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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?

#671

Post by gitgud »

mywittyname wrote: post #644
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

Intelligence is inheritable. Intelligence is correlated with educational attainment and wealth. People tend to marry within their socio-economic group. Wealthy people who came from nothing are the exception. Even in places with high degrees of social mobility, climbing the social ladder is a multi-generational saga. Maybe a working class family has a child or two who enter the professional class, then maybe their chi…

> Intelligence is inheritable. Intelligence is correlated with educational attainment and wealth.

Wealth is also correlated with inheriting money...

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

#672

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #385
throwaway787544 wrote: post #163

The stumble over abandonment of ICE vehicles. By 2030 (8 years from now) at least six manufacturers will have stopped making ICE vehicles entirely, and India claims it will ban the sale of ICE-only vehicles. By 2040 (18 years from now) over half of all new cars sold will be electric, and the UK and France claim they will ban the sale of ICE-only vehicles. However, there's still not a plan that makes all that sustaina…

I would love to see some company produce components someone could purchase and replace an ICE engine with to make it an EV. I'm not talking 300 mile range EV with fancy software, etc. just basic stuff like a battery pack sized to replace a gas tank, electric motor and other components, etc. Some kit that you could take a modern-ish Corolla/Civic and turn it into a 100mi range EV which could satisfy a ton of household…

You can do this now. The technology is here. But bear in mind that each application requires a specific mechanical interface, and that's the problem. People swap ICE motors in cars all the time, but they are skilled enough to adapt them as needed.

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

#673

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

NibbleAbit wrote: post #555
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see some company produce components someone could purchase and replace an ICE engine with to make it an EV. I'm not talking 300 mile range EV with fancy software, etc. just basic stuff like a battery pack sized to replace a gas tank, electric motor and other components, etc. Some kit that you could take a modern-ish Corolla/Civic and turn it into a 100mi range EV which could satisfy a ton of household…

I've been looking for this too. Not just for cars, but also lawnmowers, snow blowers, chain saws ...

I have a nice Husqvarna brush cutter where the motor has a failed bearing and they stopped making that model. One of my backburner projects is to electrify it. Current candidate is a small router motor: probably has enough power and it can meet the duty cycle requirements. Like I said in my other post, the biggest issue is the mechanical coupling from motor to device: they're all non-standard.

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

#674

Post by thfuran »

captainmuon wrote: post #651
throwaway787544 wrote: post #163

The stumble over abandonment of ICE vehicles. By 2030 (8 years from now) at least six manufacturers will have stopped making ICE vehicles entirely, and India claims it will ban the sale of ICE-only vehicles. By 2040 (18 years from now) over half of all new cars sold will be electric, and the UK and France claim they will ban the sale of ICE-only vehicles. However, there's still not a plan that makes all that sustaina…

It's feels a bit weird for me as a left-winger to make this argument, but won't all that be solved by the market? If there are not enough chargers, won't that create an incentive to build more? And yeah, you probably can't build them fast enough, or the grid capacity will not be sufficient, but won't people then just move to places where they can? Or switch to alternative modes of transportation? I think the fallacy…

>And yeah, you probably can't build them fast enough, or the grid capacity will not be sufficient, but won't people then just move to places where they can? Or switch to alternative modes of transportation?

This sounds fine to you? Not having enough grid capacity means much higher prices and more frequent blackouts. Not having enough charging infrastructure means many people may be unable to fuel their vehicles. "Sorry, but this city is shit now, I guess you're going to have to move to Texas for their great electric grid" doesn't seem like a position we should be aiming to put many people in.

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

#675

Post by gbear0 »

thom wrote: post #63

Drone tech is going to get tiny. It’ll have microphones and cameras and it’ll probably be untraceable. It’ll spy on you arbitrarily and the equivalent of 4chan will have access to it in abundance. You will never again have any form of privacy unless you buy expensive countermeasures for your home and office. Fortunately deepfakes will be so good you can blame it all on that.

I've always wanted to see a swarm of miniature roomba drones that can automatically clean/collect dust from anywhere in the house.

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

#677

Post by 6t6t6t6 »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #247

Preimplantation polygenetic testing. The idea is that, when doing IVF, you sequence the genome of all the embryos and implant the ones that you predict will have properties that you like. This already exists for monogenetic screening (for parents who don't want to pass on heritable diseases for their children, where those diseases are localized to one gene). But the idea here is that, by checking thousands of genes,…

As someone who has done genetic screening to avoid passing a genetic illness to my children, it is not as easy as it seems.

In every IVF session, if you are young and healthy, they may be able to extract around ten eggs. Of those ten eggs, 50% will valid and will get fecundated. You are down to 5. Then, in our case, 50% of the embryos will be carriers and have to be discarded. You are down to two or three that can be implanted. And, from those, you are lucky if one gets implanted in the womb correctly and produces a baby.

What I mean it's that you can choose to a level, but you are quite limited by numbers, even if the technology improves or you are luckier, and you can get more embryos to choose from each IVF cycle.

All that, while the mother needs to be taking a massive amount of hormones that will make her gain weight, feel tired, etc... It's not a walk in the park.

By the way, we joked about the "boutique baby" with the doctor, and she told us that there are many traits that they could select but that it was illegal for them to do so.

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

#678

Post by O__________O »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #314
WFHRenaissance wrote: post #145

Prompt engineering. The perfection of "programming as verbal intelligence".

I can't help but feel that this will be a fleeting skill. As humans work towards clearer communication with AI, AI will be working towards clearer understanding of humans.

You could make the same argument for Google searches. In my experience, yes, Google is trying to get better at understanding the (average) user, but average user really makes no efforts to get better at even basic ways to search better. Obviously advanced users try to get better, but both ends require engineer better search engines and better understanding of advanced user interfaces.

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

#679

Post by LeonTheremin »

thom wrote: post #63

Drone tech is going to get tiny. It’ll have microphones and cameras and it’ll probably be untraceable. It’ll spy on you arbitrarily and the equivalent of 4chan will have access to it in abundance. You will never again have any form of privacy unless you buy expensive countermeasures for your home and office. Fortunately deepfakes will be so good you can blame it all on that.

Criminals trained in 4chan will just hack other people's drones and use them instead of buying drones themselves.

But they don't need drones, actually, these criminals already have access to Microwave Weaponry and Electromagnetic Surveillance.

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