Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
1331 points by richtapestry on Oct 22, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 918 comments
What's an area that people think is up and coming? (e.g. like social networks were in 2004, mobile apps in 2010, or vlogging in 2014)

I've finished several projects simultaneously and I'm looking to work in an area with lots of users, but as yet few producers. Wouldn't even need to involve programming, but probably would need to be online, as I'm pretty introverted!




In the online world, it seems like there are two big things happening right now:

- Neural networks / ML (eg GPT-2) Definitely nowhere near its potential for being applied to a wide variety of areas. Find a niche you like and apply there.

- Security / Privacy (eg Telegram) Rapidly growing demand pretty much everywhere. Bonus points if you can make your product great for standard users and at the same time hackable/customizable for people who want to do that. Capitalize on both legs of the pareto distribution.

That all being said, if you are ambitious and talented without an all-consuming passion for software, I highly recommend you find something you can work in hardware. Since the '70s or so most industries have been basically frozen, besides computer hardware/software. Yet in the meantime materials science and engineering design has advanced considerably, both of which form the basis for innovation in new technologies. This is why SpaceX was able to build components for 10-100x cheaper than the leading suppliers in the early 2000s.

I work at a startup in nuclear fission, particularly because this tech is at <1% of its potential right now. The same could be said for many other areas.

Here's some ideas you might find interesting, that I think could work in the next decade or so: - Supersonic air travel - Electric air travel - Nano/micro-scale metallurgy and materials for industry - Biological materials - Gut/microbiome - Genetic engineering - Nuclear fission / fusion - Carbon capture - Cross-laminated timber (CLT) for construction - Indoor farming / optimizing farming in general - Synthetic meat / meat alternatives


The most pressing problem for humanity is global climate disruption. Arguably, working on anything that doesn't help there is not just wasted effort, but actively harmful.

Wind, solar power, energy storage still have huge room for improvement.

Direct solar or wind -> liquid fuel will be essential to adapting fast.

Windmills can drive production of liquid ammonia on farms (needing only air and water inputs), for use directly as fertilizer and fuel, without need for a grid attachment and without blocking sunlight needed for the plants. Ammonia is not a very dense fuel (e.g. terrible for aircraft), but that doesn't matter for farm machinery.

Direct solar -> hydrogen has been demonstrated, with bio-reaction for hydrogen + CO2 -> liquid fuel suitable for aircraft. Direct hydrogen-fueled aircraft are feasible, and more efficient than with kerosine, but the design cycle is too long.

Wind turbines will be wearing out as the blades erode. No-moving-parts screens might be the next generation, extracting power by releasing ions to be carried away from an electric field. The old towers will still be useful, and the rare earths can be mined out for other uses, probably vehicle motors.

Batteries are a very material-intensive storage medium. Underwater air storage does not need exotic materials or tech, and the pressure at depth makes the strength of materials needed minimal, other than piping.

We need to replace huge amounts of refrigeration equipment with versions that don't rely on HFCs, and get the HFCs incinerated. One gram of HFC traps as much heat as 2500 g of CO2, and lasts centuries in the atmosphere. Once vented, it cannot be recaptured. Ammonia-cycle systems need to be made safe enough for general use, and HFC versions outlawed.

Without massive progress in the next decade, civilization will probably collapse by 2035.


“Without massive progress in the next decade, civilization will probably collapse by 2035.”

This is deathcult type rhetoric which has no scientific basis whatsoever.


With a more scientific approach, the IPCC[1] models show we could see mass migrations between 200M and 1.5B due to climate change before the end of the century. Not a total collapse, but the collapse of a dozen of countries due to unsustainable heat and drought.

[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/apps/njlite/srex/njlite_download.php%3Fi...


Yes, this is much more accurate of our best predictions.

Bjørn Lomborg says[1] by the end of the century, climate change left unchecked will only lower the global GDP by a 2-4 percentage points of what it would have otherwise grown to, which is going to be 300-1000% higher than today. So basically, best case scenario 980% GDP growth, worst case 288% GDP growth.

This shows climate change is a problem, but it's too slow to cause a global catastrophe by 2100.

Even better news, I'm very confident it will not be left unchecked, in fact I think we can get to net-zero emissions by 2040 or so.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QyXduteiWE


This is an interesting answer. Somebody says there will be hundred millions of people fleeing their then uninhabitable countries (which will lead to millions of death, just look how many people drown in the Mediterranean see each year now, and how the European population is more xenophobic year after year). And you answer saying GDP will be fine!


You're right, GDP growth does not outweigh deaths. However I don't think the primary issues caused by climate disruption will be human deaths, but instead the loss of assets in compromised areas. Humans will relocate, and lose a lot of wealth, but why would they die en mass?

> fleeing their then uninhabitable countries ... which will lead to millions of death

I'm not sure if this is true, actually. What is true is that millions of people every year die due to air pollution, but this isn't climate change, it's just our present pollution.

There's like ~50 million deaths per year if I recall correctly, and I'd be very surprised if more than 0.1% of that is caused by climate change. At least 5% of it is due to pollution, though, and I think probably more like 10%+


> Humans will relocate, and lose a lot of wealth, but why would they die en mass?

What a wonderful world you live in. Do you genuinely believe it's that simple?

What do you think happens when 1 million people move from one country to another? They do not simply relocate, they are parked in camps (if you want current examples of that look at the Rohingya people, or Syrian refugees in Lebanon) until they can go back home, as you can guess the sanitary situation of these camp is more than precarious (cholera is a big threat for instance). With climate change, their will be no way back, and it's not going to be one million of people, but hundred millions.

What do you think would happen if a country, let say Italy for instance, had to park 10 million people in camps for years? Don't you think people in camps would eventually revolt violently to get out? What would Italians do then? Don't you think European countries would anticipate this outcome and just block refugees from entering, shooting the one trying to? Because it's already in the political agenda of most far-right parties here in Europe, and most of them are not that far from power (Salvini and Orban and just the first of a long series coming…). Due to the fight against illegal immigration, there already been thousands (around 17 000) of death in the Mediterranean see since 2014. And you can be sure it's not going to be better when all central Africa is uninhabitable …

And when people fleeing their countries are not accepted (as in “parked”) in neighboring countries, they just wander in the wild until everyone is dead. That happened for instance to people fleeing Rwanda to Congo.

Large scale population migration are incredibly difficult, and they almost always go wrong, and least a bit. Expecting 1 to 10% of the refugees dying isn't that pessimistic. From the figures discussed earlier, that mean between 2 and 150 million death. Which comes in the same ballpark as the biggest humanitarian disaster of the 20th century…


I feel you're conflating two different types of migration, and the issue isn't nearly as big as your 150 million deaths figure.

Almost all countries have ample space that will still be habitable for their entire population in 2100, even if climate change is left unchecked.

Those that don't represent a small portion of the global population, certainly less than 500 million people. I grew up in Botswana, and I know that "all of central Africa is uninhabitable" is not a likely outcome anytime soon. Most of Africa is actually really good land to live in, and will continue to be fairly good through the century.

In any case, Italy does not need to "park 10 million people in camps". Italy is a tiny country in terms of land area, so why would they need to take so many? Russia and Canada alone could easily fit a few billion immigrants each if global warming is really severe in a few centuries.

The notion that the only solution to climate change is to move everybody into already crowded places doesn't seem to have a base. We can solve the migration problem with or without moving people into Europe.

Anyways, my core point here is (a) we won't need to deal with this migration anyways, because we will solve climate change way before it becomes necessary, and (b) even if we didn't lower our emissions, I'm confident we can solve the migration problem without millions of deaths.


I'm less confident that a mass migration wouldn't result in millions of deaths. An example might be the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Only 14 million displaced, yet an estimated 200k-2 million deaths and another 2 million people missing[1]. In many ways, this planned displacement was a more favorable scenario than a chaotic climate refugee situation.

If we don't have a good answer to the relatively simple refugee migrations now (eg. Central America, Syria), then I have extreme pessimism that we will be able to manage a larger-scale, persistent event. Whereas with economic + political refugee situations we can always hope to resolve the root cause, with climate change it is simply the new normal.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India


> Russia and Canada alone could easily fit a few billion immigrants each if global warming is really severe in a few centuries.

Russia absolutely isn't going to do that, and who's going to pay to move them across the Atlantic to a country that they're not allowed to immigrate to?

I'm kind of leaning the other way: millions of avoidable deaths is the "normal war" situation, even if we magically solved climate change tomorrow.


Oh interesting, so you pretend to know how Russia will act in 100 years from now. Interesting science you got there!


> Almost all countries have ample space that will still be habitable for their entire population in 2100, even if climate change is left unchecked

That's a really dubious one. There's multiple issues with global warming, drought and desertification being one of them (and it probably will not affect a whole country) but the second one is just the max temperature the human body can, withstand especially with high humidity. When this threshold is passed, you can have thousands of people dying at the same time in your country. When every summer, heatwaves take a few of your neighbours you start reconsidering how nice your country is.

Remember, we're going to have more than a 2°C increase in mean temperature by the end of the century, and maybe 4°C. 4°C is the difference between now and the last ice age when the whole Europe was covered by huge glaciers.

Also, many people live near shores, which will be damaged frequently as the see level rises… How would India, who have a borderline genocidal tendency (fantasised mostly at the moment buy still frightening) against Muslims nowadays, react to the massive arrival of Bengali people coming from Bangladesh after a typhoon destroyed their land?

> Italy is a tiny country in terms of land area, so why would they need to take so many?

Because that's where they arrive… I'm not speculating when I talk about Italy, this is happening right now (not 10 millions, but hundred of thousands).

> Anyways, my core point here is (a) we won't need to deal with this migration anyways, because we will solve climate change way before it becomes necessary, and (b) even if we didn't lower our emissions, I'm confident we can solve the migration problem without millions of deaths.

Regarding (a), you should probably read this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_budget

Regarding (b), I admire your confidence, but it sounds delusional in regard of the whole human history.


> drought and desertification

This is an issue, but increased atmospheric carbon and the latitude land distribution of the Earth probably means desertification will be net-negative for at least a while. (I don't have a source for this, but I recall reading that we have more trees today than ever in history?) Keep in mind, carbon is what plants eat.

> When every summer, heatwaves take a few of your neighbours you start reconsidering how nice your country is.

This is also a good point, but once again, there are also people who die from cold. I've been living in Toronto for the last year, and there are many people who die of cold in the winter every year, mainly the poor and elderly. It's not clear that global warming is net-negative at the moment for extreme temperature related deaths.

> we're going to have more than a 2°C increase in mean temperature by the end of the century, and maybe 4°C

I don't agree with this. This might be true if population+QoL growth continues and our emissions per capita stay at today's levels, but that won't happen. Like I said, we are going to fix CC by mid-century, and mean temp increase above pre-industrial levels will be less than 1.5°C by 2100 - not 4°C above today's levels.

> Because that's where they arrive

This is a different type of migration. Nobody is migrating internationally because their country is uninhabitable due to climate change, because there are no such countries today.

> About (a), you should probably read this...

Thank you, I'm aware of what's necessary to accomplish this. We are well on our way. If it wasn't for funding and regulatory limitations, I'm pretty sure we could be net-zero by 2028 just based on the technologies we have in development today.


Desertification is currently increasing: https://www.un.org/en/events/desertification_decade/whynow.s...

> more trees today than ever in history?

Depending on how big you count history this sounds really implausible.

> carbon is what plants eat.

A slogan commonly repeated by global warming denialists, because it's true but highly misleading. Plants also primarily require water, and the temperature rise dries out a lot of places.


> Depending on how big you count history this sounds really implausible.

History := the recorded past (in this case I mean the last few hundred years)

> Desertification is currently increasing

Okay, you're right about this based on the link you sent. In my head I was considering arctic regions / tundra as desert as well, as their recent forestation rate is much faster.

> temperature rise dries out a lot of places

This is true but it also causes other places to become more humid. Higher temperature climate has more liquid water + more entropy ==> more active water cycle on global average. (This is a gross oversimplification but my point is that the increase in temperature is an increase in chaos, and so water that is currently frozen somewhere will be moving around.)

--

The important idea to note here is that we can't just ask "does global warming cause more X"? Because the answer can be yes in some areas and no in others, and an increase in X somewhere does not mean a net increase globally.


Best current evidence is that the plants whose growth rate is limited by carbon dioxide availability, and so grow faster with higher CO2 concentration, are parasitic vines. Others are limited by other factors.


cultural conflicts are the issue. There may be space in Italy for another 30 million inhabitants but soon you will have Muslims fighting Catholics (and getting slaughtered). That's a humanitarian disaster in my book


That's a big part of the problem. Policy makers have a tendency to care more about GDP than about people. As long as the numbers look good, people are mere statistics.

Rich countries are in a better position to mitigate the effects of global warming and climate change than poor countries. Rich people will be better able to insulate themselves from the effects that do occur in their country than poor people do.

Imagine New York is about to flood. Rich New Yorkers will probably already have a house somewhere else. The poor ones won't. And they can't afford to buy a new house if their current one becomes worthless. Their jobs are also more tied to the city than those of rich people. Moving Wallstreet will cost a lot of money, but that money is there.


Rich countries do indeed adapt better to climate change than poor, but the point about GDP is to show that in the future all countries will be rich countries (compared to the present).

If wealthy nations today can adapt to rising sea levels, and today's poor countries will eventually become just as wealthy, why will they be unable to adapt as well?


Rich countries are, visibly, adapting to increasing migration by adopting increasingly fascist governments. Is there any objective reason to expect this trend to reverse, as migration continues to increase?

Please explain your reasoning.

There is no reason to believe that countries that are becoming uninhabitable will become wealthy at the same time. The people who are best positioned to create wealth are exactly those who flee first.


If the history of the last 40 years of "climate debate" teaches us anything, then that it will not only be left unchecked, but it will become worse. There is absolutely no reason to be optimistic about CO2 emissions on a global scale.

If zero emissions by 2040 is a realistic scenario, then we have to create the foundations of this development now. What we do instead is: lackluster regulations in Europe, active denialism and in the US, expansion of the oil- and gas industry in Russia and increased coal production in China.


> There is absolutely no reason to be optimistic about CO2 emissions on a global scale. > we have to create the foundations of this development now

We are. The company I work at aims to eliminate ~60% of global emissions ourselves and provide the economic basis for the other 40%.

The only major section of global emissions that doesn't seem to have an obvious full solution is concrete production, which I'm sure we can offset with sequestration, and reduce with wood-based CLT construction.

Every other major component of emissions has a solution that is in active development right now, or already available and in the process of adoption. I think there's plenty of reason to be optimistic.


> The company I work at aims to eliminate ~60% of global emissions ourselves

Well, nobody could accuse your company of having small ambitions!

When its website consists of little more than a few sweeping "We will [...]" statements and a lot of "This page is missing", though, you'll perhaps understand if some people are a little sceptical.


Yeah we're updating that at the moment, the site isn't a big priority so we don't have anybody full time on it.

Will be fixed in a week or so.


By the way, Bjørn Lomborg is an unreliable and often misleading source. Why? See for yourself multiple examples of quality analysis with actual scientific sources. Highly recommended: [1] https://youtu.be/9FQX1u-aqrA [2] https://youtu.be/hwMPFDqyfrA

And that's analysis of Bjørn Lomborg's work by those who actively support pragmatic, cost-effective, and often 'conservative' solutions to environmental problems and climate change. Examples: [3] https://youtu.be/D99qI42KGB0 [4] https://youtu.be/6fV6eeckxTs


Bjørn Lomborg's education is in political science and statistics. His analyses, while occasionally thought-provoking, are opposed by the vast majority of actual working climate scientists. He has gotten a lot of attention by simply being a climate contrarian.


The same implication could be made about climate scientists, who are not trained in geopolitics or economics. I don't think it's fair to box people in based on their education, and also, there isn't any degree which really qualifies you fully to discuss the geopolitical and economic impacts of climate science.


> The same implication could be made about climate scientists, who are not trained in geopolitics or economics.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I would take a climate scientist's opinion of macroeconomic trends with a grain of salt, to say the least.

PhD's are a deep dive into a very narrow field of study. They are most definitely not a "universal expert" certification.


404 Not found


Sorry for the broken link, Google URLs on mobile are a mess. Here's the link : https://www.ipcc.ch/apps/njlite/srex/njlite_download.php?id=...


URL doesn't work


I just wish there would be a way to hold these doomsday preachers responsible. In the end they will all shrugg it of with that smirk of 'oh back then we didn't know better'.


I am glad they took the responsibility in the 1850-1870 to not burn/chop down most of the forest in Norway. A lot of the places still don’t have trees because of wind and to much water in the ground.


Considering we can't hold big oil accountable for burrying the lede on climate change, and electing to spread lies and cause confusion instead, I guess that's fair.


If you know how to manage involuntary migration of 100M-2B population from newly uninhabitable land to established sovereign territory without triggering global thermonuclear warfare, do speak up.


The governments in those countries have enough resources to buy enough land in colder areas for all their people. Would definitely be economically disadvantageous for the migrant nation, but there's no reason it needs to cause "global thermonuclear warfare"


I see that you have very little acquaintance with politics as it is practiced.

What we see happening in the US, with the small amount of migration occurring so far, is spending $billions on building walls.


With the way things are going ww3 will be about water. It’s easy to imagine half of Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia to pack and move as a whole.


Can you expand on what you mean by this? How will water cause a war? Do you mean freshwater access?


Global warming will melt ice caps and flood the world. Or global warming will evaporate water and dry the world.

One thing is sure. Global warming, water and world war three. /s


> flood the world

No, there isn't nearly that much water.

> will evaporate water and dry the world

How would this work? Either the water is on the ground or it is in the air, neither case is a dry world. Where would all the water go to "dry the world"?


When the large fraction of the world population that depends on seafood for their protein loses that input as ocean acidification crashes fish nurseries, do not expect them to adapt peacefully.

So, will WW3 be about access to living space, fresh water or protein? Or all three at once?

Not a great choice.


> The most pressing problem for humanity is global climate disruption.

I don't believe most would agree here. There are a lot of problems humanity faces, and humanity is a lot of different people. Those still living in extreme poverty today probably don't care about our worries of climate disruption.

> Arguably, working on anything that doesn't help there is not just wasted effort, but actively harmful.

Why is this?

> Direct hydrogen-fueled aircraft are feasible, and more efficient than with kerosine, but the design cycle is too long.

This is really interesting but doesn't strike me as true based on my background. Do you have anything I could read regarding? I would be very interested

> Without massive progress in the next decade, civilization will probably collapse by 2035.

This I really don't agree with or understand.

I'm very worried about emissions, but I don't see why civilization would collapse any time soon, if at all. 2035 is very soon.


> Those still living in extreme poverty today probably don't care about our worries of climate disruption.

Tell that to 100Million people in poverty in Bangladesh that will become climate refugees if the sea level rises in any meaningful way.

In the west, sea-side living is a privilege for the richest. And sea level rise is mostly ignorable with the virtue of new seawalls.

In the developing world, the most poverty-stricken are the closest to the water, and nobody will be funding solutions for them.


Also have a look at Zimbabwe where climate change is already seriously compounding existing problems. The poorest are hit the hardest.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/health/climate-change-zimbabw...


You're right about those people, but I'm not talking about them. There are people living in extreme poverty today who won't even be alive anymore by the time sea level rise causes a problem.

Who are we to claim that climate change is the most pressing issue facing humanity, when much of humanity faces unrelated life threatening issues?


You're looking at humanity through the lens of an individual. The reality is that the threats to people in extreme poverty are not going to threaten humanity as a whole.

I am defining humanity as the progression and prosperity of the human race. Climate change could ultimately threaten the entire human race. It could even result in extinction in the worst case scenario.

I disagree with the comment that because of this, all minds should be focused solely on this issue, and that all other problems should be ignored. But the reality is that a small subset of humanity living in extreme poverty does not pose an existential threat to civilization or the human species.


Only a small percentage of the population lives in extreme poverty today, yes.

But even a smaller percentage deals with significant issues due to climate change, today. The changes thus far have been excessively inflated, and may be net-positive so far.

You're right about the worst case scenario, GHG emissions could in theory lead to Earth becoming like Venus or somewhere in between the two where the atmosphere is bad enough to cause the end of humanity. But this is extremely unlikely and might not even be possible with the sum of our economically accessible fossil fuel reserves.

In reality, it seems there is still a threat of huge increase in poverty due to some WW3 type event, or a superbug global plague, or something like that.

I think it's unfair to weigh climate change above poverty at the moment, even for the overall prosperity of the human race.

In fact, I think climate change will end up being much worse for the rest of life on Earth than humanity. We have the advantage of being able to plan and react in advance, so we will probably be fine for a long time to come, but most plants and animals might go extinct.


Humanity is not facing extinction, even if we indulge in global thermonuclear war.

Comfortable civilization will vanish, for at least centuries, taking with it food security, education, and high-tech industry. We will retain iron scrapping. We might keep dentistry, in luckier pockets.


There are people who are alive today, and who won't be next year because of extreme weather events tied to climate change.

And that's before getting into real live issues to do with water rights, habitation, crop resilience to changing weather patterns, energy access and usage. These issues are likely to spark wars in our lifetime (if they haven't already.. Syria and the Arab Spring was tied to crop failures and high food prices). And these issues disproportionately affect the poor living today. Entirely aside from rising sea levels which will compound the damage


I'm not sure this is true, at least not on net.

Do you have any scientific evidence showing a net global increase in extreme weather events in the last several decades?


It is true. "New data show that extreme weather events have become more frequent over the past 36 years, with a significant uptick in floods and other hydrological events compared even with five years ago, according to a new publication" https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180321130859.h...


Have you even looked out the window, lately?


Not all areas experience extreme weather. Where I live, there's basically no extreme weather ever.


Lucky you. That experience does not generalize.


> Those still living in extreme poverty today probably don't care about our worries of climate disruption.

No doubt about it. At this point it's probably a better idea to start preparing for the changes rather than stopping them, unless we somehow manage to achieve some magical global unity around a single goal.

> I don't see why civilization would collapse any time soon

Civilizational collapse is a slow process. I doubt the people of the later stages of the Roman empire felt their society collapsed. It's more likely they simply experienced slowly decaying infrastructure as maintenance was neglected, social unrest, and the absence of the advantages we get from a large centralized authorities, all in a span of many decades.

I'm not saying that it's happening, or not happening -- It's just that you wouldn't know until it's happened.


> At this point it's probably a better idea to start preparing for the changes rather than stopping them

Yeah, this is probably best practice for people in regions that are projected to be left mostly uninhabitable / with severe barriers to life. This won't really be too much of a problem even if climate change is left unchecked, as Bjørn Lomborg says[1], it will only cost us 2-4% of GDP by end of century.

> Civilizational collapse is a slow process. I doubt the people of the later stages of the Roman empire felt their society collapsed.

I'd like to point out an important note: the guy said civilization would collapse, not a civilization. I'm not sure if you mean the same thing he does, but civilization itself has never, in history, collapsed, even during the plague and fall of the roman empire. We've been pretty much A-okay on a global level since 12,000 years ago.

You're definitely right about individual states, and it is almost certainly true that several countries may end up collapsing due to climate disruption, but not the big ones and probably no time soon.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QyXduteiWE


> Yeah, this is probably best practice for people in regions that are projected to be left mostly uninhabitable

I'd go as far as arguing that _everyone_ should prepare for what's coming. All of us will be affected, be it directly or indirectly, through things like the (most likely) inevitable refugee crisis, or increased food prices and lower standards of living.

> but civilization itself has never, in history, collapsed

I meant individual civilizations and not civilization itself, although I read the original comment as something happening to "our" civilization and not all of them. Total collapse of civilization itself would require something cataclysmic happening on a global scale, and that the effects of said event are so severe that all of humanity fail to restore itself within the time span of several generations.

Some of the more alarmist reports about global warming are indeed pointing at that scenario, although it's more likely that progress will be slower, and that humanity as a whole will be able to adapt in the long run.

Regardless, I am convinced that even if we were talking about the actual end of civilization itself, it would not necessarily be evident to us until it was too late.

The fact that there are alarm bells ringing about the climate now is an indicator of climate changes being either:

a) survivable for humanity as a whole by doing what we can to prevent it and prepare for what happens if we fail

b) the end of the world and it's too late to do anything

This turned darker than I planned. :D


> All of us will be affected

Actually, I'm pretty sure places like Greenland, Canada, Russia etc. will be mostly positively affected. I'm mostly concerned about the changes to the ocean when it comes to affecting all humans. The unfortunate reality is that unchecked global warming will probably lower food prices and increase standards of living in many places that are already rich, while causing destruction in places that are already relatively poor.

> alarm bells ringing about the climate...

The third option you left out is that the alarm is overinflated. With an issue as controversial as climate change, you can be almost certain that both the alarmists and skeptics are both wrong, and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Also, I really don't think the end of the world is a realistic result of climate change. If you really want something to worry about, there are always meteors, gamma rays and the potential for nuclear war, superbugs, or biological WOMD.


Global thermonuclear war is a likely end stage, as fascists are swept into power in reaction to mass migration from the tropics.

Sane governmental response is a fantastic assumption. The orange baboon, along with present counterparts in Russia, Brazil, India, China, Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary are just a hint at what is to come.


I don't think the people terrible enough to launch nukes all other the place are in the position to do that. If the last 70 years are any indication, people don't tend to nuke other people.


There are nukes in Pakistan, India, Israel, Russia, other former Soviet countries, China, and US, all under increasingly fascistic rule. The orange baboon has publicly entertained using them just for dramatic effect. What do you imagine will restrain them as tensions resulting from mass migration, collapsing harvests, and desertification continue to grow?


Hey, with a bit of luck we'll get a nuclear winter which will counter global warming. -.-


You are being excessive.

First, why do you assume they would migrate north and not further south?

In your model do you expect people to move in or out of Australia, South Africa, Chile, etc. ?


Maybe because most of the land is in the north? This is not rocket science.


How does that change anything? Humanity could fit into a small island with the population density of dt Tokyo. There is plenty of land up, down, left and right.


> The third option you left out is that the alarm is overinflated.

I agree. I intended that to be implied as a possibility for the first option. Bad things will most likely happen, but it's unlikely that it's THAT bad.


> it will only cost us 2-4% of GDP by end of century

The projections suggest that it's much cheaper to avert climate change than to deal with the consequences, and much less painful.

If we can afford to lose x% of GDP dealing with the problems, why can't we spend less than that to avoid the problem, and avoid a huge amount of human misery and ecological collapse in the process?


> why can't we spend less than that to avoid the problem

We can, and we are. That's why I do what I do.

You're absolutely right, it is much cheaper to avert climate change than deal with the consequences. It's also necessary to transition to sustainable energy eventually because we will run out of fossil fuels regardless of what happens with the climate.

The solutions to climate change are being worked on right now by many talented people around the world. I'm confident we will reach the IPCC SR15 1.5 degree Celsius goals.


We aren't, and we won't. Coal and oil usage are still increasing, and the US is increasing its subsidy for them. Russia, China, and India are still building new coal-fired power plants. Fascist representation in governments is increasing worldwide.

Action is falling far short of what would be needed to cap temperature rise, and there is no motion toward greater enforcement.

Any developments in fission could only have substantial effect decades after events will overtake them.


> Any developments in fission could only have substantial effect decades after events will overtake them.

We only need 2 decades to fix the energy part of emissions, and the IPCC has given us 3.

> and there is no motion toward greater enforcement.

Enforcement isn't needed to get to net zero emissions. It's profitable long term to swap to clean energy and electrified vehicles and appliances, they're more efficient. Also fossil fuel abundance will eventually drop to the point where prices rise.

Free markets will solve our emissions problem, I'm not sure why you are worried about enforcement or the type of governments when it comes to this.


Gdp is a imaginary number madeup by economists using mg outdated pre computer methods. Gdp will break down under climate change. Heat causes discomfort, toxins cause mental illness. Your great America capitalist machine cant even stop mentally corrupted children from shooting their schoolmates. Wake up.

Egyptians lasted for 5000 years before christ was born, their civilization had expired completely during the rise of rome.

our modern society requires (depends) on specialization. It is not good at adaptation.

Our brains principally stopped evolving 50000 years ago. We're still learning how to use them and enhance/repair our bodies.

Gdp is 100 years old. We're not using gdp for anything in a ClimateChange multiple species foodchain collapse. Capitalism is 150 years old.

We probably aren't even using money in 100 years. A quantum supremacy machine has broken bitcoin satoshi blocks. Elons neurAlink connected by starlink allows us to communicate telepathically. If his hypermind doesn't build it by that time then mine will. Cheers.


Dear friends,

Ahem.. Humans have only had rationale thought for the last 50000 years. We are classified as Greater apes.

Destabilized governments run by extremists and nuclear weapons. Trumps usa deny Climate change. Fuch koch.

It was a good run. Unchecked climate change toxins from unchecked reactors exploding, blabla caused by heAT triggering rising water tables.. Godzilla.

Its a Multi species collapse. Nothing humans have ever experienced. Nothing mammals have ever experienced. Stfu and join r/extinctionrebellion


Civilizational collapse has more often been sudden than gradual. Previous collapses have been local or regional. The world is much more interdependent today.


Such ridiculousness in posts like these. You want to stop climate change? That effort needs to include China and India, which between the two, are good for much of climate changing exhausts. You want truly renewable energy, with high yields and limited need for resources, go nuclear. Oh that's right, our climate zealots, who would have you punished for using your internal combustion engine auto, are afraid of nuclear, so that's off the table. Is climate change real? Yes. But stop with the sensational Green New Deals and the banning of air travel and such. Start with China and India.


You are from US, right?


It's not like climate change is or should be our only concern. Not doing anything against any of humanity's problems could be considered a harmful waste of time and talent maybe.


I agree 100% with you on this. I think the idea that talented people have a moral obligation to spend their time trying to solve humanity's problems or advance our consciousness and curiosity should be much more widespread. Look at where all the ivy league grads are going. It's kind of sad to see.


> The most pressing problem for humanity is global climate disruption.

Our climate and ecology are certainly at risk, but I think the biggest threat in the world right now is the rapid rise of fascist China. They're challenging the notion that free speech and democracy are required for capitalism and economic gain.

China has grown so emboldened under President Xi that they're no longer content to just alter or buy out our media companies. They're flat out dictating marching orders to Western organizations and asking for employees that oppose their mandates to be fired. They're kidnapping foreign nationals and holding them hostage on trumped up charges. They've grown beyond stealing our ideas - now they're trying to supplant them.

That doesn't even begin to capture the things they're doing within their own borders. Surveillance state, social credit, travel limitations, Uyghur detention camps, supposed organ harvesting, Hong Kong / Tibet / Taiwan, ... In China it's actually 1984, and they're teaching the world that it works. If they win this battle, I worry we might wind up facing similar prospects in our future.

> Without massive progress in the next decade, civilization will probably collapse by 2035.

That's a little bit overblown. Want to make a bet on longbets.org? I'll happily donate to a green cause.


Everything you fear about the rise of fascist China was far worse under the USSR in the latter 20th Century, and in fact far worse in China during that time too.

I’m not intending to downplay the impact on minorities within China, or their growing global influence. It’s just that what China is doing is fundamentally the same category of human and national behavior we have seen for 100 years. Relatively speaking, it is less destructive than what came before. We must address it but the tools to do so are available and obvious.

It pales before the threat of climate change because that is a new category of threat to global society.

Why? Because water, food, and real property are fundamental to the health and economies of all nations, and climate change will create massive unfunded changes to those. It’s one thing to have an aggressive nation on the world stage a la China. It’s quite another if hundreds of millions of people need to migrate and have no money to do so. The latter is well within the realm of possibility given what we know about climate change.


What is the point of the human race surviving if it turns into some 1984-like dystopia with cameras in my house making sure I pledge allegiance to Emperor Xi's portrait every morning or my social credit score plummets?

Give me the climate (or nuclear) apocalypse, instead, please.


Humanity never had a point. It just is. Humans will survive everything imaginable, in much reduced numbers.

There were once 100M people in the Amazon basin, wiped out by plagues brought by Europeans 5 centuries ago. A few survived. The trees growing in unchecked in the depopulated Americas reduced CO2 enough to cause a mini ice age.

That won't be enough to bring down temperatures in the next collapse because the CFCs and HFCs won't go away. But at least the oceans will get less acid.


>> Without massive progress in the next decade, civilization will probably collapse by 2035.

> That's a little bit overblown. Want to make a bet on longbets.org? I'll happily donate to a green cause.

"If civilization collapse by 2035, I vow to donate 3 flints and 10 sticks to a green cause."


> If civilization collapse by 2035, I vow to donate 3 flints and 10 sticks to a green cause.

Exactly.


> Our climate and ecology are certainly at risk, but I think the biggest threat in the world right now is the rapid rise of fascist China. They're challenging the notion that free speech and democracy are required for capitalism and economic gain.

That is exactly my main concern in the modern age also. Other countries are already interested in China's technology: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-23/sixth-world-internet-...

'Countries looking to crackdown on dissent and the spread of information — like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Thailand, Laos, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — have already signed up to China's "digital silk road".'


A long time ago I had a chat with hacker about IP over short wave radio with PGP encryption... his hypotheses was one could do encrypted long range communication via IP that could never be stopped and would be tough to decrypt. Does such a system exist today?


You probably could do that, but then hiding the equipment required is a major challenge and in places like China will come with stiff penalties.


> They're challenging the notion that free speech and democracy are required for capitalism and economic gain.

Well this notion is simply not true, these two things are tangentially related at best.

You sound like ‘because they demonstrated against my beliefs, they need to be shut down’. Not for this reason, there are plenty of other reason to pick from.


> Without massive progress in the next decade, civilization will probably collapse by 2035.

This is a joke not backed by any scientific consensus or evidence. Maybe some more instability in some countries, but nothing close to the collapse of civilization.


When I see charts showing the temperature raising at exponential rate like this one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record#/med...

I find it very hard to deny that something bad is going to happen eventually. Because whatever is the phenomenon that is pushing the temperatures up, I see no reason for it to stop.

So massive disruption in a near future is a reasonable hypothesis, rather than a joke.


The most pressing problem for humanity is poverty. But I agree that working on natural energy is crucial to solve it.

We need to provide energy to the network of machines that will produce the basic supplies to cover humanity's fundamental needs.


I agree completely. If we can make energy ~10x cheaper, I think we can eliminate poverty globally up to a pop of around 50 billion or more.


HFCs are already being phased out in favor of HFOs (though you could certainly argue that this should be happening more quickly), is there a strong reason to go for ammonia based systems over HFO?


Thank you, the atmospheric half-life of HFOs is short enough to make it a viable alternative to ammonia as a refrigerant. However, the existing stocks of HFCs, in installed systems, is enough to match, if vented, the heating from all the CO2 currently in the atmosphere.


At least we will not have to worry about Y2038 then..


>Here's some ideas you might find interesting,

To expand on your key ideas: it looks pretty comprehensive but if you're interested in making the world a better place as well, have a look at 80,000 hours [1]. They've been thinking about this question for at least 8 years and it's quite extensive. They have a simple quiz that might also be an interesting starting point [2].

[1] https://80000hours.org/key-ideas/

[2] https://80000hours.org/career-quiz/#/


Hey luc4sdreyer, thanks for the link! I'm about to graduate college soon and I find the 80000hours website extremely helpful. Randomly encountering this site is one of the best thing that happened this week, thank you very much!


> That all being said, if you are ambitious and talented without an all-consuming passion for software, I highly recommend you find something you can work in hardware. Since the '70s or so most industries have been basically frozen, besides computer hardware/software. Yet in the meantime materials science and engineering design has advanced considerably, both of which form the basis for innovation in new technologies. This is why SpaceX was able to build components for 10-100x cheaper than the leading suppliers in the early 2000s.

I honestly feel like reading this is a moment that I will l recall in about 8 years and think: "Damn, I wish I listend to that comment about hardware from johnmorrison".


How do we act on it, instead? (not being a dick)


General answer:

Become a specialist, or drive funding/regulatory pushes towards these new hardware technologies. Figure out what you see as the barriers to their commercialization, then figure out what component of that problem you'd love to work on, and become an expert in that.

