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

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

#571

Post by kiliantics »

gullywhumper wrote: post #543

Car-free or significantly car-limited communities. Cars that are safer for pedestrians (not just for occupants in cars). Better traffic safety enforcement. Automobiles kill ~6k pedestrians and almost 140k are sent to the ER in the US - many of which will have life-altering injuries. https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/pedestrian_safety/i...

Came to post something like this. The structural dependence of our society on cars has so many and often immense costs. And so much car use could be made unnecessary with some relatively cheap fixes.

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

#574

Post by godtoldmetodoit »

DecoPerson wrote: post #563

Protocells. Self-replicating cells that can be programmed to perform specific tasks. The first protocells will be bacteria with heavily modified DNA. Eventually, we’ll be able to build fully-artificial self-replicating protocells (more “artificial cell” than “small robot”). Being fully-artificial will help us integrate new tech that nature hasn’t quite discovered/made-full-use-of yet — like different battery techs, R…

Imagine programming them to make paperclips :P

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

#575

Post by ampdepolymerase »

DecoPerson wrote: post #563

Protocells. Self-replicating cells that can be programmed to perform specific tasks. The first protocells will be bacteria with heavily modified DNA. Eventually, we’ll be able to build fully-artificial self-replicating protocells (more “artificial cell” than “small robot”). Being fully-artificial will help us integrate new tech that nature hasn’t quite discovered/made-full-use-of yet — like different battery techs, R…

The word you are looking for is "minimal artificial life/cell". They are being worked on, a lot. A bigger problem is increasing funding for life sciences and making commercialisation cheaper.

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

#578

Post by legerdemain »

InvisibleUp wrote: post #289
baron816 wrote: post #243

In-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…

I think a large part of this (in the USA, anyways) is due to how modern cities are structured. It used to be, 100 or 200 years ago, that your workplace, your home, and your usual hang-out place were all within reasonable walking distance of each other. It wasn't a huge deal to go out and meet new people, as you'd naturally bump into them every day. Nowadays we have a large portion of people in bedroom communities, is…

This... still exists? It's called the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Odd Fellows, the Jaycees, the Rotary Club, the Knights of Pythias, the Freemasons, and some organizations based on blood or military service, like the American Legion or the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Even here in the Bay Area I live just a couple blocks down from a huge and well-appointed Elks lodge, and just a few miles away in downtown Mountain View, there is an Eagles lodge across the street from an Odd Fellows, itself a block away from a Freemason lodge.

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

#579

Post by MartianSquirrel »

lmm wrote: post #514
Klonoar wrote: post #379

Premium-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 i…

I found the Surface Book had a wonderful premium feel; I went into the shop with a list of specs in mind, and Microsoft was the last manufacturer I'd imagine going with, but it's a powerful machine and also just a beautiful object. Metal case, relatively subtle/classy logo, absolutely beautiful screen, nothing else was compromised for the sake of touch, clean baseline first-party OS. If you really want a premium feel…

> I'd very much recommend it Same here!

I've bought myself a Surface Laptop 3 (15", i7 version) 11 months ago. I had been looking for a laptop powerful enough to code on, that would look "premium" for business purposes, lightweight and the charge had to last a full workday(or more). This laptop checked all the boxes, and performed wonderfully since then. To the extend that now we're considering getting it for our employees.

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

#580

Post by ampdepolymerase »

cluse wrote: post #75
diarrhea wrote: post #52

LaTeX. We have Microsoft Office. Then we have its lacking competitors. There's also InDesign for professional creatives. There's a huge gap for LaTeX to fill, or to potentially fill, but it's not happening. The other day I saw it described as "a neckbeard knitting circle, not viable software". As a LaTeX "fan", that hurt but it's the truth. Over the past months, I had to collaborate with various different people acro…

I wish there was a way to maintain git version control while still being able to send and receive files from attachments from people who struggle with the idea of reading or reviewing something in any way other than by getting an email attachment. I used to work at a bank where we had to collaborate on Word documents stored in SharePoint. It was a nightmare. In SharePoint you are supposed to "check out" documents, ed…

There are many many companies in this space. All of them offer paid software.
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