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Ask HN: What annoys you?

81 points by daleharvey ↗ HN
A lot of recent threads have been talking about sharing ideas, I would rather share our problems. Hopefully some people can be lead towards solutions that already exist, and it might be useful for those looking to startup something new.

List the problem you have, and why you find it a problem, possibly saying why other things you have used havent solved it.

Make 1 comment per problem, and try to upvote / comment on problems to expand on them.

354 comments

[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 285 ms ] thread
daleharvey
Identity - I am sick of having to create accounts on every website in the world, OpenID is an awesome solution but it needs to be implemented ubiquitously, I do not want everything tied to my twitter or facebook account.
loewenskind
Systems like Password1 solve this for me, with the added benefit that if someone manages to hack one of these sites and capture my password for it they'll have a bunch of random characters that wont work for anything else I have.

Personally I don't like OpenID for this reason among others.

bemmu
I recently switched to 1Password. Now I realize that I'm basically unable to use any sites that require login with my phone, since I don't know my own passwords.
himmel
1Password has an application for the iPhone
there
and an "export to html" option that exports all of your passwords into a single encrypted javascript/html file that you can put on a server. it acts as a self-contained web application that lets you browse and search through your passwords on-demand. i've been using such an exported file for months after i migrated away from mac os and frequently access the file from my android phone and other browsers.
daleharvey
Payments - I am tired of entering 20 things every time I want to pay for something, paypal has been problematic with cancelling accounts and generally being untrustworthy.
bemmu
Also I'd love to get email notifications from my bank when someone pays me, so I don't have to constantly poll their clunky website.
Timothee
One work-around for that is services like Mint.com which will do the polling for you and alert you based on your own criteria.
jacquesm
Too much choice.
zephyrfalcon
This is actually a valid point. Freedom of choice seems to be a given nowadays. Obtaining freedom FROM choice is a lot of work.
daleharvey
Banking - My bank has a website that the 90's would be proud of, it gives me little to no information about my spending habits, transferring money is a nightmare, and using kublax (similiarly mint) had my account banned for security purposes.
pielud
Especially doing anything that requires one bank to talk to another. Why does it take 5 days to move money between banks? It's ridiculous.

I once had mistakenly setup a transfer from one bank to another and I wanted to cancel it. So I called up the destination bank and they said there was nothing they could do. I called the source bank and had to pay 30 bucks to put a stop payment order on the account AND they couldn't guarantee it would stop the transfer.

davidwparker
I'd like to add that if you are/were in the U.S. Military at some point, (or even your parents, I'm pretty sure) then you should check out USAA. They have a fantastic website and awesome customer service.

note: I have no affiliation with USAA other than I use them and really like them.

astine
USAA does have a mostly solid website (and a fairly customer service all around IMHO,) but it does have some rendering flaws with Firefox on Linux that are very annoying.
klous
I believe USAA also supports check imaging - no need to physically deposit a check. take a picture / scan it from your home or office and it will be processed.
stonemetal
They do but it doesn't work that well. I have had to scan checks 3 or 4 times before.
seekely
You no longer need an association with the military to sign up for USAA's checking/savings accounts. They're just really quiet about it. I made the switch to them a couple months ago. Signed up online and had an account minutes later.
ndimopoulos
I agree. You do not have to be a member of the U.S. Military to open an account (or more) with USAA. It took me roughly 15 minutes to open accounts for myself and my family through their website.

What you cannot do (if you are not/were a member of the military) is use their direct deposit feature i.e. scan checks and upload them to their website. You are not also eligible to get insurance from them.

Other than that I agree that they have a fantastic website and awesome customer service. Because they do not have ATMs when you withdraw money from another bank's ATM, they refund up to $1.50 for the ATM fees up to 10 times a month.

lukev
I had completely the opposite experience - our service with USAA was terrible. My wife's father was in the military so she had USAA for everything when we got married. We got a cheaper quote from another company for auto insurance, and when we tried to cancel for USAA they refused to do it and got belligerent on the phone, claiming that "we are the best" and "why would you want to use anyone else" and that our other quote "must be a mistake." It took half a dozen phone calls before we were able to cancel the service.

