
Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build? - prmph
It&#x27;s time for another go at this question; we had interesting ideas the last time. What do you wish someone would build, either for your personal use or for your business?<p>Edit: fixed typo
======
sssilver
A single IM platform through which everyone can talk to everyone regardless of
their IM service, and I mean I wanna be able to send a message to someone's
iMessage from my Battle.net account, and then receive someone's Facebook
message on my Slack or something. Obviously IDK how this would be possible,
but IM is now broken beyond repair by companies that tried to "fix" it. The
list of IM apps on my iPhone keeps growing, I got Slack, Hangouts, Telegram,
FB Messenger, iOS Messages, HipChat, and Skype, and whenever I need to search
for a message I never know which one to look in, and whenever I need to
message someone I never know which channel is the best to use, and it's just a
freaking mess. I hate state of IM in 2016, and I hate the parties that were
involved in getting it to where it is now.

~~~
Razengan
This. It's baffling; we've "solved" email – anyone can have an account with
any provider and is able to mail anyone else – why haven't been able to do the
same with instant messaging already?

~~~
wheresvic1
Then let's just use email as the underlying infrastructure to message people!
You would just need to build a ui to make it look like you were chatting with
someone :)

~~~
Razengan
I was thinking about the same thing and just posted a comment to the same
effect :o

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12578338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12578338)

------
zevv
A slim, networked, pocked sized computer with a _physical_ keyboard, running
android or Linux.

These used to exist - albeit disguised as phones - but the marketing
department decided we don't need no friggin keyboards, and remove everything
but the touchscreen and call it a tablet. The result is a consume-only device,
on which it is all but impossible to input large amounts of text.

Nokia N900, Motorola Droid 3/4, HTC Desire-Z. These were the last of their
species.

~~~
mapleoin
Like the pyra/pandora? [https://pyra-handheld.com/](https://pyra-
handheld.com/)

~~~
gravypod
I just wish that thing wasn't so much money. It's definitely worth it, lots of
engineering behind it. It's still just a large chunk of change.

~~~
dTal
Depends on your perspective. What brought me around was comparing it to an
iPhone - similar price, yet it addresses pretty much every standard nerd
complaint about the mobile ecosystem (keyboard, free software phone, standard
Linux). I felt that _not_ buying one would be simply hypocritical :)

~~~
gravypod
That's how I feel. Then again, I'm a college student who can't afford one
sadly.

------
lunaru
I hypothesize that the list of ideas that will be posted here will make for
great examples of what _not_ to build if you're considering commercial value.
Developers and the HN crowd make for a very small market and are very hard to
monetize.

In that vein, I wish someone would build a list of things that regular,
everyday folks actually would want and use. The middle manager working at
BigCorp; the teenager; the stay-at-home mom; the retired; people who actually
want to spend money to solve their problems.

~~~
personjerry
Thought of this idea as a platform; Did market research; Not enough people
think of their own problems in solvable terms; Also a lot of problems are too
small ("mosquito bite") or general complaints about the situation ("it's too
hot in southern France").

Might work as a curated list, but then it is hard to scale.

------
neilsharma
1) More high quality news analysis content. Think NASA Earth Observatory, The
Information, or the best articles you've ever read, and put them behind a
paywall. Consistently making top notch content is hard, but I suspect it can
be easier if writers are paid good wages to explore their interests and the
news industry decouples itself from advertising. I'd pay for it, and I suspect
that over time, enough people would.

2) A personalized learning resource. None of this AI adaptive learning nor
passive MOOC lecture watching. Get people who know what I want to know
(usually job-related skills) and have them sit down and teach me things 2-3x a
month. I want structured, supportive, long-lasting mentorship from people who
genuinely want to see me grow.

3) A doctor that proactively cares about my health. I hurt my shoulder, but
aside from a 30 min physical therapy appointment once every other month, I'm
on my own. My posture sucks despite having a split keyboard, standing desk,
and doing exercises to fix weak muscles. I need someone to make me diligent
about my own well being, day after day. I want workout buddies. I want someone
who will pick up yoga just so I'd have someone to do it with. I can get more
health benefits from a concerned friend than a licensed medical professional.

4) Life training. Working in tech makes me feel detached from humanity. I want
to be a more loving person (I am one, but the culture distorts things and
makes me think about my skills/career/startups/work/money too much and life
too little). I want someone to help me take 8 weeks off a year to spend time
with family and go on vacations. I want someone to help me be a better parent
when I have kids (my parents aren't great role models). I want someone to
remind me to appreciate all the things I have in my life.

What products I use, how I store my data, etc are just sweating the small
stuff. Health, education, happiness, sense of community, etc -- fix my big,
recurring problems that truly matter to me as a human. Go above and beyond to
do so and pay way more attention to detail than most software products do
today. Relentlessly follow up on everything. Keep it human and personal.

These are probably not the answers you wanted to hear, but these are needs
that grow bigger and are usually unaddressed over time.

~~~
dragon_king
I am working on #2. There has to be some sort of incentive for the mentors for
this to be sustainable. As a mentee what can you provide to the mentor? What
do you think will make this relationship be sustainable?

~~~
neilsharma
I feel like the best mentor/mentee relationships aren't based on incentives,
but a friendship/concern for one another. A small handful of senior ex-
colleagues who I've worked with genuinely look out for me and my career
interests. It takes time from their day and often unrewarded intros to their
network. Aside from goodwill (and maybe a referral bonus if it leads to a
job), there isn't much incentive for them.

If we treat it as transactional, then certain relationships will never foster.
For example, if some high school kid got admission to a university I went to a
few years ago and wanted my perspective on how to make the most of his
education, I have no discernible incentive whatsoever to answer (assuming he
can't pay me). Giving a quick response is either useless or hurtful without
taking the time to understand his needs and wants. But that kid could probably
benefit tremendously if someone took him under their wing.

I think some people want to feel they have accumulated a lot of skills and
experience and simply want an outlet to give back in a manner that feels
effective to them.

Maybe universities can tell their alumni network that if people mentor new
students, they get access to premium recruitment opportunities on campus? Or
cities can give tax rebates to people who take an underprivileged youth under
their wing. Employers can promote more externship/shadowing opportunites and
give invites to the employees. Or maybe senior positions at companies should
have "train junior employees" as one of their top job objectives, and alter
promotion criteria to bias towards that.

~~~
kaybe
As I've been told by people who helped me, you don't pay back, you pay
forward.

When you're young, you need the help. When you've grown thanks to that you
give it forward to the younger ones.

------
GFischer
Sports (and events) Netflix/live streaming. That would kill cable for sure.

A curated "channel-like" experience for Netflix/YouTube shows. There's a LOT
of good content out there, but it's hard to filter. And the "channel"
experience of surfing and switching between programs has been kind of lost.

A different kind of smartphone, with actual buttons. Or maybe even what one
manufacturer (Samsung?) tried to do, splitting the phone experience from the
smart experience, with one ergonomically good device for calls, and another
for messages and browsing. I also very often want to be looking at my screen
while on a call (check mail, google stuff, look at maps).

I also miss the experience of the slide-to-answer on my old Nokia n86, or
flip-to-answer like the Motorola Razr. I could also make calls without
looking.

~~~
ttam
irt sports streaming: streamers/xmbc people have been doing that for a while
[http://koditips.com/kodi-pro-sport-addon-streams-from-
reddit...](http://koditips.com/kodi-pro-sport-addon-streams-from-reddit/)

there's even news of a crackdown going on in the uk with people who are
selling modded boxes [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/kodi-illegal-first-
man-...](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/kodi-illegal-first-man-
arrested-8889099)

~~~
djfergus
Right. So I imagine the OP would like a reliable service and not have to keep
playing whack-a-mole chasing unauthorised sources.

A lot of the 10ft apps available on e.g. Amazon Fire TV etc fall short here
too - I don't want to keep selecting the next 3 min clip, just instantly play
me a curated stream.

Mark Cuban had good thoughts on TV vs VOD many years ago e.g.
[http://blogmaverick.com/2010/10/26/the-value-of-your-time-
an...](http://blogmaverick.com/2010/10/26/the-value-of-your-time-and-how-it-
impacts-the-internet-video-vs-traditional-tv-battle/)

The issue is not technical, its the usual problem with audio/video content and
vested interests - regional locks, contracts, existing cash cows etc etc.
Tough for a startup to negotiate deals against Eddy Cue, I see the solution
coming from the big tech Cos...

------
elihu
An operating system with an interface that's a substantial improvement over
POSIX. I'd like to see statically typed files and pipes, and a built-in file
conversion solver so that if I have, say, a postscript file and I want it in
pdf format, I can just tell the OS to use any conversion utility with a
matching type signature and I don't have to remember what it's called.

I'd like a process/thread to be able to have multiple current-working-
directories at the same time, so that a library can change the directory
without effecting the rest of the program.

Similarly, I'd like processes to be able to operate on behalf of multiple
users at the same time.

I'd like stricter security policies that deny network access, file system
access, etc.. unless they've been explicitly turned on (like Android or IOS).

I'd like transactional semantics for filesystem updates. No process should be
able to see changes made by another process until that process does a
"commit".

I'd like to have a general command-line undo. I'd like to be able to do "rm
-rf /*" and then undo the operation and have everything be restored.

I'd like to have something like proc files, but for user space applications.

My full wish list is quite a bit longer, but that's good enough for now.

~~~
alexdowad
elihu, these are some good ideas here. I would love to see your "full wish
list". Can you post it somewhere?

More improvements on the POSIX interface:

\- Processes should be able to reserve some % of both CPU and I/O bandwidth.
So you can have video players, games, etc. which remain perfectly smooth no
matter what other processes are running at the same time.

