
Ask YC/HN: What's a problem you'd like to see someone solve? - Mystalic
Broad topic, I was thinking just about this while I was in the gym.<p>What's a problem you've seen that you just want to get solved?  Any problem, big or small, just spit it out, as big as world hunger, as theoretical as string theory, or as specific as twitter API architecture.<p>Perhaps something good will come of this?  I'm sure this has been done before, but you learn something new every time.
======
mechanical_fish
Get people to stop using IE6 to visit sites, by any means necessary.

Bonus points if you can take out IE7 as well.

~~~
Mystalic
I was just thinking about this one again, and here's a proposed solution:

Create an anti IE6 Coalition.

Here me out - you'd have one central website stating the purpose and all. If
you wanted to join the cause, all you would have to do is place a javscript
tag on your website. If it detects IE6, a message appears at the top talking
about how IE6 hurts innovation, wastes millions of dollars a year, etc. and
links to IE8, FF3, and Chrome for quick and simple upgrades. If you got a good
deal of bloggers to use/talk about the script, you'd be able to spread the
message. The goal isn't the eradication of IE6 usage, just enough demolition
of IE6 that people don't feel the need to design around it.

Thoughts?

~~~
bmelton
Javascript tag? Who's going to spend the 82 hours it takes to make write a
piece of javascript that works on IE6? ;-)

~~~
mechanical_fish
I don't really want to be one of those people who insists on derailing
perfectly good jokes by taking them seriously. But in this case I have to tell
you: The answer to your question is "John Resig and the rest of the jQuery
team".

In my experience JS is the least of my problems with IE6, because jQuery just
works.

------
albahk
Something I thought of when I was studying engineering at Uni (I dropped out)
was to fit a small device onto the accelerator cable of a car that can apply
varying degrees of tension to the pedal. This device would be moderated by the
computer in the car to "condition" the driver to adopt a more fuel-efficient
driving style. If you drive in a non-fuel efficient manner, there would be
more "drag" on the pedal, thus requiring slightly more effort. The "sweet
spot" of minimal drag/tension would encourage drivers to maintain a driving
style which is the most fuel-efficient speed/acceleration.

This idea depends upon the ability to condition people over time in an almost
subconscious manner. Not sure if it would work or not.

~~~
ejs
This is being implemented,
<http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=130108>

From the article: The [Nissan] Eco Pedal is designed to provide a "counter
push-back control mechanism" if it senses "excess pressure" on the
accelerator. In other words, it does not like lead foots. The premise of this
new technology, which Nissan says is a "world first," is to help the driver
get an immediate sense that he or she "could be using more fuel than
required."

~~~
albahk
Its good to see these kind of improvements make it through to production cars.
Personally, I would be more aware of my fuel efficiency while driving if I had
instant feedback. I suppose this is the constant guilt factor.

------
CaptainMorgan
The rising cost of education.

I've yet to receive a response from my institution or others that I've
considered, of why it is they keep raising their fees, tuitions, etc..,
especially in a recessed economy. It seems to me to be counterproductive -
folks are losing their jobs, therefore losing their finances, and now possibly
finding out that they need more training or they need to enter a new field,
thus requiring education. Yet considering these financial difficulties,
institutions continue to raise their fees with hopeless abandon.

I asked multiple departments in my university about this and essentially they
diverted my call or in-person conversation to some other department, or they
said it was a political matter and basically being a lowly student, there's no
way I could get a meeting with those that approve these raises, without my
belonging to some student body committee protesting these rates... and then
we're only supposed to be there for four years anyways as undergrads so it
could take more than that to see any preferred and immediate result.

I suppose this is where financial aid comes into play, but even so depending
on your application factors, the fees still rise, so that could possibly mean
that you'll owe more money when you get out or you need to be approved for
more grants that don't need to be paid back which implies more scrutiny in
your application.

meh, I'm fed up with this subject.. any thoughts?

