HN Explorer

Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

442 points by jlevers ↗ HN
I know there are lots of really interesting problems out there waiting to be solved, but I haven't been exposed to much in the software world besides web technologies.

I'd love to hear about what interesting problems (technically or otherwise) you're working on -- and if you're willing to share more, I'm curious how you ended up working on them.

Thank you :)

708 comments

[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 473 ms ] thread
fhcgffgfxgfgfd
Raising a child.
jlevers
Kudos to you -- that's a problem I'm definitely not prepared to work on yet!
eivarv
Persisting your OS state as a "context" - saving and loading your open applications, their windows, tabs, open files/documents and so on.

Started because of frequent multitasking heavy work with limited resources.

Open Beta (macOS) as soon as I finish license verification and delta updates.

https://cleave.app

abrichr
This looks great! I've often wished that something like this existed. How long have you been working on it?
eivarv
Thanks!

The basic idea, on and off for close to five years. Started out experimenting with shell session persistence (solved[0], but not quite), then prototyping a browser-concept and playing with browser-extensions, then settling on the OS-level...

[0]: https://github.com/EivindArvesen/prm

raihansaputra
This is cool! I wish I have something like this across multiple machines, although then there’s a lot of sync problems that needs to be solved
choward
I haven't really thought this out and I don't have aMac to test on but why not just use separate user accounts? Doesn't OSX already reopen every thing?
eivarv
Separate user accounts is kind of the naive (and not quite complete) solution to the same problem.

Not really a smooth experience in my opinion, doesn't map quite as well to the concept of "working context" as I think of it. Also, you'd have to maintain your list of users, and manually sync any settings, etc. - whereas with Cleave, I'm planning on implementing white- or blacklisting of applications on a context-basis (and system settings etc. are implicitly shared).

jborichevskiy
I love the idea of what you're building - signed up to be notified for the beta!

> Separate user accounts is kind of the naive (and not quite complete) solution to the same problem.

I too have attempted to solve this problem with user accounts; and yeah it doesn't work well. Files are a pain to share, the log-out-log-back-in process takes forever, and a bunch of preferences don't sync across user accounts.

I particularly like the idea of having a super-low-energy mode where it's just for writing or reading, and saved states for my countless research sessions. Also, being able to freeze my dev workspace and resume it any point sounds amazing.

Excited to try it out!

baroomba
Nice. I’ve thought for a few years now that this is the next big thing I want out of an OS and software ecosystem—suspend work session, resume book research session and personal communication session, suspend research session leaving comm session active, open Christmas shopping session, suspend, suspend all open sessions and load gaming session, and so on. Huge bonus if the sessions can be moved from one device to another.
jlevers
I didn't know I wanted this until now, and now I really want it. I often open a ton of related applications, and then avoid restarting my computer because it's incovenient to reopen everything.

I'm on Linux, so I won't be able to use your app, but great idea and good luck!

gonzo41
I think taking this sort of context snapshot may be very difficult. If you assume no direct application integration. It would almost be like you would need a mechanism to operate in a partition of RAM where it could not interact with the current running context but stream all of the RAM in use to disk.

Also it'd would be a data integrity nightmare because if one context shared the apps from another. How would you manage memory corruption, and allocation and saving in this sort of scenario.

Anyway, sounds awesome.

Good luck

segmondy
You can explore running everything in a Linux Container, LXD. Then freeze the LXD if you wish to shutdown, and unfreeze when you're ready to restart, it's how container workloads can be moved from one system to another.
jlevers
Interesting, I'll look into LXDs. Thanks for the pointer!
skwb
I'm working on automating the acquisition of cardiac MRIs using deep learning!
mrfusion
Where does deep learning come in?
skwb
We use heatmap localization to identify the cardiac landmarks that define the viewing planes.
jobseeker990
Is there are way to get involved in something like that? It sounds so fascinating.
gwicks56
Seeing if mental health crises can be predicted by gathering passive data from your phone. ( Accel, gyro, GPS, music choices, keyboard entries, app usage, sleep, facial expressions etc)
wheelerwj
i think we’re doing this already arent we? at least foe AdHD and depression. i think its a great use case but the privacy risks are massive.
gwicks56
Yeah the privacy issues are bit scary. Our app can only be installed by people who are in IRB approved studies, but the nature of the data collected means de-identifying it is impossible. There is also the issue of what happens if it turns out we can predict things, it's a bit pre-cog ish. Depression and suicide are such massive problems though that new methods are absolutely needed.
modo_mario
Wait how are we doing this for ADHD?
dillonmckay
Helping car salespeople sell more vehicles.

