Ask HN: What are the most interesting things in tech lately?
19 comments
The social trend to replace technology with marketing. The banishment of nerds from technical fields. The obsession with status and notoriety and money to the complete exclusion of intellectual curiosity.
> The obsession with status and notoriety and money to the complete exclusion of intellectual curiosity.
To me this resonates with the idea that FAANGs swallow up promising engineers and have them work on mundane problems to help generate revenue.
Certainly there are novel or interesting problems to be solved even in these mundane areas, but I wonder what we may be leaving on the table as a species - if many of these brilliant people were to focus their energies on other problems or research, what could we achieve?
Tangentially, are there positive (but not necessarily profitable) uses for the pile of cash that big tech is just sitting on?
To me this resonates with the idea that FAANGs swallow up promising engineers and have them work on mundane problems to help generate revenue.
Certainly there are novel or interesting problems to be solved even in these mundane areas, but I wonder what we may be leaving on the table as a species - if many of these brilliant people were to focus their energies on other problems or research, what could we achieve?
Tangentially, are there positive (but not necessarily profitable) uses for the pile of cash that big tech is just sitting on?
I've heard from numerous people that FAANGs hire talented engineers and give them busy work or projects that never launch in a way to keep them from working for competitors. Is this actually true?
Has anyone seen this in practice?
Has anyone seen this in practice?
Yup. It’s not intentional or malicious, but it’s the end result.
You have teams that grow because the manager find work to do and no project is ever closed as finished or mature so tons of engineers are wasting time making incremental improvements to systems that already fulfill all requirements.
You also have these engineers see this and decide they can reinvent the system better because they’re so immersed and knowledgeable about it and boom you have huge numbers of worthless initiatives the size of which depends on how persuasive the lead is.
You have teams that grow because the manager find work to do and no project is ever closed as finished or mature so tons of engineers are wasting time making incremental improvements to systems that already fulfill all requirements.
You also have these engineers see this and decide they can reinvent the system better because they’re so immersed and knowledgeable about it and boom you have huge numbers of worthless initiatives the size of which depends on how persuasive the lead is.
Interesting - it is almost a paradox how “inefficient” the most valuable companies are.
> "FAANGs swallow up promising engineers and have them work on mundane problems to help generate revenue."
That reminds me of how 10 years ago, the smartest people in the world were working for investment banks on high-frequency trading to improve tiny efficiencies on stock market profits. And today they're working for FAANGs to improve ad targeting.
Both cases are really just shifting money around, not creating new technology or wealth. But apparently improving marginal efficiencies of administrative work reaps more short-term profits than creating new value.
That reminds me of how 10 years ago, the smartest people in the world were working for investment banks on high-frequency trading to improve tiny efficiencies on stock market profits. And today they're working for FAANGs to improve ad targeting.
Both cases are really just shifting money around, not creating new technology or wealth. But apparently improving marginal efficiencies of administrative work reaps more short-term profits than creating new value.
>The banishment of nerds from technical fields.
Source?
Source?
GPT-3 is an interesting mention. What people makes out of it is the coolest part. Check out https://twitter.com/jsngr/status/1284511080715362304
Decentralized Finance on Ethereum. Blockchain always gets snarky comments on HN, but it is a rapidly evolving space. Whereas the 2017 bubble was built on token ICOs and hype, what I'm seeing now is advanced financial products including decentralized money markets for car loans (https://defimoneymarket.com/) and fractional investments in tokenized real estate (https://realt.co/). Stablecoins (tokens that trend towards the value of $1 USD) have also taken off in a big way, with Dai being one of the biggest decentralized examples (https://makerdao.com/en/). Lending platforms such as Aave (https://aave.com/) have created markets for various tokens, including stable coins, paying out variable interest on deposits.
User-friendly apps have cropped up that enable people to easily save and invest their stable coins and earn interest, such as Argent (https://www.argent.xyz/). People are creating Social investment strategies around tokens and pooling their funds together on TokenSets (https://www.tokensets.com/), these are basically social ETFs.
There are no-loss lotteries that simply invest the pool of funds to earn interest and then one lucky staker wins the interest (https://www.pooltogether.com/). Decentralized funding of open-source Web3 projects (https://gitcoin.co/).
I can really go on and on, I'm not even covering some of the developments with Non-Fungible Tokens, gaming, governance, etc.
Here are a couple newsletters I recommend for following the space: https://thedefiant.substack.com/ https://bankless.substack.com/
User-friendly apps have cropped up that enable people to easily save and invest their stable coins and earn interest, such as Argent (https://www.argent.xyz/). People are creating Social investment strategies around tokens and pooling their funds together on TokenSets (https://www.tokensets.com/), these are basically social ETFs.
There are no-loss lotteries that simply invest the pool of funds to earn interest and then one lucky staker wins the interest (https://www.pooltogether.com/). Decentralized funding of open-source Web3 projects (https://gitcoin.co/).
I can really go on and on, I'm not even covering some of the developments with Non-Fungible Tokens, gaming, governance, etc.
Here are a couple newsletters I recommend for following the space: https://thedefiant.substack.com/ https://bankless.substack.com/
I went though every link and there was not a single interesting or cool thing.