~~~
rokhayakebe
Move to France or Germany. They hacked Education to the point where it is
free, and in some cases you will get money for books,etc...

~~~
icey
They didn't hack education until it was free. They raised taxes until it was a
shared cost paid for by every tax payer. The same is true for the healthcare
systems there. (And everything else that's government funded pretty much
anywhere... With the exception of oil-rich countries, I suppose.)

------
vaksel
Longer lifetime...200-300 years. There is just too much to do and time flies
way too fast. One minute you are a 20 year old college student, the next
minute you are 40 years old, running out the clock.

~~~
oakmac
Why only 200-300 years? Either go for the gold (live forever) or accept your
mortality.

~~~
lionhearted
I did some research into living forever at one point. Basically, three things
kill us: Disease, old age, and trauma.

Disease seems beatable. Reversing old age is going to be trickier, especially
as things we don't expect to fail start failing after we prolong our vitals
for longer. But these both should be doable.

The real killer is trauma. I scubadive. Given forever, eventually I'm going to
something stupid underwater and that'd be the end of me.

The 200-300 years seems like a good place to start. It'd involve preventing or
treating fatal diseases and finding ways to keep especially your vital organs
running. I started spending more time in the gym and eating a bit better after
my research.

~~~
dmoney
_The real killer is trauma._

This could be solved by perfect VR and disposable bodies grown in a vat, with
a remote control system instead of a brain. Your real body hibernates and your
real brain can think its scuba diving, while only having to worry a little
about getting eaten by a shark (it would probably hurt).

~~~
apage43
I think the sci-fi version of this in Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic
Kingdom is about the best -sounding- version of this sort of scheme.

You regularly make 'backups' of your brain and if you die your last 'backup'
is loaded into a clone. You (the new you) of course, don't remember anything
that happened after your last backup. Made for an interesting plot device as
well.

------
ible
Lying politicians. I want all video of politicians to come with live fact
checking, comparison against previous statements, and colour coding of
statements for truth values. The comedy shows do it a bit, like The Daily
Show's penchant for having pols debate themselves, but I want it everywhere
all the time, so every time they lie, they get called on it.

------
gravitycop
Problem: lump-sum up-front car-insurance that fails to take into account how
much customer drives, and other risks.

Potential solution:

Car insurance by the minute/mile with instant-update rates based on:

    
    
      * steering and pedal input
      * time-of-day/day-of-week
      * location
      * speed
      * acceleration data
    

It's a $200 billion market (US only).
[http://www.ohioinsurance.org/factbook/2006/chapter1/chapter1...](http://www.ohioinsurance.org/factbook/2006/chapter1/chapter1_f.asp)

With payment by the minute/mile, customers would instantly be rewarded for
driving less, driving more-safely, and driving in safer conditions. Ceteris
peribus, insurers would have lower claims costs, and drivers would have lower
insurance costs. Everyone wins. No one loses.

~~~
vyrotek
I believe <http://inthinc.com/> and <http://tiwi.com/> are trying to do just
that :)

~~~
gravitycop
Tiwi is an insurance company? Is Inthinc an insurance company?

~~~
vyrotek
No but they are working with existing insurance companies to do exactly what
you described. I'm not sure if its written out anywhere on their site or not.
A coworker does contract work for them and told me about it.

------
ggrot
End all fraud. The online version of this is, Spam, Phishing, Spyware,
identity theft, etc. Offline: con artists, political bribery, tax evasion,
ponzi schemes.

I don't believe eliminating all crime is possible, as I can always whack my
neighbor over the head with a stick and steal his wallet, but alot of crimes
are only possible because the victim has a lack of good information. This is
fraud. Eliminate or drastically reduce all fraud.

~~~
alexandros
Crime helps point out design flaws (case in point: Email) and can be therefore
be thought as a force fostering or even forcing innovation.

Not defending crime, just pointing out that eliminationg crime is not a pure
win-win situation.

~~~
harpastum
Why wouldn't it be a pure win-win? I see no way that we could 'magically'
eliminate fraud, so getting rid of or reducing fraud would simply be the
result of the "forced innovation" you're talking about.