My biased answer:

If you're in the position to spend a lot of time learning and experimenting with new stuff (e.g. a highschool or uni student), I'd recommend becoming an expert somewhere along the liquid fueled fission reactor stack. Chem eng, nuclear eng, rare earth extraction, uranium extraction, working with molten salts, working with liquid metals, anything like that.

If all goes well, I'll be needing people in just about every specialization there.


Being a specialist isn't enough. You along - no matter how good you are - are not enough. Either you need to control enough money that you can hire many specialist (Elon Musk with SpaceX), or you need to convince someone with money that is the right path. The skills for each of these are people skills not technical. Either way you will spend all your time in management activities so technical skills are not worth learning (beyond enough to understand what is feasible).

If you want to focus on technical skills, then you need to find a specialty that someone with good management skills will think important so that you can work with many other experts to develop things.


Companies that change the physical world require a lot higher specialist:founder ratio. There is enough capital and ambitious managerial types around, what we really have a shortage of is specialists in new technical areas.


How does a former software engineer get into nuclear tech? What specific skills and positions would be required?


Well, there are engineers needed to develop new CAD / sim software to better model liquid nuclear fuels. That basically would require you to have a very good understanding of software engineering + fluid mechanics, nuclear physics, thermodynamics and chemistry


Thank you. I'm part-time studying applied maths to be able to work on something like that one day.


Great! Feel free to update me in the future :)


I love how you say you're working on fission because it's at <1% of its potential. That's a really wise perspective.

> If all goes well, I'll be needing people in just about every specialization there.

How far along are you in the Oak Ridge guys' elaborately detailed Molten Salt Reactor development program plan from 1974 [1], as far as it's relevant? If parts of it are irrelevant, how significant are the things you have to do that they didn't?

[1] https://www.osti.gov/biblio/4227904


There are some things that have become irrelevant for now, particularly the need for a stellite alloy. Most of the things we are doing differently from ORNL in our division for thermal MSRs is based on the progress in materials and CAD since the winding down of the ORNL MSRs.

There are a lot of promising mostly mix-able design choices in MSRs that have become apparent in the last few decades, so we are never fully committed to a particular set.


As someone using ML in production at scale, it's not the sophistication of the models themselves, but all the "boring" operational stuff around them.

- Keeping them fed with clean, high quality, low latency feature data.

- Understanding the impact of an ML intervention on the overall system or business process, in aggregate and for all the relevant subpopulations.

- Understanding why scores may be drifting. These are very challenging alerts to investigate.

- Resource efficiency at very high QPS or in mobile contexts.


+ Running constant live experiments on actual traffic to make sure it continues to do what you think it does.


>- Security / Privacy (eg Telegram)

But Telegram offers just as much security and privacy as Slack.


1. They are vey different. Those who arent aware of the large differences shouldn't comment as if they are they are subject experts. Telegram might be full of holes but it is a very different thing to Slack. (I use both for different things.)

2. I have my own issues with Telegram (the refusal to introduce sustainable funding, pushing of crypto currencies, possibly also marketing it as more than it is) but except that there's a lot to like about it and I think it is a decent starting point if someone with strong cryptographic skills wants to start with a decent client and go ahead to provide something better (either introduce e2e-encryption or improve, document and provide some way to verify the current solution.)


[flagged]


This is getting tiresome and I don't think I'll move ryanlol, but for everyone else:

One big difference between slack and Telegram is that Slack can and will give my data to the administrator at work if they ask for it.

ryanlol seems to be thinking only about the last hop from their data center to the device. In practice security is about a whole lot more than just checking of the coolest boxes: WhatsApp for example has had e2e encryption for a while now all while uploading every last message of every conversation to datacenters that are easily accessible for anyone with an American subpoena.

That is totally OK, I'm posting this from my old account and I don't have anything to hide from American authorities but hardly compatible with what certain people here think that just because something is e2e encrypted then it safe and good.

So why is Telegram bulletproof. That was a trick question : it isn't. But we should stick to the facts instead of trying to tear down a strawman.

Re the rest of ryanlols post: as I've mentioned before most people here don't understand Russian, yet ryanlol keep posting old Russian posts. I don't know why.


>The big difference between slack and Telegram is that Slack can easily give my data to the administrator at work if they ask for it.

Sure, that's perfectly fair. With Slack you have to trust Slack and the admins of your workspace (which could very well be you!), with Telegram you have to trust Telegram but don't get workspaces.

>Re the rest of your post: as I've mentioned begore most people here don't understand Russian, yet you keep posting old Russian posts.

It's hardly unreasonable to assume that people in 2019 have access to translation software, I also think it'd be presumptuous to directly link to a machine translated version.


> With Slack you have to trust Slack and the admins of your workspace (which could very well be you!), with Telegram you have to trust Telegram but don't get workspaces.

Small modification:

With Slack you have to trust the admins (which is most often not you) as well as Slack.

With Telegram you have to trust Telegram.

I trust none of them much but there's still a difference. Also as far as I am aware Slack has never ever pointed out if they encrypt their data at rest which leads me to guess that they don't do it.

But hey, we almost agreed here.


E2E encryption is kind of a fucky thing, some suggest it is fundamentally impossible for central web services and even mobile / desktop apps. Basically, if there is a third party involved in the code besides Alice and Bob, the two can never guarantee E2E encryption.

Web part is simple, as there are countless ways you can get malicious code delivered from what you think is the correct, safe, web server.

Same concept applies to app store / desktop program updates, but with a slightly slower and more difficult attack prospect.

Anyways, Telegram does seem to have the best encryption of any major service, and it's what we use at my company for almost all internal communications.


>E2E encryption is kind of a fucky thing, some suggest it is fundamentally impossible for central web services and even mobile / desktop apps

"some suggest" How about you actually name some competent people who suggest this?

>Basically, if there is a third party involved in the code besides Alice and Bob, the two can never guarantee E2E encryption.

Oh, this is a downright insane, dishonest argument. Perfection is impossible, so we shouldn't even try!

>Anyways, Telegram does seem to have the best encryption of any major service, and it's what we use at my company for almost all internal communications.

Why do you think this? This is such a fundamentally ridiculous claim, I find it absolutely fascinating that someone might arrive at this conclusion.


> How about you actually name some competent people who suggest this?

As I don't remember the name of everybody I read about, it would take significant effort to go find the source.

It's much simpler to prove the concept logically:

Any time you're communicating on a service provided, programmed, and updated by at least one third party, it is fundamentally impossible to guarantee E2EE without being omniscient of what they're doing.

This is simply because the unen/decrypted data is in the software at some point in time, and the third party controls the software.

> Oh, this is a downright insane, dishonest argument. Perfection is impossible, so we shouldn't even try!

I did not say or imply this in any way, and no it is neither an insane nor dishonest argument, it's just a consequence of allowing a third party to control your data.


An upvote for that just to prove that we can agree as long as we stick to the facts however harsh they are.


Two words: Signal Protocol


It's an american development by a company that refuses to release actually open software. Perhaps it's good in theory! As far as I am aware there is no open implementation of it and it is also inside a problematic regime and therefore just as suspect.


Signal clients are released aa open source as far as I am aware and mathematics doesn't care about what regime it is developed under.

You guys will normally find me defending Telegram here but the more important point is that we should stick to the facts even if they go in favor of "the other side".


I have not to date found anything that allows me to build a client myself and subsequently actually use it. Never mind the server, which is about as opaque as they come.

This isn't about Telegram advocacy, it's about how I keep reading "Signal is so good!" even though the devs have a very bad attitude to anyone asking about reproducible builds. When they are that hostile they do not earn trust, so it is mystifying to me that people seem to love them so much.


The clients are available under GPLv3.


Yeah, the Kremlin backed startup that was already caught shipping blatant backdoors is so much better https://habr.com/en/post/206900/


1. The man behind Telegram cannot even safely visit Russia after people with friends in high places stole his previous startup there or so the story goes.

2. As have been pointed out before, while this is really bad if true, but you are pointing to something that happened extremely early in the development of Telegram and later fixed (and as I've mentioned before you keep throwing a link to an old Russian post in a forun where most people have never read a word Russian. I'll add this time that it is almost as you don't want anyone to read it.)


>1. The man behind Telegram cannot even safely visit Russia after people with friends in high places stole his previous startup there or so the story goes.

Yeah, exactly. That's how the official story goes. However in reality he seems to often visit the country he is supposed to be in exile from https://tjournal.ru/tech/52954-durov-back-in-ussr https://lenta.ru/news/2017/03/20/durov/

It's also very well documented that Telegram was developed in offices shared with the same startup that was supposedly stolen from him, https://theoutline.com/post/2348/what-isn-t-telegram-saying-... https://twitter.com/bershidsky/status/910169626989953024 https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/910186197598838784

Unfortunately the western press doesn't really care about Telegram or the Durovs so we don't really have heaps of high quality journalism to count on.

>but you are pointing to something that happened extremely early in the development of Telegram and later fixed

I'm not convinced that this is something that can be fixed. Sure, they removed the backdoor they added but does that really fix the organization?

I think it's utterly irrelevant that this backdoor was added and removed a while ago, the Telegram team hasn't significantly changed since then.

>I've mentioned before you keep throwing a link to an old Russian post in a forun where most people have never read a word Russian

I don't read Russian either, but I have no problem reading this post with google translate (or yandex translate if you'd like) and I assume that you too have access to this amazing technology.


I'm gonna go in a different direction: broadly, solutions that deal with the problems of an aging population:

1. Technology that helps doctors/practices service more elderly patients

2. Wellbeing technology for seniors (Headspace/Calm should totally push towards this area)

3. Personnel management for homecare nursing

List could go on and on. None of this is especially "trendy" but there's clear demographic reasons to build startups in this area and there's going to be a natural onramp of capital & solutions for how to care for a radically older population are going be sorely needed.


I worked in these spaces for the past few years.

Money is the biggest challenge. Elderly who can afford to pay for their care have plenty of options available for all of this. Many elderly (on Medicare or fixed income) simply don't have any money.

> 1. Technology that helps doctors/practices service more elderly patients

Telemedicine and home care services, like Honor, are addressing this. Telemedicine will improve as more technically adept people age.

> 2. Wellbeing technology for seniors (Headspace/Calm should totally push towards this area)

This is purely a monetary issue. The moment Medicare covers these services, they will be used extensively.

> 3. Personnel management for homecare nursing

This one is part money and part skill. There simply isn't enough money to pay people with homecare skills. The price most people are willing to pay typically falls in the range of a Home Health Aid. There are some great ones, but there are also tons that lack skills, ethics, and compassion for the role.

I don't blame them either. Why would you do home health when you can get similar pay working at a factory, warehouse, or, even, fast food.


> I don't blame them either. Why would you do home health when you can get similar pay working at a factory, warehouse, or, even, fast food.

My mother was a nurse for years in the aged care sector. The pay for a qualified nurse is actually pretty good (I would still argue it should be higher for the work, but it was well above average).

Homecare aids (or AIN/care assistants as they were called here) are paid horribly and treated as expendable (even when the roles are difficult to fill since no one wants to wipe asses and give 89 year old dementia patients bed baths for $18.6 AUD per hour).

Most of the care assistants I met were checked out and only there because they had no other option. The combination of minimum wage and high turnover also means you end up with some really horrible people in these roles. I remember hearing multiple stories about care assistants stealing from homes and mistreating patients. If you paid a little better and treated the staff with respect, you wouldn't need to hire the dregs of society to look after the most vulnerable in society.


We are at a turning point in society right now because of all the things you address. In the last few decades have seen a rapid shift in the willingness of family members to look after their elderly.

There's a few reasons for this, the biggest I think is the ageing population. When your parents need care at 85 years old, and you are 60 looking at retiring soon (or perhaps can't retire and need to work for another 7 years), most people decide they'd rather enjoy the last few years of their "active" life before perhaps even needing care themselves, rather than be "burdened" with caring for parents, relatives, etc. And so it falls either on the state, or on the generational wealth of the elderly to foot the bill and pay for care. Relatives often shoot themselves in the foot though. Their inheritance is being spent on paying somebody to wipe their mum's backside, because they didn't want to look after them themselves. (Unless their parents are on medicare or whatever, in which case there's even less reason for them to care).

The only part is just societies disdain and repulsion of sickness, bodily fluids, etc. Centuries ago, if you could live comfortably (not amazingly, but not be in the street), just by showering a few old people and cleaning up poo, you'd have people lining up round the block to do it. Now, the willingness to work (and therefore the salary curve) has inverted, and you need to pay people increasing amounts of money to do what was once considered menial or easy work.


> Relatives often shoot themselves in the foot though ... because they didn't want to look after them themselves.

Or because it is too difficult to do so. People are having children later in life and moving to different cities. Housing affordability in many places makes it difficult to provide for a family on one income. If your parents need care as young as 80 and you are 50 with young teenaged children, your capacity to also provide daily living assistance to up to four people who live 100 miles away in opposite directions is rather limited.

> Centuries ago, if you could live comfortably ... you need to pay people increasing amounts of money to do what was once considered menial or easy work

Jobs like this in domestic service or healthcare often came with accommodation and sometimes board.

Even if that's in a dormitory, it would still often be better accommodation than you would be able to afford on the market. The level of comfort relative to others of your class would be enormous.

Nowadays, those affordability problems that everyone is experiencing are compounded for people in roles that would previously have been live-in positions.

Another issue is that the job of a healthcare assistant is not only poorly paid, but is also not part of a career path. Previously, much of this work would have been done by (often trainee or junior) nurses, with all the prestige and potential that that career brings with it.


There are refuges from poor countries that would love to live in my parent's basement and take care of them. They would think it is great - a kitchen of their own (not all houses have this, it happens my parent's house does), bathroom with a tub, a private bedroom, plus a living room that is larger than the mud hut they lived in back home. Of course they will discover in winter that they won't be going outside so that much space is small, but there is also the rest of the house that is semi-available. Of course everybody has a different house and so situations are different. However if you are reading this odds are you have (or could afford if you wanted) a house large enough to have spare space for servants.

Legally though you can't do it. You can't import such people easily. Even if you could, you have to pay them a wage that is affordable despite also providing room and board. I'm not sure this is a bad thing overall, but even though for the world's poorest just room and board, and $1/day would be a lifestyle improvement.


This is a good thing and is a mark of progress, it seems you're arguing we should lower wages and living/working standards so that people are willing to do these jobs. This is close to a backward and selfish line of thinking that 'people should be willing to do things for me for less money'.

Why should essential jobs like caring for people be paid so little compated to jobs that provide little value to society like banking and PR? It's essentially the 'Bullshit jobs' argument made by David Graeber


"Now, the willingness to work (and therefore the salary curve) has inverted..."

And surely this is a sign of people's laziness, rather than increasing costs of living relative to wages... Rent, student debt, randomly allocated medical debt, ageing parents with caretakers to pay... These things add up. Minimum wage work just moves you backwards; probably better to take a risk on further schooling to get something that pays realistically.


"Centuries ago, if you could live comfortably (not amazingly, but not be in the street), just by showering a few old people and cleaning up poo, you'd have people lining up round the block to do it."

I'm not sure you'd need to go back centuries. There were times in the 1900's that was the case. And in some countries, other that the USA, it still is.


> Telemedicine will improve as more technically adept people age.

There's a little bit of user blaming in that statement (not being critical, just thinking out loud). Dealing with the elderly and folks who are less familiar with tech is an interesting design space.

Does anyone know design patterns that specifically seek to improve the experience for non-tech savy elderly?


I think user blame is a bit of an under simplification.

In this case, the issue stems beyond just the product. In many cases, these elderly households don't even have internet access as it's simply not something that's needed for their daily life.

No matter how good a telemedicine product is, it's nearly impossible to deliver without the underlying infrastructure (and desire for that infrastructure) in place.

For the elderly with internet connection, telemedicine is already a pretty simple user experience.


This is a good article on design patterns and considerations when designing for older users: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/02/designing-digital-t...


Yes. You can look at US Cellular, of all companies, as one on the "bleeding edge" of part of this trend.

You have people aging into a technological world built by kids with hands and fingers that work well, eyes that work well, and little cognitive decline.

This industry is garbage for the disabled and old. Just garbage. Trying running a WCAG compliance check on any arbitrary piece of software. For most of you, that means looking up WCAG. For 99%+ of you, you will have trouble even finding tools for the products you work on.

Someone will make a lot of money with a much simpler cell phone with a lot of white glove handling of security and OS updates, and just a curated set of apps. Apps designed for these populations and their unique problems (but sensitive to their age related disabilities) will be big, too.

edit: for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14748929 "Iris recognition as a biometric method after cataract surgery." and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19604439 "The use of computer touch-screen technology for the collection of patient-reported outcome data in rheumatoid arthritis: comparison with standardized paper questionnaires"


The problem with some of this is product-market-timing fit.

There are huge problems to solve that add value. But some of these businesses are very old school.

You can't force someone to digitise if they don't want to.

There are a lot of barriers to entry, and there can be lengthy sales cycles.

Someone will definitely get there and be hugely succesful, I'm just not sure if the time is now or if we'll need to wait years.


A tool for children to remotely manage parents' phones, tablets, routers and (may be) computers would be nice to have. My parents are not very tech savvy and when something goes wrong getting someone to fix it takes forever. If I had remote access I'd do it in just a few minutes.


My solution to this is loading them up with iOS and macOS devices, enabling iCloud backup, and having them live near an Apple store for hardware issues.

They can click on all the shady links they want, but I haven’t had to field tech support in a long time.


I've had pretty good experiences with handing them Linux machines (usually openSUSE + Xfce). There's an initial adjustment period as they figure out "okay the orange fox replaces the blue e", but quite a few people I know who made that switch are now at least reasonably productive. Chromebooks are another option here that I've seen be pretty successful, and they have the advantage of being absurdly cheap.

The absolute biggest bang for the buck: ad-blockers. Fewer sketchy links to click on, and absolutely nothing to relearn.


Seniors minds are less flexible to change so a consistently exact OS with exact functionality is best even it looks out of date to us. I had to hire someone to exactly recreate my mom's desktop and and find and install her 15 yo apps. This kept her going with searches and email for another five years when otherwise she would just have given up. Also in-home tech people who are very, very patient. I'd happily pay $100/hour not to do that.


This is tough for us too - we were even thinking of buying two iPads connected to their Cloud account, just so whenever they locked themselves out, we could mail them the one we have while they mail us the broken one.

The biggest problem for iPads is every time there's a software update, it asks you to set a keypad password. They set one, thinking they are guessing one they've already set, they don't remember it, and they get locked out every time.


> The biggest problem for iPads is every time there's a software update, it asks you to set a keypad password.

I don't think that's true. What iOS version did they experience this on?


Same. I got mine a used iphone4 mainly for whatsapp a few years ago and it was hard doing phone support for an 80+ year old. Harder when she can't describe the ux, interfaces aren't standard (back vs cancel vs < vs x), and in modern design few things stand out as tappable/clickable. Remote access would've been fantastic.


LogMeIn, Teamviewer, VNC..?


There are a number of companies already starting on this. One in particular that comes to mind is Reliq Tech, which does remote monitoring for patients. Currently they have pilots with native reserves, where doctors are hundreds of kilometres away from their patients.


Unpopular opinion: Domain driven stack.

We have been living in the golden era of software industry, thanks to Moore's law. We were able to afford RISC (= general purpose CPU arch), general purpose operating systems, general purpose languages, general purpose databases etc all because the hardware was going to evolve and get faster anyway.

Now with Moore's law showing signs of death, the future for better computing would be domain driven stack. A quick thought experiment will be that: cloud applications will be written with cloud-friendly languages, using cloud friendly databases, on cloud-ready operating systems and processors that are architected for heavy cloud workloads. Much like how gaming was relying on custom stack for performance (GPUs, play station, X-box, etc)

The advent of TPUs by Google is a symptom of this pattern too. Of course, personal computers with general-purpose-everything will keep existing, but the business industry will start shifting towards domain driven stack slowly and steadily for obvious reasons.


Not sure this adds up for me. So long as network latency and throughput remain asymmetrically limited with respect to machine and CPU cache speed, the implementation detail of data locality will bleed into anything you write. At that point, what makes a language, database, OS anymore "cloud-friendly" than what we have today? I can already get 90% of the way there with Kubernetes, Aurora and any language of choice.


Unpopular answer: Meh.

I see your point, but we are already using specialized algorithms to solve problems on generic hardware (CPU). You can move to different generic hardware (GPU/OpenCL/...) which might be better suited (depending on the problem), or use/rent more generic hardware on demand (cloud computing).

What you're implying is already happening, using/programming "generic" FPGAs to act as specialized accelerators seems to be slowly trending (e.g. Xilinx UltraScale); and if that's working well, "larger" process nodes seem to be getting cheaper these days (e.g. >= 45nm ASICs). But as far as I am aware the tooling and ecosystem for all this is still pretty bad; especially compared to how C/C++ compilers came a long way, JS's ease of accessibility or python's trove of libraries. (Disclaimer: I am not working in that field, so I might be outdated).

So to refine you suggestion: Improving the eco system around hardware synthetization could be a thing?

However, that doesn't seem to be what user richtapestry was thinking of(?).


I just wanted to clarify your example. When you say cloud applications, I assume you mean applications written to run a cloud, as opposed to running IN a cloud?

Because if it's the latter, that doesn't sound like a domain driven stack to me.


Not sure what more recent xboxes are like, but the original xbox was a cut down windows 2000 running on Intel and Nvidia. It was really close to commodity hardware and software.


In terms of hardware, they're running on AMD x86 CPUs. AFAIK there isn't anything special about them, other than having a wider memory bus (they use GDDR5 as opposed to DDR4).


But it had a really thin OS layer, and everybody had virtually exactly the same box, so you could micro-optimize to the exact architecture. IMO it does fit the concept of "domain specific stack", it's just that homogeneity is one of the important properties of the stack instead of unbridled performance.


the current Xbox is running a Windows 10 (one kernel design) while the PS4 run a patched up FreeBSD.

Only Nintendo bothers with writing custom kernels, and historically Sony with the PS2 having exotic "Cell" processor units.


You mean PS3? It had the CBE.


The Switch also runs on FreeBSD, not custom.


It is still true that most cloud-provider datacenters house racks of commodity hardware? If so, I could definitely imagine a shift to hardware that was designed to support running virtualized environments while keeping power and cooling costs down.

I'm not sure what that would look like. Mainframe-esque, perhaps?


Re: "cloud applications will be written with cloud-friendly languages"

Carefull, you invest your code base on a "cloud-friendly" language and clouds then could fall out of style. That goes for other components as well.


I feel like the language choice isn't going to be what bites people here, the danger is more architecting to a specific platform, relying on its SDKs and optimizing to a provider's specific resource idiosyncrasies.


That is true, but somebody did mention a "cloud friendly language". Most of the languages in common use were designed pre-cloud. This new thing, whatever it is, could thus have cloud dependencies that current languages don't.


So DSLs and ASPs?


Maybe this is not the answer you're looking for: but I think CRISPR-Cas9 seems like the most exciting technology probably in all of science. It's a system that can be used to literally change the DNA of living creatures, and on top of that it's highly accessible. Think of the hacker culture today and now imagine the same rate of change for biological engineering.

We'll have massive libraries of re-usable "components" for interesting DNA-sequences. People will slowly slice together more complicated features, and freely trade organic components with each other via post. At some point in the future electronics will catch up to bioengineering, leading to better ways to make changes to DNA. We'll eventually be able to change DNA in something like a "biology IDE" and have usable components printed out the other end. After that point, our world probably won't look anything like it does today.

It won't be long before someone decides to give themselves glowing skin or super strong muscles (and people have already tried the latter!) I for one welcome our super-human overlords.


> I think CRISPR-Cas9 seems like the most exciting technology probably in all of science.

I tend to agree. However, having spoken at length about this with a friend doing her PhD, there are a few major problems between now and then.

- Scope: if you thought Big Data (relating to human behavior) was a massive endeavor (still very much not solved, not by a long shot), try genetics. We're talking orders of magnitude Bigger Data. We have the PoC but finding practical solutions remains a hard problem as we speak (needle in a haystack).

- Money: Bio-sectors don't pay software engineers enough to compete with the tech sector (almost no one does), and bio-experts are generally not good enough at it. So there's a huge lack in terms of dual [SE skills + domain knowledge] experts for this category of problems. Research funding is massive in big (private) pharma and comparably non-existent in basic research — and for now, CRISPR-Cas9 is mostly the latter.

The first problem (resources) will probably solve itself as time goes by (assuming some Moore's Law continuation however it's done), however the second problem (domain / education politics? Idk how to call it) could virtually be forever — academia and big pharma aren't exactly known for being fast movers or innovators, let alone disruptors. Especially when CRISPR-Cas9 is a direct threat to well-established revenues in the trillions — curing whatever is much less profitable than selling drugs to ease symptoms over a lifetime.

If this sounds like somptuous irony, it's probably because it is.


> We have the PoC but finding practical solutions remains a hard problem as we speak (needle in a haystack).

One of my former lab mates was doing his thesis on some fluorescent cancers screening stuff, somewhat similar. In his presentations, he'd use a slide explaining the order of magnitude issues in finding cancer cells this way. To illustrate this he'd explain it wasn't like finding a needle i a haystack, but more like trying to find a 20-gauge needle in a Walmart filled with 19-gauge needles.

>Bio-sectors don't pay software engineers enough to compete with the tech sector (almost no one does), and bio-experts are generally not good enough at it.

I've a fair amount of programming (enough to be really dangerous), so other students would come to me with help every once in a while. One of my friends getting his PhD in neuroscience traded a case of beer for an afternoon in helping him. He was doing some vision research with gerbil and was trying to time neuron spikes with some images on a screen. By the 32nd nested 'if statement', I requested another case of beer.

Generally, research-grade programming and software is, at best, spaghetti. At worst, you get answers that you think are right, but are wildly off. You can really lie to yourself, and the rest of the world, when you publish those errors as facts. Most grad students are learning programming by the seat of their threadbare pants, and it shows.


I get the heebie jeebies when I hear computer technologists getting excited about gene editing.

Computing and biology are opposite one another as disciplines. Computing has been built up by people from invented principles; but in biology we are working our way down from observations to try to infer the principles underlying them.

It’s easy to look at our global computing infrastructure and think we are good at understanding complexity. But we built that; we should understand it. Again: not true for biology. There’s no guarantee that we will ever fully understand the full scope of how life works.

And computing still has problems! Side effects are rampant in software; we usually call those bugs or vulnerabilities and there are a lot of them.

And electronic computing has fewer ethical concerns. It’s generally not considered unethical to risk crashing a computer. Very different story if you are risking deforming foetuses


Genetics has its own share of bugs. I'd love to edit high cholesterol our of my genes. Yes we must be careful, but it isn't like doing nothing is risk free: doing nothing means me and my family have heart attacks and die young.


> Think of the hacker culture today and now imagine the same rate of change for biological engineering.

I can't wait for all the pre-alpha version creatures :-P


DIY Cas9 Crisper DNA Kit: http://www.the-odin.com/diy-crispr-kit/

Not affiliated with the company. Just amazed at how accessible that tech is becoming.


ML for healthcare. The whole industry is so far behind everything else, it is not even funny. Problem is, Just like Airbnb or Uber, the biggest road blocks are not technological, they are organizational and political. It is entirely possible, we might need some major privacy / security related leaps in ML to convince the medical industry to adopt it fully.

ML in movies and rendering. Deep Fakes is just an amateur's tech demo. In a few years, I expect to see render rights actually become a thing. Like, you don't act in the movie, but give a company rights to use a 3d render of you in it.

real time and full time holograms / AR. With remote work becoming a thing, I see a huge market for full 3d renders of the person presenting or even completely virtual AR work places where people check in to work. Maybe not for a decade or two, but whoever builds the flagship product will make a ton of money.


> ML for healthcare.

I'm kind of apprehensive about this advancement. There's many ways to mess this up, from intentional dataset poisoning (to encourage patients to get unnecessary procedure) to just terrible errors made with just a shift in data capture methodology. This paper has a lot of detail on how such systems can fail (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.05296.pdf).


People are already encouraged to get procedures or medications they don't need. A data set isn't going to change that.


Not to mention quarter of a million dead per year due to medical errors. If we could even just reduce the number of medical errors by 10 percent, that'd be HUGE. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading...

Unfortunately, it's a multi-trillion dollar industry with insanely entrenched and deep pocketed players, and the old boy network the likes of which us software people can't even imagine. And that's before you consider the regulatory framework and the cost of compliance with it.


Solving medical errors would be huge. The problem is that it's a long-tailed problem with no clear way to solve with software. Every error is different, and there are already lots of bureaucratic mitigations in place every step of the way. There are no algorithms capable of the general reasoning required to broadly spot all types of errors including de novo ones.

The only way to truly guarantee no medical errors is to replace every agent in a hospital with a machine.


I bet just even solving the errors in diagnostics and/or catching stuff before it's too far gone would be huge in itself. I'm not talking AGI here, just bog standard perceptual stuff: looking at xrays, MRIs, mining medical records for patterns, handing unstructured medical records better, low hanging stuff like that.


Automating literally any automatable healthcare process with software is virtually guaranteed to eliminate errors in that process, because it wouldn't be implemented in the first place if its accuracy wasn't superhuman. It's a lot of different bog standard stuff like you said. Medical imaging, yeah this should already have been done by now. Parsing medical records--you don't even need neural networks for that. But then it's no longer a Solving Medical Errors problem but instead a Automating Medical Job X problem. The general problem per se as I envision it would watch a stream of written actions performed in a hospital (maybe even surveillance footage) and determine if an error happened or is likely to happen; that's AGI.


> There's many ways to mess this up, from intentional dataset poisoning (to encourage patients to get unnecessary procedure)

Within the current system- you can just skip to encouraging patients to get unnecessary procedures. At worst, ML adds an extra step.

It's important to remember that innovation doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be better than the system it replaces.


Healthcare tech has been the "next big area" for the past 40 years. Maybe this time is different, but historically it never pans out. Healthcare's an extremely regulated, extremely change-averse area of the economy where entrenched insiders will always close ranks to protect their own.


> Healthcare tech has been the "next big area" for the past 40 years. Maybe this time is different, but historically it never pans out.

How do you figure that it never pans out? Healthcare providers use a lot more technology today than they did in 1979.

From medical devices to billing software to electronic health records, I think this is an area that will continue to grow.


the sales lifecycle in healthcare is a tough nut to crack, most healthcare orgs arent reviewing software every year, they are signing multi year contracts and allergic to change(for a number of systemic reasons). Plus the conglomeration of syndicates has made fewer clients to sell to, at least on the higher end). There are companies making fortunes in the space for sure, but I think many just sell to mckesson after reaching a decent size.

It is 100% a field that needs disrupting... someone will figure it out and become very wealthy.


I wouldn't be so sure. My millionaire uncle built his fortune on medical software, and I have a friend who works in the field with a degree just for it (medical technologies).


I’d love to learn more about your uncle’s story! Can you provide any additional details? What does the software do?


Healthcare is a huge monopoly. They won't add modern tech because they don't need to compete, even in the US where healthcare is/was supposedly free market. People in healthcare are extremely conformist from my experience and basically look down on the SV way of doing things. I think the only way they will advance is if something is 10x better than what they already have, which to their credit, nothing so far is. You have to come up with something better than, “Do what you were doing but holding an iPad”. It also has to be directly obviously profitable, so no disease prevention. A good general direction would be something that somehow lets a doctor see more patients. One of the big macro trends is there's going to be a huge shortage of doctors.


"healthcare tech never pans out" -> BRB while I check my heart rate and take an electrocardiogram reading on my watch... Looks like the [10000 steps] I've been averaging per day are improving my resting heart rate and I see my daily weight scale shows I've lost [5lbs]! :)

Yeah, that's kinda-surface-level stuff, but these kind of health metrics are already extremely commonplace and helping open the door to further tech<->healthcare integration.


This is already a thing. In the upcoming video game Death Stranding, Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn both play physical roles without having taken part in the motion-capture or voice acting. They gave the rights for their likenesses to be used without actually taking part.


There's an ocean of quality difference between a video game and a (non-CGI) movie.


There really isn't, any more. A few more polys in the models and a few more rays in the path tracing aren't a big difference. Check out what Blender can do with Eevee, which is more-or-less a realtime engine. Better physics simulations are still a big differentiator, but that doesn't matter for characters. The only reason rendered likenesses don't appear in films more (because they already do, look at Peter Cushing) is that they're still expensive and take a lot of manual work, and both of those factors are decreasing rapidly.


The CGI Peter Cushing is obviously CGI and non CGI Peter Cushing is obviously not. Its impressive but its not remotely close to being there yet. Is there a better example? You can probably make some CGI stills that fool people pretty well, but so far I haven't seen a convincing animated character.

Death Stranding is even more glaringly obvious. However to be fair to the devs they aren't under the impression that it looks like anything other than a videogame. A very pretty videogame, but still obvious CGI.


> CGI Peter Cushing is obviously CGI and non CGI Peter Cushing is obviously not.

It's interesting you say that, because I've found there are two camps of people on CGI Cushing: those who say the CGI is blindingly obvious and nowhere near realism, and those who didn't even notice. It is already good enough to fool some of the population.

I'm also not saying Death Stranding is photorealistic--unlike Tarkin it wouldn't fool anyone. I'm saying there's nowhere near an "ocean" of quality difference between the best video games and film CGI. Death Stranding isn't an example I'd use because it runs on PS4 and thus lacks the raytracing and high poly counts of state-of-the-art PC games.


RE: deep fakes, in a few years a movie director will be able to say to his editor: "increase Tom Cruise's rage and facial contortions in this scene by 50%"


What you're talking with 'render rights' is a major plot point in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)


Also, the Michael Crichton movie Looker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looker


Ages ago Glyph (he of Twisted Python fame) said we would get to the point where we can e.g. use the Indiana Jones movies to build a computer model of Indiana Jones and make more movies...


> give a company rights to use a 3d render of you in it

There's reason why actors earn money and it's not due to perfect face or body.


Years ago I was shared an anecdote of researchers affiliated with Scripps Research were able to predict a cholera outbreak in subsaharan Africa from reports in another country using analytics.


DIY healthcare


Crypto.

And no, I don't mean applying blockchain to everything, or internet money that just goes "up and to the right".

I mean the new applications of distributed systems research and cryptographic primitives that allow for highly composable, highly trustworthy, permissionless, autonomous machines.

MakerDAO, Arweave, the whole field of open finance (aka "DeFi"), and so many others collectively are very likely to change the fundamental assumptions we make when using software.

Here's a great talk regarding trustlessness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0rZcpfF5dU


I think the people behind "trustlessness" should have chosen a better word. When people that are not familiar with crypto hear trustless, they can associate the solution with the common definition: "not worthy of trust; faithless; unreliable; false". I.e. the solution isn't reliable. I realize that the people behind it are trying to apply the world trustless to the problem they are solving, but that is definitely not clear from the quick soundbites people read.

source: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/trustless


Yeah I was thinking more "Provable".


Maybe 'trustification'? A novelish term for novel concepts around creating trust where it wouldn't otherwise be.


Some people are calling it web3.

https://web3.foundation/about/


A very fair point.


I suspect a lot of people have this on their mind but the whole money-grab brouhaha made it bad manners to mention in civilized society. Better for those who are nevertheless on the bandwagon I guess.

I do agree with you, though. I recently had to work with Uniswap and I am blown away by how simple yet convenient and powerful it is. Not possible pre-blockchain at all. I think the mistake that people are making is thinking that blockchain is trying to replace some current relationships, and unsuccessfully, yet with these Ethereum projects it seems like completely novel systems are emerging that were not possible before blockchain.


Up until an average person stops treating crypto as a magical get-rich-quick possibility, I would rather suggest to stay away from it. Currently, even if you come up with something truly remarkable and solving an actual problem, many people will still treat it like yet another ponzicoin.


You're absolutely correct, and that's what makes it a great area of study.