\- I would also like it if the kernel and its drivers would refuse to 1) write
to the boot sector of any disk, and 2) reflash firmware on any device, _even_
if requested by root, unless the computer is booted in a special "maintenance
mode". That would eliminate persistent rootkits.

~~~
prattmic
> \- Processes should be able to reserve some % of both CPU and I/O bandwidth.
> So you can have video players, games, etc. which remain perfectly smooth no
> matter what other processes are running at the same time.

It is far from the nicest interface, but I believe this can be achieved with
cgroups in Linux (see `man 7 cgroups` "Cgroups version 1 subsystems").

The cpu subsystem: "Cgroups can be guaranteed a minimum number of "CPU shares"
when a system is busy. This does not limit a cgroup's CPU usage if the CPUs
are not busy."

The blkio subsystem offers "a proportional-weight time-based division of disk
[I/O] implemented with CFQ." Though this only guarantees a proportion of I/O,
not a specific bandwidth.

------
psadauskas
A stack for building web applications in the browser. HTML and CSS are pretty
good for documents, but terrible for in-browser GUI apps that we're all
building, its just piles of hacks upon hacks.

I want someone, probably Google since they own both a major browser and some
of the most popular web applications, to re-invent the entire stack. Steal
ideas from GUI-focused languages and toolkits, like QML, Swift, AppKit, etc.
Lets pull in a superior scripting language like Lua and widget-layout
framework like Qt, and support it natively and securely in the browser,
building on everything we've learned in the last 20 years of creating web
applications.

~~~
rimantas
What if in the last 20 years we've learned that browser is not the proper
place for applications?

~~~
dwaltrip
Why would you say that? The browser has become the most successful app
platform ever built.

~~~
EliRivers
I would have said Windows was the most successful app platform ever built.

~~~
kkarakk
keyword is was. no one is excited about making innovative windows apps, it's a
way to get your thing out to everyone but with all the traditional
blocks(users have to find and install, different configurations might mess up
your app etc)

------
cromulent
A non-cloud off-site backup appliance.

This is what I want (I know there are alternatives, but this is what I want):

A device that I buy, and can plug at least one hard drive in to. I give it
some sort of passphrase. I then place it in a friend's house and connect it to
their internet connection.

I can then access it remotely from my house. I can easily backup my stuff to
it. My backups are encrypted, both over the wire and on the drive.

When my house burns down, I can drive over there and get all my photos and
records and stuff, instantly.

I don't pay a monthly fee. I buy the device and then it is mine.

I know I can build this myself. I don't have time. If I could buy this I
would.

It would be nice if it was easy to use the other way around, e.g. buy one for
your parents and keep it at your house and automate their backups somehow.

~~~
jlengrand
Hey there,

I know it does not totally answer your request, but you totally can achieve
that with Crashplan; and for free. Simply buy a NAS or equivalent, place it at
your parents and install Crashplan on it.

It is not as perfect as a totally untied system like you want, but it is free
and offsite :).

I am a happy customer of Crashplan for a while but other than that I have no
ties there :).

[https://www.crashplan.com/en-us/](https://www.crashplan.com/en-us/)

~~~
cromulent
Yeah, I think it is close but not quite. It seems that you can back up to a
friend's trusted computer, but it has to be turned on. Plus I don't
necessarily want to trust them in that way.

------
webwanderings
Instead of building, strengthen the independent pipe which is responsible for
flowing the data/information across the Internet. I am talking about RSS. I
wish more technical and policy people would consider supporting, or reviving,
the RSS. RSS is practically not owned by anyone (like how email flows from one
platform to another without ownership restrictions). The modern API world has
proliferated silos and boundaries, which is ridiculous.

~~~
SwellJoe
After weeks of Microsoft bouncing every mail our server sent to any of their
mail properties (due to, I guess, some history on the IP before we owned it),
I have begun to doubt the premise that no one owns email. The major providers
can make your mail server useless to 20%, or more, of email recipients. That's
a pretty big club to wield. (I understand why a mail provider would block, and
I've instituted IP-based blocks on my own mail servers in the past. It's just
that email is such a mess, and there's not a good way to solve it.)

But, I would love it if RSS made a huge comeback. Twitter, facebook,
Instagram, etc., I'd love it if I didn't have to open any of them, but could
still follow my friends posts. There's no technical reason for them to be
walled gardens, only business reasons, which are at odds with my privacy and
general happiness.

~~~
watwatwatwat
> There's no technical reason for them to be walled gardens, only business
> reasons, which are at odds with my privacy and general happiness.

Then pay them! Hosting fees are not gratis.

~~~
SwellJoe
Where should I sign up for the "privacy-respecting, no-advertising" facebook
plan? Twitter have one of those, too?

~~~
watwatwatwat
Nope, but google is trying. See google contributor and youtube red. Start
there.

~~~
SwellJoe
Google Contributor looks neat, and probably something I'll try out...but, I
don't see any indication that privacy will be respected with their plan. Seems
like I still need an ad blocker and a privacy-respecting web browser.

It's unfortunate that something like Contributor can't be done in a peer-to-
peer fashion. It requires a huge player with a visible impact on their entire
web to be able to "sell" a different sort of web experience. That's actually
kinda scary; it reminds me how much power Google has. While I have vaguely
positive feelings about Google (and use gmail, Android, etc.), it's not great
that one entity owns such a big chunk of the web.

I already have a couple of subscriptions to services that provide music. I
don't know if I'll switch to Red; might try it out at some point. I should
read up on it; I do watch a lot of tech videos and such on YouTube, and if Red
actually supports the people who make them, that'd be great.

~~~
pitaj
Youtube Red and Google Play Music come in a package, which is actually an
awesome value. Red does support the creators whose videos you watch.

------
Arete314
A great-looking, affordable, modular home kit. We did it 100 years ago with
the Sears houses -- imagine what we could do nowadays with mass production and
3-d printing? Imagine if you could order a home kit and save half of what a
traditional builder would charge you? How would that change opportunities for
the middle class?

In a similar, Maslow's-Hierarchy-of-Needs vein, it would be great to have an
app that crowdsources data about healthcare costs and other data points in
your city. I'd like to know which hospital charges least for an M.R.I., which
hospital has the highest rate of MRSA infections, which doctors are highest-
rated by their patients, which insurance policy is the best in my location.
Right now there's little-to-no transparency and, just like in Vegas, the House
always wins.

In general, I would love to see tech take on disruption and increased
affordability in the areas of true life _needs_ \-- affordable education,
housing, medical care, healthy food -- and focus less on gaining tiny
efficiencies in tools and workflows.

TL;DR -- I need an affordable home, not a refrigerator that sends text
messages to my blender.

~~~
draker
You likely wouldn't save half, I would guess ~20-30% provided you do the
majority of the assembly. The era of Sears homes benefitted from lax or non-
existent building code (especially for electrical/plumbing).

You may also have problems selling the house in the future being it was not
built by a professional. In the near term you may be unable to get financing
(if you do, it will likely be much higher than a standard mortgage rate) as
there is no contract or guarantee the house will be completed; they are just
paying for materials.

One of the biggest costs will be the property. You need a lot zoned for
residential housing with available utilities (sewer, water, gas, electric) or
alternatives (septic, well, propane, wind/solar).

The lot has to be surveyed, plans approved by the building commission and
permits paid for.

The foundation plan will have to be drawn up by an engineer or architect
because frost depths and local regulations vary. An owner could maybe pour a
slab but likely couldn't do a basement on their own; either is best left to
professionals.

Now the person has to assemble the house. You could get by doing much of the
work alone but would likely need a helper for various stages throughout the
project.

Most of the materials are cut but you still need some tools which would be
another ~$2000+ expense; ladders, air compressor, nailers (framing, trim,
roofing), drills.

When it comes to the roof, especially if a 2 story house you will have no
choice other than hiring a crane to set the trusses. You'd likely have to hire
a crew or at least have someone experienced working with you because this part
is dangerous even for professionals. After the trusses are in place you could
sheath/shingle the roof yourself.

Once the shell in complete you can move inside to finish the house. This is
where your local laws will make the biggest difference in price. Some will
allow homeowners to run plumbing and electrical themselves, others require all
work be completed by a licensed professional.

After all the systems are installed (electrical, plumbing, gas, hvac) you can
start finishing the house. This part is most conducive to the DIY process as
it is all aesthetic. Drywall, flooring, trim, kitchens/baths.

TL;DR -- It would still cost a significant amount and require a huge amount of
labor from both the owner/builder and professionals.

~~~
douche
It's amazing how complicated and expensive we've made something that is
relatively simple.

I've built most of a couple of stick-built houses and additions (fortunately
in areas that have less insane regulatory codes), from the foundation up. It's
really not that hard to do right.

------
x0x0
A gmail clone with privacy monetized via charging me $50 or so a year. I'm
currently a fastmail subscriber, and it is nowhere near as good as gmail.

Fastmail specifically is deficient in several ways:

* gmail conversations. it is threads done correctly. Fastmail half-does this but the seams peek through all over the place. Eg you don't have labels, you have actual folders and those two aren't the same at all.

* fastmail search is still mediocre, and is clearly intended to be used via their graphical menu rather than typing folder/label restrictions or other modifiers in the search box.

* A gmail style iphone + android app that works offline

* better polish throughout the app (eg: if something is incorrectly assigned as spam, when you say not spam, message routing rules don't apply to it. If you create a filter, you have no option to apply to existing messages. I could go on and on.)

* spam detection that works way better

Fastmail may eventually be what I want however. They've definitely improved
over the last 2 years. Eg they used to use 2fa as a monetization source (10c
or so per text message!) and have recently made gmail style 2fa free. They've
also turned their settings UI from appallingly bad (it looked and felt like a
very junior developer's first js project) to pretty good. Similarly with their
rules routing engine.

