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Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

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Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#411

Post by EricMausler »

f1shy wrote: post #219
bqmjjx0kac wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that those already exist. I think concern about the development of new technology is valid. Suppose nuclear weapons did not exist and someone was concerned about the Manhattan project — would you say that chairs enable people to build regular bombs, so we shouldn't worry about nuclear bombs?

The technology already exist. The OP stated, patents are over, and that is why (s)he is working on it. Even if it not exist, security by obscurity is no security... if anybody can do the tech, the bad guys are going to be as fast, or faster than the good guys... So I hope the good guys do the tech for everybody...

You are severely underplaying how chaotic people can be, and how valuable a barrier to entry is at deterring that chaos from causing damage.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#414

Post by roperzh »

danielvaughn wrote: post #307

I've been working on a programming language for UI designers. To put it simply, I think the trend towards no-code/low-code is misguided. The assumption behind these products is that code is slow, difficult, and expensive. I disagree - I think that "code" is merely a formalized written expression of what you want. It's actually the most efficient, easiest, and cheapest means to solving digital problems. I believe anyo…

Having worked a bit in a conceptually similar product, in my opinion the real problem is how you define the layout of your UI, not the individual components.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#415

Post by junofan »

eezurr wrote: post #374
koeng wrote: post #6

A little while ago, a patent for high throughput DNA synthesis using silicon chips went off-patent, so I have been learning analog IC chip design to build an open source high-throughput DNA synthesis chip. If it works, and I sold them at cost, it would reduce the cost of oligo pool synthesis by ~100x and possibly gene synthesis by 10x. For about 8-9 years now my goal has been to build a cell from scratch for less tha…

I'd just like to echo (verbally "vote") my concern. Every great step forward comes with the potential for an order of magnitude steps backward, i.e. destruction. The amount of man hours to e.g. blow up a building is far fewer than the amount needed to build it. Will the output of your product add a suicide timer to a cell? Will the output of your product prevent the cells from procreating/multiplying? Will the output…

Cart is way before the horse. Also grad students doing this type of work are absolutely not taking great care in thinking about these problems.

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#416

Post by danielvaughn »

roperzh wrote: post #414
danielvaughn wrote: post #307

I've been working on a programming language for UI designers. To put it simply, I think the trend towards no-code/low-code is misguided. The assumption behind these products is that code is slow, difficult, and expensive. I disagree - I think that "code" is merely a formalized written expression of what you want. It's actually the most efficient, easiest, and cheapest means to solving digital problems. I believe anyo…

Having worked a bit in a conceptually similar product, in my opinion the real problem is how you define the layout of your UI, not the individual components.

Yep. And I’m still on the fence about how to tackle that, but I’ve got some ideas.

My favored approach is to use what I’m calling a “this goes here, that goes there” syntax.

The idea is to give designers a conceptual framework that mimics how they understand layout, and allows them to describe positioning using a syntax that feels as close to natural language as possible.

Much easier said than done, of course. And there are good arguments for allowing the platform dialects to handle those more complex features (in addition to things like scrolling and animation).

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#419

Post by jbay808 »

gumby wrote: post #394

I am working on climate repair, specifically the removal of methane from the atmosphere. Although the excess methane is only about 1.3 ppm, it's responsible for about a third of the temperature rise. We're not building a huge machine to try to suck the atmosphere through a straw; we're doing chemistry in the open atmosphere. Plan to have a pilot running within the next year and within five years be removing up to 100…

Is the plan to remove it by converting methane to CO2?

Re: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

#420

Post by evanlivingston »

junofan wrote: post #415
eezurr wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd just like to echo (verbally "vote") my concern. Every great step forward comes with the potential for an order of magnitude steps backward, i.e. destruction. The amount of man hours to e.g. blow up a building is far fewer than the amount needed to build it. Will the output of your product add a suicide timer to a cell? Will the output of your product prevent the cells from procreating/multiplying? Will the output…

Cart is way before the horse. Also grad students doing this type of work are absolutely not taking great care in thinking about these problems.

I fail to see how considering the impacts of a tool before building a tool is putting the cart before the horse. How is that not a necessary step in building a thing?
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