Maybe we could just be happy for the kid and imagine what she could be making at 25?

I think a lot of people react to the sensationalism of the headlines on stories like this. It's absolutely wonderful that a 15 year old girl is interested in experimenting with little bits of tech like this, and I'm sure she's way ahead of the curve, but the news outlets like to portray this as "15 year old kid invents a new solution to a difficult problem," which is just way overstating it in the annoying style of people who are overly impressed by their own grandchildren's science projects.

Just from the headline, I said to myself, "sounds like some kid discovered peltier junctions and LEDs and the media decided to act like she's invented something," which was exactly right. Good for her, she's learning and experimenting, and that's a great thing, but let's not get carried away with our portrayal of how amazing it is.

Think back a month or so to the girl who "invented" a new way of charging cellphones in 30 seconds using capacitors. The sensationalism of that story was so over the top, I had non-technical people sharing the story with me on Facebook with breathless comments about what a genius this kid was and looking forward to this fantastic tech being available in all of our cell phones. Was it anything like that? No. It was a kid experimenting with well-understood technology and learning how things work, and there was no discovery or invention of anything non-obvious to any actual engineer. I don't want to detract from her industriousness or enthusiasm for learning, but when half the world is convinced she's done something notable enough to get her on the talk show circuit, something is wrong with the reporting.

So we can probably all: (A) see through the sensationalism and be happy for the youngin' or (B) react to the sensationalism or (C) both.

I'm cool with A or C. B seems lame.

Totally, but if you saw a headline "16 year old invents new communications medium" and it turns out it was a PHP guestbook, and major news outlets were making a huge deal about it, it kinda makes sense that there would be some backlash, even though a kid learning to code is, IEHO, pretty fucking cool.

Why focus only on the negative, or on a situation for which it would obviously be a terrible choice? It's never going to be as powerful as a battery powered flashlight; that's not really the point.

It might, however, be awfully useful in a stiatuion where there is no ambient light available at all, or where equipment needs to be light and very simply constructed. Perhaps something like in an emergency kit in case of a mine or cave collapse. Or in a situation with very adverse operating conditions, like a desert. Moving parts (as for a hand crank torch) would be a liability in an environment with omnipresent particulate contamination.

And this is why people get cranky at articles like this, people are not adult enough to take them as what they are, puff pieces to build the esteem of children.

Could a 15 year old child invent safety equipment for the trillion $ mining corps. Of course not.

People with 4 year degrees in engineering have as much commitment and inventiveness as children and money to boot. Plus a fully developed brain.

As is always the case child age x invents new way to do blah, invents object blah they of course haven't.

As a tired cliche does it have a place on HN. Is this site aimed in part at children is the question?

I don't know about mining, but I do know that some pretty damn simple things make a hell of a difference. Hospital safety has been improved quite impressively (or disturbingly, depending on your perspective) by using a checklist prior to surgery. Questions identifying the surgical site feature on the list, and writing on the site too. Staff are asked if anyone has any concerns. It's amazing what a group of highly trained individuals can screw up without child-like safety systems being in place. http://www.npsa.nhs.uk/corporate/news/surgical-safety-checkl...

This stuff is really interesting but is a million miles away from child-like.

We've know for years washing your hands in hospitals saves lives.

And we've know for years people are not doing it. Even just putting up signs helps an amazing amount, but even this isn't done.

Cause it's a really hard problem.

How does one improve the issue? Some hospitals are trying cameras, ranking deaths in hospitals, rfid tags tracking people making sure they wash.

I'm willing to bet even though the checklist above is pretty close to proven most hospitals don't use it.

[edit] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044462010457800...

Good point - its the problem that's simple and while the solution appears simple too, getting someone to cut into the correct side isn't easy.

You'd better hope ambient temperature is less than 50 degrees.

What is the hypothesis? As a science fair project, while this is novel as far as most "I made a volcano using baking soda and vinegar" projects are, I'm missing the scientific method in what I've read so far.

Hypothesis: The Seebeck effect, combined with the heat from a human hand, can generate sufficient power for an LED flashlight at room temperature.

The hypothesis was approached from both the theoretical and experimental side.

This flashlight wouldn't be great for lighting up shadows created by strong ambient light, but in complete darkness, even a little light makes a huge difference.

I'm thinking backup light source for camping, spelunking, power outages at home... just enough light to find a path when there is no other light.