~~~
skraelingjar
Have you looked into Proton Mail? I use the android app and have had no issues
post-beta. I also haven't gotten any spam whatsoever.

------
crdb
A way to use Mechanical Turk from outside the US. I've needed it with every
client I ever worked with, and I need it now and know a dozen companies who
do.

CrowdFlower has a de facto monopoly on the outside of the US supply and
charges an enormous premium for it - enough to turn off most of them. I
certainly don't want to pay several thousand a month for the right to submit
jobs, although I was ok with the 25% premium in the old days.

If it's an alternative marketplace, it has to have excellent automation via
API. I'm not going to use this for questionnaires, I'll be submitting
thousands of jobs automatically.

If you have built this already, please email me.

~~~
Freeboots
Out of curiosity, what do you use it for? I'm intrigued by platforms like MT,
but have never had a real use myself.

~~~
crdb
For my clients, the standard use cases for e-commerce.

For example, you might have 100,000 products plus another 5,000 new ones
listed per month. Your human error rate might be 3%. When a product arrives,
its buyer (the corporate person responsible for signing on the brand) gives it
a category and it shows up on the site. So 3% of the new products are
erroneously categorised by their buyer.

You give X human votes per product, say, 10. "Which of these categories
applies to this product?"

If the votes agree with each other, you can just input that as the category.
If there's a split, you can feed those products to a more open ended question
like "what category is this product" and use that as a starting point for
either renaming the categories, finding a new category, or tagging: if it's a
50/50 split, you can just tag the product with both categories.

This is all automated and used to cost me around $200 per 5,000 products.

Another example might be training a data set for a machine learning algorithm.
You send a data set to be trained by Turk and use it as training/test sets.
I'm keeping this one deliberately vague for now as AFAIK we are the only ones
in our space doing this and I don't even want to mention the space due to a
relatively smart competitor.

As a hypothetical example, you might be trying to predict the category from
the description, gender, picture features, buyer and brand, and the above
categorisation tasks can be used to train the algorithms you're testing out.

~~~
Freeboots
Interesting! Thanks

------
phycodurus
I wish someone would build an interactive teaching AI, (perhaps in a
mathematical context at first). For example, the user might start with a goal
such as, "I'd like to understand singular value decomposition." The AI would
interactively assess the user's level of background and begin instruction at
the appropriate level, leading to the desired goal.

~~~
NotUsingLinux
See Neal Stephenson, the diamond Age. Yes we need a tutor.

Furthermore many times this topic was discussed here on hackernews, with good
insights and further links. Now how to find those?

------
emmabruns
Maybe not so technical but as a curious person i feel i collect so many
articles in instapaper but never take the time to reread them.

I do read though, mostly offline. Books, newspapers and articles. My focus is
better offline.

Combining data mining and my offline focus, it would be great if you could
make a tool that categorizes my instapaper articles and converts it to theme
numbers (big data, health care, artificial intelligence, food, etc) that can
be downloaded in pdf.

Would be so cool! Thanks for asking the question.

~~~
harperlee
Or! Sent periodically as a custom magazine when the theme has received enough
articles / reach a volume threshold to justify the print and sending.

------
pjungwir
I would like a vi for spreadsheets. It should run in the terminal, and be able
to read/save csv/xls/xlsx/ods files. It should understand formulas. I should
let me navigate with vi-style keys, and have a separate mode for editing a
cell's contents (with escape to go back to navigation mode). It should perform
well even for very large documents (many rows or many columns, but especially
many rows). I propose that it be called `vc`. :-)

~~~
hiperlink
Like this?
[http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10699](http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10699)

~~~
guillaumec
I gave up on sc when I realised there is no npv function that accept a cell
range as cash flow input. I also wish it supports having different sheets per
document.

------
jakobegger
A people-focussed email client.

Pretty much all email clients are message/thread based.

I'd rather have them people-based: A sidebar that shows a list of people who I
have recently interacted with; and clicking on them shows all messages I've
exchanged with them.

I don't really care about threads, because people just don't know how to use
them. But even if they do, it often isn't clear when to start a new thread vs.
continue an old thread.

Basically I want email to work more like an instant messenger app.

~~~
icebraining
What OS? The only one I've heard of is Unibox (for macOS):
[https://www.uniboxapp.com/](https://www.uniboxapp.com/)

~~~
jakobegger
Right, I completely forgot about this! I even bought Unibox on the Mac App
Store when it came out! But while I loved the people centric concept, I just
didn't like the design...

EDIT: I just downloaded it again, and here's why I don't like Unibox: it has a
very low density design. It looks like a fancy website, rather than a
productivity app. Lots of space is wasted on frames and borders. UI elements
appear and disappear as you move the mouse. It's definitely a modern app, but
I seem to prefer more traditional apps...

------
MrZongle2
Simple, _user-serviceable_ appliances.

Not a fridge with an UHD screen, not a washer with Bluetooth support, not a
toaster that talks to the cloud.

Just functional appliances with a level of efficiency that existed 25-30 years
ago and can be repaired, rather than thrown away because subcomponents are
sealed black boxes with little regard to durability.

And after that, the really hard work: doing the same with printers.

~~~
jacknews
I agree about simpler, durable, repairable appliances. Eg,
[http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/projects/lincrevable/](http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/projects/lincrevable/)

One important aspect is to ditch the electronic interface (buttons, LCD, etc),
since it's often the weak point, both for durability and usability.

But IMHO you still need electronic control, for function/efficiency (timers,
complex wash cycles, PID temperature control, dirt sensors, etc, etc), as well
as usability.

However the UI should be replaced with a single on/off button, and bluetooth;
the complex interface becomes a smartphone app or web page, which can be
upgraded, hacked, and is in any case much more usable than LCDs, buttons and
poorly designed constricted UI. And if there were a few cheap (super-mass-
produced) general-purpose standard controller boards in use, rather than each
manufacturer/model having a custom board, then repair/replacement of the
electronics would be easy too.

~~~
Razengan
> However the UI should be replaced with a single on/off button, and
> bluetooth; the complex interface becomes a smartphone app or web page,

As someone who has played the Mega Man Battle Network series [1], I love this
idea.

In those games (highly recommended and well worth getting an emulator for),
every appliance and machine basically has a universal interface which your
"Navis" (think anthropomorphized avatars of Siri) can "jack into" and interact
with.

In the real world, I guess something like that could be implemented as:

\- Every appliance comes with an standard interface which exposes all its
controls and configurable parameters.

\- The first time you unbox a new appliance, you register it with your control
device (computer/phone/watch.)

\- After that you just use any app on your control device (like the HomeKit
one on iOS) which supports the standard protocol, to enumerate and view each
appliance's controls.

\- There could be different levels of access depending on authentication and
proximity. Say, a web page might only show you the basic status of all your
appliances, but being on the same local network will offer extra controls,
while physical contact between your phone/watch and an appliance via NFC will
reveal its most sensitive settings.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_Battle_Network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_Battle_Network)

------
jagermo
A smart bank account:

I want to set up rules like "take 19 percent of every incoming transaction and
save it to virtual account 'taxes'. Use this, account to pay invoices by
$financialAgency"

Banking hasn't produced any innovation since online banking, it seems

~~~
ciaranm
I guess you're not based in the UK, but monzo(previously Mondo)
([https://monzo.com/](https://monzo.com/) ) sounds like the start of what
you're looking for. Their API
([https://monzo.com/docs/](https://monzo.com/docs/)) opens them up to all
sorts of uses for your bank account.

~~~
djhworld
I don't believe they have a full banking license yet do they?

~~~
nickjackson
No, but we are led to believe this wont be long. They recently got partial
approval with full approval expected next year. Not bad for a startup that has
only been going ~20 months in quite a slow industry.

Money is currently stored with a third party that do have a license, so there
are some guarantees that money wont be lost.

------
hitsurume
I want Jarvis, literally the AI in the Iron Man movie. I want him to converse
banter and operate my computers / servers with whatever I need, and do it
FAST. Siri and Google are doing good things, but I want something I can host
myself so its quick, responsive and feels like i'm talking to a real person.

~~~
lgas
[https://github.com/felixrieseberg/JARVIS](https://github.com/felixrieseberg/JARVIS)

is a start...

------
carsongross
\- A legitimate successor to the original FJ40 Toyota Landcruiser, possibly
electric

\- A version of this watch (maybe even a smart watch) that didn't cost
$25,000:
[https://ressencewatches.com/watches/type-3](https://ressencewatches.com/watches/type-3)

~~~
djfergus
Which performance aspects of the FJ40 aren't addressed by modern 4WDs?

Is it just nostalgia? Or do you genuinely want a car that has readily
removable doors and windscreen?

~~~
carsongross
This is a very long story, but I do genuinely want that. That's not to say
that there aren't any modern improvements I wouldn't want to carry forward
(coil-sprung solid axles are better, good AC is a must have, leather interiors
are great)

What I'd like from the 40-series:

\- A no-nonsense materials and rawer, more authetntic appearance. \- Less
injection molding, obvious ways to remove major panels \- An upright sitting
position with small pillars and great visibility \- Authentic small details,
like kick-vents, metal bumpers, metal handles \- AK47-like reliability

The old pull knobs were great for tactile feedback when selecting various
options and looked fantastic. I can imagine a modern take on that that
incorporates the old, tactile UX with a USB-port/Phone app combination that
gives you more information and control, allows you to play music (why have a
stereo?) utilize a HUD for maps, etc. The phone would provide the additional
brains and the vehicle would function fine without it.

There are additional details to get right, such as allowing natural materials
to transition between one another (glass, rubber, metal) rather than having
class slam into injection-molded plastic in a hidden, impossible to get to
fold, and so on.

As I said, this is a very long story. :)

~~~
djfergus
Ok fascinating. If you like the design aesthetics I fear you won't be
satisfied unless you build one yourself...

