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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?

#841

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…

Most of these points are just a matter of personal preference. I like Apple laptops but they're not great in terms of repairability, extensibility, modularity and openness. There are some non-Apple laptops with much better displays BTW, even Lenovo ships 500 nit displays and wide-color gamut ones with some their laptops nowadays. Dell and other manufacturers ship OLED display with some of their gaming laptops, which…

I think you're missing a critical point here.

> I like Apple laptops but they're not great in terms of repairability, extensibility, modularity and openness.

I just don't care about any of those. If I need it repaired, I'll pay the vendor to do it. If I need it extended, I'll pay them to do it - or buy something new. I don't care if it's modular. I only care about openness insofar as I can tell what it's doing. The rest is a waste of my time.

I suspect I'm not the only one who feels this way, given the way this thread has gone.

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

#842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these points are just a matter of personal preference. I like Apple laptops but they're not great in terms of repairability, extensibility, modularity and openness. There are some non-Apple laptops with much better displays BTW, even Lenovo ships 500 nit displays and wide-color gamut ones with some their laptops nowadays. Dell and other manufacturers ship OLED display with some of their gaming laptops, which…

I think you're missing a critical point here. > I like Apple laptops but they're not great in terms of repairability, extensibility, modularity and openness. I just don't care about any of those. If I need it repaired, I'll pay the vendor to do it. If I need it extended, I'll pay them to do it - or buy something new. I don't care if it's modular. I only care about openness insofar as I can tell what it's doing. The r…

Yes, hence it's a matter of personal preference.

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

#843

Innovation in the mental health care space. Right now most of the top funded startups are working on either 1) Simplifying access for wealth people to the already available supply of therapists; or 2) Removing the human component entirely by creating with apps which have very little evidence to back them up. I see mental health care as one of the most important problems of out time, at the root of so many of the issu…

I agree. How can mental health issues like depression be affecting so many people, yet all we are settling for as a solution are pills that don't even work that well, haven't been studied in the long-term, create a long-term dependency, and have unholy side effects??

I was shocked when I found out that the current most effective therapy modality, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, is only successful in 50% of patients.

I'm very hopeful for the future of psychedelic therapy, as it seems to be very effective after just a single dose and non-toxic.

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

#844

Geothermal Energy. Extremely simplified, all you need to do is drill a hole deep enough for a high temperature difference. Then stick in two pipes, on for sending water down, one for steam to come up. Run a turbine, add a valve to regulate how much water you want to converted into steam to be able to regulate output, enjoy your first mover advantage and price the competition out of the market. ... It's not that I do…

Isn’t that similar to what dandelion is doing? https://dandelionenergy.com/

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

#845

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…

Plenty of people are isolated here in Tokyo, where the city is easily walkable, and you naturally bump into countless numbers of people everyday.

I agree though that it's annoying that going out = spending a lot of money.

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

#846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying according to which articles people click on has already failed as a model for determining truth and relevancy. We need to think of “one weird trick” that will have the same “stunning” effect but without the incentive to appeal to humanity’s baser instincts.

FWIW, we are working on this. Almost all of the issues listed in this thread can be traced back to the way aggregators and social networks end up monetizing (or not monetizing) news. We're trying something a little different: https://blog.nillium.com/were-not-an-aggregator/

Tried to join the waiting list but it requires a zip code (and no country) so I guess it is US specific?

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

#847

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…

Similarly, GNU/Linux phones, like Purism Librem 5. I expected that by 2020 we would have a huge ecosystem of smartphones like this.

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

#848
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meetup.com doesn’t solve this? I ask cause I work remote and meetups are basically what I used pre-pandemic.

I've found Meetup alright for finding things to do with other people, but it doesn't work well (at least for me) to find people to be with . Meetup helped introduce me to a once-a-month board game group which is nice, but the problem is that the people I meet through this are sort of stuck in that "role": they aren't my friends and won't be, they are just people I play board games with. Whereas my true friends are pe…

I once heard that Meetup is "one night stand for friends"

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

#850

Social etiquette for online spaces. Especially during a pandemic year, I'm surprised that this hasn't been more of a topic of discussion. Mostly, if people do talk about social etiquette, it's within the context of not explicitly pissing people off, or looking good to your boss. I've never seen anyone talk about actually having good social interactions online. I've had a few friends change jobs during the pandemic, a…

> Zoom "happy hours" pretty much get dominated by two or three voices (usually of the most senior people) and everyone else just listens, because you can't have 2 conversations at a time. They tried to do “zoom happy hours” where I work, and this was exactly what happened. The two people who were usually the loudest in the office, just ended up talking to each other. They would quite often stop and say “it feels like…

If I catch myself talking too much I sometimes make a joke or something and make a point out of muting myself until someone asks me something directly.

Still I think there's room for more: I'm not that interesting, it just seems that many people want someone to say something.

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