
Ask HN: Which parts of everyday life are more complex than people expect? - majewsky
I recently appeared on radio to talk about Unicode [1]. In the introduction, I said that Unicode is interesting because text encoding and rendering sounds (at least to Western people) like something that&#x27;s boring and solved, but then you look at how people actually write across the globe and you go down this gigantic rabbit hole.<p>Afterwards, I realized that in IT, we touch on a lot of aspects of real life that a layman thinks of as boring or trivial, but which turn out to be surprisingly complex when you look at them in detail. Since my time on radio was quite fun, I&#x27;m thinking about maybe making a small podcast series on these surprising complexities.<p>Now, of course the first step is to actually come up with a list of such things. That&#x27;s my question for you: Do you know some aspect of everyday life that is much more complex than what laypeople usually appreciate?<p>I&#x27;ll start with the first one that came to my mind: time zones. Did you know there are actually two time zones in Germany? The first one covers nearly all of Germany, the second one is for one tiny village of 1,300 people that is one very special snowflake in a lot of ways [2].<p>[1] Recording is here, but it&#x27;s German: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;c3d2.de&#x2F;news&#x2F;pentaradio24-20180724.html<p>[2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;B%C3%BCsingen_am_Hochrhein
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ggm
All of the utility functions: gas, water, sewerage have to deal with surge
effects. They have buffering just like internet routing and switching. Time of
day effects. It's more complex than you would think. A friend does salt water
fish tanks for a reef, he's in a constant battle with dilute chemicals and
aeration. Now scale that to a city..

Traffic flow policing is like live operations research: tweak one bit, the
others Go bananas. The tail back delay usually outlives the actual blockage by
hours.

Supply chain logistics in goods and services. How does a small tire shop in
the city get stock to fix that one off car walk in? Milk supply..

Oh dairy: making ghee? In a factory? You have like a 4C temperature window.
Colder, try pipe cleaners on twenty tonnes of rancid butter. Hotter? It burns
black..

Concrete pouring depends on slump tests done onsite. Watch what they're doing
with that two part mould and simultaneously pouring the entire load into a
pumper. Now think about it going wrong. Or the concrete delivery itself,
that's a nightmare.

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shostack
Coffee. Anyone can make a cup of coffee. Making a good and properly prepared
cup of coffee, espresso, etc. is surprisingly complex.

I wanted to make myself a simple cappuccino at home. I now have several pieces
of prosumer gear, gadgets, fancy beans, and spend my free time reading up on
things like coffee grind distribution methods, hacking my machine to add a
PID, and other such ephemera. On the plus side, I'm saving several hundred
dollars a year on my coffee habit despite all the toys, so there's that.

~~~
cwt
This goes for homebrewing (beer/wine) too. If you can make oatmeal you can
make beer, but if you want to make the same beer exactly the same over and
over it is very complex. The fact that Budweiser tastes the same all over the
US and is made in 12(?) different locations is a testament to how good the
brewers are (even if beer snobs don't like it).

As for coffee, even the foam on top of an espresso is complex.

You might enjoy this paper if you haven't already read it:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3140933/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3140933/)

~~~
shostack
This paper contains the phrase "Air–Beverage Interface," definitely going on
my reading list. Thanks for sharing!

And agreed on the consistency part. For espresso, once you figure out what you
like, you begin the endless quest to make it that way consistently.

------
yen223
Almost everything in your home, down to your throwaway plastic bags and
disposable napkins, has massive supply chains that led to their production.

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personlurking
Judging by your first suggestion, it sounds somewhat like a podcast-version of
Half As Interesting, on Youtube (my pet peeve with that channel is it has
several "I think I'm being funny" quips interspersed throughout). Regardless,
I think there's tons of room in the media space for such an idea. Go for it!

Regarding the question in the title specifically, everything at all times is
complex. Now, if we choose to see it that way, that's another question. Ex. A
car gets us from point A to point B, and so we see it as such (ie, what it
does for us, not what it is). But when that car breaks down, its intricate and
endless complexity is revealed to us. All of a sudden, we get a glimpse of
what it _is_ and not what it does for us. Which is to say, we look at everyday
life at the lowest resolution possible, in order to get on with our day. It
has to be high enough resolution to hold some value and meaning, but not so
high that it adds unneeded complexity to our life.

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mns06
You might like to check out the BBC podcast "the boring talks". People
discussing the hidden complexity behind mundane objects.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05t3gr2](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05t3gr2)

------
ggm
Analogue TV and radio rebroadcast used to depend on atomic time. The vbi
timing stuff needs to be regenerated as it's rebroadcast. Sure.. you can let
it slip: what if people set their clocks from the timing pips on the radio?

Likewise mains AC power frequency policing. It has quite interesting set
points and limits.

~~~
majewsky
Power frequency policing is a great idea! I actually saw a talk about this a
few years ago, but it didn't cross my mind yet. Thanks!

------
thisone
The Surprisingly Awesome podcast seems to have done a bit of what you're
looking for while it existed. Some episodes more successful than others, but
that's a strict topic podcast, with a strict release schedule for you.

[https://www.gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-
awesome](https://www.gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome)

You should be able to find audience reaction to the podcast and it's
cancellation if you dig around a bit on reddit. Learn from their work and make
yours better.

Also, 99% Invisible would be another podcast to research to ensure you are
barking up a different tree

[https://99percentinvisible.org/](https://99percentinvisible.org/)

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ajeet_dhaliwal
It’s tempting and perhaps lazy to say ‘everything’ but it really feels that
way if you consider creating a video game about any mundane thing like putting
on socks of brushing teeth. With respect to things we use I cherish it all,
from the TV, to the wires charging my phone, to the plastic bags in the
kitchen. Too many people treat things with disrespect or junk when they could
never know how they were made and could never replicate the process
themselves. A more interesting question might be what’s the most complex
single product or service used in everyday life.

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ugochiowo
Breathing. I never think about the fact that I'm able to breathe without
issues until that ability is compromised by a cold or flu. The science of
breathing is deeply complicated and there are multiple processes that make it
possible for you to successfully inhale and exhale as you're doing now. The
human body is incredible.

[https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/Breathing.htm...](https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/Breathing.html)

------
anoncoward111
Most of the annoyances in my life come from dinosaur corporations who have
dumb policies and most likely won't go out of business for it.

Some examples:

1) Banks in the US put the burden of ID theft on the consumer. This is
hilarious, because it is the bank who has been robbed, not me. Additionally,
why does my bank mail my personal info to my former addresses for a few
months? I always ask for web statements only.

2) Why does a passport cost nearly $100?

3) Why can't visas and borders be paperless and less restrictive?

4) Why can't month-to-month leases be easier to find?

~~~
tudelo
As for 4) probably because it's a high risk and high overhead for most
complexes. How do you see that working out? FWIW I often sign short leases (6
to 12 months) and friends who have gone for internships without provided
housing have used airbnb. Seems to be a fine alternative.

~~~
anoncoward111
In my area, I've tried very hard to negotiate leases of less than a year--
they just don't do it, because of our East Coast version of NIMBYism.

Airbnb can be of dodgy quality sometimes, but it has filled most of the demand
as you say. There are lots of property taxes and squatter-friendly laws in my
area, so I guess thats why landlords feel the need to have very restrictive
terms :/

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hluska
Dealing with email addresses. Consider this case:

You get two signups on a website. One is for me@example.com and the other is
for Me@example.com. Is this one person or two separate people? And how do you
store them in a database?

Some email systems will treat me and Me as two separate users, so if you
change the case there is a chance the wrong person will get the email. So, the
advice is that you should never change the case. But if you don't change the
case should you treat them as separate users?

~~~
bausshf
Yes you should treat them as separate users, because there is less chance of
you doing something wrong.

What you need to consider at sign ups are more than just an email to
distinguish.

Ex. if name, address and phone are the same, but the emails are different,
chances are you have the same person and thus you can assume it is the same
person.

~~~
hluska
I know all of this. The query was looking for everyday things that are more
complicated than people expect.

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cm2012
stomach biome and brain interaction (as many neurons in the stomach as in a
cats brain).