I'm more concerned about entry angles, water crossing depth etc (it rains a
lot on bad roads where I live). Also safety, old cars just can't compete
traction control and 7 airbags.

Re reliability: is an FJ really more reliable than a modern equivalent car?
And for me, I'm not repairing my own AK47 so it's more about cost of parts and
availability of expertise, a modern Toyota makes a lot more sense...

~~~
carsongross
_If you like the design aesthetics I fear you won 't be satisfied unless you
build one yourself..._

I've resigned myself to that, which is why I own a 60-series, which is the
closest thing to a modernized 40-series for less than 80k available.

 _I 'm more concerned about entry angles, water crossing depth etc (it rains a
lot on bad roads where I live). Also safety, old cars just can't compete
traction control and 7 airbags._

The 40 had great entry and departure angles (My 60 has bad departure angles).
Most modern SUVs are horrific, really just slightly raised minivans, with all
sorts of junk hanging off the bottom to get torn off. I have no beef with
traction control, I'd just like a pull knob to engage it.

 _Reliability_

The 40 series was very reliable, and easy to work on by anyone. There have
been improvements in machining, seals, etc. and I'd like a modernized, inline
6 turbo-diesel. Since none of this happening any time soon, especially in the
states, I had this put in my 60:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woX_shdI2Xc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woX_shdI2Xc)

------
olalonde
An ebook reader/protocol that would let me write or read comments left by
other readers or the author(s). It would also be nice to be able chat with
other people currently reading the book, especially for more technical books.
Basically, make ebooks a bit more like MOOCs.

~~~
timecube
[https://hypothes.is](https://hypothes.is)

~~~
learningmore
This allows you to paste in a link and discuss the website, as well as gather
materials for research.

I'd like the ability to join many others who are learning the same thing. I
think we need a method of referring to sub-topics so others can join in on the
conversation. So many answers and information is stuck in forums with a
generic thread title. Information will only grow- how can we better self-
categorize the content we create so others can find it?

------
modeless
A social media, messaging, and news aggregator that screen-scrapes or
otherwise accesses FB, Twitter, Instagram, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, iMessage,
Hangouts, GMail, HN, Reddit, etc, and integrates them all into one unified
interface.

This of course would violate ToS agreements and various services would try to
block it. But if it ran as a local app instead of in the cloud, and it was
regularly updated, it would be very difficult to block with either technical
or legal means.

~~~
DjangoReinhardt
Well, I have been trying a hobby-dev project that is kinda along these lines
but I am almost on the verge of giving up.

The problem is, the feed/stream API endpoints for most of the services
mentioned above, either do not exist or have been removed.

\- FB and Instagram no longer provide them, for sure.

\- WhatsApp doesn't have an official API - the last time I test-drove Yowsup,
my number was 'blocked' by WhatsApp.

\- No idea if there's an API for iMessage, although I get the feeling there
mightn't be...

Screen-scraping all of these services is way too much effort for way little
reward. Not to mention that FB keeps 'updating' its UI/UX quite frequently and
Instagram doesn't show a 'feed' on the web if you login.

\- FB messenger is based off the XMPP protocol, so yeah, there might be a way
to access it without having to screen-scrape.

\- There's a free/paid service called Integrated Inbox which integrates
Google's services:
[http://integratedinbox.com/plans/](http://integratedinbox.com/plans/)

That leaves HN, reddit and the Google gang - is it really worth the time to
integrate these into one service? Maybe one could build the basic structure
over the weekend and then provide an option add-on different sites as a
'plugin'...

~~~
modeless
Well yeah, screen scraping would be required. The core of the product would
have to be a screen scraping engine that makes it easy to build screen
scrapers fast. You'd also have to commit to daily updates of all the various
screen scrapers to keep them working. Without that it would fail.

Perhaps a machine learning approach could work.

~~~
Senji
You could be a little bit more adversarial in the approach. Create several
accounts, have them each message one another. Since you know the message and
can use OCR, you can easily automate compensation for changes in the UI.

------
eterps
An app that trains you to recognize logical fallacies and cognitive biases
with suggestions on how to improve your thought process per case.

~~~
firezemissiles
There's the Center for Applied Rationality, as well as what the other replier
replied.

rationality.org

------
NotUsingLinux
Implement wikipedia as a Web 3.0 aka decentralized service using technologies
like IPFS.

To show that this kind of setup can be cheaper than what they are running on
today.

~~~
diggan
You might want to look into "Smallest Federated Wiki" by Ward Cunningham that
is looking into using IPFS for example:
[http://forage.ward.fed.wiki.org/view/interplanetary-file-
sys...](http://forage.ward.fed.wiki.org/view/interplanetary-file-system)

------
jkroso
An operating system built around IPFS. This would make the browser/native
dichotomy irrelevant by offering the best of both worlds and then some.

AFAIK the reason web apps have become so popular is because they load quickly
and don't require the user to manage installation and updating. IPFS would
achieve the speed through caching and the installing/updating process with its
namespaces feature.

~~~
drdre2001
How is this better than an OS based on http, besides privacy and democracy?
I'm very interested in this idea, I just don't know if "normal" people care
enough about P2P for something like this to receive mainstream adoption.

~~~
jkroso
Performance: With HTTP you have to constantly check if what you have cached is
up to date because it could change. And a bunch of other little performance
advantages.

Immutability: with HTTP you have to save things you care about because they
might disappear/move in the future. With IPFS you could pretty much always
rely on at least Google holding a copy of something in the long term.

Basically the idea is to remove the concept of local vs remote files at the OS
level. So as a user of the OS the file browser and the web browser are the
same application. They shouldn't even be able to tell if something is on their
computer or not. This could be implemented on HTTP but only as a prototype.

------
basch
a news aggregator that works. one where each person using it fills it with all
sorts of metadata regarding why they liked/disliked a post/comment/embed etc,
and then lets me use all the tagged metadata around content to sort it,
possibly with some AI to help me.

slashdot seemed like it was on the right track, then the simplicity of the
like/upvote threw complex out the window. buzzfeed came back with wtf/lol, but
its not the same.

~~~
lj3
I don't think the complexity of the voting system had a huge impact on why
Slashdot waned in popularity. That said, I can see a simpler system where it
asks you why you upvoted or downvoted and provides multiple pre-set "reasons"
for you to click on.

The problem is using those responses to find something you want to read.
Tastes and interests change over time. You might be obsessed with electric
cars for a month, then want to read anything but electric cars the next month.

That's the problem with using past data in this case; it's not a great
predictor of the future. Social sharing of information from actual people is
better and we already have lots of that. So what's missing? Why do we feel
news "aggregators" like Twitter and facebook aren't good enough?

~~~
basch
i think the complexity of tagging, moderation, and metamoderation stunted
slashdots growth. digg and reddit were much easier to pick up.

------
qznc
I want more apps for [http://apps.sandstorm.io](http://apps.sandstorm.io):

Accounting like Gnucash but multi-user

Issue tracker (maybe just port Bugzilla or something)

Spaced repetition like Anki but for lecture/class room use

Meeting management (prepare Agenda, live minute writing)

Hosting roleplaying sessions like roll20.net

Virtual money prediction market

Q&A Hosting like Stackoverflow

Somewhat meta for Sandstorm: Sell hosting in Europe, so european privacy laws
apply.

------
cm2187
A better and more modern VBA. Empowering non programmer office workers to
automate their tasks easily, and become more than click-drag drop-copy paste
factory workers.

~~~
taspeotis
Well ... there's a JavaScript API now [1].

[1] [http://dev.office.com/reference/add-
ins/word/breaktype](http://dev.office.com/reference/add-ins/word/breaktype)

------
mrsteveman1
Something web or smartphone based that can automate the process of examining
various health/exercise/diet event data points over time, and learn from them
until it can highlight patterns and events that may be related.

~~~
beisner
I've been tracking my sleep, my weight, my body composition, my exercise, and
everything I've eaten since Jan 4 (new year, new me, as they say). I was
planning on doing an analysis of my own data to see how things affect my body,
and maybe throw together an app like this.

~~~
matheweis
Here's a guy who actually got this to work, at least for weight loss:
[https://github.com/arielf/weight-loss](https://github.com/arielf/weight-loss)

------
nickjackson
A good open source alternative to Google Apps. Secure by default, amazing UI,
spam filtering and tools that will configure the thing properly so not to get
blacklisted.

------
Razengan
Fantasy Tourism [1].

A VR app or game that lets me explore (or live in) fictional cities and places
from popular works or standalone art. Like Hobbiton, Coruscant, the torus-city
of Sigil from Planescape, or the Venice-on-Mars from the Aria manga/anime.

[1]: [https://medium.com/@Razengan/virtual-reality-fantasy-
tourism...](https://medium.com/@Razengan/virtual-reality-fantasy-
tourism-a27fcfc5e433)

~~~
greggman
These guys are trying to do that for Kyoto

[http://kyoto-vr.com/](http://kyoto-vr.com/)

------
cm2187
A butler robot. Which will cook, wash clothes, iron, clean the house, fetch
and prepare a drink, take deliveries, etc.

~~~
rl3
Don't forget caring for pets, including walks.

It's going to be a weird world when local parks are full of robots walking
dogs...

~~~
cm2187
And even weirder when some assholes in Russia will have hacked into them and
the robots will be organising dog fights at the park with your pets, shouting
and betting...

------
enzolovesbacon
An operating system which is a mix of OSX UI, Linux flexibility, FreeBSD
network stack, and OpenBSD security.

