I'm 24 and a physics PhD student, and just afforded my first soldering iron. I lack the space, let alone the equipment to attempt anything close to this.
What a lucky, talented guy!
Living in the US comes with certain advantages like some of the lowest consumer prices in the West including HW equipment being dirt cheap on the second hand market plus houses being big enough for space for such hobbies along with the biggest take home pays yielding some of the highest purchasing power in the West, a formula tough to replicate anywhere else.
At least compared to where I live now in Europe, such hobbies would definitely be unaffordable for me monetary and real-estate wise, which is also a monetary issue at the end of the day.
I was looking on an interesting blog about buying certain older ThinkPads or older multi-core server chips for $50 used for building a cheap home lab, and when I checked, super exited, on my local second hand market, such machines or chips were fetching north of €250 and that was before the chip shortage broke the market. That's just one anecdote, but you get the point.
-They have some sort of windfall
-They have a trust fund or stipend that they receive just for existing
-Their parents pay for everything, or, alternatively, their parents pay for all of their living expenses so their own money is only "fun money."
-They, somehow, have a high paying job. In which case they probably won't be going to school full time also. Or they're "job" is having a lot of followers on social media.
This isn't a knock on anyone, I'm just trying to explain why one young adult student can be excited because they were finally able to save up for a soldering iron and another has a garage full of expensive experiment to tinker with.
It's pretty much implied this guy's living expenses (or most of them) are covered by his parents who also have tons of extra space and tolerance for him using it.
But it's laughable to think I could repair and run an electron microscope. Already mentioned, finding a broken microscope for £1k wouldn't happen here. And you're seriously underestimating the resource requirements to operate such a machine
For reference in us costs and spend your public stipend is less than my city spends per person on homeless folks and half of minimum wage. I think we’re taking different scales of money.
These kinds of projects are open to the top 5-10% of earners in the us so 15million or so folks could fund this but only 1-2 actually do it.
Not to detract from the achivement. But there's some respect to how the challenges were overcome by the large budget
A 22 year old in the top 5% of earns is a very lucky man
In the UK the second hand market is non-existent with the likes of the US. You can't just pick up hardware off Craiglist for next to nothing. It simply doesn't happen
Space is another thing as well. But I'm sure there's plenty of Americans whole live more urban without such space as well.
My future prospects may be promising, but owning a large garage to tinker in, whether electronics or something like woodworking seems like an untenable goal.
I grew up middle-class (my dad made, statistically, pretty much the median household income) and out of the scores of kids I knew, perhaps one of them might've had the parental and financial resources to do something like this, had he had the skill/intelligence/inclination.
We had a tiny garage, barely enough to fit a small car. Of course, there was no room for a car, because we needed to keep the yard tools and such in there.
I'm laughing -- trying to imagine my dad's reaction, had I asked him if I could build a science lab in there instead. "Sorry dad, the lawn mower's got to go somewhere else now" lol. He would have told me to go fuck myself.
But also, please understand that what he's accomplished here is monetarily out of the reach of your average American as well. Especially the average American teenager. The article notes that his dad is a very successful engineer, so roughly speaking he's almost certainly in the top 5-10%. Most homes do not have garages of this size and most garages are not climate controlled as this one is.
Additionally, his dad is an engineer. I grew up middle class, but my dad sold vegetables. Neither of my parents could do algebra, much less advanced stuff, so they weren't in a position financially or otherwise to help me start up a semiconductor fab in the garage. Not that I would have had the smarts or the drive to do that; I'm merely pointing out that this kid is at the intersection of talent and privilege.
In service of their "boy genius" narrative, the article glosses over how much parental monetary support this kid has had. To pick one example:
One of Zeloof’s best finds was a broken electron microscope
that cost $250,000 in the early ’90s; he bought it for $1,000
and repaired it.
I remember in the 90's, my school turned down a free electron microscope for exactly that reason -- the cost of the unit itself is only the tip of the iceberg.
The guy comes from an affluent family. The privilege is obvious from a mile away.
Still cool and all but in no way should anyone read this as a “oh, why wasn’t I able to do that” or “why aren’t more kids doing this?!” type of thing. It speaks to how out of touch most of HN is that they find this relatable.
The Wired article? Where does it say that? I only see reference to the skeptical engineer consulted by the father.
Suppose it would be possible while poor, and only his high IQ enabled him to do it. Then it would still be his luck for having parents with genes that produced high IQ in their kids. So it would still be "privilege".
What's more, his parents don't just happen to be all that, they presumably worked for it too, including looking for a suitable partner to have kids with.
It might even inspire the one or other person to try to earn more money to enable their kids to do great things that require a bit of money.