It reminds of the article that was posted yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21315942) that said the biggest disruptors are the technologies that start out looking like toys. An HN commentor mentioned (which I now can't find) that what differentiates actual toys from big technologies that start out looking like toys is the fact that the fad never passes despite looking like a toy. Crypto has seemed like a toy with no practical applications since it's inception but for some reason it's still around. I wonder if that points to eventual significant growth for the field.


If someone can figure out how to do crypto without burning through thousands of CPU-hours of compute, they would have a real winner on their hands. Of course, execution is also a key factor in success. There are lots of good ideas that were had by multiple people, but only one successfully executed.


It’s called Proof of Stake (as opposed to Proof of Work) and there are multiple implementations working already and Ethereum will migrate to PoS next year.

PoS is conceptually more complicated (block producing is assigned to nodes with staked currency and there are multiple validation techniques) but requires very little CPU power.


> If someone can figure out how to do crypto without burning through thousands of CPU-hours of compute...

I will freely admit that I'm only passingly familiar with many of the concepts of cryptocurrency, but - isn't that precisely the point? If coins are easy to mine, then they're valueless. I must be missing something...


There are other potential ways to make currency difficult to obtain without such significant energy usage.


> do crypto without burning through thousands of CPU-hours of compute

Imagine how video games could grow if only somebody invented how to make games that doesn't burn through thousands of GPU-hours of compute.


This is definitely an area that will get more and more interesting and profitable. It's extremely complicated and "centralized" right now to get things to work with each other in a secure and reliable way. You need to dive into the arcana of authentication mechanisms each with their oddities or complex and difficult to debug subsystems like IAM. An understandable and debuggable solution would be very popular and profitable.


You can think of it like Trust as a Service (Taas).


That's a very, VERY good start. I'm stealing it. ;-) Y'all should do the same when explaining what this crypto-thing is — and stay away from even mentioning 'coins', stay on "BlockChain" as it is the enabling tech (call it "distributed database" to make it even simpler and non-buzzy); whereas applying it to currency is but one application among many (and possibly not the killer-app that BC needs to emerge in the mainstream).


Happy to see Arweave mentioned here, their dev community is super strong and they're doing a lot right from what I see.


I see a huge trend coming in “DIY Medicine”. Doctors, insurers, and the FDA are way too expensive for mere gatekeeping, and technology is developing new treatments and dropping equipment costs an order of magnitude faster than they can respond. For example, I can buy all of the equipment necessary for a PRP injection for less than the cost of a single treatment, and the doctor that does it knows no more about how to do it than any nurse that took a weekend course. There are also many simple drugs that aren’t used because they either can’t be patented or because the cost is too low. Many of these treatments obviate the need for much more expensive and dangerous treatments with questionable outcomes, like surgery and high-priced drugs. Doctors know that the price of the most effective treatments may not sustain their profession. So if we’re not there already, it’s coming to the point where the medical industry does more harm than good, and gray market treatments will give far better outcomes for an order magnitude lower cost.


Funny that you mention PRP. Was about to get one, then decided to do more research. The evidence is not good. Just saw a surgeon today who says he doesn't get good results with it for sub-patellar tendon tears, but has seen promising results for arthritis.

I dunno there are a lot of medical conspiracy theories, but the average person doesn't know crap about how we know their bodies work. A couple of years of biophysics has taught me that biology is waaaaaaay more complicated than the nastiest distributed computer system you've ever heard of.

When I hear civilians trying to talk about health or bio, or why cancer is a hoax ... it's like being a car mechanic who knows a thing or two about cars and having someone come up to you to tell you they need their banana wipers replaced because the windshields don't roll properly when they put their foot on the cigarette lighter. Like ... I have no idea what you're even saying beyond some medieval animist notions of good stuff and bad stuff. /rant


"Doctors know that the price of the most effective treatments may not sustain their profession."

This is not really a fair assessment. The most cost effective treatments can be self administered. But if you are coming in to see me because of persistent knee pain, more often that not you have already tried tylenol and over the counter nsaids (ibuprofen, etc.), and your pain has been persistent. The next set of treatment options, aside from maybe some physical therapy, are more expensive, because they involve using drugs that are more expensive or treatment measures that are more expensive. With re: PRP, it is not covered by insurance, since the benefits of it over a placebo are still not entirely clear. Many doctors offer it however, and to insure accuracy of needle placement, they usually perform it under ultrasound guidance- not something most people would be able to do on their own, at least not yet. As more and more physicians offer it, and if it remains uncovered, market forces will drive the prices down (like Lasik), although I'm doubtful PRP is considered an effective treatment option in the future.

I don't disagree with the notion that healthcare remains quite expensive in general. I see telemedicine, for certain conditions, reducing costs and maybe Direct Primary Care - bundling care into one package instead of serving it piecemeal could be a good way to go forward.


Telemedicine is pretty cool. I was pretty amazed when I had a pretty nasty rash on my leg, went to my insurance site looking for a nearby doctor, and saw the "talk to a Doctor in 5 minutes option". Filled in some basic info and was talking to a Doctor who prescribed me the appropriate medication all within 30 minutes.

Seems likely it will just be a matter of time until little storefronts pop up in strip malls with various user friendly diagnostic equipment to give the remote Doctor more data to treat more conditions (maybe this already exists)?


I was including the price of the ultrasound imaging machine. And I’m not talking about Tylenol either, which is a harmful and oversubscribed drug anyway. Example: I’ve been given a choice: surgery that includes removal of hip cartilage, or nothing. But there are many natural growth factors that have shown excellent cartilage regeneration. PRP wouldn’t be among my first choices, but as an example, it’s better than nothing, better than surgery, and the FDA can’t make my own blood illegal. The two surgeries I did get elsewhere were terrible and didn’t really solve the problem. There are other cheap options for regenerative injections, and they are extremely common among elite and professional athletes. They are also used extensively by large animal vets, and it turns out that there’s nothing I need that a race horse doesn’t, but it’s legal for him and not for me. Diagnostics also, a huge area for free market expansion. The cost of an MRI is dropping below the cost of a copay. And most of all, it’s a question of value added by doctors, which is mostly informational, and as with all information commodities, rapidly dropping to zero. In my vision of the future, I decide what I want, and I pay for it. Simple.


Maybe see a better doctor. If you’ve self diagnosed and researched a treatment yourself, they should be understanding. However, without high evidence data or guidelines, you could sue them and they woruld have no leg to stand on, so I’m sure there’s a component of defensive medicine.


Robo-medicine! Every upgrade is a fleet upgrade.


I wish I could address everything that's wrong with this comment.

The biggest thing is you seem extremely willing to take risks without understanding the gravity of what you're doing. Sure, you CAN give yourself PRP injections and LIKELY will have little to no side effects. Healthcare providers need extreme confidence that (a) a procedure will be effective (b) the risks are appropriate.


I disagree. Some doctors will attempt new procedures with only a company promoting new tools.

I once saw a surgeon try out new combined cut & staple hardware designed for bowel surgery on a patient's liver, because he had been told it would work. It didn't, and there was a ridiculous amount of staples in the patient's abdomen afterward.

Doctors often become more risk prone the more power they have, and the hierarchy of human medical doctoring contributes to this.


sailor: captain! there's a hole in the ship, if we don't do something quick we'll sink!

captain: there's only one solution ... make the hole so big we can no longer call it a hole.

sailor: aye aye captain, i'll go get the explosives.


PRP was a pretty extreme example, but I used it to prove a point that no matter how crazy it seems to do PRP in an underground or gray-market venue, 1. A lot of people are already doing it, and 2. absent blood contamination risk, the risk, benefit, and cost trade-off is still massively better than the surgery it may prevent. It’s not even close. Even if it’s not proven to be effective by statistical scrutiny, neither are the vast majority of orthopedic surgeries. Seriously, look it up, and be mindful that it is the surgeon himself that determines success in most studies.


Much like the massive opportunity in "DIY Civil Engineering" - those engineers deciding how a bridge should be built don't know that with a couple of two by fours and some selective welding the gray market can give far better outcomes for an order magnitude lower cost


I'm having trouble telling whether this is satirical.


I figured 'selective welding' would give it away


I work in Pharma, we're not worried yet. We've done a few trials of nano-fabs, essentially 3D printed labs where you inject the raw materials and drugs pop out the end.

They kind of work, but its still a lot of work and would mean consumers getting hands on a bunch of controlled substances.

Being able to produce meth in a 'lab' that fits in your hand is not crazy... except you can clearly see how crazy that is.


Ignore the legal aspect of this - if the technology gets good enough and cheap enough people will make their own nano-fabs and damn the laws. People would LOVE to pirate pharmaceuticals. It's an industry just begging for disruption.


A way to synthesize arbitrary chemicals in a printer is worth trillions of dollars. It goes well beyond pharmaceuticals, but for a start, it would drive healthcare costs down to basically free.


I’m not talking about nano-fabs. From a pharma perspective, I’m talking about moleculars that are produced in GMP facilities and sold like any other USP, not for human use. This is admittedly dangerous because the formulations could have contaminants. However, even in FDA-approved pharma, you get things like NDMA being used as a solvent and ending up as millimolar fractions, and the drugs don’t even get pulled for months after discovery by some random independent lab. There are thousands of moleculars that pharma will never push through the FDA because it’s a natural human protein fragment and therefore impossible to patent and profit from.


What a future we would live in, if you were able to create prescriptions at home with FDA-levels of tolerance. I stumbled upon DIY instructions on GitHub once.

In reality, I know someone who works in an environment where pharmaceuticals are manufactured. He can't even lift a ceiling tile (steam fitter) without getting approval.

Maintaining FDA quality-level may not be possible in a DIY-context. These are clean rooms where the manufacturing occurs. High up-front costs.

But it would certainly be incredible for people who pay $1,000 per pill for some life-saving medication today, if they could totally roundabout the pharmaceutical industry.


I would like to see something like tele-medicine that works internationally with local pharmacies. Why should I pay for an insurance plan I don't want to see doctors I can't afford? If I am an English speaker, I should be able to connect with any English-speaking physician in the world via a Skype-like system. And if they prescribe me medications, they should be sent to my pharmacy (and if my insurance or lack thereof makes it too expensive, have the system order the generics from India or Mexico). I think the health industry giants have already seen this coming, but your idea with "doctors, insurers, and the FDA" as arbitrary and overpaid gatekeepers jibed with me.


I think you hit the nail right on the head. Gartner's recent post on technology trends for 2020 points out democratization of tech and business expertise. More domains like medicine and law will follow.

Gartner's Top 10 Trends of 2020: https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-top-10-st...


I love this. If we have an alternate route for healthcare directly marketed to end users, that's a way around the insufferable healthcare monopoly. Healthcare piracy.

The average person who reads the first 10 pages of search results for their disease definitely knows more about it than their doctor. Doctors are smart, but medicine is huge and they aren't polymaths.

The obvious obstacle is that you legally cannot prescribe medicines without a medical license but hey who said the doctor has to physically be present or can't be a desperate Carribean med school graduate.


This got me thinking about ideas for a product that would work internationally vs. just in one country and if that signal means much about the viability of a product.

In terms of work being "promising", wouldn't I want to takle a global problem, not one unique to a specific country?


I see this trend strongest in Asia right now.


One general theme I think is getting more and more apparent is the phenomenon of large systems breaking down.

One of the side effects of globalization and the internet is that it becomes more and more apparent over time when there are opportunities for asymmetric impact. And there will always be bad actors that look to take advantage of that.

This is partly because we as consumers get used to the abuses and start accepting them. Back in the 90s, the onset of email spam was something that caused a lot of indignance and active outrage. Banner ads were a huge deal, too.

But a lot of it is just from the bad actors getting more sophisticated. Including state actors that are invested in causing the breakdown of democratic norms in other countries.

So I think there will continue to be opportunity in the decentralization realm. Tools for various forms of self-governance. That could mean publishing (activitypub), hosting (ipfs), or even actual governance (decision-making and voluntary policy compliance among groups).


A book to greatly add to your perspectives about large complex systems failing: Inviting Disaster

https://www.amazon.com/Inviting-Disaster-Lessons-Edge-Techno...


I listened to Robert Green's talk at Google recently [0]

He proposes the following idea:

    - Everybody born within 22 years of each other belong to a "generation" 

    - Generations follow a cycle:
       - There is a rebellious generation
       - The next generation is trying to keep the ideals of the rebellious generation alive
       - The third generation is very conservative
       - The fourth generation is a "crisis" generation that will eventually lead to a rebellion in the next generation and the cycle continues.

    - Millennials are the crisis generation today
It's a very interesting theory - and provides a new way to think about what comes next. Looking back, the last generation that appears to be a "rebellious" generation were the hippies centered around 1969. I can't think of any giants that started in that era. Instead, that era felt like it produced most of the core technologies that drove big economic changes in the next several decades.

History doesn't really repeat, but it sometimes rhymes with itself. If the next generation is rebellious - and they end up being like the last rebellious generation - we are looking at 22 years of deep technological developments that will lead to the next big things in two generations from now.

Honestly - this is just an interesting way to think about the world but I wouldn't act upon it. If I was forced to place a bet on who (not what) will make it big in the next 25 years, I'd put $5 (and not a cent more) on somebody who is doing a PhD today and will get to work on deep research for a few decades.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcaVhMt71qE


He was probably drawing from the Strauss-Howe generational theory[1], which is more than 20 years old now. He (or you) should have credited the original thinkers for these ideas. Their 1997 book "The Fourth Turning" is considered pseudoscience but nonetheless great food for thought, imho.

Note that the cycle may sometimes be shorter (3 gens) or longer (5). It's not really a theory, more like empirical observation. Unfortunately, it has no predictive power whatsoever, so it's just that, food for thought.

Edit: Interestingly, it came out almost at about the same time as Huttington's "Clash of the Civilizations"[2], and a number of interesting scenarios from Shell[3][4] and the CIA (link?), which notably informed Clinton's push for global democracy — all these studies concurred, at the time, that positive disruption was a plausible scenario.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations

[3]: https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-futur...

[4]: https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-futur...


The idea of cycles in social history is as old as the hills. It's possible your claim that he drew from Strauss-Howe is correct, but while they may have packaged the idea in a distinctive way, it has a long history.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cycle_theory


Oh indeed! Thanks for the precision, well worth noting.

The particular arrangement of The Fourth Turning is adamantly specific though (and quite famous in sociological circles, iirc it's where our modern concepts of "millenials" or "gen X" etc. come from); it's hard to mistake it for anything else.

I don't doubt for one second that Greene knows it, or that he'd expect a sophisticated audience (such as Googlers) to know it too — the credit is probably very much implied as soon as you present things this way. Like we don't need to credit someone for E=mc² or a²+b²=c² because it's obvious. Green is notoriously awesome at doing synthesis of a bunch of seminal sources, that's his M.O. — more than original thinking imho, but his delivery is often incredibly worthy of interest.

Fwiw, I'd argue it's extremely easy to take pretty much any social dimension(s) and slap some abstract model on top of it with relevance. I've read countless such accounts, and did it myself in regard to cycles in concentration of political power. Strauss-Howe's model is relatively interesting insofar as it draws upon quite long-term history (some variations / extensions go back to ~1200 iirc, though the core theory was fundamentally applied to the American civilization), which gives it weight.

Source: I studied sociology-anthropology-politics.


Thanks I didn't realise the naming originated with them. wrt pseudo science the whole social cycles subject is interesting and sometimes plausible enough to read about even if you take it with a large pinch of salt.


Yes, social cycles are definitely a thing empirically, historically. The learning curve over humanity's civilization is tedious, hard, but we're making progress overall. We have reached a situation where some actors, being super-massive, have enough data and tools to effectively move social behavior —a long movement from 'States' (whatever the name) since immemorial centuries up to big tech in the 21st.

I think the future of social sciences is there, currently tightly secured intellectual property and datasets in the beating core of giant tech. Those who command enough of that elusive 'power' are now capable of shaping humanity to an unprecedented degree.

Like any tool, neither good nor bad but what we make of it...


It's more likely that every generation is all of the above - or more precisely, every generation goes through phases where one or more of those might apply. Every generation will believe that the older generations are stupid and short-sighted, then as that generation gets older it will believe that the younger generations are stupid and short-sighted. Every generation will think the older generations are backwards and the newer generations naïve.

If there's any sort of cycle between generations, it seems like cynicism v. optimism is more likely. I like to think of it as a sort of "day" v. "night":

    1920's: evening / night
    1930's: night / early morning hangover
    1940's: (cycle temporarily pauses while the world blows itself up)
    1950's: morning
    1960's: afternoon
    1970's: evening
    1980's: night
    1990's: morning hangover
    2000's: afternoon
    2010's: evening / night
    2020's: night / morning (predicted)
It's something I can hear in the music from those time periods, though I can't quite quantify it.

Re: "hippies", they seem to be a feature of the Boomer, Gen-X, and Millennial/Gen-Y generations alike; all three have had very similar movements (which makes it all the more poignant that now the Millennial hippies are scolding the very generation from which hippies originated in the first place).

Also, I don't know if I'd characterize Gen-X as "conservative".


i liked the soft pastels, 'cozy' home decor, and simple garb of the 90s.. People are trying to make their houses look like the inside of a friggin iphone box today ~ 'architectural minimalism'.


This looks like it could just be cherry picking. If you look hard enough, you can find someone rebellious, then 20 years later, someone trying to maintain those ideals, and so forth. There's so many people, so many stories out there, you could form any narrative you wanted about theories of generational cycles.


I'll bet it says more about the overlap between fashion and the media than it says about people.

Something comes back 'into style' at intervals and the narrative is hyped up to accentuate that fact. But it probably has more to do with burnout and collective amnesia. We've forgotten how awful "bell bottoms" can be and so here's some "bell bottoms", 20-30 years later.


This sounds like Strauss-Howe generational theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss–Howe_generational_theo...


Is this based on any historical data beyond the 20th century? Because the 20th century is not necessarily representative of the "standard" human nature. With all the wars, rapid technological advancements, globalisation, etc., we have created a different environment and different kind of people.


> If the next generation is rebellious - and they end up being like the last rebellious generation - we are looking at 22 years of deep technological developments that will lead to the next big things in two generations from now.

Or quite the opposite. They’ll be anti-tech, like: let’s break up and impose limits to tech companies and research.


> Everybody born within 22 years of each other belong to a "generation"

So everybody belongs to (up to) 44 generations?


I see this rebellious generation as those paving the way for financial revolution with permissionless and trustless blockchain technologies. They are ignoring suppressive regulation and moving forward building the world they want to see.


I see idealists making all the mistakes that led to the monetary system we have now. They may end up in a different place, but they'll make lots of mistakes and it'll blow up in their faces many times before they're done.


Can you point out some of these mistakes? Also, traditional finance has had it's share of blowing up in their faces. The difference with DeFi is that economies are being being build on an economic model rather than an economic model being built on an economy.


Sure - multiple robberies of exchanges. Every-increasing transaction times. Ponzi-style valuations. Pretty much everything bitcoin.


Millenials are the first generation to realize that they will be around for the climate crisis. In the circle of people I know, it’s a huge motivator to learn and hopefully do something about.


I work in this field so I'm incredibly biased: automated business solutions that cut entry-level data employees out of the equation. You save TONS on the bottom line, and cut out human-driven process that is error prone and difficult to manage. I'm talking about things beyond "API-driven dev", more in the realms of Puppeteer, Microsoft Office automation, screen-scraping (mouse/keyboard), etc. I make API's out of things that other devs balk at - and trust me, it has a lot of market value.

This isn't as "up and coming" as all of the other items people are mentioning, but I'd put it on a "always increasing in popularity" trajectory due to an ever-increasing need. It's not really sexy or interesting, but there will always be a HUGE market for the things that I can do =)

I will warn people that "up and coming" tech is often fad-based and has boom and bust cycles, and personally I'd rather be working for a paycheck then waiting to win the lottery in this regard.


The key to these types of solutions is always to follow the 80/20 rule. For example, it’s foolish to say and attempt “I will automate all of your data entry people” because there will always be weird idiosyncrasies that are better fit for humans. You will dash yourself against the rocks trying to get a “100% complete” solution.

Instead, create software that allows 1 person to do the job of 5. You create massive business value without getting sucked down the hole of edge cases.


True. In the same spirit, I'd also add record linkage to automated data entry. It's a big problem both if your previous data is noisy or your automated solution doesn't transcribe some fields correctly.

A simple probabilistic programming solution can work really well.


I’m building a tool to speed up data entry. It highlights OCR‘d words with low confidence for human review. It uses templates for capturing structured data and a fast interface for capturing unstructured data.

It grew out of consulting projects and is almost ready for beta testing if anyone is interested in playing with it and giving me some feedback - my email is in my profile :)


Email sent.


How do you guys network with the right business people to speak their language and find out how their processes work? You need that info (a problem description) before you come out with a solution, don’t you?


Just ask. People absolutely love talking about their problems, it'll probably be the most animated thing they have to say about the business they're in.

"Some people profess difficulty at finding applications to write. I have never understood this: talk to people. People have problems — lots of problems, more than you could enumerate in a hundred lifetimes. Talk to a carpenter, ask him what about carpentry sucks. Talk to the receptionist at your dentist’s office — ask her what about her job sucks. Talk to a teacher — ask her what she spends time that she thinks adds the least value to her day."

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/03/20/running-a-software-busi...


The "just ask" approach is very tricky. It does not emphasize a critical element : Most people love to rant and complain about things that annoy or bother them. People rarely if ever get to ideas to solve problems or even to describing the underlying problem.


> People rarely if ever get to ideas to solve problems or even to describing the underlying problem.

That's your job. Develop hypotheses about what the underlying problem is and ask them questions to try to falsify them. Develop hypotheses about solutions and build mockups or proofs-of-concept and have them try them out to falsify them.

No one will hand you a business idea on a platter. But problems to solve are the easiest thing to find in the world.


You're right its my job to find solution to problems.

I meant to say 'Just Ask' and 'Problems to solve are easiest to find in the world' are very misleading things for a beginner.

Just asking won't lead you to a solution and identifying solvable problems are incredibly hard.


The question I was answering was: "How do you guys network with the right business people to speak their language and find out how their processes work?"

I don't think "just ask" is misleading at all. The fact that most people will happily complain about their business processes but won't have ideas to solve them doesn't make it "tricky", it makes it an opportunity.

There might be fields of endeavor where identifying solvable problems is incredibly hard, maybe in academia or politics, but business processes? Execution and, if you want to get rich, scaling up are hard. But identifying solvable problems with people's business processes is totally one of the "easiest [things] in the world".

See also: http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html


One of the most useful programs I made at my last job was an automated letters program.

We had a whole slew of standard letters that we'd send out, most of the time requests would go to the typing pool (yes, this was a thing) that were basically "Do letter ABC for client XYZ", where letter ABC was a standard thing that always went to the same recipient.

I built a screen in our system that let you tell it to request a letter (only the simple letters, obviously), it would pull the relevant data out of the client file and write the request out as an XML file. On the other side of things, a VB6 program would watch a folder for those XML files to appear and go through OLE Automation (as it was called back then) to make Word fill in the letter, print it, print an envelope, and save the result in the client's folder.

This kind of thing is an absolutely incredible time saver.


A whole lot of valuable business software is essentially domain-specific or workflow-specific mail merge.


I've never thought about it that way before, but you're absolutely right.

Another "domain-specific mail merge" that I built was a tool to pull summary data out of the client financial records and populate specific fields in some off-the-shelf income tax software.

That was a terrible tool to write and maintain. The tax software's import feature didn't actually work correctly. I reached out to the vendor and the response was basically "Works for us", so doing it the right way wasn't an option.

Instead, I used VBA to blindly enter data into the program using SendKeys[0]. Maintaining the program was a case of tabbing through and counting the number of times I had to tab. Enter first name, tab, enter last name, tab three times, enter address line 1, etc. Next year when the forms in the tax software changed I'd have to add/remove tabs in the appropriate places, sometimes input stuff in a different order, etc.

As a program, it was horrible, horrible code. As a useful tool for the business, it was incredible. It saved a ton of time and the staff that used to do this by hand, in addition to doing actual work on the more complex files, were incredibly happy.

Overall, it was completely worth it.

[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/language/referen...


> SendKeys

Holy cow why didn't I know about this 6 months ago =|

VBA is something I have had to reluctantly learn. It's a horrid/ancient language. Sorry if someone gets offended at that but to someone who uses a lot of modern development languages/tools it's just very very difficult with near-zero "nice to haves"... you just end up taking this huge lib of code around with you with functions like "inArray" etc.

> As a program, it was horrible, horrible code. As a useful tool for the business, it was incredible.

That's something that's rough for us engineers but can be hedged with great documentation, both inline and and otherwise =)


Is anyone aware of a good resource to learn VBA? All the resources I've seen online are either tutorials for very quick hacks, or assume you have 0 programming knowledge. I would love a "VBA for people who are familiar with at least one other programming language".


You don't have to learn VBA to do this, you can just include windows.h in C and call the SendKeys function.


There's also java.awt.Robot – I've used it a lot for similar things, really neat if you already have Java/Scala code for getting the data to fill in.


I'm interested in scripting stuff in Excel.


I’d recommend learning at least one other programming language, then use the tutorials.


Do you use AutoHotkey ever?


Yep! Sparingly but for some Windows-based tasks you can't beat it. Also it's a solid solution that has great support/devs behind it so it definitely has a home in my toolbox!


I abhor VBA as much as any sane person but this sounds so useful.


Which is actually a terrible step backwards when it comes to interchangeability and iteroperability.

You have data in a database, you flatten it into a non structured document, send it, and then the other end uses data entry to add it to a database. What should be the realm of EDI/CrystalReports/Blockchain take your pick, instead everyone wants to interchange data in the pretty human readable format, as opposed to just rendering it that way for humans while also communicating the raw structured data.


This is sort of like saying it would be a step backward to drop humanoid robots into an office and let them take over tasks. A large part of the problem is that right now, a lot of the interfaces for performing work are optimized for humans, so automation that uses those interfaces is drop-in


If you build things like that, you probably don't have authority or leverage to rebuild everything from scratch, and even if you did, it might be much costlier to disrupt an inefficient web of human-computer-paper interaction that works reliably and that everything else has adapted to.


Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Examples are UI Path and Blue Prism.

It's finicky technology that is hard to make sustainable, but a lot of companies are really interested in it because of the amount of work that could be cut out like you said.


> It's finicky technology that is hard to make sustainable

This 100 times over. The only way I've been able to make it work is being one heck of a generalist. I've found that training on what I do is near-impossible and I don't even know if I could scale a real company in this beyond myself.


Well, UiPath's valuation is currently 7B... But yeah. They have an "academy" for training RPA developers, forums/ social presence, big sales teams, a process for developing automation, an "automation framework", a marketplace for automation activities, etc.... all these are stuff outside of the core software (robot/"activity executor", orchestrator, and studio for designing said activities).

Maintaining & expanding the automation is a heck of a challenge though. Like, once you got the stuff deployed, make sure that it works without headaches, in the face of other software/ OS upgrades. The robots/automation services are essentially a "fleet of microservices" that you have to maintain for a customer whose strength is likely not IT, and who will change the infrastructure from underneath your "microservices". It's a hard problem, but I feel we're well positioned to tackle that, and if we do, the sky is the limit really. (disclaimer: I work for UiPath, though that should be obvious from the message)


Right on! Yeah - I would love to learn more about what the bigger guys are doing.

Everything you're saying is 100% something I deal with on a day-to-day basis, and ongoing support is a huge struggle to workout with the companies I've implemented software at.

Looking at your product offerings made me chuckle - I definitely have versions of a lot of what you do! My robots are called workers, my orchestrator is called a broker, etc etc ha. Lemme know if you guys are ever looking for a remote automation engineer w/tons of cloud experience ;)


A big challenge with the Blue Prism world is getting the people who will lose their jobs to map the processes Robotic processes will automate. Fiddly, tricky and easy to automate a vast number of errors. Only works once extensively tested and results verified. Ignore analyst and sales hype at your peril.


- Never use an RPA tool that doesn't integrate with third-party SCM. If they tried to roll their own, that's a bad sign

- Never use an RPA tool that doesn't generate plaintext-serialized scripts. You're going to have a bad time if they're binary locked

- Never choose an RPA tool that's been around fewer than 3 years. It's probably just a shim on top of MS automation libs, and can't handle the really gnarly stuff

- Never promise anyone you'll automate 100% of their workload. Never try to automate 100% of their workload. Never hesitate to tell a VP you're not going to automate 100% of their workload. There's value in 50%+, get the easy win and move on. Only come back when you've gotten all the easy wins

- RPA is fundamentally about target selectors (or match rules, or whatever else your tool calls them). Their robustness is the only real feature of an RPA platform, and a smaller toolset is going to result in some fragile, quick-to-break stuff

Ultimately, RPA is about one thing: creating a more tactically malleable layer on top of your existing software. Development and change speed is the biggest advantage.

It shouldn't ever be a core system, but it should be where you prototype functionality.


Perfect. Also, set project start boundaries to ensure realistic goals and expectations. Under promise and possibly over deliver - all too often data and information discovery reveals unforeseen problems and opportunities


I've got a story about how we were spec'd at handling 50% of incoming workload, hit 60% on the first iteration, customer got so excited that we pushed, and project ended up being canned when we failed to hit the (then) final 95% target.

Taught me a big lesson about realistic messaging and never up-negotiating expectations.


Everyone listen to this - this is 100% accurate and SUPER applicable. Have reached out via email - thanks for the offer to chat in your other comment =)


Could Selenium be used for this? It checks most of the boxes you mention.


In my experience, no.

(A) Selenium's UX isn't nearly where it needs to be to upskill an analyst to create their own automations.

(B) Selenium's Windows app compatibility is haphazard.

(C) Selenium doesn't have the kind of corporate support it would take to expand compatibility quickly enough to catch up with its competition.

The RPA space is the Linux desktop problem in a nutshell. Polish and niche compatibility are the final 10%.

Nobody on the open source side has the interest in making a VB6 app work. And nobody on the corporate side really wants to use it for more than what they're currently using it for.

I can't overstate the sheer number of bizarre situations a tool needs to be able to handle to be effective here.

Because being able to automate something 95% of the way to completion is usually a lot less valuable than 100% (note: talking about percentage of happy-path process, not of total incoming workload here).


If anyone in this thread wants to talk RPA, I'm happy to talk your ear off.

At this point, I've been doing it for... about 7 years?

It's been an interesting ride.

Email in profile


Would love to know more. How is RPA different than Selenium?


Kinda how Dropbox is different than rsync (imperfect analogy, but still pretty good I'd say)


See reply to your other comment.

Tl;dr - different target user & no corporate sponsor seriously incentivized to improve legacy compatibility

Would love to get the Selenium viewpoint though! Have always been curious, and I'm not as well versed in that side of the house.


> Lemme know if you guys are ever looking for a remote automation engineer w/tons of cloud experience ;)

Maybe - but how would one go about contacting you? (I have my email in my profile, should you wish to contact me).


Disclaimer: I work for UiPath.

This is a problem with almost any type of automation. I wouldn't say our software (I am only familiar with UiPath) is finicky. GUIs are finicky, but there are ways to deal with them. That's the stuff a good RPA dev can handle.

I was automating before I started at UiPath, and GUI interaction adds a new layer to automation, of course. But it is still maintainable when you implement them using best practices and CI/CD. I didn't have UiPath at my previous job but it would have made a lot of our automations more reliable and more maintainable. We're also making strides to address these types of problems easier.

I strongly believe that UiPath should a tool in any automation developer's toolbox, as well as GUI testing. UiPath is also pretty easy to use, so business users can automate simpler tasks on their own after going through the academy.

The industry is exploding, and good devs are in high demand. Salaries are high, and you can download Community edition and get certified for free.


How is UiPath different than open source tools like Selenium?


It's developer friendly and easy to use. It has an IDE for creating automations. I know a lot of devs might think they don't really care about an IDE, but when you're automating interfaces it makes it _way_ easier. It also is not limited to web browsers.

Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B4Y_aUBWTM

It's a very simple automation. It just gets text from a browser and inserts it into notepad. But it's a 3 minute video that does something. Check out Selenium tutorials and compare how much you would learn from a 3 minute video. You don't have to dive into the HTML, you just click on what you want to click/type into/scrape and it knows what you want.

But it still has all the power a developer would want. You can create custom activities using C# and VB. The product itself is not open source, but it is very extensible and flexible. The workflows it generates are text files, which work well in source control. It has source control integration built in, which a custom diff tool. It enables code sharing and encourages code reuse.

The only downside I would point out is that it only runs on Windows for now, which might be a problem for linux only shops.


I was working for a scientific journal. In the peer-review department, they had to use this proprietary software, and we had 2 employees who just mindlessly went through this proprietary software's form day-in, day-out. This form spammed scientists for reviews of science articles for our somewhat-predatory journal (we solicited authors to publish in our journal for a fee)...

First, it was a massive waste of those 2 human's intellect, entering data over and over into a generic form from a proprietary business' website, in order to spam scientists. I started a ruby project to automate out all those processes, just using selenium to enter the data onto the web form for us. Before I could get very far, I got a huge promotion elsewhere and left that under-compensating journal.

It all gave me a depressing vibe though, both the ethics of what we were doing and the waste of time/life that those employees had to endure to do it.


When those jobs are automated, what will the human workers do, will they leave that company? I'd enjoy doing something else if that was my job, but if there was a more useful job there, wouldn't they already be doing it? This is in summary why I think more automation will lead to some people losing their jobs - if there was a more profitable alternative for a company (more productive, paid as well or better?) then wouldn't the company already have automated it?


> First, it was a massive waste of those 2 human's intellect

This is usually the reality and it's nothing to be ashamed about.

At work, do what you're paid to do. In your free time, pursue interests (literally, things that are interesting to you).


This.

I work in a small, physical goods business in the Midwest (~30 employees), and the amount of time spent doing data entry is incredible.

Documents (often PDFs, sometimes excel) flow between buyers, shippers, freight forwarders and internally. These documents are often updated.

I'm looking into EDI for a solution, but there's so much value to be created from cutting out all this data entry. At least 1-1.5 full time employee's worth at our size.


Ah, I dealt with this data entry manual process many times at work. We were able to build a few solutions to remove 80-90% of the human work for these processes. It took a few years to get good at but now I run a business that specializes in this type of stuff.


And how do you find a solution that will last more than a few years, and also handle changes as they occur?

Software solutions require ongoing work: ongoing maintenance costs of a customised solution could easily be higher per year than 1 cheap FTE.


That's definitely a question to be answered.

More than the # of hours involved, it's the error-prone nature of the work and the lag between when the data should be entered vs when it's actually entered.

These three factors -- hours saved, errors prevented, time lag avoided -- make me think that it's worth automating.

You're right, however, it's not clear cut it's the right way to go.


I read about EDI in the early 80s.


Right. It's been around for 30+ years and it's meant to solve this exact problem.

However, the cost of training staff and implementation is often out of reach for SMBs, still.


The largest companies in the world - Amazon, for example - still actively use EDI.


And these industries are so far outside the tech bubble, it's two different worlds.

Facebook and Co. get a bad rap for many things, which I agree with. But I credit these social platforms in speeding up tech adoption rates for the average person, who can now use this knowledge at their job.


How do you find processes that can be automated? I've often thought that there must be a ton of this stuff in various industries where programmers aren't typically embedded.


Very common when you do tech work in a non-tech industry. Comes up a lot with coding-inclined mechanical engineers. Zed Shaw's words are really true:

> Programming as a profession is only moderately interesting. It can be a good job, but you could make about the same money and be happier running a fast food joint. You're much better off using code as your secret weapon in another profession. People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance those disciplines.

https://learnpythonthehardway.org/python3/advice.html


Man this is me. Knowing a bit of coding and machine learning in engineering has been such a boon over my career in civil/environmental engineering.

But it's like math, if you know it well enough, you'll find ways to use it everywhere. If you don't, you won't. You have to be the type of person that likes to innovate. Its hard to sell to prospective employers, but its great for demonstrating value once you are with an organization. All of my previous employers fight over trying to get me back when I've found myself looking for work. ...Now I work for myself and make my own work and I've priced myself out of their offers, but that's not so bad.


