Predict
medium.com/predict · Group blog · on HN since 2019
Predict is a Medium publication covering science, technology, and future trends, including physics, batteries, AI, and computing.
What HN saysHN commenters link its articles to support specific claims, such as Moore's law continuing outside Intel, and note some are paywalled.
76HN people shared it
15linked it in comments
102stories submitted
490story points
3 months agolast shared
2019people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Moore’s Law Is Alive and Well: Just Not at Intel (2019)3 people · 2 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 2How to build an AI unicorn in 6 years2 people · 15 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 3Dark matter passes another test to confirm its existence2 people · 10 points · first shared 2019 · 2 comments on HN
- 4Solid-State Batteries May Finally Change the World2 people · 7 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 5Physicists discover time may move in discrete ‘chunks’2 people · 6 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 6The jellyfish apocalypse 4f77770efec02 people · first shared 2022
- 7The mother of all crashes is coming and it won’t be fun1 people · 125 points · first shared 2021 · 190 comments on HN
- 8Alpha Fold promises to revolutionize biochemistry1 people · 64 points · first shared 2021 · 49 comments on HN
- 9Flow Batteries Are Here and They Will Change Everything1 people · 46 points · first shared 2022 · 22 comments on HN
- 10Tesla's New Battery Isn't What They Said It Would Be1 people · 21 points · first shared 2022 · 7 comments on HN
- 11Tesla Is in Deep Trouble1 people · 11 points · first shared 2022 · 2 comments on HN
- 12The Metaverse of the 1990's (how a vibrant field fell into a 15 year VR winter)1 people · 8 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 13What OpenAI Doesn’t Want You to Know: The Deleted Sam Altman Article1 people · 7 points · first shared 2023 · 1 comments on HN
- 14What Are All the Laid-Off Programmers Going to Do?1 people · 6 points · first shared 2025 · 8 comments on HN
- 15The Pseudo-Satellite That Could Destroy Starlink1 people · 6 points · first shared 2022 · 5 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
wlonkly · 2024-01-02
Enough of a breakthrough to be worthy of a Nobel prize, even:
https://medium.com/predict/why-blue-led-earned-nobel-prize-if-reds-and…
misja · 2020-01-09
Moore's law is not about doubling clock speed, it is about doubling the transistor density.
This has continued after clock speed improvements have stopped.
Even today it is following Moore's law, although not at Intel:
https://medium.com/predict/moores-law-is-alive-and-well-eaa49a450188
cletus · 2022-11-05
This is an abstract of an article behind a paywall so we can't see this details but it is from 2021 and I managed to find an article discussing the concept [1]
> In this case negative energy is not required — rather it’s gravity itself which bends spacetime and gives rise to time dilation. In essence the gravitational field makes the passage of time within the passenger area much slower than the passage of time outside of it. A few minutes for them may be thousands of years worth of space travel, yet to leverage this powerful effect would take enormous amounts of gravity. The paper calls for the compression of an entire planet down to just a thin shell surrounding the passengers. The introduction of a physical warp drive model has changed the question from “Does something like negative energy even exist?” to “How do we compress the mass of a planet down to the size of a spaceship?”
And I'll pull out the most apropos sentence:
> The paper calls for the compression of an entire planet down to just a thin shell surrounding the passengers
Yes, no negative energy or negative energy mass, just an entire planet compressed into a thin shell that somehow doesn't further collapse.
So even if this were possible, how would you accelerate or maneuver such a massive object?
I've seen so many of these proposals over the years. It's all nuclear-grade hopium with a massive flaw or huge, highly theoretical unknown. Always.
[1]:…
dkbrk · 2021-04-01
This is unsurprising. I doubt there was anyone with a modicum of understanding of the physics (even the teams doing the testing) who expected it to work. That doesn't, however, mean that testing it was a waste of time. There was an anomalous result that has now been resolved. I think it's a vital scientific virtue to follow up anomalous results until they're satisfactorily resolved, no matter how ridiculous or physics-defying they seem.
The EmDrive was always a long shot, but it wasn't the only reactionless drive under investigation. Unlike the EmDrive, which never had a plausible physical mechanism for how it could work, the Woodward Effect [0] does have such a mechanism and has yet to be experimentally disproven. It exists in this weird place where it seems to be a straightforward theoretical prediction from general relativity; where, almost by exploiting a loophole in physics, the maths says you can get thrust without propellant, and much more of it than possible with a photon rocket for the same power. This, apparently, doesn't violate conservation of momentum, either, because the momentum would be carried by gravity waves, essentially "pushing" against distant masses throughout the universe. Whether this is actually predicted by general relativity or is a misapplication of the theory, is very subtle and not something I'm capable of evaluating.
This is being evaluated by NASA [1] -- not that that says very much, NASA will evaluate some pretty crazy things, see exhibit…
xenophonf · 2026-08-07
That link is paywalled.
This might be a better one.
https://medium.com/predict/why-the-dark-forest-theory-is-probably-wron…
This video is pretty good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0SvgT9Lc2M
This post attempts a formal refutation.
https://www.pgmusings.ca/journal/dfh
trap_goes_hot · 2022-12-07
The current liability framework isn't designed to handle such a question.
A self-driving car surfaces the problem in a visceral manner, but this applies to many many sectors and to any software that runs critical services/tools/infrastructure - Hospitals, Medical devices, thermostats, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/fashion/nest-thermostat-glitch-batt…
https://medium.com/predict/a-simple-computer-bug-that-killed-patients-…
etc
Also, this covers physical harm, but what about economic harm? If an OS security bug was exploited by a hacker and caused you to loose all your life savings and end up homeless, can you put a linux/windows/ s/w dev in jail?
kennywinker · 2022-10-09
It’s not only people moving further inland. It’s people moving from places that are hot now, and unlivable hot soon. And the movement will continue for several decades, but i wouldn’t be shocked to see a hundred million people move in one year before 2050. Minimize it all you want, it’s going to happen and you will be impacted by it if you live long enough to see it.
