Google changes Buzz to be opt-in and adds easy delete button - <AUTHOR> http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-buzz-start-up-experience-based-on.html

<comment><USER2> I honestly love Buzz, but the rollout was terribly executed. It's rather ironic, since the product itself is one of the better designed social networking tools I've seen. Like Beacon was a real defining moment for Facebook, though, I think that the monumental amount of criticism that Google has taken over the Buzz rollout will teach them to be more careful about the second-order privacy implications from now on. It's just a shame that it took this much damage for them to learn.

<comment><USER3> Can you articulate why you love Buzz?

<comment><USER2> For one, the use of open standards promises wide interoperability in the future. Right now, my first six tabs are Gmail, FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter, Voice and Wave. I'd love it if those were somehow tied such that I could look in one place for my news, but if doing so didn't tie me to a monopoly.

Second, I love Buzz for the same reasons I love FriendFeed. It aggregates my interactions, which goes a long way towards healing the massive fragmentation problem that I currently have with social networks.

Third, the integration with Gmail means that, much like Mozilla's Raindrop project consolidates communication, my inbox is replaced by a more generic inflow.

<comment><USER4> _the massive fragmentation problem that I currently have with social networks._

I've always thought that the tendency to view social network fragmentation as some sort of _problem_ , rather than as a rather useful _feature_ , is a major blind spot for programmers. This Buzz debacle does nothing to discourage that hypothesis.

I blame the database training. After you've spent enough time wrestling databases you begin to dream of putting the universe into normal form. You envision a world where every piece of data might be seamlessly linked to any other with some sort of super-powered JOIN command. This is the dream that leads people to think that single-sign-on across the entire web would be a great thing. Unfortunately, this dream is also Orwell's nightmare.

I have a lot of friends. Some of them are elderly former carpenters who have never used computers. Some of them are college-aged aspiring hackers. Some know me personally. Some know me mainly as a pseudonym on HN. Some of them are middle-aged hippie folk musicians. Some of them work for major military contractors. Some of them are professors on the tenure track. Some of them barely have a high school education. Some of them are millionaires. Some of them are unemployed. Some of them are theoretical physicists, but many more of them loathed high school physics.

I have no particular desire to put all of these people in the same room at the same time. The one occasion where I was compelled to approximate that even slightly -- my wedding -- was the occasion of more than a little stress, despite every single guest's friendliness and good cheer. Because it's really very difficult to throw a party where everyone you know feels equally welcome.

I would not be surprised to discover that social networks are going to remain fragmented because most people like them that way.

<comment><USER2> No, but fragmentation with respect to single individuals is devestating. Do I send someone an IM, an e-mail, a Twitter DM, a phone call, a voicemail, an InMail, a FB message or poke, a letter, a buzz or what? If I have confidence that the target of my communications will notice my message regardless, then that is a feature to me. Moreover, if I want to follow a friend of mine, then I rarely want to setup and maintain another account, as is often required these days. Within a given social network, there's lots of room for clique- forming. There's even room for fragmentation between networks, so long as communication between networks can happen in a relatively transparent fashion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This just shows how poor Google's think tank model of operation is. I mean how can all those people working on the Buzz team overlook this? With all their time spent analyzing which shade of blue they should use why not just ask people how they feel about an auto following model?

<comment><USER6> Yes, I think in this particular case although it's admirable they moved quickly to correct the major problems this is definitely revealing a weakness in Google's ability to understand humans and their "irrational" reactions to products.

I posted in an article about Google's data obsession that Google products "have no soul." (And was downmodded!) This is an example of what I meant. They are so data driven and engineering focused that I think it was inevitable we'd see them release a product that consumers freak out about.

Putting your toe in the water and using data to iterate your way out of problems works great for many of the problems we're trying to solve. But, this problem, they decided, required a "big bang approach", since invite only won't generate the network effects. So, you had to get it right on the first try. For problems like this, you need a visionary decision maker with an understanding of human beings and intuition as to how they will react to the product. Someone who puts his or her foot down without being able to necessarily justify why.

Google _hates_ intuition, since it's not data driven and is just an opinion. Better to try it, measure it, and prove it. Most of the time, this doesn't burn them. And in fact, it'd be impossible for Google to do what Google does at the scale it does it without this philosophy being burned in deeply to the culture. But this also makes it really, really hard for them to go into social networking with a "big bang" as they tried here, since social networking is largely about people, emotions, egos, and feelings and connecting users to other users in a way that triggers the right responses and network effects. It only partially falls back on data & algorithms to make things work well. (Arguably, Facebook got the former part right first, and bolted on data- obsession later, which is why they are winning this war.) Ie, it's not that great of a situation if you have to machine-learn your way towards realizing that someone's ex-husband doesn't belong on their friend list. You've then burned the bridge and it's too late. Better to have someone with common sense step in and avoid the fire.

