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Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#151

Post by tkgally »

mikewarot wrote: post #94

Deglobalization -- In the US, we're about to be forced to rebuild all the manufacturing we outsourced since the 1970s. It's not going to go well for thos countries dependent on imported food or energy. It's possible a billion people will face famine in the next year or two as a result of the loss of grain from Russia and Ukraine, along with the loss of Fertilizers (or being priced out of them) Energy Blindness -- We'…

> Deglobalization

That’s what I was going to say. Some people have been talking about it [1, 2], but it’s not yet getting the attention it deserves.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220702164210/https://www.nytim...

[2] https://www.harperbusiness.com/book/9780063230477/The-End-of...

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#152

Post by CalRobert »

philwelch wrote: post #136
656565656565 wrote: post #135

Population control? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_planning We will have no choice eventually.

If we have to introduce population control it will be to increase the population. All developed countries are below replacement.

Is that bad? Surely we can manage with fewer than 8 billion people. A gradual reduction should be welcomed.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#153

Post by bko »

e_joules wrote: post #60
abetusk wrote: post #28

Energy? I feel like it's been talked about a lot but maybe not? Solar panels are dropping in cost at an exponential rate [0]. As of this writing, consumer "new" panels are $0.75/W and used are at around $0.30/W right now (I won't give a link as a Google search will do). Battery technology is also dropping at an exponential rate. I believe, with a little effort, one can purchase batteries at about $0.08/Wh. Taken toge…

Something about this cannot be right, surely? You are saying one can invest in a solar setup and have 7+ years of free electricity, and all that starting after 3.5 years?

I would be very suspicious around claims from people trying to sell you solar panels. There are a lot of incentives in the US such as tax credits. This is good but a lot of people in green energy industry include that into calculations, which is fine except its under the assumption that the incentive will persist. Even Tesla shows you "net effective" price of their car by calculating the gas savings (e.g. Model 3 purchase price is 47k but they "potential savings" price is 38k which include potential incentives and gas savings of $8,600)

There are other gotchas like PACE loans being senior to your mortgage. So if you get a PACE loan, the loan is transferred to the person buying the home and is senior to your mortgage.

I'm also suspicious around the maintenance and longevity claims. For instance, from my experience, the energy efficient light bulbs do not live up to to their claims. I changed about half of my lightbulbs within three years and they supposedly have a 20+ year lifespan. It's fine that they don't have a crazy lifespan, but it just shows the industry is okay with outright false claims.

Overall I think the industry is so juiced by incentives and manipulated by regulations that it attracts shady players.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#154

Post by Weatherweathe »

philwelch wrote: post #136
656565656565 wrote: post #135

Population control? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_planning We will have no choice eventually.

If we have to introduce population control it will be to increase the population. All developed countries are below replacement.

And yet there is housing crisis almosy everywhere, prob govs will have to force people to move out from the big cities

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#155

Post by rdtwo »

I think the next big theme right now is energy. From generation to storage to consumption were going to rethink how we deal with it. Right now our pricing model is broken due to government regulation but I think the coming energy crisis will push utilities to use spot rate metering like Texas has already started in places. Spot rate metering will finally make iot (formally known as the internet of shit) actually make sense as many of appliances can store energy while it’s cheap and dispense while it’s expensive (fridge, ac, water heater, even house heat). This will really help level load the grid and allow us to do more with existing capacity

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#156

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

abetusk wrote: post #28

Energy? I feel like it's been talked about a lot but maybe not? Solar panels are dropping in cost at an exponential rate [0]. As of this writing, consumer "new" panels are $0.75/W and used are at around $0.30/W right now (I won't give a link as a Google search will do). Battery technology is also dropping at an exponential rate. I believe, with a little effort, one can purchase batteries at about $0.08/Wh. Taken toge…

I wouldn’t get too excited for decentralized energy.

More energy sources means more power lines all over the place.

Few things get NIMBYs worked up like power lines.

The social aspect will be harder to solve than the engineering.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#158

Post by gwbas1c »

handelaar wrote: post #37

DC home electricity. If your future home has solar and local storage, and your domestic usage is mostly in appliances which convert back down to DC immediately behind the plug socket (most of us have this) then at some point we're going to start wanting to power our homes like houseboats or camper vans. Yes, this won't help for (eg) appliances with heating elements, I'm probably talking about a second discrete wiring…

> and your domestic usage is mostly in appliances which convert back down to DC immediately behind the plug socket (most of us have this) then at some point we're going to start wanting to power our homes like houseboats or camper vans.

Most of these appliances use low voltage which travels poorly over long distances. Your car, camper van, and boat all use ultra-thick cables to move 12 volts. This is quite uneconomical for anything larger than a small studio apartment. (Copper isn't cheap.)

Furthermore, note that I said "12 volts," which is what cars and capers use. (Not sure about boats.) Some DC appliances need 5 volts, some need 20... They'll all need converters.

So how are both of those problems solved? You'll probably send 100-200 volts, DC, though the wall! The big question is, does this really simplify anything? The big advantage with AC is that it's super-easy to change voltage with a simple transformer. What do we gain by going DC in the walls? Are there any real advantages in simplifying voltage conversion at appliances? Is it worth the added complexity of a whole-house AC-DC converter; or the complexity of a DC grid?

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#159

Post by CoastalCoder »

656565656565 wrote: post #135

Population control? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_planning We will have no choice eventually.

I agree that population control mostly solves our environmental issues.

But I don't trust humans to make such collective sacrifices willingly. We're just too lazy, stupid, and selfish.

I think the more likely outcome is that reality will control our population for us, via drought, famine, war, and epidemic.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#160

Post by abledon »

WFHRenaissance wrote: post #145

Prompt engineering. The perfection of "programming as verbal intelligence".

In the case of Dall-E, isn't a hack for that to design _another_ ML system that looks at the training data 'descriptions' and infer a correct prompt strcture for the desired result. so the human uses this secondary system as a 'guide' to constructing prompts to navigate them towards the result (image) they want?
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