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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?

#731

Post by Animats »

yosamino wrote: post #196

Geothermal Energy. Extremely simplified, all you need to do is drill a hole deep enough for a high temperature difference. Then stick in two pipes, on for sending water down, one for steam to come up. Run a turbine, add a valve to regulate how much water you want to converted into steam to be able to regulate output, enjoy your first mover advantage and price the competition out of the market. ... It's not that I do…

You need a deep hole.[1] Kilometers deep for most of the earth.

A hole in the ground is more useful for cooling in hot climates. You can use a well as a heat sink for air conditioning.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient

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

#732

Post by cblconfederate »

cocoa19 wrote: post #669
cblconfederate wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with the rise of remote work, social disconnection is only going to rise No, it's going to drop. Think immigrants who can move from crowded cities back to their country or a place that feels more like home

Immigrants won't give up their high salary in the developed world. Employers won't pay a first world salary while living in a low cost country.

> won't pay a first world salary

Do tech companies also charge less for their products in non-rich countries?

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

#733

Post by milkytron »

meekrohprocess wrote: post #695
faluzure wrote: post #670

Human Longevity. 150,000 people die every day, and 2/3 of them die of age related diseases. The developed world and China are racing towards a demographic nightmare where fewer and fewer people are left to take care of the elderly. The older someone becomes, the more of a burden they become on the young. As people get older they begin to develop the diseases of old age and have an increasingly pain-filled life. Peopl…

That's always being worked on - modern medicine is nothing short of miraculous. People are trying. We want to cure cancer, and find effective general-purpose antivirals, and help people maintain healthy bodies, and figure out how to repair hearts, and cure diabetes, and fix autoimmune disorders, and figure out general-purpose gene therapies, and work out what exactly is up with the gut microbiome, and make prosthetic…

> ...help people maintain healthy bodies...

As a collective, we try. But are we really trying as hard as we should be? Companies have influenced the public and even health research to be in favor of sugar. I'm pretty sure the rate of diabetes is going up and that doesn't help. Companies contributing to global warming have influenced policies and discredited science they knew would harm their businesses.

There are plenty of smart people doing what they think is best for us, but then there is also greed that hinders us. Sure some of us are trying, but not even close to as much as we should be. The money just isn't there.

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

#734

Post by baskire »

pharke wrote: post #455
gfxgirl wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue the issue is there are only so many people talented at this particular skill, "making a meet up that works" and so it doesn't scale. There are all kinds of issues. Setting an agenda. Getting people to follow the agenda. Fostering conversation. Finding venues. Getting the right mix of people. I've been to so many meetups where these kind of issues were not handled well. If you just want random people you…

Victorian etiquette was on to this. You need social market makers who are skilled at knowing a lot of people, introducing them to each other, starting conversations based on common interests and butting out when no longer needed. Formalizing this process would help to some extent, technology could help with remembering names, interests, and whether people have been introduced. Somebody could build this, gamify it and…

It’s a real role that’s hired in the Jewish community. Both to encourage in-faith marriages and to foster a sense of community. Usually one person for teens, another for young adults, and others for men’s club, woman’s club, newly parents, retirees...etc

It’s generally funded by synagogues and charity foundations.

I’d of thought the Christian churches/denominations have similar programs.

It could be unique to Jews due to historical and present anti-Semitism. E.g. Jews were (and still are in a few establishments) barred from many fraternities, country clubs, athletic clubs, summer camps...etc

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

#735

Post by arbol »

yosamino wrote: post #196

Geothermal Energy. Extremely simplified, all you need to do is drill a hole deep enough for a high temperature difference. Then stick in two pipes, on for sending water down, one for steam to come up. Run a turbine, add a valve to regulate how much water you want to converted into steam to be able to regulate output, enjoy your first mover advantage and price the competition out of the market. ... It's not that I do…

Drilling many kilometres deep inland is not proven technology, despite the fact we can do it at sea for oil.

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

#736

Post by Jemaclus »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #590
Jemaclus wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related to this, I'm kind of shocked that there isn't a strong third option for OSes. We've got Windows and MacOS, sure, but the nix ecosystem is so fragmented and not as well supported as the other two that it's hard to justify switching. Like you pointed out, Mac feels premium because of the software/hardware tight coupling, and it just works . Windows is the same, but for reasons can feel less polished than MacOS.…

The very most important thing an OS does is run software on hardware. Therefore any new entrant into the OS market must support as much software and hardware as possible. The former is actually kinda doable with compatibility layers and emulation, the latter is basically impossible to catch up on.

Yeah, I understand that. But the upside to succeeding is basically a license to print money, ie., so large that it would be worth it for someone to do it... Microsoft focuses on making software that supports as many hardware configs as possible and Google does the same with Android/ChromeOS, but Apple focuses on making the hardware-software integration seamless. They each succeed in different ways, but Apple devices feel like premium, high-quality things where other software-hardware integrations (Windows, Android, etc) feel less polished and less seamless.

It seems like Microsoft or Google could double-down on the software-hardware integration and build a seamless, premium product that really, truly competes with Apple. It seems like it would be beneficial for MS or Google to identify and partner with (or acquire?) a hardware partner and develop their systems hard against that, creating a seamless hardware-software interface like Apple does with its devices.

And I guess I'm just baffled that nobody else is doing that. On the contrary, everyone seems to be going the Microsoft route of developing for as many hardware configs as possible.

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

#737

Post by dartharva »

Sexbots.

It may sound amusing, but there really are many sexually frustrated individuals who could potentially see massive improvement in their social and physiological life and lead to a net gain for the society. Also it might lead to a reduction in the overvaluation of sex in romantic relationships and thus happier couples. Add this to its potential of sexual education (by having realistic simulation devices) and it might just compensate for the damage pornography has done.

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

#738

Post by Jemaclus »

TwoBit wrote: post #526
Jemaclus wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related to this, I'm kind of shocked that there isn't a strong third option for OSes. We've got Windows and MacOS, sure, but the nix ecosystem is so fragmented and not as well supported as the other two that it's hard to justify switching. Like you pointed out, Mac feels premium because of the software/hardware tight coupling, and it just works . Windows is the same, but for reasons can feel less polished than MacOS.…

> shocked that there isn't a strong third option for OSes Why when there is no third OS that has even 1% share and all Linux combined is about 3%. And desktop Linux is bad.

I may not understand what you meant, but I think that was my question?

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

#739

Post by baskire »

dkulchenko wrote: post #495
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…

Agreed. Why is there no Tinder/online dating equivalent for making new friends locally? Instead of dating-specific qualifiers, it'd ask for your interests, hobbies, values, age and other demos, then match you based on overlap. Not Meetup - it's not quite solving the same problem, and so it solves things differently (focusing on shared interests and on discrete meetup events).

There is. Try bumble BFF. https://bumble.com/bff
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