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Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

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Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#771

Post by dbetteridge »

WalterBright wrote: post #698
InvisibleUp wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a large part of this (in the USA, anyways) is due to how modern cities are structured. It used to be, 100 or 200 years ago, that your workplace, your home, and your usual hang-out place were all within reasonable walking distance of each other. It wasn't a huge deal to go out and meet new people, as you'd naturally bump into them every day. Nowadays we have a large portion of people in bedroom communities, is…

I miss living in the dormitory in college. Everything I needed was within a 3 minute walk. The dorm was full of my peers. There was always something fun going on. You had a room just big enough for a bed, a desk, and a sink. Everything else was common. If I was a developer I'd build a "dorm for adults" right next to places like Amazon, but at least around here zoning won't permit it. It's great if you're single and d…

https://starcity.com/

Seems to be trying it, rebranded as 'co-living' as I imagine dormitories holds a bit of a stigma.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#772

Post by bigpeopleareold »

ta988 wrote: post #69

Alternative ways than tracking, ads and information gathering/selling as a revenue source for companies handling users data.

I agree with this completely. I probably think though that the industry needs to be disrupted, ie. prove that you can monetize at scale without relying on user data. I think this is something very hard to change because the industry and its large customers are actually quite conservative. It is understandable because newspapers are not exactly a fast growing sector.

I wish that newspapers at least, etc. would instead consider working out their subscription models a bit more. I like to read stuff from multiple papers but can't justify multiple subscriptions for the occasional thing I want to read from them. The Internet opened new ways for people to access news and information but it just feels like the business model of newspapers hearkens back to pre-Internet times where you would buy the paper either at a newsstand or through home delivery.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#773

Post by trestenhortz »

jldugger wrote: post #692

Structured interviews. There's a massive literature supporting the idea that structured interviews outperform any other kind in predicting outcomes, and instead we get ten remote whiteboard screening apps, and adhoc interview panels of people with, frankly, conflicting values and evaluation criteria.

I’m interestsd.

Can you link any of the literature you have in mind?

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#775

Post by jobigoud »

sirpunch wrote: post #357
TrackerFF wrote: post #319

It IS being worked on, but things move quite slow - and there doesn't seem to have been much progress for decades, but: Cure for hair-loss. Some might say it's just vanity, but if someone could come up with a cure, and sell it affordably, that would be a multi-billion, maybe even trillion dollar industry. Going from quite balding (NW4-NW7 in balding terminology) to a full head of hair makes most guys look a solid 10-…

And the opposite: permanent hair removal. My partner went through a laser treatment for over an year to get about 60-70% reduction in hair growth. It's immensely painful and time taking process that doesn't work for all akin colors and doesn't guarantee a permanent hair removal. With the current pace of medical research I would have imagined a simple cream that you apply on your skin and whoosh all the hair follicles…

> would have imagined a simple cream that you apply on your skin and whoosh all the hair follicles would be permanently dead.

I'm glad it's not that easy... I can see the "pranks gone wrong", the "ex-boy friend revenge" and the "shave-your-kid facebook 6-month trend" potential of this..

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#776

Post by bigpeopleareold »

creinhardt wrote: post #181
tomatocracy wrote: post #114

Single subscription payment for news along the lines of the Spotify model. I'd happily pay a single subscription which gave me access to ALL the news websites, and divided payment up based on which articles people click on. Do that without tracking me between the different sites and I'm sold. Pressreader gets close but it only gives you yesterday's print versions (not current online content), it has a few notable gap…

A few different outlets have tried this over the years, and it's never gone that well, as far as I know. I think that was originally the model for Tinypass, which merged with Piano Media. Not sure if they still offer that model or not, but it's the most recent I can think of. The reality is that for all but the largest news sites, this model won't really work. Say you're in a medium-small city. Even in your best case…

You're right with Tinypass - it didn't work out. Piano's model is a bit more financially viable for the type of customers it is targeting.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#777

Post by jasonvorhe »

jiggawatts wrote: post #702
Klonoar wrote: post #379

Premium-feeling laptops that aren't Apple machines. Yes yes, I get the economical barriers. I'm past caring. It is so incredibly frustrating to look outside the Apple ecosystem and feel like the entire PC industry is content to sell the bare minimum of quality (outside of Gamer hardware, which looks obscene - but I get that it's subjective). It's a horrible business idea on the numbers and nobody would do this, but i…

