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Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#461

Post by tlavoie »

aj_icracked wrote: post #429
tlavoie wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious about the "world's best coop" part. What does this mean? (Asking as someone with chickens, and some old coops now.)

We're building a product at the intersection of smart home tech (think cameras with computer vision for predators, alerts, etc), light robotics (automatic doors), and services (think press a button and a person shows up to clean the coop, etc). We did this small news article a few months ago that shows what we're doing if interested https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/chicken-coop-sitting-...

Ah, cool thanks!

I think I mostly need to rebuild with better structural design, better access for me and so on. A lot of the AI applications are taken care of here by 25Kg of motivated canine intelligence.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#462

Post by ornornor »

ubermonkey wrote: post #290

Well, this is far afield from the normal discussions here, but: 8 years ago, I had a pretty bad cycling crash and broke my hip -- which, if you're not aware, means I broke the "femoral neck", or the narrow bit of bone between the long part of the femur and the "ball" that goes into your pelvis. Post-repair, my x-ray looked like this: http://i.imgur.com/gRqg50J.png Anyway, with that much hardware in a repair, you're p…

My father, although much older than you probably, has had that procedure done in a much smaller European city with pretty much the same experience. It was incredible that he could get out the hospital the sam me day and be walking pretty much right after.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#463

Post by dcminter »

gwbas1c wrote: post #457
dcminter wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of that precludes telepresence?

I don't think it has anything to do with telepresence. It looks like a robotic receptionist, or a robotic concierge.

Well, clearly they agree with you.

To me, however, interacting with this thing would be a lot more intimate than a tablet on a stick, so it's an obvious direction to take the technology.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#464

Post by wruza »

hassancf wrote: post #297
roughly wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm wondering if there's anything I can contribute to that field as someone with general programming capabilities. Oh there Absolutely is! In general, there are four really high impact areas for computer folks - automation of lab equipment allows for scaling the number of experiments and the data that can be gathered by orders of magnitude; data science and engineering to sort, catalog, and investigate that data; b…

Glorified tech support for scientists? No thanks.

Why? Do you have a bad experience?

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#465

Post by wruza »

guerrilla wrote: post #260
barbazoo wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not a lot. Babies when they're born have billions of neurons but believe me, there isn't much going on yet :)

No, I don't believe you at all. If you hurt the baby, it suffers. Inability of most people to remember those times, doesn't make that not the case.

It signals danger and performs a mechanical avoidance procedure. You react to it by feeling a protective emotion.

To know if it suffers, first you have to understand what suffering is, in scientific terms, and make sure you detach your builtin empathy from an actual process, because it’s only yours own.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#466

Post by quickthrower2 »

greggsy wrote: post #131
benevol wrote: post #12

Energy with magnetics: https://www.KryonEngine.org

Perpetual motion and free energy stuff was interesting things to read about back in early 2000’s internet (around the time when conspiracy theories were kind of niche). The only thing of interest recently has to be the EmDrive [1] - only because the rigorous testing it was put through finally put the mail in the coffin of backyard free energy nuts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive

Nuclear fission energy is for practical purposes as good as perpetual motion

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#467

Post by KaiserPro »

mkj wrote: post #38
KaiserPro wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most things don't have filters. I don't think I've seen a drive failure because of it though. I think the last time the robot failed it was mostly because of the autoloader not working properly.

Tape drives (3592) in a Singapore data centre had lots of problems in the smokey burning season until they put in filtering specifically for the drives. In other office-like data transfer rooms in other cities they didn't seem to have problems, so perhaps there's something especially bad about smoke.

I assume smoke has some level of tar or some other heavy sticky substance, so I could see that being a problem.

It also depends on your cooling type as well. Most of the places I worked had a closed loop system, either hot/cold aisle, or radiators on the front of the rack.

THe "zombie" rooms did pull air directly from the outside world, but they had massive filters on them. dust wasn't really a problem for us.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#468

Post by wruza »

Llamamoe wrote: post #163
omginternets wrote: post #101

I remember hearing about an GAN-based tool that would transform clothed pictures of women into nudes. That was depressingly surreal.

The fact that somebody making this feels like an inevitability is just incredibly depressing. I mean, sure, it's just a fake AI guess, but Jesus Christ come on :-/

Say that you’ve never used your imagination and took no interest in this. Much easier to say come on when your hormone levels plunge back to sanity.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#469

Post by TheAlchemist »

mtmail wrote: post #3

Compost bin that requires a subscription. You send the compost via mail to a processing facility https://www.fastcompany.com/90834481/nests-co-founder-design...

This seem beyond dumb !

That being said, having a real compost in the garden is quite mind blowing. Every time I go there to throw the peels of vegetables and fruits I think - damn, almost full. Then, somehow, the worms keep eating it and the next time it's still at the same level. Nature is pretty smart after all.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#470

Post by [deleted] »

capableweb wrote: post #430
flemhans wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far behind is e.g. Europe compared to the U.S.? Do these innovations generally spread, or are they hindered by local regulations in each country?

Many of the worlds best hospitals are in Europe, in countries like Denmark, Germany, Sweden, France and Sweden. Just as one example, Charité in Berlin is world famous and have had "more than half of all German Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine" ( https://www.charite.de/en/ ), just as one example. Granted, many of the best hospitals are indeed in the US, but I guess less people have access to the many grea…

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