Or what is the reasoning behind privilege theory? If you go back in the ancestry of this guy, eventually you'll find some colonialist exploiting slaves, and if you go back in the ancestry of poor kids who don't create chips in their garage, eventually you'll find an exploited human who never had a chance to earn money?
Not even mentioning that creating chips in one's garage is not the only kind of achievement there is. And some poor kids do in fact succeed in life.
Steve Wozniak also was lucky to have a da who was a cutting edge engineer. So I guess that makes Wozniak owe all his money to society now, because he had such an unfair advantage.
I think you are, at a minimum, really missing out on some context?
My post was a direct response to a parent poster who mused about how this sort of thing is possible in America, whereas it's nearly impossible for most Europeans. I responded by pointing out that this sort of thing also isn't possible for most Americans.
Or what is the reasoning behind privilege theory?
This kid seems super talented, and I'm glad that he seems to have parents with the inclination and means to support this sort of thing.
Some niches are decent value
Finding a £1k electron microscope would never happen
Edit:
A quick search across Europen eBay, I could buy a used/broken SEM for £5000 ($6850)
Then I'd need to rent somewhere to operate it
However, there is no doubt the feat pulled off here is impressive and insanely difficult to do. I most likely couldn't replicate it, but I wouldn't be able to find that out.
That's like 10 bucks on amazon? Skip 2 meals, or panhandle for 4 hours. Done - soldering iron.
I had forgotten the pathetic level of funding science PhDs get in Britain. £12k is possibly on the low end, but a PhD with this funding was on the fourth page of the main site listing them [1].
Minimum wage assuming a 40-hour working week is £19,760 per year, and after taxes works out to £17,100. In other words, they are probably already skipping meals.
For comparison, a PhD student at the University of Copenhagen is paid £47,500 per annum [2], or £31,000 after tax (probably more, I think there's a tax discount for foreign researchers).
[1] https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CMM286/phd-studentship-achieve-ne...
[2] https://uniavisen.dk/en/salaries-of-university-of-copenhagen...
I used to be a junior software developer (hence username) earning £40k - far above median income.
Post tax, rent, bills I could save over the year to purchase the £5k electron microscope I mentioned quite easily.
But then I'd need to rent space for it. And purchase the rest of the equipment.
My points aren't some "look how bad I have it" gotcha. It's highlighting the perspective that this student is lucky to be supported with the resources to excel in his passion. Even if his use case is quite exceptional
Others have highlighted for Americans this probably represents a family in the top 5-10% of earners. A realm which American software developers can fall into
For myself, the chance to work in a lab of equipment costing the order of six figures required a career change and significant pay cut. But that's just me
To clarify. I am mind blown he has pulled this off. It's an extraordinary feat. All I can be is envious of his skills and privilege
A homeowner who earns middle class wages would have the space for a home lab/shop (without renting additional space) and would be able to pay a couple thousand dollars for their son's hobby. The stereotypical middle-class soccer mom spends more than that a year on her kid's activities. This is representative of at least the top 50% of American earners, not just the top 5-10%. This kid's father is the owner of a small sheet metal fabrication shop and he probably does decently well for himself but most of his wealth is likely the value of his business.
On posts advocating for density on HN, I often see people wondering why Americans resist densification because the benefits of a walkable city are so immense. Stuff like this and your belief that having a home electronics fabrication shop is out of reach for all but the rich (and the fact that most Americans can already do nearly any errand with less than 15 minutes of travel) are some of the reasons why. It is not that unusual for a middle class homeowner to have a home shop, though normally the equipment in them is something like a table saw or a mid-20th century manual milling machine, not a homebuilt photolithography machine and an old refurbished SEM. People who have them either use their garages (either an extra bay if they have a two/three car garage and only one/two cars or they use the entire garage and park their cars in the driveway or on the street) or they use a shed placed in their yard. Ever wondered where the stories of people starting companies in their garages come from?
To a middle-class American not living in a super high cost of living area this kid's story is something that they could have done had they had parents who trusted them and if they had the motivation and inclination to do it. The people complaining about that this kid being "privileged" are ignorant of how much of America lives and/or are jealous that they weren't able to do what he did when they were younger.
You really don't realize just how low the median income in the USA is. It's $45k for the median full-time employed individual¹, compared to $39k (£29k) for the UK². You can put the figure in pounds into https://listentotaxman.com/ if you'd like to go further with this, and think of taxes, healthcare etc.
I think your argument still holds, but only for part of the middle class or above. (There's an income distribution table on the Wiki page.)
> …walkable city…
Very few people advocate for only dense, apartment-style housing. They are actually advocating for the choice, to be allowed to build something that isn't a large house with space all around it. This is forbidden by zoning rules in much of the USA.