I've had a very similar rant yearly for over a decade. I used to do it on Slashdot before YC News was a thing. You're not the only one, yet I feel this won't ever change. Nobody in the entire laptop industry cares or even knows about our complaints. There seems to be practically zero overlap between the professionals that use laptops -- such as software developers -- and the hardware engineers that design the laptops…

Afaik Apple doesn't use Gallium Nitrate for their chargers and a recent report by Mac Rumors confirms my assumption, but at least they're planning to release such a product in the future: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/02/20/apple-could-launch-gan-...

Considering how small my cheap 65W GaN charger is, I would have been disappointed in Apple engineering if theirs were still as heavy and big as they are.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#778

Post by jiggawatts »

ajb92 wrote: post #765
jiggawatts wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a very similar rant yearly for over a decade. I used to do it on Slashdot before YC News was a thing. You're not the only one, yet I feel this won't ever change. Nobody in the entire laptop industry cares or even knows about our complaints. There seems to be practically zero overlap between the professionals that use laptops -- such as software developers -- and the hardware engineers that design the laptops…

I read recently that the main reason cameras-on-laptops are stuck in '09, is because there's so little depth to work with in the laptop lid alongside the screen. I'd take that to mean the few additional mm thickness you get in a phone are very precious :)

Audio shouldn't be difficult though. There were even a few laptops in the past that did it sort-of-okay.

The trick is to have a bunch of microphones along the edge of the display, all the way around. This then enables beam-steering and noise filtering by keeping only the signal common to all microphones.

Mobile phones often do this kind of thing, but PC developers are stuck in this local minimum that they seem completely unable to escape.

Speaking of which, the iPhone 12 Pro has a HDR OLED display that goes toe-to-toe with a USD $35K Sony BVM-X300 Master Monitor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_czpXW3yKE

Meanwhile... good luck finding a decent 17" laptop with an OLED screen!

As far as I can tell, all OLED laptops made in 2020 used the exact same Samsung 15.6" panels, and then all other OLED manufacturers also simultaneously agreed that no sizes above that need exist:

https://www.oled-info.com/here-come-oled-laptops-sdc-start-p...

https://www.oled-info.com/boe-demonstrates-new-oleds-monitor...

Keep in mind that Samsung makes an OLED panel for Apple that is capable of 1,200 nits peak HDR brightness, but is incapable of making a laptop screen that exceeds 400 nits for some mysterious reason. I can't prove, but strongly suspect that all PC parts are now being made in the supplier's legacy plants, and the top-tier stuff is exclusively reserved for mobile device manufacturers...

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#779

Post by TeMPOraL »

InvisibleUp wrote: post #289
baron816 wrote: post #243

In-person social organizations. Social isolation is probably the biggest cause of unhappiness in advanced countries. Having a strong social network has lots of advantages including providing better romantic and career opportunities, as well as improving physical and psychological health. Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too--country clubs and fraternities have…

I think a large part of this (in the USA, anyways) is due to how modern cities are structured. It used to be, 100 or 200 years ago, that your workplace, your home, and your usual hang-out place were all within reasonable walking distance of each other. It wasn't a huge deal to go out and meet new people, as you'd naturally bump into them every day. Nowadays we have a large portion of people in bedroom communities, is…

I blame ubiquitous access to cars and phones as significant early contributors to this problem, with modern IMs and social media being the final nail in the coffin. Because together, these technologies enable your social network to be mostly independent of location. Nowadays, when you move to a different neighbourhood or a different town, you'll still be in daily contact with your friends and family from the previous location, and (if they're relatively close by car) you'll also hang out with them regularly. So you have no reason to try and meet new people at the place you now live in, because you still have your old social network! Hell, new friends will be competing for attention with your old friends - where just few decades ago, these old friendships would go to "hibernation mode" by virtue of distance.

Internet communication, with its much richer modes of communication, is essentially social junk food. It's not a real substitute for meatspace interactions, but it satiates the hunger for socialization. Thus people feel ever more connected and ever more lonely at the same time - loneliness being social malnourishment.

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