Disease forces innovation as well. The eradication of polio in much of the
world is not a lost chance for innovation--it is a success story.

------
mrtron
I got flamed for suggesting this recently, but I'd like to see it:

Equal wages/prices for all regardless of geography, brought on by a single
world currency and the internet? That would solve world hunger (which is a
money issue, not supply issue).

edit: Awesome. It's getting downvoted here too? What the hell is wrong with
the concept?

edit 2: Oh I was completely blind to the obvious here...I mean equal wages in
terms of task (not geography). A McDonalds worker should make the same here or
in another country (assuming McD's was charging the same for burgers too).
Software developers who contract online are approaching this equality. I am
not suggesting communism or some sort of set rate for work, individual
productivity is really important.

~~~
Mystalic
Equal wages just kills this, that's why. I will simply say that I'm smarter
and harder working than the vast majority. I deserve to be rewarded. More
importantly, it's an incentive to be harder working.

~~~
z3r0p4r4d0x
Yes, but maybe there's a guy just as equally smart and hard working in a
developing nation and he's getting peanuts even though his government doesn't
provide him with health care or education or social security. Voted up.

------
jwilliams
This is an interesting question, because it seems so basic, but actually takes
some thought.

I think enabling cheap, sustainable energy would a good problem to solve.

------
jd
The build system on *nix. make, gmake, autoconf and related tools are really
terrible.

------
oakmac
Here are a few Linux-specific wants:

> an intuitive UI for configuring everything in xorg.conf

> an intuitive UI for everything involving mounting, fstab, mdadm (raid),
> network shares, etc

> improve the awk, cairo-bar interfaces to be on par with RocketDock

> a more intuitive PulseAudio interface that controls everything relating to
> sound (including OSS and older)

------
enomar
I want to be able to pause and rewind audio from my car radio.

~~~
steveplace
Piggybacking off that, being able to use your cellular data service to get
internet radio in your car. Much less overhead than XM and much better quality
than local OTA stations.

------
damienkatz
Wifi debugging tool. Something that can tell me why the hell my signal drops
30 seconds every 10 minutes, etc.

~~~
tomjen
I read that as wife debugging tool. Might be more useful.

~~~
wlievens
It's called a whip. Hurr hurr

------
ojbyrne
After the TED thread and watching a few inspired presentations there, I'm
thinking "Kill PowerPoint."

~~~
netcan
Definitely.

Ideas?

~~~
ojbyrne
Just to launch into blue sky:

* I'd like something more cinematic like Animoto. Not constrained to the 10-12 slides, 4-5 bullet points each.

* I'd also like a tool that could help with just talking (no slides).

Just throwing it out there.

------
axod
Moores law applied to Batteries.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
We already have that, but probably not in the way you mean.

Lithium Ion batteries -- the current king of the hill -- are pretty much the
same today as when they first came into use in the 1970s.

We've been seeing longer lifetimes and shorter charge times because device
manufacturers can afford to throw in more hardware to control discharging and
recharging.

~~~
huherto
"We already have that, but probably not in the way you mean." Please explain

~~~
axod
I think he's saying we're already making massive advances in how to _use_
batteries more efficiently. What's missing seems to be advances in making
batteries actually store more energy.

If I were a conspiracy nut, I'd suggest that perhaps companies _have_ made
massive advances in Batteries, but they would make far less money from them,
so have hidden them in an underground lair.

------
decadentcactus
Break the speed of light barrier. If it's not possible, then at least average
out our speed to be faster (like the bending the universe sort of method).
Even 1.1c would mean we wouldn't really know the limit, and would shrink the
universe within reach.

------
mixmax
Self replicating nano-machines.

It's a powerful and dangerous thing to wish for though.

~~~
nx
That's actually one of my childhood fears. Just that they were live beings,
not machines.

~~~
tlrobinson
Self replicating living beings? Wouldn't that cover just about _all_ living
beings?

