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Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

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Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#141
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 year pescetarian here. I mean, mainly vegetarian but some fish every so often. I gave up meat at 17 on the basis of no reason whatsoever, I was just a contrary teen who liked giving things up. Down the line a few years I find so many compelling reasons to not eat meat. Each individually may be argued out of the room but collectively it's pretty compelling. Ethically: there's no arguing meat eating is better. None.…

I would contest every point. Ethical: cruelty is bad, so responsible production of meat is preferred but there’s no reason why killing animal for food should be bad, such that same argument can’t be applied to veggie production. Environmental: grass fed meat is very much preferred to monoculturing the crap out of our planet. Animas are part of life cycle of the environment. Health: crappy grains have done way more he…

As I said, I'm not even vaguely tense about arguing the point - for me these have all emerged long after I made the decision to be vegetarian. I just don't think you're right :-)

Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#142

Mycoworks: which makes leather from mycelium. Will see products 2021. Brightseed: uncovering the medicine that’s in our food. Uses AI to identify bioactive molecules found in common food crops that can regulate genetics associated with health. Imagine safe drugs that only take 24 months to get to market. Atomo Coffee: Makes molecular without the coffee bean; made from sustainable agriculture side streams. Best coffee…

It took some time to figure out what Atomo was offering based on an unclear landing page. Alt-coffee is an important category and worth the investment.

Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#143
Elixir's/Phoenix' LiveView (and clones/similar approaches). It's been discussed plenty on HN, so I don't think I need to elaborate too much. But I'll just say that as I'm using it in more and more new projects and adding it piecemeal to existing ones, I'm constantly amazed by how much complexity just disappears, and how pleasant it all is to work with.

I do feel that it'll take another year or two for all of it to 'mature', though.

For one, I'm not a big fan of how it still relies on 'old-fashioned' templating, but I've been looking into Surface [1] as a solution to that (it uses a more React-like component-based approach).

I also find that there's often confusion about best practices. About what goes where exactly, asking myself whether to keep state in the top-level LiveView is best, or perhaps too much based on the old client-side React/Redux paradigm and less necessary now that fetching data is a server-side-only DB call away (and using PubSub for any inter-LiveView communication).

But even with some of these 'issues', it's probably the most fun I've had building interactive web apps!

[1]: http://surface-demo.msaraiva.io/getting_started

Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#144
post #95

As an ethical vegetarian for the past five years, I've very interested in cultured (lab-grown) meat technology[1]. FWIW, I'm very happy with my diet and probably wouldn't switch back even if this does become affordable, but I'm 100% supportive of the concept of cruelty-free meat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat

30 year pescetarian here. I mean, mainly vegetarian but some fish every so often. I gave up meat at 17 on the basis of no reason whatsoever, I was just a contrary teen who liked giving things up. Down the line a few years I find so many compelling reasons to not eat meat. Each individually may be argued out of the room but collectively it's pretty compelling. Ethically: there's no arguing meat eating is better. None.…

I think there are problems with your arguments.

> Ethically: there's no arguing meat eating is better. None. However well you treat animals you're still ultimately going to kill them.

No, there are a lot of arguing about this. There is no ethical consensus on "killing animals" being the "wrong" thing. Hell there is not even consensus on whether an objective ethics is possible.

Organisms consume other organisms. This is part of the cycle of life. Declaring this objectively wrong without exceptions just because you feel bad for the poor animals is a weak argument at its best.

You can talk about the perils of the modern day animal farming which involves treating animals like vegetables and "growing" them in conditions indistinguishable from torture; but that doesn't have to mean "killing animals" is bad per se.

> Environmentally: a hundred reasons to choose a plant based diet, all of which have been cycled here a million times so won't go back through it but we all know it's true.

Yes, but there is research supporting that grain and vegetable farming has a lot of problems as well. Farming in scale in general is a problematic thing. Some even go as far as to state that animal farming can be even less harmful environmentally, when done right. What I'm trying to say is that, this claim hasn't been proven yet. If you want to see counter arguments and relevant research, try following a couple of carnivore diet advocates on social media. I don't have any links to share off the top of my head at the moment and I'm sorry about it. But there is no real consensus here, not so easy.

> Health: again, see pretty much all the research ever. Eating a plant based diet is so much better for weight, health, BMI, etc etc etc

Yes, there are a lot past research about this. But as we can see today there are a lot of problems with those researches as well. A lot of them are being challenged today. Ketogenic and carnivore diets are on the rise and for good reason. USDA's food pyramid is reversed. Fat, eggs and animal protein are no longer the enemy according to many new researches. I suggest you to keep up with the new research as well.

