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Ask YC/HN: What's a problem you'd like to see someone solve?

39 points by Mystalic ↗ HN
Broad topic, I was thinking just about this while I was in the gym.

What's a problem you've seen that you just want to get solved? Any problem, big or small, just spit it out, as big as world hunger, as theoretical as string theory, or as specific as twitter API architecture.

Perhaps something good will come of this? I'm sure this has been done before, but you learn something new every time.

190 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 219 ms ] thread
keltecp11
Video Game Systems For The Elderly... Very easy to use, big buttons, simple setup, focuses on hand eye coordination, and elevates heart rates (not just chess, checkers, etc.)
mrtron
The Wii?

Seriously - a few of my friends' parents just bought it and love it. They play some of the simple games like sports to death.

keltecp11
Oh... and make my Iphone Battery last longer...
Mystalic
I can see it now - the iPhone injection! Inject your iPhone with the stuff, get 50% more battery.
mechanical_fish
Better portable power sources are always on the wish list. Many, many electrical gadgets could be shrunk even further if it wasn't for the bulkiness of batteries.
keltecp11
Why not solar power chargers?
mechanical_fish
That might technically relieve the "bulk" problem, but only by substituting a "surface area" problem in many cases.

Better solar cells are also on the eternal wish list, though. Not that they haven't been slowly improving, and not that they aren't already good enough for many things.

axod
I thought I remembered reading about a new LCD touchscreen, coming to an iPod/iPhone soon perhaps, which is also a solar cell... That would simply rock.
mechanical_fish
Get people to stop using IE6 to visit sites, by any means necessary.

Bonus points if you can take out IE7 as well.

Mystalic
I was just doing customer service help with someone today actually. IE 6.0. I wanted to throw the guy into a lake. Of fire.
mikeyur
"Ok, here's what I want you to do.. Go to mozilla.com/firefox"
silentbicycle
What if the computer is too old to run Firefox 3? Serious question.

My fiancee was fixing up an old computer to give to our nephew, and when she tried to install Firefox, it refused, essentially saying, "Your computer is too old." * She grabbed a 2.x install file from OldApps.com, but many of the people still running IE6 won't be tech savvy enough to do that, and are likely to be running really old computers. (And even when FF can be installed, it tends to suck up memory. What do you do with a computer that maxes out at 128MB ram?)

* I think it was a memory issue, but mainly I remember that it was unexpectedly off-putting.

Freaky
Recommended configuration for Opera 9:

Pentium II class system with 64 MB of RAM and at least 50 MB of free disk space

silentbicycle
Fair enough. I'm just saying that a kneejerk "use firefox!" doesn't necessarily help: it isn't that simple.

Whether you should really need so much computing power just run a web browser is a different matter entirely. My cell phone probably has more processing power (and definitely has far more memory and storage) than my desktop computer did when I was in high school.

mikeyur
For the vast majority of people, Firefox will work on their system.

I wish Mozilla lowered the requirements for systems or only installed a 'light' version on older systems.

tokenadult
Agreeing with your general sentiment, what are the specific kinds of technical issues that come up with IE? I've kept all the sites I manage browser-independent (some people call that "primitive"), so what am I missing by not building in features that would make me want my visitors to not use IE?
mechanical_fish
what am I missing by not building in features that would make me want my visitors to not use IE?

I'm guessing the answer is: Clients. I haven't had one yet whose site was so simple that it avoided issues with IE6. Of course, you might have clients who are less demanding or have more austere tastes, in which case they're really smart because working around IE bugs costs money.

The easiest way to answer your question is to point you at this catalog of IE's deficiencies:

http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html

But if you want a document that really captures the essence of IE-induced terror, you can skim the invaluable "On Having Layout":

http://www.satzansatz.de/cssd/onhavinglayout.html

Don't read it all at once. It's exhausting.

IE, particularly IE6, is a great illustration of PG's observation:

The distinguishing feature of nasty little problems is that you don't learn anything from them... writing an interface to a buggy piece of software doesn't teach you anything, because the bugs are random.

axod
Don't forget about IE8. That seems to be worse than IE7.
Mystalic
I was just thinking about this one again, and here's a proposed solution:

Create an anti IE6 Coalition.

