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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?

#71

Post by cauthon »

mrtksn wrote: post #50
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.

Depends on the domain. Mavis Beacon absolutely outclassed any of the "classwork" on typing I had in school.

edit: the 24 card games were really great too, though maybe only if you were already inclined towards math

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

#72

Post by guywithahat »

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.

One of the big startup purchases that happened while I was there was of a company that used machine learning to estimate the value of items in a room, ostensibly to guess how much your furniture and electronics are worth. Insurance companies are already good at actuarial sciences so they don't need you to estimate how likely someone is to file a claim, they need you to do things they're not good at

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

#73

Post by mateo411 »

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

Sounds like ad-tech masquerading as ed-tech. There are a lot of ed-tech companies around. I don't know how many take this strategy, but I'm sure there is a few.

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

#74

Post by bravetraveler »

Systems tuning, but it's an area that really got me to learn what I have over the years. I realize I'm a bit biased.

It's amazing the number of production issues I've fixed with simple sysctl parameters.

The Linux kernel defaults don't fit very well in this huge-cluster/scaling out world

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

#75

Post by bobfromhuddle »

dragostudor wrote: post #6

My thoughts exactly. Knowledge transfer in manufacturing / industrial environments is something that I'm working on. - Language models / NLP applications for processing large amount of technical text data (SOP, documentation, technical data, machine text logs, voice to text, video data processing for speeding up corrective action, training, onboarding and highlighting areas of improvement / bottlenecks), digitising d…

I'm starting a new job doing exactly these things in order to reduce the carbon intensiveness of heavy industry, specifically cement production. I'm hyped because I think the technical challenges aren't too daunting, and the prize is huge.

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

#76

Post by samwillis »

carabiner wrote: post #69
samwillis wrote: post #55

Traditional draftsmanship (not really tech is it?), as in with a pen/pencil on a draftsman table, has completely disappeared. My father is a (relatively) recently retired Architect, he ran a small but specialist firm of about 20 people. By the time he retired about 5 years ago there was no one in the office that had ever been trained in traditional draftsmanship, only himself. It’s a lost art. There are now almost tw…

Do you want to bring this back? CAD is a productivity multiplier. It's like composing a document in MS Word vs hand writing it.

Yes, architecture and design is an art form, the medium in which you work influences the design process and the output you create. I’m not saying all architects and designers should return to the drafting table, but it is a shame that the knowledge of how to work like that is disappearing from the workplace.

Also, not everything always needs to be “efficient”, what’s wrong with working slowly if you can then create an even better result.

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

#77

Post by rmdoss »

mrtksn wrote: post #50
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.

Duolingo is doing it amazingly to learn a new language.

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

#78

Post by whiteboardr »

freeqaz wrote: post #21
whiteboardr wrote: post #14

Construction

I came here to say this. The newer generation are not craftsmen in the same ways as before. I'm a Software Engineer and it's the same mentality as somebody that is a Carpenter (my friend's dad is a carpenter that I have asked a lot of questions to). The people that enjoy building and tinkering are more frequently doing this digitally. That is a big gap that isn't going to be filled as time goes on. "They don't make t…

What i mean is that construction as a whole is a completely overlooked market.

Working in that space since almost 5 years after product development in and for several industries for 20+ years.

It’s highly complex but the user group is an overlooked and diverse set of people that have to put up with less than crappy solutions for getting their jobs done - for the chaos that is construction.

So many opportunities and space for innovation that is not another food delivery service for meteopolitan areas but meaningful tools for people in dire need.

Love it and encourage everyone to have a look.

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

#79

Post by commoddity »

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 agree. Anyone every play the educational mode in Assassins Creed Origins?

It basically took that game's massive, amazing and detailed map of ancient Egypt, removed all the combat and replaced it with what was essentially a huge virtual museum. You could go run around Egypt, go inside the temples & pyramids, explore the farms, cities and the Nile delta and listen to audio clips and view slideshows about actual Egyptian history.

It was legitimately really amazing and educational. It essentially piggybacked off of the colossal amount of work that goes into creating a AAA open world game's map and repurposed it to create something educational.

Would love to see more of that type of thing.

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

#80

Post by HorizonXP »

tylerlh wrote: post #67

Supply chain/logistics. I've been simultaneously surprised and unsurprised by the relatively minuscule number of people interested in driving technology and change for this space forward compared to other spaces.

I'm actively working in this space right now. Working with a Fortune 100 to replatform their entire supply chain software. Currently handles all $15B of their US revenue.
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