Ask HN: What is something that doesn't exist that you would pay for?
15 comments
A kid I went to high school with created this company Biyo[1] that plans to extend their service to many different fields, including medical, for purposes like this. You no longer will have to fill out medical forms when going to different doctors, no more dropping off cd's or usb's of xrays or other tests to other doctors. I can definitely see this getting to the point where you don't even have to go to the doctors to get access to your medical information. These devices can be placed around town to use like ATMs,and can even replace an ATM.
Your signature would also be nearly impossible to fake, and somebody can't just cut off your hand to impersonate you because that would destroy the signature as well.
[1] http://biyowallet.com
Your signature would also be nearly impossible to fake, and somebody can't just cut off your hand to impersonate you because that would destroy the signature as well.
[1] http://biyowallet.com
And how would this work if you are unconscious and found by a stranger? I'd like a centralized database containing my medical info with a way for doctors to immediately know relevant info and to be reminded off possible oversights. I have had two family members suffer from doctor oversights and inability to access information.
basically the same way. the system would still be balkanized and terrible, but you would have a full searchable copy. it would basically be the equiv of itunes. you bring it to all youdt docs and u put your records on it, then they keep them to(like they do now) but you have a program that generates visual correlations.
you could also use it to interface with healthkit and fitbit. all data one place.
what if you were unconscious?
i imagine it in a bracelet with emergency contact with password. not 100% sure. the medical system should have your files anyway, but it is hard to balance privacy with a total stranger finding you in a state where you cant communicate. not sure what they do now, presumably treat with as much info as they could get from the person.
you could also use it to interface with healthkit and fitbit. all data one place.
what if you were unconscious?
i imagine it in a bracelet with emergency contact with password. not 100% sure. the medical system should have your files anyway, but it is hard to balance privacy with a total stranger finding you in a state where you cant communicate. not sure what they do now, presumably treat with as much info as they could get from the person.
Yep, I'd be interested in trying to fund an open source gds replacement as well.
Bunch of .txt files and notepad++ would do the trick, no?
A service that tells you something that doesn't exist that people will pay for.
You mean HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11789869
I'd pay/crowdfund a Linux Desktop Environment that is as good as OSX one.
Some features I'd beparticularly interested are to easier customise the trackpad, drag n drop, anything that makes a good user interface. Not bells and whistles.
IMO elementary is pretty close without being an outright copy.
Personally I would even say I prefer its differences (except single-click-to-open) to Mac.
Edit: yes, I think I already sent some money in their direction.
Personally I would even say I prefer its differences (except single-click-to-open) to Mac.
Edit: yes, I think I already sent some money in their direction.
Hadn't heard of Elementary - thanks. Interesting stuff.
(For anyone else wondering - https://elementary.io/
(For anyone else wondering - https://elementary.io/
I haven't heard of it either. Is it stable?
I'd say so. I've only used it for 2 years or so though ;-)
More seriously: I do install and uninstall a number of different applications frlm time to time and I guess the (minor) snags I have seen results mostly from that.
More seriously: I do install and uninstall a number of different applications frlm time to time and I guess the (minor) snags I have seen results mostly from that.
forgot to mention an e-ink laptop/monitor
Like this? https://getfreewrite.com/
- Hearing aids that run off body heat (changing batteries every couple of days is a bitch)
- Some sort of system that lets me watch movies and TV shows with captions/subtitles without forcing everyone around me to see them. (The little devices at movie theaters are neat, but clunky and don't work at home.) I'm imagining augmented-reality glasses, but I would take some sort of polarized glasses that only make subtitles visible to me.
- A reliable way for a minimally trained person (note: not untrained) to draw blood for blood tests and drop them in the mail without having to go to a lab.
- Some sort of system that lets me watch movies and TV shows with captions/subtitles without forcing everyone around me to see them. (The little devices at movie theaters are neat, but clunky and don't work at home.) I'm imagining augmented-reality glasses, but I would take some sort of polarized glasses that only make subtitles visible to me.