Lots of webscraping.

Sil_E_Goose
I'm helping dealerships better communicate with customers during service. The automotive world is a wacky one.
dillonmckay
That seems a bit more ‘wholesome’ than me.

Maybe we can compare notes?

Irene
Community medicine; precision medicine - all self-funded.
mrfusion
Sounds interesting. Can you explain more?
tezzer
Characterizing the effect of near-surface humidity and wave action on Ka/Ku band satellite transmissions from a surfboard-sized autonomous swimming vessel. I have a little sensor platform, and customers that want it to do a whole lot more. Bandwidth can be hard to come by 6000 miles from the nearest human.

Also, working on how to integrate a small team of hackers into a big team of production oriented engineers. Making the first of something is such a different skill set to making thousands more.

I got here by getting headhunted for a neat-sounding job after a project elsewhere ended, and then assuming more and more duties until my title had to change to match my responsibilities.

mrfusion
I’m surprised there’s so much demand for that.

Also I bet you’re excited for starlink.

tezzer
The ocean's a big place, and really hard to operate in. I'm looking forward to seeing how low power the terminals end up consuming!
dbetteridge
Semi random question.

Is this related to the refractivity of the near surface atmosphere above the waters surface affecting directionality and bandwidth?

tezzer
Yes, and a couple of other things- the water acts as an RF ground plane, so different sea states experience this differently; the humidity in the first few inches off the surface is enough to affect signal performance; and mist and spray from splashing affects things more.
brenden2
Working on a new company, one which (I hope) will turn the restaurant industry on its head. I want to make in-restaurant ordering, payment, and service pure joy.

I'm mostly heads down coding every day, building an MVP. Also trying to find some investor interest where possible, however fundraising has never been something I'm good at.

buzzert
This seems like something everybody wants but I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. What are some of the (assumingly non-technical) challenges in such an enterprise?
brenden2
The biggest problem I'm facing right now is credit card processing costs. The restaurant business is a high revenue, low margin industry. The fees are higher for online transactions (no card present) vs. in person transactions (card present), on the order of 1-2%. I think this is the biggest reason it hasn't happened yet. However, I have a workaround which I think will work.
choward
Oh no. Not another crypto currency or other virtual currency I hope.
dublinben
Shouldn't an in-restaurant ordering solution be processing card-present transactions as opposed to card-not-present?
rs23296008n1
I was wondering that. Why would you to to a restaurant without an ability to pay?
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
HeyLaughingBoy
If they're in the restaurant, why isn't the card present?
withinboredom
This reminds me of an experience I had in the UK that was not pure joy. I paid using their website, and as soon as I saw the payment confirmation appear, closed the web browser. Well, whatever tech they were using must have sent the internal “they paid” message on a hit from the confirmation page. So, the money came out of my account but their systems didn’t track it. It took quite a few weeks of back and forth to get my double payment back.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
256lie
Models to detect strokes in medical images to be deployed in a hospital.
neuro_image3
What specifically are you looking at? DWI MRI? CT Perfusion? AI models?
jcims
Could you add thermal imaging support to pick out folks with a fever in a crowd?
Gys
Making people connect offline
dang
I've often thought about trying to use HN to facilitate more of this.
Gys
Bringing an online community to offline is very challenging. HN has many members, but spread out around the globe. An interesting challenge. There have been some initiatives in the past, I think? Not by HN but by members I mean.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
m00dy
Im working on https://carboncredit.io

It is a next generation carbon offset marketplace.

