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Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#151

Post by nawgz »

canofbars wrote: post #126
renjimen wrote: post #125

Overpopulation. It's the main source of humanity's current woes and will only get worse with time. We seem to be content with addressing the symptoms rather than the problem. The idea of population control is taboo but will help everyone in the long run.

Surprisingly capitalism seems to be helping here. A lot of people feel they are unable to afford to own a house and have kids at the same time.

Haha, "helping" and "growing wealth inequality to such disturbing extremes that the richest have more than ever before and more than most could conceive whilst the poor are faced with crushing existential dread and complete lack of power" might not be analogous to me, but yes.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#152

Post by canofbars »

iambateman wrote: post #12

Global warming businesses: carbon capture, emission reduction, etc.

We already have the solutions and know they work. Solar and wind are incredibly well developed and successful. We just need to remove the politics and corruption holding them back.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#153

Post by ncmncm »

kylewatson wrote: post #115

A friggin' printer that friggin' works.

Brother printers seem to work. And with after-market toner cartridges.

They have a list of models that are fully compatible with Linux. Many have e.g. a scanner that isn't, but can print fine.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#154

Post by nmca »

renjimen wrote: post #125

Overpopulation. It's the main source of humanity's current woes and will only get worse with time. We seem to be content with addressing the symptoms rather than the problem. The idea of population control is taboo but will help everyone in the long run.

Most models have the population capping at ~10B, so people don't tend to worry about it any more? (10B number is recalled from "Factfulness", which I'd recommend)

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#155

Post by jhayward »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #102

Designs for residential houses and appliances that ensure waste heat goes outdoors in the summer, and stays indoors in the winter. (And vice versa: refrigerators and freezers that take advantage of cold outdoor air in the winter, rather than using electricity to run compressors.)

With the prevalence of "planned unit development" style suburban housing design I've always been a little amazed that no AHJs require district heating/cooling solutions. Here in Texas they already require PUD-based water and wastewater so often the first developments in rural expansion of the cities have their own small water and wastewater treatment systems.

Its a small step to run hot/cold water supply lines when you are using tax-free muni bonds to put in the streets and sewers already, and have to have a maintenance fee structure that operates the plant.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#156

Post by bmitc »

mdorazio wrote: post #34

Actual, practical human longevity improvement. It seems ridiculous how small of a healthcare tech niche this is given the potential impact.

Why? Human longevity is a source of problems, and I personally wish we'd work harder at making the quality of our lives better instead of extending our time here.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#157

Post by aaron695 »

Text to speech.

It's the next billion industry.

I wish people would stop wasting time on AI and speech recognition and work on that, it's the next step. ( AI obviously might be needed for 'deep fakes' of good speech output, we need focus on AI that gives us achievable returns, in steps )

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#158

Post by canofbars »

throwaway4good wrote: post #51
throwaway4good wrote: post #8

Desktop UI beyond wimp.

Maybe it is not for lack of trying but it is surprising to me that the desktop UI of today (say MacOS Big Sur) is the same "windows, icons, menus and a mouse pointer", beyond some improvements in animation and graphics, as it was 20 years ago (say Windows 2000).

I think its more that the core concepts of a desktop UI were correct 20 years ago and other than minor refinements, there is no reason to change it up just for the sake of change. If you look at apples other products (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch) they all have radically different UIs which suit their form factor best.

We see this in basically all established industries. The bicycle of 30 years ago looked pretty similar to one you would buy today. Its just every part has been made slightly stiffer, lighter, more durable, more vibration absorbing, etc but the core shape is still the same because we already came to the correct design.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#160

Post by Jormundir »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #102

Designs for residential houses and appliances that ensure waste heat goes outdoors in the summer, and stays indoors in the winter. (And vice versa: refrigerators and freezers that take advantage of cold outdoor air in the winter, rather than using electricity to run compressors.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_recovery_ventilation

This already exists and is starting to gain popularity for new builds. It’s also not that expensive to retrofit, but is most effective when a home is sealed well.

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