It doesn't need NetBSD compatibility nor anything from Windows.

:)

~~~
watwatwatwat
Would you pay for it?

~~~
4ad
I would absolutely pay for it.

------
tommynicholas
API for sports data. If you want to build a great product based on sporting
data, it is crazy hard to get. I think someone that made the pipes to all
sports data (stats, schedules, lines, etc) could facilitate a lot of good
innovation and build a solid business.

Not sure if this is a VC scale business, but I think it should exist and I'd
love to be a user if someone built it.

~~~
CamperBob2
The incumbent sports organizations will fight you all the way. I wouldn't
count on getting the express written consent of Major League Baseball, put it
that way.

Probably the best strategy is to give people an incentive -- even if only a
social one -- to enter and maintain the data. WikiSports, basically.

~~~
Senji
Stats aren't copyrightable. You can build one without goodwill.

------
swalsh
I have a backup cam on my car, I want a little wiper on it, like my
windshield. Every time it rains I have to get out of my car and wipe it off
with my thumb.

~~~
ge96
Build it, Arduino micro, servo, Bluetooth module. What about the battery
though.

~~~
extrapickles
Can do something even simpler for cars with rear window wipers.

Take bike brake line, attach one end to the rear window wiper, and route the
other end down to where the camera is and use that motion to run smaller wiper
over the camera lens. Probably set you back <$10.

For cars without it, use a 555 timer in one-shot configuration+mosfet/relay to
drive a small 12v DC motor that is all powered off the reversing lights, so it
automatically does 1 wipe every time you shift to reverse. If you didn't want
the wiper to spin 360, you can adjust the pulse width of the 555 and use a
spring to return. This would also cost about $10.

~~~
lucaspiller
Or just get a plastic bottle and craft a small cover to stop the rain getting
on it. Mine is angled slightly downwards and is covered (the license plate
part and camera are recessed into the body a few cm), so when it rains it's
not an issue.

------
samblr
Editor's code completion based on deep learning.

~~~
uvatbc
I found GrepPage pretty interesting:
[https://www.greppage.com/](https://www.greppage.com/)

~~~
infinitone
Saw the video demo... i don't see how greppage is any different from the
usecase they were saying it solves (googling). You still have to search, you
still have to view the search results and choose a result and then view the
chosen result... Its a small marginal improvement that isn't big enough to
warrant it being another tool one has to remember and use.

------
slake
A fully open source business workflow engine, pre-built with a great UI for
the users to execute the workflow. Mobile friendly is a definite plus.

Almost all government software are essentially workflow engines. This would
instantaneously solve loads of problems.

~~~
hughstephens
Drop me an email if it's something you're curious to work on - this is an idea
I've been planning to have a crack at eventually…

------
fwdbureau
Something that kills proprietary feed algorithms on popular social websites,
and lets you browse data chronogically

~~~
balazsdavid987
One would need the entire dataset from the social website for this and that's
not something any platform would ever make public.

~~~
Senji
The extension can P2P with other instances of itself in other browsers and
share data.

------
jessriedel
Better reviews of everything. Solve (or ameliorate) the trust and
incentivisation problem. It's stunning that something simple and non-optimal
like Wirecutter is such an improvement, at least in the area of consumer
electronics.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
In Germany theres this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest)

Not great, but it does a decent job. I use Wirecutter a lot, too.

~~~
jessriedel
Yea. To a less effective extent, the US has Consumer Reports. But as you might
agree, these organizations are quite clumsy and difficult to finance, their
recommendations are one-size-fits-all, and they have operated pretty much the
same for half a century.

My Mom and I want different things out of a cell phone...

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
That sums it up pretty well.

------
vinchuco
Using Google's reverse image search for naming a folder containing pictures
downloaded from the internet.

Removing watermarks or finding better resolutions if possible.

~~~
contingencies
"Computer, enhance!"

------
cm2187
A thin, laptop friendly, RJ45 replacement. Wifi sucks...

~~~
gcatalfamo
or, better wifi...

~~~
4ad
I am pretty happy with 802.11ac. It's the first time ever I don't bother with
wired ethernet on my laptop.

I still have to carry with me ethernet cables and dongles (since I use a
Macbook without an Ethernet port), but when I find 802.11ac I don't use them.
I hope one day it will be ubiquitous so I don't have to carry all that crap.

~~~
cm2187
It depends on people's needs. Transfering a 4GB file over wifi is pretty
painful. Transfering a 50GB VM... forget about it.

~~~
4ad
Do you have 10GbE on your laptop? I only have gigabit ethernet on my laptop,
and 802.11ac is theoretically _faster_. In real life I get about 80% of
performance of wired ethernet, and this number will only go up in the future.
Today, I am _very_ happy with the 80% I get.

~~~
cpcallen
Curiously enough, that ratio is about the same as it was with my first laptop
and 10baseT vs 802.11b...

------
vinchuco
Just noting that many answers here are of the type "an aggregator for x" to
unify something (news, messaging, sports data, storage across devices, ...).

Perhaps interesting would be to find these themes that make good idea-
builders.

~~~
personjerry
Many small, money-making apps are just spreadsheets with better UI

~~~
meowface
Spreadsheets are just small-medium SQL databases with better UI.

The hard part is actually populating the spreadsheet/database and adding value
to it. Almost anyone can envision and mock up the usability aspect.

------
tracker1
I wish someone would build "Thunderbird" as a chrome application... Right now,
there's not really a good multi-site email applciation... even if it were
limited to IMAP, or on-server. Not sure what the limits on localStorage or
indexedDB are for chrome apps. Would be happy if it stored the credentials
online somehow allowing me to use it wherever.

That's what I'd like to see, though I get most of what I need with webmail a
cross-platform, portable email app would be really nice, where _I_ control the
data, not stored on someone else's platform, or from a party that doesn't
control the platform. Though I do think if dropbox made such an app that used
my dropbox for storage space I'd consider it.

\---

For that matter hosted/paid web apps... You buy an account on the platform
with X compute and Y storage for $Z/month, could be built as a shim over
DigitalOcean or the like... that just loads whatever apps you pay for, and/or
free apps on the platform... you login, use your apps and they stay there, for
you to access at-will.

~~~
pll33
> "Thunderbird" as a chrome application

[https://nylas.com/](https://nylas.com/)

[https://github.com/nylas/n1](https://github.com/nylas/n1)

~~~
patrickbolle
I really enjoy Nylas. I got in under the 1 year free membership thankfully,
but I'm for sure going to pay next year.

I've got so many different emails with different services, having it all under
one (nice looking) interface is wonderful.

------
amelius
1\. A worthy Google search competitor. Preferably open, open-source,
federated, respecting privacy.

2\. A platform where scientists can discuss publications. It should be a
"home" for every paper. Of course, also open, run by a nonprofit organization,
or perhaps even federated.

3\. A good open (xkcd-927-defying) standard for chat that everybody will use.
(Why can we have this for email, but not for chat?)

~~~
tmad4000
I would be really interested in facilitating 2

What's your vision?

~~~
amelius
I just posted what I'd like to see built, so I don't necessarily have a vision
:)

But a few remarks: I think that getting something like this off the ground is
more a social challenge than a technical one. The biggest question is how to
get everybody to use such system, and make it into a hub. I imagine it could
help if such a system cooperated with existing places which are often visited
by scientists, like sci-hub, arxiv. I'm not sure if Google scholar would be a
good match (because of their non-openness and privacy issues), but perhaps
they'd like to help. Of course there are technical challenges. Like how to run
this in a federated space. And UX challenges, such as how to handle
moderation. And also basic UX requirements like a good formula editor and
diagram editor should be considered. And there will be questions like how to
incentivize scientists to comment on their own results, and to help other
people (while not necessarily being paid for it).

Lots of requirements and questions :) It is a pity that I don't have time to
work on this myself. So good luck if you want to try this :)

------
kyriakos
An automated ironing appliance. Drop unsorted clothes in, they come out ironed
on the other side.

~~~
vinchuco
Sounds easy in theory but the machine would need to figure out how to sort any
kind of clothing and may require a lot of space.

How about restricting only to dress shirts and having an automated inflatable
dummy that uses steam to "iron" from inside out?

~~~
kyriakos
There is an automated shirt ironing machine I believe it's targeted to dry
cleaners though. Even if someone creates one for home use it will take a
considerable amount of space. Ideally we need something that can identify the
type of garment (maybe even material) and then apply a particular ironing
strategy. The only way a generic ironing appliance can be made is if it
replicates a human ironing in a press. At the end of the day though wearing
ironed clothes is a matter of fashion and materials. Might be easier to switch
to materials that require minimal effort to be straightened or just people
stop being concerned if their clothes are wrinkled.

------
infinityplus1
A big, high resolution eBook reader with fast refresh rate. And it should be
extremely cheap. A phone/tablet with replaceable/attachable screen, to add an
e-ink screen when I want to.

~~~
anilgulecha
These exist (except the cheap part, which is really state-of-tech dependant).

Look at Yotaphone 2.

~~~
infinityplus1
Yotaphone 2 does not have a removable e ink screen. I'm imagining a phone
where the screen is removable/replaceable with another screen (possibly
e-ink). Plug and play.

------
vinchuco
Something that classifies all my open tabs (or articles saved for later) by
similarity.

Edit: or PDF files!

~~~
popey456963
Definitely this! Would be so incredibly useful. I actually explored into this
a lot, the best way I found of doing it was via this API[0] or from building
your own neural network.

