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Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

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Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

#231

Post by homonculus1 »

conductr wrote: post #198
chrisco255 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes you wonder how one bad action can just cause sweeping changes in surveillance, privacy, screening process, etc. How much of it is overreaction?

I’d normally agree except the copy cat effect is strong these days. School shootings in US are the counter example where little changed after Columbine and now we have them weekly or so.

We don't have Columbine-style school shootings every week. Maybe gang shootings involving students, but that's a separate problem with completely different cultural roots.

Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

#232

Post by mongol »

Would be interesting to hear about most famous inventions in other countries. From Sweden, or Swedish inventors: Dynamite. The sun valve (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_valve). The milk separator. Tetrahedron-shaped plastic-coated paper carton packaging. The self aligning ball bearing. All these were part of early history of what became larger companies existing to this day.

The adjustable spanner, the zipper and the propeller are also sometimes mentioned in this category within Sweden, but are the also referring to inventors with partly Swedish origin or for improvements of previous designs.

Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

#233

Post by ajuc »

dnautics wrote: post #150
ajuc wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically there would be ~2 times less people on Earth and over half of them would work in farming if not for this one invention.

Sadly, in my professional opinion as a chemist, I would say that the the haber process, is not actually that simple, either in its original conception or as implemented now.

Well it's better than Mościcki's process :)

Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

#234

Post by cuspycode »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #194
cuspycode wrote: post #168

The condition "you can pretty much build it yourself" forces me to exclude many things with important impact like for example nuclear reactors, LSD, birth control pills, and the silicon transistor. But I think steam engines (or Rankine cycle engines in general) and penicillin are simple enough to qualify.

When I read Alexander Shulgin, the psychedelic chemist’s biography, I was struck by the fact that when he wanted to do LSD with some friends, he actually synthesised it in his lab.

Yeah, Shulgin was a special case, he was a genius biochemist after all. And there are of course lots of people who have synthesized LSD using fairly standard lab equipment. But it's not like something anyone could do.

Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

#235

Post by [deleted] »

TimSchumann wrote: post #87
s9w wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is that right? That would be something like 5 per day per person on earth.

If it's off, it's likely less than an order of magnitude off. It's based on the numbers in the video, which he states as half a trillion cans a year from 2015. If anything, I'd guess the number is a touch low.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

#236

Post by PopeDotNinja »

TimSchumann wrote: post #87
s9w wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is that right? That would be something like 5 per day per person on earth.

If it's off, it's likely less than an order of magnitude off. It's based on the numbers in the video, which he states as half a trillion cans a year from 2015. If anything, I'd guess the number is a touch low.

Well I just drank my daily 8 cans of Diet Pepsi.

Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

#238

Post by hoistbypetard »

puranjay wrote: post #184

The humble ball point pen. People forget how cumbersome and/or expensive it was to write before cheap ball point pens became a thing. You had to use fountain pens. The cheap ones leaked and were an absolute mess to carry around. The ones that didn't leak were expensive. I can now buy more pens for $100 than I'll ever use in years and just stash them everywhere I want

Haven't pencils always been inexpensive?

Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

#239

Post by ufmace »

dvirsky wrote: post #20
some1else wrote: post #19

> A twistlock and corner casting together form a standardized rotating connector for securing shipping containers. The primary uses are for locking a container into place on a container ship, semi-trailer truck or railway container train, and for lifting of the containers by container cranes and sidelifters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twistlock

Actually the shipping container itself is pretty much high up there I guess. Pretty revolutionary for a box.

I was going to post the standardized shipping container myself. It was apparently a massive boost to transportation efficiency when the industry moved to a standard container that a single simple crane could rapidly load and unload from any ship and load onto a truck or railcar. It seems that, before this, most goods were transported in barrels or other one-off small containers loaded and unloaded from ships by manpower. Could take weeks to load and unload a ship.

Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

#240

Post by kwhitefoot »

estebarb wrote: post #73

"simple" is a strong requirement. I don't know how to make anything of most things proposed!!! If we were thrown to the Earth 10000 years ago, we would be able to bootstrap our current tech in less than a century?

Yes. So long as we had a few reference works, freedom from attack by competing tribes, and landed on productive agricultural land.

Simple radios are very easy and allow us to stick together over wider ranges than the locals, knowledge of simple medical concepts and sanitation keeps us alive and healthy longer.

Understanding how to build effective shelters and storage systems allows us to keep an agricultural surplus which enables some of us to devote our time to bootstrapping.

The biggest problem would be people jockeying for short term power instead of pulling together for long term success.

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