How much machine learning have you been able to pick up and did you learn formally (in school) or just on your own? It's a broad subject, so where would you recommend one begin, assuming I have a decent undergrad math background? Thanks!


Not the parent, but I did an undergrad maths/physics degree some time back and found https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning to be good as an introduction, unfortunately a new job [unrelated] has prevented my finishing the course but I hope to pick it up again later in the Winter.

I would be interested in thoughts from anyone with ML experience who has reviewed said course's materials?


I've always had way too much math under my belt which helps a lot and have taught myself a lot of genuine computer science out of personal interest. I actually did Andrew Ng's Coursera machine learning class all the way through as a first introduction to that field before realizing it wasn't so mysterious and was just the application of a lot of math I already knew, then ran through a bunch of tensor flow tutorials when that first came out and the like. Then just experimented on my own. I have a knack for data though.

Formally from school, I've only had 3 semesters of scientific programming in Fortran and a shitload of math. That and years and years of building models and massaging data in Excel.

Mostly I'm just really used to learning a new API/tool and applying it to new things.

A lot of the ML stuff hasn't been fancy ML, just basic things but applied in really clever and novel ways.


Study stats and convex optimization. If you understand logistic regression and MLE, you're mostly there.


Great quote -- surprised I've never seen it before!

In my limited experience, it's a mixed bag.

Good: you get special treatment/opportunities because of a unique skill set and increased visibility on the end results of what you do.

Bad: management doesn't really know what you do between software releases, you're paid the going rate for your industry while SWEs make far more, and in-house software quality standards might not be established/followed.


Side ish bonus: you're basically prepared to run a one man show or move into niche consulting (much much higher rates). You also get to set the quality standards/procedures going forward, which can be satisfying.

As a tangential bonus, I've accidentally converted my PhD research coworkers to strict git/markdown thanks mostly to typora (windows application). I showed one person what my work flow and version history look like for some internal documentation and now they do the same and convert to word/pdf as a last step. As far as I can tell, no one outside of the math/cs intersection has the patience for latex.

Source: in that boat.

Edit: In regards to market rates, that can be alleviated somewhat in follow up negotiations (6-12 months in or so). It's hard to convince someone what you're worth / what your value proposition is when they're not used to hiring software people. You need to demonstrate your business effect first, since they typically don't have a clear picture of it.


I disagree with your edit. Pay is categorically higher in tech than not for engineers.


Sounds like a pain in the ass.

It's already a huge pain dealing with know-nothings inside of tech firms. Now imagine having to cater to know-less-than-nothings somewhere else.


strongly disagree

1. you _won't_ be happier running a fast food joint - the work is gruelling, and it's so easy to go bust. And you won't bring home six figures

2a. people who _actually_ can code are scarce, even in the tech industry. Source: conducted over 300 interviews

2b. quite logically, your coding skill will be most appreciated and compensated at a Big Tech Co, not at a government department where they will be simply unable to see the difference


>2a. people who _actually_ can code are scarce, even in the tech industry. Source: conducted over 300 interviews

As a young person with an interest in software programming (currently studying chemical engineering but still write C code now and then), what do you look for when trying to find out people who can _actually_ code?


Literally the ability to write working code. You'd be amazed how few interviewees can even put together a working for... loop.


This absolutely blows my mind. I have a hard time even believing it. But having never conducted interviews, I just don't know.


I've heard this story before, but it sounds absolutely insane and I can't begin to imagine (let alone expect!) that such a thing occurs. Is it really true?


yes, exactly this


a somewhat serious answer: simple things should be easy to you, and hard things possible

examples of simple things: DFS/BFS walks; simple Project Euler problems; or "write a simple game in terminal, maybe with some form of minimax search" (a bit harder), or maybe a parser for simple arithmetic expressions


Same money running a fast food joint? You're underpaid bro or you know some crazy overpaid fast food managers. People from science based fields are coming to computer science because those other fields lack job opportunities at competitive pay.


I believe OP means running a fast food joint as the owner, not a manager employee.

Granted I don't know anything about that business, a quick google search comes up with an article from 2015 saying running a McDonald's provides an average annual profit of $150k so it sounds about in the right ballpark range: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/mcdonalds-franchise-cost-vs-prof...


McDonald’s franchise owners make $500k to $1 million a year, in average. That’s profit, not revenue.

My source is from the McDonald’s franchise disclosure documents. The money blog mentioned in sibling comments claim it’s less.


According to this random quora link: https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-McDonalds-make-in-a-day the average McDonald's unit in the USA has $2,670,320 in annual sales. 25% - 40% profit margin sounds really high for a restaurant, but I don't know enough about the industry to dispute it. Are you sure those numbers were presented as averages and not the high end of what you could make? Or does the typical owner have multiple locations?


My source was this pdf: https://www.bluemaumau.org/sites/default/files/MCD%202013%20...

Very possible I skimmed and may have read it incorrectly, accounting is not my thing. As I have now reached the maximum amount of effort I'm willing to put into a forum comment, I'm not going to dig any further. But if you can tease out better information, I'd be curious to know.


From the document... Across ~12,000 locations they put the majority of restaurants in a range but they do have the numbers pretty well crunched.

Average profit margin 26-28% Average gross sales 2.2 - 2.6M Average operating income before rent/tax: 570k - 716k

"The rent paid to McDonald’s will vary based upon sales and McDonald’s investment in land, site improvements, and building costs."

It looks like that rent paid to McD's home planet is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of that investment (yearly? I guess?) but it seems to average about 100k-150k.


Good, this was my takeaway as well. My range was loosely rounded since 716k was something like the 85th percentile.


I assuming running = owning, not managing. Subtle maybe in practice but not in revenue.


I don't buy it.

There are tons of software "engineers" who try to escape fintech for FAANGs or even startups, coming from top tier firms like Goldman and McKinsey.

Likewise, bioinformatics generally pays a lot less than traditional SWE roles.

So what I have seen is the exact opposite in practice: people with minimum coding skills in other fields trying to jump into tech firms.


I suppose it's hard to match the salaries at The Big Corps working in other industries. Still, outside of software companies, people think I'm basically a wizard for doing simple things, like automatically generating climographs from JSON files. I just don't get that kind of positive reinforcement from software people. I think it's just more enjoyable to be the hacker rather than a hacker.


That's great, but I prefer to work with people who can teach me new tech knowledge.


Any midsize company has tremendous amount of things that could be automated. For example, I work at manufacturing company, we produce parts for bigger companies. Bigger companies already have APIs, web portal, etc. We have people who often manually enter data.

Any time, a piece of paper is passed around or when people enter data manually you can either automate or improve the process. People are prone to errors.

Right now, I am rewriting a mission critical application, some trivial changes will save hours a week and improve the integrity of the information. It is not as exciting as writing algorithms but it is nice to see an application written by you used by 200+ people.


Go on forums where people who use a platform/API/SaaS post implicit feature requests

Off the top of my mind:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/c/selling-on-amazon/... https://community.ebay.com/t5/Tools-Apps/bd-p/tools-apps-db


MWS is not fun. Trust me. Haha.


Honestly your best bet is to talk to people. I doubt cold calling/knocking on the door of a business will succeed, but people get enthusiastic when it comes to complaining about tedious/monotonous work. Especially at bars. Turn to someone nearby and say "I am looking for ideas to yadda yadda save people time and frustration. Is there any tedious process you deal with at work which you think doesn't need a person to deal with?" If you travel, this is especially common in airports. I've never asked someone this question and yet people rant at me all the time once I say "software developer".


You really need to find a domain expert who can at least get you started. I'm working on a problem that I would not have even known existed, if not for running across a couple of engineers who had a business in the field and saw an opening that only a small company would care about (market isn't big enough for the large players).

I know similar situations have to be all around us. The problem, as you say, is finding out about them.


At the moment many corporates are just automating the incoming invoice process. However, many processes are document (any kind of digital file) based to share information between departments, vendors or customers. Many processes could be automated. To identify a business case for automation worth coding such an application or offer an API we use three main KPI to identify processe worth automating it:

- more than 10 documents per day on year average, e.g a bank will receive new annual reports only in some calendar months but in massive scale

- average number of pages or lines of text per document, the longer the document the more mistakes will be made by humans, as they don't have the time to read everything in detail

- average pay of the FTE who is able to understand and process the document manually should be higher than the average pay of all employees in the company, to make sure the documents encapsulate business value

It's not a fixed set of KPI but helps us to sort out too narrow use cases.

By we I refer to the team behind my startup Konfuzio:

http://www.konfuzio.com/en/


Thanks a lot for sharing such valuable insights!

Small payback : on your English home page under "Operation of the software" > "Information security", there's one too many sentences:

> We set the highest standards both when creating the software and when processing your data. Both when creating the software and when processing your data we set the highest standards.

(First one is better imho).


I'm living in Ireland and this is what I've wanted to do for years. There are loads of older small to medium businesses with SO many things that can be automated but I don't know how to get into it. I don't even know how to research it. What's the process for getting a client? Cold calling? Partnership with another provider?

What is the job title I should search for more information? Automator?


Automation Engineer. It's a broad term, but does carry the idea that you know how to program, and do so in a way that automates normally manual processes. Also doesn't hurt to list yourself on a resume as an Automation/Software Engineer. That gets the idea across that you also understand how software is written, not just how code is cranked out.


You should look at business operations analyst, UI Path training is on linkedin learning/lynda.com too. I think information management systems too?


A handful of places around Dublin have active Robotic Process Automation (RPA) teams, which seems to be what's being discussed here.

The Big Four consultancies and Accenture spring to mind. I think the likes of Fidelity and Citi have few roles too.

Note however that you'd be using off the shelf tools to do the automating - you wouldn't be developing the automation tools yourself.


This is what I do for work (mostly) as well. The challenge I've had trying to grow the business is "convincing" (for lack of a better word) businesses that they will really save a lot - even after showing them case-studies. Companies can be stubborn.

Hit me up if you ever want to chat! ryan luma.im


I have been working on automating data entry, and the consequences of this is many people (in this case Indians) losing their jobs. I am facing a moral dilemma. I have been writing free software for my entire life, I volunteer, but I live in really poor conditions. I want to get forward somehow, and this seems to be my best chance of getting forward at this point in time and space. I am probably not going to go through with it. It seems to be the case that my principles, my moral values have been holding me back from improving my life. I do not want to lie to people, I do not want to deceive people, I do not want to fsck them over in any way. I do not want to contribute to anything nefarious. But from where I am (the bottom), it is extremely hard to climb up without doing that. :/


Yes I did some of this at an old telecoms job. It was incredibly obvious that an automated system could put 5-10 people out of work depending on the sophistication of the implementation. I started automating my own analysis job and left before spreading it or letting it work without super vision. Definitely a lot of low level knowledge worker jobs can be evaporated.


> telecom

That's the industry I'm currently working on... they're generally regressive and have shot themselves in the foot in regards to tech and ease-of-use for a lot of their solutions.


I worked in the Automated Guided Vehicles industry, and so I want to extend your suggestion: any automation that can replace employees.

Those systems are easy to sell with "This system will pay itself back in 2,5 years, taking into account your current labour cost".

Given all the AI/deep learning possibilities, lots can be automated still.


Isn’t this the “robotic process automation” market? (though that one is a bit more than what you are saying)


Do you find it difficult to sell the idea of automating the work of "entry-level data employees"? Middle management generally thrives by building kingdom of such minions.


> Middle management generally thrives by building kingdom of such minions.

I often am not selling to middle management, I ideally sell at the exec and/or product level. Middle managers are a conflict of interest when it comes to what I do.


I've been thinking a lot recently at trying to do this kind of work as well. I'm just not sure where to start. I have a pretty weak network form living abroad for so long and moving around a lot.

Any advice about how to even get started doing this kind of work? What tools to study or learn? How to find work?


Absolutely!

Don't move around all the dang time. I've lived in two places and have an incredibly strong network in both. I find people who are bouncing around 50-times-over usually lack the deep business relationships that it takes to establish trust to solve "big" problems.

As far as getting started - once you start, just never stop. Solve every dang problem you can get your hands on big or small, and continue to publish code every day.

Tools to study and learn - web web web. Also Microsoft Excel automation is an incredible need for lots of businesses. Puppeteer, and learning how to mimic what a browser can do without using a browser would be the two most useful skills I have personally. If you don't have a VERY solid background in webdev you need to get that going first, so much of what I do is reverse-engineering someone's website so I have to be very versed in the way that sites are built (all the way from ancient ones to the most modern of frameworks).

How to find work is network. Once you have the skills, you need to know people that have potential needs. I've already reached out to two people who found me through this thread and regardless of "making money", I genuinely want to help them, if even to just point them in the right direction (like yourself).

People are (*generally) awesome if you put aside your own ego, and I would be absolutely nowhere if I wasn't a sociable person. I love to learn about the world by making connections with people, and genuinely want to help them with what I can do!


Any advice for companies getting into this realm, specifically around making sure you get your 'valued' price?

Charging for value can sometimes feel exorbitant... i.e. saving a $100+/hr person ~20 hours a month. Sure I can calculate out it on an excel sheet the customer ROI, but still feels crazy.


My market value is $10-15k/mo USD for just myself (sometimes more if I'm needed in an emergency). If you have a proven track record with a solid reputation you can command that sort of pay without an issue. I also bring a lot of general web development capability to the table, so selling on an easy-to-use interface also does a lot to add to my value.

If you think about it - $35-40k for a 2-3 month dev timeline (which is what I'd say is my average) is worth it if you're cutting the salaries of 5+ people out of the equation, no need to pull out an Excel spreadsheet for the ROI that. All-in-all - you're not crazy, they're the ones who are crazy if they continue to sink money into human robots.

> Charging for value can sometimes feel exorbitant

Just get confident (this is hard advice I know). I'm incredibly confident in the problems I can solve and will put in the hours to get back on a timeline/budget if needed. Businesses aren't buying my "products" per-say, they're buying me.


Solid comment. How do you deal with getting the knowledge of the process out of the people you are trying to leave without a job? That must be rough.


They're entry level positions usually so figuring out their processes is typically not that difficult. Often I will not work directly with them vs. having a big sheet of instructions delivered with a ton of bullet points. I also get a ton of process diagrams as well.

Usually it's better for the business I'm supporting to document their own workflows before it's handed over to me for a lot of common sense reasons.


"Don't worry folks, our people are working on introducing basic income, so you'll have opportunity to develop in more important areas of your lives, instead of wasting time on such a meaningless activities." :)


I owe you a round for this. Hopefully it sticks.


How do you find customers for that? Any job board tricks, maybe?


Networking and knowing people in industries that have a need =)

I've never really done the job board thing so no idea on that.


I began working in RPA this year and I completely agree. Tremendous potential but also a lot of buzzword-driven hype in the space. I think the main players need to work harder on bringing world-class engineering and best-practices to the community, since the vast majority of developers that are getting into this are not really advancing the field and instead slapping crap together until their 'bot' works. Why are most automation projects relegated to bare-bones budgets and short timeframes? Potential clients i have engaged have a very short-sighted view of automation possibilities in their businesses, and aren't open to the possibilities beyond what they think should be done by a bot instead of their employees.


Currently automating a lot of on-boarding process at work. It's been eye opening. What it's really shown me is how very little expertise we have around all of these solutions, SaaS products, etc... that the company uses. From Tableau to Salesforce to our accounting software, it's a mess. It's put myself and my team into a unique position to gain a lot of mind share, especially when it comes to cleaning a lot of the inefficiencies up. That said, I don't think we're making anyone redundant, or cutting anyone out of the equation in a negative way -- none of the people who are currently tasked with a lot of this work were ever supposed to be doing it, trained on it, etc...


What’s your business model? Consulting by the hour? Subscription fees? One-off fixed price contracts? Practically all software I’ve ever done has been some amalgamation or other of “make forms better and more automatic”, whether it’s planning software for gigantic Swedish furniture firms (take a wild guess!) or technical analysis toolkits for financial services. It’s always been per-hour or fixed price contracts for me – try as I might but the subscription model simply doesn’t take with the buyers it seems.

What I’d like to do is fixed price for initial dev and then subscription based contract for support and minor updates, but this seems wholly unpalatable for buyers.


That's funny, the multi-national company I work for is removing all MS Office automation because MS apparently told us that unattended automation is against the licensing terms. It's OK if you're watching the computer I guess, but not on a server.

Personally this didn't match what I found online (they said it was not supported i.e. if it breaks tough luck) but what would I know. Money must be spent retrofitting other solutions now.

I joked we should pay a minimum wage high school kid to sit in a room and 'watch' the servers but I guess that's too low tech ;)


They have specific solutions that are integrated into things like SharePoint to handle this so they're just putting the hurt on the big guys in order to get more monies.

Total Microsoft play on that for sure - I've never ran into the same issue though.


Yeah I looked into this, and it's definitely overkill for what we wanted (plus sending them more money to fix a problem they made for us would be very grating). All we needed to do is read/write Excel data and similar functions and keeping it local is key. There wasn't much available when this got put in place but there are plenty of reliable libraries now.


Isn't this what for a short while was called robotics, but now is mostly referred to as RPA? It sounds like you are competing with things like Blueprism.

These things are really a big deal within large organisations.


Yep! I'm effectively a boutique provider of such services.


Agreed, there is definitely a need for 'smart' automation. There are a lot of tools out there which work however, finding the right tool for the right job is difficult. Also, I think its extremely difficult to get the automation right in 100% of the cases. False positives (even 1%) could be extremely dangerous in cases. Hence, I think there is a huge market for 'smart' automation tools, people who can build them and also for people who can use them efficiently.


I seriously want to begin working in this field as a consultant/architect/developer. So much so that I've registered the LLC, opened a bank account, and even had a few clients I built web apps for. However, I'm not exactly sure how to pivot to business solutions/productivity tools though. Do you usually approach companies where you expect to have a solution for them? Or do you find clients through advertising? Do they find you? Any advice is appreciated!


Automating mouse clicks and key presses seems backward and stupid. Doing this manually will also get disrupted.

You should trace the executable and analyze the function calls. Get a million samples then form a statistical model. The production model replays the function calls given some input. Doesn't need graphical memory anymore and it also has higher resolution inputs (function symbols, addresses) than coordinates on a screen.


Can you share what you're working on? I would love to see a concrete example of something you are referring to as well as how you market it.


sounds like RPA


I've been conflicted about RPA because my view is that if there's an API, you should use that rather than comparatively brittle screen-based "integration". What's extremely compelling about this approach though is that you can cut through all of the friction of API's - even end users understand how to use the UI so they're really empowered to build their own automation in a way that they haven't been previously.


Most big business use older software, and the small amount of it that does have an API often does not work correctly or is stable. Sad but true. I've ran into a lot of instances where people automate through the GUI because it is the best option. Developers don't realize this because they don't like working with older technology.

Also, at large orgs, software updates can take _forever_. I know of some examples where updating to the newer version of a B2B software taking 7+ years.

And a lot of those automations will need things like OCR or NLP. Even just out of the box Excel integration is a huge time saver. UiPath has activities built in for that. It's more than just GUI interaction. There's a ton of partner technology with out of the box integrations, and you get frameworks to build your automations on, as well as all of the infrastructure and orchestration.

Disclaimer: I work at UiPath


80-90% of what I do doesn't have an API. If there's an API that's functional enough you're darn straight I'm going to be using that vs. Puppeteer, etc!


I was going to say. Many companies are already investing heavily in RPA (Robotic Process Automation) these days. It’s not widely known in tech circles but kind of common knowledge in traditional companies trying to automate tedious workflow tasks.

When I first saw it, I thought: this looks like a glorified Autohotkey or Automator. But companies like UiPath are doing very well selling this type of automation software.

It sounds mundane but for a company with lots of entry level staff, the paybacks are appreciable.

Coupled with cloud based OCR as a service offerings etc. a lot of data entry tasks can be automated.


> Autohotkey

Yep I've had to employ this software to get things done before. Also OCR doesn't need a cloud vs. a beefy computer - I do a lot of that too.


Yes free OCR software itself is pretty simple and can run offline but if your accuracy requirements are high (for critical documents), different algorithms (typically proprietary) are needed and as well as fallbacks to contracted human labor for verification. At some level it makes sense to outsource to a cloud provider.


> OCR doesn't need a cloud vs. a beefy computer - I do a lot of that too.

Can you elaborate on this?


Can you give some more insight into what you work on automating specifically?


Anything - green screens, Excel spreadsheets, PDF generation, Docusign, tying 6 web experiences with separate logins into one, simplification of complex auth scenarios, etc.

Most of my day is literally just getting one step further and one step further into a "process" of some sort, and then handling a metric boatload of edge-cases as they come up. Then the last portion of the contract is the actual integration into a business, and handling the "ninety-ninety" rule that always ends up happening when the rubber meets the road.

I take a complex, convoluted mess and turn it into a coherent "something", usually an API or web experience.


I'm curious how you market yourself or your services? I automate processes, workflows and tasks like this for some clients and I really enjoy it. It's easy to see the value I provide and the clients are happy. However I struggle with how to acquire new/more clients. The ones I have now I've acquired through past business relationships. I'd love to be able to do more of this work.


That is essentially what I do. I pitch it as process engineering, systems integrator, programmer, etc.


Is there a possibility of ...automating, this kind of automating?

I understand that, like regular application programming, a lot of this kind of automation comes down to requirements-gathering and formal specification of workflow.

But, in theory, could there be some kind of sufficiently-advanced software wizard that does most of your job? Maybe by monitoring entry-level employees' interactions with the software-to-be-automated over some period, and using that as a training input to a workflow guesser?

I'm not imagining that you could be cut out of the loop entirely, mind you, but rather that you'd reduce the human-interaction man-weeks part of your job down to a few hours of pairing with a domain expert to clean up the output of workflow-guesser into a final model.


> Is there a possibility of ...automating, this kind of automating?

Nah - I'm going to be cocky for a second so please take this with a grain of salt... Automation is the only job that's safe from automation ;)

That being said, it's prime for development of tools... I've been working on taking a lot of my workflow out of Charles Proxy and moving it onto a more "man-in-the middle" model that can replay certain web traffic... PARTS of what I do, but automating the automating is probably the most difficult problem that I've had to solve (ie: building my own tools).


They're already automating the exact job you've been describing:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/uipath-rpa-series-d/?rende...


To expand upon this, UiPath also announced acquisitions of ProcessGold (https://www.uipath.com/newsroom/uipath-acquires-process-gold...) and StepShot (https://www.uipath.com/newsroom/uipath-acquires-stepshot-add...) as a step towards bringing the process documentation and automation planning tasks down to the level of understanding that SMEs and BAs have about automation. These tools will be a really great addition to the ecosystem as I (and clearly they) have found the most difficult work in this space to be understanding the client's existing process and planning to automate it.


This is what Zapier and IFTTT and others are doing.


I could use help automating a simple task for one of my businesses involving submitting refund requests to USPS. Please get in touch if you're looking for new clients!


message sent.


Your post brought back fond memories of combining autohotkey with premiere pro to automate boring tasks. Haha. I agree, you have a nice niche.


Is this similar to RPA (Robotic Process Automation)?


Yep - it's definitely that, although I typically avoid the nomenclature because laypeople think "robotics" which is definitely not what I do!


Does your company, or do any in the field, support policies for retraining/job placement for employees displaced by their technology?


That's exactly what we do, with a nice interface business people can use, email me at rafal@evolution.ai if you want a demo.


Once you create an api or solution, are you able to resell it to other businesses or or do you create once off solutions?


Both - but I'm more tooled to solve one-off situations. I have been able to do the whole "copy-paste" resell a few times which has been financially lucrative!

My GitLab is my toolbox in so many ways and I've got a wealth of clean/documented code that I can re-purpose depending on the task at hand.


Wow, interesting comment. I just started with such a Puppeteer (et al.) project...


I think UIPath recent success shows that the market already values this.


Do you have anything going on related to process mining?


YES. I didn't even know that nomenclature before you said it... I employ an ELK and TIG stack for a huge part of what I do. You can very much say that I "process mine" my own process. I also have a ton of regex capability that's often employed to rip through large datasets to extract key data.

Lots of times I have to measure certain things before I begin to fix a problem, and the above stated tooling (typically ran in Docker containers) has really really helped with that.

I have dashboards, warnings, circuit breakers, etc etc. that all help me monitor complex processes, and that help me react to ongoing changes (ex: when a 3rd-party website updates their DOM).


Man.. I wish I knew what you know.

These are the things I need at my current role, and I'm woefully overwhelmed. Tying together processes spread out over multiple systems is a large portion of my role.

I'm having trouble tracking all the various scripts running on different versions of my own packages, and reacting to breaking changes on 3rd party sites. I definitely need a dashboard to tie all these automations together.

I'd love to chat if you're up for it.


Absolutely! Feel free to reach out - you can get to my email address at folkhack.com


Great to hear. I'm finishing my doctorate researching a specialized Process Mining approach and its great to hear there's people doing concrete significant work like that out there


So... automate clerical stuff?

> ever-increasing need

Not sure I'd bet on that -- the point of RPA is to eliminate the job you just described.


How do you find people who need these things?


Cooperatives. The economy needs to shift away from giant companies with pay ratios of a thousand to one between CEOs and average employees and employees need control over their workplace to move to the next stage of capitalism. Make it easier for collectives to start up businesses that aren't purely focused on profit and instead focused on employees taking ownership of their work.

It may not be the biggest profit possible, but I think that if you enable 22 small worker-owned cooperatives to exist more easily somehow that's a huge karmic return on investment.

Maybe said cooperatives are software companies that work together to do contract work. I think that there are a number of places that try to match up contractors with clients, and places like Gusto work great for employees but I don't think they can handle member distributions (the IRS's term for payments a company makes to an owner versus an employee).

I'm not sure what to do to help the most exactly, but I think this kind of company is going to be increasingly important in the future. Maybe even just like an online forum for people trying to start cooperatives to discuss their common issues.


A collection of relevant links I recently collected:

1. A Technology Freelancer's Guide to Starting a Worker Cooperative [pdf] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20908452

2. Platform Cooperativism Consortium | A hub that helps you start, grow, or convert to platform co-ops https://platform.coop/

3. Stoop.cp Incubator for co-ops with a revenue sharing model and 10k grant https://start.coop/#program

4. Savvy Cooperative https://www.savvy.coop/

5. The Internet of Ownership – Tools for a democratic online economy https://ioo.coop/


Awesome list! I feel like what a lot of these groups just starting out need is:

- A starting grant ideally, maybe help them find local grants for worker owned cooperatives or create a non-profit to get donations for this purpose (for instance, the first six months rent for a new coffee shop). That stoop.cp looks pretty much like what I am thinking of. It's hard to stress how important $10k can be to people starting a low-margin business who likely can't get a business loan for this.

- Moral support that while this is a risk they have a support network at least online to mutually bitch with and get advice on little stuff like dealing with the city. Or heck, make a platform so that people can directly donate money to other cooperatives to help them out when they run into trouble. I've definitely supported coops on gofundme and the like to help them get their seed money to start their whatever. Can this be more communal? A successful cooperative can offer a heck of a lot more than just money to a brand new one.

- Help with internal management. Being your own boss is hard. No one knows how to do it, meaning how to set goals and make a clear coherent plan and bring people on board to help you without using management authority. How do you solve disputes between equals both legally and practically? How do you mentally switch from a command and control management style to a collaborative management style? Should you go into business with your friends? How should you evaluate your partners and understand the risk that their personalities bring to the table?

But this list is awesome! I'm sure there's a subreddit for this right? Definitely feeling optimistic that these things exist!


I've always thought it would be interesting to figure out the smallest number of people needed to create a pop-up town or microtown. If you get a sufficient number of people together, plop them down anywhere, run water/electricity/sewer, and start a community. It might be that most of them would have to telecommute for revenue, but then you'd also have the local general store or whatever else you'd need. But the people there would be the community and social support network.


I'm also interested in this and have spent considerable time learning/practicing off-gridding. The key is finding good land in unincorporated areas with a permissive county code. There's a few good counties in California for this.

Some counties are more willing than others to grant variances for experimental communities.

It's feasible for the first time ever because of the opportunities for remote work, cheap PV, delivery of anything via amazon (yes, they'll deliver to places on dirt roads which is awesome - negates a need for a general store), etc. There's also an increased interest in being closer to nature and away from the city for a variety of health reasons apart from the considerable savings.


I think there's wide variability in the social needs of humans as a function of past experience, genetics, and age.

But I think that 15-20 is about right for a sustainable group generally as long as you've got the right skills in the mix. Fewer than that and a few lazy people and things fall apart. More than that and you start forming cliques.

Once you get into multi-generational it gets interesting. I know at least one place like this where a bunch of families sort of just went in on some land and then coparent as a community.


Is it possible to have a independent-contractor coop? We are looking to convert into a coop and have run into this legal grey area of contractor vs employee. It looks like coops are only for employees.


I think it depends on what you mean by coop. I will assume that you mean that all people doing work on behalf of the coop have an ownership stake and somehow share in decision making.

Assuming you're organized as an LLC, I think the key is whether you're taxed as a partnership or as a corporation. If you're taxed as a partnership I am certain that you have to pay any owner as a "guaranteed payment" or something like that, I couldn't pay myself on a W2 when I organized it that way. You have to send a form to each owner showing their share of the profits and losses, guaranteed payments (i.e. salary), and then instead of the LLC paying taxes at all, every owner pays a share individually.

If you're taxed as a corporation, I believe you can just pay yourself with W2's and the company has to pay taxes separately.

Of course, you can always democratize decision making and share profits as bonuses even if it's a sole proprietorship with regular employees. Either trust based or by contract or operating agreement.

I think the main logic people use when deciding how to be taxed is that if you share profits and losses directly on taxes, all the owners can theoretically write off losses and other things business related. But it then makes everyone's personal taxes harder, so it's kind of a choose-your-poison situation.

I've found the trickiest bit is basically deciding how to decide. Does everyone get an equal vote? Do people need to "buy in"? Work there a year before they get voting rights? Do people get more from a contract if they find the lead and are the project manager for that customer? How do they entice other contractors on the team to help?


> The economy needs to shift away from giant companies with pay ratios of a thousand to one between CEOs and average employees and employees need control over their workplace to move to the next stage of capitalism.

Needs? Citation needed. That's just a simplistic and Marxist view of the world, but not everyone buys into that. Actually, hardly anyone buys into that.


I don't see how co-operatives have anything to do with a hegelian dialectic. I just like localism.

>next stage of capitalism

That does sound super cringe, yes lol.


Quantum computing is becoming more viable for amateurs to experiment with. A few years ago, Microsoft released an SDK for quantum computing and you can run your solutions on a real quantum computer using Azure.

You'll learn a ton of linear algebra as a side-effect of working with quantum computing, which is the foundation of lots of other fields of computer science, like graphics and AI. I'm confident that the pool of quantum programmers is effectively zero, and I wouldn't be surprised if AI spills over into the field and causes an explosion of demand for quantum programmers. By 2024, it might be a field where you can write your own paycheck.


Microsoft does not allow one to run programs on real quantum computers. Only Rigetti Computing and IBM provide that service.


I had the same question recently and so built an app to surface rapidly growing google trends.

It was a Show HN project not long ago and people seemed to like it: https://trennd.co

I've also noticed a lot of larger trends that other commenters have highlighted too:

- data privacy focussed products (DuckDuckGo/SimpleAnalytics)

- everything machine learning

- meat substitutes

- alternative forms of entertainment (axe throwing/escape rooms)


The prevalence of IT topics is surprising to me. I didn't think there were that many of us out there. Is there any bias of the results toward tech topics?


Yeah right now there is a tech bias since the scripts and sources on the backend are focussed more on that.


This is a neat project well-executed. Most of the trends I see on the list I've already heard about. Is there a way to surface up and coming trends?


Thank you! I'd recommend filtering by 12months or less or selecting the "exponential" trends filter type to surface the hottest stuff.


Cool app, I always wanted something like this.

Now I want to backtest this strategy: How long after something becomes a google trend does it become irrelevant? My intuition says that by the time something is trending, it's far too late to get in.


I think it really depends on the trend. Some can be spikes or fads especially in fashion or food. But equally, some keep rising and turn out to be part of broader industry trends that you regret not getting in when you first discovered them. The hard thing is spotting the difference!


This is very nice. How kind of algorithm do you use to split the rapidly growing trends from the rest?


Thanks!! It's based on regression analysis of the topic's data.


Thanks for building this project! I'm a big fan. With that said, I think you should add a filter for "at least X searches per month" because right now Vue.JS appears right next to Juul, and these are vastly different market sizes. Also, having a filter "Between X and Y searches/month" would be great.


I have a hunch that the Next Big Thing (TM) will be augmented reality: though the technology is currently in its infancy, when compelling AR glasses are finally released (Apple is rumored to be released theirs in 2020) I think that it will have a massive impact.

AR frameworks are a dime a dozen, but if you're an Apple person look into ARKit + Swift.


One of the big wildcards for widespread consumer use is the social aspect. We can envision what AR might look like in everyday life. What's far less clear to me is the degree to which people will accept AR glasses that are constantly using video and audio to deliver information to the wearer will be accepted. If I know that person I just met has inconspicuously scanned me and looked up all kinds of information that are now being displayed, am I OK with that?


I think AR almost has to be Apple, not from a tech perspective, but from "this tech is very creepy, invasive, and visibly so" angle. Apple may be the only company that is simultaneously big enough to make the tech happen and charismatic enough to get us to let down our guard to it. Although that latter one is rapidly diminishing.


That's an interesting angle. Though I'm not sure to what degree the average consumer draws this distinction between Apple and Google.

Apple also probably just has about as much brand permission as anyone to create a new category of consumer device and shepherd it through the first couple of versions that will doubtless have shortcomings.


When I say charisma I mean literally being charming, like Google didn't have the tact to role out glass, because glass _looked_ creepy. Apple would have had the tact to know not to. Furthermore I think we're looking at the first couple of pseudo-generations of of Apple AR glasses in the form of the latest iPhones and Apple Watches. Watches are testing the hardware that will be colocated with the UI and the A13 the overpowered chip responsible for doing the more powerful CV functions in like the users pocket.


Yes, I suspect we'll see AR on phones/watches well before we'll see it in glasses and associated wearables. There are some AR-ish apps today but they're very limited.

There are a lot of challenges to get glasses right--both from a hardware and a usability/acceptability perspective. But people are already used to using their phones for things so it seems a very natural transition.


My guess on this is that people will pretty readily accept it if it provides something valuable to them, something they can't really get without it. The amount of privacy that people have given up using internet tech is what leads me to believe that this will be no different. I remember when people were afraid to use their own names nearly anywhere. Then they began to post their real identities in facebook (and elsewhere) feeling that they could choose who viewed the information. Now people post their real identities, pictures of themselves and even their children on publicly viewable instagram accounts. This sticks out to me because I remember thinking in the past that there was some barrier between what people posted publicly vs privately in particular with regards to their children. Not everyone is so open but it is not something I hear discussed amongst my non-programmer friends and a large number of them share in this behavior.


A little tangential, but I hope the answer to this is a resounding "no", and that adoption is sufficient to make a lot of people really uncomfortable. Perhaps this is naive of me, but I still believe that a great contributor to tolerance of our society for massive dragnet surveillance is that it isn't very visible.


Not tangential at all. On the one hand, I can see AR that's extremely powerful and useful given wearable hardware, sophisticated software, image recognition, connectivity, etc.

On the other hand, that would clearly be a step beyond today's smartphones to, as you suggest, potentially always on video and audio that's constantly communicating with and being analyzed by databases.

By contrast, VR seems to me to be a niche.


These "privacy vs features" questions of new technologies keep coming up. Over and over, people seem to shrug their shoulders over the privacy violations while they eat up the new features.


What if last week that person you were introduced to, and gave your name to(or didn't) happened to look you up and do some research. It wasn't handed to them through glasses immediately, but essentially it's the same thing. I would bet it probably has already happened to many of us and we didn't even realize.

ever have someone come up to you and say "Oh your the person who x"

just a thought on your last sentence


Well it would be socially acceptable to be wearing one while working on-the-job for example, a construction worker, doctor, or even a motorcyclist.


