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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?

#41

Post by ska »

Centigonal wrote: post #4
guywithahat wrote: post #2

This may not be the type of answer you're looking for but near me insurance companies (AmFam, Sentry, etc) pay extremely well for the area and pay big money to purchase startups

The problem I've found in this space is the data. I and my colleagues have done consulting work for several insurance companies. I'd love to develop some sick claim processing/auditing software or data management solution for insurance, but it's next to impossible to get visibility into the data they're processing and where the improvement opportunities lie without working there or having an in.

> processing and where the improvement opportunities lie without working there or having an in.

This isn't institutionally crazy.

It's an old, old, story. Lots of people feel like they can come in from the outside to a complex domain, apply some "generic" techniques etc, and make changes with huge positive impact. They usually wrong, usually enough that many people feel safe just ignoring the possibility.

Chance of success is much higher by building capability internally for the techniques with people who already understand the domain well. This however runs into both internal politics and moribund institutions so can be a real challenge.

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

#42

Post by Flankk »

aappleby wrote: post #30

No single thing, but in general the gradually declining fraction of people capable of understanding complex systems "from top to bottom" concerns me. I have seen far too many projects become locally-smart but globally-incoherent due to the gradual dissolution of systemic understanding over time.

That is by design. A person with complete knowlege is a liability. Workers should be replacable with minimal disruption. It's also less intellectual property to take with you when you leave.

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

#43

Post by phailhaus »

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

Interactive visualizations/simulations go a really far way towards helping students learn complex topics. Gamification is tough because you need a human to effectively react to a student's particular shortcomings and help them reframe problems.

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

#44

Post by acidburnNSA »

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've been exploring Encarta 96 on a Windows 95 VM I've been curating for active nostalgia and I gotta say it's pretty awesome. I feel like we are missing out on some magic from those days. Even the intro screen still gives me goosebumps

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

#45

Post by alexchantavy »

phaedrus wrote: post #35
georgeburdell wrote: post #24

Not tech but I think millenials, gen Z, and younger have lost the know-how to make a dollar independently of mega corps. I never see kids going door to door mowing lawns anymore, for example.

As a millennial here's my childhood experience with that: I knocked on the door of an older lady (Silent Gen, or Greatest Gen) in my small town and negotiated to mow her lawn and the price. An unemployed older Baby Boomer who lived halfway between us saw me and/or overheard our conversation. As I was walking back to get my dad's push-mower & prepare it to run, this neighbor jumped on his riding lawnmower and quickly…

Reminds me of when I started noticing adults in cars delivering newspaper instead of kids in bicycles around the time of the last recession

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

#46

Post by CitrusFruits »

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 TA'ed at a tech camp a while back, and there was a 12 year old from Mexico city that had astonishingly good English. I asked him how he was so good at it and he just answered "Skyrim".

So yeah, kids soak up a lot of info through games.

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

#47

Post by acidburnNSA »

jeffreygoesto wrote: post #8

(Civil) Nuclear technology.

The 'advanced' nuclear industry has dozens of big players and is raising money like crazy. Everyone wants to mess around with exotic fuel and coolants. But no one cares about the real workhorse reactors anymore like ABWRs, APR-1400, etc. We should be more focused on those imho.

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

#48

Post by nicolas_ »

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

Emmanuel Freund (Shadow - gaming pc in the cloud - founder) in France is working on PowerZ (https://powerz.tech/) and has raised more than $10M.

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

#49

Post by whoisburbansky »

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 credit a huge portion of my current career and general math and reading skills to having a couple CDs of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JumpStart games early in my childhood. It's a pity I can't think of very many things that I would be comfortable pointing my own kids to and hope for the same effect.

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

#50

Post by mrtksn »

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.
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