As I type this comment, most other comments are pointing out how a 6th grader got this wrong, by failing to suggest the "correct" solution of abandoning printing.

I don't... how do I put this nicely.

This is a kid. He is smart. He looked at the problem from a new angle. He came up with a nice hack. Presumably we want more kids with more of a hacking spirit.

I hope he doesn't read Hacker News.

"We believe these changes will also help prevent a fire resulting from an extremely high speed impact that tears the wheels off the car, like the other Model S impact fire, which occurred last year in Mexico. This happened after the vehicle impacted a roundabout at 110 mph, shearing off 15 feet of concrete curbwall and tearing off the left front wheel, then smashing through an eight foot tall buttressed concrete wall on the other side of the road and tearing off the right front wheel, before crashing into a tree. The driver stepped out and walked away with no permanent injuries and a fire, again limited to the front section of the vehicle, started several minutes later. The underbody shields will help prevent a fire even in such a scenario."

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

I used to struggle with Bipolar Spectrum disorder. After 9 years of medication, therapy, prayer, and a lot of ups and downs I've been declared free of the diagnosis by my psychiatrist.

I gained a lot of weight because of medications (normal weight is 210lbs, which is fine for my 6' 4" frame, but medication caused me to balloon up to over 444lbs). I have not been able to work at my peak for many years. I'm now almost 45, and I feel like I'm starting to get my life back. Now that I'm off the main drug that treated my disorder (risperidone) my weight is starting to drop.

I know people are scared of mental illness. I see it in their faces, or the way they treat me differently as time goes by. But that's okay, I have close friends who have accepted me for who I am without that fear.

My wife wishes I wouldn't tell people about my history. My health is no one's business but mine. However, I choose to tell people about it, because of the stigma. Because I'm neither ashamed or afraid for people to know. I _will_ lose friends, work, and opportunities because of my choice to be open about it, but I don't care because I want to fight the stigma.

Everyone has a friend or family member that struggles with some form of mental illness. Everyone. I have seen too many people suffer in silence, and some even take their own lives because the pain is too much.

I was suicidal years ago. I suffered horribly for many months on end, waking up in the morning and just focussing on getting through the next hour, until I finally reached the end of the day and could go back to sleep so I could have some relief.

There is no shame in mental illness. People used to be afraid of people who had heart disease, as if they might "catch something" from them. The brain is the most complex organ in our bodies, and it's prone to have problems just like any other organ.

My name is Miles Forrest. I have wrestled with mental illness for many years, and I'm happy to say I have overcome it with help from doctors, family, friends, and God (if you're offended by my attribution to God, please don't be. I respect a person's right to believe whatever they want, all I ask is they respect my right to believe whatever I want). I can't say I'm cured, because there's a possibility I might relapse at some point in the future. But I have acquired the skills, knowledge, and support network that I know, without a doubt, I would be able to beat it back down again. Mental illness doesn't define me, but learning to fight, persevere and lean on others when I need to has made me a better man.

You can mock or ridicule me if you want, but I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the man or woman out there who is afraid there might be something wrong with their mind, and who feel alone and afraid. I know how scary it is. I know how you feel like you're the only person in the world who has felt the way you do. You're not, and you are not alone. If you are that person, email me at miles@coderpath.com, and I will walk with you as a friend and stranger to get you help.

Indeed. He identified an approach that seemed off the beaten path, took a systematic and consistent approach, quantified the savings and wrote it up. I'm impressed. We should be encouraging this sort of exploration and rigour in school kids. It doesn't even matter if we 'grown-ups' think there's a 'better' solution.

Having a foot in the indie game developer community and another in startups, it's fascinating to see the HN comments in response to this post.

The indie game developers care about originality, passion, the sweat and hard months of work, the dedication to the craft. I think the point of Asher's essay is to show how much love and effort went into it, and that they were indeed the first to ship a full, polished game with that concept. That's where their pride and satisfaction comes from.

The startup people care about end user experience, how good the PR is, and ultimately how numbers matter more than everything else.

I don't think there's a wrong or right vision - it's two very different communities.

Indie game devs dream of making amazing games with other talented, inspiring people - and as long as they make enough money to live not too uncomfortably, they're fine. Their biggest dream is to receive an IGF award and see their game on Steam. Maybe make enough money to be able to start a studio with a bunch of their friends, but definitely not to "scale" to EA-size.

Startup people dream of growing their company to Facebook size, making billions of dollars, scaling, and being on Techcrunch.

It's two very different communities, and it's fun to see the two worlds collide.

Addendum: if you feel like this post is vindictive, bitter, etc.- remember: the best way to interpret a view different than yours is to understand that there is a worldview in which those statements are perfectly coherent, logical, and meaningful. Asher, Greg, and all the other people mentioned in this post are successful, highly respected members of the indie game dev community - not a bunch of guys who are angry for whatever silly reason.

Regardless of personal opinion, I hope people on HN understand that this is a talented person providing an honest opinion about their work. Which is rare, and should be commended, rather than being treated as evidence of a conspiracy.

Also, Dustin Curtis seems to forget (or not understand) that Facebook is the same company that made a decision to implement AJAX at the expense of pageviews, at a time when that decision was highly controversial (the era of the Empire of MySpace). You can ding the management at Facebook for a lot of things, but this really isn't one of them.

The bigger story, really, is that poor people use Facebook on a computer, and thus that is where web-based experience optimization is focused. If you don't have a smartphone, or your smartphone sucks, you're going to be on the web; otherwise, why aren't you using your iPhone or iPad? (And remember, that's where Facebook derives a majority of their revenue -- so if there's going to be a conspiracy, it's going to be a conspiracy to get you to stop using the website, and to buy a high-ad-revenue-generating iPhone). Welcome to the wacky user landscape of 2014, where the Web is for nerds and poor people.

I like that Julie used Medium for her thoughts, rather than a Facebook post. Experimentation with others' products and services is super cool.

Wow, this is awesome news!

Michael and John are reunited... I mean, recall in the Graphics Programming Black Book, when Michael starts off in the introduction with, "What was it like working with John Carmack on Quake? Like being strapped onto a rocket during takeoff – in the middle of a hurricane." [1]

Plus, Michael's quote from the announcement, "I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can." Great things are ahead!

If you've missed Michael's writings on VR, you are in for a real treat:

Why Virtual Reality is Hard (And Where It Might Be Going):

PDF:

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/MAbrash%20GDC2...

PowerPoint:

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/MAbrash%20GDC2...

Two Possible Paths into the Future of Wearable Computing: Part 1 – VR

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-int...

Two Possible Paths into the Future of Wearable Computing: Part 2 – AR

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-int...

When it comes to resolution, it's all relative

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/when-it-comes-to-resol...

Latency – the sine qua non of AR and VR

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-n...

Raster-Scan Displays: More Than Meets The Eye

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/raster-scan-displays-m...

Game Developers Conference and space-time diagrams

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/game-developers-confer...

Why virtual isn't real to your brain

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-virtual-isnt-real-...

Why virtual isn't real to your brain: judder

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-virtual-isnt-real-...

Down the VR rabbit hole: Fixing judder

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hol...

[1] http://twimgs.com/ddj/abrashblackbook/gpbbintr.pdf