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Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

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Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#541

Post by fingerlocks »

owyn wrote: post #493
fingerlocks wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My source was this pdf: https://www.bluemaumau.org/sites/default/files/MCD%202013%20... Very possible I skimmed and may have read it incorrectly, accounting is not my thing. As I have now reached the maximum amount of effort I'm willing to put into a forum comment, I'm not going to dig any further. But if you can tease out better information, I'd be curious to know.

From the document... Across ~12,000 locations they put the majority of restaurants in a range but they do have the numbers pretty well crunched. Average profit margin 26-28% Average gross sales 2.2 - 2.6M Average operating income before rent/tax: 570k - 716k "The rent paid to McDonald’s will vary based upon sales and McDonald’s investment in land, site improvements, and building costs." It looks like that rent paid t…

Good, this was my takeaway as well. My range was loosely rounded since 716k was something like the 85th percentile.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#542

Post by ncmncm »

johnmorrison wrote: post #171

In the online world, it seems like there are two big things happening right now: - Neural networks / ML (eg GPT-2) Definitely nowhere near its potential for being applied to a wide variety of areas. Find a niche you like and apply there. - Security / Privacy (eg Telegram) Rapidly growing demand pretty much everywhere. Bonus points if you can make your product great for standard users and at the same time hackable/cus…

The most pressing problem for humanity is global climate disruption. Arguably, working on anything that doesn't help there is not just wasted effort, but actively harmful.

Wind, solar power, energy storage still have huge room for improvement.

Direct solar or wind -> liquid fuel will be essential to adapting fast.

Windmills can drive production of liquid ammonia on farms (needing only air and water inputs), for use directly as fertilizer and fuel, without need for a grid attachment and without blocking sunlight needed for the plants. Ammonia is not a very dense fuel (e.g. terrible for aircraft), but that doesn't matter for farm machinery.

Direct solar -> hydrogen has been demonstrated, with bio-reaction for hydrogen + CO2 -> liquid fuel suitable for aircraft. Direct hydrogen-fueled aircraft are feasible, and more efficient than with kerosine, but the design cycle is too long.

Wind turbines will be wearing out as the blades erode. No-moving-parts screens might be the next generation, extracting power by releasing ions to be carried away from an electric field. The old towers will still be useful, and the rare earths can be mined out for other uses, probably vehicle motors.

Batteries are a very material-intensive storage medium. Underwater air storage does not need exotic materials or tech, and the pressure at depth makes the strength of materials needed minimal, other than piping.

We need to replace huge amounts of refrigeration equipment with versions that don't rely on HFCs, and get the HFCs incinerated. One gram of HFC traps as much heat as 2500 g of CO2, and lasts centuries in the atmosphere. Once vented, it cannot be recaptured. Ammonia-cycle systems need to be made safe enough for general use, and HFC versions outlawed.

Without massive progress in the next decade, civilization will probably collapse by 2035.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#543

Post by mcs_ »

Yourself.

One of the most complex areas, having lots of users, that need to be fixed, is human beings. Spend all your time to know who you are, why you are like that, and change this world starting from the most promising thing it has on it: you.

In the meantime, try to carry out activities that you like (ride your bike, walk alone or with real people). Do it disconnected from any device or social network.

Do things that make you feel real and unique, without layout, template, guidelines, best practices. Ignore any negativism (fortunately you are introverted, it should help). Recognize in every moment that you have to learn a lot. Learn a lot and repeat.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#544

Post by robocat »

wuliwong wrote: post #448
mc3 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zimbabwe beat them to it

Good point. I am a 100 trillionaire in Zimbabwe dollars.

If anyone wants to start a business selling suitcases of money from hyperinflation countries, I really really want to buy one large suitcase full (preferably money with English writing from a known county, Zimbabwe seems a likely candidate!). Or perhaps prop money (although it needs to seem like a realistic Western currency). Or maybe zero dollar banknotes?

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#545

Post by AareyBaba »

tito wrote: post #179
monk_e_boy wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone is going to cover the Sahara with solar panels and make some serious cash. Bonus points for automating the production of solar panels out of sand.

Call it "Sand to Solar". Some of the best ideas start out as jokes, I googled for this because I was curious: "New technology allows heated sand to generate electricity, presenting a viable new option for investors to focus on." https://oilandenergyinvestor.com/acq/new-energy-from-sand-wh...

