Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on? • Hacker News Board

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

#821

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

masahiko wrote: post #720

mb_72 wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our climate and ecology are certainly at risk, but I think the biggest threat in the world right now is the rapid rise of fascist China. They're challenging the notion that free speech and democracy are required for capitalism and economic gain. That is exactly my main concern in the modern age also. Other countries are already interested in China's technology: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-23/sixth-world-int…

A long time ago I had a chat with hacker about IP over short wave radio with PGP encryption... his hypotheses was one could do encrypted long range communication via IP that could never be stopped and would be tough to decrypt. Does such a system exist today?

You probably could do that, but then hiding the equipment required is a major challenge and in places like China will come with stiff penalties.

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

#822

Post by bawana » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

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

#823

Post by johnmorrison » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

jfk13 wrote: post #812

johnmorrison wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is absolutely no reason to be optimistic about CO2 emissions on a global scale. > we have to create the foundations of this development now We are. The company I work at aims to eliminate ~60% of global emissions ourselves and provide the economic basis for the other 40%. The only major section of global emissions that doesn't seem to have an obvious full solution is concrete production, which I'm sure we can…

> The company I work at aims to eliminate ~60% of global emissions ourselves Well, nobody could accuse your company of having small ambitions! When its website consists of little more than a few sweeping "We will [...]" statements and a lot of "This page is missing", though, you'll perhaps understand if some people are a little sceptical.

Yeah we're updating that at the moment, the site isn't a big priority so we don't have anybody full time on it.

Will be fixed in a week or so.

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

#824

Post by johnmorrison » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

r34 wrote: post #801

ncmncm wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

The most pressing problem for humanity is poverty. But I agree that working on natural energy is crucial to solve it. We need to provide energy to the network of machines that will produce the basic supplies to cover humanity's fundamental needs.

I agree completely. If we can make energy ~10x cheaper, I think we can eliminate poverty globally up to a pop of around 50 billion or more.

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

#825

Post by sbhn » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 2:47 PM UTC

A promising area to work on is being able to account which bank accounts all those trillions and trillions of tax payer dollars ends up in, when it is moved in the name of national security. Seriously, it ends up in someones account. Someone is making a real lot of money making you think you are under immediate attack all the time.

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

#826

Post by MiracleUser » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #316

MiracleUser wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wikipedia page seems to imply we still dont know if any memristors physically exist. Your comment implies it's in experimentation, so I am assuming wiki is out of date I would love to learn more about this topic, do you have any additional information / sources?

The Talk page on the wiki has some activity from this year, so it may be up to date - ish. There are a few companies that are selling memristors [1], but, as you say, they may not be fully truthful in describing their products. I'd take a look at some of the texts that are for sale [2] to dive deeper, provided you already know a fair bit of EE. If you do not, pick up this book [3] to get a good education. I may not b…

Amazing reply. Thank you. I see Dr Chua is dropping a new text in December. I'll see what I can learn by then and if it sticks I'll support with a purchase

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

#827

Post by 1337biz » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 3:27 PM UTC

SeaSeaRider wrote: post #727

ncmncm wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

“Without massive progress in the next decade, civilization will probably collapse by 2035.” This is deathcult type rhetoric which has no scientific basis whatsoever.

I just wish there would be a way to hold these doomsday preachers responsible. In the end they will all shrugg it of with that smirk of 'oh back then we didn't know better'.

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

#828

Post by SamPatt » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 3:27 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #813

littlestymaar wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting answer. Somebody says there will be hundred millions of people fleeing their then uninhabitable countries (which will lead to millions of death, just look how many people drown in the Mediterranean see each year now, and how the European population is more xenophobic year after year). And you answer saying GDP will be fine!

That's a big part of the problem. Policy makers have a tendency to care more about GDP than about people. As long as the numbers look good, people are mere statistics. Rich countries are in a better position to mitigate the effects of global warming and climate change than poor countries. Rich people will be better able to insulate themselves from the effects that do occur in their country than poor people do. Imagin…

Rich countries do indeed adapt better to climate change than poor, but the point about GDP is to show that in the future all countries will be rich countries (compared to the present).

If wealthy nations today can adapt to rising sea levels, and today's poor countries will eventually become just as wealthy, why will they be unable to adapt as well?

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

#829

Post by 1337biz » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #819

johnmorrison wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you're conflating two different types of migration, and the issue isn't nearly as big as your 150 million deaths figure. Almost all countries have ample space that will still be habitable for their entire population in 2100, even if climate change is left unchecked. Those that don't represent a small portion of the global population, certainly less than 500 million people. I grew up in Botswana, and I know tha…

> Russia and Canada alone could easily fit a few billion immigrants each if global warming is really severe in a few centuries. Russia absolutely isn't going to do that, and who's going to pay to move them across the Atlantic to a country that they're not allowed to immigrate to? I'm kind of leaning the other way: millions of avoidable deaths is the "normal war" situation, even if we magically solved climate change t…

Oh interesting, so you pretend to know how Russia will act in 100 years from now. Interesting science you got there!

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

#830

Post by bluGill » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC

johnmorrison wrote: post #594

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we act on it, instead? (not being a dick)

General answer: Become a specialist, or drive funding/regulatory pushes towards these new hardware technologies. Figure out what you see as the barriers to their commercialization, then figure out what component of that problem you'd love to work on, and become an expert in that. My biased answer: If you're in the position to spend a lot of time learning and experimenting with new stuff (e.g. a highschool or uni stud…

Being a specialist isn't enough. You along - no matter how good you are - are not enough. Either you need to control enough money that you can hire many specialist (Elon Musk with SpaceX), or you need to convince someone with money that is the right path. The skills for each of these are people skills not technical. Either way you will spend all your time in management activities so technical skills are not worth learning (beyond enough to understand what is feasible).

If you want to focus on technical skills, then you need to find a specialty that someone with good management skills will think important so that you can work with many other experts to develop things.