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Show HN: I build one absurd web project every month
a year ago
- eCommerce is challenging, but a waving cat on your site can boost sales.
- Absurd marketing ideas include renting a soul for AI and a 3D first-person shooter where every second counts.
- Fast language learning claims to unlock 350+ words in 5 minutes.
- Artwork value can surge after an artist's death due to limited supply.
- Innovative concepts like making math sexy again and slow delivery services.
- Social experiments like taking over an influencer's account at 100k followers.
- Creating art from dreams and solving puzzles for customers.
- Unusual products like toilet water perfume and AI-generated celebrity.
- Dating site based solely on eye contact to foster love.
- Y2K-inspired ugly web design and single-color (black) coloring books.
- Encouragement to buy nothing and offset CO2 emissions by buying a Tesla.
2025 Apple Design Award winners
a year ago
- The Apple Design Awards 2025 recognize innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in app and game design.
- Categories include Delight and Fun, Inclusivity, Innovation, Interaction, Social Impact, and Visuals and Graphics.
- Notable winners include CapWords (language learning), Lumy (sun and moon tracker), and Balatro (card game).
- Inclusivity-focused apps like Speechify (text-to-speech) and Evolve (LGBTQ+ self-care) were highlighted.
- Innovation winners include Play (prototyping tool) and Moises (music separation tool).
- Interaction winners feature Taobao (3D shopping on Vision Pro) and iA Writer (distraction-free writing).
- Visuals and Graphics winners include Infinity Nikki (open-world fashion game) and Control Ultimate Edition (ray-traced visuals).
- Social Impact winners like Watch Duty (wildfire tracking) and Neva (environmental storytelling) were recognized.
The time bomb in the tax code that's fueling mass tech layoffs
a year ago
- A change to Section 174 of the U.S. tax code, buried in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, altered how companies deduct R&D expenses, requiring amortization over 5-15 years instead of immediate expensing.
- This change, which took effect in 2022, contributed to mass layoffs in the tech sector, with over 500,000 jobs lost since 2023, disproportionately affecting R&D and engineering roles.
- Tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, and Google, as well as smaller companies, cut jobs to offset higher tax burdens, despite blaming over-hiring and AI for layoffs.
- The tax shift undermined a decades-old incentive for U.S.-based innovation, impacting not just tech but also startups, DTC brands, and other industries that relied on R&D deductions.
- A bipartisan effort to repeal the Section 174 change is underway, but it may come too late for laid-off workers and could face political resistance due to perceptions of corporate excess.
- The broader economic impact includes reduced spending in tech-heavy cities, affecting ancillary businesses like restaurants, real estate, and gig workers.
- The U.S. tax code's shift may have long-term consequences for innovation and global competitiveness, with analysts only now understanding the full effects.
The Echo in the Machine
a year ago
- Speech-to-text technology is now widely accessible and frictionless.
- The development of speech-to-text technology involved unlikely contributors like protesters and office workers.
- The episode explores the history and challenges of converting speech to text.
- Credits include Simon Adler as reporter, producer, and music composer, with additional contributions from Jeremy Bloom and Anna Pujol-Mazzini.
- Listeners are encouraged to sign up for the newsletter and support Radiolab.
The Universal Tech Tree
a year ago
- Technologies are interconnected, with each innovation building on previous ones.
- The first movie camera, the kinetograph, was invented in 1891 by Thomas Edison and William Kennedy Dickson, inspired by chronophotography.
- Chronophotography, developed by Étienne-Jules Marey, was influenced by earlier inventions like the photographic gun, which borrowed design elements from firearms.
- The photographic revolver, invented by Pierre Janssen in 1874, was inspired by the Colt Paterson revolver, showing a lineage of technological inspiration.
- Revolvers date back to the 16th century, with innovations in firing mechanisms leading to their development.
- A historical tech tree project aims to map all major technological innovations and their connections, revealing patterns and unexpected links.