So, I don't think this will be the first time we see Google have to backtrack like this. It was the perfect storm for their major achillies heel to be exposed, and I'm afraid there's not much they can do to correct the root problem since it is a cultural viewpoint that would cause the other areas of their business to suffer.

<comment><USER7> Wait _invite only won't generate the network effects_ why would you think that? Facebook and other social networks have adopted the "all our info belongs to us" method of propagation, but it's far from the only path to networks effects. Most of the major social websites have have _blunders_ like this, and while they discourage people like me from using them, the social norms around privacy are changing.

<comment><USER6> Yeah I retracted that slightly in my post, sorry if I stealth edited it later than I should have -- I actually am not going to argue that the "big bang" was necessary for Buzz's success, only that Google seems to have made that decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That was an impressively quick response for a large company.

<comment><USER9> It's really not surprising though, imho, because no one likes having decisions made for them.

One of my teachers once told me what I thought and why I did things. I've always hated my teacher since that time- not because he was completely wrong, but because the principle of the action was disgusting. Google just decided we (gmail users) wanted this.

<comment><USER10> I liked those features. I liked not having to click to follow people and be automatically signed in with everything already configured. But I don't think everyone else did. I think we have different viewpoints and enough people got pissed off for them to change their policies.

<comment><USER11> People use services in very different ways, and have very different views on what is acceptable privacy-wise. Personally, I struggle with the "all-in" nature of Facebook (and Buzz, but there's no social pressure to use it yet) - I have various social circles offline and online that simply don't overlap (e.g. family, friends from school, friends from university, friends in the various towns/countries I've lived, customers/business partners, etc.), and the tone, topic and nature of communication with each group is different. I'm not talking about "secrets", I just don't think it's appropriate for them to be forcibly stirred into a pot, and people don't need to know about everything without even trying to dig it up.

I even resent the public friends list on Facebook, but at least I get to decide who lands there (unlike the initial Buzz rollout). As a result, I don't use Facebook actively and just add people as friends because it's perceived to be rude if I don't. I've noticed I'm not the only one - there seems to be a pattern: someone discovers Facebook (note that it's only recently become popular in Austria; it was practically unknown outside the web scene in 2008), get excited and add all their friends, post pictures, etc. and after a while remove a lot of personal details, delete photos and only participate actively by replying to others. Maybe this has already played out a few years earlier in the US.

Oddly enough, I really enjoy Twitter. I guess it's because it's very up-front about _everything_ being public, so the temptation to post something you might regret later is reduced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The title is wrong. Buzz itself is not opt-in, auto-follow is, but not yet, and not retroactively.

The blog post also glosses over something critical:

 _This created a great deal of concern and led people to think that Buzz had automatically displayed the people they were following to the world before they created a profile._

But what about people who already had a Google profile, who _did_ have their contacts automatically displayed to the world? Google still hasn't acknowledged this or apologized for it, and they continue to act like everyone who is complaining is getting upset over perceived rather than actual privacy concerns.

<comment><USER13> _"But what about people who already had a Google profile, who did have their contacts automatically displayed to the world?"_

One of my accounts had a google profile, and nothing was displayed automatically; it still required the exact same steps as the accounts without a google profile, including the "How do you want to appear to others?" form with the checkbox to display followers/following lists.

<comment><USER12> I've personally seen it happen with 3 separate accounts, including my own. I don't know what we did different than you - we logged in to gmail, clicked 'no thanks' on the Buzz pop-up, noticed it was turned on anyways, checked our already existing public profiles, and saw a publicly available following and followers list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm impressed they've been able to adapt it this much so quickly. Most large software companies, at best, take weeks to make the changes that Google made. It is also good to see them listening to the feedback, you don't always see that either.

<comment><USER15> Well...it is the least they could do after their blatant disregard for the privacy of its users!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Amazing how dramatically they've had to rework Buzz in just a few days. Google will think twice about rolling anything out to millions of people at once from now on.

<comment><USER14> I actually think their approach was pretty good. You can't usually guess what users want. The guys at Google probably thought, "yah people will really like it to automatically link without any work". It's tough to gauge what the users want until you put it in front of them. It may hurt sometimes at the beginning, but if it leads to a better product in the long run then I would say: keep it up.

<comment><USER17> No. It is unethical to risk user privacy and data just to benefit the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _"We quickly realized that we didn't get everything quite right. We're very sorry for the concern we've caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback"_

Not the best possible apology (it's closer to "sorry _you_ were concerned" than "sorry for _our_ mistakes"), but not shabby as these things go.

<comment><USER19> From reading the article though, it was people's concern of things, not Google's disregard for them. The changes basically amount to making things easier to find. Even the Auto Following thing was controllable according to the article.

So, as far as they are concerned, they didn't violate privacy as much as make it easy for people to by-pass the privacy protections in place.

<comment><USER18> Both of Google's posts on the issue talk about notification and controls for users whose profile is created when they first use Buzz. But from my experiments, if you were in the minority of users who had already set up a Google profile (which I did in 2007 when they were first announced[1]) then Google started broadcasting information about who you were following before you even knew that you were following them.