Here me out - you'd have one central website stating the purpose and all. If you wanted to join the cause, all you would have to do is place a javscript tag on your website. If it detects IE6, a message appears at the top talking about how IE6 hurts innovation, wastes millions of dollars a year, etc. and links to IE8, FF3, and Chrome for quick and simple upgrades. If you got a good deal of bloggers to use/talk about the script, you'd be able to spread the message. The goal isn't the eradication of IE6 usage, just enough demolition of IE6 that people don't feel the need to design around it.

Thoughts?

anamax
I'd go elsewhere.

There are almost always other options and the cost of going to another website is lower than the cost of changing browsers.

Users don't care about your pain.

bmelton
Javascript tag? Who's going to spend the 82 hours it takes to make write a piece of javascript that works on IE6? ;-)
mechanical_fish
I don't really want to be one of those people who insists on derailing perfectly good jokes by taking them seriously. But in this case I have to tell you: The answer to your question is "John Resig and the rest of the jQuery team".

In my experience JS is the least of my problems with IE6, because jQuery just works.

silentbicycle
A large part of the problem is that while (nearly) everybody would benefit from IE6 fading away, there's a strong incentive for individual parties to still support it (especially if they're the only one): blocking IE6 means losing a relatively large amount of customers. It's a prisoner's dilemma-esque situation.

IMHO, the best solution I've heard is to offer a discount for customers who are not using IE6, and politely but clearly note that the cost is greater because IE6 is so old and buggy that supporting it requires a lot of extra work, "but switching is easy...[links].". Testing the user agent string is probably enough -- people who know how to change their user agent will know how to install a new browser, but probably can't because of e.g. IT department policies).

mixmax
Self replicating nano-machines.

It's a powerful and dangerous thing to wish for though.

nx
That's actually one of my childhood fears. Just that they were live beings, not machines.
tlrobinson
Self replicating living beings? Wouldn't that cover just about all living beings?
Dilpil
Pretty scarey though aren't they?
mechanical_fish
This is another of those things that amuse me: People who think of tiny self-replicating nanomachines as a vision of the future, rather than as a reflection upon our mutual family history.

I, for one, am pretty sure that I'm a colony of several trillion self-replicating cells, whose parts are self-replicating nanomachines. And that is an amazing realization. But not especially futuristic.

Tichy
I also thought recently that grey goo is a very unlikely scenario. If there were a new kind of self-replicating naonmachines, they would likely also be subject to evolution and diversify into all sorts of colorful things, just like biological cells.
nx
But that multiply really fast. Like mitosis in 2 seconds.
enomar
I want to be able to pause and rewind audio from my car radio.
parenthesis
If you google "tivo for car radio" you'll see that you're not the only one, and that there doesn't appear to be such a product yet. I see money asking to be made.
steveplace
Piggybacking off that, being able to use your cellular data service to get internet radio in your car. Much less overhead than XM and much better quality than local OTA stations.
jd
The build system on *nix. make, gmake, autoconf and related tools are really terrible.
Dilpil
One click install java IDE and compiler.

One click install C IDE and compiler.

One click install Erlange IDE and compiler.

And so on and so forth.

Mystalic
It can be complicated for a non-techie to even set up an apache server on their computer. We'd probably have a couple more good programmers in this world just by breaking down that barrier.
Dilpil
Indeed let me add:

One click web development IDE.

axod
You don't think there are enough idiots who shouldn't be programming using php and javascript?
tdavis
I would argue that someone destined to be a good programmer would have the ingenuity and drive to install a freakin' compiler and IDE. It isn't exactly rocket science.
axod
"We'd probably have a couple more good programmers in this world just by breaking down that barrier."

Couple more mediocre/bad programmers.

silentbicycle
Everybody starts somewhere.
axod
Some people should never start. It's hard enough to tell the good programmers from the ridiculously bad programmers as it is.
silentbicycle
I have mixed feelings about the sentiment, but mostly I feel like making setting up a development environment confusing probably isn't the best way to weed people out. Besides, a recent CS graduate who can't install Eclipse on their own is one thing, but a bright kid with books about programming from the public library that wants to move from QBASIC to C is another thing entirely.
oakmac
This is an excellent idea! Anything that lowers barriers to accessibility is a good thing.
axod
Horrible horrible idea. If you can't install an IDE(Why are you using an IDE anyway), and compiler, you're probably not going to make a good developer.
gravitycop
Problem: lump-sum up-front car-insurance that fails to take into account how much customer drives, and other risks.

