The coding part of the software development process. We're still writing code in a text editor like we were 40+ years ago. The editors have become more powerful but writing code is still very similar.
Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
611–620 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#612The phone system. It seems like it's an unholy mess. I moved from the US to Hong Kong this year. I have a US number that I want to keep, and of course I need a local Hong Kong number. So, the US number is on my Google Fi account that I pay to keep active and I get a prepaid SIM card for Hong Kong. I can switch the SIM cards if I travel back. But why? We have two semi-independent networks, one for voice and one for da…
Not to mention, data-only calls are often much higher quality in my experience. Whenever I go from FaceTime audio to regular calls, I can’t believe I used to use them all the time
This is not my experience at all. I've not used FaceTime, but messenger calls are terrible.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#613Sustainable agriculture. Ag is the material basis of human society. We have to stop destroying soil. We have to stop poisoning ecosystems. We have to minimize artificial fertilizer inputs. We have to stop emitting and start sequestering atmospheric carbon to mitigate climate instability. If we don't do this we will likely see widespread crop failures and food shortages within 50 years. Land use practices must be refo…
Any thoughts on the automated vertical farms that are starting to see good results?
I think they may make sense in some locations. I don't see them scaling to replace traditional ag, barring some unforeseen advance yielding extremely cheap and plentiful clean energy. Besides significant power requirements, large construction projects come with large emissions footprints, as do synthetic fertilizers (it may be possible to repurpose existing buildings, and compost could help provide for some portion of nutrient needs; this would require a sea change in social and lifestyle conventions which is currently happening far too slowly).
There are also real possibilities of supply chain and infrastructure unreliability due to increasingly frequent extreme weather events, geopolitical tensions, etc.
What's most appropriate is likely highly context-dependent. I think a multi-pronged approach is best, and vertical farms could certainly play a role. Personally I see halting deforestation and fossil fuel use/extraction as the most urgent priority. I'm also a bit biased toward crop breeding/engineering for increased carbon uptake and soil sequestration (the lab I work in is pursuing this); it could help restore soil health while improving yield as well as resilience to environmental stressors.
I don't know much about the details of vertical farming, though. If you have anything to share, I'd love to check it out.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#614Battery-operated household items. I have a cordless dewalt drill that I can use all day on my jobsite, but every single appliance in my kitchen needs a cord. Hand mixer? Immersion blender? Regular blender? Stand mixer? Everything has a cord. Why isn't there a kitchen battery system yet? Similarly: I'd love to have a little reading sconce on my wall next to my bed, but running a circuit through the existing walls with…
I understand the convenience argument, but with current battery technology this would not be sustainable. All those batteries require rare earth materials and add more waste to our daily lives as they have limited lifespans.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a large part of this (in the USA, anyways) is due to how modern cities are structured. It used to be, 100 or 200 years ago, that your workplace, your home, and your usual hang-out place were all within reasonable walking distance of each other. It wasn't a huge deal to go out and meet new people, as you'd naturally bump into them every day. Nowadays we have a large portion of people in bedroom communities, is…
This... still exists? It's called the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Odd Fellows, the Jaycees, the Rotary Club, the Knights of Pythias, the Freemasons, and some organizations based on blood or military service, like the American Legion or the Daughters of the American Revolution. Even here in the Bay Area I live just a couple blocks down from a huge and well-appointed Elks lodge, and just a few miles away in downtown Mountai…
Interesting, are you a member of either. I moved to the Bay Area a couple years back. Would love to join one of these organizations.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#616Personal server. If there were an open source project that made running server applications (personal blog, email, game server, file backups, mastodon, etc) easy for non-technical people, it would open up whole new use cases (in the same sense there are kinds of software now that wouldn't have made sense before everyone carried around a phone). It would also be a whalefall for the hosted vm industry if it caught on,…
Many of the nas's get pretty close too this... but there's really no such thing as a mail server for non-technical people. "Whats a domain? Can just put whatever like?" Etc etc.. even if you baby people through all of that, you still end up with a device that needs to be backed up, isn't available when the powers out at home etc..
Not knocking the nas's btw, I really like them because they do make it relatively simple to do a whole swathe of the common services, but it's only simple to me because I know how to do it by hand. A non technical person won't even understand the terminology.
That said.. I did wonder whether the deployment of solar and batteries to many homes might eventually also enable the deployment of edge services to per home servers. Right now the power draw prob makes in unworkable, as do maintenance costs.. but won't someone think of the reduced latency?
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#617The phone system. It seems like it's an unholy mess. I moved from the US to Hong Kong this year. I have a US number that I want to keep, and of course I need a local Hong Kong number. So, the US number is on my Google Fi account that I pay to keep active and I get a prepaid SIM card for Hong Kong. I can switch the SIM cards if I travel back. But why? We have two semi-independent networks, one for voice and one for da…
I would add to this, why even have "phone service" anymore. I call my family via Facebook Messenger or Zoom etc... I'm surprised that more more companies don't let me call them via these services or that some new startup hasn't starting selling the intergration so a customer can click "connect via Whatsapp" to our customer service. I'm also somewhat surprised there isn't a standard for this (maybe one is being worked…
I call my 95 year old grandma every week. She doesn't have a cell phone, only a landline. I would guess many if not most older people are similar. If the replacement service doesn't work with landlines then it's dead in the water as a replacement and will only function as an additional option. Going to stay that way for a while as (my assumption is) the group 70+ likely have a large population without call phones.
Not to mention rural communities without adequate cell service.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#618There is a staggering amount of work that needs to take place within a decade to transition the global economy away from fossil fuels, and compared to the size of the workload, very little of that work is currently in progress.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#619In-person social organizations. Social isolation is probably the biggest cause of unhappiness in advanced countries. Having a strong social network has lots of advantages including providing better romantic and career opportunities, as well as improving physical and psychological health. Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too--country clubs and fraternities have…
It is possible to build technical solutions that take the work and luck out of social organization by shouldering the heavy lifting, but then get out of the way once people meet IRL. The best tool for this right now is calendar and email. There's a lot of room for improvement. Please PM me if you're interested in a deeper discussion. I've thought a bit about what this tool might look like and how to get it off the gr…
How can we PM you?
Also, PM me if you're working on this problem (to anyone reading this :)).
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meetup.com doesn’t solve this? I ask cause I work remote and meetups are basically what I used pre-pandemic.
I've found Meetup alright for finding things to do with other people, but it doesn't work well (at least for me) to find people to be with . Meetup helped introduce me to a once-a-month board game group which is nice, but the problem is that the people I meet through this are sort of stuck in that "role": they aren't my friends and won't be, they are just people I play board games with. Whereas my true friends are pe…
I’ve been wondering how much this is true versus it’s just how it has been getting older for most people for a longtime.