> Taste: this is the kicker imo. If you'd asked me 15 years ago when the vegetarian alternative was a crappy pasta with tomato sauce, I'd have been more tempted to chomp my way into a steak. Nowadays? There is SO much good vegetarian food. Loads of choice, huge range of flavours and in many places it's the vegetarian food that gets the chef's attention, rather than falling back on the Default Meat.

Yes, this may be the kicker for you. For many, animal based foods are still irreplaceable. Not much point talking about this as it's fairly subjective.

Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of ethical vegetarianism is not keeping diversity and quality of foods, it's preventing bad life of animals. It's also not the point of ecological vegetarianism: it's preserving the diversity of natural ecosystems, as opposed to food farms.

Grass fed cattle and sheep have a pretty good life. What you are arguing against is intensive feedlots.

There's a third aspect to that. Or maybe it's another ecology problem.

While I don't have the numbers, I strongly suspect there's not enough grass to feed all the humans the amount of meat they would like to eat right now. At least based on observing the prices of intensive vs grass fed, or watching the numbers for intensive production alone.

So if we want grass fed as the new normal, we're either going to have to intensify it back again, or we'll end up eating respectively less meat. That's near-vegetarianism or bust.

Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#146

The market for self diagnostic medical technology is going to boom at some point. It will be a long time before we have an AutoDoc, but until then, diagnostic equipment and diagnosis automation are something to keep an eye on and possibly invest in. Very few doctors will see it coming, because they don't want to believe that they can be partially automated.

Except this is already heavily regulated and/or the AMA will lobby to regulate it, making it impossible/expensive in many cases, slowing innovation, and keeping doctor’s salaries and health care costs high

Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#147
post #95

As an ethical vegetarian for the past five years, I've very interested in cultured (lab-grown) meat technology[1]. FWIW, I'm very happy with my diet and probably wouldn't switch back even if this does become affordable, but I'm 100% supportive of the concept of cruelty-free meat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat

30 year pescetarian here. I mean, mainly vegetarian but some fish every so often. I gave up meat at 17 on the basis of no reason whatsoever, I was just a contrary teen who liked giving things up. Down the line a few years I find so many compelling reasons to not eat meat. Each individually may be argued out of the room but collectively it's pretty compelling. Ethically: there's no arguing meat eating is better. None.…

>Health: again, see pretty much all the research ever. Eating a plant based diet is so much better for weight, health, BMI, etc etc etc

It took me 5 minutes of Googling to find articles that refute this from all kinds of credible sources.

Going vegetarian might be a step up from the average Americans diet, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find any research that demonstrates plant-based diets are any better than a balanced diet that includes meat protein.

Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#148
post #56

Terahertz technology. Has big potential in communications and sensing, particularly in the medical field. Starship, $50 per kg absolutely changes a lot of assumptions and has definite 2nd order effects around transport, satellite orchestration, communication monopolies, network latency. A big "holy s t" moment I had lately was pack a starship with autonomous drones, combine it with the Adama Maneuver from Battlestar…

> Pure fusion weapons. It's a true pandora's box for nuclear proliferation if nuclear weapons no longer need enrichment facilities.

Is this actually a thing? My understanding is that the fusion stage of a nuclear weapon is purely to generate neutrons to trigger the 3rd, fission based stage. The destructive power of the bomb comes from the fission reactions.

Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#149
post #80
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have a hard time engaging with ideas that might cast them in a negative, ethical light. I’ve had people abruptly stop me from explaining ethical vegetarianism, even though they initiated the conversation haha

On a side note, I never followed the project very closely but I was really hopeful for soylent. What happened? Is the technology just not there? Do we not know enough about human physiology? What is missing to take the soylent idea — which I understood as automate most (boring) meals — and make it a reality? I saw a quora answer which says we simply don’t know enough about the science behind food but to me it implies…

I really liked it as an occasional meal replacement, for much of the reasons above. But then they switched from rice to soy or pea protein. I have a peanut allergy. While I can eat soy/peas by themselves, the hydrolyzed proteins give me hives. Otherwise I'd still be eating it.

The taste/quality/mouthfeel definitely went up since v1.

Re: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

#150
post #143

Elixir's/Phoenix' LiveView (and clones/similar approaches). It's been discussed plenty on HN, so I don't think I need to elaborate too much. But I'll just say that as I'm using it in more and more new projects and adding it piecemeal to existing ones, I'm constantly amazed by how much complexity just disappears, and how pleasant it all is to work with. I do feel that it'll take another year or two for all of it to 'm…

Can you name a few of Phoenix LiveView clones/similar approaches in other languages that are actively developed and worth looking into?
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