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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?

#21

Post by Dylovell »

enos_feedler wrote: post #14

I believe the next big thing will be the productization of building a home anywhere, without requiring municipal infrastructure. There is still a ways to go in terms of technology to make it all happen and make it affordable. But at some point, it will really reconfigure where and how we all live.

This is something I have been think about for the past 10 year as well. If we can get enough cheap power production, incinerating toilets seem interesting. And the growth satellite internet is a big win for this area.

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

#22

Post by verdverm »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #17
verdverm wrote: post #12

CUE ( https://cuelang.org | https://cuetorials.com ) will become the common language of config & devops, enabling a whole new level of reuse, sharing, and safety. The philosophy is quite sound ( https://cuelang.org/docs/concepts/logic )

will?

yes, while it is gaining adoption, there are still a couple of major tasks before it really takes off, namely dependency management and structural sharing.

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

#23

Post by jensneuse »

Managing APIs like dependencies, with a package manager-like developer experience. (npm for APIs). The number of APIs is continuously growing. It's going to be impossible to manually manage API dependencies in the future. I wrote about our approach to solve the problem here: https://docs.wundergraph.com/docs/architecture/manage-api-de... I'm curious what others think of this problem space.

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

#24

Post by mountainriver »

verdverm wrote: post #12

CUE ( https://cuelang.org | https://cuetorials.com ) will become the common language of config & devops, enabling a whole new level of reuse, sharing, and safety. The philosophy is quite sound ( https://cuelang.org/docs/concepts/logic )

I’ve used CUE a bit and I’m underwhelmed by it. In most cases it’s just another unneeded level of abstraction, it also doesn’t go far enough, most API based tools need to support imperative methods

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

#25

Post by mountainriver »

dotancohen wrote: post #16
enos_feedler wrote: post #14

I believe the next big thing will be the productization of building a home anywhere, without requiring municipal infrastructure. There is still a ways to go in terms of technology to make it all happen and make it affordable. But at some point, it will really reconfigure where and how we all live.

Including water and sewer? I can envision local electricity generation and wireless communication. But not every home can support a well and septic system.

I guess a well and a septic tank? Lived that way for awhile up in the mountains and it was tough

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

#26

Post by verdverm »

mountainriver wrote: post #24
verdverm wrote: post #12

CUE ( https://cuelang.org | https://cuetorials.com ) will become the common language of config & devops, enabling a whole new level of reuse, sharing, and safety. The philosophy is quite sound ( https://cuelang.org/docs/concepts/logic )

I’ve used CUE a bit and I’m underwhelmed by it. In most cases it’s just another unneeded level of abstraction, it also doesn’t go far enough, most API based tools need to support imperative methods

You don't want computability in your config, and CUE is useful beyond APIs.

You can already use CUE within other programs when you need imperative, there is also the scripting layer where this is possible. There is also a plan to support a WASM runtime so you can have imperative subroutines in the scripting layer, written in any other language.

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

#27

Post by shafyy »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #13
jimbob45 wrote: post #2

Cultured meat[0] has the potential to upend the farming industry. This isn't near meat, it's actual meat and it's already here. We're simply waiting for the cost to come down from $10,000/kg or whatever crazy price it's currently at. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat

wish I remembered what podcast I was listening to... it was someone running a company developing synthetic milk and eggs explaining why meat will never scale up, the problem is the growth medium for muscle is also the perfect environment for bacteria, and we basically need to reinvent immune systems before you're going to get a cubed inch of healthy chicken to grow without contamination

This is probably not the one you're referring to, but Pat Brown, co-founder of Impossible, also has quite a strong opinion on cultured meat. If somebody figures out how to grow animal parts artifically and reliably, there are much more interesting applications than to eat it. Such as medicinal applications.

I think the main point here is not that we will never figure it out, but that it will take a long time. Time, that we don't have with the imminent climate and biodiversity crises.

It makes much more sense to create meat directly from plant proteins than to try to grow it artifically. Brands like Impossible make damn great burger patties, chicken nuggets, and what not. I'm pretty most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference to animal meat in a blind test.

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

#28

Post by abetusk »

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 together, one can purchase a 30KWh (daily) solar panel and battery storage system for about $4,200 (not including labor and extra hardware/electronics), which puts the return on investment (ROI) at about 3.5 years if we consider the average house spends around $1200 (in the USA).

Dropping costs will quickly put that in the 2 year ROI range which, in my opinion, is the inflection point where it effectively becomes too good to pass up for the average consumer.

The dropping price of energy comes with all sorts of side effects, like a potentially decentralized energy grid, use cases for excess energy (eg bitcoin mining, carbon capture, hydrogen production, etc.), novel power storage systems etc., which is maybe the "novel" part that I haven't heard too much talk about.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law

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

#30

Post by oceanplexian »

mountainriver wrote: post #25
dotancohen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Including water and sewer? I can envision local electricity generation and wireless communication. But not every home can support a well and septic system.

I guess a well and a septic tank? Lived that way for awhile up in the mountains and it was tough

I mean, I grew up with a well and septic tank and my life was literally no different than living in an apartment in the city. It’s not like a radical off-the-grid thing millions of homes are this way.
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