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Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

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Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#551

I started off seven years ago wondering why backlogs were so bad. It seemed like both small teams and large organizations always suck at them. I had read tons of how-to books and watched lots of videos. Many of the instructions conflicted with one another, however. What I wanted to know was why , not how-to . If I understood the why I wouldn't need the how-to. Being a good hacker, I pulled at that thread until I had…

I'd love to read some of what you've written, if you're willing to share.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#552
post #371

We're (team of 2) rewriting an old enterprise ERP system made of ~1M of C89 non-portable loc, tens of thousands of handwritten PLSQL loc, thousands of business rules carefully abstracted in sql data, tens of complex screen designed and scripted on a no-name RAD software that was the current fad back in the days, and some companion pieces in VB6 because, you known, 'C89, not anybody can do it'. That's fun . The new sy…

That sounds super interesting. You should absolutely write a book...or, if not that, a blog. I'd read it.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#553

I believe I could be working in solving bigger problems, but first I need to focus on my mental health, a healthier work-life balance, and providing the primary income for my family.

Don't discount how important those problems are! Kudos to you for being intentional with them, and good luck. I wish you the best.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#554
post #137

1.) A solver for the unstructured Euler equations. ...I was intending to volunteer time for an local university project investigating parallels between Holographic light with orbital angular momentum and hydrodynamics (in this case the Euler/Madelung equations). Not sure what happened as... volunteers get lost in the shuffle? Anyway, the solver is fun. 2.) Porting my Python code for nonlinear gradient driven optimiza…

Would you be willing to explain what the applications of (2) are? I'll admit that I only undersetand a fraction of what you said in that section, but I'm curious what you're using it for.

Also, if there is a specific piece you’d like me to elaborate on, (I mean, beyond my sibling comment) I’m happy to do so!

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#555

I'm a diplomat working on international norms for cyber and information warfare. I'm trying to get countries to agree on how to use and not use their capabilities, the influence on global democracy, the connection to armed conflict and the future of interstate relations. In practice, this means meeting a lot of people and spending a lot of time negotiating with other countries in scrappy conference rooms in the UN an…

> I'm a diplomat working on international norms for cyber and information warfare. I didn't know any such norms existed. What are some of the existing agreements, and if you can talk about it, what are some of the new ones you're trying to push forward? Your career sounds crazy...in a good way! Was your initial involvement with the UN in a technical role?

There are several negotiations ongoing in various committees of the UN, where the issues that surface in the "real world" are negotiated: information warfare (such as election interference), responsibility for information across borders etc. https://www.cfr.org/blog/united-nations-doubles-its-workload...

Basically, it's about trying to defend international norms from an onslaught of attempts to make states the primary defender of the informational realm, and thereby legitimise opression.

Yeah, first job for UN was coding a shitty CRUD system in order to keep track of HIV infections in East Africa.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#556

Not trying to change the world here... I just want a good way to look at my bottle caps site: http://collectibleapp.com/ project: https://github.com/marcelaguiar/Collectible

I dig it. Problems don't have to be world-changing to be interesting.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope to convey this in the least volatile manner, but I must bring it up. > I learned how important energy storage will be to enable renewable energy to displace fossil fuels. The above is a reasonable statement, however, your website says the following: > We can’t quit carbon without energy storage. To stop climate change, renewables must replace fossil fuels. > Without energy storage, renewables will fail to reac…

> Without energy storage, renewables will fail but none of the below are renewables * Massive adoption of nuclear fission alone * Development & massive adoption of nuclear fusion alone * Shift from coal&oil to natural gas, cleaner fossil fuels + scaling carbon capture/sequestration

You're clipping the wrong part of the sentence.

Parent is primarily disputing: "To stop climate change, renewables must replace fossil fuels." and if renewables fail, "this will cause global temperatures to rise over 3°C"

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#558

After reading recent HN post [1], I’ve started to work on my own implementation of open source fast file transfer client-server application. It’s in a very early stage now so it’s nothing to show yet, but I’ll be very glad to announce it when MVP will be ready. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21898072

I remember reading that post and the surrounding discussion, and thinking it was a really tough (and worthwhile) challenge. Good luck, and I'm excited to see the first version when you release it.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#559
Right now I'm working on electronic music generation. That is, how neural nets and other technologies can be used to generate electronic music. It works roughly similar to text generation using Markov models, but there are a lot of problems not found in text that are specific to music.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#560

I'm helping to build a scalable system for delivering high value and life saving medical supplies to hard to reach places via autonomous aircraft. The system is currently operating in Rwanda and Ghana, and aggressively expanding over the next couple years. Specifically, I spend a lot of time thinking about and writing embedded software. The aircraft is fully autonomous and needs to be able to fly home safely even aft…

It's crazy the kind of jobs there are in the USA that are very interesting and in the vanguard of the technology while me (Spain) get to work on banking. Here we don't have anything close to Toyota, Google or SpaceX. The career path for someone that has a passion for its craft can't be compared between the USA and many other countries. Such a shame... I wouldn't say I am qualified for a job related to embedded progra…

To be clear, I think the overwhelming majority of jobs in the US fall into your uninteresting category, e.g. banking, adtech, etc.
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