TheFiend7
I fail to understand what your product offering is by looking at your site. Could explain what exactly is trying to be achieved by this product and why I would even want a carbon credit cert?
m00dy
You would want a carbon credit certificate to save this planet basically.
mkl
I don't think clicking a green run button will save the planet. I don't understand either. Your site doesn't seem to have any actual information about the carbon offsets or who does them or where or how it relates to the API. What do you actually do?
m00dy
for the record: I'm taking screenshot of these comments :-)
yeutterg
Working on the problem of "blue" light affecting circadian rhythms and sleep. We launched our MVP, Bedtime Bulb [0], in 2018, and it's now the most popular product in the category. We're expanding out of North America to Europe in the next couple weeks.

We've had a ton of great feedback from customers, and we are working on several new sleep technologies that we plan to release this year.

It's also been interesting to apply the lean methodology to hardware. Iteration cycles are long, but I'd argue that lean is just as important for hardware as it is for software.

[0] https://bedtimebulb.com/

mcraealex16
The issue I have with this is there isn't a consensus about what and if any of these products work. The IES (illumination engineering society) has released a couple articles about why consumers should be weary of products that claim to control the rythms and after attending a talk from the IES on the subject I'm not convinced any of it works (at least to the degree marketing says it does)

https://www.ies.org/fires/circadian-lighting-an-engineers-pe...

yeutterg
I've had a few discussions with the author of that article. Not intending to put words in his mouth, but I believe he is effectively saying 2 things:

- The metrics Circadian Stimulus and Melanopic Lux are flawed

- We don't know enough to produce products yet

I agree with him on point 1, especially about CS. The author, and several others, have demonstrated a huge discontinuity around 3500K. The CS model needs improvement.

Regarding melanopic lux, the author says it is more a problem with our measurement and modeling tools. Most manufacturers won't provide a Spectral Power Distribution, but this is starting to change (we do). There is at least one clinical trial in progress that is testing this metric directly, and several experts think it shows a lot of promise.

With that said, new research on blue vs. yellow/orange opponency is coming out. Basically, we're trying to figure out contribution of the visual system on top of melanopsin. I'm not sure what to make of it yet, but I think we'll find out much more in the next 2 years. We probably need a better metric than melanopic lux.

On point 2, I agree that our knowledge is changing. But it takes a number of years for standards to be developed, much slower than the rate of technology improvement. We are paying attention to all the new research, but we based our design on our best understanding of the research to date.

We know that we can really only attract early adopters at this stage who "get" it, and that most people are going to wait and see until things are more standardized. But we are effectively able to do mini-experiments with our customers, which can lead to more insights/avenues of experimentation.

Case-in-point: f.lux. Research has shown that it is somewhat effective on its own, but combined with dimming, it could be quite effective. That's actually what we're doing with our product—controlling both the spectrum and intensity. And f.lux is able to run experiments with a portion of their users to advance our understanding.

Basically, my opinion is that we have to start somewhere, and we believe we have enough evidence supporting that our solution is "better than nothing." We were able to prove that there is enough of a market for these types of solutions already, even though our knowledge is still evolving.

(edited for a paragraph spacing typo and a 2nd time for a grammar issue)

germuth
May I also suggest your company to look into the opposite, basically extremely bright lights. I'm picturing one bulb that can go extremely bright in the morning for things like SAD, and then adjust throughout the day.

You may think extremely bright SAD lights is already readily available, but there's anecdotal evidence to suggest they are insufficient

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/koRZu53LBZEapwww6/could-some...

TACIXAT
I have had sleep issues my entire life. I've cut out sugar, caffeine (both for other reasons), and used blue light filtering applications on my devices. None made a significant difference. I think another issue worth looking at is people not getting a daytime light signal. I've purchased and ultra bright light that I saw in this post [1] and it seems to have helped more than anything I have tried before.

1. https://www.benkuhn.net/lux

yeutterg
Yep, reducing blue light at night is an important part of the problem, but it's not a panacea. We realize that everyone has different sleep needs, and much of our focus this year will be helping people understand what inputs have an effect on their sleep.
Chris2048
Have you tried a cold shower/bath followed by warm bed, or a hot bath followed by a cold fan?

Big core temperature changes usually make me feel sleepy.

_myles
The past several years I've been trying to find some tangible philosophical ground to stand on. This (desperate) search is and has been the produce of mental illness I've dealt with since my adolescence (I'm 32 now).