Potential solution:

Car insurance by the minute/mile with instant-update rates based on:

  * steering and pedal input
  * time-of-day/day-of-week
  * location
  * speed
  * acceleration data
It's a $200 billion market (US only). http://www.ohioinsurance.org/factbook/2006/chapter1/chapter1...

With payment by the minute/mile, customers would instantly be rewarded for driving less, driving more-safely, and driving in safer conditions. Ceteris peribus, insurers would have lower claims costs, and drivers would have lower insurance costs. Everyone wins. No one loses.

vyrotek
I believe http://inthinc.com/ and http://tiwi.com/ are trying to do just that :)
gravitycop
Tiwi is an insurance company? Is Inthinc an insurance company?
vyrotek
No but they are working with existing insurance companies to do exactly what you described. I'm not sure if its written out anywhere on their site or not. A coworker does contract work for them and told me about it.
johngunderman
The issue with this is common with all insurance. As we approach perfect information, the price becomes such that it is equal or greater than the value of any accident that may occur, which defeats the purpose of insurance. In my mind, the solution is to abandon traditional insurance and instead create a tax-free holding account where people can put aside money for critical accidents only. All else should come out of pocket. Of course, you do have a good point about your idea improving driver safety.
notyouravgjoel
Once you've identified what the exact problem, the solution is often obvious. And, since this IS a tech startup website, I cant imagine people who have possible solutions giving them away here.
inerte
Some things are obvious but not doable by just one, or even ten, people :)

For example, lately I've been thinking that a good solution for problems in Africa is to make possible to profit there. Just that. Companies will come, flourish, jobs will appear, health will improve, etc, etc...

How do you enable business in Africa to be more profitable? First, you need law (a stable and predictable set of rules to operate), and then education. Wish I could dethrone the dictators there and stablish schools and colleges, but it's not going to happen.

I am not claiming my solution is the best one, or that even it is original. But we do know the problem, now how work on the solutions...

sachinag
Really? No world peace? No world hunger (where dwarf wheat has saved literally millions of lives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug)? How about happiness? Comfort? Love?
Shamiq
Hard to quantify, hard to approach.
blogimus
peace, hunger, education, heath, democracy (in basically that order). Enabling peace and reducing hunger are essential foundations for a more enlightened existence. With enlightenment, one is empowered to improve health, through all the avenues this implies (the environment, eating habits, exercise, lifestyle choices, and not necessarily in that order). With good health and even when of modest means, one can chose and (if sound mind), focus on developing and improving democracy, which helps everyone, even the very elite, because as the poor do better in a sustainable way, everyone else will benefit too.
tdavis
Abstract concepts like happiness, comfort and love aren't really problems. By creating some sort of device which provides these things you are essentially eliminating their meaning in the process. How could you truly appreciate them if they were simply handed to you?

Everybody wants happiness, comfort and love. We want them so badly that we spend our whole lives trying to acquire and keep them. When you start handing them out, why then do we live?

mrtron
I got flamed for suggesting this recently, but I'd like to see it:

Equal wages/prices for all regardless of geography, brought on by a single world currency and the internet? That would solve world hunger (which is a money issue, not supply issue).

edit: Awesome. It's getting downvoted here too? What the hell is wrong with the concept?

edit 2: Oh I was completely blind to the obvious here...I mean equal wages in terms of task (not geography). A McDonalds worker should make the same here or in another country (assuming McD's was charging the same for burgers too). Software developers who contract online are approaching this equality. I am not suggesting communism or some sort of set rate for work, individual productivity is really important.