- The tech tree concept originated from the 1980 board game Civilization, popularized by Sid Meier’s video game in 1991.
- The project defines technology as human-created knowledge for practical purposes, implemented in a physical substrate.
- Technologies are discretized based on Wikipedia entries, focusing on significant innovations rather than incremental improvements.
- Dating technologies can be challenging due to scant evidence, prototypes, and independent inventions.
- The tech tree reveals surprising connections, such as drones dating back to WWI and hourglasses appearing in the 14th century.
- Bicycles, automobiles, and motorcycles all emerged around 1885, showing parallel innovation.
- Unexpected technological links include Scotch tape enabling graphene discovery and silk weaving inspiring punch cards and early computing.
- The tree highlights how inventions in one field can create entirely new fields, like gas lighting leading to electronics.
- The project aims to reduce complexity and increase understanding of technological progress, countering the 'Great Stagnation' narrative.
- The tech tree serves as a monument to human creativity and resourcefulness, especially as AI begins to automate innovation.
How Common Is Multiple Invention?
a year ago
- Alexander Graham Bell narrowly beat Elisha Gray to patent the telephone in 1876, leading to a costly legal dispute resolved in Bell's favor by 1879.
- Multiple invention is common, with examples like Edison and Swan's lightbulbs (1880), Kilby and Noyce's integrated circuits (1959), and von Ohain and Whittle's jet engines (1930s).
- Studies by Ogburn, Thomas, and Merton documented hundreds of cases of multiple discovery in science and technology, suggesting it's a recurring phenomenon.
- Estimates of multiple invention rates vary: 2-3% for simultaneous scientific discoveries, 8% chance of reinvention within a decade, and conflicting patent interference data (0.02% annually).
- Multiple invention rates hint at the nature of technological progress—low rates suggest 'Great Man Theory,' while high rates imply progress driven by broader historical forces.
- Analysis of 190 historic inventions (1800-1970) found over 50% had multiple efforts, with 72 cases of multiple successes or near-successes.
- Categories of multiple invention: descriptions of ideas (e.g., Lillienfeld's transistor concept), serious development efforts (e.g., Haber-Bosch process competitors), and multiple successes (e.g., jet engines).
- Independence of invention efforts is hard to verify, with cases like Goodyear and Hancock's vulcanized rubber showing potential influence.
- Multiple invention rates appear stable over time (1800-1970) and across categories (electrical, chemical, mechanical, etc.), suggesting ideas emerge when conditions are ripe.
- Key takeaway: Inventions often arise from obvious ideas or pressing problems, leading to convergent solutions by multiple inventors independently.
- Clancy's work suggests unrecognized important ideas may be at higher risk of being missed, but this analysis finds high multiple invention rates even for retrospectively significant inventions.
- The phenomenon reflects a 'collective evolutionary timeline,' where innovations emerge when societal and technological conditions align.
Deepnote (YC S19) is hiring engineers to build an AI-powered data notebook
a year ago
- Deepnote aims to revolutionize how data teams work by creating collaborative, easy-to-use tools.
- Data work is described as a scientific, creative, and engineering process requiring powerful tools.
- Deepnote is building a collaborative notebook integrating analytics and data science into workflows.
- The company emphasizes a culture of continuous learning, transparency, and proactive feedback.
- Backed by industry leaders, Deepnote is expanding its team to further innovate in data tooling.
Why Bell Labs Worked
a year ago
- Bell Labs was founded by Alexander Graham Bell and led by Mervin Kelly, who emphasized freedom and autonomy for researchers.
- Bell Labs' success was due to its culture of hiring talented individuals, fostering collaboration, and allowing researchers the freedom to explore without micromanagement.
- During WW2, Bell Labs contributed to significant technological advancements, including the Magnetron, Bazooka, and early computing technologies.
- The decline of Bell Labs is attributed to the information age it helped create, with modern academia and corporate research focusing more on metrics and productivity than creativity.