- A reliable way for a minimally trained person (note: not untrained) to draw blood for blood tests and drop them in the mail without having to go to a lab.
Polarized glasses, plus an LCD display with the front polarizer removed = display just for you, if there's a good way to route captions to a secondary display?
(getting an appropriate size and shape display to mount under or over the main display is also a challenge)
Edit: An article about removing the front polarizer http://www.gizmag.com/stealth-computer-display-lcd-polarizin... although I had forgotten that you'll end up with an all white screen for people without polarized glasses, that might be distracting too...
(getting an appropriate size and shape display to mount under or over the main display is also a challenge)
Edit: An article about removing the front polarizer http://www.gizmag.com/stealth-computer-display-lcd-polarizin... although I had forgotten that you'll end up with an all white screen for people without polarized glasses, that might be distracting too...
Courses aimed at getting me into specialized job roles. E.g. a course aimed at getting a job as a Financial Trading .NET developer. It would probably be an amalgamation of courses on .NET that are used in finances plus courses that teach financial markets etc.
Similarly: professional certifications that mean something. I.e. a certification for .NET that shows I really know my stuff but just something I memorized like the MCP style exams (that's how I remember them being 10 years ago).
Similarly: professional certifications that mean something. I.e. a certification for .NET that shows I really know my stuff but just something I memorized like the MCP style exams (that's how I remember them being 10 years ago).
Udacity?
A customizable single-site-browser with a few extra features like a quake-like slide-in etc.
I'd use it in combination with sandstorm and try to create some of the stuff I miss all the time.
I think electron is pretty close only it us focused on running client-side code on top of node js while I want to run sandstorm or generic web apps running on the www, or a company web server or even on the same machine even.
(Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about electron)
I'd use it in combination with sandstorm and try to create some of the stuff I miss all the time.
I think electron is pretty close only it us focused on running client-side code on top of node js while I want to run sandstorm or generic web apps running on the www, or a company web server or even on the same machine even.
(Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about electron)
A customizable in-shoe arch support which form-fits to the exact shape/needs of each foot.
Years ago there used to be such a product from SuperFeet, which you would heat up then form to the foot & would hold its shape upon cooling. But apparently it's no longer available.
Years ago there used to be such a product from SuperFeet, which you would heat up then form to the foot & would hold its shape upon cooling. But apparently it's no longer available.
A robot that sorts and folds laundry.
Yes please I would pay for that, great idea
This:
http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad-time-machine
Barring that, even a little 2x3 set of home/end/pgup/pgdn/delete keys with an adhesive backing and Bluetooth connection that I could stick over the power button on a MacBook Pro to quadruple my productivity.
Even a year in, I feel like I navigate code at less than half speed trying to use the 2-3 key, 2 hand chords that those basic keys require on a Mac keyboard.
Let me jump to the end of a document without setting down my coffee and you can have as much of my money as you like.
http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad-time-machine
Barring that, even a little 2x3 set of home/end/pgup/pgdn/delete keys with an adhesive backing and Bluetooth connection that I could stick over the power button on a MacBook Pro to quadruple my productivity.
Even a year in, I feel like I navigate code at less than half speed trying to use the 2-3 key, 2 hand chords that those basic keys require on a Mac keyboard.
Let me jump to the end of a document without setting down my coffee and you can have as much of my money as you like.
You can buy an external Lenovo keyboard https://jet.com/product/detail/46d2f67ba52346b79674d4b60358c...
Sadly, that's the new layout chicklet keyboard, with the messed up home/end block. It wouldn't actually address the issue.
>Let me jump to the end of a document without setting down my coffee and you can have as much of my money as you like.
That are two keystrokes (G - shift + g) in Vim. Have you ever tried Vim/Emacs? Vim in particular has really upped my productivity by so much.
That are two keystrokes (G - shift + g) in Vim. Have you ever tried Vim/Emacs? Vim in particular has really upped my productivity by so much.
I'd pay for a pension fund - which takes my money and, when I retire, uses it pay out fixed income pension every month, based on my life expectancy.