Quite a long story short, I managed to get the mental illness under control; something I thought I'd be living with the rest of my life.

My research has included mostly standing/walking meditation, and reading a lot on philosophy, religion, psychology, and such.

This is a personal project I've only just sort of revealed, after some persuasion by my peers. I didn't really have much intention on putting out in the public but it has turned out to be something significant. There is a lot to say about it.

EDIT: If you're curious, here is what I came up with after I started recording my research. DISCLAIMER: there is some personal stuff I talk about.

https://github.com/myles-moylan/head_project

tuesday20
Could you please elaborate on meditation? How has it helped you, how much time do you spend, what is walking meditation etc?

Thank you

_myles
When I meditate all I'm trying to do is keep my attention in the present moment; if my mind starts to wander I bring it back, and so on.

I've always loved going on walks, and they've just turned out to be a good way to work through mental/emotional stuff. Walking helps you stay in the moment as well, and when you're focusing your attention on the moment there's always new things to sense.

Let me know if that's not clear enough.

EDIT:

Another important part of meditation is the analysis of your thoughts and emotions. Whatever comes up, try to understand why it did as well as you can.

tuesday20
I go on long walks, this is something I will try. I usually listen to podcasts while walking, maybe it is time to try something different.

About analyzing thoughts - I tend to over analyze everything. How do you not fall into this trap?

_myles
It's vital that you're honest with yourself in order to find some sort of base cause to any given thought/emotion. I honestly end up catching myself lost in thought after a minute or so more often than not.

It's really a best effort sort of thing. But the more you practice, and the more effort you put forward, the stronger you'll get and the easier it will be to filter the signal from the noise.

hanniabu
> walking meditation

Walking while meditating. There's a common misconception that you need to be sitting or lying down to meditate *or even need to be in a dark candle lite room lol). Meditating is a state of mind.

aaron-santos
Distance running gave me the space to let stressors bubble up, acknowledge them and move on. Once all of those thoughts pass it becomes easy to focus on breathing and be present in the moment. Over time it also becomes easier to recognize this pattern and expect and accept it.
hanniabu
Yup, this has been the case for me too, along with any repetitive task such as rowing, turning a garden, chopping wood, etc.
mojomark
Some of my best ideas come whilst doing dog poop sweeps out of my yard. ... I know
AnimalMuppet
I would suggest that you read "He Is There And He Is Not Silent" by Francis Schaeffer. He tackles the three big philosophical questions (metaphysics, morals, and epistemology) from a Christian perspective. His writing is simple but deep - I had to read it several times to get parts of it.

He's doing an overview of huge fields, not an in-depth, point-by-point argument. You sometimes have to fill in details of his argument yourself, because he doesn't answer every possible counter-argument.

_myles
Thanks for the suggestion, I will read it. :)
pragmaticpirate
I am working on a solution for people to defeat procrastination. Here's how it works, you select a time slot for work, and we assign you an accountability assistant who will get on a call with you and keep in touch as often as necessary to keep you from procrastinating by holding you accountable for the task at hand.
addisonl
Sounds expensive
wheelerwj
Lets think about it and come back to it later.
Lionga
Focusmate does that. Only worked for like 3 Sessions until novelty was gone
nl
I think the recent (BBC?) article about how procrastination was caused by a lack of emotional management, not time management made a lot of sense to me.
stewfortier
As somebody with broad interests, I've long been fascinated by what it means to be a "generalist" and understanding when a wide, varied skillset is an advantage over a hyper-narrow one.

I've been reading about this for years and recently started sending out short summaries of what I've learned (typically geared at how the lessons can by applied practically).

Last week I shared how Nobel laureates are 22 times more likely to have a side hobby as a performer than their peers.

Ultimately, I am trying to land on a succinct answer to "how do you channel broad interests and talents into an impactful career?"

(this is my email: https://stewfortier.com/subscribe)

jlevers
Whoa, I just signed up for your newsletter a couple weeks ago. Small world. I'm enjoying it so far, keep it up!