I run a VR startup so I'm biased, but: AR and VR. Different side of the same coin. But first (next 5-10 years) VR will be more mainstream, because it's easier to solve from a technological point of view.


In what sense are they different sides of the same coin? I see AR as very practical and VR not so much. I look at everyone walking down the street trying to simultaneous look down at their phone and do other things (walk, drive, etc) and see a huge TAM for AR. Meanwhile, in 1993 I went to the local fairground in my small town and experienced VR-enabled multiplayer game of Doom. It had much lower fidelity than VR today, but if the market really wanted it, there would have been a constant pull for their technology to improve. Instead it's just been fits and starts for the past 26 years since I experienced that demo. Big tech has pumped huge money into VR the last 5 years and the uptake is just not happening.


> In what sense are they different sides of the same coin?

One should look at AR and VR as a spectrum. Eventually, you'll be able to mix and match with the same headset.

> Instead it's just been fits and starts for the past 26 years since I experienced that demo. Big tech has pumped huge money into VR the last 5 years and the uptake is just not happening.

This is incorrect. The Oculus Quest is super successful measured on any conceivable metric, outperforming (sales and retention-wise) any other headset that came before it.

One key barrier to adoption of VR (or any consumer tech) is convenience. The Quest is the first headset that makes it convenient to use VR, as you don't need a PC, no external trackers, but you still get the same level of immersiveness.

There are other areas that need improvement until it speak to a bigger TAM (such as improved resolution, more software, better performance, better ergonomics) - but those are all problems that have a more or less clear path of solution.

In 10 years, everyone will be working in VR headsets, not laptops.


Agreed. With 7nm fresh off the presses and 5nm on the way we're should start seeing some efficient SoC's to do the 3D mapping AR needs. Even if glasses aren't ready to be the primary interface - phones with the hardware to accurately map and overlay the world still has a lot of promise.


I agree -- on top of this, I think machine learning will play an important role. The power of machine learning + AR creates some interesting possibilities. You can check out our website for some examples https://www.2020cv.com


Big agree. Smartphones have more or less flatlined in the last couple years and the only viable next step seems to be AR. Snap Inc and a lot of smaller players in the market know this, and their pivot to AR is arguably what has caused their resurgence in the past few months.


What value does augmented reality add to anything?


If you don't need a monitor, you don't need the computer as we know it today. Combine it with a brain computer interface and you throw away the keyboard and mouse as well. Subsequently you also throw away all the OS'es as we know them. AR/VR is a toy today. In the future our computers and mobile phones might look as arcane as an eniac.


I recommend Hegel with Neuralink: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ppGlEiQXrRI

Unless the computer is itself capable of anticipating and satisfying your desires — which, I grant, is possible, but, I would argue, incredibly, incredibly dystopian — you will need to consciously articulate your thoughts in such a way that the computer serves your will. That conscious articulation is the bottleneck. Not the keyboard, not the mouse, and certainly not the typing speed.

This is, of course, assuming that the computer remains the servant rather than becoming the master.


I am thinking of the keyboardless typing with wrist bands as an intermediary step. I agree controlling conscious thought is difficult, but you could just key in commands with small impulses of the wrists and it would still be quite a bit more convenient than pulling out the phone


Not if the BCI is trained on data produced by users in a natural thinking state.


If it needs to be a learnable skill like typing, that is just as revolutionary. The interface does not have to be that deep. Just enough to input words and movements. Hell it could be voice commands.


Think about car mechanics seeing what do next if you want to open this specific motor or electrician seeing where cables are in the wall. Or physicians seeing specific information about patients eg how fast is he is breathing, what patient temperature is etc.


I'm thinking of assisting drivers. Projecting stuff into the road to guide the driver, or warn him when there are dangerous objects.


I'm not sure the thing people have been doing perfectly well for 100 years without AR glasses that billions of dollars are being invested in making people not need to do at all is the place to launch your AR dream company


For values of "Doing perfectly well" that encompass "Killing 30,000 people a year."


I like the idea of using it for safety. Is that something currently being done, or still in the experimental stages?


Visualizing any change to the exterior of a building or new construction project in the actual location that it will be.


And how many people would need that on a daily basis? This sounds to be a useful but somewhat niche area


There are 1.2 millions houses built in the US every year. I could see the applications pretty vast actually. Another possible idea is for landscaping. Often times a tree will be planted that ends up too big or too small for the space. With an app that can show a tree in the space at various stages in it's life, it could really help in landscape design.


Ask the porn industry in 1-2 years.


Adtech. Hence Facebook/Oculus.


To borrow a term from Microsoft, "Intelligent Edge." With the shift to the cloud, we are finding there are still many scenarios that should start local for latency, bandwidth, or legal considerations. Organizations still want those scenarios to be easy to manage though.

An example might be in store retail analytics- a set up with a bunch of cameras that can detect what people are touching or otherwise interested in. It makes little sense to ship the video streams all the way back to a cloud provider, but orgs want the capability all the same.


>An example might be in store retail analytics- a set up with a bunch of cameras that can detect what people are touching or otherwise interested in.

Because the one thing desperately needed in this world is even more surveillance?


Most retail stores have been heavily surveilled for a long time by cctv for shoplifting purposes.

One, perhaps naive, hope I have for edge based technologies is to enable scenarios that are actually more private. In my scenario, if the processing of the video stays at the edge and only anonymized or aggregated information is sent up to the cloud/ larger organization, then is much better then if the video is shipped offsite and processed.

It’ll take some interesting legislative efforts to really frame this well, but the Europeans (and the state or Illinois with their facial recognition law?) at least seem to be headed that way.


This already happens with bluetooth phones in stores. They simply ping you from an array and can track your movement throughout the store.


How do you create a recurring subscription model without gating the service in the cloud as a SaaS?

/s (or maybe not..)


Platforms that enable a diaspora of small businesses to operate as effectively as large organizations with minimal startup cost.

Why build a massive services organization when you can enable and finance a takeover by a multitude of smaller players?


We are on a treadmill, though. There are a set of differentiating features that larger companies can supply and any time the tools get good enough for that, the narrative shifts. Very much like fashion.

For instance, everything has been Cloud Cloud Cloud for quite some time now and people are still scrambling to adapt to this forced march.

'The cloud' is building out a set of management tools that will ultimately help, I think, small companies transition to medium sized companies. But when those tools are good, people will probably also be migrating out of AWS and GCS into something else. At which point there will be some other set of tools or solutions that everyone else is copying.


This is interesting. Do you have any examples in mind that achieve this? Whether in particular niches or solving common problems throughout small business?


I believe Quicken is behind the recent resurgence of independent mortgage lenders, which was a market all but captured by traditional banks until recently.

Services like Rover seem to be displacing kennels for doggy daycare. They should consider micro-loans to their highest rated dog watchers for things like fences if they have not already.


the safe network is something that comes to mind. when / if its released the costs for setting up an online service will be peanuts compared to today. way cheaper storage, cheaper computing if your service needs it, and also less maintenance since you don't need to worry about securely storing data. it should all be handled by the network

https://safenetwork.tech


Trinet SOI, wageworks


AWS is a good example of this


Tools that make development 10x easier for the next generation of programmers. There’s many different ways to approach this and there are going to be a number of very successful startups in this space IMHO. Examples: darklang.com, webflow.com, retool.com, modulz.com, divjoy.com (disclaimer: my project).


This applies to everything. The idea is that the talent pool for a given job will increase, as jobs become easier and easier. Especially AI will drive down the needed expertise for a given job. E.g. nurses will increasingly be able to do jobs that require doctors today.


>> Tools that make development 10x easier for the next generation of programmers.

Fully agree.

>> Examples: darklang.com, webflow.com, retool.com, modulz.com, divjoy.com

To me, those look still very much focused on the software engineer.

My preference is rather something like Oracle APEX or Atlassian Jira.

Jira already provides many generic features that are typically used in custom, corporate applications: - UI with forms, tables, sorting, filtering - queries - Workflow editor and workflow engine - notifications - csv file import / export - mobile client


The climate emergency has pushed me hard into quite a few areas that have a lot of promise for huge impact, to name a few:

- electromobility: concerting bikes, kick-scooters, cars ... this all is much easier than it seems, also has a vibrant open source culture

- demand response in electricity grids has quite a few startups (one of which I just joined) that help integrating a lot of renewables in a way that does not break grid stability

- passivhaus buildings that can save 90% of heating/cooling for 10% extra cost in construction

- storing carbon into buildings with wood/CLT

- plating trees, reforesting deserts etc

- if you really want to go long there are a few fields of microbiology that could reduce our pollution from agriculture a lot


I studied sustainability related topics for my Bachelor's and Master's degrees, but transitioned to full-time software development. Now I've promised myself I'll try to work exclusively for companies doing something climate positive. I must admit the intersection of sustainability and TypeScript is more narrow than I'd like! Let me know which companies you find.

There are some great, mission driven urban and smart-city related companies-- Swiftly, Sidewalk Labs, Remix. The whole mobility SaaS scene like Ioki (my employer), Via, door2door. Some cool unique projects like Doconomy.

But unfortunately for me the most impactful companies will have a much more specific niche than just "sustainability", and often are more in science and engineering than software. Like the ones you've pointed out, or lab grown meat and meat substitutes, renewable energy, geospatial tech, manufacturing, etc.

So I try take this extra motivation and energy and throw it at side projects: getting https://offsetra.com off the ground, and trying to find people to use my mapping tool for citizen science and civic engagement https://canvis.app

While there isn't a lot to be optimistic about in the grand sense, we can at least feel a bit optimistic in the career sense-- sustainability and climate are more hot than ever these days (no pun intended).


Drones which plant trees seem pretty exciting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkNdrTZ7CG4


You make it pretty hard to figure out where you work. Mind sharing?


Climate change will create the first trillionaire.

Find everything that eats fossil fuels and electrify it. Find everything that requires stable land and predictable weather and put it in a shipping container. Find every infrastructure investment that requires decades to pay off and decentralize it.

Instead of water line pipes, pull water out of the air. Instead of copper and fiber optic cables on telephone poles, use solar and satellites. Instead of refrigerated transportation, grow food in your pocket or your stomach. Instead of roads, take to the air.

We won't fix the climate out of kindness. Warren Buffet invested $$ Billions into wind farms because it makes his wallet feel better. Tim Cook just yesterday gave a speech that Apple said "We don't see climate change as risk, but opportunity", that's straight from the world's first trillion dollar company. [1] Elon Musk announced that SpaceX Starship will be pulling its fuel out of atmospheric carbon dioxide on Earth, and on Mars [2]

We'll need to completely reinvent society. Sustainable transportation, vertical agriculture, solar/wind/nuclear energy, air mining, an all-electric economy.

Topics: Direct Air Capture, making products out of atmospheric carbon dioxide, carbon removal. Check out all the companies in the space here: http://airminers.org

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/22/tim-cook-talks-sustaina...

[2] https://youtu.be/sOpMrVnjYeY?t=3850


FED money printing and the subsequent bubbles will create the first trillionaire.


Zimbabwe beat them to it


Good point. I am a 100 trillionaire in Zimbabwe dollars.


If anyone wants to start a business selling suitcases of money from hyperinflation countries, I really really want to buy one large suitcase full (preferably money with English writing from a known county, Zimbabwe seems a likely candidate!). Or perhaps prop money (although it needs to seem like a realistic Western currency). Or maybe zero dollar banknotes?


Discontent amongst world populations is growing, with wildfire riots increasingly breaking out. The root cause of this discontent is the gross inequality encouraged by (amongst other forces) contrepreneur culture. The near-term world is not going to be hospitable to the uber-rich, fortunately in my view. The world's masses are coming after them.


Is climate change really tied to wealth inequality or are you just looking for a way to rationalize your blood lust?


Naomi Klein’s most recent book has parts that argue that addressing wealth inequality is a must if we want to address climate change.

In her words, wealth equality is tied to a “climate justice” movement. Some points:

- If you tax the struggling lower middle and working classes to raise funds for climate action they will get justifiably angry that they’re being stressed when they didn’t really create this mess and have the lowest ability to pay. Eg. Frances ‘Yellow Jackets’ - The antidemocratic forces that are produced by wealth inequality have allowed fossil fuel industries to maintain the status quo despite popular support for climate action


I would argue the ones lusting for blood are those who, like decision-makers at Amazon, create abusive conditions for the people who work for the companies they manage.

I'm specifically referring to the disgraceful way workers are treated at Amazon shipping facilities.

Most blood seems to be spilled by those with money wanting more.

One could argue that the arms business spills more blood than everything else put together ...


Well it's tied in one direction: poorer populations will suffer for the material benefit of richer ones. My nation is quite explicit about this - our government is on record as being happy for Pacific nations to lose their land as long as Australia continues 'economic growth'. And we'll even allow them to labour for us in exchange! The other direction is conceivable: more equal populations may be less liable to vanity status purchases, and less resistant to equitably-distributed change. Perhaps hard to prove either way.

Anyway, that's not much to do with my comment which was merely noting that disaster capitalists trying to make trillions from climate change may meet mass resistance.

As for my alleged blood lust - well I doubt the discontent will result in many billionaires being torn limb from limb. Though as many seem to think paying their fair share of tax would be pretty much equivalent, why not?


You wish.

Just like the early socialists of 19th century wished.

Many of his suggestions are outright harmful, like pulling water out of air. Same thinking got us in this mess in the first place, hey just pull out oil of the ground and burn it.


Oh yes and no I guess. A certain Schadenfreude would ensue for sure. But as I'm pretty sure it's too late to save our civilisation now, it'll be a lot of chaos & suffering for not much.


I'm pessimistic about governments coming together and coordinating an expensive effort to avert climate change. I also think the world is on a course to become increasingly divided and rivalrous, such that collaboration would be less likely, and nations less willing to compromise on their economic competitiveness.

I think if there is an effort made (which there will probably have to be), it'll be something cheap and dirty, like stratospheric aerosol injection.


It won't be governments that avert climate change, it'll be individuals acting in their own self-interest.

This might be violent (everybody kills their neighbors, reducing the population and hence greenhouse emissions), or it might be economic (as fossil fuel prices rise, renewables become increasingly price-competitive, such that some people end up making a lot of money electrifying the world). Personally I'm rooting for the economic solution.


> Personally I'm rooting for the economic solution.

An impossibility because so called 'economic growth' (which is no more than global entropy increase) is coming to an end as degraded ecosystems worldwide fall into collapse. Climate change is only the most salient of literally thousands of distributed causes of this, but the overview is: the physical loans taken out on our global systems over the past two centuries are coming to maturity. It's payback time.


Same here regarding govts coming together. I think individuals have a huge role to play. The rise of the climate hackers.


The reason there seems to be so much rivalry today is because only the shitty, attention grabbing and warmongering leaders and nations get all the attention.

In the meanwhile, you have most nations around the world living and making progress peacefully. Nations that can be easily convinced by some form of aid or assistance to get on the bandwagon.

Don't be fooled by the news media. Most peoples of the world just want to live and let live. However, if the leadership of the US continues to be dominated by anti-science racist right-wingers, I am sorry to say, this won't happen. That is probably the biggest threat to any progress, not inter-government cooperation.


> anti-science racist right-wingers... is probably the biggest threat to any progress

don't really know what race has to do with it, but big international banks are a bigger threat since they won't let any nation unplug from the global economy. follow the money.


Racism is a strong indicator of lack of integrity and a belief in the scientific process. If you believe that people are less intelligent because of the color of their skin (despite numerous scientific evidence failing to show any correlation between race and intelligence) it’s a good indicator that you don’t believe in the scientific method.


> Find everything that eats fossil fuels and electrify it

You start off with a free lunch fallacy.

Open an led bulb sometime. You’ll find a large heat sink, at least one fiberglass circuit board, 30-100 electronics components with their own printing / cases / production footprints, ROHS-exempt parts have heavy metals like lead and mercury, you’ll find metal stampings and plastic coated wire, there will be plastic lenses and injection molded mounts, there will be LEDs themselves of course which have tens of thousands of hours time into their design that come from specialized facilities... all the production and shipping and testing and development that goes into each bulb.

... remember old light bulbs? Glass, a wire, a metal thread.

Remember the argument that LED bulbs will last 10 years? They don’t. Tell me... which one do you think will be better in a landfill?

I still think it’s the right move to go with LED bulbs overall - but I’ve been around the world, I’d like to think I have a sense of scale.

When I see people write “just make it electric” i think of things like but not limited to my bulb example and I’m confident that person doesn’t understand much on making things at scale.


Never said it would be easy. But fossil fuel powered light bulbs aren't the long term solution, and renewable-powered bulbs definitely are.


One thing I've never been able to figure out is that given Crispr, why it wouldn't be possible to engineer an organism that can suck much more CO2 out of the air than any existing tree / algae could. Even more ideal if we can make a good building material out of the engineered plant to sequester Carbon.

It's easy to see how the manual selection process would work here - plant a bunch of trees, see how much O2 each produces and pick Top N and repeat. Of course, this needs thousands of years to run manually because the improvement with each generation would be minimal.

Is the issue that we don't know what gene(s) control photo-synthesis?


Not my area of expertise, but I would assume that there is an efficiency limit, much like there is for solar panels.

Remember that organisms can't just pull CO2 out of the air for free. Plants do it via photosynthesis, which requires the sun's energy. There is a maximum amount of energy falling on each organism, and I would guess that there is some theoretical limit to the efficiency of photosynthesis that is well below that limit.


Yup I agree with you almost entirely. The only thing I was thinking of was if evolution would optimize for the amount of energy a plant receives vs other things like survival, reproduction etc and how much efficiency we can gain by optimizing purely for photosynthesis.

Also I don’t know if plants are adapted to the high CO2 atmosphere yet so even if evolution optimized the ability of a plant to photosynthesize, given this happened in relatively low CO2 environments like forests and without man made climate change, it’s possible that human intervention can improve it.


>One thing I've never been able to figure out is that given Crispr, why it wouldn't be possible to engineer an organism that can suck much more CO2 out of the air than any existing tree / algae could.

Jurassic Park Effect.

Just because we can doesn't mean we should. CRISPR is pretty unknown and releasing man-made organism we don't know every little thing about could topple the ecosystem incredibly quickly. Not to mention how incredibly divisive it would be to do so.


The answer is pretty simple: carbon fuels release energy when burned. This means an organism reversing the operation needs to absorb energy (in the case of photosynthesis, solar energy). Sunlight is not that energy-dense, and concentrating that energy too much would burn the plant anyway.


This is being worked on. The problem is we are terrible at engineering biosystems, CRISPR currently works mainly to knockout genes rather than the kind of enhanced evolution you describe, and upscaling a solution to the point it can have a planetary impact is non-trivial.


Re: upscaling, I was reading another article on HN about a specific species of plant when grown in sufficiently large quantities (6x size of Texas I think) would basically bring us down to carbon neutral. We can probably scrounge up that land if the world works together but who knows.

Re: engineering biosystems, I imagine engineering native plants (if possible) has much fewer ecosystem wide chain effects) than using gene drives to eliminate mosquitoes or whatever.

Re: crispr, I see photos of glow in the dark monkeys and super muscular dogs, so as a layman it seems like cutting a gene and vaguely throwing the desired gene near the cut location seems to work. We don’t have as many ethical implications about rapidly iterating on plants as we do on animals, so it seems like if an experiment doesn’t work, just repeat 1000x until it works would do it. People talk about off-target effects etc. but you won’t really know unless you try I guess.


This is the correct answer. We are abysmal at engineering biosystems. As Stewart Brand says "We are as gods and we must get good at it".


As I understand it, algae growth is generally limited by iron, so just removing the limiting factor can increase growth and pull more CO2 out of the air. There has been at least one rogue geoengineering project along those lines - https://csi.asu.edu/ideas/the-first-of-the-geohackers/

Maybe we don't actually need genetic engineering - maybe we can just build big algae ponds and feed them iron supplements. Basically build algae heaven, open source it and random groups across the globe can start doing it.


There's actually a tree that does. Paulownia. Reason is that it is also the only nitrogen fixing tree, so it can grow at a much more rapid rate.


trees have been optimizing that problem for a long time already, and then if you don't bury the tree and prevent decomposition, you don't really solve anything but create a short term buffer.


How long for a "full" tree to decompose?


using the lumber in high rises (through gluelam construction) is cheaper than steel and is carbon negative.. virtuous cycle indeed.


I don't really see that happening. Most of the things you've suggested would require large amounts on energy to produce. I don't see energy getting cheaper over the next 50-100 years. It seems to me that climate change and reduced dependency on fossil fuels we lead to reduced globalization and population reduction.


The cost of energy will go near zero. The marginal cost of an electron captured with solar is free.

Solar is starting to beat fossil fuel installations already, below $0.05 USD per kWh.

This was not predicted even by the biggest cheerleaders even 10 years ago: "In 2017, the solar industry achieved SunShot’s original 2020 cost target of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour for utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) solar power three years ahead of schedule, dropping from about $0.28 to $0.06 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)." [1]

Sunshot goal for 2030 is $0.03 per kWh.

[1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/sunshot-2030


> Solar is starting to beat fossil fuel installations already, below $0.05 USD per kWh.

I read that over and over, but it's like comparing apples and oranges.


Depends upon your country.

Countries with significant lake hydroelectricity (not run-of-river) can "store" the solar power (no batteries needed) by reducing flow during the daytime (and increasing flow at nighttime if required).

This is because hydroelectric dams are essentially stores of electricity. No need for pumping or other expensive storage schemes, is your already have one!


Does your current price of PV include storage?

Also the PV cells made mainly from China are currently manufactured using coal power plant. But what would be the price of photovoltaics if only renewable energies were used? My guess is it will be much higher.


I have never understood what people are trying to argue when they make this point. It would be like an oncologist arguing against surgery that would inhibit a tumour on the basis that it wouldn't eradicate it.


Okay, how about the copper that transports that electron to somewhere it can do useful work? How about the 1800C furnace that melts sand into the silicon for the solar panel? How about the diesel fuel that the massive mining trucks used to haul the copper ore out of the mine are fueled with (these things are heavy and get something like 8 gallons to the mile (not a typo) good luck running them on batteries)?

Those things aren't going to zero anytime soon.


Mining trucks are going electric. They actually make energy when loaded and going down a hill.

https://hackaday.com/2019/08/22/electric-dump-truck-produces...

Furnaces have been run off of solar (parabolic mirrors) for quite some time.


While it sounds like an excellent candidate in all mines, one must keep in mind that the majority of mines tend to move ore/waste rock upwards. In those other, rarer cases (for instance: mountain top mining), electrification of the haulage fleet makes good sense.


Good to know, thanks! Seems obvious this is the way to go. Excited to see growth in this space in the future.


> How about the 1800C furnace that melts sand into the silicon for the solar panel

I wonder if a process similar to that used for molten salt batteries, using reflected, concentrated sunlight, could be used to melt sand into what is needed for more solar panels, electronics etc, and use the stored energy while it cools off, essentially combining the processes? And of course for other [s]melting processes powered by fossil fuels today?

Hmm, after doing a bit of research: the melting point for saltpeter (used in molten salt storage [0]) is only 550°F, while silicon's is 2,577°F... would a reflecting solar array be able to reach those temperatures? If I'm reading this [1] correctly, you could only practically get to 3,698.33°F (really close to your example of a 1,800°C furnace) if you collected all the sunlight falling onto earth. It's got to be much worse than that though in practice, because to focus all of it onto a single point would require beaming reflections from the perimeter a long distance through air, and also around the curvature of the earth...

So, we need to build this on the moon or in orbit? Oooh, Futurama actually showed us what could go wrong here [2].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_energy#Molten_sa...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#Ideal...

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qksm5cRtcU


Why not just use an electrical furnace and power that with solar power?


The furnaces for making crude silicon are already powered by electricity. So are the Siemens process reactors for refining silicon into solar and electronic grades. So are the Czochralski crystal pullers used to turn refined silicon into mono-crystalline boules for manufacturing wafers.

"Silicon processing: from quartz to crystalline silicon solar cells"

https://www.pyrometallurgy.co.za/Pyro2011/Papers/083-Xakalas...


even if there were tens or even hundreds of UNIVAC installations, who’s going to run the telegraph lines for all the teletype terminals this would require??


This is just pointless smug contrarianism, I hope you're just in a bad mood and don't really believe or think this way regularly. Mining trucks are excellent candidates for battery electrification, Volvo is already building and selling them.

What other things do you think are never happening that are infact already happening?


I really doubt it makes sense to use electric vehicles for mining, but I could be wrong. I guess we'll be able to see in the coming years what fraction of mining vehicles are electric.

But what is wrong about what I stated? It's obviously impossible for solar to approach $0 because of the large material costs inherent in manufacturing solar panels and transporting electricity. This is not contrarianism, it's realism. We probably use more energy per capita than is sustainable, and eventually we will have to change that.

Also solar panels wear out. I could see a case being made for the cost going to zero if you amortize it, but you can only amortize it over about 25 years, after which you have to replace the panels. This sets a floor on the price.


> I really doubt it makes sense to use electric vehicles for mining, but I could be wrong. I guess we'll be able to see in the coming years what fraction of mining vehicles are electric.

They're slow-moving, inherently massive and heavy, and travel relatively short distances per round-trip. So they don't care much about battery weight, size or limited range, and appreciate the massive torque from low RPMs.

It's kind of an ideal case for a battery-swapping BEV system. Just wait for the battery costs and energy densities to both improve and this will be a no-brainer. They can charge the drained battery on the grid from cheaper/cleaner sources while the other is busy hauling a load.

Of course if the terrain is such that the mine is on the top of a mountain ascended empty but descended full, you don't even need battery swapping, it'll recharge on the descent.

Nobody wants to spend money owning and operating those diesel engines if they don't have to. When the BEV option is available and makes business sense they'll switch immediately. They'll require little maintenance, and you don't need specially trained technicians to swap batteries and order new ones when they need replacing.


While I wanted to agreee it's just contrarianism, he has a point. Mine electrification is going to come very, very slowly. There are 2 principal reasons,

1) mines run on a 24/7 schedule. There is not enough down time to charge batteries in a shift and with how completely filthy machines get we need better solutions for battery swapping in mining before that becomes an option, and

2) because (like the mine I am at right now) a non-negligible number of mines are far from grids or clean power sources, a lot of battery power would come from fossil fuels burned near the mine.

There is interest, but most of the actual use seems fairly superficial (public image boosts).


Transporting energy long distances seems like such a waste. There's the cost of transporting fossil fuels or power lines for electricity.

What economics would it take for your mine to have its own solar or nuclear powered microgrid. What about when fossil fuel supplies are unreliable or interrupted.


Appreciate the thoughtful questions, and inquisitive responses! Great to see people figure out how we might push these closer to zero. We'll need to lower the costs of manufacturing solar panels and transporting electricity + raise the lifetime of panels.


> Mining trucks are excellent candidates for battery electrification, Volvo is already building and selling them.

For near zero? Where?


> Those things aren't going to zero anytime soon.

Not with that attitude


Someone is going to cover the Sahara with solar panels and make some serious cash. Bonus points for automating the production of solar panels out of sand.


Call it "Sand to Solar". Some of the best ideas start out as jokes, I googled for this because I was curious:

"New technology allows heated sand to generate electricity, presenting a viable new option for investors to focus on."

https://oilandenergyinvestor.com/acq/new-energy-from-sand-wh...


I wasted more time than I care to think reading that article. There is no mention of how the technology works. A vague reference to an academic project in the UAE. Most of the article is just filler fluff. This is a marketing article to investors for this authors "wealth building energy advantage".


If you're curious, try googling for "SandShifter", here's an energy.gov profile:

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/project-profile-csp-energy...

https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1183706-solar-holdings-final-tec...


Hey, I work at a nuclear fission company. We think we can get our electricity prices to around $0.0025 / kWh by around 2045. This represents a ~20x reduction from off-peak cost in Ontario where I live, and ~150x reduction from average electricity prices in Germany.

Also, w.r.t. population, the way I see it our population is growing very quickly whether we like it or not (look at Africa). I think there's a good opportunity for us to support a population much larger than we have right now with improved sustainable energy tech.

(Solar panels are also getting cheaper, and will probably run around $0.02/kWh in the near future if iteration continues, and are probably capable of supporting us up to 20 billion people as well)


I'm excited about nuclear, but it seems like we will eventually run out of uranium fuel unless we switch to breeder reactors. Am I off on this? This is assuming that nuclear usage grows to become a larger portion of our total energy use. I see nuclear as potentially solving a lot of our problems, but it seems to have some difficulties as well.

I'm more skeptical that we can support such a large population. Right now we make heavy use of fertilizer, which is produced from natural gas and by mining phosphates. Probably we could avoid using natural gas, but this would require using more energy, so I'm not sure how sustainable this is long-term.


You're absolutely right, U235 reserves are only enough to last a couple hundred years at current consumption and exploration. We could probably sustain a long time with burner LWRs but it will require massive investment.

Breeders however (whether you go with Th-U or U-Pu fuel) both should be able to take us to at least another 10,000 present-equivalent years on a wholly nuclear powered economy.

You're also right to suspect fertilizer, I feel the same way. I've seen some of the phosphate mines around the world and it's kind of horrifying, so I'm hoping asteroid mining can fix our metal extraction problem.

I heard C-Type asteroids have plenty of phosphorus, but I'm definitely not an expert on asteroid mining. If they do, though, it will likely be enough to sustain us for quadrillions of human-years (humans * years) because the asteroid belt is just so damn massive compared to the Earth's crust.


Hmm, Hinkley C is signed up at a strike price of £92.50/MWh, in 2012 Pounds. A 400x reduction when so much of the cost of nuclear is safety, waste management and decommissioning? That's surprising to say the least.

Can you give any clue on how?

The trend of solar and wind continuing the inexorable march downward seems much more certain.


· Liquid fueled MSR, safety is best of any other source. So, we think regulators will lower barriers over time as we prove this.

· Waste management is easier since our waste will be ~5x less mass per kg fuel (~500x less mass per kWh energy), and also returns to natural radioactivity much faster (one or two centuries). We actually plan to sell most of the fission products as useful materials.

· As of now, our reactors are planned to be mostly stainless steel. Most of the lifetime mass-throughput of current GI-GIII fission plants is concrete and steel, of which we have basically none of the concrete and much less steel because no pressure vessel. So, decommissioning is much easier and probably will be internally profitable.

You're right about the last part, because solar will almost definitely get at least 2x cheaper than it is today, and within not more than a few decades.

My perception is biased (ofc), but in my view it's actually very likely that we will reach or surpass our goal, though, so I personally wouldn't bet on renewables.


Thanks. There's been quite the resurgence of interest in salt since it just about disappeared in the 70s or 80s.

I hope you manage it - though I tend to think we'll have a mix of sources rather than making renewables irrelevant. That may be reserve from having heard the "too cheap to meter" slogan a time or two too often. :) Even properly competitive nuclear will make decarbonising far easier, as I'm not at all convinced by grid scale battery, so I hope someone manages...


Yeah, I agree with you completely.

I think we will probably get fission to like 4/5 of the world energy supply and 95% of electricity within our lifetimes.

Solar panels are a great thing to have on your house if you can afford them and want the security in the case of some kind of grid problem. They're also good if you need energy in the middle of nowhere. We want to put fission reactors in most remote communities, even small ones, but if small enough groups of people are going out into uninhabited places it doesn't make sense, so solar panels are better.

I don't really see any utility in wind energy at all, other than in areas where solar doesn't make sense.

Batteries are a really environmentally bad idea for non-transport/device energy supply, because of density. So I think it's best we avoid intermittent sources for most of the grid power.


Wow that's really exciting, I need to pay more attention to nuclear.


You mean geo-engineering specifically, or just a transition to a renewable economy?

Olivine weathering and ocean cloud seeding both seem like reasonably likely solutions that each cost on the order of 10's of billions. Major doubts that addressing carbon will be a big money maker.

But obviously the carbon economy is huge, so the renewable economy will at least that big.


In terms of "What's a Promising Area to Work On", I'm excited about all of it. I've expanded my description to include the renewable economy as well as the carbon economy.


Who's going to pay for it?


As one example, imagine that someone invents a process to manufacture gasoline using carbon extracted from the air, at a price that's cost competitive with gasoline extracted from the ground.

Any car running on that as fuel would immediately become carbon-neutral, and it could be produced anywhere on the planet. Almost overnight you could make the entire automotive industry carbon neutral (burning this gasoline would merely return the carbon into the air that was sequestered when the gas was produced) without needing to replace all the cars on the road.

Who would pay for it? Everyone. Individuals would buy manufactured gasoline to power their cars. Governments all over the world would subsidize its production both for environmental reasons (to meet Paris targets), and for energy security to reduce their dependence on oil imports.

That would be a license to print money and could probably produce a trillionaire.


Exactly. Elon Musk announced a few weeks ago that SpaceX Starship will be fueled from atmospheric carbon. They're building a process to pull carbon fuel out of the air on Earth -- and on Mars.

Relevant quote on YouTube from Starship Update, queued up here: https://youtu.be/sOpMrVnjYeY?t=3850


Sure, that would be great. Processes to do this exist - at higher energy costs. The thermodynamic hill is heavily against you on this.

Cheap fusion or safe cheap thorium reactors would also be great. But an awful lot of smart people have bounced off those problems without success.


Yes, once you sort out the industrial process the price of manufactured gasoline would be driven by the local price of electricity at the production site.

Thermodynamics isn't the only thing to consider. There are parts of the world where spot electricity rates routinely go negative, because it's cheaper to pay a consumer to absorb excess electricity than it is to shut off a power plant. A process like this could absorb excess electricity when there's an excess of electricity.

You don't need to talk about fusion or thorium reactors when the cost of solar is low and falling, and we haven't _nearly_ saturated the planets capacity for generating electricity through solar. A combined facility that generated electricity through solar, then either sold electricity or manufactured gasoline (whichever is better in the moment)


There is already a process for it and it's called biodiesel [0]. It has its own range of problems and is not as sexy as the electric cars (that depend on rare earth metals for production of batteries with limited recyclability BTW), but could be much more sustainable long-term.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel


There's a tipping point where it becomes unprofitable to keep existing gas stations open. Then due to lack of available fueling options ICE vehicles rapidly decline. The same thing could happen with financing - as soon as lease payments and average electricity costs are less than monthly fuel costs, the incentive to go ICE will rapidly decline. Especially if range is similar to gas. Not quite there yet.


This could start an ice age


Yes, it could. Actually that's one concern I have looking forward past the current climate crisis: that the current push to solve climate change will spin up a huge industry of carbon capture and sequestration, which will turn the word's economy carbon negative. Atmospheric carbon plummets -- as fast as it's currently rising -- and we put the Earth into an ice age.

Basically humanity has reached the point where we need to learn to regulate our global carbon emissions to keep the atmosphere at a steady state. We're just now starting to figure out how to down-regulate our carbon emissions; after that we'll need to figure out how to up-regulate it in a controlled way.


You either pay to fix the problem, or you pay treat the symptoms with insurance premiums.

You pay no matter what.


perhaps those who wish to survive, after the initial wave of effects begin to be felt


likely individuals, not governments. We bought our way into this problem.


But the number of people who will is very obviously tiny. For any well-off individual, it's cheaper to buy their way out of the downsides. Everyone else is wondering about rent and (in the US) healthcare with a lot more immediacy.

We can see this from the low takeup of carbon offsets.


>Instead of water line pipes, pull water out of the air.

I thought this story was put to bed a long time ago? [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVsqIjAeeXw


Check it out, this is a different implementation that works!

"A new device that sits inside a shipping container can use clean energy to almost instantly bring clean drinking water anywhere–the rooftop of an apartment building in Nairobi, a disaster zone after a hurricane in Manila, a rural village in Zimbabwe–by pulling water from the air."

https://www.fastcompany.com/90253718/a-device-that-can-pull-...


This is interesting to me because it’s such a cultural blindspot: the left-wing point of view is that energy efficiency is the only way forward, and the right-wing point of view is that more traditional fuels is the only way forward.

