For years the holy grail has been for corn to produce its own nitrogen. This could be a small step in the right direction. Interested to see what happens when some of the great American agricultural schools further this experiment.
Putting aside the cultural imperialism (this happened in Ireland, which is in Europe, which is also where two of the greatest agricultural schools in the world, if not also the two greatest for this, are based), it also happened over a decade ago, so I guess everyone has tried furthering it by now.
I read the article and know the discovery was made in Ireland. This is how science is supposed to work. Is it 'cultural imperialism' if American universities build on the work of these Irish girls? Science would move a lot slower if a countries scientists all had to operate in national silos.
I am a journalism grad and 25 years ago the local press would investigate all candidates and this would have been discovered long before the primary. Now it is left to the independent journalists who lack the resources but are punching way above their weight. She isn't likely to win as this is a solid Democratic district. Because she stood little chance of winning even the state party didn't investigate her background either.
This makes about as much sense to me as banning all personal computers in the eighties from schools. You are putting these kids at a decided disadvantage.
Keeping younger students away from computers is dumb, but we do need to go back to the basic computer literacy classes of the early/mid 2000s, e.g. typing, basics of desktop operating systems like the filesystem, using word, powerpoint etc. It's appalling how lacking high schoolers seem to be in these kinds of skills.
> Keeping younger students away from computers is dumb
No. There's proven research that shows reading a book or writing with a pen or pencil is much more stimulating and beneficial compared to looking at a screen or tapping/typing on it.
But they also need to have computer skills if they're going to survive in this world... it's too late to teach them once they're old enough to have the safeguards removed.
Yeah, I suppose we should hold off on teaching them everything that isn't critical thinking, lest they develop skills other than what is deemed acceptable by people like you.
Maybe we should have them live in 15th century lifestyle towns! Wouldn't want them having any contact with this awful world!
I think young exposure to real computers (where you create, and have to figure things out; not consumption machines) provides access to a level of fluency that is otherwise difficult or impossible to achieve, just like many other skills (language, music...)
I'm pretty sure we ran these experiments in France in the late 80s/early 90s, it was pretty clear that exposure to real computers was useless in elementary school, and even in middle school technology teachers weren't a big fans of teaching computer skills before 14 (basically around the same time as they taught tin soldering).
I think that can be done without having them sit in front of a computer or even really using a computer, though. Lots of kids have stories about wandering over to a college campus when they were in middle school, wandering into a room with the keypunch machines, and learning about computers that way. Very few of those kids directly used a computer, but they learned it anyway.
Colleges with key punches? Probably pretty close to zero.
My point was more that, I think it's incorrect to assert that it's necessary for kids to directly use a computer in order to effectively learn about them. We have tons of concrete evidence of kids learning to be excellent at programming and understanding computers without directly using one. It happened with the kids I described.
i wouldn't let my kid use a phone or a computer till a certain age. age 1 - 11 is about having strong foundations in basics and these basics haven't really changed in a couple of decades at least. Reading, critical thinking, math etc... all don't need computers to a certain age. I say this as someone who got on a pc at age 10 and have made a living off being interested in computers.
Communicating with adults and handling the friction of conversing with others is a skill students need to gain, especially at this age. Talking to a machine that will always suit your style of talking isn't always good.
There is significant evidence against this, and very little for it beyond your 'honest opinion'.
A recent study showed just 2 out of tens of thousands of children in China improved their performance after beginning to use AI assistance.
People will take the shortcut in front of them, absent enforcement, and this is how it works in work and in school. Putting it onto any individual to 'use it well' is to misunderstand the system that is being constructed.
There's nearly zero AI zealotry on here. As of the time of my posting, almost every comment here on Hacker News is both supportive of the measure and largely against AI. This is now a neo-Luddite messaging board.
You should try to read books on the luddite movement (or use an AI to dive into the specifics I guess) before trying to use it to disparage someone. As it stands, to me the luddites were pragmatic workers who stood up for themselves, so it is quite a compliment.
What if someone created a culturally oriented AI for black people? Well a team of black Detroit women did just that. I think its an interesting idea but I am not the target audience.
This is the same guy who said users would never need machines with more than 640K of RAM. Decades later he denied every saying it. But I am old enough to remember when he said it. He never claimed to have been misquoted at the time!
I agree you cannot tie the success or failure to any single decision. I was just sharing a personal anecdote about the company.
I do know that Spirit Airlines was a lot scrappier and lean minded when they were based in Detroit. Course that is kind of a Midwest thing. Spirit grew a lot faster after moving to Florida but ultimately getting there involved taking financial risks that ultimately doomed them.
Fun fact: Spirit Airlines original software was written in ColdFusion and two members of their staff attended meetings of my ColdFusion users group. Then headquarters of the airline moved to Florida, they got a new CIO and they rewrote everything in a new language.
If this had all fifty states it would be extremely valuable. I know it would be a lot of effort to get the data but it would be really worthwhile. One of the problems is Michigan for example isn't updating their data in Socrata and hasn't for years. The city of Detroit however does an excellent job.
I am quite interested in civic coding and ran a hackathon with the state for several years in Michigan.
I have not found anything similar and this type of software I seek out. It is hard to get the word out. You can find startup software for listing in directories, that and SEO involve time but not money.
But if someone finds you and their state isn't included they are likely to just move on. If they find use for it you can also build a strong word of mouth. Some states have API's for this data, but a few years ago the majority did not.
Some you actually need to file a FOIA request for it. Then you need to repeat the request yearly to get updated data. They don't make it easy for you.
Met the creator at the big Claude meeting last evening in downtown Detroit. He is a software developer for a vending machine company.
I neither drink coffee nor have an iPhone but thought this might be of interest to the HN community. Apparently he is doing quite well with it and is a real coffee afficionado like my late father.
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