I too have really broad interests...I find basically everything interesting, which is both a blessing and a curse, as I'm sure you've experienced. I'd love to talk about this more...do you feel you've come to any kind of answer on how to focus your wide interests?

stewfortier
Excited to have you on the list! Definitely hit reply every once in a while as I'd love to chat more about all of these topics one-on-one.

One theme I'm starting to converge on is the idea of a generalist as an "expert" at a) maintaining a wide range of mental models and skillsets and b) developing a sense of which type of problems to apply each to.

In other words, effective generalists become good at knowing which speciality or approach should be applied to a problem, even if they "only" grasp the basics of any one discipline.

Example:

A software engineer wants to develop deeper friendships. They may think that building an app that reminds them to keep in touch with friends will help.

Of course they think that... software is what they know best.

But a generalist may take a different angle and see that the root cause isn't an automation / information problem, it may be a human psychology issue.

"The real problem is that you don't believe you're worthy of love. If you work on that, you may feel confident enough to want to reach out more."

The next email is going to start outlining the most practical, effective mini-mental models that generalists can use to solve practical problems.

jlevers
I'll definitely start hitting reply, thank you!

That's a really interesting, but sensible, conclusion to come to. It seems to follow that generalists would make great business/personal coaches, as they're good at pointing people in the right direction. I'd be curious to look at great coaches and see if they had a ton of different interests.

I'm stoked for the next email :)

monkeydust
Assume you have The Range by David Epstein? Basically book advocates diversity in skills over specialisation, personally I am a big buyer of that thesis, one reason I read HN everyday.
stewfortier
Yes! I'm halfway through and have been stunned at some of the less-known research he cites and some of the popular research he debunks (specifically, the study behind the "10,000 rule").

It's also somewhat of a relief to read.

I think intuitively many people feel that range matters, but fear that we'll sound like we lack a "speciality" or even "hard skills" if we proclaim ourselves generalists or broadly curious.

aberry273
Automation of work. I believe as the number of daily applications we use increases and the number of available APIs increase, the need for automation across these applications increases.

https://bustl-app.com - A SaaS product that acts as a personal assistant that will integrate with a range of different apps.

motohagiography
A few things, separately:

- how to do digital identity in health and public services for ~15m people

- replacing enterprise/waterfall security risk assessment with collaboration and iteration.

- applying product management methods in the public sector

mrpoptart
Building a personal budgeting system that reduces the complexity of the process to paying attention to 1 number and about 5 minutes per week to be sure you're on budget all the time. I came up with a solution to this problem about 5 years ago and have been testing iterations with friends and family. In process of building an app to manage it for me.
peter303
I got budgeting down to two numbers: Total take-home pay past 12 months vs total expenditures past two months. Try to avoid the latter going over 85%.
mrpoptart
It's awesome that you have a budget, and a process for doing it. Would you find it useful to know whether or not you can afford something you're about to buy, be it a taco, a couch or a car? Your budget works well in as a reflection process, my budget gives you the constant knowledge of how you're doing right now and how you'll probably be doing in the future.
peter303
I use a spreadsheet with rows bulk spending categories and columns months, plus a few summary columns. More than 15 years ago it was just a table on graph paper. I know within a few dollars how much I have earned spent in the past 12 months. The 'budget' is awareness of such spending and trying to keep not much more than the previous year. Stuff happens like a dead car, hospital stay, job change etc. so its not always firm.
nikij
This problem will only apply to very few people. But over the past 2.5 years I've been tracking everything and deriving insights on my activities. This produced some astounding results. e.g. Chewing gum makes me more comfortable in a conversation. Recently I've found a community of robot-like people on reddit who also do this. So I decided to build a platform. It's still in its early stages but feel free to check it out: simplelifedata.com
felipepater
I really liked the idea, just wish there could be a demo, or even a preview without the need to sign up. It would make a better onboard :)
VectorLock
I like the sign up flow that simply uses a Google login, personally. And its going to need some way to keep track of a user so they can update on mobile and PC, etc.

Mostly I agree on hating things requiring a login but I'm okay with it in this case.

mrfusion
Can you point us to the community?