~~~
mechanical_fish
This is another of those things that amuse me: People who think of tiny self-
replicating nanomachines as a vision of the future, rather than as a
reflection upon our mutual family history.

I, for one, am pretty sure that I'm a colony of several trillion self-
replicating cells, whose parts are self-replicating nanomachines. And that
_is_ an amazing realization. But not especially futuristic.

~~~
Tichy
I also thought recently that grey goo is a very unlikely scenario. If there
were a new kind of self-replicating naonmachines, they would likely also be
subject to evolution and diversify into all sorts of colorful things, just
like biological cells.

------
tokenadult
I'd like to see several huge improvements in Gmail's interface, for example
more convenience in building contact groups with emails that have just come in
(and thus aren't individually in my contact list at all).

------
ggrot
Convenient travel. Let me or at least my goods travel from any point to any
other point with low overhead (<10 mins) at a speed of 100 mph or higher. And
let me do so on demand without advance planning.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
This problem has been solved. Implementation is due Real Soon Now.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2960633>

------
liangzan
I'd like some company to do comprehensive and objective product comparison and
evaluations based on a requirement list. Been spending lots of time doing such
evaluations. I'd rather outsource it

------
ggrot
A solution between owning and renting. I don't want to purchase a home because
the cost is too high and I have no interest in being "invested" into the real
estate market. However, renting has limitations imposed by the owner: \-
pet/smoking/# residents preferences \- can't realistically make significant
improvements to the property

~~~
oakmac
Are you suggesting that you want to have your cake and eat it too?

Who's going to take the risk for the rewards you want?

~~~
axod
In the UK, (I don't know if such things exist elsewhere, I'd guess they do),
you can go for shared ownership, Buy half the house, rent the other half,
things like that.

------
markessien
Proper speech recognition, speech synthesis and object location and
identification.

~~~
RossM
A well worked natural language processor tied into this would work wonders.

"Computer, call Home..."

~~~
steveplace
I'm afraid I can't do that, Ross.

------
wastedbrains
Just a small problem on macs, when I switch from single monitor to dual and
visa versa I want the previous state restored. I want it to store the state of
the windows and restore as many as it can from the last state... It would be
great to keep all my terminals in the same location.

~~~
trefn
I just started using an external monitor with my mac and I am irritated by the
same thing. I've found a crappy semi-solution:

If you're not going to be using the windows you have open on the external
monitor you can minimize them before you unplug it. If you open them later
when you're plugged in again they will pop up where they were before.

~~~
wastedbrains
awesome... not a great solution, but this will definitely help. Thanks for the
tip.

------
sachinag
Really? No world peace? No world hunger (where dwarf wheat has saved literally
millions of lives: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug>)? How about
happiness? Comfort? Love?

~~~
tdavis
Abstract concepts like happiness, comfort and love aren't really problems. By
creating some sort of device which provides these things you are essentially
eliminating their meaning in the process. How could you truly appreciate them
if they were simply handed to you?

Everybody wants happiness, comfort and love. We want them so badly that we
spend our whole lives trying to acquire and keep them. When you start handing
them out, why then do we live?

------
Dilpil
One click install java IDE and compiler.

One click install C IDE and compiler.

One click install Erlange IDE and compiler.

And so on and so forth.

~~~
Mystalic
It can be complicated for a non-techie to even set up an apache server on
their computer. We'd probably have a couple more good programmers in this
world just by breaking down that barrier.

~~~
axod
"We'd probably have a couple more good programmers in this world just by
breaking down that barrier."

Couple more _mediocre/bad_ programmers.

~~~
silentbicycle
Everybody starts somewhere.

