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Comment by martyvis | Hacker News Reader

From the article :"So, the next time you’re about to crumple up a piece of paper and pitch it into the trashcan, you might want to think twice. You could very well be tossing out an important piece of technology"

Why do reporters still persist with these silly signoffs, that are actually wrong. ( They do it on the evening news as well as these pop science things). The paper you throw in the bin today is actually of no further use to anyone. Just like the glass of water you are drinking isn't going to be used to make hydrogen gas for a car, nor sandcastle you just built for silicon in the latest integrated circuit.

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I believe it is called "humour"

Doesn't that involve funny things?

Only if you're knowledgable in the field of the joke.

Hahaha

It would be nice if journalists were better at it.

It would be even nicer if they were better at reporting facts.

Journalists are great at reporting facts but it seems management doesn’t like them.

Have you been interviewed once? And also read what they finally wrote? Nope, sorry, they are not particularily great at reporting facts. All they do is fill a page with text.

You know now that you mention it I think you might be right.

What is the equation for this again?

Pi.Z.Z=A

For a circular area of Humor with radius Z. Best served fresh.

Humor crafted for the demographic that still subscribe to magazines.

People read news for entertainment, not education, and that's what journalists are selected, trained, and optimized for.

Most articles can be summed up in 3 or less factual sentences but nobody would read that.

> The paper you throw in the bin today is actually of no further use to anyone.

I believe the journalist is actually making a damning, albeit poorly introduced, argument against the device as confronted to cultural expectations.

If these keyboards become widespread, it could become easy to mistakenly bin them, because “it is just paper” and it is not obvious that there is a potentially expensive coating and invisible circuit printed on it.

It is a similar argument to the one made against Bitcoin, in which it is all too easy to lose access to money because we hold a cultural habit to discard old hard drives – but now suddenly, they are also wallets containing potentially large sums.

You say that, but "just" paper is actually becoming pretty rare nowadays in a lot of households and offices.

Well technically, given enough time and a suitable pathway through the water cycle, the water you drink today could likely end up in a Hydrogen fuel cell. Or end up on Mars for all we know.

Cannot believe I am saying this, but please do not export freshwater to Mars.

I’m now imagining the colonization of Mars happening by sending dehydrated humans and just adding water when they get there.

Water from Fiji is shipped all around the globe just because it says it's from Fiji. If humans ever get around to colonizing Mars, you can bet someone will be selling $50000 bottles of pure nectar bottled at the Hudson River.

On the other hand, we'd also be shipping water from Mars to earth. Get yer bottle of Red2o for $50000 shipped to earth.

Thanks to hyperinflation, that's a reasonable price.

I feel like it's a device to leave an impression on the reader/viewer that doesn't make them feel dumb if they didn't fully understand how it works

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