Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 831 posts

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#501

Post by shezi »

jakeogh wrote: post #85
shezi wrote: post #56

Soil simulation This is just one part of one of the sillier things I'm working on/thinking about. How can I make a real-time interactive soil simulation work, essentially a big realistic virtual sandbox. Since this is a side project, it'll go as far as all side projects go. =)

This video series about soil is really interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A

Looks excellent, thanks for the recommendation. Even though for my purposes, chemistry isn't that important, as we're doing mechanical simulation.

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#503

Post by uhhyeahdude »

kristopolous wrote: post #476

I'm trying to do a historiographical quality history of computers, the kind of scholarship you might see with say the French Revolution or the Roman Empire. What more, my history efforts ENDS around 1937; it's the BC part of computing that set the stage. The build up to computing. Episode 0 lays it all out ( http://comphistpod.com/introducing-the-computer-history-podc... ) I'm doing it in podcast form because it's 20…

What an ambitious and important project! I love the concept, and that it is meant to be a "long, slow project."

It probably should be paced slowly due to the scope and complexity of material. I think a slower pace should also help "smooth" the exponential change rate of technological progress into a narrative listeners can follow, without sacrificing too much detail for the sake of listenability.*

I'm going to sub right now.

*I listen to a lot of podcasts, and this happens more than it should, IMO.

Edit: I haven't seen a podcast with its own git repo before, but it makes a lot of sense, and I imagine it is immensely helpful as a creator. I took a quick glance to satisfy my curiosity, and the notes I looked at (show notes) were comprehensive and really well done. This is inspiring, no joke; I have renewed enthusiasm for my own podcast-to-be. Thank you for that!

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#504

Post by drallison »

collyw wrote: post #496
drallison wrote: post #491

Everyone seems to ignore the only critically significant hard problem: how do we mitigate the negative impacts that humans have had on the planet? Right now it looks like we are careening towards a quick extinction of the human race and most other species and we are not doing anything about it. True, the magnitude of the problem is daunting. True, it may be too late as we are past the tipping point. True, it is easie…

Let nature do its thing.The fittest will survive.

Looking at the current state of things, I think you are guilty of wishful thinking. Survival of the fittest depends upon reproductive success over multiple generations. The time change need to adapt is not commensurate with the time scale leading to extinction.

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#505

Post by [deleted] »

web007 wrote: post #486

How can we document "human society" in 1000 pages or less? I've been casually researching for a while, and will eventually write a guide on going from zero to the moon. Step one is survival, basics of hunting, first aid and farming sort of stuff. That volume would end around homesteading and self-sufficient living. Volume two would be establishing society in larger groups than a family unit. Things like job specializ…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#506

Post by c1ccccc1 »

comicjk wrote: post #113

Trying to predict where electrons go in a molecule, but using a classical model. This can be done with supervised machine learning - you can use quantum mechanics to get lots of labeled data - but it's a tough problem, because chemical physicists have very high standards for accuracy.

Sounds very cool! I'd be interested in looking at the code if you're up for sharing it.

Are you computing the labels using DFT, or with a more exact method?

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#508

Post by sputr »

drallison wrote: post #491

Everyone seems to ignore the only critically significant hard problem: how do we mitigate the negative impacts that humans have had on the planet? Right now it looks like we are careening towards a quick extinction of the human race and most other species and we are not doing anything about it. True, the magnitude of the problem is daunting. True, it may be too late as we are past the tipping point. True, it is easie…

Solutions to the stated problems are, from a technical and policy stand point very simple. Yes, we know how to solve all of this - it's called market regulation and we know it works reeeely well.

But it's politically hard.

What we need is an economically pragmatic green political movement, who will not keep shooting itself in the foot with left-wing ideological purity competitions.

Profit seeking motive is only a problem when you let it of it leesh (because you somehow convinced yourself that the state of perfect market competition is the stable state of a market, when in fact all natural forces point toward domination - monopolies).

So, green parties... Drop the bullshit feel good stories and let's just make saving the earth profitable.

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#509

Post by kochikame »

agotterer wrote: post #459

Parenting. Weird at times and consistently hard. Likely not what you had in mind when you asked the question. I’m also surprised no one else said it yet. I don’t know about other parents here, but cracking the code to my 3.5 year old is a really hard problem for me.

And talk about a moving target.

Just when you think you've figured something out, spotted a pattern... it changes. Back to square one.

Re: Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

#510

Post by soulofmischief »

ipiz0618 wrote: post #419

A piece of music playing software that can react to the lead of an instrument. I'm picturing the software will be able to play a concerto (or simply a duet) with a real instrumentalist and react to dynamic and tempo changes in real time, like an orchestra under a conductor. The same principle can also be used to create a real-time software harmonizer [1] for live performances, but this problem already has a reliable…

Are you familiar with Magenta? [0] It's not real-time, but definitely an important area of research.

Also check out Dan Tepfer [1] who is doing amazing work with an algorithmic approach to reactive live performances, with great call and response tactics.

I myself am slowly prototyping a fully artificial AI band which can be orchestrated using very high-level musical ideas and a big helping of intelligent randomization and algorithms based on music theory.

I've been prototyping in Andrew Sorensen's Extempore [2] and have laid much of the groundwork like melody/harmony/rhythm generation as well as basic modulation of these elements to create longer musical structures which utilize motifs in multiple ways

Currently it is a matter of shedding pre-computed tables of "nice" sounding progressions or purely random progressions, and creating a more fundamental approach which can derive the appropriate progressions from the given user parameters. I am also expanding the program's ability to generate aesthetically pleasing and unique singular motifs which drive these algorithmic compositions.

I have a band leader / conductor module which provides cues and other synchronized data, which even without advanced motif generation and modulation still allows for things not currently possible in any non-code musical production software such as global dyamics, timing changes, progression sharing, (eventually) directing impromptu solos, etc.

Reach out via email if you'd like to discuss more!

[0] https://magenta.tensorflow.org/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaadsrHBygc [2] https://extemporelang.github.io/

Post reply on HN