As for your snarky “citation needed” - this is all easily googlable stuff. I’d start with understanding what “trophic collapse” means.
https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification's+impact+o…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/03/the-end-of…
https://medium.com/predict/the-jellyfish-apocalypse-4f77770efec0
wiredearp · 2022-06-15
How climate change might benefit Russia, two articles over on https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russia-climate… and https://medium.com/predict/how-climate-change-is-transforming-russia-i…
hnbad · 2021-09-28
Had to look up what you meant but I think it's this: https://medium.com/predict/mega-drive-the-tech-that-promises-near-ligh…
To clarify: to people outside North America "Mega Drive" normally refers to the Sega Genesis gaming console.
bryan0 · 2020-09-16
Do you have graphs for this? a quick search shows that at least in some sectors they're still doubling every 2 years
https://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/Transistor-Count-Trends-Cont…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count#/media/File:Moore's…
https://medium.com/predict/moores-law-is-alive-and-well-eaa49a450188
green-eclipse · 2020-01-02
The Cerebras chip really stands out in terms of the chip industry's relationship to Moore's law. Look at the graphs in this article for reference:
https://medium.com/predict/cerebras-trounces-moores-law-with-first-wor…
incrudible · 2022-10-09
> Minimize it all you want, it’s going to happen and you will be impacted by it if you live long enough to see it.
My body is ready.
> I’d start with understanding what “trophic collapse” means.
I understand what it means. What I'm asking for is a credible source that predicts how this would happen. None of your sources come close. Let's see...
> https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification's+impact+o…
A dire revenue warning for the non-farmed shellfish industry:
"Sarah Cooley studies the socioeconomic impacts of altered oceans at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. She and other researchers project acidification could reduce U.S. shellfish harvests by as much as 25 percent over the next 50 years."
> https://medium.com/predict/the-jellyfish-apocalypse-4f77770efec0
Jellyfish Apocalypse? Postponed until further notice:
"Many citations of this paper assume that she found conclusive proof that the jelly apocalypse was happening. This dangerously bad science got so out of hand that during a conference in 2011, over half the scientists in attendance said that the jelly apocalypse is happening. Mills herself was at the event, and she voted no. Since then, many scientists have gone over the data with a fine toothcomb and concluded that the data could be misinterpreted as an increase in jelly numbers. Marina Sanz-Martin was one of these scientists, and she concluded that others had manipulated the data to get…
senttoschool · 2022-08-18
>GDP and GDP PPP both quantify production, not income and living standard metrics.
Purchasing power parity (PPP) allows for economists to compare economic productivity and standards of living between countries.
https://www.investopedia.com/updates/purchasing-power-parity-ppp/
>Countries can have cutting edge industries AND still lag behind in development - Brazil (Defense, Aerospace, ONG, Automotive), South Africa (Defense), Turkey (Defense, Automotive, ONG), Mexico (Defense, Automotive, ONG), Russia (ONG, Defense, Aerospace, Automotive), Malaysia (Automotive, ONG, Electronics), etc are all countries that are major innovators and even leaders in STEM/innovtion heavy industries, yet still have significant issues with spreading development across their countries. The PRC is facing a similar issue, and it is a hard nut to crack - I can't think of a single middle income to upper income economy that didn't also
Brazil does not lead in Aerospace, ONG, Automotive. South Africa does not lead in defense. And so on. They do not possess technology that other countries depend on. For example, Embraer's revenue in 2021 was 4.2 billion. Puny compared to Airbus' 52 billion. If Embraer stopped operating tomorrow, the world would not notice.
We're talking about actual innovation and a technology advantage. You mentioned that Mexico leads in automotive. What? Mexico does not have any cutting edge automotive technology that other nations depend on. Mexico is a hub for car manufacturing…
Terry_Roll · 2022-02-27
You are referring to the 1970 MIT LtG model which was updated in 2019 and still predicts a global collapse?
https://medium.com/predict/2040-the-world-will-collapse-this-mit-compu…
Or the depleted global fish stocks?
https://www.fao.org/NEWSROOM/common/ecg/1000505/en/stocks.pdf
Or the fact that if everyone went vegetarian we could free up 80% of the farmland in the world?
Whilst resource are not fixed, like lab grown meats, supplements which can alter people's diets like histidine will reduce red meat consumption, I am aware some businesses have also kept some resources under wraps from the public so I agree they are not a fixed notion, but in ten years the US lifestyle has increased its use of resource from 4 planet earths to just over 5 planet earths.
Sure anything can be a resource, we might even be able to use plate tectonics as landfill waste disposal because everything came from this planet so is technically from the Earth, and who knows what resources could be mined from the planets core, or do we get into mining Helium13 from the moon?
there is a still a problem and that is quality of life, being kept in smaller more expensive livestock pens called homes.
What price do you put on having rolling pastures all around your home and no manmade noise around you?
With a global population set to peak in 2100, we still have 80's years of declining quality of life to put up with.
arcticbull · 2021-07-12
I mean I've heard it many times [1, 2, 3, 4]. You're welcome to call that anecodta. The reality is quite the opposite of the narrative. [5]
[1] [2018] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/01/29/blockch…
[2] [2018] https://medium.com/predict/how-bitcoin-solves-the-problem-of-the-world…
[3] [2019] https://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-how-bitcoin-can-end-income-ine…
[4] [2021] https://www.forbes.com/sites/martinrivers/2021/06/15/how-bitcoin-can-f…
[5] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-raises-inequality