one computer somewhere in the house (wifi). About 80$
per average speaker (not 3 or 400$ as the current systems)

------
vishaldpatel
A Real Time Strategy video game style interface for managing and coordinating
aid.

------
petervandijck
(this may exist) for teaching to drive a car, a way for the person in the
passanger seat to see exactly which pedals the person driving is pushing.
Should be cheap (50$) and easy to install/uninstall (10 mins)

------
arethuza
Augmented reality of the kind Verner Vinge writes about in Rainbows End.

------
natch
It's a problem that I can no longer find the 'save' link on HN stories - where
is it? That's one of my favorite HN features, even though I use it rarely. I'd
like to see someone bring it back.

------
scythe
Rechargeable batteries good enough to power a vehicle would be nice.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I think by definition we already have such. Perhaps you should increase the
specificity of your desire.

~~~
khafra
How about a re-usable electricity storage method with a power density equal to
or better than petroleum?

~~~
natch
Now we're talking.

------
quizbiz
cancer

~~~
Mz
Most cancers are probably viral:

We know that cervical cancer is related to the human pappiloma virus, thus the
annual "pap smear" for women. Warts and fever blisters are both caused by
virii and cause growths, similar to tumors. I can't think of any parasites,
bacteria, or fungi which causes similar growths -- and I've tried. (Anyone who
knows of something else which causes tumor-like growths, please speak up. This
question is of serious interest to me. Cancer runs rampant in my family.)
Molluscum contagiosum is a viral infection which causes growths on the skin
similar to skin tags. The cause of skin tags is "unknown" (yet it seems
logical to me it is some other virus) but they are described as "benign
tumors".

Although conventional medicine seems to find viral infections extremely hard
to combat, alternative treatment circles I hang out in find viral infections
very easily treated and offer a number of different options for doing so. I
believe that I and my sons have been killing off whatever virus or virii we
carry which eventually could/would turn into a diagnosis of cancer. I get die-
off rashes that include skin tags and brown and red spots of the sort which
look like pre-cancerous lesions. My oldest son has a very keen sense of smell
and has been around several family members who had cancer. He says he can
smell it when we have cancer die-off. Given my experiences with him, I believe
him.

I generally don't talk about this in public. My personal problem is that
people tend to either call me "arrogant and egomaniacal" or "a liar,
charlatan, and snake-oil salesman". "Arrogant and egomaniacal" is probably the
better thing to be accused of as it suggests people think it _can_ be done,
just not by little ole me. "Liar, charlatan, and snake-oil salesman" suggests
people think it can't be done at all, by anyone, regardless of the resources
at their disposal, much less by little ole me and my limited resources. I
don't believe any technology will solve my personal issue of being accused of
such things. It's an issue of "the hundredth monkey" or "mindshare" or
"groupthink"....something along those lines -- ie: No one else is able to do
it, so you can't possibly be telling the truth. To quote an old TV show:
"There's always a first."

------
Kilimanjaro
We are running out of (cool) domain names. Fix that.

------
tel
A catalogue of charities giving information about their goals and their
financials. Help me to help others most efficiently with my money.

~~~
lotharbot
Something like <http://www.charitynavigator.org/> ?

Lists charitable organizations, including their mission statements and
financials, and rates them within their specific fields. (A financially
healthy museum will look very different from a financially healthy feed-the-
children program, which is why it rates by category.)

~~~
tel
Actually pretty damn close to perfect. I'd wish there was a better overview
(multiple comparisons) so that I could begin to get a better understanding for
their ratings and charity expense breakdowns, but the information is all
there.

Thanks for the plug.

------
sb
a) an open source software repository of all programming languages/operating
system software implementations. (Note: <http://catb.org/retro/> is a good
start, but there needs to be more)

b) improving democracy by reasonable application of at least some of the
technological advances of the last decade; why hasn't that happened yet?

------
jacquesm
Real, free form speech recognition coupled with enough nlp that would allow a
dialogue between a computer and a person.

------
mtrimpe
Efficient purely functional data storage and the algorithms and best-practices
required to effectively use it.

~~~
bricestacey
Haven't read it, but there is the book _Purely Functional Data Structures_
[http://www.amazon.com/Purely-Functional-Structures-Chris-
Oka...](http://www.amazon.com/Purely-Functional-Structures-Chris-
Okasaki/dp/0521663504)

~~~
mtrimpe
Have (tried to ;) read it, but this just describes patterns for constructing
the smallest building blocks for what I described.

------
nopassrecover
Easy incorporated suite to debug and test (with interaction) all popular
browser/OS combinations.

------
rmorrison
Does P = NP?

------
ryah
build and/or packaging systems

~~~
mdg
Are you referring to:

[http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs/browse_thread/thread/c...](http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs/browse_thread/thread/c6236c1fba42b9fb#)

?

------
quickpost
Tinnitus.

------
ippisl
reliability data for consumer products. while the internet brought great
transparency for the whole purchasing process, this is really the missing
piece for good buying decisions.

------
petervandijck
Industrial-scale production of real bio (no pesticides etc) food.

------
natch
HN doesn't notify me when someone replied to one of my comments.

------
chmike
Getting rid of undesirable mails (spam, personal harassment,...)

~~~
olalonde
That problem is pretty much solved for me (Gmail).

~~~
chmike
I have another idea in mind. Gmail is just filtering. There is a limit to it.
Beside, there is no true privacy with Gmail.

------
dagobart
figure out how content is stored in brains, so we could skip learning and
implement/initialize knowledge directly

------
devinj
The halting problem (in finite time).

------
adamtmca
Space elevator in my lifetime.

------
warwick
Education for makers.

~~~
natch
TechShop is pretty good for that. But you have to move to Silicon Valley or
Portland.

------
lefstathiou
my two hour commute :(

~~~
lefstathiou
seriously though, we need to have term limits in politics - across all levels.
i'm tired of career politicians who have completely lost touch with the
reality of everyday Americans.

------
mos1
Predefined quantitative metrics of success attached to more (preferably all)
legislation, with automatic sunset upon failure.

------
dnsworks
The broken last-mile solutions in the united states.

------
mos1
Popularize the concept of pundits publicly applying percentage likelihoods to
their predictions, so they become testable.