Their credit card (which she still has) isn't much better. Huge delays posting payments, and the customer service has a huge chip on their shoulder whenever she needs to call them.

joubert
Online banking in South Africa is excellent - I was shocked when I moved to the US how archaic it is.

Transfers are a breeze, fast, and everyone does it. Integration with cell phone infrastructure is also great.

grinich
A specific bank in particular?
joubert
My experience is with Investec and Standard Bank. But I've heard good things about ABSA, Nedbank, and FNB as well.

Competition is pretty strong, so fairly comparable across the board.

superuser2
I suspect transfers are archaic (inconvenient, expensive, and take several days or weeks to process) in the US because otherwise the credit card and payment processing industries would cease to exist.
loewenskind
It's really sad how many useless jobs exist in the US because someone thinks that these people would simply starve to death if they weren't able to e.g. hold a stop/slow sign at road construction sites.
brown9-2
Can I ask why you would even keep an account at such a bank then?
daleharvey
I have had accounts with 3 banks and they have all had similarly terrible experiences, if anyone has suggestions (UK based) more than welcome (halifax, lloyds and natwest are the 3 I have tried)
tome
Nationwide is great for my needs.
RiderOfGiraffes
Arranging travel schedules, tying together train, plane and car hire.
daleharvey
Things to do - I find it really hard to find things to go out and do in my spare time, events listings never seem to have something that interests me, same with tourist guides although they can be better. Asking friends is always an order of magnitude better.
ganley
I've long thought there is a serious opportunity in connecting organizations who provide fun things to do with people looking for fun things to do. I had an (unpursued) idea a while back to create a single-serving site called, "What should I do this weekend?" Another idea was a subscription-based service that organizes adult "field trips" every weekend.
p01nd3xt3r
I am working on this problem right now.
tansey
What about sites like Meetup? I had this same problem after moving and found a lot of regular hobbies locally.
tel
I've had a lot of success with the CouchSurfers community. It's a travel oriented site, but they also promote meetups for the people living in a city so as to form a tighter, most trusting community. When you throw travel-wise tourists, friendly city ambassadors, and generally open-minded go-out-and-tackle-the-world style people together in a room and have them share stories or plan events it gets crazy and amazing really, really quickly.
nickpinkston
Likewise - If you have time and love meeting interesting people, Couchsurfing is awesome. I've met some very interesting people, and it's quite safe.
pjscott
I wonder if you could make a list of public events on Facebook, searchable by town. There's a lot of stuff that happens; I just usually don't know about it until too late.
slater
- Having multiple gadgets, one can connect to a network, the other can't, even though they both have WiFi

- Bureaucrats that could be replaced by web apps

mrduncan
Airlines - They are nearly all just a pain in the ass to deal with. When was the last time you heard someone tell you how they had a great experience with an airline?
mseebach
I know where you're coming from, but when the combination of online check-in and dedicated bag-drops is in place (unfortunately, sometimes, especially when flying on budget airlines, it's not), flying is pretty painless. And painless, affordable transfer from A to B is my definition of a great airline experience.
lenary
you don't hear about it because you don't know rich enough people, or because you're tuned out from it - like weathermen constantly being wrong. they aren't, you just remember it more when they are than when they aren't.

I had a great experience with two airlines recently, bmi and airberlin, but it was probably because i was prepared to pay a little more than my usual easyjet price.