[0]
[https://developer.similarweb.com/website_categorization_API](https://developer.similarweb.com/website_categorization_API)

------
aargh_aargh
A PowerPoint replacement:

* multiplatform editor

* portable output in HTML/CSS/JS

* zooming and rotating à la Prezi (in addition to silly classic frame transitions that I never use)

* native support for SVG

 __don 't make me export to a bitmap

 __no need for a native editor (SmartArt) when it can 't beat Inkscape

* clipart, image and template library (drag&drop)

 __both a free one like openclipart.org

 __and a subscription-based professional one

~~~
codegeek
[https://slides.com/](https://slides.com/)

------
endriju
I'm in desperate need of scalable Apache Spark cluster available through API
that would make it easy to submit jobs that could process arbitrary size
datasets but would let me abstract away the scaling part of the problem. I
don't understand how there's nothing like that already considering popularity
of Spark.

~~~
unruthless
Would Databricks solve this problem?
[https://databricks.com/](https://databricks.com/)

They are essentially Apache Spark-as-a-service and have an API that allows you
to submit a job on a cluster that you can configure to autoscale:
[https://community.cloud.databricks.com/doc/api/#jobs.JobsSer...](https://community.cloud.databricks.com/doc/api/#jobs.JobsService.createJob)
[https://community.cloud.databricks.com/doc/api/#jobs.Cluster...](https://community.cloud.databricks.com/doc/api/#jobs.ClusterSpec.NewCluster)

------
thescribe
A system for allowing all the devices on me to mount each other's storage
seamless and make use of each other's various radios.

It drives me cray that I can have a phone with a 4G antenna, a laptop with
wireless, and a kindle all three speaking bluetooth, and yet they don't
transparently for my 'personal lan'.

~~~
chadcmulligan
apple products do this - but you have to go all apple. It's pretty cool - when
my phone rings and I'm typing on my mac, my mac starts ringing - so I can
answer the phone on my mac. Same with texting when I 'm using my mac. Same
thing happens with my iPad too, but I don't use that as much. I can play
movies on my apple tv to from any of my devices. Same with phone 4g using from
your mac when you're out and so on. It's a bit magical, but as always, the
cost is your soul :-)

Edit: why the down vote? not my fault that's how things work.

------
dnautics
Disclaimer: I sort of tried to do this but keep running into problems- an
Android app that registers an intent that intercepts Facebook's messenger play
store nag and uses injected js in a WebView to reformat desktop fb messaging
to fit my phone. If you want to collaborate let me know.

~~~
awiesenhofer
If you don't mind it's looks, try
[https://mbasic.facebook.com](https://mbasic.facebook.com) \- it still has
messenger capabilities, no nagging and is amazingly fast!

------
joshontheweb
A simple plug and play referral program to let your saas customers get a
recurring kickback when referring others.

It should integrate with stripe and let you configure behavior like adjusting
payout percentages after a certain amount of time has passed.

Ideally it would have an admin panel for each referrer so they can see their
performance.

It also needs to have pricing that scales from nothing so pre-revenue
companies can set it up and only pay when they are making money. Ambassador
wants an upfront fee of 5 - 20k plus they have mandatory "success coaching"
that is like $200/mo extra. Not a lot if you are already in a successful
business but rules them out for me while Im pre-revenue.

~~~
hyuuu
Referly did this before they pivoted to Mattermark:
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/refer-
ly](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/refer-ly)

~~~
wwalser
Did Referly have a two sided marketplace? I knew Referly as a platform that
allowed individuals (bloggers, authors, content marketers) to track the
referral links that they themselves share.

I thought it was basically a database of referral programs where Referly was
attempting to reach high enough volume to negotiate a rake from the company
already offering that referral program. I never saw them offering to setup
referral programs on behalf of companies.

edit: The answer to my question is: Yes. Not exactly what the top comment
asked for but it was close. [https://techcrunch.com/2012/07/23/referly-gets-
more-social-l...](https://techcrunch.com/2012/07/23/referly-gets-more-social-
launches-api-now-any-site-can-have-a-referral-program/)

------
xuejie
I wish we could have a web assembly backend for tcc. Emscripten is awesome
indeed, but having a lightweight C compiler allows for many possibilities,
such as online compilation within the browser.

If only I had enought time I would try doing that myself :(

~~~
ccostes
tcc?

~~~
mynameislegion
[http://www.tinycc.org/](http://www.tinycc.org/)

~~~
xuejie
Yeah that tcc, should've mentioned that in my original post, thanks for the
tip!

------
ericae
OKC for child care. Families are _different_. Right now there is no way,
outside of super-expensive agencies, to find a good nanny/family match.

Currently, THE website to find childcare is care.com . But when hiring
families sign on, usually they auto-generate a profile using check boxes such
as "We like arts and crafts!" or "Playing outdoors". So there is absolutely
nothing to distinguish one family from another. (Hint: All parents say their
kids like crafts and playing outdoors)

On the childcare provider side, since there is no good way to find the best
match, the safe route is to also be generic. Maybe I could teach your kids to
code and spin wool (true), but unless I'm willing to wait a long time for the
right family to find me then I have to downplay (or just hide) many of the
interesting things about me that very specific families would love.

Some families don't allow their kids to watch hardly any TV. Some allow them
to play hours of video games. Some families want you to refer to dinosaurs as
"dragons" because they are Young Earth Creationists. Some families want you to
sing Mormon songs. Some families are fine with an LGBTQ+ nanny. Some would
fire you if they knew.

I have worked for all of those families.

If that information could be gathered, and you could get a list of the best
matches for your family (or vice versa), then the huge Russian Roulette risk
of getting a new nanny/babysitter or finding a new job could be ameliorated.

~~~
infinitone
Interesting problem. I'm intrigued.

But you say: >If that information could be gathered, and you could get a list
of the best matches for your family (or vice versa), then the huge Russian
Roulette risk of getting a new nanny/babysitter or finding a new job could be
ameliorated.

Clearly relying on the user to provide that info will result in it being
fashioned to be marketable. So how would you ensure correct data?

------
contingencies
A vending machine that produces hot, customized meals from fresh ingredients
on demand. [http://8-food.com/](http://8-food.com/)

------
ollifi
I'd like for someone to bring "social graph" in to center of computing. Now we
have good tools for manipulating files/data but communication with others
seems like an afterthought. Which it of course is because of historical
reasons. To reach others I need to go through various platforms, which are
self-contained with their own tools for text manipulation and image
manipulation etc. Communication could be the starting point for new OS design.

------
slyall
A service that provides a URL for a song. Right now if I write a tweet or a
blog post that links to a song there is at least a 10% chance (even if to is
an official post by the artist) that a few weeks from now the URL will be bad.

Some official service that the label can update when it decides to change it's
"official streaming partner" would be great.

Perhaps it can be done without the cooperating of the artists/label. There are
only some 100 million songs out there.

~~~
madvoid
Why not link to Shazam's page for a song? It seems pretty static to me and
includes other semi-useful information, including links to online music stores
and youtube. Example: [http://www.shazam.com/track/52242019/wait-so-
long](http://www.shazam.com/track/52242019/wait-so-long)

~~~
slyall
Thanks, that look pretty close to what I'm after.

------
mamcx
I have the dream of revival of the xbase spirit. This lead me to the idea of
build a relational language ([http://lambda-the-
ultimate.org/node/5353](http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/5353)), and it
lead me to the idea of build a better relational database, where the LOG is a
first-class citizen (so, like built-in event sourcing), the db is fully
relational and other nice ideas.

------
tmad4000
A way to find other people who think along similar lines to me/have related
ideas

------
firewalkwithme
A thing that removes thought loops from the brain

~~~
qaq
Hmm alcohol?

~~~
firewalkwithme
Alcohol makes it worse. Need permanent removal

------
BatFastard
Cross browser, cross platform, bookmark manager.

Bookmarks feels like the live in the 90s still! Please tell me there is
something decent out there.

~~~
mynameisbahaa
I use this :[https://www.xmarks.com/](https://www.xmarks.com/)

~~~
BatFastard
Looks perfect!

------
alex5092
A lockbox for real estate agents that has a built-in video camera and
microphone+speaker.

I mean something like Ring (1) plus MasterLock 5400D (2) plus embedded 4G
mobile connectivity. It must not be a permanent installation (like Ring) and
it should not require visitors to be pre-registered (like Supra Keys (3)) in
order to access the property (for example contractors, repair staff, delivery
personnel, etc)

If something like this already exists, please let me know.

(1) [http://www.ring.com](http://www.ring.com) (2)
[http://www.masterlock.com/personal-
use/product/5400D](http://www.masterlock.com/personal-use/product/5400D) (3)
[http://www.supraekey.com/Products/Pages/Products.aspx](http://www.supraekey.com/Products/Pages/Products.aspx)

* edits: fixed typos

~~~
whamlastxmas
Could you just attach a smartphone to a door, and have open one of those Supra
lockboxes over Bluetooth? I guess the issue there is battery life.

I make prototypes of stuff like this as a hobby. You could use a fairly
inexpensive SoC that has Wifi/Bluetooth built in ($6), attach a module for 4G
connection (~$50), and give it a huge battery so that it can lasts a few
weeks. It would be asleep most of the time, and wake up every 2 minutes or so
to check for updates. Meaning you'd have to stand there at the door for a
couple minutes before it'd give you access.

~~~
alex5092
The cell phone + supra lockbox approach could work. One would need to be a
realtor though. Supra only sells through realtor associations.

Thanks for the info regarding the components.

I wonder if there'd actually be a market for this kind of thing.. i.e. One
person unlocking access to physical keys in a lockbox at a remote location so
that another person can gain access to something. It would be used in a
temporary installation, not like ring.com installed at a front door of a house
or remote access tech built into cars these days.

