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Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

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Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#121

Post by ramesh31 »

EddySchauHai wrote: post #63
ramesh31 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Titan's of CNC and Haas both have great youtube channels addressing training because of exactly this. I would love to get into aerospace manufacturing. Any chance a code monkey can make the switch? What is the entry level pathway like?

Sort of related but I, a 28 year old tech guy, am going back to school part-time to get a BEng so I can get into more aerospace-heavy roles. It'll take 6 years but I'm currently happy with my work so am not in a rush. Currently I work in networking/search for a defense startup so it's tangentially related.

>Sort of related but I, a 28 year old tech guy, am going back to school part-time to get a BEng so I can get into more aerospace-heavy roles.

Best of luck to you friend. Absolutely worth it if you can hack it. I tried at 26 after a few years in the industry, and failed miserably. Protip: pay for a good math tutor.

It's the technician life for me, unfortunately.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#122

Post by JacobThreeThree »

tylerlh wrote: post #67

Supply chain/logistics. I've been simultaneously surprised and unsurprised by the relatively minuscule number of people interested in driving technology and change for this space forward compared to other spaces.

I was going to say fulfillment technology, which is a subset of supply chain / logistics.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#123

Post by switchbak »

mrtksn wrote: post #50
iammjm wrote: post #36

Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta

I don't believe at all in gamification in education. The kick that inspires new scientists and engineers comes from the gratification of learning or figuring out something as nothing feels better than figuring out how/why something is happening and how to push it to it's edge cases. Even chasing grades is a perverse incentive IMHO.

When I'm really in flow at work, it can almost feel like a game. Then I go back to yak shaving and jira.

There are (and could be better) environments that can isolate and focus on that. The combo of interface and specific challenge can really help communicate what's magical about engineering. Ideally that would help motivate people (versus just being a dopamine hit source).

Highly visual environments with rapid feedback seem to hit that button for me. The old bridge building game Pontifex was great, as was Besiege. I'd love to see more like that (there probably are, I've not played many games in years)

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#124

Post by gen220 »

samwillis wrote: post #55

Traditional draftsmanship (not really tech is it?), as in with a pen/pencil on a draftsman table, has completely disappeared. My father is a (relatively) recently retired Architect, he ran a small but specialist firm of about 20 people. By the time he retired about 5 years ago there was no one in the office that had ever been trained in traditional draftsmanship, only himself. It’s a lost art. There are now almost tw…

I think this craft is well-documented in books, even if it's disappearing from common practice, no [1]?

In general, I've found books are an underrated source of technical information like this. The library of congress is probably doing a pretty good job of preserving the knowledge needed to bootstrap civilization.

For example, I have a few books on country wood-crafting that have enabled me to become pretty self-sufficient on a rural property. Even though there's no woodworking knowledge in my circle of friends or family.

YMMV depending on the craft, but the scope of knowledge documented in dead-tree mediums is both vast and deep.

[1]: For example, I found this with 40 seconds of effort. I know it's old, but that might contribute to it being more interesting: https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcmassbookdig.easystepsinarch0...

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#125

Post by Bakary »

dredmorbius wrote: post #51

Railroads. Specifically freight rail. There is stunningly little literature on any R&D in conventional freight rail transport, something I discovered when looking for any published research some months back. High-speed rail, yes. Regular old freight, no. Contrast this with autonomous and electrified trucking as alternatives, with which rail could offer considerable synergies. I'd suspect that break-bulk, trainset ass…

I wonder if that is the case outside of the English-language world.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#126

Post by whiteboardr »

sbuk wrote: post #119
whiteboardr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What i mean is that construction as a whole is a completely overlooked market. Working in that space since almost 5 years after product development in and for several industries for 20+ years. It’s highly complex but the user group is an overlooked and diverse set of people that have to put up with less than crappy solutions for getting their jobs done - for the chaos that is construction. So many opportunities and s…

The trouble with construction is the Autodesk monopoly. They are kings of EEE.

There’s a whole lot more to it then what Autodesk offers…

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#127

Post by jventura »

whiteboardr wrote: post #78
freeqaz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say this. The newer generation are not craftsmen in the same ways as before. I'm a Software Engineer and it's the same mentality as somebody that is a Carpenter (my friend's dad is a carpenter that I have asked a lot of questions to). The people that enjoy building and tinkering are more frequently doing this digitally. That is a big gap that isn't going to be filled as time goes on. "They don't make t…

What i mean is that construction as a whole is a completely overlooked market. Working in that space since almost 5 years after product development in and for several industries for 20+ years. It’s highly complex but the user group is an overlooked and diverse set of people that have to put up with less than crappy solutions for getting their jobs done - for the chaos that is construction. So many opportunities and s…

> Working in that space since almost 5 years after product development

Doing construction work, or software development for construction companies?

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#128

Post by nescioquid »

iammjm wrote: post #36

Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta

Simply changing a game's locale to the target language you are trying to acquire is such an amazing immersion experience with the language -- and this wasn't even intended as an educational tool!

If playing Skyrim, you hear the target language constantly, utterances are subtitled so written and heard language can reinforce each other, and practically everything you look at is labeled in the target language. Best of all, you needn't feel so bad for spending all that time playing games!

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#129

Post by h2odragon »

dredmorbius wrote: post #51

Railroads. Specifically freight rail. There is stunningly little literature on any R&D in conventional freight rail transport, something I discovered when looking for any published research some months back. High-speed rail, yes. Regular old freight, no. Contrast this with autonomous and electrified trucking as alternatives, with which rail could offer considerable synergies. I'd suspect that break-bulk, trainset ass…

I think there's a number of little regional rail companies popping up now that the bigs have gotten to big to care about those customers; I bet they're reinventing where they have to and would possibly even be willing to fund some knowledge collection and sharing efforts.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#130

Post by sofixa »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #95
reb wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time hearing about this! Not a big AC fan, but this is more than enough reason to snag it; is that a platform-specific mode?

It’s on PC, Xbox and PS at least, not sure about others. Really cool experience because it also includes pictures of artifacts and audio commentary from scholars. They did the same for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla aka Viking Simulator.

It's also on Stadia, and also in the Odyssey (Ancient Greece) game.
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