Yeah, i think that it's probably more to do with the correlation of how much you pay to how much you will enjoy airlines though

rdouble
I've had great experiences on Virgin America. It's cheap, the planes are nice, there is wifi, the terminals are better, the stewards and stewardesses are pleasant and good looking, etc.
spudlyo
Me too. I had no idea flying could be so enjoyable. I've made the Seattle -> SF trip a 4-5 times this year on Virgin and I've been over the moon at how easy and comfortable it's been.
mortenjorck
Honestly, they can't come to Chicago soon enough. Too bad they seem to be having a dog of a time getting space in the airport.
liedra
I had a great experience with Brussels Airlines during the volcanic ash thing - unlike a lot of crappy airlines, they put me (and the rest of my flight) up in a hotel in Barcelona for 2 nights, then organised a coach for everyone to drive back to Brussels. The only slight quibble was the dropping us at the destination airport at 2am with no other transport connections (apart from taxis) running, but that was small potatoes against what a lot of others suffered during that period. Still, their customer service was top notch, and they were quick with getting information out.
cromulent
There was an Aussie guy who ran British Airways for a while and then left to do other things. I remember an interview with him and they asked why he left the airline industry. The answer was something like: "The entire industry, from the Wright brothers until today, has made a net loss. I'd like to try something that makes a profit".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Eddington

jewbacca
I had a really great experience. I once pressed a series of buttons while at home in my underwear, giving a stranger enough cash for a nice night out or two. A few days later, I woke up at noon, drank some coffee, had a slightly fitful nap, and woke up 7000 kilometers away in the stratosphere. When I fell back down (softly), I spent a few days walking around a city whose inhabitants' ancestors had been utterly genetically and culturally decoupled from mine from 50,000 years ago until recently. Then I got bored and went home.

I'm pretty sure it was a good experience, because I keep reading books about how my trip usually takes months in transit living in your own filth, if you didn't bring your family you'd never see them again, and sometimes you'd die on the way. I had to pay $8 for a sandwich though.

_3ex7
Sheep herd mentality. It also annoys me when my CD skips
Mc_Big_G
People in the left lane driving with a speed <= or 1mph faster than the people in the right lane.
logicalmind
This is annoying but what is more annoying is when you're on a multiple lane highway and 2 or more people decide to drive at exactly the same speed right next to each other. It would be nice if there was a rule (a law would be nice, but I don't see how you'd enforce it) that you could not drive within two car lengths of the car next to you at speeds over 40mph.

The added bonus here would be that people would not be sitting in other people's blindspots all the time and should reduce accidents.

antidaily
More infuriating is when the driver is so oblivious that he/she doesn't notice the 8-10 cars behind him/her trying to pass.
ww520
Ah the left lane squatters who squat but won't shit.

More infuriating are people who change into the left lane and slow down.

grep
Reading posts with a lot of comments in HN. I never know what comments are new without looking to the date (sometimes they are hundreds).
bluemetal
I've got a chrome extension called "hckr news". It shows you which comments on a HN thread that are new since the last time you visited that page. So far I'm liking it
tsycho
I was thinking of this same problem yesterday. I will try to hack together a Firefox extension for this over the weekend to give the HN comments page Slashdot type filters (min. point thresholds), and date sorting.

Will post on HN if it works well.

daleharvey
yeh if anyone has a firefox extension to fix this then it annoys me as well.
BJakopovic
I generally try and batch read HN (via rss) daily, and sometimes I feel that I am missing out on new comments (made after I finished reading and closed the tab; most commonly the new/recent posts)...would be nice to avoid bookmarking and searching for the new comments
lutorm
Yeah, though reading is not so bad until you post a comment (like now), at which point you end up back at the top... An inline comment feature would be great.
rperkins
Naggers
macms
first thing i thought of too
username3
Did you create this account just to post this?
mrduncan
Email - Not a lot has changed in the past 20 years, I think we can do better.

Yes, Gmail was pretty innovative but I still think there are plenty of things to improve.

daleharvey
Fully agreed, I think wave was an awesome concept, but a terrible implementation.