Another case of technology in search of a problem... :-(

~~~
pseudozach
We actually built something like this but for bikes.
[http://lockandgo.bike/index_en.html](http://lockandgo.bike/index_en.html), it
has data connection for remote lock/unlock and even gps to get the position.
There was no market. We could pivot to this easily...

------
bilch
A platform to connect information / stories / images / video / audio to
locations. There are thousands of small, mostly subsidized one-off projects
but no general platform for everyone to upload material connected to places
and create, say, a personal guided tour of their hometown.

~~~
matheweis
Facebook?

~~~
bilch
Ok, so it's your first time in, say, Anchorage. How would you use Facebook to
find interesting app-guided walks or tours, or a story told using RL
locations?

------
known
Genuine Portable Nuclear Battery
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densitie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities_of_common_energy_storage_materials)

------
hkt
I wish someone would build an open-hardware unlocked-boot loader phone that
could run any old Linux distribution I choose on it. It would be great to have
real choice and a hardwarm that could support more than just a manufacturer
approved Android version.

------
Lutzb
New devices in the sub palm top class. Something like the psion 5mx, but with
current hardware.

------
r3boots
Good FOSS 3+ axis CAM software, preferably OS-agnostic.

There's a quiet FOSS revolution happening in machine tool motion control:
several usable CAD packages (FreeCAD, LibreCAD, SolveSpace, to name a few), a
powerful motion controller (LinuxCNC), even a few open embedded servo drives.
But flexible, powerful CAM to glue these parts together seems to be the type
of tough niche problem, requiring a lot of domain knowledge, where anybody
capable of taking it on wants to get paid for their work. A lot like the EDA
field before KiCad gathered some momentum.

Not to ignore the work put into PyCAM and other small efforts in this space.
It's definitely a start.

~~~
caseymarquis
I think you could turn that into a billion dollar business. Start a
consultative CAM company which used a commercial CAM software. Work closely
with businesses to perform their CAM work for them. You'd need quick turn
around and likely to do a lot of traveling. You'd need to hire some top notch
NC programmers. Simultaneously hire some top notch software developers with
either CAM or 3D graphics backgrounds. Initially have the NC programmers do
all the work manually, then have the developers automate away processes so
that the CAM work gradually becomes easier. The final goal would be to have
software which is capable of taking data from a library of machine/control
definitions you've built up doing work and using it to go straight from a CAD
file to NC code; skipping the entire CAM process. In the end I think you'd
have a cloud service which users uploaded CAD files to and downloaded NC files
from. You could integrate this a step further by monitoring machine
performance and integrating it with file generation. At that point you're in
the "How could we apply machine learning to this?" territory. The neat thing
is that you'd basically have the same upload/download workflow whether it was
people or software doing the actual NC code generation, and that 3rd party NC
code generation is a service which companies already pay for from small
contractors. The biggest challenge would be liability in running the NC code.
You'd need to work out all the contracts and having knowledgeable NC
programmers would be key. Open source CAM software could be a side effect of
this, something developed along the way to cut on scaling costs; if that makes
sense. Though, just eliminating the manual CAM process would be the final
goal, so I probably wouldn't invest too heavily into that. There's a million
things which could be branched out into once integrated this heavily in the
manufacturing process. You'd probably need about the standard YC handout to
make the initial website and prove you could get orders to do the CAM work
(this could potentially pivot into cloud based manufacturing management or
services trade). You'd then need a couple million to actually hire NC
programmers and computer programmers and deal with business costs. If you
really wanted to do it right, add a couple million on to that for in house
machines. At that point you're going to make back the investment money as the
Uber of CAM services, and then, if you can pull off the engineering, you
automate away the CAM process all together and completely change how
subtractive manufacturing is done world wide.

------
maga
Under 8" phablet with x86 processor and Thunderbolt for external graphics.

------
ashbrahma
A gmail application that would parse through your email (old and new) and
collect all contact information without having to do this manually. Especially
helpful if this can be done for older backed up email.

~~~
ww520
This can be useful. Connecting to Pop3/Imap to collect the data is not too
bad.

------
hkmurakami
A LinkedIn that's not super awkward to use wrt personal relationships.

~~~
CamperBob2
Isn't that the idea behind Google+?

~~~
ccostes
I'm not sure anybody really knows the idea behind Google+.

------
whamlastxmas
Adblock filter list that filtered entire websites for annoying features (full
screen modals asking for email).

------
DdCb7Qlk2lyaw
An operating system which would run all modern games and be good enough for
development such like the Linux is (i.e. being posix compliant-ish and have
all the open source tools helps). I think open source MS Windows with all the
spyware removed would be nice.

~~~
mynameislegion
[https://www.reactos.org/](https://www.reactos.org/)

~~~
DdCb7Qlk2lyaw
Yeah, there's hope.

------
samat
I would love and use a fastlane-like tool for google apps. Tired or setting up
google groups for mailing lists and adding users to them manually. I've wrote
bunch of scripts some years ago, but I'd love more complete and "proper"
solution.

------
JBlue42
Better humans

~~~
benevol
Feeling lonely, Adolf?

~~~
JBlue42
Nah. Frustrated with management at work. Maybe hoping to HN right after I got
home was a bad idea.

------
minikomi
A decent solution for adding to / viewing Org-mode files on iOS.

MobileOrg is abandoned and was super clunky for editing. Currently I use IFTTT
do note to append to a txt file in Dropbox which is re-filed later using a
python script, but it's hacky..

~~~
tmad4000
I do something similar, except I have a shell script that pipes my notes out
of Letterspace into a single giant text file, which I made a little web tool
to filter by hashtags. Know anyone else who has this problem?

Also, do you happen to have the pain point of not being able to connect a
related notes with current org-mode as well?

------
m1sta_
A usb-c wall charger with inbuilt hdmi and usb-a. Single device with prongs
and ports.

~~~
whamlastxmas
So you can hook your TV's HDMI up to the wall outlet? I don't get it.

~~~
drwicked
Presumably so you can "dock" your USB-C device near your TV/Monitor, output
your device through HDMI and be able to use peripherals all with just one
plug.

~~~
whamlastxmas
Makes sense, thanks

------
tmad4000
Good personal note taking software that allows me to easily connect related
notes

------
psyc
A large p2p network for arbitrary content that's encrypted and anonymous by
default. If only people cared as much about freedom of speech as they do about
watching movies and playing video games for free.

~~~
whamlastxmas
Anonymous how? It'd have to be built on top of a network that worked like the
Onion network. At which point there'd be absolutely massive overhead, and you
can already today just use the Onion network to torrent (though it's a pretty
dick move to do so).

~~~
psyc
Anonymous means your ISP knows _that_ you connected to this network, and
neither they nor anybody else knows anything else.

Tor has a lot of weaknesses, but yes I'm just talking about a better Tor.

What I want is a network designed so that it's mathematically impossible for
person, government, or LEO to regulate the transmission of any given bit from
one place to another. The whole point would be to eliminate all the
pontificating, moralizing, and witch-hunting currently still associated with
transmitting bits.

~~~
whamlastxmas
I'm not sure 100% fool proof anonymous digital communication can exist. You
can always trace the source of a digital signal. Bitmessage is a pretty cool
solution that is "close enough" in my opinion. You should check that out.

~~~
psyc
At a glance, that looks awesome. Thanks.

------
rianjs
MoneyGuidePro for individuals, instead of just financial advisors.

~~~
ccostes
That's a pretty neat idea to use simulation as part of financial planning. I
know I've seen general projections of retirement money, but using the
simulation as an interactive tool to help tailor the plan makes it seem much
more personalized and useful (though who knows if that is actually the case).

I'm not sure how successful this could be targeted at individuals without
being integrated with some other financial product like a retirement account
provider, though. It would certainly be nice to have something like Mint for
retirement to consolidate and track overall allocations over many accounts
from different providers.

------
prmejc
Who is this app. You take a picture of a person and app looks through your fb
and LinkedIn contacts and gives you short description if you know this person
and their interests.

~~~
rawnlq
Like this?
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/17/findface-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/17/findface-
face-recognition-app-end-public-anonymity-vkontakte)

------
collyw
A news source with objective reporting. Links to statistics showing relative
risk of say a terrorist attack and compare it to something common like a car
crash.

------
p0nce
1/ Better laptop stands, that don't make the problem worse. 2/ Computer that
lets me walk and ride a bicycle while working.

~~~
icebraining
Regarding (2), here's some inspiration:
[http://hackaday.com/2009/09/18/vintage-video-computing-
acros...](http://hackaday.com/2009/09/18/vintage-video-computing-across-
america/)

------
mynameisbahaa
A computer monitor that has 0 backlight bleed, 0 uniformity problems, support
wide viewing angle, factory calibrated, and AFFORDABLE.

------
mrgleeco
so this may be real:
[http://atmotube.com/atmotube_user_manual.pdf](http://atmotube.com/atmotube_user_manual.pdf)

If every urban commuter biker had this w/ phone+gps app, the dataset over time
would become very interesting on many levels. Think local governments, real
estate, state tranpo authorities etc.

~~~
whamlastxmas
I make prototypes of stuff like this as a hobby. This is about $15 worth of
easily purchased hardware. It'd make more sense to place them in permanent
installations around a city - put them on top of traffic lights with a solar
panel. People can't reach them and they'll run forever untouched. Have
volunteers use an app on their phone that will connect to them via WiFi as
they drive past to collect their data. This means not having an expensive
(service + hardware both) cell connection needed for the units.

Alternatively, you can attach 433MHz radios to them and place them within
about 300 feet of each other so they can all link up and share data and upload
through a single unit close enough to a free/open WiFi network.

------
enzolovesbacon
Dirt cheap, stylish, recyclable clothing.

I really like this idea.

------
apapli
A way for me to get what is in my head on paper without having to write it. Or
30 hours in a single day, whichever is easier :)

~~~
whamlastxmas
Voice to text?

~~~
erklik
Brain-Reading.

------
vinchuco
Game: Something between overthrown.io and ingress.

Even greater would be if battles had to be waged in real-life like sports
events.

------
WA
Fully automated German tax reports for stocks, ETFs, dividends.

Right now, ETFs and their various taxes can be a pain in the ass.