johnrob
How about free food for everyone?
paraschopra
I don't understand why you got downmodded. Although I don't agree with you on equal wages/prices, I do +1 to you just for the freedom of speech sake.
CaptainMorgan
I didn't down or upvote simply because I think it's an honest suggestion. But it's impractical because the diversity is too vast to warrant an equal playing field such as you're suggesting. There are those that try really hard and succeed magnificently, while there are those that sit back and are too lazy to get anything done and would rather collect welfare. There are polar opposites too, those that try really hard but fail, and those that are lazy and somehow succeed.... you're telling me that no matter where these groups fall, they should all receive equal wages? Reiterating that I didn't downvote you, I can certainly see why someone would. So the explanation I just noted is simply my view and what I've seen and ultimately your concept is not practical nor fair.
yargseiks
I find it strange that the majority of people thought the OP was referring to equal wages regardless of effort. It was pretty clear to me that he was referring to the difference in salary between countries for the same type of work. It disheartens me sometimes hearing that entry-level programmers in the US make $20 an hour, while I, with more than two years of experience, make about $30 a day. People don't realize how vast the disparity of living standards are across the globe.
scorpioxy
Upvoted because its true. I worked as an independent programmer(still do) and i often got judged by the country that i live in instead of how well(or badly) i do the job.
Mystalic
Equal wages just kills this, that's why. I will simply say that I'm smarter and harder working than the vast majority. I deserve to be rewarded. More importantly, it's an incentive to be harder working.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
z3r0p4r4d0x
Yes, but maybe there's a guy just as equally smart and hard working in a developing nation and he's getting peanuts even though his government doesn't provide him with health care or education or social security. Voted up.
zacharydanger
You'd better hope someone benevolent is in charge of minting that global currency.
mrtron
Currencies are currently horribly manipulated, and individual currency crashes (like Iceland) can completely devastate a population. Maybe centralization could be better? It seems to be working well for the EU.
corentin
The euro actually is a disaster for most european countries. It's nothing but a fixed-parity system and as such it's likely to break down soon.
cellis
In essence, what you're suggesting is communism. Unless i'm misreading your comment, in which case could you please clarify "wages".
tokenadult
What's your recommendation for something to read about economics, a question I asked HN readers

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=415683

with fewer answers than I expected from this erudite group.

silentbicycle
Rather than necessarily setting all wages the same, providing a minimum stipend* may retain many of the same positive effects without eliminating economic rewards for more work, innovation, etc. The first 10k or so can do a lot to help people get people out of the zone where they have to make bad long-term choices just to make ends meet week to week.

Of course, the wealth still needs to come from somewhere, but for sake of argument.

* Say $10-20,000, though setting this to something realistic will actually depend on a lot of variables, both personal and regional. Defining "equal wages" is tricky. (Also, the possibility of sudden, huge medical costs, for example, can sabotage the entire system, but that's true now.)

silentbicycle
Oops. I missed that your comment was about widely varying pay from one country to another...
mynameishere
If you've been flamed for this recently, then you have probably been informed of the idea's utter bankruptcy. Why post it again?
silentbicycle
The tendency of an idea to be met with knee-jerk flames says more about the responders than about the idea's merit.
byrneseyeview
Which doesn't mean it has no correlation to the idea's merit.

Actually, I'd be curious about what makes the best flamebait -- is it totally dishonest stuff, mostly controversial stuff, or ideas that people suspect are true but want to think (or what to be heard saying) are false and deplorable?

silentbicycle
In spite of being textual, I think most flaming really happens at an emotional level. The best flamebait pushes people's buttons (perhaps unintentionally).
anamax
> Equal wages/prices for all regardless of geography,

Why?

There are different costs and benefits to living in different places, so why wouldn't the wages vary as well?

And, if you think that that the cost differences can be eliminated, Hawaii is going to become very crowded.

laut
Eliminating hunger is a noble goal. Equal prices is a terrible goal and not a way to eliminate hunger.

You can't have equal prices everywhere. If you want to try to force prices to be equal, you would ruin the price system. Without a working price system you would end up with something like the USSR.

Why is equality the ideal? It's not people in the "first world" that are starving, so why not look at what works in the first world? The problem is that in the countries where people are starving, they don't have the economic freedom that enables the wealth that means you don't have to starve.

So I hope that there will be more economic freedom in poorer countries. Then they will be able to achieve a higher standard of living.

jwilliams
This is an interesting question, because it seems so basic, but actually takes some thought.

I think enabling cheap, sustainable energy would a good problem to solve.

CaptainMorgan
The rising cost of education.

I've yet to receive a response from my institution or others that I've considered, of why it is they keep raising their fees, tuitions, etc.., especially in a recessed economy. It seems to me to be counterproductive - folks are losing their jobs, therefore losing their finances, and now possibly finding out that they need more training or they need to enter a new field, thus requiring education. Yet considering these financial difficulties, institutions continue to raise their fees with hopeless abandon.

I asked multiple departments in my university about this and essentially they diverted my call or in-person conversation to some other department, or they said it was a political matter and basically being a lowly student, there's no way I could get a meeting with those that approve these raises, without my belonging to some student body committee protesting these rates... and then we're only supposed to be there for four years anyways as undergrads so it could take more than that to see any preferred and immediate result.

I suppose this is where financial aid comes into play, but even so depending on your application factors, the fees still rise, so that could possibly mean that you'll owe more money when you get out or you need to be approved for more grants that don't need to be paid back which implies more scrutiny in your application.

meh, I'm fed up with this subject.. any thoughts?

tokenadult
Third-party payment is indeed the main reason nominal cost for education (I might say "degree-granting") rises without notable improvements in quality. In most of private industry in which customers pay for their own consumption, quality goes up over time at constant price, or price drops at constant quality, or you even get better quality at lower price over time. But not in education. Few people pay much directly out of their own pockets for the education they consume.

See

http://learninfreedom.org/school_state.html

for some reading matter on this issue.

rokhayakebe
Move to France or Germany. They hacked Education to the point where it is free, and in some cases you will get money for books,etc...
corentin
Obviously the teachers in France and Germany aren't paid, and the buildings and furniture just felt down from the sky.
icey
They didn't hack education until it was free. They raised taxes until it was a shared cost paid for by every tax payer. The same is true for the healthcare systems there. (And everything else that's government funded pretty much anywhere... With the exception of oil-rich countries, I suppose.)
Zak
I think you're conflating education and the granting of credentials[0]. Education is cheaper and easier to obtain than ever before. It's possible to work through an entire graduate degree program worth of study material using resources freely available online.

I think the problem you seem to be interested in - the rising cost of formal education that results in a degree will be solved not by reducing its cost, but by reducing its value. It will continue to cost a lot to get a degree, but you probably won't want one.

[0] which seem to be growing less important: http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html

tokenadult
I'd like to see several huge improvements in Gmail's interface, for example more convenience in building contact groups with emails that have just come in (and thus aren't individually in my contact list at all).
damienkatz
Wifi debugging tool. Something that can tell me why the hell my signal drops 30 seconds every 10 minutes, etc.
tomjen
I read that as wife debugging tool. Might be more useful.
wlievens
It's called a whip. Hurr hurr
bk
Could be channel switching from interference from a nearby similar device. You can set your router to stick to one channel and this should stop.
tocomment
I've noticed that too. Changing the channel helped somewhat. I figured it was some weird interference going on; portable phone, leaky microwave?
ojbyrne
After the TED thread and watching a few inspired presentations there, I'm thinking "Kill PowerPoint."
netcan
Definitely.

Ideas?

ojbyrne
Just to launch into blue sky:

* I'd like something more cinematic like Animoto. Not constrained to the 10-12 slides, 4-5 bullet points each.

* I'd also like a tool that could help with just talking (no slides).

Just throwing it out there.

rokhayakebe
A web based programming IDE.
wlievens
Seriously? I can't see much of a use beyond collaboration, and even that isn't a really open problem with proper version control.
RossM
I nearly started a project like this but decided that it wouldn't be worth it - how many developers would be programming on anything except their rig?
cx01
This could be great for beginners; they could start coding without having to install anything. Maybe add some collaboration features to make it usable in school, e.g. students can send their code to the teacher for review by the press of a button.
hrabago
Doesn't heroku solve this problem already?
vaksel
Longer lifetime...200-300 years. There is just too much to do and time flies way too fast. One minute you are a 20 year old college student, the next minute you are 40 years old, running out the clock.
ieatpaste
http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/ has helped provide monetary incentive for longevity research. So far they have increased the lifespan of mice by 20%
lliiffee
The videos by Aubrey de Gray are absolutely fascinating. His solutions are (by design) risky and quite possibly will fail. However, the background he gives on problems is wonderful. This one, on cancer, mostly had the effect of convincing me that we aren't going to cure cancer any time soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROfCNrBv_00

bkrausz
But is this of any use if we continue to deteriorate and need to spend more and more of our time one treating more and more aches and pains?
oakmac
Why only 200-300 years? Either go for the gold (live forever) or accept your mortality.
lionhearted
I did some research into living forever at one point. Basically, three things kill us: Disease, old age, and trauma.

Disease seems beatable. Reversing old age is going to be trickier, especially as things we don't expect to fail start failing after we prolong our vitals for longer. But these both should be doable.

The real killer is trauma. I scubadive. Given forever, eventually I'm going to something stupid underwater and that'd be the end of me.

