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Comment by swader999 | Hacker News Reader

Was I the only one that tried to clean my screen to get the piece of dirt off it?

And now you know why, even if real, we won't build power lines from Alaska to New York with it

What is with the large number of commentators who have a bizarre "static world" hypothesis of technology?

Like, roll back to 90s and tell me that Lithium-Ion batteries would be powering all my power tools today and be on-par or better then corded counterparts?

The 90s? It depends on where you worked and what you read. Li-ion wasn't exactly a bolt from the blue.

Material properties are an issue to consider. If they've been working for 25 years "knowing" this product is there, I'd be a little conservative about how much of the sky I'd let my pie consume.

Even if synthesis is perfected, it's a ceramic. It may end up being a superconductor along only one axis. That's not a recipe for ductile feedstock.

Every new tech gets bashed on HN, to the point where you'd think you're on AmishNews instead of HackerNews. There's a bizarre lack of ability to project into the future - if a piece of tech isn't 100% perfect right at launch, it's apparently useless.

Seen that for everything from 3D printing and AI to fusion and superconductors.

> Every new tech gets bashed on HN, to the point where you'd think you're on AmishNews instead of HackerNews.

That's extremely funny, thank you :)

It also makes a very valid point about human nature: we are resistant to acceptance of news that will change our worldview to the point that when presented with evidence of something new our first reaction seems to be to go into denial.

Well, denial is a good first bet. Most things that surface like this are bullshit. But not all. And the ones that aren't change the world.

I went from feeling this had a 5% probability of being true to 35% or so in the past few days. In the end that belief is going to reach 0.00001% or 99.99999%; but until it settles in one of those places it's going to drift like it's being blown by the wind.

And when it's real-- do we get something useful from it in 5 years or never? It's taken us decades to get significant high temperature superconductor applications.

In the end, there's so much uncertainty, and until it all settles out we can either be ambivalent or cheer for a side.

If it is real you can expect an influx of funding into improving the material, similar to how the discovery of the first practical superconductor led to finding a bunch of others with a steady increase in working temperature. But this time the funding will be much larger because the market for a room temperature superconductor are far, far larger than for one that requires a large cooling installation. I figure a few years at most for improvements on the yield to the point that you can start thinking about commercialization. The first party to complete this will make bank in an obscene way.

> I figure a few years at most for improvements on the yield to the point that you can start thinking about commercialization.

There is no guarantee that "if this is real" that there's a workable path to current densities and manufacturing ease that leads to commercialization-- ever.

And if there's a path, it's difficult to predict how long following that path will take.

YBCO dates to 1986 and requires much less of a cooling installation than the superconductors that are in use today. We are just reaching commercial use in the past few years...

Yes, but that's also because the commercial applications of something that needs to be cooled to −180.2°C are also extremely limited.

Indeed, there is no guarantee. But typically, once something is invented there is improvement over time.

Some of us are just old. We have seen countless hype cycles. Many hyped up things do not pan out. So we all have a “show me” kind of attitude now.

Also for things that do pan out, they sometimes comes with unforeseen negative consequences.*

As a result, it’s hard to get excited about ”great new thing” these days.

* e.g. the internet; there was so much optimism over it in the 90s … no one foresaw its use to track and manipulate the public on a massive scale, the damage to mental health social media has afflicted, … etc.

In my experience old people welcome innovation because they saw a lot of great things happening in their life. When you say old, are you more in the 40s or the 80s?

40s.

I just approach “next big thing” with caution these days. It will either go nowhere or actually work but will have unforeseen fallout that we have to deal with / live with.

The internet is still an amazing piece of technology. You just got used to the benefits.

From another conversation: "I remember the web being hailed as the next big thing in the 90's, like it was going to change everything..." "It did."

(neither of those was me, for clarity)

you lose nothing being enthusiastic for new tech that doesn't pan out

you gain nothing bashing new tech that doesn't pan out

If it doesn't matter either way, why be pessimistic - especially if you're a tech enthusiast - as most people on HackerNews ought to be.

This is my philosophy too. It’s fun to be excited! Way more fun than being pessimistic. I think the naysayers just handle disappointment differently than I do.

It's stronger than that, I think. Cynicism has the cost that you don't get to spot where the truly valuable applications of a technology are. Yes, you don't waste time on applications that don't pan out, but you want to spend your brain cycles filtering those out quickly.

> you lose nothing being enthusiastic for new tech that doesn't pan out

I would be wasting attention on it. I kind of wish that the front page isn’t flooded with so much speculative news - when it reaches a certain level it becomes noise drowning out the signal. Tell me when you have definitive results.

Lazy cynicism is easy, and an easy way to be "obviously correct" in response to anything that's getting any amount of hype.

And 3D TV, Google Glass and cryptocurrency.

Lion batteries have no doubt done amazing things but aside from the connivance they absolutely suck for power tools. I’m not even that old and nearly all my lion power tools original batteries are dead. Knock off replacements are available but as batteries improved companies stopped selling branded batteries. It’s a constant exercise keeping everything even just usable much less usable for any lengths of time.

Meanwhile my 50+ year old inherited drills and saws work flawlessly.

None of this battery shit is sustainable in any sort of way when the batteries last 3-5 years. You can be sure you won’t be handing any of those tools down.

How can a company stop selling branded batteries for tools they're still selling, without losing tons of business?

But it sounds like standardization of the battery packs would fix a lot of your issues.

There already is standardisation, of a sort. A lot of these things will just be a bunch of 18650's in a fancy box. As long as you can get into the box, you can replace the cells.

Rather than standardised boxes, I'd settle for manufacturers just using accessible screws to hold the battery together.

How long does your avg heavy use 18650 last? 9 months?

18650s are the absolute perfect example of this. Great little batteries.. for a few months.

They are not selling the tools anymore. They have new versions with new batteries. In most cases higher voltage so at least there is some technical reasoning behind it but not always.

People think it's cool to be dismissive.

It's more in fashion to hype things beyond their capabilities and ignore important details you're not fluent in

I bet it's fatigue from the endless <new shiny thing> hype. It's easy to fall into a routine of dismissing everything that claims to be new and interesting.

To be fair, this is a laboratory sample to test the materials not a means of mass manufacturing. Same could of been said of Carbon nano tubes back in the mid 90's.

Yes, it could be a very long path to mass manufacturing, if it ever happens, but it is far to early to dismiss the potential of this straight up.

Wait, carbon nanotubes are being mass manufactured?

At least in the few-hundred tons a year range. It depends on the exact type though, the multi-walled kind are a lot cheaper than the single-walled ones which have the most interesting properties.

Yeah, carbon nanotubes are pretty simple to produce. You can buy them online for a few dollars per gram. It's combining them together into large structures that retain their strength that is still in the research stage.

This is also why my cell phone requires six semi trucks following me around to provide computing power and radio equipment.

And that's why they'll keep getting smaller and faster until I can fit a half dozen cell phones in a blood cell by 2050, right?

Everything has limits.

The idea that you can determine those limits from a short video of an unrefined specimen of the first-ever synthesized bit of a brand-new material is just silly.

It's not possible for anyone to know yet whether this advancement, if real, will result in "power lines from Alaska to New York" at this time, in either direction.

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