~~~
axod
Some people should never start. It's hard enough to tell the good programmers
from the ridiculously bad programmers as it is.

~~~
silentbicycle
I have mixed feelings about the sentiment, but mostly I feel like making
setting up a development environment confusing probably isn't the best way to
weed people out. Besides, a recent CS graduate who can't install Eclipse on
their own is one thing, but a bright kid with books about programming from the
public library that wants to move from QBASIC to C is another thing entirely.

------
indiejade
Elimination of Realtors as a profession!

Real estate is something of an amateur gig where the "transaction costs" have
been ridiculously inflated through obfuscation

<http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/nar.htm>

~~~
indiejade
From the Antitrust Case:

"M. “VOW” or “virtual office website” means a website, or feature of a
website, operated by a Broker or for a Broker by another Person through which
the Broker is capable of providing real estate brokerage services to consumers
with whom the Broker has first established a Broker-consumer relationship (as
defined by state law) where the consumer has the opportunity to search MLS
data, subject to the Broker’s oversight, supervision, and accountability.

N. “VOW Policy” means the “Policy governing use of MLS data in connection with
Internet brokerage services offered by MLS Participants (‘Virtual Office
Websites’),” adopted by NAR on or about May 17, 2003, and any amendments
thereto."

See also:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/business/28realty.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/business/28realty.html?_r=1&em&ex=1212120000&en=d24b1bd8549a7dd4&ei=5087%0A)

------
paraschopra
Eliminate Illiteracy completely!

------
DanielBMarkham
An addictive game that teaches basic economic principals.

~~~
corentin
A few years ago there were games such as Rollercoaster Tycoon and the like
(see <http://mises.org/article.aspx?control=772> )

------
rs
Making long-distance plane travel shorter at a reasonable rate

Long version:

I live in London and home is in Malaysia, which is 13 hour flight. I would
really really love an airline that can make that journey down to (about half)
6-8 hours at a reasonable rate. At the moment, flights might be somewhere
between £700-£800 return - I wouldn't really mind forking out £300 more just
to fly there in less time.

------
Shadow84
If you approach problems on a big scale I definitely would suggest solve the
problem of developing nations and their misery. I know actually it is a whole
bunch of problems but I think that there is a solution which could be
successful in the long-run: Educating people. Let them know what is possible
and how to achieve things. Help the people, e.g. in Africa, to keep up with
the world and especially also their elite which at the moment often is
dominating them because they don't know better.

The OLPC project took a shot at this but besides creating net-books it wasn't
too successful, to summarize, the OLPC project was ambitious but rubbish ;-) I
don't know yet how to solve the problem of educating people ion those
countries, especially when it comes to basic things like literacy and/or math
but I definitely think it would be worth quite a lot of effort and also be a
business opportunity because of scale (if not now maybe also in the long-run).

~~~
hrabago
I come from a developing country where most people are fairly educated.
Education is nowhere near enough. Opportunity is needed as well for some
economic growth. Honesty in government is needed to encourage and support
growth. In some cases, behavioral issues that are detrimental to a nation's
progress is so embedded in the people that an entire change in generation is
needed, otherwise the people who start climbing the ropes of success will
deter others.

------
statictype
P=NP

~~~
jdrock
QFT.

------
dmoney
This may be several problems, but I believe they are connected:

* Some people have to work more than they want to.

* Some people have less work available than is required to meet their basic needs, even if they would want to work.

* Some people would choose to do different work if available, or if money weren't a factor.

* Or they would do the same work under different conditions.

------
rsheridan6
\- Internet advertising that doesn't suck. Adwords doesn't count. This would
make it easier to monetize websites.

\- Micropayments.

\- Cheap, accurate simulation of protein folding and other biological systems.
This would be a step towards greater control of our bodies and easier, more
powerful development of medical treatments.

\- Affordable whole genome (and other _ome) sequencing, with the result that
there's lots of data freely available about people's_ omes cross-referenced to
various facts about them (such as height, blood pressure, diseases, etc).
Anybody with a computer could then be a scientist, trying to figure out what
it all means.

------
notyouravgjoel
Once you've identified what the exact problem, the solution is often obvious.
And, since this IS a tech startup website, I cant imagine people who have
possible solutions giving them away here.