But solar panels seem to have a version or Moore’s law - and even a single doubling of efficiency from here would completely revolutionize our energy economy (and dramatically shake up world politics!). Two doublings and we have a green future. Three or more doublings and we suddenly have the biggest energy surplus in human history.

It might be a little slower than the computing revolution - but it also might not be. If this is 1980, and solar is at the Apple II phase, the next 30 years are going to be wild.


Solar panel efficiency does not have an analogue to Moore's law, and their efficiency physically cannot double two or more times.

Solar cell record efficiency is 46%, that only gives room for 1.12 doublings theoretically, and thermodynamics is nasty in the real world so we probably cannot even get past 1 doubling from here.


You are correct about thermodynamic efficiency. I interpreted it to be about economic efficiency. In which case one or more doublings of kWh output from dollar input is still a stretch but plausible.

Modern rooftop solar modules haven't even doubled efficiency from 40 years ago, but they have improved cost per kilowatt hour by more than 100x.


Yeah, I tend to agree with you here. The difference I see is that solar has already been heavily invested in and developed recently, so it's probably near the limit of today's material science.

My personal philosophy about technological progress is based heavily on the idea that material science is the principle barrier to what we can accomplish. That's why humanity's progress is recounted in "ages" named by material.

So, I think solar panels can get maybe 2-10x more economical, whereas other options like new hydrocarbon sources, fission, and fusion can probably all get at least 10x more economical than the maximum possible with solar, purely due to the physical limitations of the technology.


I can believe significant price improvements to come for solar, fission, and fusion since their fuel costs are zero or tiny. What new hydrocarbon sources could be 10x cheaper than coal or natural gas?


Well, I'm not really supposed to talk about this but we're working on a hydrocarbon byproduct of our fission reactors. Can't extrapolate but point is, there are unconventional ways to make hydrocarbons that become economically viable when they are a byproduct of an already profitable process.


> Climate change will create the first trillionaire.

> Elon Musk

There you go...


> Climate change will create the first trillionaire.

Never attribute to a changing world that which can be attributed to inflation.


so.... elon musk?


That AirMiners site takes 30 seconds to load.


Hmm, wonder why that is. Loads fast for me!


Siberia will be the next California ;-)


Wow! Here's a review of Siberia's climate by 2080: "Even under mild climate change, they estimate a five-fold increase in the potential human capacity."

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-siberia-habitable-climate-ch...


I remember a news crew interviewing Russian citizens on the street about climate change. One guy said, "I welcome global warming, it's f&cking cold here!"


Too bad that will be offset by desertification and other negative changes elsewhere in the world.


Except permafrost melts into muskeg which is too expensive to farm or build roads on.


I shall patent a automatic mozzie zapper


This is an ideological statement, which I do not believe is based in reality.

There have always been 'meta causes' of various kinds, and they didn't create billionaires.

If there were something very specific about the sector that created such conditions one might be inclined to agree, but I'm doubtful.

'Climate Change' is like 'AI' in that it will affect everyone, everywhere, in every industry, but there might very well be very few 'AI companies' that are huge, in much the same way there may be very few 'climate change' specific companies.

Consider that the 'climate change' movement is well afoot and has been for quite a long time ... and where are the billionaires?

Oil rights can be acquired at some scale, solar and wind, not really.

If someone advanced some nuclear tech, lobbied to get approval to build a lot of cookie-cutter plants built around America, had major subsidies, huge protective moats (i.e. $10B entry point to get in the game) tons of IP and know-how - like the 'Space X' of Nuclear - then maybe we could see a billionaire there.

But I don't see any companies or entities on the horizon, or on the theoretical horizon that would validate this claim. I think people might think it's true because the 'want to believe it's true' but that doesn't make it true or even more likely.

That said ... it's probably a 'promising area' to work in.


Communications technology has moved past the ability of human brains to tolerate and mitigate the adverse effects.

Every addicting dopamine surge from a Like or Retweet is the evidence; every viral pile-on, every echo-chamber lunatic fringe.

Making humanity resilient to the negative externalities of our own technological advancement is essential for the survival of our species. Right now, a vast army of the smartest people are employed at the intersection of cognitive and computer sciences, but in the service of political and commercial interests. I'd like to see more of them on the other side of this arms race, working on our individual and societal defenses.


I don't think it's the best way to make money, but this may be the most important topic for our near future as a species. Emphasis: not just civilization(s) but species as a whole, as in rewiring perception, brain functions, social life, freedom of thought.

Here's my conundrum: we could design a transparent and 100% user-controlled communication network — basically some open-sourced Twitter / Facebook / Whatsapp / Instagram etc. — which would let people control their feed order of priorities, implement 'psychologically sane' features, prove that it's objectively better for mental health and a slew of other things (politics, media come to mind) through studies, even distribute resources so as to bypass a need for massive funding — just consider how much time the average consumer CPU spends idling over its lifetime, there's loads of free resources available.

But ultimately we face the same issue as for-profits: friction. How do we get 2.5 billion people to move when none has moved already — chicken-and-the-egg problem of “but all my friends...”

I may be low-balling humanity but I think it'll take PR momentum, textbook buzz — support by famous people, icons, thought leaders, influencers, etc at a massive scale. Ideally governments would be on board and even subsidize such a neutral network in the name of protecting citizens and their rights.

Is it challenging, herculean, foolish, or simply impossible an endeavor? Wish I knew. But I'll sure die trying —hopefully of other unrelated causes, eh.


> How do we get 2.5 billion people to move when none has moved already — chicken-and-the-egg problem of “but all my friends...”

By migrating 'groups' over to the new platform, rather than targeting individuals to migrate. Make it easier for your most popular groups or communities on the existing platform to move over to the new network (ex. by sharing a join link in the existing group * ) effectively bringing over the 'network effect' to the new network, rather than relying on individual users to switch one by one.

* Existing platforms might not play well this strategy. I've heard of FB blocking group messages which contain invites to join rival platforms.


Great idea, groups: yes, totally. Easier said than done but that's definitely a great boulevard.

You touch a critical point too. I've pondered the matter of "how to make the other side(s) do what you want?" in many fields, from sales to politics passing by business or education. Here's my observation: the ideal way to win is when the other side wins as well.

You have to make it so there's something in it for them and something in it for you; and doing this immensely reduces the friction of the whole transition —and said friction is always paid, either by money we don't have or that they will spend to block us, or by users in UX and frustration; both risk the whole success.

It's exactly the same for the "99% versus 1%" situations: no common ground means no solution, but you have to think out of the box. Example for economics: less inequalities in a country tend to produce longer life expectancy even for the highest 1% — because better nurses, better emergency workers, better infrastructures e.g. roads, better construction for hospital norms, etc. Same thing with education for their children, all the services we share at a 'collective enough' level. That's an example of a win-win argument that should be used by those in the 99%, and are definitely put forward by advocates within the 1%.

I think you don't win against Facebook, or Google or Amazon and Apple. You win by incentivizing them to join the movement, because we all together work to make overall better for everyone. We massively grow the pie, so that even less shares means more of what each party wants —profit for some, freedom for others, security for all, etc.

It's the only sustainable way to 'win' imho, free of retaliation fears or cyclic trends, you just 'clean' the problem once and for all with a self-sustainable solution. You win survival not against pre-existing tensions but with co-dependency / harmony, even parasitism, finding the ways to co-exist and both thrive.


Hey! I might have already said most of what I need to in my other comment, but I'd like to get into your idea of how these big companies might be incentivized to cooperate and drop their garden walls. e.g. Facebook (/Instagram) - what do you think could possibly be done to positively incentivize them to open their data up to other platforms? They make so much from selling people's usage data every day to advertisers, and their relevance seems to be dependent on cumulative network effects (people sticking with them because all their friends are on it) rather than actual unreplicable innovation (their tech could be easily copied) or reputation (people kinda hate them now!). Why would Facebook loosen their stranglehold on user data, open their API, or allow people to easily leave en-masse willingly? It seems to me that the incentives for these big companies to lock people into their platforms far outweigh their potential benefits from sharing with other platforms. Utility/usefulness/beauty are cheap and worthless - anyone can create or copy something useful or pretty. It's network effects that are valuable - and sharing with other platforms (especially open source) means diluting your ownership of them.

I'd argue even that an eternally-growing "pie" is itself a bit of a dated concept. This kinda assumes value is created by greater and greater utility of an economy - whereas with Moore's Law winding down (and the arguments in my other comment) it's possible that value is really just aggregating in scarcity rather than innovation or uplifting of the general population - and so strengthening your ownership is the better play, rather than fostering open communication. (Though ideally you should secretly do the former while publicly appearing to do the latter) Sure, attracting networks of people is still valuable, and you have some minimum quality requirements to do that, but if you can make it as hard as possible for those people to leave without totally breaking those quality requirements - even better.

As I said in the previous thread: way I see it, I think to overcome these walled gardens we need to considerably mature the consumer incentive structures - making masse movement between platforms easier, and with real concrete payoff, to individual users. Only once such threats are actually viable will the big companies cave and aim to improve their user retention through good reputation rather than dirty tech practices forcing retention. The economics do seem to incentivize consumers eventually doing this, though, but they might just be a bit too dumb right now - and companies are taking advantage.


Think you nailed it - the most important problem is overcoming the social friction that enables companies to centralize control of entire industries for no reason other than - they got to it first. We need ways for consumers to organize en-masse to switch services - since trickling out one by one has such a disadvantage ("all my friends use X...").

My hope there, if any, lies in someone developing a mature incentivization system to get people to commit to leaving en-masse. If you just have to click a single button that says "I'll leave Facebook if 50% of my friends do", then that's super low effort - and as soon as those commitments trickle up to a big enough number, the software can organize the move en-masse. Problem is, nobody needs to actually commit to that, so there might need to be additional layers of carrot/sticks.. but that's doable too! You could e.g. commit $20 to your decision, and the software could automatically track whether you followed through (e.g. leaving Facebook for Freebook). Likewise, many of these migrations ("mutinies"?) could be very lucrative for the receiving party - so much so that they might be happy to pay people that $20 to move, just to guarantee future business. (and presumably Freebook would be a little less evil than Facebook). The problem today is just that anyone who hates these services has to make so much effort to do anything useful about it that it's just never going to happen. We require mass-organization tools. (These are also, coincidentally, the exact same tools needed for effective Unionization, so - speculate however you want on why they don't exist yet).

Additional comment, for what it's worth: the underlying system of contracts that implements the above is a very strong use case for blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. The amount of power and flexibility you get at dealing with all the complex financial incentives of the above could really come in handy - especially when you consider that such organizations will probably also need some kind of internet governance to decide what to do (which decentralized software is key for). With crypto, it's forseeable you could even do some crazy things like tie the incentives for each user to a (e.g. Facebook) stock-shorting contract - effectively making a profit off of tearing down one company and moving to the next... self-financing the whole movement.

And that to me then begs a whole other realm of speculation, because if this kind of organizational technology became widespread and actually used by people - shit... the entire relationship of consumer and producer gets flipped over. Any company that's making profit, unless it has some completely unique quality that can't be repeated by another startup company, could just be attacked by this mob of consumers - transferring all business to the new company en-masse, giving them even less profit. I guess in theory that's kinda how it works already, but this really could up the carnage to levels we've never seen before - and takes away that inherent platform advantage that so many companies are leaning on.

In summary though: yeah, seems the biggest problem is platform centralization. Moving from that requires high-quality decentralized platforms, and organizational tools that can incentivize and plan such big en-masse movements. I believe the tech to do that is fresh, still being worked on, but is coming - and it could have some pretty cool implications for how the world works if it does.


> centralize control of entire industries for no reason other than - they got to it first.

But those big companies didn’t get there first.

History is littered with companies that were too big to beat. The secret is obvious but difficult: find a better way and people that agree it’s a better way. Look at Cirrus Aircraft for a relatively recent example — they tackled an ultra regulated, expensive business and are now the best selling GA airplane


Exactly, we need a Facebook that actually encourages healthy human interaction and is adverse to viral pollution, dopamine addiction and rage triggers. If it's genuinely useful it will win out.


That is exactly my view too. You win by being better than whatever else exists at the time.


Those big companies may not have gotten there first but they moved the quickest to buy the companies that did. That's how many not-so-big companies became "those big companies."


Very interesting comment. It took me time to unwrap it all, there are lots of great insights.

About "incentives", you might wanna check my other reply to IAmEveryone in this thread[1].

Basically the idea is that we probably should try to win not against but with other platforms, in a way that creates synergies for everyone.

That's how open-source thrives the most, that's how the best contracts are negociated, that's how capitalism works exponentially the best if we seek sustainability. IMHO. And it's damn more clever and efficient —if you can pull it off!; which is no small feat, but definitely possible. You probably need a master plan, a grand strategy within which fit several concurrent paths in subsequent steps, each with a strategy. This to address multiple dimensions / domains of the problem (think: UX/selling it to users; economics/sustainability, technical realization and maintenance, politics/PR/legal framework/compliance; competition/cooperation/synergies/open-source; etc.)

I've long thought about it and it's truly at that level, like a board is essentially the "meta" of a corporation, or like the IETF is the "meta" of internet, that this battle is fought. And it's not so much a battle against other actors —which, if you think about it, rose to prominence of their own virtue, be it National Post offices or Disney or internet or Google or Twitter, Insta, Black Mirror-esque dystopian companies and projects. It's more of a battle for communication, for social sanity, for whatever it is you seek. I.e., from this reality (the one we're in), how to best move the needle towards that ideal (the one you're seeking, if possible in your lifetime thus actionable). So we take what happened, and wasn't 'forced' on anyone, and we try to implement the 'why' it should move somewhere next. We open the gates wide towards this 'next'.

____

Crypto, definitely part of it, but I mean the blockchain, the technology. I truly think that its "killer-app" will firmly stand in a source of value (like most technologies emerge historically); my intuition is that a totally "free" social network is one such killer-app, and thus not implementing any shape or form of "currency". That is a blockchain worth having, for humanity, for civilization, like internet, browsers, encryption, etc.

The blockchain paradigm is the perfect candidate for a secured repository of personal data, with various rules (contracts, algorithms, etc) for read/writability by other personal blockchains, other users. When you aggregate the whole, you obtain a massive collection of billions of personal blockchains; and that is the "network" of blockchains, the neutral communication space. Upon which we build "pipes" between us as we see fit — maybe I'll let you see my "friends" posts, but not my "private" documents (which my wife however can read because we share some stuff), and I also have a "work" collection of visibility to allow colleagues' blockchains to see such content; up to a "public" level which is essentially twitter / insta etc. The one-to-one peer-to-peer unitary link is basically chat / email.

____

About distributed, and general implementation.

When you go back to first principles, a blockchain's content is plain text, like an http request/response, or a chat message, an email, a twit... It's just the simplest CRUD implementation — yes, including delete, if you consider that each personal blockchain is controlled by their user, who has the keys and control of their personal/local network, and thus can edit their chain. It's the whole point of control at a granular level, I can delete my own files if I so wish, I am root.

A connection to another blockchain is merely a right that their public key is OK to do something to some blocks; for instance we allow "friends" (a mere array of public keys) to "read" such and such posts. you may set expiry, you may allow deeper than n=1 ("friends of friends of friends..."; public is just about n=3.6 on average iirc).

Corporations, any other party, fit in this landscape as any other actor: "hello, can I read this data?", with the 'server' (my blockchain) having authority by my rules to allow/deny. In terms of UX, it needs not be much more complicated than permissions on a phone, ideally with a few nice smart rules to ease the cognitive effort.

The beauty of such an implementation, imho, is that any service, public or private, whatever its intent or set of rules, can emerge freely, just like internet websites. Each actor, each block of content is merely a proposition to other parties. If accepted, it can grow massively, virally, without any gatekeeping nor impediment towards the free flow — it's peer-to-peer at the lowest level. Like bittorrent, conceptually.

And it needs not be much more complicated for the user than a "my own chat / twitter / blog / email / facebook / insta app" (a simple http server, under the hood, which implements your preferences of visibility, presentation, etc.)

Such services could be default open-source modules, mere options for the user to install locally and use among many such free or paid software; or for-profit service/cloud actors who offer some value in the exchange of giving them 'read' rights on some of your data. Make it an auto-renew daily contract (or whatever term) and you've got revokability.

There is much more to say, but that's what I'd suggest experimenting with.

____

Edit: a word on scaling

Approaching human communication in a holistic "top-down" way tends to promote a fallacy in perception: it's not because there are 3.456 gazillion emails or chat messages or twits each day that each and everyone one of us needs or reads that many.

At an organic level, you only need to send whatever content you produce, and receive whatever content you read. It's between 0 and 100 emails, however much you chat, it's not that much for your "node" (collection of computing power in your devices) to serve as http packets.

Those who serve massively more content (influencers, corporations, marketers, etc) generally have the material and financial means to upgrade their infrastructure to meet the needs — rent cloud capacity. The fundamentally public nature of viral content makes it perfectly suited to remain in the cloud-caching space (the CloudFlares and AWS of this world), it's also often for-profit at the end of the day, whether as dollars in sales or indirectly dollars as reputation.

So I think such a peer-to-peer "master" neutral network basically self-hosted to a large degree can work in terms of resources, the economics of idling CPU on consumer devices leave much, much room to grow before we even have to consider selling $100 "power packs" to plug into your residential modem for extra uupmh.

That's my vision, and it's basically what Satoshi did but implemented not for currency but rather for communication.

In that world, hyperscalers becomes either resource providers for content distribution (AWS, ideally 'transparent' ISPs, etc) or 'organizers of information'.

Insta doesn't host the content anymore, it merely reads it from "adequately scaled servers" like my blockchain for my friends or Dwayne Johnson's AWS instance for his fans; so Instagram as a company becomes this pure information dealer, providing customer insight to marketers based on what data it has been allowed to obtain from users.

It hopefully creates a situation where they're incentivized to "play it fair" and offer some real value to users in exchange of their information. And I think that's one aspect of this we mostly like, having relevant recommendations, valuable suggestions, very refined services for all our stuff — because we have a lot of stuff and it's great when a cool company does a great job, we very much want to pay for that and we're willing to share with them, to help them help us.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21330417


Hey! I apologize for the lateness of this reply - thread might be a bit stale by now - but I think such a huge effort on your part requires a solid response, even if late.

I'm a big fan of your vision, and share the same - though I am not as optimistic about it coming about without a struggle. I'll reply to your other thread about "winning with vs against other platforms", but for the rest - totally on the same page here. I think it's very likely that blockchain (and the relevant surrounding metaphors pulled from open source, open APIs, subscription feeds etc) will usher an era of privately-controlled data shared publicly in a wide-reaching subscription-based open model that bridges all the current platforms (or open source clones of them) and gets us a whole lot closer to that vision of the internet we all had at its inception. The overall gain to the users and internet economy from such a wall-less system is huge, and seems like the natural goal that it's hard to imagine it won't happen.

But, like I said, I'm a bit pessimistic still. The incentives for the existing platforms to build walls and keep their data monopolies are pretty daunting. I currently believe that if we're ever going to escape those walled gardens, we need a concerted almost-political effort to climb out - or at least a much more intelligent consumer market that can better seize its incentives to leave. Right now we're divided and conquered by being treated as individuals with difficulty leaving any particular platform, even if the overall benefit would be much higher if we could leave together - or at least break those walls down and share between multiple platforms.

That is how I see the next generation of platforms operating, by the way. IF we ever escape Facebook and co, their alternatives are very likely to be open-source or open-API federations of platforms, each with different specialties driven by unique purpose-built UIs and management - but sharing similar data. Where you and I currently sadly disagree is that you're hopeful Facebook and co can be incentivized to become those kinds of companies, whereas I don't see it happening without a fight - and maybe a bit of incentive once they're already seeing the threat. (Political action forcing an open-API would be a great solution there too, but I'm wary of trusting any answers pulled from the existing political establishment.)

And since you sound interested in discussing blockchain, I have another couple major insight/prediction there that I think are pretty relevant: So, I'm kinda a long-term pessimist on the stock-market value of blockchain tech, or any tech for that matter. This is because as we've seen time and time again, any actual concrete code of any system quickly degrades in value due to being copied or replaced by new forms. Even unique products of code like video games barely hold their value after a decade - when they are replaced by similar (or better) games on superior-quality platforms. Even worse, the fact that they hold any value whatsoever - even days after release - is usually that there are copyright laws or DRM propping up the value. If such laws ever become unenforceable, there goes any remaining value.

The current crop of software companies know this - they know their algorithms and static code are relatively worthless. (Hell, Facebook could be rewritten in a week by a skilled team). That is why the major tech companies still making profits focus on one thing under different names: the active network. A product's value is based on retaining on active population of people using it, how locked-in to the network they are, and how much value you can actively produce to keep them there. Build software around continual updates and content changeups to keep it relevant/interesting, and you can outpace your clones while retaining the network. Stop creating and whatever you've built will quickly diminish - unless you have considerable network-effect walls to guard against people trickling away. This is why the strategy to monopolize networks and lock them in (Facebook, Apple Store, Amazon, etc) is very successful - it's not the software usefulness, so much as the network that's captured by the platform that's useful.

Taking this back to cryptocurrencies: we have an industry that explicitly tried to base its value in the network itself, seemingly escaping this doom of ever-devaluing software and giving its users freedom. But even here there is considerable platform lock-in that really doesn't benefit active users. e.g. Ethereum, if it were to ever finish being actively-developed, could very well have its code cloned completely and a fresh generation of coins distributed amongst the active users and miners - cutting out the holders/investors that merely hoard their coins. It would be a big blow to the overall trust of the coin (why invest in this new one if you can just be cut-out again by another wave of this?) - but still, if the value of the coin is in its active network and actual usefulness, then active users paying out to the Ethereum platform just for its historic brand is pretty silly. (imo right now the brand has value because some see it as a Store of Value like gold, and because it's being actively developed with future notable events incoming making it a speculation vehicle). By this same logic, any crypto service that charges fees above what is fundamentally necessary for operation is doomed to fail too - the network can just leave to a competitor that charges no such fees.

But that's not to say that a currency can't have inherent value. Even if Ethereum could be abandoned for Ethereum 2 in a day, the underlying economy of people using it will still need to trade something between them - and whatever it is will capture a lot of value, just from this use case (assuming Ethereum's goal of a world value-computing economy comes to fruition by someone). The problem looming in the distance though is that this network of exchange may become so fast, fluid, and seamlessly-interchangeable with other networks (e.g. feeless transactions between two different types of coins) that it's also quite likely that people won't feel the need to hold any particular coin, and instead just keep their Value (bank account, wealth) in something else entirely. Ethereum (or its competitors) might just become so efficient and useful eventually that the only time you have to keep your money in it is for the 50 milliseconds of processing between converting from your gold reserves (guaranteed by a crypto contract) into the product (or service, insurance contract, etc) you're purchasing, and instantly receive that product - while the vendor instantly converts your Ethereum into his pile of gold reserves. Point being, it's likely that very little money will actually be sitting in the network in the future, dropping the value considerably and making cryptocurrencies like water or electricity: insanely essential services that nonetheless are priced so cheaply that they're irrelevant to the consumer. Cryptocurrencies just fade into the background as essential infrastructure of the internet, (almost) freely available, and the value they provide aggregates somewhere else (gold, land, stocks, other still-walled-garden networks).

That was a bit of a side rant on cryptocurrencies, but I'll trying to tie that back to technology and networks in general: the problem, if any, with technology is that it really can't hold value well, despite being so useful and enabling an explosion of economic wealth. All the value simply trickles out into physical resources / property, or the few companies/services that manage to make themselves artificially scarce by preventing users from easily leaving to competitors. In this way, sadly the market itself incentivizes private innovation and punishes openness by reducing its effective value to zero. Sure, we can overcome this by attracting networks of users to tech - open source software attracts them considerably more than closed - but there's still a considerable membrane to push through to escape closed source networks en-masse. I do think the overall slow march of history could indicate a movement towards openness - mostly as walls are broken down through innovations that make them irrelevant, or consumers getting wiser en-masse - but it's still up in the air who will win this. Wealth concentration - and value itself - appears to be fighting against us. The only value we still wield - and it is considerable - is the network of people itself, of our "labor"/"attention"/"cooperation".


One final insight I'd add here, regarding innovations that make walls irrelevant: cryptocurrency may very well soon enable end-to-end networks of totally-anonymous transactions and communications. This wasn't so possible before because a) the tech is really hard to do, if possible at all and b) the incentive structure is even harder. But if we can actually create communication and exchange platforms that are totally anonymous, then suddenly the whole book on copyright legislation (or any legislation) is completely unenforceable and irrelevant. Aside from tracking people directly in their homes (and best believe that's in the works), any digital work will be completely valueless from day 1 as soon as some hacker can copy it once. We have this already in a lesser extent via Bittorrent/Tor networks, but I'm talking a possibility of a considerably better user experience and wide use amongst the population. Suddenly no TV show / movie / game / invention would be worth anything anymore, because it can be copied from day one. Funding models would have to completely change to be on-demand Kickstarter/Patreon-style donation-based mechanisms rather than rental/viewer/purchase-based, since owning the rights to anything will be fairly impossible (without a totalitarian government enforcing it).

Of course, if that fully anonymous economy gets created, then taxation will be pretty impossible too - nobody can even track how much you've earned. But of course, once again the weakest point - and the place where all value might aggregate - is in the physical world. Nobody can catch you online, but they sure can in reality! Digital money might be a dime a dozen, but it's hard to replicate physical goods (until we get a real life Star Trek replicator of course... James Burke, famous historian who predicted the internet, predicts that's coming in 50 years!)

Oh - damn - one more paragraph caveat that I've just realized: reputation will still be worth a damn. Anonymity might become cheap and superfluous, but reliability and reputation will still be big (provable identity will be hard to fake - even if usability/technology will be instantly copyable). People/brands that are actually actively liked for their reputation alone will be valuable as attractors of funding - maybe moreso than ever before.

Whew, big rant! Hope it's interesting.


I may be biased, but i freaking love slack.

I even keep my own slack channel just for me to store stuff.

Basically what evernot wanted to be. Evernote sucked. Slack is great.


I wrote an auto snooze that snoozes all the irrelevant emails in my inbox to a particular day & time of the week. This process ensures that my Inbox has only relevant emails and not the gazillion newsletters which enter my mailbox even before I wake up in the morning.


ad blockers


Think bigger. Instead of blocking ads, create a system where ads don’t need to be blocked.


Information quality, the nascent field of labeling content with metadata about its veracity. Its dense with hard problems, but a good solution that gains majority consensus is critical for the future of digital communication. Facebook or any private entity ought not be the canonical fact-checker of the 21st century. Ideally IMHO is it delivered as an open protocol.


I forecast that plastics' cleanup and recycling, a hard problem, will have a lot of money thrown at it by governments. Many new petrochemical plants are being built in anticipation of increased demand for plastics from developing countries. So it seems that the already-large problem of plastics waste, including microplastics, will continue to grow to the point of being overwhelming. In particular, we are poisoning our oceans with discarded plastics, choking sea creatures such as turtles which mistake clear plastic bags for jellyfish their main food. And, perhaps most insidious, we are introducing microplastics into our oceans' food chains with consequences unknown. I fear that this "waste product" will grow to be as damaging as that other industrial waste, carbon dioxide. What's the solution?


I think AR has potential to be the most impactful new type of technology, but I don’t have any idea if wide adoption is 1 year away, or 10 years away (or more).

At the moment most of the focus is around overlaying some virtual world in the real world, but I think that technologies like U1 chip being added to new Apple devices could be really interesting to allow objects in the physical world to better mesh with digital world.

Experimenting with live filters for Instagram could be an easy way to dip your toes into AR: https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/


It's a fun tech, but I fail to see any real world value that can be derived from it. I have worked on AR stuff before and found some niche uses, but I am having real trouble finding general commercial applications apart from fun and games.


There are tons of applications! The thesis behind AR is that your phone (or some other device) can be a passport to accessing a digital world around you. Some ideas, in no particular order:

* Tourism of any kind (think AR museum or city tours)

* Location and event discovery -- as of late there have been quite a few startups trying to capitalize on giving people things to do, but none successful. This is definitely on Snap's radar with their acquisition of Vurb[1] and Placed[2]

* Interactive public art -- Paris has something like this[3] and I really want to see these types of ARGs spread to other cities

* E-commerce -- superimposing clothing or furniture[4] onto the real world

Also, why are fun and games not valid applications? Epic Games, for example, is worth 4.5bn. Interactive media is finally being recognized by the mainstream, and it's just getting started :)

[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vurb [2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/placed [3] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashinvaders/id895180919 [4] https://www.amazon.com/adlp/arview


Yep, for tourism. Look at some of the examples this small company is/has worked on: gamifi.co


AR will replace every display in the world. There's nothing special about it, it's just a better form-factor.

You would probably use the same kind of applications, but you'll be able to have 1000 windows open at the same time, located all around your room, easily accessible (just turn your head).

All those gimmicky 'AR applications' are gimmicks. The real use case is replacing our tiny displays.


I recommend this article from HBR https://hbr.org/2017/11/a-managers-guide-to-augmented-realit...

It actually details how it’s used now to verify ships after construction to ensure that everything is in its right place. They do this by overlaying the schematics on top of the actual ship during inspection. I don’t remember the numbers (read the article a while ago) but the savings and accuracy gains by introducing this were significant.


Imagine your entire workstation as a full AR display that can be any size you want on your desk.

AR is literally real life holograms, there's amazing amounts of applications. Everything you do on your smartphone today can be blown up into AR applications.


define "niche".

the construction industry will benefit hugely from AR.


I worked on an art installation that used AR cardboard cards as the "controllers" in a 50+ person platformer game. I also worked on a smaller business card AR project.


Lots of businesses make billions in fun and games.


Differential Dataflow is going to cause a huge upset in several high value areas, including incremental compilation, database view maintenance, UI view maintenance (subsumes React), and differential database streaming: https://github.com/TimelyDataflow/differential-dataflow


Ooh, I had not idea this had a name and people were working on it. Super promising, I agree, though I think a lot of it depends on the expressiveness of the functional primitives, the practical efficiency of partial updates, and the amount of caching that actually gets used in updates when the program is complex.

The big idea that convinced me of its worth is the interface being "build your derived state from scratch". The user never modifies something after-the-fact, it's all versioned "source data" and immutable derived state.

That's the magic that makes Docker and Redux work, in addition to the aforementioned React.


What's the main difference between this and event sourcing?


Not the OP, but as I understand this project, the idea is that you can represent a pipeline that looks like it's operating on an entire collection of data, but in reality can operate on a delta.

That means that if you have a million items in your input, and you add another million to it, your pipeline only needs to run on one million, even though the output will be two million. In this case, the input is a collection that may be modified at any point, not a linear sequence of "events".

I've designed a similar system to ingest data that comes in the form of snapshots. The pipeline has many discrete steps and starts by splitting up the snapshot (e.g. a big monolithic JSON file) into smaller parts, which gets parses, transformed, split, joined etc. When a modified file comes in, the pipeline only performs actions on modified items; as data trickles through the pipeline, subsequent steps only run if a step modifies an item (relative to current state). It significantly reduces processing.

Pachyderm works on a similar principle, but using files in a virtual file system.


Differential Dataflow solves the second hardest problem in computer science - caching - by calculating the optimal reactions to an event that will maintain the client's view. Of course, this requires tracking client queries and state cursors.

For more background, look at Adapton and Jane Street's incremental DOM implementations: https://github.com/janestreet/incr_dom


Offline First web and mobile app frameworks. Not as big as social/mobile/local, but a need. Building offlinefirst web/mobile sites/apps is still a big hack.

http://offlinefirst.org/

A few years ago there was a lot of activity around creating web frameworks that made rich UI's possible, like Cappucino, Meteor.js etc.

There may be a similar opportunity now to create a full-featured, polished offline-first framework, and then make an enterprise version and/or get acqui-hired.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappuccino_(Application_Develo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(web_framework)


I live without a car. I have for more than a decade.

Trying to plan car-free travel routes in the US is a huge pain in the butt. If Google maps can't spit out a solution that gets you all the way to your destination, it won't tell you a partial answer.

This means piecing together information from multiple sources. I spent a lot of time checking Amtrak routes and then looking for commuter bus routes, local shuttle services and the like to find a viable route.

In the past few days, I've done some googling to try to see if there is a website that handily aggregates commuter bus route info. There doesn't seem to be such.

In Southern California, you can travel from San Diego to Victorville via commuter bus, but there is no travel site that will tell you that. You have to research all the connections yourself.

(Well, I had to. I posted it to my homeless site: https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/2015/05/o...)

I have to wonder how many other places in the US actually have similar situations where you can get there via bus or other transit, assuming you can dig up the information.

Living without a car is an environmentally-friendly choice and it's hugely painful in the US, often very unnecessarily so. Serving this need could promote not only environmental goals but also serve social justice because car-free Americans are frequently poor. We make it so painful to live without a car in the US that most Americans who can afford a car have one, even if they don't really want one, with the exception of a few dense metro areas with good local transit (like New York).


Definitely take a look at Rome2Rio, https://www.rome2rio.com. We've been using it for years, and have been carless nearly as long.


Thanks. I'll check it out sometime.


As to your question of promising areas, I see two major opportunities in health that are coming online in the near future:

* psychedelics as medicine

* gut/microbiome


seconding both of these.

psychedelics as medicine are finally starting to gain the traction and serious research which they will need to be utilized therapeutically. while imperfect, they're potentially curative therapies which are likely a quantum leap ahead of much of what psychopharmacology has had in its roster so far.

the gut/microbiome stuff is also starting to come to a head after about 9 years of intense research activity. clinical applications are right around the corner, and there's an entire universe to explore which we've only scratched the surface of so far.

i'd also like to add cannabinoid (CBD) therapeutics as an addendum to psychedelic medicines. while there's a tremendous amount of hype and folk science surrounding CBD, it appears as though the chemical does in fact have a massive impact in domains ranging from immunology to psychiatry to geriatrics. we're just at the very start of the research process, and there are already a cornucopia of compelling and empirically valid leads which need to be followed.


Let's not forget: - non invasive medical imaging, particularly in terms of new approaches to generating or interpreting CT/MRI/ultrasound scans - more ergonomic surgical robots that don't hold their instruments like a 3 year old toddler - AI/expert systems for rapid triage and assessment of patients - more effective ways of drug delivery (both cell based therapy and developing better oral formulations)


Psychedlics will be useful but hard to monetize, but lol @ microbiome.

You realize what this is, right? High throughput sequencing + multiplexing makes it cheap as chips to start doing -omics on anything you can write a grant for. So everyone and their mother starts getting funding for doing the most boring possible experiments that are total fishing expeditions. The results: we see ... stuff! Isn't that great!? We've got correlations coming out of every conceivable orifice, must be something interesting there, right!?

It's great for writing shitty headlines, but piss-poor for doing any sort of science. Seriously, try talking to any 'microbiome' expert about microbiology. It's scary!

Here's what will happen; we'll get some minor insights into diet wrt health, a handful of treatments for some specific niche gut issues (e.g. fecal transplant), and some handwavy BS about inflammation that will only be meaningful with more work on good old-fashioned signalling from cell/mol. biology.

Of all the scam-y biotech startups (which is basically redundant), microbiome stuff is by far the worst.


Agreed, but there is lots of competition on the second one so if I were starting from scratch I would work on the former.


Usable cryptography.

iPhone-level UX for private key management.

People care about privacy, and more are willing to pay for it. There is a massive opportunity for direct monetization through cryptocurrency users, and the things you could build when this problem is solved...


As someone who uses cryptography daily (and not for crypto currency), I would kill for that.

The problem is that it's really hard to build good abstractions. You can't get the math to do things that the math doesn't do, so the complexity comes from (1) preventing people from mathematically shooting themselves in the foot, and (2) twisting the math into something that approximates real world problems.

We all want to be able to say "here is cryptographic magic that tells you that this data is trustworthy", but trust is fundamentally a human problem. Cryptography ultimately allows humans to make and move around declarations of fact, but how you glue those facts together is messy because humans are kind of bad at saying what they mean and meaning what they say.


