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Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

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Re: Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

#501

Post by southerntofu »

tootie wrote: post #304
southerntofu wrote: post #114

1. GNU Name System to replace the DNS in a backwards-compatible manner, with delegation to cryptographic public keys (instead of IP addresses) and with strong guarantees against known attacks against the DNS (DNSSEC doesn't solve everything). https://gnunet.org/en/gns.html 2. Semantic sysadmin to declare your intent in regards to your infrastructure no matter how it is implemented (i.e. with a standard specification,…

There was a time I did all my shell commands just directly in Perl. If you have it all in your head you can do crazy stuff pretty quickly. Especially by having libraries that you can import and invoke in one line.

That's really nice. I never really got into perl but i was moved by some sysadmin friends back in the days playing crazy tricks right in front of my eyes... doing the same in bash would have taken me minutes or even hours, so i always felt like this was some kind of great wizardry.

But perl is not really the most user-friendly language to learn in my opinion. I think raku is much better in this regard, but unfortunately is not deployed widely (yet?).

Re: Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

#503

Post by collyw »

jl6 wrote: post #116

Old tech. New software development is 99% aimless churn. We don’t need more new tech. We need better applications of old tech. There is so much software that works perfectly fine already. What’s missing is connecting it to real world problems.

Everything gets shittier and more complicated for no obvious benefit. I used to write code. Now I just search stack overflow and try and get pieces to work together.

Re: Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

#504

Post by southerntofu »

elric wrote: post #481
southerntofu wrote: post #114

1. GNU Name System to replace the DNS in a backwards-compatible manner, with delegation to cryptographic public keys (instead of IP addresses) and with strong guarantees against known attacks against the DNS (DNSSEC doesn't solve everything). https://gnunet.org/en/gns.html 2. Semantic sysadmin to declare your intent in regards to your infrastructure no matter how it is implemented (i.e. with a standard specification,…

> GNU Name System Really? Can you elaborate a bit on the why? As far as I can tell, GNS has been around as a proposal for years and has gained no traction.

> Really? Can you elaborate a bit on the why?

It's the only serious proposal i've seen to replace the DNS protocol. It's backwards-compatible with existing zones (same RR types plus a few new ones like PKEY), with existing governance (the protocol has a notion of global root, which is very likely to be ICANN), and replacing traditional DNS recursive resolution with GNS recursive resolution is not such a challenge.. and in any case most devices don't even do recursive resolution but act as a stub for a recursive resolver further on the network (a somewhat-worrying trend).

So, the fact that GNS can live alongside the DNS for as long as people need is for me a very appealing argument. Also, GNS uses proven p2p schemes (DHT) in a clever way instead of reinventing the wheel or yet another crypto-ponzi-scheme. "crypto" in GNS equals cryptographic properties to ensure security/privacy of the system, not tech-startup cryptocoin bullshit, and i truly appreciate that.

Then, looking at the security properties of GNS, it looks great on paper. I'm no cryptographer so i can't vet the design of it, but ensuring query privacy and preventing zone enumeration at the same time sounds like a useful property to build a global decentralized database, which is what the DNS protocol is about despite having many problems.

Building on such properties, re:claimID is a clever proposal for decentralized identity. I'm very much not a fan of digital identity systems, but that one resembles something that would be respectful of its users as persons. There's FOSDEM/CCC talks about that if you'd like to know more.

> GNS has been around as a proposal for years and has gained no traction

I wouldn't exactly say that. I'm not involved in the GNUNet project so i don't know the specifics, but GNS was at least presented at an ICANN panel as an "emerging identifier", that is one of the possible future replacements for DNS. I'd consider being recognized by ICANN as a potential DNS replacement some "traction" (more than i expected). If you can find the video from that ICANN session where both GNS and Handshake are introduced, that'll probably do a better job than me explaining why GNS is very fitted to replace DNS. URL used to be https://icann.zoom.us/rec/play/tJErIuCs-mg3E4GXtgSDB_UqW464f... but now that's not loading for me anymore.

Re: Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

#505

Post by contradistinct »

ahstilde wrote: post #202

Allergy immunotherapy. I started a company on the backs of this treatment. The way we treat allergies today, with Zyrtec and Claritin, is medieval medicine. It doesn't solve the underlying problem; it just tries to cover it up. Allergy immunotherapy is the future. Most people don't realize that allergies are now a curable disease. In the future, taking Claritin for allergies is going to seem like taking Tylenol for a…

Won't ever work for most severe food allergies (e.g. peanuts) right? From what I understand, immunotherapy has not been found to be safe/effective for these allergies.

Re: Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

#506

Post by lambdatronics »

JProthero wrote: post #135

Muon-Catalyzed Fusion [1]. Briefly it's a genuine, and scientifically uncontroversial, form of 'cold' fusion enabled by muons — a more massive relative of the electron that was in the news recently thanks to the potentially interesting results coming out of the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab [2]. Like conventional 'hot' plasma fusion, in all experiments to date the energy input needed to sustain the process has exce…

There's an on-going project right now with ARPA-E's "BETHE" program to experimentally study the potential for MCF in higher-density plasmas. IMO, this is one of the better choices that ARPA-E's fusion program has made -- it's low-cost, high-risk, high-reward.

https://www.arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/projects/conditio...

Re: Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

#507

Post by lambdatronics »

sroussey wrote: post #203
JProthero wrote: post #135

Muon-Catalyzed Fusion [1]. Briefly it's a genuine, and scientifically uncontroversial, form of 'cold' fusion enabled by muons — a more massive relative of the electron that was in the news recently thanks to the potentially interesting results coming out of the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab [2]. Like conventional 'hot' plasma fusion, in all experiments to date the energy input needed to sustain the process has exce…

Could muons generated from this work? https://techtransfer.universityofcalifornia.edu/NCD/24852.ht...

It's not clear if increased energy efficiency is one of the benefits of this technology. My guess is no.

Re: Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

#508

Post by yomansat »

ahstilde wrote: post #419
yomansat wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that each person is different, but how long does the therapy go for until someone becomes "immune"? I see other comments mentioning 20-30 years, which sounds a lot more expensive than having to take the medieval equivalent for just as long. I hope I'm wrong!

Good feedback! We suggest patients try out the treatment for 6 months to make sure their body accepts the immunotherapy, and then another 4.5 years to lock-in lifelong relief.

Great to know, thank you!

Re: Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

#509

Post by Graffur »

Robotbeat wrote: post #242
Graffur wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this under the radar?

For electric planes, it is. Up until a year or two ago, I still had fairly intelligent people still saying electric flight is “essentially impossible.”

Fair enough. Musk was on Joe Rogan talking about it last month so a lot of people have heard of it.

Re: Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?

#510

Post by lambdatronics »

aqme28 wrote: post #150

Fusion power. I think traditional tokamaks are 5-10 years from positive power due to better superconductor tech. There is finally private investment in the space and it has been growing at an absolutely crazy pace. I think in about 5 years there is going to be a fusion power gold rush.

Not exactly under the radar. Also, you have to keep in mind that demonstrating positive power isn't sufficient. SPARC is aiming for Q>2, ITER for Q>10, but Q>20 or 30 is needed for a powerplant. Also, once sufficient gain has been demonstrated, there are many serious nuclear engineering challenges that need to be solved.
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