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.
Somewhat. The story rests on the assumption that all government printing is done with a wasteful serif font, and that $$$ could be saved by using a slimmer one. Sure, people discuss toner vs ink, government discounts vs retail prices, and the necessity/desirability of printing things on paper in the first place. But almost everyone has accepted the assumption at face value.
If, like most Americans, you prepare your tax return in the next couple of weeks - an annual ritual which involves a truly mind-boggling amount of printed paper - take a look at the fonts on IRS documents. Almost invariably, the IRS uses thin Sans Serif fonts. As do a great many other government printing departments.
Now I don't expect the kid to think about this since he probably hasn't had to fill out a tax return yet, being only 14. But perhaps it's the sort of thing CNN ought to have mentioned, or asked the Government Printing Office about, if they were interested in presenting useful news. Of course, they're not, in this case; it's clickbait which relies on readers accepting all the assumptions in the article and patting themselves on the back for feeling smarter than Uncle Sam.
The other side of the equation is that serif fonts are easier to read. What is the cost in time and/or productivity that a person might lose by utilizing a font that is less easy to read?
I've submitted tax returns for last 5 years without ever printing anything at all. I don't think you need any printed paper - in theory, it can be done with zero paper at all, in practice many places send you printed forms (though I believe they have an option to choose electronic delivery, many of them do not support it) but you could do without printing anything yourself if you want to.
Maybe if the tax return is really complex and most of the software can not handle it you'd have to go back to paper. But for vast number of Americans, tax returns are simple enough.
The government prints a lot less forms and booklets than it used to. You may remember you or your parents going to the public library or post office or IRS office to pick up printed forms and instructions, or receiving them in the mail. Today, in most cases, even if (like me) you still do your taxes on paper, you download and print the forms yourself. So the cost of paper and printing has been largely shifted to the individual.
It does matter. It's called 'constructive criticism', and learning how to accept it is a valuable asset. There's a difference between "nice work, but have you thought of..." and "nice work, you're the best!".
And it's entirely debatable which is better: seeing your argument trigger a wave of patronising good-on-yous from adults you respect; or seeing your argument trigger a wave of intriguing discussion between the same.
I agree that we should be encouraging and not dismissive of it, but the kid is 14, he's nearly an adult himself. He can handle being exposed to deeper analysis.
"If you stand up and announce a new idea, hundreds if not thousands of armchair quarterbacks will tell you why your idea is wrong / how they could do it better / why they are smarter than you"
or
"Good job thinking critically about an issue that literally millions of people have taken for granted for years and trying to come up with out-of-the-box solutions, backed by actual quantitative research."?
Personally, I want to communicate the second. Will he have to learn that solving problems involves creating ideas and then iterating on those ideas, sometimes tearing the original idea to shreds in the process? Yes. Will he need to learn to divorce himself from his work and not feel that criticism of his work devalues him as a person? Yes.
But some (not all) of the HN comments, while critical, do not feel exceptionally constructive. Too often, when some unique or innovative new idea is touted, smart people rush to explain why it won't work or why it's not actually that great an idea or why it's solving the wrong problem in the first place. But none of these people are actually helping to solve the problem. It is important for us to have this talk about fixing the frankly toxic attitude that seems to pervade this space sometimes. And it's important not to hide behind the shield of "constructive criticism" when the criticism is less constructive and more just petty.
