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Ask HN: What problem would you solve with unlimited resources? (August 2025)

2 points by hedayet 1y ago

I love the innovative ideas and unexpected insights from the HN community. Let's go deep - what challenge would you tackle if you had unlimited resources? Guaranteed funding, access to top talent, or freedom from your day job? Why would you choose to solve it? Do you actually need unlimited resources to start?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
JohnFen 1y ago
With unlimited resources, there's no reason to choose only one. I'd tackle all of them.
jonahbenton 1y ago
All kinds of things need doing. Rehydrate the Sahara A full recapture/recycle workflow for landfill Carbon capture (of course), but new ideas needed Fully recognize eco diversity on the balance sheet
farseer 1y ago
Heart disease cure Cancer cure Ageing cure Fusion research Designing social constructs for age of AI including UBI
mikewarot 1y ago
Computer security, the problem is solved, but such systems remain a very small niche. Personal data management, it's been 80 years, and we still don't have a Memex. Computing for LLMs and other predictable loads - FPGAs are unsuitable because they are optimized for the wrong things.
- hedayet 1y ago
  these is an interesting list. What's blocking you to start? Do you really need infinite resource to start?
  - mikewarot 1y ago
    Computer security -- that requires taking Genode and building a set of powerboxes, and creating a distribution that's user friendly. It's outside of my skillset, and physical endurance to do that, even with an LLM assist. Memex -- Maybe, just barely maybe... First I'd have to develop an actual working hypertext markup language (to allow marking up an existing file, separately, aka annotation) and then a parser to take HTML and translate it to said new language. Then a browser/editor for said new language to import content, save it all locally with timestamps, with tags to mark where it gets used in other documents, so I can purge everything I don't want to keep after 6 months, or whatever works out as reasonable. I'd also have to be able to compile and export a document and the all things it marks up as a package. (Likely a zip file) Computing/LLMS - I'm going to do a TinyTapeout for a few cells of a BitGrid, but a proper full scale ASIC is outside my budget/expertise. Then there's the matter of compilers to spit out code to run on it. None of these require actually infinite resources, but they're all outside what I can pull off solo.
- ton618 1y ago
  Did you try Obsidian for personal data management?

2 points by hedayet 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

JohnFen 1y ago

With unlimited resources, there's no reason to choose only one. I'd tackle all of them.

jonahbenton 1y ago

All kinds of things need doing. Rehydrate the Sahara A full recapture/recycle workflow for landfill Carbon capture (of course), but new ideas needed Fully recognize eco diversity on the balance sheet

farseer 1y ago

Heart disease cure Cancer cure Ageing cure Fusion research Designing social constructs for age of AI including UBI

mikewarot 1y ago

Computer security, the problem is solved, but such systems remain a very small niche. Personal data management, it's been 80 years, and we still don't have a Memex. Computing for LLMs and other predictable loads - FPGAs are unsuitable because they are optimized for the wrong things.

hedayet 1y ago
these is an interesting list. What's blocking you to start? Do you really need infinite resource to start?
- mikewarot 1y ago
  Computer security -- that requires taking Genode and building a set of powerboxes, and creating a distribution that's user friendly. It's outside of my skillset, and physical endurance to do that, even with an LLM assist. Memex -- Maybe, just barely maybe... First I'd have to develop an actual working hypertext markup language (to allow marking up an existing file, separately, aka annotation) and then a parser to take HTML and translate it to said new language. Then a browser/editor for said new language to import content, save it all locally with timestamps, with tags to mark where it gets used in other documents, so I can purge everything I don't want to keep after 6 months, or whatever works out as reasonable. I'd also have to be able to compile and export a document and the all things it marks up as a package. (Likely a zip file) Computing/LLMS - I'm going to do a TinyTapeout for a few cells of a BitGrid, but a proper full scale ASIC is outside my budget/expertise. Then there's the matter of compilers to spit out code to run on it. None of these require actually infinite resources, but they're all outside what I can pull off solo.
ton618 1y ago
Did you try Obsidian for personal data management?