- Modern research environments, including academia and corporate labs, prioritize grant writing and paperwork over actual research, stifling innovation.
- Key figures like Peter Higgs and Claude Shannon highlight the importance of curiosity-driven research over productivity metrics.
- Mervin Kelly's management style involved giving researchers long-term freedom and trusting their judgment, a model rarely seen today.
- The Bell Labs formula involved hiring ambitious people, fostering daily communication, and allowing years of freedom to think and innovate.
- 1517 Fund's Flux program attempts to recreate Bell Labs' environment by providing $100k grants with no strings attached, encouraging exploration.
- The hope is that more organizations will adopt Bell Labs' principles to foster innovation in the modern era.
The Spectacle of "Building"
a year ago
- The article critiques the current state of venture capital (VC) in China, highlighting a shift towards 'hard tech' and government-driven investments, which deviates from traditional VC principles.
- It discusses the alienation of technology, where 'hard tech' is equated with heavy machinery, and the overemphasis on fixed investments, often inflated to meet state demands.
- The piece points out the role of state-owned capital and general partners (GPs) in the VC market, where investors have become mere intermediaries, diluting the integrity of investments.
- It contrasts top-down (state-driven) and bottom-up (market-driven) systems of innovation, noting how both can create collective delusions but differ in how they handle the collapse of these delusions.
- The article warns against the spectacle of innovation, where the appearance of progress is prioritized over genuine breakthroughs, leading to a loss of the conditions necessary for real innovation.
- It emphasizes the importance of cognitive friction and the unpredictable nature of breakthroughs, advocating for systems that allow for failure and genuine discovery.
Who Needs a Belt 3D Printer When You Have a Treadmill?
a year ago
- Belt 3D printers use a conveyor belt instead of a rigid bed, enabling infinite printing in the Y axis.
- Ivan Miranda and Jón Schone converted a treadmill into an oversized belt 3D printer to print a full-size kayak.
- Belt 3D printers print at an angle (usually 45 degrees) to complete layers properly without adhesion issues.
- The treadmill-based printer required custom fabrication, including steel uprights and heavy-duty linear rails for the Z and X axes.
- Large stepper motors and custom heat sinks were used to handle the weight and prevent overheating.
- A scaled-up extruder with a 1mm nozzle was necessary to push the large amount of filament needed for the kayak.
- The printer was controlled using a Duet 3 Main Board and a Duet 3 Tool Board connected via CAN-FD.
- Despite challenges, the treadmill 3D printer was successful, and the kayak was showcased at Maker Faire Prague.
Japan Create Plastic That Dissolves in Seawater Within Hours
a year ago
- Scientists in Japan have developed a new type of plastic that fully degrades in seawater within one hour, leaving no toxic residue or microplastic traces.
- The plastic breaks down into natural compounds like nitrogen and phosphorus, which can be absorbed by marine microbes and plants.
- The material retains the strength and functionality of conventional plastics but degrades upon contact with saltwater.
- Key components include sodium hexametaphosphate (a food additive) and a monomer based on guanidinium ions (found in fertilizers).
- Lab tests showed the plastic dissolves in seawater in 60 minutes and degrades in salt-containing soil in about 200 hours.
- The plastic is flame-resistant, non-toxic, and does not emit CO2 during decomposition.
- Challenges remain, such as developing a coating to ensure the plastic functions normally until discarded.
- Major packaging companies have shown interest, given the UN's warning that ocean plastic pollution could triple by 2040.
- Microplastics, now found globally, pose severe environmental and health risks, making this innovation crucial.
- The project leader emphasizes the moral responsibility to leave future generations a cleaner planet.
Scientific Papers: Innovation or Imitation?
a year ago
- Some papers contain great ideas but fail to inspire significant follow-up research.
- The McCulloch Pitts paper (1943) could have bridged connectionism and symbolic AI but didn't.
- George Miller’s 7 +/- 2 paper was groundbreaking but led to mostly minor extensions.
- Publishing incentives often favor derivative works over original ideas.
