Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

941–950 of 1001 posts

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#941

Post by Johnny_Brahms »

eadmund wrote: post #924
Johnny_Brahms wrote: post #66

I am still waiting for all my favourite applications to be extendable in GNU Guile. On a more general note, I am still waiting for the world to fall for lisp in general.

As someone who's spent the last week implementing two different Schemes atop two different languages (Lua & Go), I think I can explain why GNU Guile didn't take off: Scheme. The problem with Scheme is that it's an utterly lovely little language with some wonderfully neat concepts which is great for teaching students about continuations … and it happens to have some broken features, like DYNAMIC-WIND instead of UNWIND…

I don't happen to agree with you on eliminating NIL. I don't understand what the royal pain is.

And dynamic-wind is the price you have to pay for call/cc. UNWIND-PROTECT is not the same thing. Multi-shot continuations is he reason. One way would be having explicit one-shot continuations and escape continuations. Those are faster and will make UNWIND-PROTECT work.

I am more in favour of delimited continuations though.

Delimited continuations makes that a bit simpler (since you can easily implement something like dynamic wind using them).

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#942

Post by dm319 »

turc1656 wrote: post #694

Paypal used to have this feature that allowed you to install a browser add-on and you could generate a CC number on the fly that was good for either one time use or recurring use (for subscription services). This feature served two primary purposes: 1) to be able to pay using PayPal on sites that didn't support it 2) to help prevent against fraud which was becoming a massive problem at the time. If the number was sto…

Interesting. That's what android pay does.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#943

Post by dm319 »

grumblestumble wrote: post #108

E-Ink. It is the "correct" choice for display technology, and with enough research money put into it, it could replace these abominable light-emitting displays. But what we already have is "good enough", despite all of the hidden costs, and so we're stuck with it.

Yes, where's my 6" Palmtop device with e-ink, keyboard and Linux?

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#944

Post by mkbkn »

PeterisP wrote: post #526
captainmuon wrote: post #454

Peer-to-peer file sharing. There was a time when Napster, Kazaa, eMule were king. The content industry fought against it, but developers came up with decentralized solutions like DHTs or supernodes. I was convinced the next step would be friend-of-a-friend sharing. You only share files with your direct friends. But they can pass on these files automatically, so their friends can get the files, too. The friends of you…

I believe that DC++ file sharing had a model like that, but the torrents outcompeted it for most purposes; most people don't want friend-of-a-friend filesharing, they either want the most effective way to get the latest goods from whoever has it, or the ability to upload stuff while remaining mostly anonymous.

Yup, we used DC++ a lot on our college campus about 5-6 years ago. It is definitely one of the best, if not best, to share files on an intranet.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#947

Post by lj3 »

mycat wrote: post #935
amerkhalid wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love E-Ink display. Fell in love with it when I bought my first Kindle. I could read all day and my eyes won't be tired at all. Since then I had been waiting for E-Ink based laptop for work. It doesn't need to play videos or even display color. As a backend developer, I can live with grey scale display. It doesn't need high refresh rates either. But now almost 10 years later, it doesn't look like this will ever hap…

I thought recently they made e ink monitor. But not laptop though.. More like a giant tablet http://www.dasung.com/english/

Dasung is on their second version of the display. If you look up youtube reviews of the second version, I think you'll be disappointed with what you find. The refresh rate continues to be a major hurdle.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#948

Post by lj3 »

amerkhalid wrote: post #684
grumblestumble wrote: post #108

E-Ink. It is the "correct" choice for display technology, and with enough research money put into it, it could replace these abominable light-emitting displays. But what we already have is "good enough", despite all of the hidden costs, and so we're stuck with it.

I love E-Ink display. Fell in love with it when I bought my first Kindle. I could read all day and my eyes won't be tired at all. Since then I had been waiting for E-Ink based laptop for work. It doesn't need to play videos or even display color. As a backend developer, I can live with grey scale display. It doesn't need high refresh rates either. But now almost 10 years later, it doesn't look like this will ever hap…

Will an android tablet do? https://goodereader.com/blog/product/good-e-reader-13-3-e-re...

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#949

Post by lj3 »

dm319 wrote: post #943
grumblestumble wrote: post #108

E-Ink. It is the "correct" choice for display technology, and with enough research money put into it, it could replace these abominable light-emitting displays. But what we already have is "good enough", despite all of the hidden costs, and so we're stuck with it.

Yes, where's my 6" Palmtop device with e-ink, keyboard and Linux?

https://goodereader.com/blog/product/good-e-reader-6-8

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#950

Post by lj3 »

Fomite wrote: post #260
grmarcil wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the consumer/household space, sure. 3D printing is huge in prototyping and hardware R&D though. High-end printers are even good enough for mass production runs now.

3D printing is absolutely revolutionizing a hobby of mine.

> Maker of artisinal, small-batch simulation models for the discerning infectious disease consumer.

Could you talk more about what that entails? That sounds fascinating as hell.

Post reply on HN