What about "fast apps" as in apps you build with AI to quickly fill a niche knowing it won't be a long term viable business, but build to just for that moment?
Zak [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Related to the comments there, one thing I'm quite sure of is that every battery should be user-replaceable. Most should be field-replaceable and of a standardized type, though I realize the form factors of some devices preclude the latter.
Animats [3 hidden]5 mins ago
That era is mostly over, due to the convergence of everything into smartphones. The 1990s were the peak period for minor electronic junk, powered by round connectors with no standard for voltage, current, polarity, or pin size.
The 1990s brought the Furby, Tickle Me Elmo, and a flood of R/C controlled toys.
eru [3 hidden]5 mins ago
You can still buy lots of these toys and minor electronic junk. But many of them nowadays at least standardise on USB for power or charging (otherwise, it's mostly AA or AAA batteries).
Honestly, the 'minor junk' has gotten so much better in quality, too. We got some kiddie light up shoes that we bought more than six months ago, and the LEDs and batteries in there are still going strong. The cheap RC car we got a year ago also still runs on the initial AA batteries.
SOLAR_FIELDS [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Rechargeable batteries and ports becoming ubiquitous has been a boon for households. Case in point: we wanted lighting for our stairs like many people do. You can buy, in the single digit dollars, motion sensor lights that are rechargeable and come with magnetic and adhesive to mount the lights in the stairwell. Keep a usb fan out cable cluster nearby and recharging them once a week is a 10 second endeavor to pop the lights off the magnets in the walls and leave them plugged in for an hour. Amazing.
Such a setup would have been in the hundos of dollars even 25 years ago
coolcase [3 hidden]5 mins ago
There is a lot of waste still. Pregnancy tests for example. And even the small array of devices - mouse keyboard phone watch charger headphones - still need to be replaced too often.
eru [3 hidden]5 mins ago
> Pregnancy tests for example.
Don't you just pee on a stick, no electronics involved?
Why sell a pee on a stick for $1 at 50c profit when you can sell one with a computer for $10 for $5 profit.
chabska [3 hidden]5 mins ago
> By removing most of the interior of the test, including the original CPU
Does that really count as "running Doom on X" ?
eru [3 hidden]5 mins ago
OK, you can get a computer to look at the chemicals for you. But that's unnecessary and doesn't add anything.
I've bought a few pregnancy tests in my life, and never an electronic one. Not sure they were even for sale. They were definitely not pushed prominently in the shops. I see talks about them online much more than I ever see them offline. Are electronic pregnancy tests one of those American obsessions?
Loughla [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I've never seen one. I've only ever seen the one line two line kind that certainly aren't electronic.
A quick Google tells me electronic versions of that are common though. Weird. I've never seen those.
bombcar [3 hidden]5 mins ago
A surprising number of people find the two line concept too complicated. A digital read out makes them feel better. At least it’s not yet connected to a smart phone.
Cerium [3 hidden]5 mins ago
There are (actually good) apps which help you read the two line tests. The apps are helpful for reading fertility window tests since the result is not binary. It will take a picture and use the control line to normalize the reading, showing you a history of the results.
haxton [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I've been about it as "throwaway software." Why bother searching for someone else's mediocre LLM generated software when I can just as easily (and hopefully as cheaply) generate the same thing, but it just works for me
The source code for that website is pretty amusing.
Havoc [3 hidden]5 mins ago
AI models certainly feel like it. Everything is hot for about a week till something shiny shows up
eru [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Well, the Linux kernel is also only hot until the next version is released a few weeks later.
I'm not sure that proves anything one way or another.
NoPicklez [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Yes, but in comparison nobody is talking about the new Linux Kernel, compared to the new AI models & features.
eru [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Yes, there's just more exciting progress happening in the AI world.
But just because they are coming up with new models every week, doesn't mean that producing last week's model was a waste in the same way that replacing a physical product every week would be a waste.
This month's Linux kernel version builds on last month's version. Similarly, most of the work that goes into today's LLM is recycled from yesterday's.