I'd argue that WhatsApp and Signal have already accomplished this, for messaging, communications, and file transfers.


Lonliness, particularly among the elderly.


I volunteer with Little Brothers: Friend of the Elderly in Chicago, and this is a serious problem and getting worse as we see slow decline of social institutions. My grandparent's generation had the VFW, Lions Club, a bowling league, golfing league, their church, volunteering, etc.

I think part of it is economic: they had a much more comfortable retirement than what is possible today, so they had time for all this leisure. And part of it is technology and media, providing a distraction from loneliness.


Dogs, man's best friend.


Gets harder as you get more elderly.


The broad range of issues relating to the fact there were very few retirees 50 years ago that were old ... and who will now make up the 'majority' of people ... this is a huge deal.

People retire at 65 and live to 100 - that's a long time and there are a lot of them, and there are a huge range of issues there from healthcare to mobility.


I'm hoping Dynamic Relational will catch on. Unlike the dynamic NoSql products, this is pro-SQL so you don't have to relearn much. You get dynamism AND familiarity (per existing RDBMS experience). I believe the industry wants it, they just don't know it yet, expecting a rigid dichotomy between either "stiff" RDBMS's -or- NoSql.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66385/dynamic-database-s...


Memristors. Thus far, they have not been used very well, mostly due to 'lock in' effects. But their power savings are fairly intense (as compared to current solutions, about a factor of ~10^3 - 10^4). With AI and ML stuff literally heating up, those power savings will become more and more attractive. Eventually, a sea change will occur and memristive based computing will become the dominant one. Personally, I think that the synapse-like characteristics of memristors aren't as fully exploited as they should be and new chip designs will greatly aide the transition to better and better AIs and ML devices on less power and smaller form factors. Think the modern image classification on a Tesla but powered by a watch battery, for months.


The wikipedia page seems to imply we still dont know if any memristors physically exist. Your comment implies it's in experimentation, so I am assuming wiki is out of date

I would love to learn more about this topic, do you have any additional information / sources?


The Talk page on the wiki has some activity from this year, so it may be up to date - ish. There are a few companies that are selling memristors [1], but, as you say, they may not be fully truthful in describing their products. I'd take a look at some of the texts that are for sale [2] to dive deeper, provided you already know a fair bit of EE. If you do not, pick up this book [3] to get a good education. I may not be the best resource on this though. I'd email Dr. Chua directly and just ask him [4] for some resources, or just go through his publications list on it [5]. If you do email him, try for breaks in semesters, as Profs tend to be less busy then. Also, he has had 25 PhD students, so you can reach out to them as well.

[1] https://knowm.org/product/

[2] https://www.amazon.com/memristor/s?k=memristor

[3] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+art+of+electronics&crid=T6LE1...

[4] chua@eecs.berkeley.edu

[5] https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~chua/circuitrefs.html


Amazing reply. Thank you. I see Dr Chua is dropping a new text in December. I'll see what I can learn by then and if it sticks I'll support with a purchase


Don’t bother. I work at a lab where some of the largest and best memristor based crossbars have been developed, and I can tell you it’s almost all hype at this point. There are significant problems with memristive circuits, and very little advantage over something a lot more mature such as NOR flash crossbars (we work on both). There are many competing device technologies to use for analog computation, it’s far from clear which one is better.


Ah bummer! I'll just keep an eye on it then. Anolog computation is where my interest is. I have a personal project where I have a subproblem of trying to use analog hardware to create a digital "impression" for processing. Terrible description, sorry


Residential PV installs are becoming more and more common so consumers are looking for smart devices to take advantage of them more efficiently. If you are grid-tied without a battery (batteries like the Powerwall take much longer than a PV install to pay back, so the payback time is often greater than the warranty period) you want to use the energy at peak generation rather than selling it to the grid (which typically pays less than you pay to buy it).

There are a few devices to do this. In the UK the MyEnergi range is quite popular. They have devices to divert excess power to an electric vehicle and a electric hot water heater. However the data you can get out of them is limited - there are frequent complaints by YouTubers about this - and they require the cloud to get anything useful. Plus a full set is over £1000 - for what is effectively a CT clamp, relay and a nRF chip.

On a similar note it's impossible to control appliances like washing machines and dish washers to run during peak generation (unless you solder some wires to the control board), so they have to be started manually or set on a timer. Timers worked fine to take advantage of off-peak electricity tarrifs, but for PV they don't really work (maybe there is a cloud in the middle of the day). Ideally you want the device to know how much power is needed for each stage of the program, and pause if the available power is less than that.


SPI 2019 Day Zero Interview with Raghu Belur of Enphase Energy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glSXghzDZcs&feature=youtu.be...


On this note, I would say a huge opportunity here is better energy storage. Perhaps along the lines of

micro hydro

consumer compressed air

some new type of battery (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21319039)

carbon nanotube springs

We have lots of methods of generating electricity but storing it is an issue.


You may find this useful: https://80000hours.org/key-ideas/

> At 80,000 Hours, we do research into how people can most effectively use their careers to help solve the world’s most pressing problems.

It seems their two top priority areas that attend to a "huge, neglected, and solvable" filter are:

- Positively shaping the development of artificial intelligence

- Biorisk reduction


Most relevant: https://80000hours.org

80,000 Hours is roughly how many hours a typical person will spend working. It's an organization that answers this question: How can you best use them to help solve the world’s most pressing problems?


In software, I am hopeful for applications of homomorphic encryption. It could solve some privacy issues preventing some classes of software from moving to the Cloud. There have been huge efficiency improvements over the last 10 years, there needs to be even more, probably hardware-assisted.

In general, climate change is the topic of the century, and with it energy generation and storage. I think intermittent renewables (wind and solar) are overvalued today. Nuclear fission has a large role to play (with SMRs for instance), hydrogen as well. Of course if we make fusion work all bets are off.


A lot of folks are look forward to what's coming in tech, which is fine and good and can lead to promising careers and innovation. But I'm even more impressed with folks like Nintendo who do the exact opposite. They look at all the junk we've already passed up to see what can be done with it. So many times along their path they came up with products using what the Sony's would have considered obsolete junk. This is a great book about that history: https://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-Nintendo-Conquered-Americ...

I mention it because I think there's a lot of value looking at the "no longer promising" areas and see what can still be done with those tools and pieces in innovative ways. And so few are actually doing that.


This what Roku did as well - built tech out chips nobody even wanted to sell.


Oh wow, thanks for the reference. Any good histories of Roku out there you recommend?


You need to take a longer term view if you want to notice things before they become trends. Hopping on the bandwagon once it's a "hot" or "promising" area is too late.


Democratising manufacturing.

CAD / CAM is still hard. CAM especially. You have to know a great deal about materials and tools, even order of operations to help the computer build efficient tool paths. There is a lot of scope for process improvement and there are commercial opportunities to sell to job shops who would like have their engineers working more on CAD and less on CAM.

There is also potential here to make it so easy and affordable that having a 5 axis machine on your property is as common place as having a laser printer. 3D printing offers the ability to create more plastic crap you don't want, or prototype things you want made on a CNC in the future. 5 Axis CNC in the home means that you could download a mocha pot, wait a day (instead of shipping) then screw it together. Drones, motors (winding is still hard), car parts could either be downloaded or you take a video on your phone and let AI figure out the CAD / CAM.


this will never happen.

your example isn't very good. you still have to ship the raw materials and -- much worse -- deal with unit volumes of waste.


Uhh.... I've heard the "this can never happen" before.

5 and 6 DoF is tough, but there's tons of improvement everywhere in this realm. And we're talking of major improvement.


There is an organisation 80000hours.org devoted to discovering careers related to future high-impact areas, it has a list of perspective career paths and reviews on them, including the obvious ones, like Machine Learning PhD, and not so obvious, like China specialist.

https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/


> What's an area that people think is up and coming? I'm pretty introverted!

Spend 3 to 6 months on theatre acting and you will never need asking the cold internet again for anything personal!


Bingo! Correct answer. Anyone can learn to 'act' ... I got into teaching to help myself be more confident infront of adults. It turns out that groups of strangers are perfectly normal people, and there isn't anything to worry about.


tools for micro-entrepreneurs: with the growth of automation (e.g. RPA and AI) and the consequent decline of the world middle class, many people are being forced to work informally as a food deliverer or be an uber driver. others will become micro-entrepreneurs (solo-entrepreneurs for many). the opportunity is that these entrepreneurs will need all kinds of specialized tools during their journey (payment, marketing, finance, distribution, etc.)


In calling these people entrepreneurs you are really contorting the language. The entrepreneurs in this system are the creators and owners of the system. The other people are something else entirely.


i do not disagree regarding how we will call these "entrepreneurs". but problems looking for solutions for these people will be there (is already). it might even a chance to improve their lives


bullish on this as well


Blockchain Gaming: I only saw one other crypto/blockchain comment and I suspect people are avoiding the topic because of the amount of noise from the scene compared to a lack of real world applications. It's that lack of real applications that speaks (for me) about how far out we are from feeling the real impact of any blockchain related solution. However, like so many other technologies, right now is a great time to explore, learn, and evolve the technology through gaming. My gut feeling is that blockchain gaming will do well over the next 3 to 5 years.


Gambling was a big deal when currencies like ethereum came out but the inability for true randomness, without an external oracle, really killed it. IMO.


I’m curious to what you think the application will be?

All of those I’ve seen seen so far have been terminally hopeless.


Machine Learning is the hot thing right now. Just find an area you like, and apply it. Not sure what is after this.


Machine learning was up and coming in 2012 when I graduated college. Not to say it is a bad career choice, just that it's safe to say that ML's time has already come.


Thanks, I've had it on my list of stuff to look into for a while. Any advice on where to start?


A well honed skill set in 'ML' isn't even about the algorithms or data structures or any of that. If you want to be competitive in ML, study and think about experimental design, and what it takes to be able to confidently state the accuracy, precision, and reproducibility of a given analysis when you apply it to real world data.

The biggest issue/ liability with most 'AI'/'ML' is unsubstantiated/ irreproducible results that come from not being rigorous with ones experimental design.


I'm a complete beginner in this area, this sounds like a great aspect to bear in mind when learning, thanks!


How do you go about developing skill in experimental design?


I think the first step is to develop a skeptics mindset. As a scientist, your job isn't to believe, its to address evidence and evaluate whether or to it supports or conflicts with a given hypothesis. A profound influence on my development in the sciences was a older (he was 55+ at the time), physical chemist I shared an office with,'John'. Arguably, he was one of the greatest critical thinkers I had ever had the privilege of working with. Many other people at that office would avoid him entirely when discussing their work because if John heard about what they were doing, he would always 'challenge' (politely and professionally) them on what they were doing: how they had decided to set up their experiment; how they had decided to sample; how they intended to analyse their data; how they (physically and literally) planned on getting their data.

John did this because on his own work, he was constantly challenging his own assumptions. The result of this was that John 'appeared' to be far less productive; however, the results of his work were orders of magnitude more robust than our other colleagues at that time.

By incorporating a skeptics mindset, less becomes much more. A skeptic doesn't believe the internal error rates produced as a result of a model run, they take a long time to become convinced that a 'thing' is the truth. Don't believe, measure.


How does this apply to ML, beyond the usual train/validation/test split?


Because, the usual train/ validation/ test design often fails to generate a useful ML model/ pipeline. With out some serious consideration into the nitty gritty of the 'experiment design' (see above for what I mean by that), we get 'all-hat no cattle' results.

Lets take a small toy example from one that came up a few days ago, the model that could predict 'heart-disease' from one heartbeat. Their data set came from two different sources: their 'disease state' and 'null state' patients had their cardiograms recorded via different instruments. They did some statistical re-sampling to get the data to 'match', so, a skeptics flags should already be raised. Second major issue: without resampling, they had an effective N of 30; they made the decision to 'slice' every ones cardio gram into thousands of examples. The RNN (i think it was an RNN), obviously, will need thousands of examples to train. They then randomly sampled (according to their train/validation/test split) from this distribution of 'beats' to train their model.

So they didn't do anything 'wrong' according to what myself, and what I would assume yourself were told when we did this or that course in ML. But actually, from an experimental design POV, this is clearly going to overfit. Even disregarding the resampling of the original data (its own, very suspect issue), the slicing alone is enough to realize 'Ah. This is horse crap'. Think about it like this. Say its a 80:10:10 split. Take a random sample of n heartbeats, 3 heartbeats long, from n=100k heartbeats. What is the probability of a heartbeat in the training data set not being very close (in time proximity) to a heartbeat in the validation/ test set? I don't have the time to work it out on paper, but its most likely that anything in the test/ validation set will be temporally adjacent to something in the training set. The probability of anything in the test/ validation being very different from something in the training dataset (say, 3-4 beat sets away in either direction) is very very unlikely. The vast majority of data in the test/validation dataset will have two direct neighbors, both used in training, the next most populated class will have 1 neighbor in one direction, and the almost none will be separated at great distance (even 2-3 beats isolated from something in the training dataset).

This issue central here is the lack of independence in the experimental design. They've created quasi-independence in their sampling methodology, but at the end of the day, they've still only got an n of 30 (not 300,000-3,000,0000). I get it. For most cases, one almost always has to create a condition of quasi-independence in ones data. To get these algorithms to work, you need lots of data.

Knowledge of what ML is, how it works under the hood (a bit), and how to implement it (more imp. imo), all matter in this space. What matters more (imo), is the mindset that can be developed by doing science as an intellectual exercise. Its good science to remain skeptical and be adherent to the evidence rather than our assumptions.


Your local university stats department may have a course on it, or check out a textbook. There may well be some online courses too.

Unfortunately I wasn't very fond of the textbooks I used in school and I haven't looked at any since so I can't give you any recommendations.


Probably Kaggle competitions


Read "Data Analysis: A Bayesian Tutorial," by D.S. Sivia for an excellent introduction to experimental design for scientists. This gives you a quantitative approach to the design of experiments, with tools to properly evaluate your results.


I would also recommend the bayesian statistics book with the dogs on the cover. Can't remember its name off hand, but got handed a copy. Its a great foundation.


fast.ai has some great intro courses on deep learning.


Machine Learning for Humans.pdf


fast.ai


But will machine learning experts be automated out of a job by their own algorithms?


What are some examples of new areas to apply machine learning?


Any context where automation has been held back by weak perceptual capabilities.


Assuming this is sarcastic. If so, A+ would read again.


I'm working on starting my own business with SDRs, radio, and the final area of hacking.

SigInt.

How do you protect yourself and your company from the myriad of radios and devices and BYOD policies? Can you keep up with what's talking over radio? Do you know what's secure and what's not? Do you want to not only find bad devices, but locate them in your facility?

Do you also want to detect radio attacks that originate in or out of your facility? Or, do drones disturb you?

That's what I'm working on.


sounds like some pretty interesting stuff!


Govtech and defense tech

Super high barriers to entry, governments are spending more and more but people are demanding better more efficient services and won't put up with waiting in line at the DMV forever. In defense, it's hard to see the applications and what to build from an outside view, hard to get contracts and permissions, and hard to compete with established co's like Boeing that have all of the relationships already.


Check out the SBIR program. It provides an easy way to get into the system and innovate.


Absolutely one of the best ways to get into the system.


Can you comment more about this? Curious about how people get into it. Applying for a grant?


https://www.sbir.gov/solicitation-listing/open

This is a list of the current solicitations available. You can navigate around to the different departments. They have a calendar of announcements and due dates.

If you click on the DoD SBIR[0] it brings up the available topics. Each period has different areas of interest. You create a little proposal and then they announce "Phase 1" awards. They usually have different terms, but I think it's typical to get up to 100k for 4 months. After your demo you can apply for Phase 2 which is more money over a longer term, after that you can move to Phase 3, commercialization, etc.

The problem is that you have to work on it "full time" or at least the principal investigator has to work full time. The other problem is that they give you the topics of interest. There are so many over all of the departments. The biggest are definitely HHS and DoD. There are a lot of ML/AI, IT, sensors, etc.

Unfortunately, the current cycle mostly ends tomorrow for DoD.

[0]https://www.sbir.gov/node/1620805


How about visible light based communication systems? With all the regulations around how radiowave spectrum can be used, the much higher spectrum bandwidth offering by visible light seems more promising as 5G, IoT and autonomous driving hardware evolves?

https://youtu.be/UulEFh8yhCg


Don't ask this question here, people here who know what is promising won't tell you because that's too valuable information.

Ask your children if you have any. They will be able to tell you.


Not really, julien.

If Sergey Brin had told you back in 1998 that he planned to start Google, and to start indexing the web out of his garage, it would not have meant anything. Or if the Wright Brothers had confided in you that they planned to build a workable flying machine back in 1903, they would not have been running any great risk either.

What's valuable is having the vision, and the ability to connect all the little dots, and to see exactly _why_ something is a good proposition. Just hearing that something will be great usually won't help you a lot.

To quote Howard H. Aiken:

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."


People usually dont steal ideas, but they will copycat you once you have a profitable business, i.e. once you've executed the risk away


It seems like there's a lot of profit in synthesizing existing technonogies, like decades old tech and new stuff (bitcoin, uber, neural nets + GPUs). And also overlooked are dying industries. They tend to consolidate on their way down, which allows a new competitor to buy them up. A lot of software is changing its business and pricing model, so it would allow a smaller firm to offer up an alternative to what established players are doing. Software used to be the big next thing where everything and anything was new and innovative. People got used to thinking of it in those terms and now fail to see it as the established industry it is, chasing high risk investments that aren't even going to be that high reward. There may not be a next Google, Facebook, or Amazon. You may have to look for another industry entirely if you want to get in early to become an industry giant.


Find a popular web app. Make a privacy-centric version of it. Features publicly listed on the home page:

- No 3rd party analytics

- No 3rd party data sharing

- GDPR for users worldwide

- Logs deleted after x days

- Clear data retention policies

- Clear process on how to communicate change on these features

Apple, Firefox, and others have started to realize that people are now taking privacy seriously and willing to pay a premium for it. And, no, security is not a acceptable form of privacy. We should not be complacent with "Trust us" platforms with out clear definitions.


What I’m going to say is a little different to most others on this board.

I’m an environmental economist - quite a specialised field. I work with a team of software developers to embed environmental economic knowledge systems in software, which makes those knowledge systems scalable and accessible. It’s been quite an experience to lay down that knowledge - basically my life’s work -in a way which democratises its use.

This experience gives me the sense that what a developer could do is look for an expert in a field in which they are interested. The more niche the better, and partner to build a system which embeds in IT a knowledge system. I might also add that many of today’s big challenges cannot be solved from within one field of expertise, but instead require multi-disciplinary toolkits, which can also be be developed within IT systems.


Are you willing to share an example of the embedded environmental economic knowledge system you mention? I'm having a hard time understanding what that means?


Sure - check out ecosystemequity.com and follow links from there. Amongst other projects - a core banking system that integrates natural capital values into credit decisions. Sorry the umbrella website is a bit rough at the moment, it’s just a placeholder for a short while.


Real-time communications.

There's a hell of a lot more to building and scaling voice and video than you think, and tons more parts of the world are going to "come more online" with higher-bandwidth telecommunications access in the coming decades.


AI-driven drug discovery.

New pharmaceuticals are immensely expensive to develop, but that's largely because pharma companies aren't using available data to its full potential.

Its never been easier to start a software business, which is bad for most software companies since it means that they'll have no opportunity to create monopolies.

AI-driven pharma companies are defensible since their work is much more patentable than a typical software-enabled business, and because they'll benefit from data network-effects in the long term.


Any "problem" area is promising since you can help to find a solution to it. If you're flexible and problem-solving oriented, you'll always find yourself involved in interesting projects.

One example: before we had a lack of access to information, now we have too much information to deal with and have a lack of tools to sort out unbiased objective information from the rest.

Finding new tools of thought to help society raising its average IQ and EQ might be the highest-leverage activity I can think of.


Process Automation / Business Rule Optimization is a nearly untouched field for large, existing software driven companies.

For goal N, where N is an amalgam of small processes, what can we do to isolate, automate, and optimize the process?

Everyone is hyper focused on generic ML solutions, but there's it has been a hell of a lot easier to hand-code solutions to problems in existing mid-to-large scale businesses that are looking to alleviate a process pain point. If you have the brains to determine some basic ROI ballparks, you can make back engineering hours fast if you can either increase the output of your business, or decrease the required people to accomplish that output.

There's some fields that touch upon this, like Dev-Ops, but this is a more strict definition of 'operations', in that I'm referring to the non-technical people.

The impact of this practice is amplified by two major factors; 1. Quantity of work 3. Difficulty of work

If you have high quantity of N, small optimizations are compounded across all the work centers. If you have highly difficult work, reducing the time it takes to 'handle' or 'create' output can be reduced.

This idea ties in to a fantastic book, 'The Goal' by Eliyahu M. Goldratt.

Being in 'hot tech' is cool, but mastering old concepts is valuable to businesses rigid to change. As the number of established companies that leverage tech for a majority of their work grows, the need for brains that are capable of process improvement with a scalpel, rather than a chainsaw.


Improving validation and interpretation of DL.

For all the leaps forward in NN models, I have a feeling it's at risk because of a lack of trust. It's potential may be limited if the public perceives it to be too brittle or maladaptive.

DARPA is currently trying to work on DL models that are truly interpretable. If that gets sufficient progress I think the public/regulators will be much more willing to let software control aspects of their lives than a black box


Explainability is key for accelerating DL research!


what does DL stand for?


deep learning


Crypto! 17% of the worlds GDP is spent on financial services. Software can eat it all.


crypto is fake money, and it will never survive government scrutiny.

we need our dollars to be made by governments, not basement dwellers.


All money is fake money, the notion of a currency is a value fiction shared among a group of people.

Most governments are very young, and do not last very long historically. Central banking is a handful of decades old, cryptocurrency is one decade old.

Neither the maximalists nor deniers are right at this point. It remains to be seen when/whether cryptocurrency will replace fiat currency.


cryptocurrency will never replace gold-backed fiat currency.


Fiat currency is not backed by gold, in fact, it is not backed by anything.

Also, gold is not inherently valuable. It will become a regular common metal once we shift extraction to the asteroid belt.

The truth is there really isn't much with "inherent" value out there, with the notable exception of potential energy.


“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law' becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” - Paul Krugman


Paul Krugman - the original stable genius


Pray tell which fiat currency is gold backed.


us dollars. obivoulsy


U.S. dollars aren't gold backed.


There is no gold-backed fiat currency.


Is the Government currency True money?


I think you missed the train friend.


That's what somebody told me about crypto in 2015, or for that matter about Google in 2009 and computer science in 2002.

There's always another train, right up until the point where everybody assumes that there'll always be another train and world domination is assured. At that point, it's time to hop on another track.


Crypto is the internet in 1996, and you are telling me I missed the train because SUN Microsystems is going to be the first trillion dollar company.


.. eventually going bust and being bought by Oracle?


I think that's the point. Existing cryptocurrencies are very likely to get eclipsed by new competitors that actually solve the problems people face with them. And if you want to have a big impact on humanity, solving those problems is a fruitful area. The financial system that'll pay for our retirements likely hasn't been invented yet.


Crypto is not the internet in 1996. It's a scam. The internet never was. "Crypto is the early internet" is such a lame over-repeated phrase by crypto enthusiasts. Doesn't make it correct in any way.


An alternative for alcohol that is as attractive from the point of view of intoxication quality but is easily and quickly reversible and has little hangover.


A: Laughter


legalized weed?


You find that easily and quickly reversible?? :)


I think the transition from plastics will be vital. It will require new innovations in product manufacturing alternatives. Look around everything is made from it. It will change supply chains, goods lifecycles, costs, and consumer habits. For example, if a grocery store existed that didn't use plastics (in mass) for selling goods, what would that look like? Can it scale? Is it basically a farmers market, etc.


You'd probably see a lot of things packaged in paper, metal (foils, cans), and/or glass. So the follow-up question here would be "how do we sustainably produce paper/metal/glass packaging?", its own follow-up in turn being "how do we sustainably produce paper/metal/glass anything?".

Paper can be answered with some alternative pulp sources, e.g. bamboo and sugarcane. Recycling of existing paper products, as well as an emphasis on tree farms and wildfire prevention, also help here.

Metal and glass can be answered with recycling. Aluminum is pretty common for consumer packaging, and both aluminum and glass are pretty favorable to recycling (at a fraction of the energy cost of mining and smelting new materials).


If you're looking for (1) area w/lots of users (2) few producers and (3) likely involves software, I'd consider human computer interfaces w/the goal of making technology more integral and natural for more of us to leverage to more significant and healthy effect.

- voice - augmented reality - abstraction atop all remote controls - something next beyond the rectangular brick mobile phone - etc

$.02. Great thread to start up!


Graph/Network Representation Learning/Embedding: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8395024

https://github.com/chihming/awesome-network-embedding


A meta-aspect:

- hot areas will attract a lot of producers, so go for the boring areas (who would have guessed analyzing logs would be such an important issue?).

- Consider the essay by Chris Dixon posted here a couple of days ago that these days most big innovations start as "toys". So if you can start with something small and easy to use you may be able to get airborne.


possibly Behavior-driven code generation... meaning create some platform to enable watching users use an application, then it could make machine code to create a similar application. This would enable making videos for training that simulated a working application but the AI would not care if the application worked or not in reality but could make it work type thing?


Are you talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_by_example ?


Yah I think so maybe like that but more in a way that it was setup for existing workflows in that marketing people could actually create some video mockup demonstration then an AI could look at that video then produce a working product from it, similar to how a developer would. But this is shooting developers in the foot obviously as those that are not AI programmers would be screwed.


Gestalt, context-aware UI.

We have a lot of different ways to interact with systems but they are all separate and relatively dumb (not context-aware). I think there is a confluence of forces that will lead to a more seamless user interaction with and between systems that will reduce the friction between app and user, app and app, and user to user. Eventually, for better or worse, a lot of the underlying differences between apps and data and modes of interactions will largely disappear to the end user.

Voice commands, AR, gesture recognition, traditional mouse and keyboard, wearables, powerful phones, laptops, bluetooth, environmental devices, smart-speakers, cloud-based microservices, data transfer and description standards, ad hoc contexts, ubiquitous fast internet, etc, coming together to have user and app interaction happen in a smooth, natural , and intelligent way. Machine learning will be at the heart of it all.

Imagine all of the progress made over the years in app-to-app interoperability jumping into meatspace.


Somebody finish automating the closing papers for real estate deals. Yes, you can sign contracts on line. Yes, it’s probably a very good idea to have the final papers notarized and witnessed in-person by neutral humans. What I’m after is the $35 after-the-fact FedEx charge for overnight delivery of the NOW-VALID papers. That’s your low hanging fruit target.


I am a firm believer in the esports and gaming industry overall. That is why I created Mascot Logo Maker (https://mascotlogomaker.com/). If you like video games and do not mind putting in a little bit of work I think it can pay off big time gg.


Computer Security. Lots of software and hardware is getting shipped everyday and all of it is full of vulnerabilities.


The next big wave (in that this is already happening) is that of mass job displacement due to automation in every industry that has routine predictable work from the fast food industry, retail, transportation, legal, administrative and clerical work, routine data entry.


Graphical Programming - You have an ever increasing number of people needing to perform computational tasks but lack education in coding. As WYSIWYG/GUI transformed personal computers, the GUI will eventually transform the way we program as well.


This exists, it's called LabVIEW. I make a money by replacing horrible LabVIEW-based systems with nice text-based ones (Python / C / whatever- all are better than LabVIEW).

LabVIEW is ok if your virtual instrument fits on one screen. Anything larger and you are better off using a conventional programming language.

So here is one program with graphical programming: how do you make it compatible with GIT / source control? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I am saying it's not easy. [There is a 3d CAD system called OnShape that does it].


I don't know LabVIEW, but I can see how a naive or even a somewhat informed attempt at something like that could lead to, ahem, suboptimal results.

I guess you could, in principle, replace text-based code with visual diagrams, but the essential requirement for logical rigor would remain. That's just part of the essential complexity in software.

Replacing code with visual diagrams might make things easier for some people since understanding strict logical rigor and the ability to write code aren't the same thing, but in the end I don't think the difficult part of programming is actually learning to write code.

I'm also not sure at all that you'd get very good productivity setting all those details right in the diagram through a GUI unless the interface were really well designed, with a liberal employment of keyboard shortcuts. GUIs are faster than CLIs at many things, but I'm not sure setting programming-level details is one of those. You'd probably need to employ keyboard shortcuts or something similar quite liberally, and learning those well wouldn't be too far from learning to write the code.


Smart assistant in some narrow field of knowledge.


Security and privacy. Demand for security folks is white-hot right now, and the need for better security products continues to grow.

I've been seeing a lot of companies in adjacent spaces making headway into the security domain as well—ML assisted intrusion detection and cloud-centric security tooling come to mind.

In a broader sense, I think more governments and regulatory bodies are starting to take cybersecurity much more seriously than they did in the past. GDPR and CCPA are likely the tip of the iceburg in coming year and—regulations aside—I think there is a real and pressing need for better privacy and protection in both consumer and enterprise contexts.


This is the most "for sure" answer in this thread. If I had to bet on any one of these answers being true, this is the answer I would bet on.

Security has always been a big deal, but in light of all the attacks we're seeing lately, there's likely going to be REGULATIONS involved, that may mean demand for these jobs skyrockets.


+1 on this; I also see an upcoming trend with tech like deepfakes that make it hard for individuals to tell what is real and what isn't. This intersects with personal privacy when anyone can grab your FB profile pic and then make you do anything in a deepfaked video and destroy your life.


I think streaming is up and coming.

The problem is I'm not sure how big the market can grow or the upper bound of it.

People are making software for streamers out there but at the same time there is only so much money. All streamers are at the mercy of subscribers.

The two software that stand out are statistic/dashboard and the other is bots. As for hardware the only one that stands out is irl streaming, it's a backpack with a day worth of battery and 4 mobile data plan for high quality streaming.

I personally feel like it's a gold rush like the mobile app early days before it got saturated (remember flappy bird?). But I think the market is much smaller.


Folks have many good ideas here, but most of them require high upfront capital... Not something a regular person can afford. The good thing about software or internet in general is that the barrier of entry is lower.


People are all talking about niches over here. Work on fundamentals. Strong fundamentals are an investment that pays dividends. If you want to learn something niche like ML, because you think it's gonna be big, then learn the math and calculus and stats that underlies the ML. Then if ML really becomes something most devs should know, you'll be able to pick it up better than the people who have to only get the surface. And if it doesn't, you'll have a strong foundation for other things, which is great because foundations are by definition broad.


Absolutely this. Linear algebra has been the gift that has kept on giving since the 1800s underpinning everything from quantum mechanics to video games.

Unlike most mathematics where you quickly hit a usefulness ceiling, the more linear algebra you learn the more useful it gets - linear algebra is just such a rich subject that there's an ocean of useful things to learn and apply.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies


https://trennd.co is a service that specialises in uncovering new trends. Maybe you'll find something there.


I think there are a lot of areas as the most promising

1. Digital Twin(s) -- Soon all people all around the world will have two worlds, one real and one virtual The virtual world would be like the next generation of Minecraft and people all around the world will work together on open-source projects, like what people do on Github but in a virtual n-Dimensional world

2. AI and Biotech --> See Yuval Noah Harari lectures on Youtube

3. Climate Change related activities

4. Fusion which is the next generation of renewable energy


Real time raytracing


Given slowing growth of computing power, and that ray tracing algorithms are already mature and well studied, I don't think high-sample real-time raytracing will come along for a long time.

Instead, I think de-noising based on machine-learning will be the crucial factor for real-time raytracing, as Nvidia has been showing.

I think a coming advancement will be in dispatching rays based on ML too. That is, economically deciding where to cast rays, based on feedback from the de-noiser.


Can you elaborate? I’m not familiar with the current state of graphics research. Can a high end GPU today do this, and if not, how far are the fastest high-quality algorithms from realtime today?


Nvidia has a popular series of "RTX" gpus released in the last year, which are billed as having real-time ray-tracing capability of some sort. It is not exactly clear to me what the best ways of making use of this are yet; if you want to path trace a whole scene it's still absurdly expensive / low frame rate (check out Quake II RTX) but there are a small number of AAA games released in the past year which are making use of real-time raytracing in small amounts for more subtle graphical improvements.


A high end GPU today (like GTX 10 series) can absolutely stun! Check this out,

http://www.realtimerendering.com/raytracinggems/unofficial_R... [33MB PDF]

It sheds light on some ray tracing techniques with the focus on the new RTX API with DirectX12

Real time rendering portal page generally my goto for checking out new stuff in graphics and now they have a Raytracing section https://www.realtimerendering.com/raytracing.html

I am on phone right now, and will try to put more material as soon as I get back to my workstation!

Edit: Courtesy Onion2k


Note to users on mobile - link is a 33mb pdf.


This is up-and-coming, but so many people are working on making graphics shinier, it's a very crowded space.


> This is up-and-coming

Real-time raytracing is usable in games today. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/quake-ii-rtx-ray-t...


Yourself.

One of the most complex areas, having lots of users, that need to be fixed, is human beings. Spend all your time to know who you are, why you are like that, and change this world starting from the most promising thing it has on it: you.

In the meantime, try to carry out activities that you like (ride your bike, walk alone or with real people). Do it disconnected from any device or social network.

Do things that make you feel real and unique, without layout, template, guidelines, best practices. Ignore any negativism (fortunately you are introverted, it should help). Recognize in every moment that you have to learn a lot. Learn a lot and repeat.


Reminds me of a quote...

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

-- George Bernard Shaw


It's important.

After more than three decades in corporate life, I have "dropped out," and I'm working on doing stuff that makes me feel good.

Being happy is a lot more important to me than toys; but I have a company that provides the kinds of toys I like to play with, anyway.

I've been focusing on re-establishing my working engineering cred; mostly by creating a pretty vast portfolio of new, relevant projects. It will be the kind of thing that you won't be able to ignore.

Which will be quite important, as my gray hair causes an almost instant "write off" response.

The last couple of years have also given me great opportunity to reinvest in my own self-development.

I'm not really big on the "unplug yourself" advice. My GH ID is an almost solid green. I've been doing seven-day workweeks for a couple of years, and actually enjoying myself (and not making a dime).

Sooner or later, I'll have to slow down the hamster wheel, but I'm not there, yet. If I expect people to pay me real money for real work; I need to make sure the product (myself) is tip-top shape.

If I do that, then everything else kinda falls into place.


I think you're missing a key ingredient--your network of colleagues. I don't think companies care that much about technical skills after a certain level. The way you get work is by having associates who know you and can get you in.


You are correct, but there's a couple of mitigating factors in this:

1) I have a fairly substantial network, but most of them know me as a manager, not a tech. I'm an excellent manager (people still ask me for advice), but I don't love it. I love being a coder.

2) Of the fairly substantial coding work I've done, almost all of the work (that I can talk about) was done for NPOs, as open-source for organizations that don't have a pot to pee in, so that network is a bit dicey for me.

I am doing something that is not usual. I'm reinventing myself in-place. I've done it before, but that was back when we actually respected folks with gray hair. Running into the ageism issue has been...enlightening.

I'm also not very good at pitches. I do demos; which means no pigs in pokes. I tend to not take the wraps off of things until they have reached the MVP stage, and I'm not particularly interested in getting funding.

I just want to do what I love: write code. I'm an excellent architect. My systems tend to last for decades, but that isn't really something that folks care about, and I understand that. I need to re-tool my architecture focus as well.

I have history writing demos that can't be ignored. I'll need to build a new network, but I can't do that until I have something to show (not talk about -SHOW).


Most of your comments are dead but nothing seems obviously off about them to me. I vouched for this one.


This is some of the best advice I've ever read on HN. I started doing this about 6 months ago. I also want to warn that you can focus too much on that and it can burn you out. Moderation is key in any decision/lifestyle. Also can say self love and compassion is key as well and can take a long time to develop depending on the parenting you received.