- Stovepiping in research limits cross-field connections and broader implications.
- Current AI research shows a mix of innovation and imitation.
- Claims about human language structure need more scientific rigor.
- Interdisciplinary review could catch errors in specialized papers.
Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
a year ago
- Built a 3D printed VTOL drone capable of flying 130 miles on a single charge.
- Achieved this in just 90 days with no prior experience in CAD, 3D printing, or aerodynamics modeling.
- The drone can fly for 3 hours, making it one of the longest-range 3D printed VTOLs globally.
- Overcame numerous challenges including learning CAD, improving foaming PLA print quality, and troubleshooting power loss.
- First YouTube video with significant post-production effort, though shorter than planned due to underestimating the workload.
- Received recognition from Reid Hoffman for the innovative use of modern toolchains in pioneering flight.
The End of the LLMs Gold Rush, the Start of the AI Product Era
a year ago
- Historical innovations often start small and unnoticed, like Gutenberg's printing press and the World Wide Web.
- Large Language Models (LLMs) initially developed quietly but gained widespread attention after OpenAI's public advancements.
- The AI market has expanded with new models from companies like Anthropic, Google, and Meta, but improvements are now incremental and less noticeable.
- OpenAI's acquisition of Jony Ive's hardware startup, IO, signals a shift from AI as a service to AI as a tangible, integrated product.
- The future of AI is moving towards ambient computing, where AI is seamlessly integrated into daily life without traditional interfaces.
Worldwide power grid with glass insulated HVDC cables
a year ago
- Proposal for a worldwide power grid using glass-insulated HVDC cables to reduce costs and energy loss.
- Use of fused silica (glass) as an insulator due to its high insulation properties and low cost.
- Innovative cable design with an aluminum conductor and silica insulator, surface-hardened like a Prince Rupert's drop for strength.
- Proposed manufacturing process involves continuous extrusion and laying from a ship, eliminating the need for burial.
- Optimal voltage for trans-Atlantic transmission calculated at 14 megavolts for 10 Gigawatts capacity.
- Converter stations could use air, transformer oil, or molded silica glass for insulation.
- Challenges include manufacturing at sea, cable strength, and handling ocean conditions like waves and storms.
- Economic analysis suggests a trans-Atlantic cable could cost as little as $23M, significantly cheaper than current options.
- Potential issues include cable failure from ship anchors, geological movements, and the need for spare cables.
- Open questions remain about silica purity, material alternatives, and feasibility of a prototype.
I Convinced HP's Board to Buy Palm for $1.2B. I Watched Them Kill It in 49 Days
a year ago
- The author, as HP's CTO, convinced the board to acquire Palm for $1.2 billion, believing in WebOS's potential for mobile computing.
- Post-acquisition, leadership changes (Mark Hurd's resignation and Leo Apotheker's appointment) led to a strategic shift away from hardware, including WebOS.
- The author's medical emergency and recovery coincided with critical decisions, leaving him unable to advocate for WebOS during its crucial early days.
- HP launched the TouchPad with WebOS but quickly discontinued it after 49 days due to poor sales, a decision made without consulting the Palm team.
- The author faced blame from colleagues for not being present to provide 'adult supervision' during the WebOS dismantling.
- Systematic thinking errors, including solving the wrong problem and identity-driven decisions, led to the failure of WebOS at HP.
- The author developed the DECIDE framework to prevent similar innovation decision disasters in the future.
- Despite the WebOS failure, the author maintains faith in HP's potential under current leadership.
- The story highlights the importance of systematic decision-making frameworks over intelligence and good intentions in innovation contexts.
U.S. Army bringing in big tech executives as lieutenant colonels
a year ago
- Four senior tech executives from Meta, Palantir, and OpenAI are being sworn into the Army Reserve as lieutenant colonels.
- The program, Detachment 201, aims to recruit private-sector experts to accelerate tech adoption in the military.
- The executives include Andrew Bosworth (Meta), Shyam Sankar (Palantir), Kevin Weil (OpenAI), and Bob McGrew (Thinking Machines Lab).