I wasted more time than I care to think reading that article. There is no mention of how the technology works. A vague reference to an academic project in the UAE. Most of the article is just filler fluff. This is a marketing article to investors for this authors "wealth building energy advantage".

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#546

Post by K0SM0S »

inopinatus wrote: post #507

Communications technology has moved past the ability of human brains to tolerate and mitigate the adverse effects. Every addicting dopamine surge from a Like or Retweet is the evidence; every viral pile-on, every echo-chamber lunatic fringe. Making humanity resilient to the negative externalities of our own technological advancement is essential for the survival of our species. Right now, a vast army of the smartest…

I don't think it's the best way to make money, but this may be the most important topic for our near future as a species. Emphasis: not just civilization(s) but species as a whole, as in rewiring perception, brain functions, social life, freedom of thought.

Here's my conundrum: we could design a transparent and 100% user-controlled communication network — basically some open-sourced Twitter / Facebook / Whatsapp / Instagram etc. — which would let people control their feed order of priorities, implement 'psychologically sane' features, prove that it's objectively better for mental health and a slew of other things (politics, media come to mind) through studies, even distribute resources so as to bypass a need for massive funding — just consider how much time the average consumer CPU spends idling over its lifetime, there's loads of free resources available.

But ultimately we face the same issue as for-profits: friction. How do we get 2.5 billion people to move when none has moved already — chicken-and-the-egg problem of “but all my friends...”

I may be low-balling humanity but I think it'll take PR momentum, textbook buzz — support by famous people, icons, thought leaders, influencers, etc at a massive scale. Ideally governments would be on board and even subsidize such a neutral network in the name of protecting citizens and their rights.

Is it challenging, herculean, foolish, or simply impossible an endeavor? Wish I knew. But I'll sure die trying —hopefully of other unrelated causes, eh.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#547

Post by ip26 »

strken wrote: post #69
lewisjoe wrote: post #27

Unpopular opinion: Domain driven stack. We have been living in the golden era of software industry, thanks to Moore's law. We were able to afford RISC (= general purpose CPU arch), general purpose operating systems, general purpose languages, general purpose databases etc all because the hardware was going to evolve and get faster anyway. Now with Moore's law showing signs of death, the future for better computing wo…

Not sure what more recent xboxes are like, but the original xbox was a cut down windows 2000 running on Intel and Nvidia. It was really close to commodity hardware and software.

But it had a really thin OS layer, and everybody had virtually exactly the same box, so you could micro-optimize to the exact architecture. IMO it does fit the concept of "domain specific stack", it's just that homogeneity is one of the important properties of the stack instead of unbridled performance.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#548

Post by civilian »

bumby wrote: post #537

Improving validation and interpretation of DL. For all the leaps forward in NN models, I have a feeling it's at risk because of a lack of trust. It's potential may be limited if the public perceives it to be too brittle or maladaptive. DARPA is currently trying to work on DL models that are truly interpretable. If that gets sufficient progress I think the public/regulators will be much more willing to let software co…

what does DL stand for?

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#549

Post by robocat »

yodsanklai wrote: post #206
tito wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of energy will go near zero. The marginal cost of an electron captured with solar is free. Solar is starting to beat fossil fuel installations already, below $0.05 USD per kWh. This was not predicted even by the biggest cheerleaders even 10 years ago: "In 2017, the solar industry achieved SunShot’s original 2020 cost target of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour for utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) solar power three year…

> Solar is starting to beat fossil fuel installations already, below $0.05 USD per kWh. I read that over and over, but it's like comparing apples and oranges.

Depends upon your country.

Countries with significant lake hydroelectricity (not run-of-river) can "store" the solar power (no batteries needed) by reducing flow during the daytime (and increasing flow at nighttime if required).

This is because hydroelectric dams are essentially stores of electricity. No need for pumping or other expensive storage schemes, is your already have one!

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#550

Post by nabeards »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #447

I live without a car. I have for more than a decade. Trying to plan car-free travel routes in the US is a huge pain in the butt. If Google maps can't spit out a solution that gets you all the way to your destination, it won't tell you a partial answer. This means piecing together information from multiple sources. I spent a lot of time checking Amtrak routes and then looking for commuter bus routes, local shuttle ser…

Definitely take a look at Rome2Rio, https://www.rome2rio.com. We've been using it for years, and have been carless nearly as long.
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