Managing email programatically in particular for me is a nightmare, sendgrid is an awesome service, but processing incoming email should be much easier. (I have yet to try lampson)

mslate
IMHO the only problem with Google Wave's implementation was that it didn't integrate with normal email, limiting its network to Google Wave users. This seems very obvious, but I rarely hear people mention this when Google Wave comes up. Did you have something else in mind when you said it had terrible implementation?
ThomPete
Oh man where to start.

It's just a noisy mess, poorly designed, with a lot of weird design decisions and exotic patterns that only added to the noise.

It starts with a way to complex proposition. Google basically created the entire vision instead of the basic core functionality and then expanded on that, optimizing in the detail rather than for the big shows.

Etherpad started the right way. It started very lean with a basic principle that then evolved with time, slowly. And now it got bought.

edanm
I agree that it was a terrible start.

But have you looked at it recently? I've been using Wave to manage most of my project-related communications (with one or two partners), and it's fantastic. Like Etherpad, but a lot more powerful. And fyi, the Etherpad team is now part of the Google Wave team.

mslate
I don't think its extraneous features detract from it as much as you're suggesting, but I also am probably not so qualified to judge since I barely use it (since there's no email integration). We've got highly portable hardware that integrates IM, SMS, email and media two-way/embedding (smartphones) but there's definitely room for a software or web application to provide all of these in one place on their respective platform. That's what I was hoping Google Wave would provide, but the rollout and self-containment is the critical factor in crippling it
seancron
I agree that they were missing some core features in the beginning. It has greatly improved though.

They've opened it up now so that you can design a better interface if you wish to. They've also opened it up to anyone with an email address now, and expanded on the robots and gadgets.

Now I don't use Wave that much because I don't often need the collaboration that it offers. However, if they could integrate Wave and Gmail, it would be immensely useful, especially the gadgets and robots.

pjscott
I think there's room for a lot more innovation in this area. I'm working on some open source code for doing Wave-like stuff in a way that will be easy for people to integrate with other projects. Have you ever tried to edit a wiki page, only to discover that somebody else was editing it and had acquired a lock on the whole page? There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to both edit it, Etherpad-style. Or rather, the reason is that making something like that is hard. But it shouldn't have to be. I hope to have something release-worthy in about a month; right now I've got a distributed text editor prototype that looks like a cross between Etherpad and Notepad. It works, but the code needs an overhaul.

Another problem with Google Wave is that it's inherently centralized. They transform the insert/delete operations so they can be applied out of order and still converge on the same document state. Unfortunately, the method they use for this requires a central server to maintain causal ordering of the operations. There are ways of doing this that don't require a central server, which could be handy.

daleharvey
The main thing was the integration with email, I was amazed it didnt have it from the start and convinced that it would be coming very soon.

But the UI also irked me, it was far far to bloated with features I didnt care about (replay), when the thing that I care about was it being as fast and responsive as gmail, which it wasnt close to.

mrduncan
Managing email programatically in particular for me is a nightmare, sendgrid is an awesome service, but processing incoming email should be much easier. (I have yet to try lampson)

Is there an available solution for the reverse of SendGrid? Basically a service which would receive your emails and then post to a url on your application.

sanderjd
Not a built in solution for this, but have you seen lamson - http://lamsonproject.org/ ? Handle emails with python - would be trivial to simply post their contents to a url.
zyfo
I remember reading an article from someone who've used email for 25+ years and he pointed out three or so fundamental changes to email since he started using it. I think it was readable email addresses, conversations, and search.

Anyone know which article I'm talking about?

brown9-2
Can you list some of the (possible) improvements you can think of?
Pengwin
Standards for email markup would be really nice for starters.

I think it would be great if email had a sort of simple XML data structure, it would be a lot easier to tie it in with modern day document formats.

