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Ask HN: Which idea irritates you because it has not been taken far enough?

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41–50 of 76 posts

Re: Ask HN: Which idea irritates you because it has not been taken far enough?

#43
post #32

teledildonics

One of the inherent problems with tactile feedback over a distance is the speed of light. The last haptic device I used received feedback from a computer every ms. Too much latency kills the experience for long distance tactile communication. How far could you reasonably "reach out and touch" someone? I'd guess maybe a hundred or few hundred miles.

Re: Ask HN: Which idea irritates you because it has not been taken far enough?

#44
post #29

I think all of the test & measure stuff we talk about so much in the web context -- A/B testing, analytics, etc -- would revolutionize the world if it were applied with one tenth the dedication by human institutions which are not teeny little web startups. This isn't to say that we have the patent on The Scientific Method. However, there are darn few organizations which seem to have it written into their DNA. Toyota…

Multivariate testing is an extremely limited tool. It's great when you're doing everything else right and not much better than rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic in ever other case.

I think it's dangerous (but very tempting) to try to apply it too generally. One passionate visionary thinking outside the box can do more than 1,000 statisticians ever could.

Re: Ask HN: Which idea irritates you because it has not been taken far enough?

#45
post #4

Pocket touch screen devices. I want cheap, low-functionality touch screen devices. Like, an iPhone, but with only a calculator, a dictionary/thesaurus, and some other useful but simple applications (text reader/editor, todo list, etc). Or how about an open-development touch screen device? Where programmers can create their own applications for it easily?

You want an ipod touch. Run linux on it.

Re: Ask HN: Which idea irritates you because it has not been taken far enough?

#46
Everything. I wish I was born at least 500 years in the future. Science is just beginning and I was born at the wrong damn time. I could be flying my own space ship and visiting HN over The Subspacenet. No single advance could ever satisfy me or make up for my disappointment at being born too soon.

(Not that I'm not appreciative for being alive at all. I'm fortunate in many ways, but that doesn't stop me from imagining what could have been.)

Re: Ask HN: Which idea irritates you because it has not been taken far enough?

#47
post #17

Probably one of the most promising ideas that has lost much of its meaning....We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

"insure" domestic "Tranquility"?

hey at least it's not "insure Foreign Tranquility"

Re: Ask HN: Which idea irritates you because it has not been taken far enough?

#48
post #46

Everything. I wish I was born at least 500 years in the future. Science is just beginning and I was born at the wrong damn time. I could be flying my own space ship and visiting HN over The Subspacenet. No single advance could ever satisfy me or make up for my disappointment at being born too soon. (Not that I'm not appreciative for being alive at all. I'm fortunate in many ways, but that doesn't stop me from imagini…

If we look back at human history and extrapolate that trend, 500 years on we could be worse off than what we are now in technology. Civilizations no matter how strong they look, have a trend of rising and falling. And when it falls, it's knowledge gradually gets lost.

40 years back, human where more capable of visiting the moon then they are now.

Fundamental discoveries in physics is almost stuck now for 60 years, since discoveries of quantum mechanics.

The only gain we are seeing is in medical science, and information technology (in Engineering, not Science).

That's what I feel.

Re: Ask HN: Which idea irritates you because it has not been taken far enough?

#49

Ending world hunger. Children Education. Peace.

You know why we will never have peace? Because it upsets the status quo. The status quo gives power to many people who have, at present, sufficient power to maintain their ability to stifle the opportunity for peace.

It's really simple really, just stop blowing things up. Stop killing people. If people kill your people, ignore them. Repair the damage and keep going. Eventually, they'll give up.

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