NoPicklez [3 hidden]5 mins ago
100% agree
eikenberry [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Sounds very close to vibe coding.
roughly [3 hidden]5 mins ago
This kind of thing is possible because we haven’t come around to recognizing the Earth as a finite, closed system. We’re pretty sure all the junk and pollution and carbon and whatnot goes Somewhere Else.
eru [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The earth is a giant ball of matter.
You can reasonably model it as a closed system in terms of matter. But it's very open in terms of energy.
There's practically unlimited space in landfills to take up any garbage we can produce. Later, when you need the materials, you can invest energy to mine your landfill.
I'm not saying we should do that or that it's a good idea. My point is that 'earth is a closed system in terms of matter' is a much weaker and less profound statement than it sounds like.
What is limited is the amount of resources we can cheaply get access to in the short run. Similarly while landfill space is practically unlimited, there's a limit to how much our various ecosystems can take, if we just dump our garbage and emissions into them directly.
The latter aspect encompasses eg releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. But also putting plastics in the ocean, where it might do real damage. (As compared to having the plastic sit around in a land fill.)
roughly [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The earth as a giant ball of matter is an interesting geological phenomenon, but our concern is more the earth as a viable biosphere, which, as you note, is a much more constrained system, and that seems to be the set of constraints we haven’t internalized yet.
eru [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Yes. It's just that this is very distinct from the physical notion of a 'finite, closed system'.
The biosphere isn't closed: it regularly exchanges material with the rest of the giant ball of matter.
roughly [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I mean, I think it’s a distinction without a difference, is the problem - yes, the biosphere exchanges material with the rest of the ball of mud, but that, for all intents and purposes, is a closed system, and so things like its ability to draw down carbon, or dilute pollutants, or break down plastics, are constrained beyond where we apparently thought they were. Per the notion of landfill mining, that also puts constraints on how effective we can be there - how much energy we can commit to that, what level of wastage or side effects we can accept. We’ve had a philosophy that all problems will be solved in the future by technological developments, but our timelines don’t seem to be lining up right now.
8note [3 hidden]5 mins ago
carbon in the air only matters insofar as the earth is not a closed system. its a very big distinction. open and closed systems are specific terms
coolcase [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I think we are aware it is a closed system but doing the right thing is not rewarded. (Or wrong thing punished).
HN.zip
Honestly, the 'minor junk' has gotten so much better in quality, too. We got some kiddie light up shoes that we bought more than six months ago, and the LEDs and batteries in there are still going strong. The cheap RC car we got a year ago also still runs on the initial AA batteries.
Such a setup would have been in the hundos of dollars even 25 years ago
Don't you just pee on a stick, no electronics involved?
Why sell a pee on a stick for $1 at 50c profit when you can sell one with a computer for $10 for $5 profit.
Does that really count as "running Doom on X" ?
I've bought a few pregnancy tests in my life, and never an electronic one. Not sure they were even for sale. They were definitely not pushed prominently in the shops. I see talks about them online much more than I ever see them offline. Are electronic pregnancy tests one of those American obsessions?
A quick Google tells me electronic versions of that are common though. Weird. I've never seen those.
https://dayssincelastjavascriptframework.com/
vibe coding and LLM will only turbocharge this
I'm not sure that proves anything one way or another.
But just because they are coming up with new models every week, doesn't mean that producing last week's model was a waste in the same way that replacing a physical product every week would be a waste.
This month's Linux kernel version builds on last month's version. Similarly, most of the work that goes into today's LLM is recycled from yesterday's.
You can reasonably model it as a closed system in terms of matter. But it's very open in terms of energy.
There's practically unlimited space in landfills to take up any garbage we can produce. Later, when you need the materials, you can invest energy to mine your landfill.
I'm not saying we should do that or that it's a good idea. My point is that 'earth is a closed system in terms of matter' is a much weaker and less profound statement than it sounds like.
What is limited is the amount of resources we can cheaply get access to in the short run. Similarly while landfill space is practically unlimited, there's a limit to how much our various ecosystems can take, if we just dump our garbage and emissions into them directly.
The latter aspect encompasses eg releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. But also putting plastics in the ocean, where it might do real damage. (As compared to having the plastic sit around in a land fill.)
The biosphere isn't closed: it regularly exchanges material with the rest of the giant ball of matter.