Ask HN: What would you be working on if money were no object?

33 pointsby desertraven5 tahun yang lalu59 comments

61 comments

leashless5 tahun yang lalu

http://myhopeforthe.world - ultra large scale climate refugee handling systems.

I've run it as a hobby for 20 years over four careers. You might have seen my Hexayurts at Burning Man - they were the starting point of the project.

I knew that was the only way to keep it alive for the three decades I expected to take it to work.

kingkongjaffa5 tahun yang lalu

I hope this does well, but I feel like societal acceptance of refugees and a will to integrate them into wherever it is they are seeking refuge, is a far more important problem to solve than yurts.

Funnelling refugees into makeshift camps has been a horrific failure (see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calais_Jungle) enabling this at scale is to me basically building district 9.

ssss115 tahun yang lalu

Technology that actually serves the individual that paid for it and respects privacy. We are capable of so much yet we collectively fail miserably on things such as this (climate is another example) in a race to the bottom chasing investor returns at all costs.

mikewarot5 tahun yang lalu

2nd answer - I'd love to build supply chain 2.0. An open source, well documented, creative commons licensed guide to making everything, along with an actual chain of suppliers, that is independent to a sufficient degree.

It would be awesome if there could be many of these, in smaller and smaller cells around the world as time went on, such that any disruption could be handled, to prevent an 1177 BC style civilizational collapse.

Kibae5 tahun yang lalu

I would try to solve the worlds' plastic problem. As most of us know, most plastic ends up in a landfill. I think we need to be conscious about what happens to our purchases after its lifespan.

At the end of a tree's life, it is decomposed and turned into fertile soil that will feed future generations of the forest. This is a sustainable cycle.

I think we need to develop a plastic alternative, say X, that can be used to make products such that at the end of the products' life, the product can be converted back into X. Then, X can be reused to make new products creating a sustainable cycle.

square_usual5 tahun yang lalu

Crappy video games. Stuff that most people probably wouldn't like playing. Not that I like making garbage, I'm just no good at most creative arts, so my output is mostly bad. Naturally, I can't get paid for it, but I still want to build the ideas I have kicking around in my head.

cpach5 tahun yang lalu

I love orgs such as The Internet Archive and The Long Now Foundation. So maybe I would work on stuff like that.

Or maybe teaching tech to youths.

yrgulation5 tahun yang lalu

A new browser written ground up, where each html tag and css directive are classes in a decorator design pattern. No js at first, and total control over cookies. Code so clean that even a toddler could follow it so that one cant hide ugly behaviour in there.

xupybd5 tahun yang lalu

I'd be working on tools that allow users to design furniture online and have it automatically manufactured and sent to them.

I love this stuff but the cost of setting it up is in the millions.

yrgulation5 tahun yang lalu

My msc dissertation is on this - including software and some details about how to link robots. The architecture is such that each machine is an endpoint in an soa system and instructions are sent using queues. Used robot arms and cncs aren't that expensive. I cant recommend this field enough as i think its the future.

xupybd5 tahun yang lalu

Is that dissertation public?

I'd love to read more.

yrgulation5 tahun yang lalu

Unfortunately not yet. But here is an oversimplified overview: any device (robot arm, conveyor belt, cnc machine) must be connected to a lan so that code or other instructions can be uploaded and for the device to ping back when a job is finished. Some hardware can be controlled via linux cnc, a usb cable, or have built in networking so the job is easier. The sequence of jobs are defined similar to worflows in release pipeline (i.e: pick up wood plank using robot arm or actuators and suction cups, place on cnc and detect correct placement with some basic laser positioning system or switches, machine, pick planks up using the same arm or actuator and place it on a finished stack). Each workflow (encompassing these machines) is a queue consumer that picks up jobs as it becomes available just in a web system. Obviously there are implementation details to work out but overall i think this is all doable even with old hardware or hobby robot arms and 3d printers. The communication protocol is http and data format json. A hobby implementation can use raspberry pies or linux cnc pcs connected to each device. Such an approach could for instance manufacture ikea style furniture because it doesnt require assembly. It gets more complicated for painting or lamination tho.

Andys5 tahun yang lalu

A drone that could fly into a disorderly forest of random fruit trees, and pick and collect all the ripe fruit.

diplodocusaur5 tahun yang lalu

I wonder how quantified forests really are. Earth's biodiversity is technology we keep on losing.

kingkongjaffa5 tahun yang lalu

Probably something to do with nuclear policy, public perception is a big blocker to replacing fossil fuels with nuclear as a cleaner baseline.

