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Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

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Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#371

Post by lukaszkups »

thn-gap wrote: post #207
nescioquid wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply changing a game's locale to the target language you are trying to acquire is such an amazing immersion experience with the language -- and this wasn't even intended as an educational tool! If playing Skyrim, you hear the target language constantly, utterances are subtitled so written and heard language can reinforce each other, and practically everything you look at is labeled in the target language. Best of a…

Guild Wars had the feature of allowing to set a secondary language. This would translate all game text from the main language into the secondary one in real time as long as you hold the given key down. This meant that at any point, you didn't need to fetch a dictionary or translate a word, wasting time and immersion. I'm so sad I haven't found any other game with this feature. I'm trying to play games with another la…

This is really neat feature, I wish all games have such functionality (especially RPGs!)

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#373

Post by aryehof »

Lessons learned modeling complex systems, outside the domains of computing and the data sciences, into code.

Over a decade was spent by enterprises designing software using Structured Analysis (data-flow modeling) - lessons lost. Functional decomposition as a design methodology lessons learned - forgotten. Data modeling lessons learned - we are all the way back to people proposing stored procedures for logic. Object-oriented modeling - deprecated, unfashionable and obscured by “its about messaging” or “code organization” in a world that supposedly should be entirely functional.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#374

Post by gugagore »

ghaff wrote: post #94
digdugdirk wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it instead as designing tools that make learning fun, and enables that gratifying feeling you described. Lego, for example, has probably created generations of people with incredibly high levels of visual-spatial intuition who've all been inspired to go on to become designers and engineers of all kinds. It doesn't have to occur within the walls of a school for something to be considered education.

>designing tools that make learning fun While I don't wholly disagree, there's a lot of edtech out there premised on the notion that all subjects, even sometimes challenging ones, should be like playing a game for all people or you're doing it wrong. I submit that you're always going to have some percentage of students who pretty much hate math however you teach it and some percentage who don't want to read books eve…

Everyone should have fun all the time is not really a realistic goal, period. I don't think playing games is universally fun either. Games can be quite boring.

Games do often promote the concept of winning and losing, however.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#375

Post by kaba0 »

iammjm wrote: post #36

Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta

Attention span is not a well-defined term, and according to most researcher there is not even any reason to believe there is only a singular value — the “kid who can’t sit on his ass” can play a video game/learn something from youtube for hours just fine, it all depends on the activity at hand.

So the “decreasing attention span” is a myth.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#376

Post by madduci »

Agriculture. Especially the maintenance such as watering large fields, and surveillance where electricity and internet connection might be scarce.

There are a lot of challenges, especially in typical fields in South Europe, where large and automated tractors aren't an option.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#377

Post by barrysteve »

iammjm wrote: post #36

Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta

I agree with the idea mostly.

Games are limited in the sense that they teach frozen symbols and mechanics. Great for learning a large number of mechanics, engineering concepts and 'settled science'.

Getting your hands on broad concepts, blank paper and a relationship with a master/teacher/prof will always be necessary to teach higher concepts.

I will also note that youtube, khan acamedy, and comment sections have done a lot of education, intentionally or otherwise and do a decent job at conveying the master's perspective on the topic being discussed. Video is education that can be done at a low cost vocally and visually, rather than developing it into a game, one of the most expensive and difficult art forms.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#378

Post by simonebrunozzi »

iammjm wrote: post #36

Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta

Strongly agree. I would be happy to see the emergence of a few startups doing this.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#379

Post by barrysteve »

thenerdhead wrote: post #260
iammjm wrote: post #36

Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta

Why does education have to be entertaining? Interactive, sure. But not entertaining due to attention spans dwindling.

Short attention spans can be absorbed into poetry/philosophy and expanded by chasing the meaning of the tiny sentences.

With skill you can put a lot of information into a shorter song. Chain those short sentences together and you can educate and entertain across a rythym.

Just saying it's possible.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#380

Post by jamesfisher »

iammjm wrote: post #36

Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta

We've been writing a data science course [1] which feels like a game. Although it's more like Monkey Island meets MS Encarta, or a choose-your-own-adventure. It's a written story, where you frequently make choices through multiple-choice buttons.

[1]: https://tigyog.app/d/C-I1weB9CpTH/r/everyday-data-science

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