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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?

#601

Post by philipkglass »

johnmorrison wrote: post #595
philipkglass wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct about thermodynamic efficiency. I interpreted it to be about economic efficiency. In which case one or more doublings of kWh output from dollar input is still a stretch but plausible. Modern rooftop solar modules haven't even doubled efficiency from 40 years ago, but they have improved cost per kilowatt hour by more than 100x.

Yeah, I tend to agree with you here. The difference I see is that solar has already been heavily invested in and developed recently, so it's probably near the limit of today's material science. My personal philosophy about technological progress is based heavily on the idea that material science is the principle barrier to what we can accomplish. That's why humanity's progress is recounted in "ages" named by material…

I can believe significant price improvements to come for solar, fission, and fusion since their fuel costs are zero or tiny. What new hydrocarbon sources could be 10x cheaper than coal or natural gas?

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

#602

Post by briandear »

ReD_CoDE wrote: post #598
ademars94 wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I make money while I am doing this?

Anything in this world has a value you have to pay. Money comes at the right time if you go the right path in your life. Don't think about money, think about the path you want to go, a path you would be happy to go and money comes in its right time Choose "infinite" goals in your life, and follow them.

That’s reasonable advice, but it’s hard to pay the bills when you are off getting Zen on yourself.

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

#603

Post by hugs »

xeonoex wrote: post #431
peterangular wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's finicky technology that is hard to make sustainable This 100 times over. The only way I've been able to make it work is being one heck of a generalist. I've found that training on what I do is near-impossible and I don't even know if I could scale a real company in this beyond myself.

Disclaimer: I work for UiPath. This is a problem with almost any type of automation. I wouldn't say our software (I am only familiar with UiPath) is finicky. GUIs are finicky, but there are ways to deal with them. That's the stuff a good RPA dev can handle. I was automating before I started at UiPath, and GUI interaction adds a new layer to automation, of course. But it is still maintainable when you implement them u…

How is UiPath different than open source tools like Selenium?

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

#604

Post by p1esk »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #592
mcs_ wrote: post #543

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…

Rebranded nihilism. The trend of positivity focused, directionless hedonism seeking self actualization is no better than lying around drinking all day or addicted to opiates. Find something outside yourself to be devoted to. Do the hard work to determine what that is, test and iterate. Happiness is a side effect of a job well done, not a goal.

As I get older I tend to agree with this more and more. Find something bigger than yourself. This could be your family, your company, your idea. Work on that. Build something significant, something you can be proud of. It will give your life more meaning than attempts to find out who you are.

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

#605

Post by briandear »

dogcomplex wrote: post #579
K0SM0S wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 / I…

Think you nailed it - the most important problem is overcoming the social friction that enables companies to centralize control of entire industries for no reason other than - they got to it first. We need ways for consumers to organize en-masse to switch services - since trickling out one by one has such a disadvantage ("all my friends use X..."). My hope there, if any, lies in someone developing a mature incentiviz…

> centralize control of entire industries for no reason other than - they got to it first.

But those big companies didn’t get there first.

History is littered with companies that were too big to beat. The secret is obvious but difficult: find a better way and people that agree it’s a better way. Look at Cirrus Aircraft for a relatively recent example — they tackled an ultra regulated, expensive business and are now the best selling GA airplane

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

#606

Post by carapace »

salsadip wrote: post #552
carapace wrote: post #416

Hypnosis for HCI. (Neuralink et. al. are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. When you want to connect a computer and a brain the most effective thing to do is program the brain.)

Could you elaborate please?

Yes. All year. And thank you for asking. :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746802

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601806

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434897

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18564989

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18565101

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

#607

Post by yellowapple »

fumar wrote: post #571

I think the transition from plastics will be vital. It will require new innovations in product manufacturing alternatives. Look around everything is made from it. It will change supply chains, goods lifecycles, costs, and consumer habits. For example, if a grocery store existed that didn't use plastics (in mass) for selling goods, what would that look like? Can it scale? Is it basically a farmers market, etc.

You'd probably see a lot of things packaged in paper, metal (foils, cans), and/or glass. So the follow-up question here would be "how do we sustainably produce paper/metal/glass packaging?", its own follow-up in turn being "how do we sustainably produce paper/metal/glass anything?".

Paper can be answered with some alternative pulp sources, e.g. bamboo and sugarcane. Recycling of existing paper products, as well as an emphasis on tree farms and wildfire prevention, also help here.

Metal and glass can be answered with recycling. Aluminum is pretty common for consumer packaging, and both aluminum and glass are pretty favorable to recycling (at a fraction of the energy cost of mining and smelting new materials).

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

#608

Post by rwesty »

mcs_ wrote: post #543

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…

Since you bring it up, mental health companies are springing up left and right. I work at a mental health startup myself. My interest in understanding and working on my own mental health led me to apply to this place. I think there are a lot of people attempting to create products to help us do what you are suggesting. Meditation, mindfulness and therapy seem to be the solutions that everyone is throwing up.

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

#609

Post by briandear »

blazespin wrote: post #524
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…

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

#610

Post by hugs »

ethbro wrote: post #373
peterangular wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right on! Yeah - I would love to learn more about what the bigger guys are doing. Everything you're saying is 100% something I deal with on a day-to-day basis, and ongoing support is a huge struggle to workout with the companies I've implemented software at. Looking at your product offerings made me chuckle - I definitely have versions of a lot of what you do! My robots are called workers, my orchestrator is called a…

If anyone in this thread wants to talk RPA, I'm happy to talk your ear off. At this point, I've been doing it for... about 7 years? It's been an interesting ride. Email in profile

Would love to know more. How is RPA different than Selenium?
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