~~~
inerte
Some things are obvious but not doable by just one, or even ten, people :)

For example, lately I've been thinking that a good solution for problems in
Africa is to make possible to profit there. Just that. Companies will come,
flourish, jobs will appear, health will improve, etc, etc...

How do you enable business in Africa to be more profitable? First, you need
law (a stable and predictable set of rules to operate), and then education.
Wish I could dethrone the dictators there and stablish schools and colleges,
but it's not going to happen.

I am not claiming my solution is the best one, or that even it is original.
But we do know the problem, now how work on the solutions...

------
tjr
I seem to collect a number of, e.g., Visa gift cards that end up with just a
dollar or two left on them. I would like a service that lets me use multiple
cards to pay for a single online purchase.

Some online stores let you enter multiple payment methods, but (in my
experience) most do not. Ideally, this would be some sort of temporary credit
card number that serves as an alias to one or more gift cards, drawing from
them as needed, and automatically ignoring cards once their balance reaches
$0.

------
oakmac
I would like to see a digg/reddit/HN site where in order to post, vote, or
comment your IQ must be greater than 3 standard deviations from the mean (ie:
Mensa).

~~~
yan
I see that sort of site just turning into a mutual-masturbation forum with
people continuously trying to justify their intelligence and not discussing
anything worthwhile.

~~~
oakmac
I can't know this for sure, but I would hope those sorts of comments/attitudes
would be voted down.

A modification on the idea would be to only allow a site with people who have
a net worth greater than a certain amount or who are in certain positions of
responsibility or power (like CEOs of companies with a market cap greater than
10 million). You could extend this for any classification system: people with
doctorate degrees, people with X many years of experience in Y field, etc.

Basically I would be interested to see what sort of news and discussions would
evolve from a meritocracy-based community. Think of the benefit that comes
from the TED speaker's community.

~~~
yan
What your advocating is exactly the _opposite_ of the beautiful community that
TED promotes and nurtures.

Advocating an IQ or net worth barrier of entry for discussion will filter
discussion by, in my opinion, by all the wrong values. While I'm not saying
everyone in a top position of a profitable company has nothing new to say,
there are people who are just hard-working, potentially well-connected and
knew how to hack the system for financial gain. Would heiresses and lottery
winners be excluded? Where would one draw the line? Ditto for math degrees,
would you care what a Chemistry PhD trying to create better ways for oil
companies to make money has to say? Who would decide what fields are "worthy"?
Is sociology okay? Is botology? Is computer science?

In my opinion, what made TED great is their dependence on the ideas
_themselves_ , and not credentials, to present to the world. The mix of people
from all walks of life, from rural African villages, to dancers, to PhDs, to
poets, to interns, to Nobel winners, to musicians, to Presidents (I can go on
and on) is what made TED so great. Academic conferences existed before and
will exist after, but very few will have the wide appeal and poignancy of TED.

Hoping that my comment above gets voted down is exactly the type of community
I'm afraid of. What about my comment or attitude would you hope to have less
of? Is being afraid of a community where potentially empty credentials (IQ,
family, race, etc) are valued over ideas really so wrong?

~~~
oakmac
I think you may have misunderstood my idea.

I'm not advocating one site with a meritocracy filter; have as many as you'd
like. One for Math PhDs, Chemistry PhDs, just having a bachelor's degree,
CEO's, car salesmen, etc. The barrier to entry filter just assures that the
community members share experience or ability, not just interest. The extent
to which you wanted to quantify their experience or ability is up to you.

I see TED as the ultimate meritocracy-based conference. TED's official website
is pretty fluffy about who gets invited to speak, but the reality is that
everyone who gets on stage has done something amazing. If you're some college
freshmen with an amazing idea to change the world but you haven't implemented
it, you're not going to get invited to TED. Great ideas are a dime a dozen;
implementing a great idea is what's amazing.

When I referenced "those sorts of comments/attitudes would be voted down" I
was not referring to your post. I was referring to the sort of post you
mentioned: the "mutual masturbation" posts. I apologize for any confusion.

------
tocomment
A Headless HTML rendering engine:
<http://www.holovaty.com/blog/archive/2008/05/02/0136>

So we can automate screen scraping of sites with a lot of javascript on
headless servers, VPS's etc. It should be easy if I knew what I was doing
(just remove the GUI part from Firefox, or webkit, no?)

------
pclark
Better courier services that let me know when my item will be delivered within
~1hr

~~~
Tichy
That certainly seems doable with todays technology, but how many people need
it?

~~~
rsheridan6
It would be nice to know in advance not to be sitting in my underwear when the
UPS guy knocks on the door.

~~~
Tichy
I live on the fifth floor, so I have enough time to dress when the door bell
rings ;-)

------
RossM
Save mobile barcodes: <http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/are-mobile-barcodes-
toast>

Might be something to step in on.

------
enomar
Fix copyright and/or copyright for streaming radio...

<http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/webcasting.html>

------
rman666
You silly people. Emacs has fixes for most of these problems built in since
v22.

~~~
rman666
No one thinks the above is funny or worthy of upmodding? I think it's
hilarious ... but I wrote it.

------
Flemlord
Working AI--scalable and capable of getting smarter.

------
zitterbewegung
I would like to see myself solve P ? NP.

------
tocomment
Room temperature superconductors

------
rokhayakebe
A web based programming IDE.

~~~
rs
Doesn't something like AppJet solve this ?

<http://appjet.com/>

------
lbrandy
The Riemann Hypothesis

~~~
brl
It's probably true.

<http://i39.tinypic.com/k2n8n.jpg>

------
ddemchuk
Universal language...there's no reason why people speak different languages
anymore, they only create barriers now. In our newly technologically connected
world, our languages we speak should not be getting in our way anymore...

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cx01
I think it's rather probable that speakers of different languages think
different. So a unified language might lead to (more) unified thinking. I'm
not sure if that would be a good or bad thing.

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DanielBMarkham
I believe that's called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis>), which I generally
agree with. A universal language would change the way people _think_ about
stuff -- it's a very interesting thought experiment.

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zack
There is also a lot of evidence contradicting the Whorf hypothesis. In <The
Language Instinct> by Steven Pinker, Pinker suggests that humans think with
separate thought-modules and then only express the substance of thoughts
through arbitrary languages.

That being said, I think there is something to be said for diversity of
culture, and perhaps better more fluid translation services are the true
solution.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Notice I hedged my bets with "generally agree with"

The fact that the question is still open is why (in my opinion) the thought
experiment is so interesting.

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keltecp11
Oh... and make my Iphone Battery last longer...

~~~
mechanical_fish
Better portable power sources are always on the wish list. Many, many
electrical gadgets could be shrunk even further if it wasn't for the bulkiness
of batteries.

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keltecp11
Why not solar power chargers?

~~~
mechanical_fish
That might technically relieve the "bulk" problem, but only by substituting a
"surface area" problem in many cases.

Better solar cells are also on the eternal wish list, though. Not that they
haven't been slowly improving, and not that they aren't already good enough
for many things.

~~~
axod
I thought I remembered reading about a new LCD touchscreen, coming to an
iPod/iPhone soon perhaps, which is also a solar cell... That would simply
rock.

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Allocator2008
P=NP is a problem I always wonder about. Can an answer that can be verified in
polynomial time also be solved in polynomial time? I do think, modeled
correctly, NP problems can become P problems, but that is the trick. How to
model an NP problem so that it becomes a P problem? Or, if this cannot be
done, then demonstrate a proof of that. Show exactly why an NP problem can
never be modeled as a P problem. Maybe this will never be solved, but
certainly worth thinking about.

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keltecp11
Video Game Systems For The Elderly... Very easy to use, big buttons, simple
setup, focuses on hand eye coordination, and elevates heart rates (not just
chess, checkers, etc.)

~~~
mrtron
The Wii?

Seriously - a few of my friends' parents just bought it and love it. They play
some of the simple games like sports to death.