Any other insights you’ve discovered? I tracked my data for a year and discovered strawberries were a potent mood enhancer.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
VectorLock
Nice! This scratches a bit of an itch I've had for wanting to track some simple datapoints / personal log.
jlevers
I just started trying to track data about myself for the same reason, but I've run into the issue that there are basically infinite variables, and I don't know which ones to choose. How have you approached that problem? You must have been collecting pretty granular data if you were able to associate chewing gum with comfort in social situations.
dzink
I’ve been thinking about this as well and even got bodmark.com to push out a prototype. (body benchmark) Let’s chat and maybe even collaborate.
jordiburgos
I would like to have something like that too.

A centralized place to record things like that: - Arts: cinema, theater, books, ... - Travels: from, to, flight? car? - etc...

Started writing some code but let it for other things, maybe I would come back.

segmondy
The challenge for me has been habit when I try to do this. If I have to manually break context and focus to log then I don't wish to. I want to monitor everything but passively without having to do any work.
rikkipitt
I'm working on pacing emails to a more manageable, calmer schedule. I'm doing it with essentially a UI-less system which is a rather fun way to produce an app. It simply requires a user to update their email of the website that emails them too frequently with a paced.email alias. E.g.

  johndoe.shopify@daily.paced.email
  johndoe.stripe@weekly.paced.email
  johndoe.github@monthly.paced.email
At the end of each period, a single email is sent to the real email address containing all of the messages the alias received over that timeframe.

https://www.paced.email

I'd love to hear how you'd use it.

lqet
That's a neat idea.

> At the end of each period, a single email is sent to the real email address containing all of the messages the alias received over that timeframe.

Why not send each received mail individually? If you aggregate them first, it makes it very difficult to reply to individual messages with standard email clients.

rikkipitt
Good question lqet, thanks. I did create a version that added each message as an EML file to the email with links to each file too. Perhaps a cunning combination of the two variants might be the way forward. Appreciate the suggestion, it's a good one.
rs23296008n1
I second the "delay-then-send" approach. Don't bother with a digest. Just hold email until the scheduled time then release them. Might want to put suitable intervals or you might get zinged for spam or otherwise throttled. You've probably hit that already.

I use a similar but far less fancy approach with email filters: I have everything put into its own filtered folders then only check them on a schedule.

Your approach is good because the schedule is right there in the email address.

rikkipitt
Thanks, rs23296008n1. I toyed with the idea of a send in one hit approach, but feel it will be counterproductive to having a calm inbox. Getting 5, 10, 50 emails in quick succession would certainly raise my stress levels. Perhaps I can offer two or three digest variations... 1) all in one as it is now (plus eml) 2) burst.

Food for thought.

rs23296008n1
Maybe have a dispatch interval. The weekly-on-tuesday emails get sent one every 5 minutes starting at some time.
rikkipitt
Very good. I’m noting all these suggestions down. The app only launched a few days ago. I wanted to make sure it was a valid product first before doing too much to it. I’ll gradually add more functionality and examples over time.
rs23296008n1
Sounds like you have your mvp and have an incremental plan going forward. Good. The thing is out in the world - that is something a lot of folks don't do.
spencerflem
I'd imagine this is most useful for things that send frequent read-only emails. Someone personal that you would want to reply to they would presumably get your normal address
thewarpaint
Great idea. My suggestion: why not use the Gmail-style johndoe+spotify@ suffix? Just because people would be more used to it. That way johndoe@ also would work.
VectorLock
An irritatingly large portion of websites don't let you put + in email addresses.
tmaly
I ran into an issue where using the + notation required me to create a whole new account on airbnb because I had forgotten that I used + in my original email.
rikkipitt
Thanks thewarpaint. Good point. Having read the below counterpoints though, I'm not quite sure now! I'll look into it.
thewarpaint
On second thought they have a point, I have never had an email address with a dot being rejected, but I've seen it for the plus alias several times.
scriptdevil
I haven't used this. But i see the utility. Wouldn't having an admin UI to map ids to periodicity be better than using a hard coded subdomain? That way one can prevent bad actors from switching pace when they come to know of this site. I could also up or lower pace for an id while not having to go through the hassle of changing my mail id.. Also, doing that would let you sell the solution for use with custom domains.

