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Ask HN: Do you have a problem you'd pay to have taken away?
17 points by mbm on Jan 7, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 52 comments


Cross-platform statically typed 2D&GUI framework, suitable for games, paid upfront and not phoning home

UE4/5 are way too large for most projects. Unity double-dips your revenue, is buggy as hell, has no support and no source code. GameMaker wants a subscription, has no source available and GML locks you into their tiny ecosystem. Defold forces LUA on you and has rather limited device support. Cocos2d is apparently a Chinese subscription now? Also, no good editor. JUCE has a good editor, runs everywhere, is price reasonably, but is mostly CPU and not GPU. Dart+Flutter look promising until you notice that they run Skia WASM inside the dart VM which itself runs in WASM which runs inside a JS VM and performance is abysmal. JS frameworks run badly on consoles like Switch because you can't AOT compile them. Also, no static typing. Godot forces their rendering and engine loops on you, so you're limited to their render pipelines which makes it unsuitable for app GUIs.


> Dart+Flutter look promising until you notice that they run Skia WASM inside the dart VM which itself runs in WASM which runs inside a JS VM and performance is abysmal.

That's not how Flutter works on either of the platforms it supports.

When you run natively (e.g. mobile, desktop, etc) Skia or Impeller execute natively and all your Dart code is compiled ahead-of-time to native code as well. No JS or Wasm is involved anywhere in the stack. No JIT compilation in release binaries, only during development.

When you run on the Web - then naturally Skia is compiled to Wasm and Dart code is compiled to JS or Wasm, JS VM will end up running both of those. No Dart VM is involved anywhere here.


When I profile the (excruciatingly slow) demo website

(EDIT: WARNING that link crashes Firefox on my phone)

https://superdash.flutter.dev/

it sure looks like there are parts of the Dart VM in the call stack. Maybe I should have said Dart runtime?

But anyway, the dart example app stutters on my Android phone and the website stutters on my quad-core laptop with a mobile 3080. And it's basically just tappy chicken, so a simple 2D side scroller.


Not my comment, but relevant here "The problem with compiling Skia to WASM is you'll lose any benefits of hardware graphics acceleration on the device."

(From https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia/discussions/6831#disc... )


These examples for the flutter rpg game engine seem to run great on my old pixel 3, under the hamburger menu > mini games:

https://bonfire-engine.github.io/examples/bonfire-v3


That "map by tiled" example feels like 10 fps on my Firefox mobile. It's significantly better than the official Flutter demo game, but significantly worse than a pure JS framework.


I wonder if you have tried Haxe with a framework such as Heaps or Haxeflixel. I wonder why Haxe doesn't get more recognition.

Monogame (C#) or LibGDX (Java/Kotlin) could also be good options and both are very mature and tested.


Thanks :)

MonoGame looks like what I was searching for. As for Haxe, I always thought of it as a Flash competitor.


Strongly suggest you check out Haxe. Been my favorite open source community to be part of.



/waves


Wars and impending global conflict.

Bad political candidates from all major parties.

Excessively high costs for housing, health care, and education.

Global warming.

Environmental pollution of all kinds.

The perverse incentives that are aligned to destroy anything that is good.

Diseases and aging.

Oppressive, authoritarian workplace structure.

Ubiquitous tracking and invasions of privacy.

Inadequate and inconvenient public transit.

Aggressive, dangerous drivers/cyclists/etc.

Annoying locked shelves in drug stores.

Insufficient public restrooms.

Poorly maintained public infrastructure from roads to power systems.

Downvoting systems on web sites.


Properly fitting shoes and ski boots. Why can’t I get my foot scanned and then figure out if it will properly fit into the shoe volume before I buy it based on existing scans of current market products


Exactly this, but with climbing shoes, which have such a high return rate that some retailers have stopped accepting returns.

There’s definitely a market for this; it just has to be easy.

(I was going to create a 3D model of my foot using my iphone but it required taking 200 photos from various angles per foot. I instead just ordered 4 pairs and returned 3.)


The foot model wouldn’t help without a database of shoes. You need a crafty little robot widget to scan the inside of shoes and possibly put a bit of pressure on the inside to get the shape to fill out. In women’s shoes there are too many shoes to scan but in men’s the selection is pretty limited


That’s a good one. Just had that same problem literally today, although with a loafer, not a ski boot.


This is why I prefer physical stores, I can actually try it


But they never have your size, or style or width and it’s such a time sink to try all the acceptable shoes in the store only to leave with nothing


- Canceling subscriptions as a service. I'd pay $20 per cancelation if you can save my time.

- Applying for jobs and getting a phone interview as a service. The total number of applications and total rounds of interviews is too much. It's worth paying someone to do all this. Perhaps as a saas with an AI chatbot.


I went through a lot of resume/application death this past year while I was laid off. I was at near 100% failure rate when applying for jobs directly even after accounting for my own personal bias knowing easy to hire means easy to fire. I did get some minor traction when going through a recruiter.

So I stopped doing that. Another part of the problem is that I am a super experienced JavaScript developer who can write original high performance applications. Nobody wants that. It might be a valuable skill one day for founding a new company based around an amazing new software product, but employers don’t want that. In the world of JavaScript they want newbs that can put text on screen with React.

What got me call backs and interviews at a high rate, even for remote jobs, was to throw my resume up on Dice job board and focus on three things: I have programming experience, a security clearance, and information security certifications.


Thanks for the feedback! What's the job interview process been like for you?


Hundreds of online applications, response only from 50% of them.

Each response requires scheduling a phone call with the recruiter a few days out.

After each recruiter call, there's a round of interview - either with a software engineer or with a hiring manager.