The last 2 decades have seen a fall in large scale infrastructure projects as the will to “kick the can down the road” has only increased. This makes the environment for longer term building of things like nuclear plants, much less appealing.

The lack of will to do things on a medium term timeline is going to reduce how long our long term timeline will be.

marshallbananas5 tahun yang lalu

An alternative to the Apple ecosystem. Same functionality and range of products, different design choices.

e.g. laptops with matte displays and columnar layout keyboards. Think different.

imw5 tahun yang lalu

Ultrawideband cooperative/cognitive free space communication. We're stuck in a paradigm of radio communication (clear channel) that is 100 years out of date.

nickd20015 tahun yang lalu

Something to do with carbon capture, to extract already emitted C02 out of the air

mikewarot5 tahun yang lalu

You might want to look into regenerative farming, which actually builds soil, along the way capturing tons/acre of CO2, improving the ability to capture and hold rain, thus providing a way to deal with drought and climate change.

DarrenDev5 tahun yang lalu

I want to automate the writing of genre novels. Think Louis L'Amour westerns or Barbara Cartland romance novels. It's a massive and truly daunting piece of work, and it might not even be possible, but I have some ideas about how I would go about it.

And by novels I mean a "shitty first draft," not a publishable work.

I've made a start on it, but I get side tracked by having to make money.

zzzzzzzza5 tahun yang lalu

my personal side project is multiplayer choose your own adventure novels, but I think something like automatic story/rought draft generation would be necessary in order to practically write them, since they get so complicated, though I haven't really worked on that aspect yet, and am also currently side tracked with more short term/monetarily rewarding goals

hkt5 tahun yang lalu

My tan.

Less flippantly, I'd probably spend my time writing free speech therapy apps for kids with autism. I might even become a speech therapist myself.

magicpossum5 tahun yang lalu

I would open/start a music studio. Fill the space with great gear and still cater to the “in the box” software approach to recording and composition, but also make it a great creative space and a place to get demos and ideas into finished records. I’d be in house engineer and more producer than technical engineer, assisting on songwriting and sound design etc. I would aim to make the rates affordable and would actively try and engage less fortunate communities and artists with discounted pricing and/or free workshops and sessions.

Naturally this costs quite a lot of start up money and doesn’t tend to generate much in the way of cash flow, so I think it will just be a dream, unless money were no object!

Graffur5 tahun yang lalu

If I won a significant amount of money I would open a BnB or pub. Ideally I'd grow my own food too.

anon3213213235 tahun yang lalu

"Same thing I do every day, Pinky, try to take over the world!"

This coincidentally is basically the underpinnings of every startup plan I've ever seen, at least the good ones anyway.

codegeek5 tahun yang lalu

Free and World Class Primary Education for developing World. I truly believe Education is one of the biggest ways out of Poverty and it should start with Primary Education.

paulcole5 tahun yang lalu

Working on going to the coffeeshop every morning, reading, exercising, relaxing, watching TV, and going to the movies.

Would never put any effort into anything meaningful again.

muzani5 tahun yang lalu

AI creativity. Where AI can work on a kind of mental assembly line and humans are there to figure out the specifications of the thing to be built.

For example, I'd love to see humans write an outline of a book then feed it to AI who writes the book in full, using a consistent writing style.

Or say, you have a business idea. You can brainstorm a (domain) name with the AI, brainstorm a pitch, the pitch deck, the company colors, and so on.

randomopining5 tahun yang lalu

Probably something that uses tamper-proof hardware and blockchain tech to have a trustless ledger of pollution from the source, so that negative externalities of pollution can be properly attributed to their makers/sources.

We need to have the cost of pollution properly factored in to the price of things, to the taxes individuals pay, etc... so that they are offset.

hulitu5 tahun yang lalu

Porting old unix programs to 64bit linux/unix.

mikewarot5 tahun yang lalu

An operating system with a bulletproof sandbox that allows anyone to run any program against any data without risking their computer.