I highly doubt both of these will happen in the foreseeable future, The standards for html email alone are still terrible

mortenjorck
I've had a handful of specs and UI mockups for a completely new kind of desktop email client sitting around for months, but I haven't had the opportunity to take them any further. If only there were a Chicago co-founder meetup...
TheSOB88
Would you really be kickstarted by a meetup if you don't have the gumption to do anything about it now?
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tjr
Informal music notation. Existing systems are fine enough for formal classical notation, but if you want to make a quick rough sketch (e.g., lead sheets in The Real Book) it's pretty cumbersome, and the amount of time & effort it takes doesn't seem commensurate with the sort of document desired.

I've been pondering this off and on for years; I think it might require a pretty fundamental switch in how the data is entered. So far the best I've come up with is, uh, pen and paper...

s-phi-nl
Sorry for the accidental downvote. I meant to upvote because I have been thinking about (more formal) music notation on and off for years, too, trying to come up with a better format than Lilypond.
dingle_thunk
Oh man... This one bugs me too, but I see a lot of potential for things like the iPad here...
zefhous
Yes, agreed. I am actually working on an iPad app for this purpose.
ovi256
Have you thought about piano rolls ? Either paper-based ones that you draw yourself, or use software like Reason that has a piano roll for note input or display, nor sheet music. Actually, most non-classic music software has piano rolls.
wazoox
What do you want to jot down? only chords, chords + melody?
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harscoat
Expense reports - eg. receipts collection, sorting them, scanning them (even if some solutions exist) but then accountants always want it in a different format/system that I use. (no standard especially outstide the US)
bemmu
Agreed, I believe even small businesses could save hours each month if all the relevant receipts related to a month's bank transactions somehow magically got gathered in the same place.
nostromo
This is so true. My company uses Concur and I'm sorry to say it's actually worse than doing it the old fashioned way. You wouldn't expect that from their homepage, but the actual app is godawful.

I know the receipts are an IRS thing, but why can't the rest be easier?

xsc
Lack of time - Seems as if I can't spend enough time with people I care about.
ExtremePopcorn
Psychological pricing - don't tell me that your product is $9.95; say $10.
zephyrfalcon
I wonder if businesses actually sell more if their products are priced like $9.95 or $9.99 instead of $10, or that it's just based on the expectation that such prices are more attractive to the customer. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing] doesn't mention whether any research was done to verify this, much less any results.
bitwize
I heard tell this practice arose because of some newspaperman who struck up deals with local businesses to salami-slice pennies off their prices so that people would have more pennies with which to buy his one-cent newspaper.

If true, I don't think he realized the Sorcerer's-Apprentice-like consequences of his actions, as I'm now AWASH IN USELESS PENNIES.

Timmy_C
I know that most prices at Nordstrom end in .95 whereas Nordstrom Rack prices typically end in .97.

They have a very liberal return policy so it's a simple way to encode where the product was bought so customers can't pass off outlet store items as if they were bought from Nordstrom proper.

That's one beneficial use to psychological pricey but I too would rather pay nice round numbers. It makes it easier to calculate sales tax too.

Timothee
And the consequence of that is that I sometimes can't remember some products' prices.

"Was it $699 that I mentally converted to $700, or was it $799?"

detst
Yes. I bought some food from a place recently that had all of their prices listed on the board as whole numbers. It took me a couple seconds to register as a price because it's so unusual. I loved it though.
harscoat
Roaming cell fees - when traveling abroad (there are some ways around but very cumbersome)
Timothee
And the ways around this are not necessarily working well sometimes. Recent experience: getting a prepaid SIM card for my iPhone in France. Turns out that it would randomly and without my knowledge connect to WiFi hotspots and completely drain my credits.
jakevoytko
Problem: Designing clean architectures to solve an unfamiliar class of systems programming problems

This goes beyond design patterns - I mean designing systems with a dozen or more components that interact in complex ways. My first few cuts have lots of rough edges, and as I redesign the system, cleaner solutions appear. I work on lots of almost-real-time robotics systems, and good solutions for normal apps have subtle-yet-fatal problems when you need a small average latency at 100% CPU load