Outside of the real estate company they are all gambling and coin 'investing' companies. I was bullish on ethereum and still have ~$11k from early purchases but I lost interest as it's all people trading alt-coins to trying strike it rich without creating anything.
Outside of the real estate company they are all gambling and coin 'investing' companies. I was bullish on ethereum and still have ~$11k from early purchases but I lost interest as it's all people trading alt-coins to trying strike it rich without creating anything.
OSINT
AI progress including GPT-3, Biotech progress including anything related to solving aging and curing diseases, decentralization progress including everything from finance to chat to social media
smart algorithms for stratospheric balloon navigation. https://medium.com/loon-for-all/1-million-hours-of-stratosph...
I really don't get why HN won't upvote balloon tech.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...
It can messed with as an amateur, it's steampunk (I also think cyperpunk). There's a lot of potential, Loon actually launching in Kenya seems like a big deal.
There's more people living in submarines than balloons which seems crazy to me. We'll talk about a balloon habitat on Venus, so lets start here.
Very cool link.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...
It can messed with as an amateur, it's steampunk (I also think cyperpunk). There's a lot of potential, Loon actually launching in Kenya seems like a big deal.
There's more people living in submarines than balloons which seems crazy to me. We'll talk about a balloon habitat on Venus, so lets start here.
Very cool link.
SpaceX Starlink.
We already have low latency, high bandwidth internet available in big urban areas. Starlink offers a real solution for the rest of the world (rural communities, boats, vacation homes, isolated industrial facilities, etc).
The era of being outside of internet coverage is coming to a close.
We already have low latency, high bandwidth internet available in big urban areas. Starlink offers a real solution for the rest of the world (rural communities, boats, vacation homes, isolated industrial facilities, etc).
The era of being outside of internet coverage is coming to a close.
Thank god it's not just Musk doing this, or he'd have a literal monopoly over these regions
...if you're carrying a satellite dish with you?
You mostly already do, for TV at least
Apple's push towards ARM in their desktop line. Apple appears to have both the right incentives and a solid plan to make the transition succeed, unlike Microsoft's half-hearted attempt at Windows on ARM.
ARM on the desktop would be one of the biggest things to happen in the desktop space, and it will be interesting to see if Apple succeeds with it, and if PC manufacturers follow suit as a result.
ARM on the desktop would be one of the biggest things to happen in the desktop space, and it will be interesting to see if Apple succeeds with it, and if PC manufacturers follow suit as a result.
Social media turning into ads.
The push by people who identify as "conservative" to move to unconventional social media platforms. Parler being used to replace twitter. BitChute being used to replace Youtube. Gab being used to replace Facebook and so on. Seems to have gained more mainstream acceptance to move.
I've been hearing a lot about AI and blockchain but I'm more interested in VR.
If the hardware were just a bit better, I could see it completely transforming education.
If the hardware were just a bit better, I could see it completely transforming education.
I don't think the hardware needs to become better as much as it
needs to get cheaper. You won't bring that tech anywhere on a
large scale as long as you need a recent gaming PC and a $400+ VR
headset to get more than horrible smartphone VR apps or a few
PlayStation games.
A few years ago I heard “HBO is trying to become Netflix before Netflix becomes HBO”
Today the news is trying to become Facebook before Facebook becomes the news.
Today the news is trying to become Facebook before Facebook becomes the news.
Good, glib quotes, and totally true. Not sure if they're "interesting", though -- mostly just depressing.
You media consumption will be controlled by <5 companies... that's not so great.
You media consumption will be controlled by <5 companies... that's not so great.
GPT-4
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Deno
> What are the most interesting things in tech you've seen lately?
Same old, same old. People revisiting old tech (linear algebra, newton-rhapson, euclidean graph theory, bfs etc etc.) and rediscovering its value are getting rich with new and interesting projects, people chasing new tech pipe dreams getting scammed or scamming others. The scene hasn't changed much recently.
Same old, same old. People revisiting old tech (linear algebra, newton-rhapson, euclidean graph theory, bfs etc etc.) and rediscovering its value are getting rich with new and interesting projects, people chasing new tech pipe dreams getting scammed or scamming others. The scene hasn't changed much recently.
Same old, same old. People revisiting old tech (electrons, atoms etc.) and rediscovering its value are getting rich with new and interesting projects, people chasing new tech pipe dreams getting scammed or scamming others. The scene hasn't changed much recently.
At the sake of sounding naive, how does one who is new to the field find old tech to revisit?
At the risk of sounding r/IAmVerySmart I think there is great value in revisiting computer science lectures for inspiration, always keeping part of your mind busy with the notion of applying them to real world problems. Like when you see an article from uber/lyft engineering on how they solve their data collection problems or how they schedule their inter-dependent tasks, the whole project is most probably rooted in someone revisiting their CS courses and building upon ideas like state machines and boolean algebra. Even those fabled blockchains can be invented using undegraduate course on limit theory and a master's course on elliptic cryptography. It just seems like everything is just out there for the pickings.
r/SomebodyWentToCollege
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I find indoor cycling platforms like zwift interesting, and how the data can help people train
And Peleton. I use TrainerRoad, it is wildly effective at boost my ftp.
What are the most interesting things in tech you've seen lately?