This is good advice, but frequently one of the best ways to work on yourself is to pick a promising area and work hard on it. Your self does not exist in a vacuum, and you learn a lot about you by how you choose to navigate the world around you.


Yes. Ask constantly the simple yet deep question "Who are you?"

Who sees when you see?

Who hears when you hear?

Who feels when you touch?


Hey. I am 22 (from India), suffering from depression and with zero skills which can get me a job. I have wasted last 4-5 years without doing anything or learning anything. All i do is sleep, laying on bed and daydream through out the day. Can you tell me how should i go about improving my life?


Have you seeked medical professional help?


Like the other poster suggested, consider seeking help from a counsellor. Depending on which part of India you are in there is a good chance of finding someone who suits you.

Since you are on HN, I’m guessing you are aiming for a tech career. The good thing with tech is that it is so widespread now that you can pick any niche and you’ll be able to work in that domain. Feel free to reach out to me (contact in bio) if you would like to discuss about tech in India / Bangalore.


Hi, sorry for the delay. No. I can't tell you how to improve your life. But if you like to play chess with me (a beginner), grab my contact from the bio. I'll be there.


How do I make money while I am doing this?


Anything in this world has a value you have to pay.

Money comes at the right time if you go the right path in your life. Don't think about money, think about the path you want to go, a path you would be happy to go and money comes in its right time

Choose "infinite" goals in your life, and follow them.


That’s reasonable advice, but it’s hard to pay the bills when you are off getting Zen on yourself.


And likewise, it's hard (though I guess not impossible) to achieve that Zen when you can't afford food or shelter. Maslow's hierarchy of needs and all that.


I understand what you say, the world is not fair and some of us, including me, have started from zero and should have basic needs in our life. However, I don't think spending time, for instance, 30-60 min a day for things we love to be hard

I call myself constant learner, some years ago I said if Japanese people improved their country through small changes rule (10 min a day) what if I spend 1-3 hours a day for things I really love to follow?

Also read this book [1]: Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? How to drive your career and create a remarkable future

[1] https://books.google.com/books/about/Linchpin.html?id=eqrFTy...


The world is badly designed. We can fix that. ;)


What odds are on offer? I'd love to hedge against poor luck.


Since you bring it up, mental health companies are springing up left and right. I work at a mental health startup myself. My interest in understanding and working on my own mental health led me to apply to this place. I think there are a lot of people attempting to create products to help us do what you are suggesting. Meditation, mindfulness and therapy seem to be the solutions that everyone is throwing up.


Rebranded nihilism.

The trend of positivity focused, directionless hedonism seeking self actualization is no better than lying around drinking all day or addicted to opiates.

Find something outside yourself to be devoted to. Do the hard work to determine what that is, test and iterate.

Happiness is a side effect of a job well done, not a goal.


As I get older I tend to agree with this more and more. Find something bigger than yourself. This could be your family, your company, your idea. Work on that. Build something significant, something you can be proud of. It will give your life more meaning than attempts to find out who you are.


I'd love to know why you think you know what's better or worse for a stranger on the internet. Have you discovered objective reality that completely accounts for every subjective experience of every human being and can conclusively prove what is better or worse?

My, those foolish philosophers and scientists can finally retire - Andrew Kemendo has arrived, we just need to listen and do as he/she says.


Please don't respond with personal attack, no matter how annoying another comment is. It only makes the thread even worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html


You're going off half-cocked and it's embarrassing.


Please don't respond with personal attack, no matter how annoying another comment is. It only makes the thread even worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html


I worked in Unified communications for many years and is a very well established and solid technology with protocols like SIP, RTP, sRTP and webRTC as we move to space and that area is growing, inter space communications Is an interesting are to work on. How to transmit via other media (radio, light) to be able to communicate across the solar system


I think the alt credentialing space is extremely promising: that is, anything that solves the problem for employers "How do I know that this person is better than anyone else in the world at this problem set I need?" Without the usual leaps of faith and logic necessary to think a Harvard degree means that.


Probably agriculture. There is an opinion that food will become much more valuable and rare than it is today.


Geriatric care and home health services.


While this thread is still popular, I would like to see some renewed innovation in “management science”, as in, how to set up a large modern organization for sustainable success. Like, install an app and just follow the plan. No more management shakeups and genius dear leaders.


Whatever area you're interested in. Whatever it is, if you love it enough, it's got promise.


May be this will help

Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020

https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-top-10-st...


Whatever is needed. At this point in time, it would be areas like clean energy for the whole planet, digitizing governance, helping people keep fit and healthy, growing nutritious food, population control, conserving forests and staying out of the way of mother nature.


Before facebook, there was myspace, before iphone we had java phones and winphones, before twitch there was chatroulette, etc.

Remember that it’s very hard to notice a « disruption » is taking place, because at the time it looks like just an evolution of something already existing.


About time for a new social network.


Whats the killer feature that's missing from social networks right now that a 15 year old would care about?


Not tech for tech's sake, but the only thing that is going to matter soon enough is climate change mitigation. So of course there will lots of tech involved.

Perhaps something that touches all of it and could be lucrative is data collection and analysis tools.


Anything that reduces last mile shipping time. Drones route planning planning platforms, personnel allocation software, Smart fridges/locks. Big retailers are racing to <1 day shipping and buying fairly untested tools to try to get there.


Can you give an example of an untested tool you have in mind?


I'm mostly thinking of in home delivery for e-commerce. There was a company called Latch that was acquired that was more or less a smart lock for this purpose. You can see fairly regular news stories of Walmart/Amazon attempting this sort of thing. I believe amazon has some way to put items in the trunk of your car, but I don''t have a link handy.


Make a new Podcast?


This radar, motion-detection UX from Google https://atap.google.com/soli/

Don't be fooled by the toyness of it now. The potential for this is amazing.


Differential privacy. Solving some of the analytics use cases for businesses that currently involve invasive tracking that browser makers are making unviable. Continue to solve the important use cases while respecting privacy.


I've played with devices all my career. It's always had some traction, but I wouldn't call it The Big One.

I tend to program for the love of the art; not to get rich, which I guess makes me a heretic, but there you are...


Productized services :) People want the "job done" more and more and that is going to apply to many more services, mostly enabled by tech!

I am also running a pretty growing community on that on FB (Productized Startups)


IOT blockchain AI running in the cloud with integrated cryptocurrency and ICO.


We have a buzzword BINGO!


Personal coaching services to people looking for a different area to work in?


Techs for the environment, like wireless sensor grids used to monitor and help the nature, or monitor warehouses, ports

Now sensors can run nodejs or similar familiar languages, and with more capacities than a decade ago


Hypnosis for HCI. (Neuralink et. al. are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. When you want to connect a computer and a brain the most effective thing to do is program the brain.)


Could you elaborate please?


Yes. All year. And thank you for asking. :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746802

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601806

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434897

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18564989

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18565101


Automating manufacturing supply chains. I am sure it is possible to build a profitable business in this space extremely quickly. If I wasn't already committed, I'd do it myself.


Just a quick comment here:

In scale, mobile apps in 2010 and vlogging in 2014 are nothing like social media in 2004.

You can compare social media in 2004 to web searching in 1998 if you know what I mean...


Deep learning. Unlike Crypto, actual companies are actually implementing it for real non-illegal uses cases, like camera Night Mode, translation, self-driving cars.


Some people predict that fixing stuff will become a big business. As resource and energy get more scarce, there will be more incentive to fix existing stuff.


Anything that goes from Zero to 1 (Peter Thiel). An example, pre-airplane civilization to a jet set civilization. I'd say that in 2016, that was the year for ML to seriously influence world events. In 2019 I'd give a serious look at this list https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs and chances are the next big thing isn't on it. Personally, I'm shorting credit card companies since 50% of millennials have maxed out credit cards.


Lab-grown meat ordering page. Hyperloop ticket sales website. Daily personal diet recipe. Group consensus platform. Factual information sharing


Recycling, the worlds needs to reuse materials to prevent climate change. You will make the world a better place by working in this field.


As we trend towards full automation, both manufacturing and distribution jobs are likely to be structurally disintegrated. Services will probably also be rendered obsolete, aside from highly personal / human / creative services that rest on the long-tail of AI. So a more realistic prediction might suggest that the majority of "promising areas" will lie in fields like AI, big data, statistics, decentralization, advanced mathematics, etc. The character and arrangement of these domains will depend largely on whether we continue a trajectory of capitalism focused on profits, or whether we begin a shift towards socialism and co-op models that focus on psychosocial and environmental value.

Profit path = more advanced big data and exploitative mechanisms, psy-ops tooling for political power preservation, centralized power, etc (think robocop / cambridge analytica on steroids). Psychosocial path = more innovation rooted in positive psychology, complex systems, decentralization, and facilitating self-actualization (think Her / pragmatic utopia). The overlap between the two seems to be psychology and complex systems thinking, so maybe "complex systems psychology" or even "social engineering" would be solid candidates?

Complex systems psychology would essentially be the next evolution of behavioral economics, where we observe and engineer the emergence of system-level phenomena by motivating individual agents to behave in ways that are psychologically positive (or aligned with a profit/power motif of someone atop a hierarchy) for the individual parts and the whole.

Social engineering is just more the micro version of that - figuring out how to infiltrate / manipulate complex social systems and then equipping organizations with defense tactics and tooling. Maybe even anticipating the emergence of new attack vectors before they can be exploited.

For anyone interested in complex systems, Santa Fe Institute is in the middle of Week 3 of their free online course. Highly recommended.

For anyone interested in positive psychology, Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow are great places to start.

For anyone interested in social engineering, the SECTF is a goldmine.


Automated the shit out of a customer service process. Current doing contract work doing the same thing. It pays bills.


Gene editing tech. CRISPR is only the beginning and the payoffs for getting all this right are potentially heroic.


Ironically, I think the replies in this thread show how the importance of problems can be very subjective.


I suspect online learning - especially through established universities - is ready to grow in a big way.


Computing shifting to the background. (Ubiquitous sensors plus Cloud based AI anticipating our needs)


Event sourcing. See dataintensive.net

TL;DR - rip the writeahead log out of databases and materialize not just SQL commands but events yourself, returning control to reality rather than systems.


I think in the same lines (I'm building a relational lang http://tablam.org) and think a modern RDBMS could be made alike:

    command  "city.define miami" |> event pre-process (ie: validations and transformations!) |> write-ahead log |> fire-observers: [post log for later OR block writes]
The idea is to put some of the stored procedures in the "event pre-process" before commit to write-ahead. In the "fire-observers" steps is possible to directly commit to a table (sync) and get immediate feedback (ie: primary key duplicate) OR store the log to be processed later.

The idea is that is possible to send "events" that are not necessarily "insert into table" or similar, just pure business stuff. BUT still possible to operate as always!


Not sure if this is what you mean but these exist - Oracle Queues, MQSeries, RabbitMQ (open source MQSeries copy), all part of a generic thing called Enterprise Service Bus


I would suggest thinking more along the lines of Kafka/Kinesis/et cetera. ESBs are often not persistent and as a result not available for reprocessing against new use cases or with fixed code.


If the queue is outside the RDBMS, not.

What I say is that RDBMS are too much of a blackbox. I want a way to use them alike legos (but without gettin INTO their source code!).

Imagine you wanna do a bloom index, but the RDBMS not have it. How you do it normally?

Put a handler/listener/event etc that intercept the calls and route if need:

    search ... | if_bloom index_bloom OR continue


> vlogging in 2014

Not quite sure I understand this. Is this a US thing? Is it blogging by posting videos?


Think YouTube stars


Gaming on the cloud. VR and AR.


Still white elephants after decades. Every few years someone tries to stream games, it doesn't work.

The closest example right this moment is Microsoft's flight sim that'll download world data from bing maps as you fly around. Simply because they are using synthesized petabytes of map data. Guildwars and other mmo's download world data as you are playing to fill out areas you will visit in the future. It still uses a traditional game client and business model. There's a slew of games that run on nearly every bit of hardware. I don't see the advantage cloud gaming brings.

You could stream every mobile game that's existed as low latency is rarely a requirement for those games. Those games are still downloaded to memory and rendered on the client and use a conventional business model.

Vr is getting a valve style game soon that might well be a killer app for it, but the problem of movement remains.


This is a great one, AAA game install sizes have been ballooning while storage space has plateaued and network speeds and connectivity are getting better.

Maybe develop some split model, where assets are streamed over the network but gameplay and rendering are local?

Or do most things on the server, but stream a spherical color and depth map, so the client can handle rotating the camera with zero lag, and then you can perform some compensation if the camera translates (similar to how Oculus does motion compensation)?


Technology for post collapse


Home meal prep. I think there's an opportunity for someone to nail this, just nobody has. I'd love somewhere to create a schedule, dietary preferences, family size, and have a fresh, healthy, varied meal delivered every day, without having to think about it again.


What do you think is missing from current options, because an awful lot of podcasts have ads for these right now. Freshly comes to mind as a brand I would recognize, but I've definitely heard multiple services advertizing that you can customize to your schedule, number of mouths to feed, dietary preferences (common sensitivities, kosher / halal, veg*, etc.)


Huh. Maybe nothing and I'm just behind the times. Will check it out.


Price point


how about something around electric vehicles, especially in the developing world where it's a very hot topic. I am not saying develop an EV, but some info product or EV specific store.


Quick control-f tells me no one has said "Environment" or a phrase I'm hoping catches on "Green-tech". There's just no way this doesn't blow up into something big in my mind. Earlier today i was discussing with a biologist friend how there should be a better partnership between the environmental world and the tech world, citing examples of biologists learning to code v's focusing on what they're good at. The environmental fields have not paid well historically, but i have a feeling that if the climate is changing, eventually it'll start paying very well to attract the people it needs.

Stop optimizing driving routes for food delivery, selling CPG products to poor people...start worrying about humanity! It may not pay amazingly, but at least you're doing something that has the potential to be looked back at as important as fighting Nazi Germany or Polio.


> but i have a feeling that if the climate is changing, eventually it'll start paying very well to attract the people it needs

The problem is that it's a tragedy of the commons, so no matter how important it gets, unless governments really start putting money towards it there will continue to be little interest from the private sector.


no disrespect intended at all, but this seems to capture a very non-tech ethos. as an industry we need to have boundless optimism and practice a philosophy of idealism with a healthy sprinkle of realism. we are very well positioned to solve sustainability problems/change culture


I think I partly misread the original post and thought they were looking for a lucrative new field of work; if they just want something worthwhile to put effort into, then I can see how my comment might've come off as cynical. That wasn't my intent.

I'm not saying nothing can be done about our environmental problems, just that it'd be tough to turn it into a career. Unfortunately.


sequester that attitude, dude.

if "governments really start putting money towards it"... that money comes from your paycheck first and foremost.

if you're going to advocate for a market based solution (and you are, if you're talking about putting money somewhere) then consider the hard work of pricing external costs (those costs to the commons, you're so fond of considering), that governments are truly good at.

we don't need governments spending our money. we need governments to help us coordinate prices for the consequences of our desires, which would otherwise not be priced at all (e.g. dumping billions of tons of pollutants, etc... into the shared environment).


> that money comes from your paycheck first and foremost

Fantastic! I would love to help prevent a global catastrophe.

> if you're going to advocate for a market based solution (and you are, if you're talking about putting money somewhere)

I am not. I'm pointing out that this kind of problem is fundamentally impossible for the market to solve unless enormous, non-profit-seeking organizations (i.e., governments) artificially bridge it into the market via coordinated incentives. That's not the only way to solve it, but it's the only way businesses would have anything to do with a solution.


> I would love to help prevent a global catastrophe.

great, you can start by reading books written by folks that don't agree with you.

> I am not.

actually, you are...

> ... into the market via coordinated incentives.

but, like... it's kinda funny.


Autonomous Driving

AR / VR

Automation generally but particularly in manufacturing

3D printing for manufacturing


3D printing for manufacturing has now been rebranded “additive manufacturing” (kinda a less descriptive term if you ask me — sounds like making glue — but it is what it is)


COBOL programming?


COBOL.js++ with qubit edge-cloud blockchain microservices


My two cents:

- Privacy-focuses/Decentralized social networks

- E-Sports

- Food & Leisure

- Travel

- Climate-friendly services


Privacy & Personal Analytics

I am working on an open-source implementation that is based on the fundamental idea of privacy. The consumers should have full control eventually.

For now only Google etc have all the information on us, but the great thing is that because of GDPR we see a move towards us being able to download it.

The system I am building allows us to combine data from across companies. This is huge. We are talking so much opportunity. The real challenge is making it easy for people to onboard while still providing security.

Feel free to contact me if you're more interested.


Virtual Reality.

If you're reading this and you haven't tried VR yet - I can't recommend it highly enough. Particularly a higher end experience connected to a PC with tracking (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, or Valve Index). The lower end ones like a gear VR are fun and novel but it just isn't the same experience.

I have introduced dozens of people to VR for the first and you just can't explain it to people. Videos are no help. Trying to describe is better than nothing I guess but it just doesn't get you there. If you take anything away from this comment it would be to just try to find somewhere that you can try VR yourself and you'll understand what I'm about to say better than I could ever explain it.

The equipment available to consumers today is pretty low end compared to what is possible with prototypes / commercial systems when it comes to resolution, framerate, and other factors. There are also quality of life features that work but haven't been brought to market yet for consumers. Things like wireless for the headsets. But even with this early days tech - when you put the headset on you feel like you are being transported to a different place.

If you've tried VR you probably know what I'm talking about. There is this distinct feeling of being present in the virtual world. Remembering places in VR feels more like remembering a physical location you've been to rather than something you saw in a computer game. And VR is going to be so much more than games.

Because of this feeling of presence - going places in VR actually feels like going to a different place. Likewise, when you meet someone in VR it feels different than meeting someone in a fourm like this or even in a voice chat in a video game. It feels closer to actually being in a room with them. I think a lot of this is related to being able to see some of their body language.

Everything in VR feels like a hacked together prototype and works like one too. I like to show VR to people but I can't really recommend it to most people because it just doesn't work well enough for them to be able to fix it when various things break or settings need to be changed. Some options that I offer to them are things like PSVR or I've heard the new Oculus Quest is pretty good as a casual experience but I haven't tried it yet. But both of those route you to walled gardens that are missing a lot of the really cool stuff.

If you know the right nooks and crannies to look there are some amazing things to see and do. I'll list a couple of my favorites but the best ones all have something in common. They are a platform that allow people to make their own content. In some cases they are made that way on purpose, others it feels more like an accident of design.

Remember when the internet was a little younger and you'd find a cool or bizarre website in an irc channel or something and think "who even made this?" Well that time is back except you can't view it through a screen anymore. You have to put on an HMD and venture directly into the internet. When you take a walk through the internet what do you find? Mostly weird stuff and brief glimpses of the future - both are worthwhile.

VRChat is probably the best example of the above. Like everything in VR the interfaces are terrible and everything half works. But even through that fog you start to get an idea of how deep this rabbit hole goes. In VRChat you choose an Avatar and then go to virtual worlds and meet people other people. They have default Avatars and Worlds to choose from but the best content is what people make themselves. It's a unity game and there is a shocking degree of freedom in what people can upload (content made with apps like blender or unity itself).

Copyright may as well not exist yet in VR because it's too new for anyone to know to look. So people decide to be various superheros or characters from all kinds of fiction. I once visited a world where you could choose from hundreds of Marvel and DC characters. It's not that in VRChat you can be Spiderman. It's that you can choose from dozens of spidermen from various comics and movies (the real spiderverse perhaps).

As you might expect there is a lot of anime. There are also a lot of unconventional avatars. Sometimes People choose to be a car. Or a firetruck. Or a toaster. Or an ATM Machine. Sometimes people choose to be something incredibly large like a robot towering hundreds of feet in the air. Sometimes people choose to be a tiny avatar like a mouse or an RC car.

The strange thing is that there is a sense of scale in VR. So if you are a giant robot, everyone looks small and you really do feel like you are that large. Likewise if you pick a tiny avatar everything in the world looks giant. This feeling of presence remains. A very present toaster.

For many users of VRChat the Avatars are the most compelling parts. Don't get me wrong, they are really cool. It's amazing to see some of the things that people come up with. Especially the avatars that have some sort of animation without it being obnoxious / trolling (hey I did say we were walking into the internet here). People spend hours creating these versions of their virtual selves and build in abilities to do things in game. Most of these things just boil down to character animations or sounds. Any animation or sound you want leaves a lot of room for creativity (with few limits on size, or unfortunately volume).

But to me this isn't the real draw of VRChat. The worlds are. You can look at the most popular worlds in the game in menu but I prefer the search bar (searching is one of the things that half works.) Being able to be some character from fiction or someones imagination is one thing - but being able to travel somewhere is another thing all together.

So you may find yourself in a VR bar or arcade having a conversation when someone drops a portal to another world. Some of my favorites I've been to include a recreation of the secret base containing the Stargate from the show by the same name. Once you're there you can dial the gate and walk through to find yourself walking out of a pyramid on a desert planet called Abydos. Or you may find yourself climbing into a helicopter with friends in a world of abstract and surrealist art created to go along with an album somebody made. A sort of VR music video that you can fly through to a soundtrack. Or if a helicopter doesn't suit you how about another world where you can put on a jetpack and fly through what feels like various settings on an old media player visualizer (avoid this one if you get motion sickness!). Or how about one of those rides from a theme park where they put you in a hydraulic car that doesn't move and project a "ride" onto the screen in front of you? Because yes, somehow people have put a couple of these in VR too (I like the Back To The Future one).

There are literally thousands of these worlds you can visit. It really reminds me of the old internet where you would find these amazing little things tucked away and hidden.

The community is probably closer to today's internet as far as signal to noise ratio goes. But if you're willing to look there are definitely kind and interesting people to meet as well.

VRChat is fun and interesting but it's actually not where I spend most of my time in VR.

In VR there are maybe a dozen first person shooter games to choose from. In VR shooter games kind of feel like a mix between a game and paintball or something like that. My favorite is called Pavlov VR. It is a shameless knock off of counter-strike (I mean shameless. Down to the same exact same guns, mechanics, and win conditions.) But thats ok! Because it means you can play counter-strike in VR. Which is incredibly fun. There are also Call of Duty clones, Battlefield clones, and Battle Royale games. But what makes pavlov so special is that you can upload maps, similar to VRChat. Just like VRChat it's boundless creativity.

So in addition to having all the same mechanics as counter-strike it also has all the same maps. I've been playing Dust II for years (not as long as some, never did play 1.6). But now I get to actually run around there. Same goes for maps from a lot of other games I used to play. In addition to people uploading maps they also turn them into these custom game modes that you can instantly play just by joining or starting a server. Because of this, Pavlov winds up feeling like lots of different games. There are the classic default modes but there are also lots of other game modes to try (zombies, duel servers, conversions for weapons). Some of the coop modes are fun because they are a more social experience like VRChat but there is more to do. VRChat can wind up a little boring just standing around sometimes.


Do you have a link to a recommended parts list? Or a recommendation for somewhere I could go in/near SF to try it without purchasing my own parts. You have me interested. It would be great to experience something similar to the late 90s internet again.


For parts you basically want a high end gaming PC[0] + a Valve Index.

SF is probably a great place to find VR Arcades. Googling it looks like there are a couple here is one[1].

Might be better to ask / google around and see which ones have the best reviews.

edit: this one looks good too[2]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcforme/comments/dfpwr0/1000_...

[1] https://sandboxvr.com/sanfrancisco/

[2] https://www.theherohangout.com


Another VR app I love that isn't really a game is called SpaceEngine. It started as a flatscreen project that later added VR support. There is a lot of cool stuff like this in VR that was originally developed for another medium and was ported to VR either by the developers or often by the community with a mod (Half life, Minecraft, Skyrim).

SpaceEngine is Google Earth for the Observable Universe (Google Earth VR is pretty cool too). It places celestial objects that we know of where they belong and procedurally generates what is unknown based on how many stars / planets are estimated to exist. The sense of scale in VR lends itself really well to this experience. You can control where you move and how fast you move.

I was genuinely in awe as I pointed away from earth into deep space and started accelerating. I know space is vast but it's just so hard to conceptualize. You increase the throttle and you realize that even travelling at light speed doesn't feel all that fast. At that rate it still takes hours to leave our solar system. But the shocking part is when you increase it far beyond that. Cranking it up to 100x the speed of light, then to 1 light year /second, how about 100ly/s, faster still. I don't remember what my final cruising speed was when I realized that I wasn't seeing stars pass by - those were galaxies. Maybe 100M ly/s or something. And as you're going you can stop, pick a galaxy, in that galaxy pick a star, have a look around that system, pick a planet, land on it, advance time and watch day night cycles. There was an overwhelming sense of how big the universe is and just how small I am as I watched galaxies fly by at impossible speeds.

SpaceEngine is buggy. Everything in VR is buggy and half works. Menus are terrible. UIs are baffling. Settings are either hidden and esoteric or oversimplified with no real control. This is part of what makes it seem so promising to me though. There is so much low hanging fruit to be picked. Everything I've experienced in VR feels like a castle in the sand. And not just because DMCA's will eventually remove much of the current content. There is so much potential to grow and extend what is currently available. Platforms where users can make their own content currently exist but it feels like it's almost by accident. You can imagine future systems making it even easier / more open. I think WebVr is one trying to do this but I've never used it.

The low hanging fruit isn't just the software either. Everything I've mentioned above is with todays consumer hardware. The improvements in the pipeline for VR hardware are crazy. Things that are available as Dev kits, prototypes, and commercial hardware blow my mind.

In VRChat you can join via VR or a flatscreen. When people are not connected via VR you can sort of subconsciously tell at all times because there is no body language. It's as if communication has some sort of inherent fidelity where on the high end you have standing in a room with a real person talking to them and on the low end you have something like a text message. People who are connected via flat screen feel a little closer to the text message side of that slider scale. But there are also people who use special hardware to enable full body tracking, or finger tracking. Interacting with them feels a little higher on that fidelity scale.

Full body tracking is currently done by a piece of hardware clipped to your belt and or shoes. In the future I suspect it will be done with cameras or something a bit more seamless. But it's not just body tracking. There are haptic suits where you can feel when someone taps you on the shoulder, or throws a dodgeball at you. There are very early alpha haptic gloves about which I could write another comment of similar length (this video was incredible to me[0]). There is experimentation with tracking facial expressions and eye movement. Facial expressions will go a long way towards increasing communication fidelity but eye tracking turns out to offer even more potential than that.

The resolution of the current gen VR headsets just isn't that good. It's better than the old Rift CV1 but is still noticeably less clear that a computer monitor or television. However, with eye tracking you can do foveated rendering. This allows you to track where the eye is looking at any given moment and render very high resolution in that spot, and lower resolution on the rest of the image. I have not yet experienced this myself but people who describe testing this out report a remarkable difference. I remember one article in which a guy described getting into a BMW in VR and looking at the logo on the steering wheel he said it looked shockingly similar to seeing it in real life. Thats a special example and not first hand so I take it with a grain of salt. But with foveated rendering the resolution can be on the order of 10x higher. Really extreme improvements possible here.

I've always been more of a software guy personally. The potential of the hardware is exciting to me most of all because of the crazy possibilities it enables in what could be build in VR tomorrow. It's not quite Moore's law, but there is a sense that the hardware will get better for a while.

I once heard someone call VR/AR "the last interface" because any interface that currently exists or could exist can be built in VR. I don't know if thats entirely true but it gets at what makes VR so compelling. The limit is really only our imagination. This is true of other digital worlds too, like video games or to some degree even websites. But thats just through a screen. Here you can conjour into existence places for people to go, people to be, or adventures to experience.

It's not all adventure games and toaster people either. There may be even more low hanging fruit in building tools to do work in VR. Thats even less explored. A VR IDE would be pretty cool, especially once the resolution gets a little better. Or imagine if you could walk into a virtual datacenter and see all your AWS servers manifested as physical boxes racked and waiting for you to trip over power cables like it's the 90s again.

VR is a new medium. It doesn't feel like reading a book, playing a video game, or watching a movie. It feels like something else. And like all new mediums what exists there now is mostly ports of old mediums. I don't think we've even scratched the surface of whats possible in this space. There are probably whole undiscovered classes of ideas that really only work in VR the same way there are ideas that make great books but don't really cut it as movies. It just has so much potential.

It feels like the early web to me. An untouched frontier. Almost completely unexplored and teeming with possibility. What could be more promising than that.

If you get to try (or play everyday) one of the more common VR games like beatsaber, the lab, job simulator etc. those are definitely still fun too and I think still are a window into what VR can be. Rec Room is another popular one you may find that even has some user generated content (though with more limits on things like size). Really almost anything in VR as long as it's on one of the PC based headsets will show you what I'm talking about.

Thanks for asking this question. Looking at the other comments this is one of my favorite HN threads in a while.

[0] https://youtu.be/OK2y4Z5IkZ0?t=60


Law


Seconded


Probably image processing.


podcasts, virtual reality, deep fake detection, diy internet


Carbon capture and storage.

Space mining.

Biohacking.


Lightning Network


Making GDPR and CCPA compliance easy for developers


online gaming / esports


Here are my opinions:

* AI and ML. Assuming Moore's law still holds in some capacity, it will be about 10 years before we have a $1000 machine that is within shooting distance of the computational power of the human brain.

* Solar. Prices are dropping exponentially which means power will become cheaper and open up whole new industries. Solar just dropped below coal and is halving about every two years. The first obvious market is solar for housing but there could be plenty of others.

* Battery technology. Hand in hand with solar, battery technology is getting better and the cost of battery power is dropping exponentially. All fields adjacent to battery technology, including power management, drones, autonomous vehicles, etc. will be bolstered by having bigger, cheaper batteries.

* DNA sequencing and synthesis. I don't think we've gotten past the $1000 whole genome sequencing number in the past couple of years, so we may be in a sequencing "winter" but this won't last and these prices will plummet exponentially. I don't have any big hope of private enterprises offering personalized health as incentives don't align and the barrier is high, so my opinion is that projects that do 'crowd sourcing' with a focus open data and open source have a higher chance of success (see OpenSNP, OpenHumans, Personal Genome Project (PGP)). How is health care transformed when I can ask 1000 other people who have the same liver enzymes whether the drug I'm considering taking has worked for them? How about when I correlate the relevant gene sequence and environmental exposure to get insight on my probability of getting some specific type of cancer?

* Cryptocurrency. Bitcoin gets a lot of hate on this community but it's been steadily appreciating in value and is the only alternative to a centralized currency. At one point during the heydays of the 2000s when the internet was just burgeoning, 'micro payments' were floated around as a way to monetize. I don't see any other alternative than something like Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency.

* Ubiquitous computing. Maybe the most nebulous on this list, but consider what things look like when we have 1GHz, 4 core, 2G RAM, 4G hard drive Linux boxes for less than $1. Smart homes? Smart cars? Smart clothing? After playing around with a Raspberry Pi Zero W that's a full GHz processor, multi gigs of RAM and hard disk space with Linux running for less than $20, it's clear to me we're starting to transition to a next phase in 'personal' computing.

My own heavy bias is towards free/libre/open source and I firmly believe that "open source will eat the world", but this might be my hopefulness outweighing my perception of reality. I will say that anecdotally, projects that are FOSS may not have any greater chance of initial success but tend to have a greater success at staying relevant.

Obviously what you want to focus on will depend on what resources you have access to both socially or financially. I'm also not a successful entrepreneur so all these suggestions should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. I am surely going to be surprised by what new comes in the next ten years.

One final note is to keep on top of other technologies that might not look that promising but could grow into something bigger. I don't think laser cutting or 3D printing are all that promising in the short term even though I think they're cool. I also want to know more about FPGAs and VR even if their adoption might not be clear. The above list seems like it's pretty certain to be relevant in some capacity.


Tooling to make GDPR and CCPA compliance easier for companies


Others.


GDPR and CCPA compliance


I'm not convinced we're done with social networks, considering how many are shutting down, how many are privacy nightmares, and how many are failing to respond to user feedback.


Take when someone streams on youtube - it is exactly that. Ability to stream video live, let your viewers chat amongst eachother + being able to receive donations. With Youtube becoming more Goolag than before, and because Youtube is actively becoming platfrom just like any other where they don't share profits with creators anymore, I storngly believe this is where it's going to be "at" for startups. I already looked into it and I believe the issue with large data storage and traffic is now solved with cheap hardware AND P2P streaming like bittorent and the js client for the web browser.

Then you can see that YT creators now rival TV - easily. So I believe the internet will transform in a way where an youtube channel will become something like a tv show or late night show or whatever TV equivalent from the past. People will be actively looking and subscribing to these individuals or shows on purpose and will be consuming them periodically like they did in the past with television. Hence video is the tech I'd look into and the concept of making good platform/s for creators and viewers to connect and interact(!).

Blogs are dead. FB is good only for groups(many people in one place with many interests can easily connect). Twitter is pure pollitical cancer. Instagram is just for worshipping attention whores..eh "models". Any non-mainstream social network became too singular because people who were kicked out form ms sn went there. So all in all, social networks are dead. But video, video is a medium that is too deeply rooted in humans for some reason. I guess the ease of consumption? So I stirngly believe that is the way to go. I mean, you have hundreds of streaming services nowadays...no one will be buying all of them. People still want to consume good content but TV is shite and these online stremaing service will become unafordable. So there will have to be alternatives for people and as I have mentioned, YT is cutting sharing of profits with creators(not to mention censorship), so these creators will be looking for alternative means of earning and creating and sharing.

(I didn't proof-read my response so sorry for typos, I type fast and don't have time for this)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading is pretty cool for introverts


Digital privacy / security. People and companies are becoming more and more privacy aware/conscious/concerned. All the scandals (e.g. data breaches, targeted advertising, selling of user data) and new regulations such as GDPR are only increasing the need and demand for privacy


Human in the loop machine learning. All the successful big players use it, but pretend it is all ML. Merely making the human explicit and finding the best trade-off between human and algorithm can do wonders for machine learning.

Plus it has better optics than "AI WILL EAT YER JORBZ". In this case human in the loop ML inherently creates jobs as an essential element.


Not a bad suggestion, but are the optics really that much better? Definitely gives me a dystopian vibe of "paying humans pennies to help AI automate away what few other jobs they have left to them".


Depends where the humans live. Some areas of the world this is great work: good pay and safe work conditions.

Also depends on whether there is a limit to this work. It seems there is plenty to go around given the enormous amount of training data ML needs.

And as ML becomes more widespread the value of this work will increase and pay will go up.

Also, the current paradigm is a simple active learning approach. There may be a large variety of ways humans can contribute at various skill and hence pay levels. E.g. compare the work of original 'computers' to today's enormously well paid software developers. As one example consider the FoldIt protein folding game, which was very successful.


ML on the edge.


What's "the edge"?


Edge might mean leaf-level IoT devices. Plenty are smart enough to do their own trending or anomaly detection (ie ML), for example, and only report to the cloud the results of that.

So you have edge, cloud, and you might also ponder the "fog", where there's an intermediate aggregation layer. Think leaf devices in some building (edge) with some medium smarts done on prem (fog) before clouding it.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing


ML training on phones, IoT devices etc. They then share their learning with centralized ML running on normal servers.


Edge here means the client i.e. smartphones, browsers, or dedicated consumer side devices like the dashcam in the car


AI/ML that involves self-programming systems. If you can crack that nut, you have the potential to be a centibillion/trillionaire.


dWeb!


Nice info


Build the smallest OS possible that can run Kubernetes at scale in Rust

You’ve just deprecated Linux & C in the data center :-D


Although Kubernetes is for containers, so you'd also need to re-implement Linux in Rust.


Sorry, did the omission of a very detailed list of todos imply I don’t know what this would entail?

You’d need to reimplement a variety of layers and could leave out of a lot too.

Personally a rudimentary BIOS type system in hardware that can read/write to an OS layer would be the design I’d start with

The OS doesn’t need userland tooling then

But no one cares about the OS that powers everything being an archaic mess. Gotta fetishize where the profit is


The area of the Circle. I’m led to believe there’s pie in there somewhere.


Figure out a way to apply modern software automation to a root problem of society. For example, hunger.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: