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Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

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Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#121

Post by contingencies »

digler999 wrote: post #81

I'd like to see a "local cloud" computing system. Where CPUs/GPUs are stored in a rack on site and at each workstation is only a KVM + monitor plus a high bandwidth (say fiber optic) video link back to the cabinet. This would be almost a regression back to mainframe days, but it could give everyone the power of a high-end workstation as well as save energy since most scenarios wont' have a 100% load factor. An office…

Never thought about this architecture from an energy savings perspective but it's actually probably really good. Another thing is USB over ethernet is a now a thing in the Linux kernel... so even with pluggable hardware this could make perfect sense. Interesting idea.

Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#122

Post by contingencies »

jtolmar wrote: post #97
cdvonstinkpot wrote: post #90

I'd like to be able to implant a tiny subdermal body heat-powered circuit in an animal so I can track their location on a map.

Same thing, but very light weight and with a discount for buying in bulk. (Best friend is an ornithologist.)

This stuff must already exist for humans.

Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#123

Post by neuland »

x1798DE wrote: post #113

I would really like a (preferably cross-platform) solution for browsing the internet in a maximally silo-ed way. I think Firefox has been making some progress on this, but here's my ideal workflow: - I can set up any number of "site groups" that sites go into by default - "www.google.com" and "www.gmail.com" are in the "google" group, and those sites open in their own pseudo-profiles with their own history and own co…

Have you seen Qubes OS [0]? I have never used it, but the video demo [1] looks to have exactly what you want. You define different "security domains" and can open applications in each. Each domain has it's own data and can have multiple applications. Like you could download a file from your Google Drive (in your Google domain) and open it. But, that doesn't have any effect on other domains. And, those domains don't see that file.

Edit: Just read the other half of your comment. There seems to also be a throwaway domain that you can use that is doesn't persist data after you close it.

[0] https://www.qubes-os.org [1] https://www.qubes-os.org/video-tours/

Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#124

Post by digler999 »

contingencies wrote: post #121
digler999 wrote: post #81

I'd like to see a "local cloud" computing system. Where CPUs/GPUs are stored in a rack on site and at each workstation is only a KVM + monitor plus a high bandwidth (say fiber optic) video link back to the cabinet. This would be almost a regression back to mainframe days, but it could give everyone the power of a high-end workstation as well as save energy since most scenarios wont' have a 100% load factor. An office…

Never thought about this architecture from an energy savings perspective but it's actually probably really good. Another thing is USB over ethernet is a now a thing in the Linux kernel... so even with pluggable hardware this could make perfect sense. Interesting idea.

I could also see this in a suburban neighborhood. Instead of buying "internet" from your ISP, you could buy "computing" from them. Every block has a server cabinet, with fiber video links to each house. Then your ISP is responsible for maintaining your OS.

This could go either way: given the current state of American ISP's, it could be a disaster. But in a "perfect world", it would "just work" because as soon as your OS went down, the tech would be dispached to remote in and fix it, or drive out there and replace a blade in the server. In aggregate, this would drive up demand and evolve a highly reliable OS. In that case everyone should have a highly reliable service (albeit with privacy concerns), as long as the video could keep up.

Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#125

Post by paulddraper »

EFruit wrote: post #95

>Go wild, dream big. I want a DNS replacement that allows you to "subscribe" to TLDs, each with their own policies and practices. Domains are identified by a tuple of a public key and the domain name, so that if someone wants to share a domain, the browser can let them select the host they want. It should have 3 (or more) distinct modes of operation: Gossip, where popular portions of the zone are continually shared b…

> I want a platform where every action is entirely scriptable in something that's not Javascript.

So...PHP? VBScript? Why specifically not JS?

Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#126

Post by contingencies »

digler999 wrote: post #124
contingencies wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never thought about this architecture from an energy savings perspective but it's actually probably really good. Another thing is USB over ethernet is a now a thing in the Linux kernel... so even with pluggable hardware this could make perfect sense. Interesting idea.

I could also see this in a suburban neighborhood. Instead of buying "internet" from your ISP, you could buy "computing" from them. Every block has a server cabinet, with fiber video links to each house. Then your ISP is responsible for maintaining your OS. This could go either way: given the current state of American ISP's, it could be a disaster. But in a "perfect world", it would "just work" because as soon as your…

Not keen on this idea... I think individual independence in computing hardware is a very important social and technological feature against fascist technocracy. I think sharing infrastructure at the office level could make sense, or within a home, but not across a neighborhood with current technology.

While you may be right that overall availability would increase under such a design, I don't really think reliability is a problem for most people right now.

Maybe it would work in some special scenarios though? For example it may be a viable model to provide 'basic service' computing to individual homes within a low income / government supported housing environment, prisons, or hotels. (Fun fact: In mainland Chinese hotels, they often provide computers specifically so that people can watch porn.)

Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#127

Post by Qwertystop »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #86

A peer to peer encrypted datastore that everyone can use to store their own metadata. Facebook knows what movies I like and interests I have, Spotify knows what songs I listen to, Amazon knows what books I like to read. All of these pieces of data are currently silo'd and controlled by private corporations many of which can do whatever they like with that data. I want a private encrypted datastore that does this inst…

Interesting. Major problem: Either existing services need to shift gears to support this third-party that reduces their control over data (when often, your data is how they make their money), or else new equivalent services using said third-party need to be made and meaningfully dislodge them (difficult, inertia is a thing).

Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#128

Post by BjoernKW »

mbrock wrote: post #106

1. A language that synthesizes the advantages of Bash, Node, and ML... Basically an expressive yet simple type system, nice syntax, interactive environment, fast compilation, the ability to run as a script in Unix, first-class support for pipelines, files and sockets, and built in stuff for dealing with HTTP, JSON, regex, etc. 2. An event sourcing database that's not a gargantuan Java EE thing, something like the Red…

> a common metadata format for bills and invoices

Such a format does exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDIFACT

It's just hardly anyone uses it. It's got some adoption with large companies such as auto manufacturers that mandate their suppliers to use it but it's far from wide-spread (and certainly not with SMBs or consumer-oriented offerings).

There also is MT940 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT940 ) which in theory can be used for exchanging and scripting bank accounting data. The format is a terrible mess though with each bank implementing it slightly differently (if they do offer it at all).

Then there is the Incoterms ruleset (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms ), which is commonly used in supply chain management.

Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#129

Post by Qwertystop »

jmkni wrote: post #7

I want to slot my phone into a dock connected to three high resolution monitors and a keyboard/mouse and be able to do development work. Essentially, when it's in my hand it's in Phone Mode, when it's in the dock it's in Desktop PC mode. We are getting there with tablets. You can do this with the Surface for example thanks to Display Link technology. I just want the device to be phone sized , around 5.5" or so with a…

Reminds me of the Switch. I mean, that's gaming instead of dev, but it's a pretty similar concept.

I wonder if Nintendo will sell docks separately from the system for that purpose? I would hope so.

Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

#130

Post by khedoros1 »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #76
sp332 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How verifiable? You've seen the Underhanded C code competition? http://underhanded-c.org/

I'm not talking about code bugs and backdoors, which can always exist. I'm talking about protocols, encryption schemes and architectures. We need "comprehensible security", as opposed to incomprehensible, "NP-hard" and (soon) even "quantum-hard" security, accessible to only 0.1% of engineers, let alone users. We still don't have digital signing technology that is verifiable as easily as paper signature and works peer…

The challenge here is that it's super-easy to design protocols that the average person would consider 100% secure, even after reading some documentation. It's the same problem where anyone can create a lock/encryption that they don't know how to break, but there's always someone smarter or better versed in breaking it.

Subtle bugs don't look like problems until someone figures out an exploit against them.

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