I mean use github@johndoe.paced.email And have an admin ui that lets you set "github@johndoe.paced.email" =>"weekly"

rikkipitt
These are some great suggestions. I'm starting to think about how I could use custom domains etc. I need to figure out the next steps for the app and what people would be prepared to pay for such a tool. Ideally, I'd like to keep everything simple when it comes to pricing and not have functionality based tiers. Not sure yet.
patrickthebold
I like how this is done, I'd suggest forwarding to another existing email address, for example: johndoe_AT_gmail.com@weekly.paced.email

Then you don't even need a website.

rikkipitt
I think there's a balancing act between making it memorable enough and simple enough. Great suggestion though, noted! Hacker News is incredible. A spectacular hive mind for mulling potential ideas over.
tagami
I'm working on scaling up a network of devices connected to our laboratories aboard the International Space Station for K-12 education. Our 7th mission launches on the Cygnus resupply NG-13 on 2/9.

As we connect classrooms and scale across different countries, the problem set has grown exponentially.

tmamic
Dental treatments, besides being very expensive, are often (up to 28%) unnecessary. This happens because no-one keeps dentists in check. I am trying to make dental treatment and diagnosis reviews easy, cheap, reliable and fast.
unexaminedlife
I've been wanting to disrupt orthodontistry for quite a long time. With the state of 3d scanners, 3d printers, 3d software modeling, why hasn't the market price of orthodontist treatments dropped to cost-of-materials yet? As soon as at least one satisfactory / integrated open-source stack exists I think it's only a matter of time before it does...
lucretian
a dentist's expertise is hard to displace. not everyone can be bob mortimer...
asiachick
I don't know if this is what you mean but in Japan many dentists have machines to make tooth crowns. Not sure how common that is in the west. I went to a dentist in SF, they did something and then I had to come back in 2 weeks after they made the crown. Been to several dentists in Japan where they could make the crown while you wait 20-30 mins
Ry4N4ejc-9K_ZfQ
They do happen in the west as well. It is faster/cheaper to print crowns/etc, but I don't believe it's generally on par with an expert Dental Technician yet.
tmamic
The cost of material is only smaller part of the price. High price has more to do with the imbalance between the supply and demand. Supply growth is limited by the number of orthodontists. This is due to the fact that every orthodontic treatment requires human expert to oversee and manage it. SmileDirectClub is trying to disprove this last assumption, and we still have to see if they manage it.
iends
Are you in the United States? If so, how do you get past the regulatory hurdles that is each state’s dental board comprised entirely of dentists?

EDIT: Sorry, I missed the reviews part. Do you mean easily getting a second opinion based on diagnostic imaging?

tmamic
I call it "verified diagnosis". We use game theory to extract the truth. Think prisoner's dilemma for dentists.

Edit: Not in US, but building planning to launch there. You can't practice dentistry in US if you haven't got US diploma. However, diagnostic dental work (at least in some states) is exception to this.

iends
Too bad there is no safe or easy way to get X-rays just by sending a home kit to customers.
tmamic
I don't think that's necessary. Most people living in urban areas have x-ray practice in a close vicinity. Even for those who don't, a home kit wouldn't justify the cost. You want to make a standard high quality x-ray set 2 times a year. Professionally done. Most of people on the planet can make a trip to a city 2 times a year.
abathur
I suppose it won't save me, but <3 for working on this. I need work done, but I don't have dental insurance, will have to pay out of pocket, and have yet to overcome the analysis-paralysis problem of finding someone who'll charge a fair price, do good work, and won't add any more holes than I need.
exikyut
Ha, analysis-paralysis is a good term. (Also need work done)

What work, generally?

tmamic
One of the reasons I keep working on this project is that I am in a similar situation. When I started researching this topic, I did a test. I made x-rays, and my friend dentist took dental photographs of me. Then I had sent these over email to 7 independent dentists. Recommendations I got where as diverse as the ones from "How dentists rip us off" article by Readers Digest. I haven't done any of recommendations except for 2 fillings that even I was able to recognise on the images. For the rest, I am going to use my app to find the best solution.
abathur
What's your timeline like?
tmamic
I am not sure I understand your question. Could you be more specific?
abathur
Where are you on the march from nothing to a usable app (even if that's a beta) in months, seasons, years, or any other form that makes sense? :)
solresol
If you have a lot of work that needs doing, it may well work out cheaper to find a dentist overseas, fly there, stay for a period of time, and then fly home again.

