Ask HN: What physical thing would you build? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What physical thing would you build?

4 pointsdholowiski13 comments

What would you love to build, if neither money nor skill/knowledge was an issue?

A bridge from Europe to America, I just think it would simplify travel from where I live, I've always wanted to travel to America and never had the money and adding an extra mode of transport would likely reduce the cost and difficulty.

It could have rest stops every 20 miles or so, more than average lanes, with an emergency services lane and a midway city, between the two continents.

This is an interesting thought - first because it's totally crazy but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea. I wonder what the fuel cost of making this trip would be, compared to the cost of a flight? I guess you could build highs speed rail at the same time.

Just curious: Why rest stops every 20 miles? I'd imagine that the rest stops are going to give you traffic issues from people merging off and on. They're obviously necessary, but I'd put them every 150 miles, which still gives you a break every two hours while preventing the need to deal with 150 different merges along the trip.

I just assumed it would be more useful, plus, in this imaginary world where money is no issues, you could easily run 5 or more lanes with no issues.

No one wants to walk 75 miles to get to the nearest stop when there car has broken down.

I would like to work on BCI(Brain Computer Interface)[1] and improve it. I have many functional applications in my mind that can be made possible if the technology matures :

1)brain-to-brain communication between people or between animals and people. It will be so wonderful to know what animals are thinking.

2)feeding knowledge directly into brain through skill modules like Martial Arts, Programming, Boxing, Cooking, etc.

3)Direct connection of brain to google or wikipedia or blah.

4)Brain Network.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interfac...

P.S. : Like any technology, it can be used for both good and bad. If your brain is connected to a public brain network some evil guy may hack your brain and control you.

I just thought of this today. A NFC reader that works as an input device (eg. keyboard, barcode scanner, etc) when plugged into a computer.

Websites have "NFC login" enabled pages, where you can go to the page, and it will wait until your phone is wiped over the NFC reader attached to your computer.

On your phone, you have an app that you load up, choose the site you want to login to, and your are magically logged in.

It's a secure method of logging in, and it would basically use a hidden input field that is populated with a random hash that is created when you select the site you want to log into that talks back to the site via an API and registers that has in the user database as a valid NFC login token.

GPS bike tracker that aggressively tries to break into and intercept all communications coming from the immediate vicinity of the bike once it's been stolen, both for recovering my own bike and ruining the lives of bike thieves.

A device which can record my thoughts, articulate it, store it and play it back. I would rather love to build a similar device if i can use it to see other peoples thought process too, obviously with their permission.

Electric plane which could take off and land vertically. I hear Elon Musk is working on this.

A miniature version of the universe. Just so I could run my own little simulations in it.

A machine that can turn garbage into useful raw materials.

Electric sports car

a machine which could simulate itself.

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