For instance, long-term storage. It would stand to reason that we'd invent some kind of big electrical array, and that's the best we could hope for. But hard drive technology (which relies on crazy materials technology for the platter and magnets, crazy high-precision encoders, and crazy physics like floating a tiny spring over the air bubble created by the spinning platter) came in and blew all other technology away.

And, likewise, we had liquid crystal technology since the 70s, and probably could have invented it sooner, but no need, because Cathode Ray Tube technology appeared (a mini particle accelerator in your home! Plus the advanced materials science to bore the precision electron beam holes in the screen grid, the phosphor coating, the unusual deflection coil winding topology, and leaded glass to reduce x-ray expose for the viewers) and made all other forms of display unattractive by comparison.

It's amazing how far CRT technology got, given its disconnect from other technologies. The sophistication of the factories that created late-model "flat-screen" CRTs is truly impressive.

The switch to LCDs/LEDs was in a lot of ways a step back. Sure, we don't have huge 40lb boxes on our desks, but we lost the ultra-fast refresh rate enabled by the electron beam, not to mention the internal glow that made computers magical (maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy, like people in the 80s who swore that vinyl records "sounded better").

Someday, maybe given advances in robotics and automation, I hope to start a retro CRT manufacturing company. The problems, such as the unavailability of the entire supply chain (can't even buy an electron gun, it would have to be made from scratch) and environmental restrictions (lead glass probably makes the EPA perk up and notice).

Taking this a step further, it's logical to conclude that society itself is a constant war between rich people, who use their wealth (influence/power) to enlist the poor in their attacks on one another. Taking it another level, we could say that "society" itself is merely a side-effect of this war, in fact it is the current state-of-the-art weapon in this struggle. If something better than capitalistic society comes about (such as, most obviously, human-level AIs and robotics), the rich will not hesitate to abandon the society strategy.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43729247

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

2. Remove them from the homeless count, because they now have a house.

3. Reach zero homelessness!

4. There are still people living on the streets... But we don't call them homeless!

The one area where PHP is useful in 2024 is for prototyping a website quickly. As a one-person team, PHP without a framework (and without OOP) is the fastest way to build a fully-functioning complex site. I built a massively complicated site this way, in very little time. This is great because if it ever becomes popular, I can simply hire developers to rewrite it in the latest framework du jour (probably Next/Nuxt/whatever)

1. My entire network is struggling, even the ones who have jobs are worried. Despite being universally acclaimed and vouched for by my past coworkers, it seems to have no impact. Companies don't trust their own employees references right now.

2. Maybe this is changing, but it seems like entrepreneurship is at an all-time low. Nobody has ideas, everyone just wants to go to sleep at a comfy 9-to-5. Maybe bootstrapping a company is so outside of people's comfort zone that they can't even fathom it.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39654488

Points: 11

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39202921

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Remote: OK

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Rails, Django, Java, Scala, React, Angular, Ember, TypeScript, PHP, ElasticSearch, Postgres, MongoDB, AWS/Azure, Kubernetes, Docker, Git, Kafka, Airflow, Snowflake, Big Pipelines, Big Data, Linux kernel, driver development, C/C++

Résumé/CV:

Email: aGVsbG9obkBlZHdhcmRoYWxmZXJ0eS5jb20=

This has never been a real problem in the past, because libraries were limited by how much they could loan out, due to having a limited number of library staff, and a limited amount of shelf space.

The Internet Archive is also similarly limited, due to having a limited budget to hire engineers to scale up the platform to support more users, and a limited budget for digital storage space.

But it's enough that it really changes the equation, and I think that if the IA wins, we'll see less physical books printed, and the ones that are will have an increased price tag. I expect that the government will adjust the laws to keep the balance, somehow, however.