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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?

#491

Post by nokya »

r2_pilot wrote: post #184
nokya wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently caught up in a very good friend's divorce, who suspected either her apartment or her car had been placed under surveillance (her husband constantly had knowledge of her whereabouts). For some reason I cannot expand here, she assumed I could help her "check" her apartment. This brought me into looking for solutions on how to detect electronic surveillance. I discovered the term "bugsweep", and rapidly c…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_junction_detector Doesn't work for shielded electronics, and there may be false positives, but this is one way to detect circuitry.

Thanks for the share. I clicked the source cited in the page, it seems to be quite an overkill/invasive method (and dangerous for the person doing the detection), no? It seems to not be accessible to civilians...

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

#492

Post by a1371 »

Spakman wrote: post #377

I'm not nearly educated enough about this subject to try to summarise it, but the research being carried out by Michael Levin's group into how organisms control anatomy growth is completely fascinating and has the feel of a breakthrough. Almost all the talks I've seen are good, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-9rLlFgcm0 Creating new species without genetic changes seems wild!

This one is the winner for me in the thread. I saw a video of it a while ago and I was fascinated by the idea that voltage differences are the way the DNA gets expressed. Yet nobody seems to be taking about the bioelectrical science of it except for this small academic crowd.

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

#493

Post by blablabla123 »

tomxor wrote: post #282
maverick74 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What amazes me is how little we talk about hydrogen (H2) fuel cell vehicles. Because, unless we get a tremendous breakthrough in the next 5 years, electric battery vehicles will be a very big pain. -Batteries are terribly expensive (and prices are not going down as fast as expected) -Batteries degrade too fast -Batteries take too long to charge -Electricity prices are already going up terribly fast to take advantage…

I think this has been discussed to death, the TL;DR is that H2 is fundamentally really difficult to store safely and efficiently at reasonable densities and temperatures. This is not something that is likely to improve with technology or scale (it's not like it's an underfunded area), they literally squeeze past other atoms and nothing is smaller than hydrogen. I do however agree that existing battery technology is _…

Actually the current state of the art of H2 is fundamentally safe so to say, e.g. it's wrapped into some sort of oxide. But the most important cars on the market (of which there aren't many types) still use the 1st gen approach which is a bit unsafer.

I think there are solutions to the show stoppers of H2. But the package isn't very appealing, at least not for individual transport.

Also what makes EVs appealing, they've reached a state of convenience that makes them feasible for most use cases. And for the rest it seems some hacky solutions are possible.

Of course the waste of switching from ICEs to non-ICEs will be incredible. But well, hard to see any alternative..

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

#494

Post by zamalek »

Geee wrote: post #284

General purpose humanoid robots. They're kind of mainstream idea, but very few people talk about them or take them seriously. Humanoid robots will have an absolutely massive impact in very near future. Most people don't realize that with general purpose humanoid robots, labor becomes software. Labor becomes repeateable, testable, simulatable, modular, extensible, verifiable, etc. All things that apply to software wil…

We already have robots that are adept at single tasks. Washing machines, microwave ovens, coffee makers, chip fryers, the list goes on. Robots made in the shape of the task that they are accomplishing. There is very little to gain from having a general purpose robot that is mediocre at everything.

Even if general purpose robots were to become commonplace, it is extremely unlikely that they would be humanoid. Apart from opposable thumbs, humanoid design is awful for nearly every task imaginable (which we overcome with intelligence and creativity).

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

#495

Post by blackoil »

Geee wrote: post #284

General purpose humanoid robots. They're kind of mainstream idea, but very few people talk about them or take them seriously. Humanoid robots will have an absolutely massive impact in very near future. Most people don't realize that with general purpose humanoid robots, labor becomes software. Labor becomes repeateable, testable, simulatable, modular, extensible, verifiable, etc. All things that apply to software wil…

Why do robots need to be humanoid. I wouldn't care of the robot building the cabin looks like a human or a box with 8 tentacles.

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

#496

Post by klntsky »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #483

The end of the social networking era as we know it. Many of the big giants from the 2000s - 2010s have pretty much peaked by now. TikTok is the thing everyone wants to be, but arguably its not a social networking app so much as a social entertainment app. You don't really connect with friends on it so much as with strangers. An endless stream of entertaining strangers. It's a lot more akin to YouTube than Instagram w…

> which are basically community spaces.

These are primitive 2D games with videochat. These technologies existed for decades, it's naive to expect anything more from them than already exists. Changing the name to something more hyped will result in nothing more than a wave of hype.

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

#497

Post by rednerrus »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #398
emehex wrote: post #347

I'm not sure enough people are talking about Demographics and population decline, especially with respect to China. Some experts [1] predict that China's population in 2050 will be HALF of what it is today! [1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/china-xi-jinping-economics-...

Would that mean the population then will be much wealthier (as happened after the Black Plague)?

The End of The World Is Just The Beginning delves pretty deep into this. Very interesting read.

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

#498

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

philwelch wrote: post #400
youngNed wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this 'people are rich because they are smart' is not a take i expected to find on HN. Its not quite as damaging as 'people are rich because they work harder' but its really not far off

Being smart and working hard will both make most people richer than being stupid and lazy. There’s a share of luck, but that washes out in the population-wide statistical analysis. Plus, if you’re stupid and lazy but you max out on luck and win the Powerball, the odds are surprisingly high that you will eventually go bankrupt, and if you don’t, your children will. So even if you are lucky, you need to be smart and di…

Being smart and working hard will do absolutely nothing to make most people richer, unless they work hard in the specific and limited ways that maximise wealth.

Many of those ways happen to be morally questionable at best, and criminal at worst.

An artistic genius is very likely to lose out financially to an averagely intelligent slum landlord no matter how hard they work. Because the opportunities to make money from artistic genius are heavily skewed towards failure, while for slum landlords they're heavily skewed towards success.

The handful of exceptions in the arts are survivor bias. No one hears about the many more failures, by definition.

There is no sense in which wealth is a level playing field. If you're not born into wealth - still the number one way to be wealthy - the most obviously rewarded trait isn't intelligence, it's sociopathy.

The successful ultra-rich are notorious for greed, selfishness, and lack of empathy. Go to any social event for the ultra-rich and you'll find a disproportionate number of criminals, narcissists, and other kinds of damaged people.

Those are the qualities that make someone a "success". IQ certainly helps, but if you lack the pathological motivation to exploit others it's not going to get you far on its own.

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

#499

Post by blackoil »

emehex wrote: post #347

I'm not sure enough people are talking about Demographics and population decline, especially with respect to China. Some experts [1] predict that China's population in 2050 will be HALF of what it is today! [1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/china-xi-jinping-economics-...

Way to many people work on filler jobs that will go away and automation will also solve a lot of the problems. China has about 22% people working in agriculture, that will go down a lot over next two decades.

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

#500

Post by revertmean »

Geee wrote: post #284

General purpose humanoid robots. They're kind of mainstream idea, but very few people talk about them or take them seriously. Humanoid robots will have an absolutely massive impact in very near future. Most people don't realize that with general purpose humanoid robots, labor becomes software. Labor becomes repeateable, testable, simulatable, modular, extensible, verifiable, etc. All things that apply to software wil…

Right...that's what people will use their humanoid robot for - building log cabins. Wouldn't have anything whatsoever to do with "adult mode". Nope, no way!
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