Vanguard has a product similar to what you're looking for: Target Retirement Funds. https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/target-retirement...
It does everything you want up to retirement age, but after that I believe you're on your own to pay yourself out of the fund.
Of course, that assumes you can accurately predict when you'll retire. :) And it depends on what you mean by "fixed income". Do you mean a specific monthly amount agreed on right now (see also: defined benefit plan), or a specific monthly amount that's set once you retire and doesn't change until you die (see also: annuity). The hardest part about all of this, IMO, is predicting how much money you'll need in retirement (a function of both life expectancy and desired quality of life during retirement) and thus predicting how much money you need to put away every month starting now.
EDIT: Disclaimer: I own some Vanguard funds (but not Target Retirement ones).
It does everything you want up to retirement age, but after that I believe you're on your own to pay yourself out of the fund.
Of course, that assumes you can accurately predict when you'll retire. :) And it depends on what you mean by "fixed income". Do you mean a specific monthly amount agreed on right now (see also: defined benefit plan), or a specific monthly amount that's set once you retire and doesn't change until you die (see also: annuity). The hardest part about all of this, IMO, is predicting how much money you'll need in retirement (a function of both life expectancy and desired quality of life during retirement) and thus predicting how much money you need to put away every month starting now.
EDIT: Disclaimer: I own some Vanguard funds (but not Target Retirement ones).
> that I believe you're on your own to pay yourself out of the fund.
I am specifically interested in that part :) If I'm withdrawing the money myself from the fund, then I have to take into account the small possibility of me living until I'm 90-100, and thus split money into portions that will last that long.
A company could pool a lot of people's money and take advantage of the law of big numbers (i.e. the average lifspan of their clients can be predicted with actuarial math) and portion my money as if I'm going to die when the stats predict me to die (sooner than 90-100 years old), making my monthly withdrawals bigger. That's what state pension funds do in a lot of countries at the moment, incl. my country Poland, but I don't trust the government with my money.
I am specifically interested in that part :) If I'm withdrawing the money myself from the fund, then I have to take into account the small possibility of me living until I'm 90-100, and thus split money into portions that will last that long.
A company could pool a lot of people's money and take advantage of the law of big numbers (i.e. the average lifspan of their clients can be predicted with actuarial math) and portion my money as if I'm going to die when the stats predict me to die (sooner than 90-100 years old), making my monthly withdrawals bigger. That's what state pension funds do in a lot of countries at the moment, incl. my country Poland, but I don't trust the government with my money.
Ahh OK, so you want something pretty close to an annuity then. I wonder if Wealthfront or Betterment or something would have a plan that helps you invest while you work and then buys an annuity for you when you retire...
I need Ethereum block chain as a service since i donot want to run a full node. (Azure has this but has this vendor lock in i donot tolerate)
Also an easy programmatic way to work with the Ethereum transactions. like the Coinbase api for BTC ^1. [1] https://developers.coinbase.com/
Also an easy programmatic way to work with the Ethereum transactions. like the Coinbase api for BTC ^1. [1] https://developers.coinbase.com/
- Something that irons shirts properly for me.
- An open source, robust, easy-as-Dropbox to use distributed file system that performs well and provides a decent level of security and version control.
- An open source web browser that doesn't suck (not sure that's possible while JavaScript still exists?).
- A self-upgradable eGPU for your macs that accelerates the inbuilt display for gaming.
- A high quality bill splitting & IOU app for iOS that you can take a photo of a receipt then divide up who had what and who paid, others can access the bill and agree / disagree and pay their part.
- A better replacement for WINE that makes running Windows games faster and more reliable on OSX.
- A joystick similar to the thrust master in its simple but low profile design that is useful for space sims like elite dangerous (I've tried the top end Saitek and hate it).
- A service that replaces 'on motherboard' ram like that found in the latest Retina Macbook with larger sized memory chips.
- An efficient, smart and small 240V bedroom heater.
- Service / plugin that circumvents country blocks such as those found on Netflix and YouTube that A) doesn't route all your traffic through it (VPN) and B) doesn't make you use custom DNS servers.
- Hosted Plex media centre with large amounts of online storage and low latency to Australian customers.
- A better, open source Jabber / XMPP chat client for Windows (I don't use Windows's but I hate seeing people run pidgin!).
- Some sort of completely legal, non addictive, non harmful high or low mood creator pill / medical thing. I.e. Want to be amped up and cheerful for a party but don't want to damage yourself to get physically addicted to a 'bad' substance - there's a pill/patch/mouth spray for that. Likewise, something that's not physically addictive or harmful but helps you chill out relax and laugh after a day of work without taking addictive drugs like benzos or smoking anything. I guess I'd like to see more products like Armodafinil.
A service where you can upload photos of shoes that you like / own and will return you recommendations and links to purchase other shoes you may like. Sounds weird I know but there's a lot of crappy shoes out there and when you have a few pairs you really like its often hard to find anything similar.
A better interface to Terraform to allow vendor-agnostic management of VM deployment across many 'cloud' and locally hosted platforms, must be open source, support XenServer, KVM/Libvirt and AWS.
A service that gives incentives to game designers to make their software cross platform.
A modern CMS that isn't based off PHP or JavaScript, is open source, very easy to manage and lightweight to host yet scales well.
An open source competitor to the Kindle with a premium screen etc....
A high resolution, affordable e-ink screen that can be used for reading long articles etc and perhaps clips onto the side of your MacBook or iMac.
An open source, privacy first, distributed social network and communications platform that doesn't suck and appeals to the masses.
A high end wireless AC (at least 1300) mini-pcie network card that is compatible / comes with good quality drivers for PFSense (FreeBSD) with at least 4 aerials to turn your router into a wireless AP.
A modern, high quality, low latency, high throughput switching platform (like Juniper's EX4500 range) that runs an open source OS and manages all configuration in git version controlled eYAML or similar.
A platform like NewRelic and Datadog that is self hosted, high performance and adorable.
A high quality, lightweight web app that you can self-host to stream your music from your Linux file server that isn't all javascripty and heavy, doesn't use Java or PHP - essentially groovebasin without all the hard to get and install dependencies that's self contained and runs nicely across various distros.
More space-western SciFi TV series.
A harmonica that's digital - silent to practise on for everyone around you but you can plug in headphones / your computer and hear yourself play - must feel and act like a real harmonica (support bending notes etc...)
An affordable service that will convert an ebook file to an audiobook.
- An open source, robust, easy-as-Dropbox to use distributed file system that performs well and provides a decent level of security and version control.
- An open source web browser that doesn't suck (not sure that's possible while JavaScript still exists?).
- A self-upgradable eGPU for your macs that accelerates the inbuilt display for gaming.
- A high quality bill splitting & IOU app for iOS that you can take a photo of a receipt then divide up who had what and who paid, others can access the bill and agree / disagree and pay their part.
- A better replacement for WINE that makes running Windows games faster and more reliable on OSX.
- A joystick similar to the thrust master in its simple but low profile design that is useful for space sims like elite dangerous (I've tried the top end Saitek and hate it).
- A service that replaces 'on motherboard' ram like that found in the latest Retina Macbook with larger sized memory chips.
- An efficient, smart and small 240V bedroom heater.
- Service / plugin that circumvents country blocks such as those found on Netflix and YouTube that A) doesn't route all your traffic through it (VPN) and B) doesn't make you use custom DNS servers.
- Hosted Plex media centre with large amounts of online storage and low latency to Australian customers.
- A better, open source Jabber / XMPP chat client for Windows (I don't use Windows's but I hate seeing people run pidgin!).
- Some sort of completely legal, non addictive, non harmful high or low mood creator pill / medical thing. I.e. Want to be amped up and cheerful for a party but don't want to damage yourself to get physically addicted to a 'bad' substance - there's a pill/patch/mouth spray for that. Likewise, something that's not physically addictive or harmful but helps you chill out relax and laugh after a day of work without taking addictive drugs like benzos or smoking anything. I guess I'd like to see more products like Armodafinil.
A service where you can upload photos of shoes that you like / own and will return you recommendations and links to purchase other shoes you may like. Sounds weird I know but there's a lot of crappy shoes out there and when you have a few pairs you really like its often hard to find anything similar.
A better interface to Terraform to allow vendor-agnostic management of VM deployment across many 'cloud' and locally hosted platforms, must be open source, support XenServer, KVM/Libvirt and AWS.
A service that gives incentives to game designers to make their software cross platform.
A modern CMS that isn't based off PHP or JavaScript, is open source, very easy to manage and lightweight to host yet scales well.
An open source competitor to the Kindle with a premium screen etc....
A high resolution, affordable e-ink screen that can be used for reading long articles etc and perhaps clips onto the side of your MacBook or iMac.
An open source, privacy first, distributed social network and communications platform that doesn't suck and appeals to the masses.
A high end wireless AC (at least 1300) mini-pcie network card that is compatible / comes with good quality drivers for PFSense (FreeBSD) with at least 4 aerials to turn your router into a wireless AP.
A modern, high quality, low latency, high throughput switching platform (like Juniper's EX4500 range) that runs an open source OS and manages all configuration in git version controlled eYAML or similar.
A platform like NewRelic and Datadog that is self hosted, high performance and adorable.
A high quality, lightweight web app that you can self-host to stream your music from your Linux file server that isn't all javascripty and heavy, doesn't use Java or PHP - essentially groovebasin without all the hard to get and install dependencies that's self contained and runs nicely across various distros.
More space-western SciFi TV series.
A harmonica that's digital - silent to practise on for everyone around you but you can plug in headphones / your computer and hear yourself play - must feel and act like a real harmonica (support bending notes etc...)
An affordable service that will convert an ebook file to an audiobook.
For the heater, if you own rather than rent your home then consider buying air con!
a spilt system air con with reverse cycle (so it acts as a heat pump) is super efficient (more than 100%) and takes up no floor space. Also by convective heating it feels warmer faster than radiation.
a spilt system air con with reverse cycle (so it acts as a heat pump) is super efficient (more than 100%) and takes up no floor space. Also by convective heating it feels warmer faster than radiation.
Thank you for your thoughtfulness and suggestion, I personally rent and have aircon. But I speak more generally - I believe we can do better, more localised heating.
id122015 mentions something like Mac.
I'd rather prefer something along the lines of Mint Mate or Cinnamon, coupled with elementarys funding model. I sometimes send money those directions but once real MS Office gets available on something like this I would test it for work at next opportunity.
Also next time I work at a place that only demands a working IDE I'll go for a Linux desktop. (Last time I had that opportunity I went with Mac and my two last jobs has demanded an MS environment).
I'd rather prefer something along the lines of Mint Mate or Cinnamon, coupled with elementarys funding model. I sometimes send money those directions but once real MS Office gets available on something like this I would test it for work at next opportunity.
Also next time I work at a place that only demands a working IDE I'll go for a Linux desktop. (Last time I had that opportunity I went with Mac and my two last jobs has demanded an MS environment).
A4 sized Kindle (not an old, second hand one)
Oh... and a reliable builder.
* portable software that is in a usb that stores your medical records. The problem is that all medical records are disaggregated and you have to bring them everywhere with you and the systems are incompatable. However, if you made a portable system agnostic applicaation using something like electron and sqllite that allowed your doctor (or any doctor) to run it when diagnosing or taking patient history, then he gives it back when completed that would be awesome. Could export files for doctors records. even files woul dbe upgrade on their end, as currently I had to fax over my records but also show up and bring them in person because that was unreliable(possibly because it is half centrury old tech). probably hipaa compliant as you would be responsible(but in control) of your data. would payoff big in 5 years whne personalized medicine is a thing. can't do it on mobile because it would be too vulnerable, must interface with anything with USB.