In a European city, and I'll pick Copenhagen since I live here and it's often cited as one of the best in these arguments, you find apartments of various sizes in the city centre (plus a very few extremely old, extremely expensive houses). As you travel away from the centre, there's a mixture of apartment blocks, smaller apartment buildings (perhaps three apartments in a 3 floor building), denser single-family homes (e.g. shared walls with one or both neighbours), and homes with grass all around. The further you travel, the more the balance shifts to the end of that list -- though if you pass a railway station, you'll find some more apartment buildings. Shops are also distributed throughout, though they are usually nearer to the apartment buildings / stations for obvious reasons.
On [3], the part between the rough circle of water made by the rectangular lakes in the north west and the old zig-zag water fortifications in the south east is considered the city centre. You'll see the type of housing change if you zoom in, then move north, northwest or west. (South, you'll not get the same effect as you'll run into the airport or a nature reserve.) You can also search "Supermarket".
I have a colleague with a couple of children, a decent garden, a car, and a basement containing a metalworking workshop. He's still within 10 minutes walk of a supermarket, and it would be safe for a child to walk there alone.
A friend needed more space than that for her hobby, so she lives on the edge of the city. She has a huge garden (which is the hobby, part is growing food), but she also has a 20 minute walk to the station if she wants to go somewhere without driving, i.e. before and after drinking. (Or < 10 minutes on a bicycle, I assume.)
Conversely, I live in the city centre. A colleague with two children lives fairly close by, in an apartment. Our hobbies don't need lots of space, so we've never felt the need to move further out. The adults and children don't have plenty of space for big hobbies, but it's a more convenient location for other things, like cultural activities, restaurants, people living nearby.
One example of that: a friend's teenage son likes LARP. At 13/14 he obviously can't drive, but he can walk a few minutes to the station. That takes him to the shop selling foam swords and whatever in the city centre, and the locations in/around Copenhagen where LARP groups meet, mostly in the larger woods.
(And can we say man, rather than kid? He's 22.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_... (First paragraph, $865*52).
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1002964/average-full-tim... (2017 figure to be comparable)
[3] https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6841742,12.5866976,4173m/dat...
The typical American does not see *any* benefit to giving up their car and house. Every single benefit like < 10 minute travel time is already a reality (because what matters is how long it takes to run an errand, not how it is run), but they'd have to live in a smaller house. They are a short drive already from all the activities they could ever want and are friends with all of their neighbors. Their kids can play in the street safely as there might be a dozen cars a day traveling down their street, most of which belong to people who live there. There is no need to though, because everyone has a yard to play in. You admitted that most of your friends could not set up a shop if they wanted to, and the ones who do have them live on the outskirts of the city and have to add 20 minutes to every trip (unless they drive). For the typical middle class American, increasing density offers *no* benefit as literally everything you describe is either something they already have or something irrelevant, but it has significant downsides.
If all you talk to are internet urbanists and tech people living in the Bay Area, you are *not* getting an accurate picture of how the average American lives. This is why urban activists (and Europeans who have pride for their hometowns) are constantly bewildered as to why anyone resists them and think it's because people just don't understand the benefits or are brainwashed by car companies, not that they've heard your arguments before or visited your ideal areas and decided that they just don't want to live in an area like that. Urban activist types tend not to be the type of person who would have a home shop in the first place or have any hobbies that require space and they have fewer (if any) children. They are a vocal minority in the US: only 19% of Americans want to live in a dense urban area [4].
[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personal...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalen...
[3] https://www.investopedia.com/how-much-does-health-insurance-...
[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/12/16/america...
So I used the numbers for a full-time employee, and I believe they are both correct. [1] if you prefer a government source, £611 × 52 = around $43k (increase presumably due to this being 4 years later).
Your British number is for all households, including those where one or both adults doesn't work. However, they are comparable.
On urbanism, you've completely missed my point. Americans are forbidden from living like Europeans by their state and local governments [2], and I consider this completely unreasonable.
[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...
It is not illegal to build in a European style in most of the country; we have entire areas built in a similar style. Zoning is also not a fixed thing in the US; it is very common for zoning rules to change as the area grows. Most of the country is not the San Francisco Bay Area. Contrary to popular online belief, only 19% of Americans want to live in dense cities, so our cities actually mostly match people's preferences. Zoning and land use rules make it illegal to build American style cities in much of Europe as well, so far all you know, most Europeans would like American-style living they were allowed to have it. Here's a ridiculous example of some of your continent's NIMBYs not allowing a rural landowner to open a small restaurant [1]; the same sort of people are also opposed to building any form of suburban housing.
The article says the microscope was $1k. That's about 750 GBP. The kid didn't make the purchase at the market rate when he just happpened to feel like it. He jumped at the right point when an opportunity presented itself. Everyone immersed in some hobby dealing with old equipment comes across such opportunities now and then.