@Eric Celedonia: This guy is smarter than you could ever hope to be. He can write this theories with the blood of unicorns and I'd still take him as serious as if he used comic sans.

Welcome to Reddit: reddit.com/r/science/comments/bamxa/mit_professor_dan_nocera_at_poptech_thanks_to_the/

"He can write this theories with the blood of unicorns and I'd still take him as serious as if he used comic sans. "

Yep, that sounds about right. People who write their theories in comic sans should be taken just as seriously as people who write their theories in the blood of unicorns.

Oh, golly, look at that beard, he certainly knows nothing of style (and design, judging from his horrendous use of comic sans).
Who wants to listen to such a lunatic rave about solar and water when there are much more pressing matters to take into consideration, like his appearance and poor choice of fonts, what a loser.

/sarcasm off

Today I learned that there are people who will judge you and deem you unworthy of existence based on a silly font that I didn't even know its name before today.

I really don't understand why hipsters have such a problem with a typeface. Anyway, vimeo is making my computer run 15º hotter… I'll watch later.

ALL:

First of all, it is designers, not hipsters that especially have a problem with typeface. When one stereotypes people like that, it is difficult to understand the point. (Though I don't think you really care to understand anyway) Also, on a site like vimeo (that I assume has a majority population of aesthetic minded people), one would expect that these types of opinions to be popular.

Secondly, Eric did not discount or criticize Nocera's message with his OPINION, thus the sarcastic responses are missing his point. Eric merely illustrated the idea that aesthetics DO mater in reference to promulgation and popularity of a message. In other words, image is important, even when it's not crucial to the argument.

People are more likely to pay attention to something that looks clean, professional, and modern. Comic Sans is one of the most despised fonts because it looks like a font for children. In this sense, it does seem strange that someone would present such a lofty theory with an aesthetic for children. For such a presentation (on such a scale as well) most would consider it important to at least think about the aesthetic value for sake keeping your audiences attention. It is evident that Nocera did not consider it for a vimeo audience.

People DO judge books by their covers (right or wrong) and consequently it is obliged that anyone presenting an important topic should at least consider this.

@Andrew - just because Nocera is super smart and you would listen to what he says regardless of medium does not mean that the medium(and mode) is not important, and should be ignored. It just shows that you value message more than the image, where many people put a great deal of value on the image.

@Rubens - you totally missed the point. Nobody judged Nocera or deemed him unworthy. On this point, you are debating noone. Also, it is sad that *without sarcasm* you have you have just realized that aesthetics are important to people, and that people are nitpicky (assuming you could deduce these ideas from your observation of this particular instance). Those ideas are what Eric's statement represents. It is good you now know the font Comic Sans and will avoid it. This knowledge will help you in the future. Consider this concept - if you wear children's clothes, people will probably think you are childish.

Now, I hope I have cleared things up. Comic Sans sucks, but this gaffe in font selection has no bearing on Nocera's abilities or intellect. He is still admirably brilliant regardless.

Awesome. I can't wait.

And shit, anyone can hope for anything they'd like. Hipster is such a bullshit label when everyone involved in design hates that font.

Today I learned there are people who can't take anything with a grain of salt.

Anyone who discounts someone's ideas based on the typeface they choose to write them in is a f**king idiot.

@Andrew Weir

EPIC ANSWER!

@Eric. Please, never, ever, ever, EVER use the adjectival form when the adverb is called for -- or I'll never be able to take you seriously.

Poor Eric. Normally his inane comment would have been ignored. However, front page Reddit has brought the sarcasm horde.

I did not hear Mr. (Dr.?) Nocera talk about how much energy his device/process takes.

@Jayson I'm sorry. No one here is actually talking about Nocera. This comment thread is reserved for aesthetics only.

He should have used papyrus instead of comic sans.

SRSLY!1/? The man is talking about a revolutionary way of power generation and protecting our environment and almost every comment is concerning the font he used in his presentation?

The internet is truly a double edged sword, putting me in touch with the greatest minds in the world, while simultaneously making me question if people actually think before trying to get their message across.

Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed the presentation, I like comic sans.

- Is there a 5 minute version of this self-admiring speach somewhere? No wonder people are getting interested in fonts instead of listening

I wonder if vimeo admin could change the "comments" font so that I could take them less seriously.

Batteries not going to get any smaller? Hmmm. Maybe he should read this.
msnbc.msn.com/id/35466087/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

I guess we're all doomed to the end of civilization because we'll run out of fossil fuels.

I hear this professor at MIT had a potentially great idea, but he used Comic Sans on his slides, so there's no way it'll never work...

He makes perfect sense. Granted, the numbers he throws out in the beginning are without proper context (Correct, but incomplete). He is talking about distributed generation. His proposal is to use Solar PV to make electricity to run an electrolyzer to make hydrogen to run a fuel cell to make electricity. Why the hydrogen step? Storage. Even a perfect solar PV system will only make usable power for a few hours a day. By storing that energy as hydrogen, we get power 24/7. NOW, what his point is, is forget the holy grail of efficiency, and just manufacture these systems at a personal scale - rather than huge mega-projects. The "power" of mass production, even at low efficiency, if they are cheap to make, just use a larger system. Some notes: In the beginning he is talking generation capacity (or energy input) - not usage. The US uses 2.4 terawatts worth of input (including electric and fuels) to generate 49 Terawatt hours of energy per day.

energy.typepad.com/the-energy-blog/2010/03/us-energy-consumption.html

(We use ABOUT 18% of the worlds energy, so that is the basis of his 14 TW worldwide. 2.4 x 5.5 = 13.2TW - I am sure he calculated it from a different perspective though:^)

Note he says two thirds of that swimming pool PER Second converted to hydrogen at 80%, and then back to electricity at 50% efficiency. Same with his 3 liters of water per house per day.

The KEY point he is trying to make is use the power of mass production to make small, economical, personal power plants that people can afford to utilize, to power their own personal lives, and ditch the grid. Apparently his team has come up with a cheap to manufacture electrolyzer... When I get time, I'm going to look into that further.

Now is that clear? I know, watts vs watt hours, and all those zeros, it gets confusing :-)

energy.typepad.com/the-energy-blog/2010/03/watts-joules-btus-what-energy-terms-mean-and-why.html

"Enough sunlight reaches the earth's surface in one hour to supply the entire world's energy needs for a full year."

Educate poor females: freeschools.org/

Excellent information. Yes, education of poor females is very important to the future. IN Thialand, 30 yrs ago, each female averaged 8 children. The Thia gov.t started a birthcontrol and comdon promotion program. The birthrate is now 1.3 children per female. And they hve the lowest HIV Aides rate. (See TED Talks "Mr. Condom")

Great idea. I'm not sure how this would work for the developing world though, where clean water is hard enough to come by for human consumption. Regardless- it's about time the the developed world adopts a local, self-powered energy solution.

He's wrong about batteries... but that's OK. Everyone has their own thing. He's doing good work. But storage configuration improve all the time, there's stuff in the lab that would allow a car like the Tesla to go 1000 miles on one charge, at a fraction of the weight. But every battery company is already pre-invested in antiquated chemistry. Electron storage is not his chemical specialty, so he denigrates what's happening all around him at MIT, all these professors are so focused on their own thing, they compete for funding, maybe he should improve his communications skills, zero-in on what's important so he can more easily convey his message to his audience, stop undermining the green chemistry work of others.