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Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

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Re: Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

#71

Post by miguelrochefort »

adrianN wrote: post #56
Babooster wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to send any amount money anywhere all over the world with no fees or restrictions and with great privacy isn't interesting?

Transactions won't be free. Somebody has to do some mining. Some googling indicates that a typical bitcoin transaction costs about two dollars today. In my experience, paying money via Paypal or credit card costs about the same.

> Transactions won't be free. Somebody has to do some mining.

Proof-of-Stake (as opposed to Proof-of-Work) will change that.

> Some googling indicates that a typical bitcoin transaction costs about two dollars today.

This is because Bitcoin reached the limit of transactions that can fit in a block, which causes a bottleneck, which increases fees. This has been fixed for other cryptocurrencies, and Bitcoin will soon (August 1st) fix it.

Re: Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

#72

Post by stefantalpalaru »

TACIXAT wrote: post #53

FPV Drone Racing - While automated flight is making great progress, there are some amazing pilots out there. Something about a person standing in a field with goggles and a controller feels so future to me. 3D Printing - This is going to be the main way to manufacture things in the future. The lab that is 3D printing houses with concrete. That makes me terrified for home values going forward. It will likely shift all…

> CRISPR - s/shitty gene sequence/perfect gene sequence/g That's insane.

It's also false: http://newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/blog/2017/05/30/crispr-gen...

Re: Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

#73

Post by owebmaster »

est wrote: post #69
killercup wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that all sounds awesome! Can you link to the Github repos with the code and spec?

Generally, reading MSDN docs is a much nicer experience than reading most OSS sources, or specs, not to mention collecting workarounds from the ocean of issue tracker comments. However I do agree OSS is important and great, especially when times that you do need to debug & trace into source code. Disclaimer: I have't developed around M$ platform for 10+ years now, not sure if the situation has changed

The situation sure changed a lot. I'd blindly disagree if you say that Windows Server (or azure) development has more and better docs than Linux.

And MSDN platform performs very poorly imo compared with "comparable" OSS platforms like Github, Linux development, GNU development.

Re: Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

#74

Post by door »

d--b wrote: post #49

What does that really mean? Do you mean projects that are being worked on right now and that will be delivered in 20 years? Or projects that are finished now and that will be understood in 20 years? Or projects that people thought wouldn't be possible before 20 years? 1: VR, self driving vehicles, nuclear fusion, artificial photosynthesis, quantum computers, robots that can manipulate things like men, wave energy har…

>like men

like people

Re: Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

#75

Post by headcanon »

I'd say most of the ethereum-based startups, like swarm city or golem. Right now they're going a Cambrian explosion of different business models, many of which require everyday people to be using cryptocurrencies on a regular basis. Current prices are due to speculation for this eventuality, and personally I'm bullish on crypto, but this feels too much like the 90s was for the internet. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just the natural cycle of innovation.

Re: Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

#76

Post by headcanon »

cm2187 wrote: post #67
diggan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the same thing with your grand-mother and the web 20 years ago, she would have no reason to visit it. But now, everyone is there and she can see pictures of grand-children via the web. I could imagine similar reason for your grand-mother to use crypto-currencies in 20 years.

Well, exactly. She can see the picture of her grand-children. But what's the equivalent of the grand-children incentive for using bitcoin over her credit card or cash? "Because we won't give her the choice" isn't the way bitcoin is going to go mainstream.

If you can figure that out, let me know and maybe I'll loop you in on the billions generated :)

Seriously though, most people could not conceive of what the internet of today would have looked like 20 years ago, so I'm thinking it's going to be something similar for crypto. Remember that some, like ethereum specifically, are applications platforms for running arbitrary code in a distributed way. Exactly what applications will come of that I really don't know, but I'm sure they will be figured out, and by that time the value will be obvious.

Re: Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

#78

Post by kspaans »

TACIXAT wrote: post #53

FPV Drone Racing - While automated flight is making great progress, there are some amazing pilots out there. Something about a person standing in a field with goggles and a controller feels so future to me. 3D Printing - This is going to be the main way to manufacture things in the future. The lab that is 3D printing houses with concrete. That makes me terrified for home values going forward. It will likely shift all…

> That makes me terrified for home values going forward. It will likely shift all the value into the land.

Houses are depreciating assets, the land already has most of the value in popular locations. (Don't believe me? Look at the resale value of mobile homes compared to "real estate".)

Re: Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

#79

Post by angus-prune »

richardthered wrote: post #48

The Long Now Foundation and their 10,000-year clock. http://longnow.org/clock/ It's a clock. A physical clock. Designed and built to run, accurately, for 10,000 years without human intervention.

Its not without human intervention, it is with only bronze age (iirc) level maintenance.

Re: Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time?

#80

Post by angus-prune »

cm2187 wrote: post #27
conception wrote: post #18

Crypto currencies probably. I could see taking a generation for them to be mainstream and understood by the public the way the internet is today.

I very much doubt that. Tech people love it as a nice invention with a libertarian twist. But what is the incentive for my grand-mother to use it over regular cash?

I am not bullish on cryptocurrency at all.

BUT...

If a tipping point comes, it won't come from your grandparents, or your parents in 20 years time. It will come from India or Africa where banking is not entrenched (or even available) for most of the population. Where the technology landscape is completely different and they are already leapfrogging the west in some areas such as mobile payments and banking.

I don't think that cryptocurrencies will take off in a big way, but Im pretty certain that if we do, it won't be from the west, and won't be for a reason that we recognise (or that the crypto-fanatics are shouting about).

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