Fusion energy and regenerative agriculture. Maybe I’m naive, but I see those 2 being unbelievable transformative for the world, significantly improving quality of life and preventing all those really bad climate change scenarios that seem almost inevitable at this point.
Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
371–380 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#372In-person social organizations. Social isolation is probably the biggest cause of unhappiness in advanced countries. Having a strong social network has lots of advantages including providing better romantic and career opportunities, as well as improving physical and psychological health. Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too--country clubs and fraternities have…
The closest we have come to this type of experience in the online space was IRC.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#373Ok I'm guessing this is super naive, but holy cow someone sell me a home robot. Ideally something with a good enough arm to load small things into the dishwasher, or at least unload onto a surface, open the front door, get the mail, put shoes where they need to be, pick up socks, dust/mop/broom, mow the lawn, fold towels, fold clean clothes from a basket, replace toilet paper, clean toilets, scoop out kitty poops, and maybe make the bed. God what a timesaver that would be. I'd pay small car prices for something like that.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#374In-person social organizations. Social isolation is probably the biggest cause of unhappiness in advanced countries. Having a strong social network has lots of advantages including providing better romantic and career opportunities, as well as improving physical and psychological health. Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too--country clubs and fraternities have…
If I see one more app to cure loneliness... It seems techy people have difficulty accepting non-techy solutions
Especially when the non-techy solution is the really fucking hard work of putting yourself out there and developing true and meaningful relationships.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#375GUI's, such as a GUI Markup Standard. Mobile UI conventions stole the show, but IN PRACTICE gui's still rule the office and productivity world. Yet, our current web standards are GUI and CRUD un-friendly. To be desktop-like in a browser requires giant JavaScript libraries which are clunky and buggy. GUI's may no longer be sexy, but they still run the backlots of the world and that's not likely to change within the ne…
What makes you certain any theoretical GUI markup standard would improve on the industry standard of Electron and Chromium wrapped web components? Just need to look at the utility and performance of vscode to see what is currently possible.
People who set out to invent "better GUI tools" always eventually realize it's no the specifics of the programming language used to build them that's hard. It's high level things like state management.
iOS doesn't even have a stable answer to React, yet. The problem isn't JS/CSS.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#376I think for developers (and users) everything is broken, just check https://medium.com/message/everything-is-broken-81e5f33a24e1 That's programming 1.0, and we're need programming 2.0 What I mean about programming 2.0: - better security - less bugs and more stability - less complex code and API - less APIs - no halts, reactive live coding everywhere - less coding, NoCode variants PS: Who works on programming 2.0 besi…
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Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#377Maybe not so much surprised but more disappointed that sustainable public infrastructure isn't more in focus. Things like road surfaces that don't need to be replaced every couple of years, or better consideration when large infrastructure spending comes around how those bridges, dams, water works, etc, etc will be monitored, maintained and expanded over time.
> Things like road surfaces that don't need to be replaced every couple of years,
I remembered this article where they discuss self-healing materials for use in road construction: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/4/15544156/potholes-self-hea...
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#378Overpopulation. 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.
There's no problem with overpopulation, globally. The population is forecast to max out at around 10B. The problem is that a small section of humanity use a completely disproportionate share of resources. We also have a consumerist culture that keeps upsizing our desires, often in banal and wasteful ways. E.g. SUVs and blow-up lawn ornaments.
EDIT> I would say that advertising is a worse problem than overpopulation.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#379Premium-feeling laptops that aren't Apple machines.
Yes yes, I get the economical barriers. I'm past caring. It is so incredibly frustrating to look outside the Apple ecosystem and feel like the entire PC industry is content to sell the bare minimum of quality (outside of Gamer hardware, which looks obscene - but I get that it's subjective).
It's a horrible business idea on the numbers and nobody would do this, but if some lunatic out there wants to blow the money, build and sell a laptop at whatever price point you want that:
- Supports CoreBoot
- Isn't a rebranded Clevo shell and has close enough fit and finish to a recent MacBook. Read: No. Plastic. Case.
- If there is ever the phrase "panel lottery" uttered about your machine, you've messed up.
- No logos, or throw them on the underside like Purism.
- The screen has to be relatively close to the MacBook in brightness + viewing angles. Give me an option for a glossy screen.
- Trackpad must be glass. You won't get close to the MBP trackpad on the first or second pass, but try.
- Go for some crazier vertical integration ala the M1. I don't care if it blocks upgrading certain parts, since I consider the industry to move fast enough that I won't _want_ the machine anymore in 4-5 years.
- There is no need for touch of any kind, nor the ability to flip the screen or anything. Just make a damn laptop.
- Edit: high quality boutique feeling support. I don't need an Apple Store equivalent, but at least invest in this.
I get why Apple can do all of the above. I would pay literally twice what I pay Apple for a competing product. Currently, every laptop that I try feels like stepping back a few years.
The upcoming Purism Librem 14, in terms of images, feels like it could _feel_ close - but I'm not impressed with their other products so I'll believe it when I see it. I remain shocked that System76 hasn't bothered with this.
End my rant about this industry, I guess.
Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
#380In-person social organizations. Social isolation is probably the biggest cause of unhappiness in advanced countries. Having a strong social network has lots of advantages including providing better romantic and career opportunities, as well as improving physical and psychological health. Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too--country clubs and fraternities have…
Agreed. I’ve set up my life to foster and form in person social interactions (and organizations to the extent that they help) in my neighborhood. It’s affected where I live, what kind of house I have, each weeks schedule, my kids education, and what jobs I’ll consider. But it’s totally the main thing that we have to work on as humans.