this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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Scientists develop mega-thin solar cells that could be shockingly easy to produce: ‘As rapid as printing a newspaper’::These cells could be laminated onto various kinds of surfaces, such as the sails of a boat to provide power while at sea.

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[–] [email protected] 165 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

If it's shockingly easy to produce then just do it and then you can write a declarative headline that doesn't need to use the word "could". If you can't then I'm guessing it's not that shockingly easy.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I mean, even if it's easy to do, that doesn't mean a manufacturing process is easy to ramp up. You need equipment to produce it, and people to do it. Logistics of that isn't like just turning on/off a light switch.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Some people have never tried getting a product to market before, and it shows.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I would wager most of us haven't.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't care what you say the am/fm butt plug was going to be revolutionary!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

At that point, you can just call it bm radio

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

Without headlines, no investors. Without investors, no equipment. Without equipment, no product. Headlines like these drive investment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I love shows like How It's Made, you get to see the Rube Goldbergian systems that produce stuff we take for granted.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Yes, exactly. My point is that I'm tired of these bullshit headlines that are implying that we have some great breakthrough; unless the discovery also accounts for everything you listed, it's not a breakthrough and we, the public, don't need to hear about it just so that a newspaper can sell clicks and ruin trust in science.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You seem to be conflating breakthrough with manufacturing capacity

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

No, I'm just not referring to a slightly novel manufacturing process that will probably lead nowhere as a "breakthrough".

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Some of us like learning about science and technology, if you only want to know about products then watch adverts.

The average person understands the difference between 'will' and 'could'

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (1 children)

To echo the other individual who replied, it’s shockingly easy to make injection molded parts, but there is usually a long process before you bring the final product to market. And that’s with all the manufacturing processes already existing at scale.

In this case, the processes need to be fleshed out from scratch, which adds even more time to the ramp up. So even if the headline is 100% accurate, and there are no other roadblocks, it would still take a significant chunk of time to bring to market.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Time, money, man hours, etc, etc. All while still figuring out how to make it at scale and be able to sell it a a price that enables you to continue the business.

It's hard stuff, for sure.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, how dare they report on science and technology - I've barely seen a dozen articles about Will Smith's personal life today, we don't have resources to waste talking about successful research projects from MIT!

When MIT get in a salacious romance scandal then they can have a bit of our precious media space but get the fuck out of here with your science bullshit nerds.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

For a while I was celebrating when I didn't see Taylor Swift's name in either the sports or entertainment heading on google news. And each heading only showed three headlines.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 11 months ago

This isn't science, this is engineering, and it's crappy engineering at that.