~~~
WA
Because I was asked via email, here's some explanation.

I'm a beginner in the whole ETF investment area and my English financial
vocabulary is quite limited. Here's what I know:

There are several factors that make taxes on ETFs either easy (nothing to do,
all is done automatically) or tough (you need to figure out everything by
yourself). These are:

\- Location of the company issuing the ETF. Germany: Easy. Luxembourg or
France: Not necessarily easy.

\- Do the ETFs fully replicate or are they swap-based?

\- Do they pay dividends or are dividends reinvested?

From my understanding, if ETFs are reinvesting dividends, they must pay
withholding tax. But the issuing company says they don't own the assets and
every individual investor must declare how much withholding tax was paid. This
can become quite cumbersome, because for every ETF you own, you must find
documents which show exactly how they're structured and how much tax was
paid/not paid. This situation can also become easy if the ETF swaps or hard if
it replicates.

From discussions in German investment forums, I take that individuals usually
separate between tax-friendly and tax-complicated ETFs. If you don't want the
hassle, this would exclude some ETFs (e. g. there are no German-issued MSCI
ACWI ETFs and you'd need to buy a tax-complicated ETF from a company in France
or Luxembourg).

------
x1798DE
I would like a practical heads up display, powered by a local, open platform,
not a cloud-based walled garden.

------
firezemissiles
A service for finding accountability partners that's more than a barely active
subreddit.

------
soulbadguy
A good native gui based profiler. Essentially an affordable version of intel
Vtune.

------
cm2187
An iphone 7 with an audio jack

------
tboyd47
This is more of a re-engineering of modern society. I want a drone that
carries babies and small children and follows you around. It can follow your
car or follow you into large stores like Target and Walmart. That way I can go
about my day with my kids effortlessly hovering around at all times.

~~~
loco5niner
Hopefully such a drone is hack-proof...

~~~
tboyd47
Of course it is.

------
Jemaclus
Waterproof hearing aids.

Hey, a man can dream.

------
gravypod
A webtorrent-backed youtube, soundcloud, and social network.

------
johanneskanybal
A good vive vr game

~~~
dnautics
The mini golf game is the only one I play on my roommate's vive. Highly
recommended.

There may be some confirmation bias here though because before the vive came
out I declared that a VR zany golf would be the only VR game I would play.

------
blizkreeg
An aerial personal transportation vehicle.

~~~
ehnto
I don't believe it will be a widespread way to travel until it's automated.
Humans can barely handle the two dimensions of driving a car in traffic, throw
in vertical movement and the inherent risk of being much higher in the sky if
you do hit someone else, and it would be a disaster.

Personal flying cars/vehicles are technologically feasible, they're just not
an idea that could be part of mass transit unless all the nodes were
controlled by some central controller.

That said there are some really cool personal planes/helicopters and even some
people making reliable Jetpacks and Jet.. hover.. pad. Things. So it will be
fun to see how they progress, even if it's not for transport.

------
qaq
openSolaris based desktop OS with OS X style GUI

------
tajen
A paid Linux.

To get stunning UX design, upstream bugfixing and excellent marketing.

Let me explain myself. I love the levels of ergonomy and polish of Mac OS X.
But it's closed-source software. If I use (and pay) Ubuntu, then great patches
are sent upstream, which I can use in Debian on my servers and Arduinos. It
becomes useful to everyone. With Mac OS X, we're not advancing the world. But
when I used Ubuntu for work, I was impaired compared to my colleagues. Blame
it on a lack of seniority, but a steep learning curve for my OS is the last
thing I want at work. So no Ubuntu, no elementary.io, nothing that has rough
edges.

What allows Apple to hire UX designers and do bugfixing is the revenue. Which
in turns gets them a good marketing team, which persuades the world of
adopting their software. Linux misses advocates towards B2B, B2C and B2Gov. If
we want adoption, we need a stable income, to improve UX patterns, bugfixing
and marketing.

The FSF says it's ok to sell open-source software, but you just can't prevent
people from redistributing. So it's possible to design a system that requires
a yearly fee to access the upgrade repositories. Of course hackers will find
ways around, publish a torrent, or choose not to upgrade. But the majority of
people want a system that "just works" and have money to put down for this
service. Businesses, programmer shops, owners of Teslas and iMacs don't want
to download their OS from an unsecure source: They want the top-of-the-art,
official, upgraded releases.

My own threshold is €200 per year for my work computer. We pay that much of
IntelliJ. The OS is the most important service in our stack, it deserves paid
workers. My parents' threshold would probably be 50€/yr.

I think OSS volunteers will feel cheated at first sight, but the software
should really push changes upstream and show the value in having a much bigger
Linux community.

NB: For those curious, this comment has 18 points so far (10:43 GMT).

~~~
_delirium
Would something like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or SuSE fit what you're
looking for (both are paid, commercial Linux distributions), or am I
misunderstanding?

~~~
tajen
I remember RedHat as ugly. It would be closer to elementary.io, but paid.
Well, the installation process of elementary.io displays unfriendly
information too... At the extreme, choosing Mac OS X requires very few
decisions, so I don't want to compare Linux distributions either. One distrib
should stand out for my usecase, be clearly differentiated from the rest of
the market and be the obvious choice for me. (that's where good marketing
proves useful).

I know, it takes 1000 customers at 200€/yr to hire the first developer... Too
much, too little.

~~~
irishcoffee
SO, is your issue with a decent windows manager? I work on RHEL systems daily,
and under the hood (sysd arguments not withstanding) its no more or less
clunky than any other 'distro' out there. I guess I'm just trying to figure
out what exactly you're looking to buy?

~~~
tajen
Yes it could be summarized as a window manager if it takes over all aspects of
managing the computer through a GUI.

I develop with Mac OS and deploy my cloud services on Debian. I don't know
much about Linux beyond apt-get upgrade, nginx, Ansible and Java apps. I know
when I install Mac OS X that the progress bar is gray with no text on the
screen, which means I don't need to dive into the technical details at any
point from installation to writing a presentation, displaying it on an
external screen through HDMI, tuning a mouse or plugging a printer. Has RHEL
improved that much?

On step further is of course being able to install a good clone of Keynote
(slideware), iMovie and an image editor for $40-80 each, but that's after the
ecosystem starts gathering around the OS.

~~~
gravypod
Have you seen Elementary OS? It will suit you if you are a mac person who
doesn't really like the no-frills of other linux distros.

~~~
tajen
Yes I have. The installation process shows a progress bar in an old-school
bevel/embossed window, underlined with the filename it's writing. On my
computer it showed alerts in the middle. Once started, it's just a normal
Linux with sharp edges. Installation of at least one of my programs (probably
IntelliJ) crashed, I think I succeeded to fix that using advice from Stack
Overflow and the command-line, if I remember. Definitely working, but
definitely not the experience we'd like.

It's already a great OS, to be honest, but what about adding 20-100 employees
and making it a blockbuster?

~~~
gravypod
When was the last time you checked it out? That's what the team behind it has
been doing. From what I understand the last two where all just polish.

I'd love it if you gave it a go and told us how you felt the pain points
where.

I'm not involved with the project I just want more users on Linux-based OS.

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gcb0
A decent portable computer.

Obscenely large, replaceable battery.

small screen (1080p or 720p at 10~13in) that i can actually slide up when open
so i don't have to look down and kill my neck/back.

decent mechanical keyboard at least 90% size (like the eeepc1000)

it can be low on CPU but should have the most connectivity it can. It can
weight a little more than a 15" gaming laptop weights today.

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GuiA
Get a thinkpad

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dijit
Lenovo haven't made a decent thinkpad in multiple years now.

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4ad
X61T was the pinnacle for me.

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icebraining
I have a X201, what am I missing?

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/ThinkPad...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/ThinkPad_X61_and_X200s.jpg)

~~~
4ad
Higher resolution 1400x1050 4:3 screen, instead of 1280x800 widescreen.

As a programmer I like large wide screens, but when it comes to laptops, I
prefer 4:3 screens because I never have enough vertical screen estate.

The 16:10 screen in X201 was still usable, but with X220 they switched to a
16:9 1366x768 screen. This killed the X series for me. Nowadays they have
higher resolution screens (still 16:9 though, which is stupid, because the
vertical display bezels are huge, they could have put a 16:10 display there
easily), I have a 1920x1080 X250. However, it's not very good. The pixel
density is too high so you can't use in 1:1 mode, but it's too low to be used
in retina mode. I need something like 1.33x scaling, which Linux doesn't do
very well.

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bbcbasic
A programming language with the easyness of dealing with state and effects of
a mainstream language and with the guarantees you get from a pure functional
language

~~~
NotUsingLinux
You mean getting the benefits of functional programming without learning
functional programming? ;)

Once you find a way into it you really see its all "Lego's". You'll get there!

~~~
bbcbasic
Yes. You can already get some of the benefits as evidenced in the slow
adoption of functional concepts into mainstream languages. Lambdas, generics
for example.

Being legos is fine but monad transformer stacks and free monads are legos
that I can't see most coders putting in the yards to understand. But that's
the level you need.to get to to do useful stuff, lest you just do everything
in IO but that's imperative style really.

I think a great example of what I mean is Linq and async/await in C#.

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jomamaxx
A robot to clean my bathroom, clean the floors, tidy up, do my laundry.

