<story><title>Teen to government: Change your typeface, save millions</title><url>http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/living/student-money-saving-typeface-garamond-schools/index.html?hpt=hp_bn11</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zimpenfish</author><text>My main issue with him is that he didn&amp;#x27;t spend 5 minutes researching this on the internet because it&amp;#x27;s come up many times previously and doesn&amp;#x27;t count as a nice hack worthy of any praise.  Sorry kiddo.&lt;p&gt;As an example, these links are all 2010 or earlier.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/the-right-font-can-save-you-money/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cnet.com&amp;#x2F;uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-right-font-can-save-you-mone...&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125639616&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;templates&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;story.php?storyId=1256396...&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sitepoint.com/cut-costs-by-saving-ink-with-ecofont/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sitepoint.com&amp;#x2F;cut-costs-by-saving-ink-with-ecofon...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;etc.etc.</text></item><item><author>6cxs2hd6</author><text>As I type this comment, most other comments are pointing out how a 6th grader got this wrong, by failing to suggest the &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot; solution of abandoning printing.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t... how do I put this nicely.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;I hope he doesn&amp;#x27;t read Hacker News.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jwr</author><text>This is why I think the Internet might actually be stifling innovation and creativity.&lt;p&gt;I find that more and more often I think of something, then search on the internet, and if I see that someone somewhere has done anything similar, I abandon the project immediately. After all, it&amp;#x27;s been done, so what&amp;#x27;s the point?&lt;p&gt;Net result if we push this to an extreme: instead of pursuing interesting ideas people end up wasting time in useless discussions on Hacker News, thus adding exactly zero value and failing to move humanity forward.&lt;p&gt;At a first approximation, &lt;i&gt;everything&lt;/i&gt; has been tried by someone. It is very, very rare to have a truly groundbreaking idea. But that&amp;#x27;s not a problem! Humanity advances mostly through incremental improvements, not just by giant leaps.&lt;p&gt;So stop criticizing and start &lt;i&gt;doing&lt;/i&gt;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Teen to government: Change your typeface, save millions</title><url>http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/living/student-money-saving-typeface-garamond-schools/index.html?hpt=hp_bn11</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zimpenfish</author><text>My main issue with him is that he didn&amp;#x27;t spend 5 minutes researching this on the internet because it&amp;#x27;s come up many times previously and doesn&amp;#x27;t count as a nice hack worthy of any praise.  Sorry kiddo.&lt;p&gt;As an example, these links are all 2010 or earlier.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/the-right-font-can-save-you-money/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cnet.com&amp;#x2F;uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-right-font-can-save-you-mone...&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125639616&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;templates&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;story.php?storyId=1256396...&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sitepoint.com/cut-costs-by-saving-ink-with-ecofont/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sitepoint.com&amp;#x2F;cut-costs-by-saving-ink-with-ecofon...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;etc.etc.</text></item><item><author>6cxs2hd6</author><text>As I type this comment, most other comments are pointing out how a 6th grader got this wrong, by failing to suggest the &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot; solution of abandoning printing.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t... how do I put this nicely.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;I hope he doesn&amp;#x27;t read Hacker News.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>unethical_ban</author><text>As others have pointed out: It wasn&amp;#x27;t the first time the idea had come up, but he came up with it and looked into it independently. That, at the age of 14, is the kind of thinking science fairs should be encouraging. As a Ph.D project? Not so much.</text></comment>