I'm fairly certain it's currently impossible with Linux, Windows, etc. I'd like to get us back up to at least the safety we used to have with an IBM PC XT, 2 Floppy drives, running MS-DOS, with stacks of write protectable floppy disks

loa_in_5 tahun yang lalu

Human-Machine interfaces. Keyboards are limiting, VR is imperfect and clunky. Mice literally hurt long-time users.

zzzzzzzza5 tahun yang lalu

tap strap is kind of interesting but i think it's ultimately just as bad if not worse than a keyboard, they are coming out with a new version soon though that fits around your wrist

d--b5 tahun yang lalu

I want to make a physical device to control spotify connect. It’d have a slot where you insert a card that has the name of the song / playlist / album written on it, and the device would ocr that and send it to spotify. That way my 2 year old can use it without a smart phone

bellyfullofbac5 tahun yang lalu

Alipay has QR code readers which are basically a lightbox with a camera in the back, you can activate your mobile payment app to show the barcode, and place your phone against the glass, and this avoids the awkward placing and angling of a handheld scanner to scan the phone. I think some versions have lights too, so the barcode is visible.

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...

I guess one could get a Raspberry Pi with camera, and 3D print such a box (or order from AliExpress). Install a QR code reader software that can talk to Spotify, and print some cards, ideally with QR codes on both sides.

The end user would just have to place the card on the glass to get music to play.

[deleted]5 tahun yang lalu

jamil75 tahun yang lalu

Catch up on years of neglected reading, language learning and playing music.

perilunar5 tahun yang lalu

I would build solar-powered airships and cruise around the world slowly. Would want something with living space equal to a campervan or small yacht, so you could live aboard indefinitely.

SomeHacker445 tahun yang lalu

1. Aerobatics starting with the sportsman routine in a Decathlon

2. Some game in a Lisp

3. Working out regularly and getting in good shape, and having a rock solid sleep schedule

4. Drums

5. Learning the math for general relativity and general relativity

lawlorino5 tahun yang lalu

Go back to academia

DocTomoe5 tahun yang lalu

I would love to organize and orchestrate buddhist-/hinduist-inspired, but ultimately faith-independent meditation and philosophy retreats.

diplodocusaur5 tahun yang lalu

Minimizing existential risk

Maximizing human-computer bandwidth/throughput

Education

Mathematics

jpmoral5 tahun yang lalu

1. Music

2. Tabletop roleplaying games

3. Various environmental and social causes

boredatworkme5 tahun yang lalu

Money were no object, then I would work on an open, free alternative to sites like Ticketmaster.

the_only_law5 tahun yang lalu

Probably something in the realm of new visible light communications technology or security research.

markus_zhang5 tahun yang lalu

1. Amateur fossil collecting

2. Figuring out reverse engineering of malware somehow

3. Data engineering for some start-ups

fhaldridge75 tahun yang lalu

I'd buy a coffee plantation and then work on increasing the quality of the beans

VoodooJuJu5 tahun yang lalu

Winery/vineyard, stone sculpture, permaculture experimentation, architecture.

giantg25 tahun yang lalu

My own little farm and a couple of small app/IoT ideas.

netjiro5 tahun yang lalu

bottom up molecular machinery

toomuchtodo5 tahun yang lalu

Climate change mitigation.

enonevets5 tahun yang lalu

A new OS

mikewarot5 tahun yang lalu

As a hobby? Anything new/different about it?

enonevets5 tahun yang lalu

Hey Mike. Thanks for asking.

Nope, not as a hobby but competitively against MacOS and Windows.

There are a ton of great challenges trying to compete and differentiators (by features) alone are probably not enough but key aspects I am interested in tackling are…

1. A hybrid cloud OS

2. Remote access

3. Remote data processing

There are some other ideas but I think there’s a lot of innovation that can still be done at the OS level

mikewarot5 tahun yang lalu

Any chance you could incorporate capability based security? The concept isn't widely known, but a system based on it would offer bulletproof sandboxing, as the default permissions to do anything are none.

The use of capabilities offers a way to handle authentication without a lot of grief for accessing remote resources... the capability IS permission, so there's no need for usernames/passwords, etc.

Imagine you give a task a list of URLs (to make it simple) at startup.. that list is the ONLY set of resources it is allowed to access. No matter how confused or rogue the task gets, it can't corrupt anything else, or store trojans anywhere.

enonevets5 tahun yang lalu

Yeah I’m definitely interested because a huge component of this will also be a decentralized system that is meaningful for privacy but also allow for safe authentication

ranuzz5 tahun yang lalu

writing fiction and creating video games...

is_true5 tahun yang lalu

tracking and controlling algal blooms

tsjq5 tahun yang lalu

gardening in public spaces .

JayDustheadz5 tahun yang lalu

Myself.

MadX_Digital5 tahun yang lalu