Letters of Note: I think I no how to make people or animals alive | Hacker News Reader

Letters of Note: I think I no how to make people or animals alive

lettersofnote.com

77 pointsColinWright7 comments

It's a children's show that apparently receives thousands of letters each week, presumably from kids.

Not to downplay the letter, but It'd be pretty bad if they ridiculed kids in those responses.

It also looks like a standard answer with some non-standard text in between (we are swarmed, nice idea, here have a picture).

But I really like his letter. He is ready to bootstrap his idea of cutting open a really large human and putting him in a fiberglass box. He should sue Gunther von Hagens and his Body Worlds.

For me that was absolutely the crowning part of the story. "I will need tools to cut someone up, someone to tell me how the heart works and where the blood goes from the heart, and, uh... Oh! I'll need a coffin!"

I also like how he's decided he's figured out the most difficult bits of how to animate people and animals, but needs help with a few minor details, like a "Diagram of how evreything works."

They could have easily not replied, though.

For context: Blue Peter is (I think I'm correct in using the present tense, but it's not the centre of kids TV it once was) a show on the publicly funded BBC, that seemed to have a general role of trying to make kids more well rounded. I once called up their hotline for a kit to organise one of their charity "bring and buy" sales and spoke to one of the presenters of the show. Absolutely blew my mind that the presenters stepped off the studio and immediately manned a phone line.

However, unlike the subject of the article I haven't grown up to become a world-leading charity sale drive manager, so perhaps I should be more ashamed of myself.

Perhaps. But perhaps that wouldn't have done any damage either as it technically doesn't discourage:

"If [Biddy Baxter's] letter had shown any hint of ridicule or disbelief I might perhaps never have trained to become a medical scientist or been driven to achieve the impossible dream..."

Encouraging young people is essential--even/especially when their ideas are incredible. The reply letter was just right.

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