Then some take home or such BS.

Then an onsite with multiple rounds.

--

The ideal interview as a service will take care of all the rounds prior to the onsite rounds.


Maybe as a sort of different way at looking at this, what if the hiring process had a different sort of architecture focused more on what you can do rather than arbitrary resume terms?

First, you start by making a demo showcasing your skills. It has to be something web-accessible.

Then, you use this demo as your application to jobs.

You can also just submit your demo to a pool, and companies can review submissions to the pool, and contact you if they like it.

Your work becomes the application, not your PDF.


Finding me an interesting job (given my preferences): shifting through the offers in several sites, doing the job of building me a CV tailored for each position, sending the initial mail, keeping track of the responses, etc. (I'd do the interviews obviously).

Finding offers for local work is easy on LinkedIn but once you go fully remote worldwide there are so many websites/listings to look at and so many open positions to apply that I get a bit overwhelmed.

I'd probably happily give my first or first two salaries for this work, given that it's truly interesting for me. Now, the catch is that I'm more Junior than Senior and there aren't many open positions for things like systems programming, etc. so it might take quite a few months for the whole thing to come to fruition, and I don't have too much money to pay monthly.

The good thing is that it's probably not that much work specially once you've sent several CVs and are waiting on an answer so the agent probably can do several clients at once.


Interesting, thanks for the feedback. What level of supervision would you want over the process? For example, would you want to approve each job that gets applied for, or do you truly want that to be done for you?


You might find this interesting: https://usemassive.com/


Another option: https://www.sonara.ai/


Microtransactions, Pay to Win, in-app purchases, always online

I want the ability to purchase a game for an upfront payment and then enjoy it. I do not want them to wage psychological warfare on me to get me addicted to their gatcha lootbox casino. I do not want to have a high retention and come back to grind every day

I just want to purchase a game, play through it alone and without interruptions, and then get back to my regular life.


I would add "compatibility and stability across software upgrades" - I don't want games to break every year due to Apple's software updates (which usually fix critical security bugs.)


I have a chronic illness that no doctor has been able to diagnose yet. Would be willing to pay money to the right person to help me out


Drop a contact email or something in your bio!

Wellness is way too broad for all of us to have applied familiarity in everything.

No promises, but I'll do my best to help try and identify some unusual stuff that may be going on, turn over some new rocks.

I've helped pull my partner, myself, and others out of some pretty deep holes, that a list of doctors could not.


edit: removed some info

you can contact me on my email, that would be soo helpful


Definitely hear you on that one. What's your experience been like?


College class registrations are always so painful, requiring like seven different web pages open to figure out what to take when, which sections are open, which professors are better, which need which textbooks, what the prerequisites are, etc.

I wish there was a way to just select them in a skill tree like an RPG and have the system plan out the next few semesters.


A proper automatic litter box. Something that can be easily taken apart and hosed out to clean, and won't smear feces all over itself if a cat doesn't have the hardest stool. Also something that doesn't use the litter enclosure itself; so if a cat touches the side of the enclosure, litter (and other stuff) won't get into their furr.

I've designed a few ideas, and thought about it for a long time; but honestly I haven't come up with a novel solution to what's already out there. I'd pay for just the design, and build it myself at this point. I'd probably pay 1000 dollars for it, and dedicate a lot of space to it; I hate scooping litter that much.


Have you tried the new granular litter? That stuff is amazing.


If you referred me to a remote job, I'd happily pay my first month's salary.


I was laid off mid way through the prior year. After spending a few months looking for a new job I felt degraded so I made a promise to myself that I would never go back to work primarily writing JavaScript. This resulted in a big shift in how I started looking for work. Ironically, the people that really steered me right in how to perform a career change were highly empathetic recruiters trying to fill their open JavaScript roles.

I changed my approach to my resume based upon their suggestions. They would actually rewrite it for me to the point of it almost becoming a fraudulent document but I was able to take it and double down on my strengths and unique qualities. This allowed me to become a hot candidate for defense jobs because I already had a security clearance and information security certifications.

It turns out if you have good experience programming there is a lot you can do outside of programming, in my current case: data science and API management. Good luck.


Being offshore makes it more difficult for me. But I am motivated to find one. Thanks for your input.


Not sure if this exists, but as a remote/distributed startup with no physical office, i use my home address on contracts and for mail. I'd like a service (in Canada) to allow me to register my address somewhere, ideally a commercial location, and forward all my mail to my home address or my partner's home address if addressed to him.


You don't have a UPS store, or PO Boxes at the Post Office?

Sure, it's a pain collecting mail every few days, but at least you keep your home address private.


In the US at least there are a million such services.


Tons of them exist, search "mail forwarding" or "virtual address" and you'll most likely find what you want


I'd pay for the Italian tax agency to work properly and tell you what you have to pay, while it's the opposite now


> I'd pay for the Italian tax agency

is that not what you'd pay an accountant for?


Maybe so if you make good money. In Spain — Italian here, but I have worked in Spain — my experience is that almost nobody earning <100k needs one, while this is not the case in Italy.


A commenting system where users can annotate specific parts of the text, a bit like Google Docs comments.

A system to vote up or down on arbitrary content/items.

A uptime monitoring tool that allows pushing a specific status, for example when a build fails.


Ads and tracking.


Medical Spa - A single place where you can get all preventative stuff done in a single day. Simple physical, blood tests, dental cleaning, eye exam, vaccines, imaging.

Charge a premium but make sure everything is efficient.


GOOD spell and grammar checking for emacs. What's builtin is not very good.


I'd give my last $20 for some income


Repeated stupidity in some areas.




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