

Ask HN: What is a problem you want to see solved? - gonification

What is a problem that you want to see solved? Whether it&#x27;s one you have or not.<p>Who knows, maybe some ideas could spawn a few startups.
======
Jemaclus
\- Hearing aids - Battery life SUCKS. Someone please make hearing aids that
run off body heat (or whose batteries are at least augmented by body heat).
Changing batteries is expensive and annoying, especially if it dies while
you're far from a spare set of batteries.

\- Subtitles / Closed Captioning - some sort of HUD (Google Glass-esque) that
shows subtitles only to me, and not to those around me. Especially useful in
movies or when watching Game of Thrones with friends that don't like
subtitles.

\- Better door buzzing - I don't have a landline, and my landlord won't
connect the buzzer to my phone. I have to have friends call or text me, and
then I have to run down to the front door and open them up. Totally
inconvenient during parties. There's gotta be some way to get around my
landlord's dumb rules and have the buzzer send a text to my phone, where I can
reply with a code and it'll open the door.

\- Auditioning -- there's gotta be a better way to find out whether an actor
or musician is good enough for a role other than a 60 second monologue. This
also applies to job screening in general. If you can cut out the middleman
(casting directors, recruiters), you'll make a fortune.

I can probably think of some more later.

~~~
olgeni
Subtitles - we are doing something like that with Epson's BT-200 (also for
audio description). Also, RNIB ran a trial in the UK with Games of Thrones :)
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8jyRwZjn1M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8jyRwZjn1M)]

(disclaimer - I work on this stuff)

------
cdvonstinkpot
Distributed p2p filesystems & compute nodes are currently too immature to
install & are practically useless in their current state. I'd like to be able
to backup my files in the cloud & not have to worry about paying a monthly fee
as long as I'm contributing more to the network than I'm using.

~~~
notduncansmith
Have you looked into [http://ipfs.io](http://ipfs.io) ? I suppose it fits the
bill for "too immature to install", but might be something you'd want to
track.

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btrask
I wish there were a FUSE-based file system for testing the consistency and
durability of arbitrary applications. Surprisingly there doesn't seem to be
such a thing.[1]

There's also a list of other things that could be built with FUSE.[2]

[1]
[http://sourceforge.net/p/fuse/wiki/FileSystems/](http://sourceforge.net/p/fuse/wiki/FileSystems/)
[2]
[http://sourceforge.net/p/fuse/wiki/Filesystem_Suggestions/](http://sourceforge.net/p/fuse/wiki/Filesystem_Suggestions/)

~~~
notduncansmith
> testing the consistency and durability of arbitrary applications

Could you go into more detail about what you mean here?

~~~
btrask
You'd configure the application to write to the FUSE mount, then run it
through an average workload. The FUSE module records the e.g. writes and
fsyncs and can simulate a crash at any point during the run. Perhaps there'd
be some sort of framework for automating the application to have it attempt to
restore from each point, and do an integrity check to make sure all of the
guarantees are met.

SQLite does basically the same thing using a virtual file system layer that
SQLite explicitly uses.[1] With a FUSE module, any application could receive
the same level of testing without needing its own VFS.

[1] [https://sqlite.org/testing.html](https://sqlite.org/testing.html)

------
glaberficken
This one:
[https://www.google.pt/search?q=too+many+cars&tbm=isch](https://www.google.pt/search?q=too+many+cars&tbm=isch)

Excluding these atempted solutions: Driverless car, Uber

~~~
kleer001
Solution: Remove all private ownership of vehicles in an urban and suburban
area. Have reasonable leases for rural areas and specialized vehicles. Remit
99% of the urban vehicles to municipal level. Somewhere between
(car2go/modo/etc) and taxis and busses.

I'm not sure why you're excluding driverless cars. It seems like a clever
solution to me. And it leaves the door open to a car monoculture, which I
think would help things a lot.

But I'm highly skeptical and think it'll never fly because people love THEIR
cars. Even though they sit on the street 95% of the time. The fact is Henry
Ford and the rest of the car-world founders never designed their systems to be
sustainable. They were designed to make their makers money.

------
cognitvesystem
-E-payment for my country indonesia which only require bank account to start an ecommerce business

-make Immigration more Easy 'cause many tech people living in developing world want to work in Europe or US(developed world)

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hga
We have a software ecosystem that in its middle and often top is unnecessarily
built from unsafe languages, C/C++, which results in flakiness and constant
security problems. An alternative with sufficient uptake to be viable would be
nice.

(I quibble using "middle" because at the bottom you have to go "unsafe".)

------
HenryTheHorse
The water crisis.

The problem entails complex issues like climate change, over-consumption,
wastage, unplanned urban growth,food security, excessive industrial
development, geo-politics and pollution.

Let's hope mankind can figure this one out.

------
g123g
For developing countries, a technology that will enable rapid laying down of
roads. Roads that will last for a long time. This will improve lives of so
many.

------
porter
Death.

~~~
krapp
That's a feature, not a bug.

~~~
notduncansmith
That's just like, your opinion, man. Sign me up for version 2 or 3 of
cybernetic enhancement suite (sorry, not gonna be an early adopter of robotic
limbs - clumsy enough as it is).

------
cypher_glyph
A (safe) pill that removes social anxiety with no side-effects

------
touristtam
earth like simulation on distributed commodity computers, with 3D interactive
visual.

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88e282102ae2e5b
Aging.

------
kgc
Waiting in lines.

------
dominotw
Boredom.

~~~
glaberficken
Boredom is not a problem :-|

~~~
dominotw
Why not?

~~~
kleer001
Because only boring people get bored. And that's not just a pithy maxim. I
find most situations people become "bored" in are just a moment of peace, a
chance for creativity, a need for a challenge, and a chance to be alone with
one's thoughts. Though, it's been found that many would rather be in acute
physical pain than be alone with their own thoughts. I wonder why.

------
CaptainSwing
The bourgeoisie

~~~
kleer001
And what would take their place?

~~~
CaptainSwing
Sorry for my glib post. (I deserved the down vote)

I am not convinced that the bigger problems to the world have answers which
can be provided by a 'start up', and feel that the tendency toward "X-is-
broken" type start up pitches tend to suggest techno-fixes to problems of
social structure.

only the organised struggle of the disenfranchised of the world can end class
society, eliminating both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, providing a
ground on which these problems can be usefully approached. No venture
capitalist is likely to invest in this, unfortunately.

In direct answer to your question: voluntary associations of the toiling
masses

~~~
kleer001
Thanks for pinging back with attention.

> voluntary associations of the toiling masses

With the mighty overhead of just-plain-survival (the main reason that the poor
tend to stay poor), I'm sad to say that's never going to happen.

I think what humans as a species really needs is a planet wide support system
that takes care of the food/shelter/clothing/sewage problem. But we're so
deeply wired for paranoia, group think, and solipsism that that's impossible
too.

