The good things in the current age in tech • Hacker News Board

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#71

Post by FourthProtocol » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 11:34 AM UTC

GDC7 wrote: post #70

WalterBright wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no reservations about SpaceX. SpaceX is doing what every entrepreneur wished they were doing. I want to buy stock in SpaceX. I don't even care if the stock tanks, I just want a piece of the dream.

> I just want a piece of the dream As I said many times, space has become a religion for people who identify themselves as atheists. And Musk is the techno-utopian Pope, with stock ownership in one of his scam companies becoming a form of techno-utopian indulgence Many of you are unfortunately too smart to keep believing in absence of evidence, unlike religious individuals who can hold a belief for their whole life.…

I think there's value. Resources at the very least, be they from moons, planets or asteroids. The problem I have with space exploration is the cost.

Almost 10% of the global population still goes hungry, even though more than enough food is produced to feed the global population. That's 811 million people that starve while Bezos facilitates ego trips to space.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#72

Post by cblconfederate » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

beebeepka wrote: post #7

We have reasonably powerful single board general purpose computers. Open source desktop operating systems have surpassed windows and Mac in terms of quality. It's true. AMD is stronger than ever. Mice and keyboards have improved massively. TVs finally allow higher than 60 Hz input. Took them 20 years. Electric vehicles are about to become the norm. Not just cars. I could go on for a while but frankly I am way more ex…

Biology and neurotechnology is where it's at. Neurotech in particular will make obsolete a large fraction of consumer tech. Electronic tech likes to pat itself in the back for the incremental benefits of centralizing everything, but they forget that it comes at the cost of innovation.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#73

Post by maccard » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 11:36 AM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #40

Kinda minor, but nice: 1) SSDs ubiquitous and don’t suck. 2) 3D printers that work well and are cheap, open source ecosystem. Prusa and Ender. 3) VR that is actually good, doesn’t require external sensors and wires, and is pretty cheap. oculus Quest 2. More major: 1) cheap Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. Good for DIY. Long cycle life, less likely to start on fire, Cobaltfree and dirt cheap. Being used on base Model…

> 3D printers that work well and are cheap, open source ecosystem.

Pity we haven't solved that for normal printers yet...

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#74

Post by Havoc » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 11:37 AM UTC

kangasp wrote: post #12

This captures my feelings on development today. Flashing an LED on an uC before Arduino was hard. His home page says every key press adds entropy, which is an interesting idea. That's good to think about, but what about the delete key.

>Flashing an LED on an uC before Arduino was hard.

And with ESPHome's ability to flash from the browser and OTA it becomes even easier. Still can't believe the browser part actually works lol

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#75

Post by Havoc » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 11:39 AM UTC

Also accessibility of homeservers. Damn near anything these days has enough power to run a hypervisor and an assortment of things on top of that.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#76

Post by TheGigaChad » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 11:42 AM UTC

varjag wrote: post #69

mihaic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the previous commenter was refering to the NASA of the 1960s, which returned a human from the surface of the moon before Elon Musk was born. SpaceX has more than a few kilobytes of RAM and can't really be compared to the immense achievement of the cold-war space programs.

NASA of the 1960s was consuming 10% of America's GDP. You can do a lot with that kind of money. SpaceX does its part on a Snapchat budget.

wrong.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#77

Post by api » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 12:29 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #36

api wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You bring up a great point: how do we deliver high-quality software to the general public that is stable, easy-to-use, and secure, yet respects user privacy? You have an honest business model where people pay for things. "Free" is the cornerstone of surveillance capitalism.

You really just need an honest product. Plenty of companies are perfectly happy to charge several hundred dollars for their product and then still use it to spy on their users so that they can stuff their pockets with even more money at our continued expense.

You are right in that an honest economic model is necessary but not sufficient.

“Free” makes honest software impossible because software is labor intensive.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#78

Post by askl56 » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 12:53 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #69

mihaic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the previous commenter was refering to the NASA of the 1960s, which returned a human from the surface of the moon before Elon Musk was born. SpaceX has more than a few kilobytes of RAM and can't really be compared to the immense achievement of the cold-war space programs.

NASA of the 1960s was consuming 10% of America's GDP. You can do a lot with that kind of money. SpaceX does its part on a Snapchat budget.

Not even close to true.

US GDP in 1965 was $743.7 billion[0].

NASA's budget peaked in 1964–66 when it consumed roughly 4% of all federal spending. The agency was building up to the first Moon landing and the Apollo program was a top national priority, consuming more than half of NASA's budget and driving NASA's workforce to more than 34,000 employees and 375,000 contractors from industry and academia.

$5 billion is 0.67% of $743.7 billion.

[0] https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/usa?year=1965

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

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#79

Post by danielvaughn » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 1:13 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #22

kaycebasques wrote: post #13

My unfiltered additions: * SpaceX. I have lots of reservations about the company but the fact that they are consistently doing things previously thought impossible is very important for humanity in general. * The new Dune movie was downright amazing. The CGI was believable and an important part of the story. * AI-generated art. Fascinating. * Wikipedia. Wow. * I can invest in lots of different assets relatively easil…

> The prospect of cities with much less air pollution is wonderful. For cities with a dense urban core (of which mine, Philly, certainly is) I'm really hoping we lean in on bikes (electric or not) moreso than electric cars. Even less carbon-intensive to produce, and in a city with this level of density it's shocking how quickly you can get around by bike. I would go so far as to say it's often faster than driving if…

On the other hand, a bike-centric city would not be very accessible to people with disabilities. Having something in between, maybe trains or small electric buses, would be ideal IMO.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#80

Post by laurent92 » Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

rhizome31 wrote: post #64

tapan_jk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our civilization will make the transition. It will be messy and could have been much less painful but we will do it. I wish to see this kind of positivity around me more often. I have worked with a colleague or two in the past who viewed problems as something that needed to be solved, and were a step or two ahead of the rest of us in terms of finding solutions. Lately, I see that the default reaction to problems is…

I don't understand how it is possible to still have this view of the problem. All the resources I am aware of that seem backed by facts and science are currently forecasting an utter disaster. I think I'm someone with a rather positive attitude in life and as you said I always try to look at solutions rather than just complain. In fact I'm doing rather well at the personal level. But in the case of the environmental…

> If that means 99% of the world population dying in horrendous circumstances

Right here, here is a sign that you are reading quite extreme literature. More importantly: Unbalanced, uncriticized literature.

Scientific studies don’t only need to seem backed up by facts, they also need to be criticized to ensure the facts were not cherry-picked.

Studying science in the current political climate is like saving paintings during a revolution.