The 200-300 years seems like a good place to start. It'd involve preventing or treating fatal diseases and finding ways to keep especially your vital organs running. I started spending more time in the gym and eating a bit better after my research.

dmoney
The real killer is trauma.

This could be solved by perfect VR and disposable bodies grown in a vat, with a remote control system instead of a brain. Your real body hibernates and your real brain can think its scuba diving, while only having to worry a little about getting eaten by a shark (it would probably hurt).

johngunderman
...and thus was born the Matrix. Although it sounds appealing, It may prevent general trauma, but it also might create many news susceptibilities.
apage43
I think the sci-fi version of this in Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is about the best -sounding- version of this sort of scheme.

You regularly make 'backups' of your brain and if you die your last 'backup' is loaded into a clone. You (the new you) of course, don't remember anything that happened after your last backup. Made for an interesting plot device as well.

jdrock
Hm.. are you willing to live with the insane rise in healthcare costs? As a society, we should all die around 70 years old.
ddemchuk
Universal language...there's no reason why people speak different languages anymore, they only create barriers now. In our newly technologically connected world, our languages we speak should not be getting in our way anymore...
oakmac
Eliminating languages would be devastating to culture.

How about a software solution for translation that works perfectly?

ddemchuk
Some would say that the amount of internationalization of the world has also devastated most cultures. Different dialects emerged because of regional isolation amongst different groups throughout times of historical growth. As the world is no longer isolated from each other any more, the need to persist those independent languages has lessened to the point where distinctly different dialects (alliteration?) only hamper communication.

While a tool to instantly translate a conversation while two people speak would be amazing, it would have the same effect as having a universal language in my opinion.

cx01
I think it's rather probable that speakers of different languages think different. So a unified language might lead to (more) unified thinking. I'm not sure if that would be a good or bad thing.
DanielBMarkham
I believe that's called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis), which I generally agree with. A universal language would change the way people think about stuff -- it's a very interesting thought experiment.
zack
There is also a lot of evidence contradicting the Whorf hypothesis. In <The Language Instinct> by Steven Pinker, Pinker suggests that humans think with separate thought-modules and then only express the substance of thoughts through arbitrary languages.

That being said, I think there is something to be said for diversity of culture, and perhaps better more fluid translation services are the true solution.

DanielBMarkham
Notice I hedged my bets with "generally agree with"

The fact that the question is still open is why (in my opinion) the thought experiment is so interesting.

ddemchuk
That seems like an interesting concept that I would some day like to dive into...how do you rate the book overall?
yagiz
And the flip-side of this idea is that, to really make a unified language, you have to unify people's thought patterns.
adelle
Sounds like it would be double plus good.
corentin
We already have English.
Hexstream
English is a pretty terrible language to learn when it comes to pronunciation. There are so many cases where the same syllable is pronounced completely differently in different words and the only way to know... is to just know it.
sgrove
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Esperanto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto). It's a meticulously systematic language with a wonderful spelling system and intuitive grammatical structure. I speak a few languages, and was able to pick up Esperanto at a conversational level in around two weeks rather than the customary 6 months to a year.

Plus there's the bonus of the Esperanto travel network, where people all over the world allow others who speak Esperanto to stay with them for free/cheap.

Definitely recommend it anyway - and good idea.

wastedbrains
Just a small problem on macs, when I switch from single monitor to dual and visa versa I want the previous state restored. I want it to store the state of the windows and restore as many as it can from the last state... It would be great to keep all my terminals in the same location.
trefn
I just started using an external monitor with my mac and I am irritated by the same thing. I've found a crappy semi-solution:

If you're not going to be using the windows you have open on the external monitor you can minimize them before you unplug it. If you open them later when you're plugged in again they will pop up where they were before.

wastedbrains
awesome... not a great solution, but this will definitely help. Thanks for the tip.
liangzan
I'd like some company to do comprehensive and objective product comparison and evaluations based on a requirement list. Been spending lots of time doing such evaluations. I'd rather outsource it
markessien
Proper speech recognition, speech synthesis and object location and identification.
RossM
A well worked natural language processor tied into this would work wonders.

"Computer, call Home..."

decadentcactus
Break the speed of light barrier. If it's not possible, then at least average out our speed to be faster (like the bending the universe sort of method). Even 1.1c would mean we wouldn't really know the limit, and would shrink the universe within reach.