Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery

#61

Post by dang » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 11:49 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #53

dang wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give me a break. Did you read the article? Please don't be personally rude on Hacker News. This comment would be fine without the first two sentences.

Guilty, though I responded to the OPs "I'm amazed at the ignorance in these comments". You don't think that warrants the same comment?

No, because it wasn't personal. I agree with you that that phrase was irritating, in an otherwise fine comment. But that's not enough to pass the moderator-speaking-up threshold. Imagine how many moderator comments there would be in that case. :(

I wish there were a way for users to suggest edits to each other's comments. My bet is that most of us have no idea when our comments include superfluous stuff that could easily be edited out. Suppose there were an easy way to send pull requests on comments. One could look at the diff and, if it improved the signal/noise ratio, simply accept the changes.

HN needs more sober second thought.

Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery

#62

Post by waps » Sat, Aug 23, 2014, 3:03 AM UTC

keenerd wrote: post #46

nardi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just pessimism. Yes, there are other hurdles to overcome for hydrogen. But this is a major advance in one of the primary pieces necessary for a hydrogen economy. What makes you think advances in other areas are impossible? And to answer your question, much better energy density by mass .

Who cares about mass except NASA? H2 is terrible by volume, a liter of gasoline has more hydrogen in it than a liter of liquid H2 and the gasoline is a lot more safe. Some little PDFs about the hurdles of hydrogen from one of my favorite tech writers: http://www.tinaja.com/glib/resbn88.pdf http://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdf A hydrogen economy might be possible one day, but not until we find a natural H2 source t…

And if you blast coal with it ... Guess what comes out ?

(Granted you'd also need to make coal out of co2, which is so much harder. but every little bit helps)

Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery

#63

Post by lutorm » Sat, Aug 23, 2014, 6:49 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #61

lutorm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guilty, though I responded to the OPs "I'm amazed at the ignorance in these comments". You don't think that warrants the same comment?

No, because it wasn't personal. I agree with you that that phrase was irritating, in an otherwise fine comment. But that's not enough to pass the moderator-speaking-up threshold. Imagine how many moderator comments there would be in that case. :( I wish there were a way for users to suggest edits to each other's comments. My bet is that most of us have no idea when our comments include superfluous stuff that could ea…

Well, as the author of one of the comments being accused of ignorance, I took it quite personally. Little comments like that start the slide and it's all downhill from there...

Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery

#64

Post by dang » Sat, Aug 23, 2014, 4:55 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #63

dang wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because it wasn't personal. I agree with you that that phrase was irritating, in an otherwise fine comment. But that's not enough to pass the moderator-speaking-up threshold. Imagine how many moderator comments there would be in that case. :( I wish there were a way for users to suggest edits to each other's comments. My bet is that most of us have no idea when our comments include superfluous stuff that could ea…

Well, as the author of one of the comments being accused of ignorance, I took it quite personally. Little comments like that start the slide and it's all downhill from there...

That is sadly true.

We're still interested in whatever might be done to curtail such downhill slides.