- They will undergo six weeks of Army training at Fort Benning, Georgia, including fitness and marksmanship tests.
- Direct commission officers typically fill specialized roles, but these executives are entering at the high rank of lieutenant colonel.
- The program is inspired by Ukraine's use of private-sector expertise in military technology.
- The executives bring decades of experience in AI, machine learning, and other cutting-edge technologies.
- All four are multi-millionaires, with significant stock holdings in their respective companies.
- The Army hopes this initiative will inspire more tech professionals to serve part-time without leaving their careers.
- The program aligns with the Army's broader Transformation Initiative to integrate new technologies into combat units.
DARPA program sets distance record for power beaming
a year ago
- The POWER program achieved a record by transmitting over 800 watts of power over 8.6 kilometers using laser technology.
- A new receiver technology with a compact aperture and photovoltaic cells was key to the successful power transmission.
- The demonstration surpassed previous records and aims to revolutionize energy delivery to remote or challenging locations.
- The program is moving to Phase 2, focusing on integrated relays and vertical power transmission, with an Industry Day scheduled for May 29, 2025.
How and Why We Fulfill In-House
a year ago
- TRMNL operates differently by avoiding common e-commerce practices like exit intent discounts, newsletter popups, and lifecycle emails.
- The company relies on human engineers instead of AI chatbots and maintains a simple web app approach with minimal upsell emails.
- TRMNL started fulfillment in a basement, scaling up to handle thousands of devices with the help of friends and a makeshift setup.
- Key breakthroughs included shoutouts from ATP.FM and Snazzy Labs, leading to sold-out inventory and increased demand.
- Instead of outsourcing fulfillment, TRMNL renovated a barn into a warehouse, optimizing assembly, packing, and shipping processes.
- The team built custom tools to reduce errors, improved service quality with direct courier contracts, and implemented performance-based pay.
- Facing tariff challenges, TRMNL innovated by expanding assembly to Australia, cutting shipping costs, and launching limited edition products.
- In-house fulfillment allowed TRMNL to provide exceptional customer service, like quickly replacing a misdelivered package.
- The company plans to expand its product line and continue leveraging its unique fulfillment model for growth.
New generation of thulium fiber lasers achieves world record performance
a year ago
- Fraunhofer IOF researchers developed high-power thulium fiber lasers with a record output of 1.91 kW, nearly doubling previous performance.
- The spectral range of 2030-2050 nm is ideal for long-distance applications like satellite communication due to low atmospheric losses and eye safety.
- Spectral beam combining (SBC) technology enhances laser performance while maintaining beam quality and focusing ability.
- Innovations like 'cold splicing' for fiber connections and high-efficiency diffraction grating (over 95%) enable better cooling and performance.
- Future goals include scaling the technology to achieve 20-kW laser systems.
- Applications include material processing, medical procedures, and optical data transmission, with improved eye safety at 2 µm wavelengths.

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#innovation

Show HN: I build one absurd web project every month

2025 Apple Design Award winners

The time bomb in the tax code that's fueling mass tech layoffs

The Echo in the Machine

The Universal Tech Tree

How Common Is Multiple Invention?

Deepnote (YC S19) is hiring engineers to build an AI-powered data notebook

Why Bell Labs Worked

The Spectacle of "Building"

Who Needs a Belt 3D Printer When You Have a Treadmill?

Japan Create Plastic That Dissolves in Seawater Within Hours

Scientific Papers: Innovation or Imitation?

Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

The End of the LLMs Gold Rush, the Start of the AI Product Era

Worldwide power grid with glass insulated HVDC cables

I Convinced HP's Board to Buy Palm for $1.2B. I Watched Them Kill It in 49 Days

U.S. Army bringing in big tech executives as lieutenant colonels

DARPA program sets distance record for power beaming

How and Why We Fulfill In-House

New generation of thulium fiber lasers achieves world record performance