For some reason I keep hearing about people flying to Serbia to do this.

tyjen
May you succeed with this endeavor.

An ex-dentist attempted to strong arm me into a receiving an occlusal adjustment because my TMJ popped during a single visit. I knew this permanent procedure is rarely the best solution for the scenario. The dentist subsequently became irate and told me, "You'll lose all your teeth and look like an AIDs patient!" You can probably guess what era he's from.

I wanted to file a complaint, but it would've been my word against his, his assistant, and his hygienist. Absolutely ridiculous situation. It also provided a snapshot into how medical professionals exploit patient ignorance for revenue.

tmamic
Our philosophy has to key rules: 1. Diagnostician shouldn't treat. 2. No-one should review themselves.

This eliminates so much fraud and mistakes.

appleflaxen
wow; interesting idea! but how do you prevent dentists from forming referral cabals and cheating the system?
tmamic
Easy, we ensure that same dentists don't work on the same case. Patient can choose who will do the clinical examination, but can't choose who does the diagnosis (they can only set the minimum ranking position of diagnostician. Similarly, patient can choose dentist who will do the treatment, but this dentist can't change the recommended therapy.
VectorLock
What kind of treatments make that 28% "unnecessary?" Regular cleanings too frequently?
jlevers
This is anecdotal, but I remember reading an article about a dentist who was convicted of doing expensive and completely unnecessary surgeries on many of his patients, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient in some cases. I can't find the article, unfortunately.
tmamic
I believe Atlantic had such an article recently. Good starting read is "How dentists rip us off" from Readers Digest.

However, it's a bell curve. There are extremely moral and extremely immoral people. Some of them are dentists.

jlevers
> There are extremely moral and extremely immoral people. Some of them are dentists.

Absolutely true. However, it seems that other areas of medecine have better systems in place to prevent abuse, and dentristry would do well to follow suit.

tmamic
Yes, dentistry is in many ways different from the rest of medicine. It's kind of separated from it. However, that is not the source of the problem. It's the fact that average person uses dental care more often than any other medical care, and dental treatments are in vast majority medical operations rather than drugs.

Let's focus on the second part of that statement. It means that majority of cost of dental care goes to the practitioner, rather than to drug makers. This means they have more reason to cheat. The payoff is higher.

jlevers
That's enlightening, thank you. I was unaware that the type of medical care (within a specialty) can change the financial incentives of the doctor. As someone who was just told to get my wisdom teeth removed, this makes me want to seek another opinion.
bw2016
Hey this is cool. One of my good friends worked (is working?) on this problem for over a year. he’s a long-time dentist practitioner/owner and really keen on this topic. Maybe you two should talk? If interested, email me at bw2016 @ protonmail.com .
tmamic
Thanks, I'll reach out.
mousadafousa
Hi there, Thank you for sharing this very interesting idea, I would love to see it come to fruition.

I’m actually a dental student myself, and it saddens me that a significant chunk of dentists take advantage of the of the self-policing inherent to the field. It generates generalized distrust and resentment among the rest of dentists, in addition to being simply unfair.

As far as I know, there are no diagnosis codes in dentistry, just treatment codes. If it were, I imagine it could be possible to prevent this problem by randomly and routinely validating patients charts.

On a side note, it is a budding dream of mine to build a start up related to dentistry, particularly in the realm of dental informatics, but not limited to it. I was wondering if you would be willing to chat with me about your experience sometime. It sounds fascinating.

Thanks again.

tmamic
Let's chat. You can reach me at tomislav.mamic at protonmail.com
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
isaacyes
the joys of a fee for service model! What approach are you taking? As a payer, is capitation better? Outcomes based payments?
tmamic
We are not aiming to change the way you purchase dental services. Rather, we focus on ensuring you don't buy unnecessary dental services.

Let's say you are Delta Dental, these 28% are basically an insurance fraud. If you could get rid of it, you would save billions. You could offer lower premiums and full coverage without any copays.