Adding new privacy controls is not nearly sufficient to protect privacy; you need to notify users about them and let them choose _before_ applying the settings to their account. At least during the first launch (I haven't re- tested with the latest changes), for my test account that already had a profile, this was the experience:

(1) As soon as I logged into GMail and saw the Buzz welcome screen and clicked "no thanks," my account began "following" people chosen by Google. (2) This information was broadcast to a group of people chosen by Google. (3) I was not informed that either of these things had happened. (4) New privacy settings were added to my "Edit Profile" screen, but (5) the least-private setting was activated automatically and I was not told yet that the new settings existed until _after_ information about my email contacts was broadcast to other users.

I don't think anyone disagrees that there were privacy controls. But it was really a "beware of leopard" situation, at least for accounts in this particular state. The only option for these users to preserve their privacy was for them to (1) magically know that before logging into GMail today, they must edit their profile to be non-public, and (2) magically know that new privacy settings had been activated in their account so they could change them before trying Buzz.

Now, I actually like Buzz and am still using it[2]. I think it's a much-needed challenge to Facebook's closed platform. I can see how the Buzz team didn't forsee just how bad this would be for a very small minority of users. But to pretend that all users were given a chance to protect their privacy and just didn't take it is really not true. Some users' privacy was violated the instant they logged in, and giving them tools to help them clean up later (and not telling them about the tools!) does not even remotely help.

[1]: [http://techcrunch.com/2007/12/15/google-starts-rolling- out-c...](http://techcrunch.com/2007/12/15/google-starts-rolling-out- centralized-profiles/)

[2]: <http://google.com/profiles/mbrubeck>

<comment><USER19> You make some good points. I won't repeat, or argue, as I agree with most of what you said. My main contention is that there was a lot of reactionaries proclaiming things that simply weren't true and were making grand assumptions. It made for an environment that was difficult to question. At some point, I was told that readers of Hacker News essentially could not be wrong, and that I was wrong for asking questions or disagreeing.

Thank you for providing more information. =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Most of the damage has already been done. They've lost on the initial buzz that Buzz would have otherwise created. While I appreciate Google's swift response, they made a fatal error during the rollout which will cost them heavily in the long run.

<comment><USER21> You mean in the short run. People will kind of forget this after the techblogs and news sites see a more interesting story. Like now, I'm sure people are still suffering very hard in Haiti but media coverage dropped a lot and i don't see many people talking about it.

<comment><USER22> It has done long run damage to the Buzz product though. First thing my girlfriend asked me when logging into her gmail account this morning was "how do I turn off this Buzz thing". She didn't know what it was, only that there was a lot of 'buzz' on the web about how you should turn it off. I have a hard time imagining a scenario where all these people who've turned it off will somehow change their mind and turn it back on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This title is written in past tense but from reading it I'm told what Google is "going to" be doing.

</comment><comment><USER24> I was going to say "too little, too late" but it would be more accurate to say "just enough, too late."

</comment><comment><USER25> Well, quick response because they realized they screwed it up...

</comment><comment><USER26> Sorry if this is off topic, but: the speed that Google changed Buzz is the reason why I love the web as a deployment platform. Except for local software development tools, Latex, and video editing software, I want everything I do to be web based.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is nice to see, but in my mind, the damage has already been done. I felt really violated by Buzz's rape of my Gmail account.

It will take a long time to heal those wounds

<comment><USER2> I understand your concerns, but the use of the word rape is at best rather loaded. One could make the argument that Google abused your data, but to invoke a metaphor to extreme sexual violence dilutes your own point as well as disrespects the very real victims of rape.

<comment><USER28> The word "rape" has multiple meanings. At least one of which applies and is not necessarily connected with anything of a sexual nature. <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rape>

<comment><USER2> Yes, it does. The trouble is that the connotations of the word are still very highly sexualized, even when using an explicitly non-sexual definition.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple-1 Computer Operation Manual and Warranty - 1976 - <AUTHOR> http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Apple/Apple.AppleI.1976.102646518.pdf

<comment><USER2> It's amazing how similar the graphic on the front cover is to the Kindle screen saver.</comment>


Show HN: Readvee – public domain short stories, mobile-friendly - <AUTHOR> http://readvee.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey Hacker News, I like to read short stories on my phone during my commute, but it's kind of an awful experience on Gutenberg or Feedbooks, so I made something with a nicer interface -- if any of you guys are readers.

I have some more features in mind, if anybody else actually finds this useful [=

Hope you like it.

</comment><comment><USER2> Webpage not available The webpage at [http://readvee.com/](http://readvee.com/) could not be loaded because:

net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED</comment>


Minimal Perfect Hash-Tables in Common Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://lisp-univ-etc.blogspot.com/2018/01/minimal-perfect-hash-tables-in-common.html <comment><USER2> The algorithm used (EPH) seems bit curious. The paper says "The EPH algorithm was implemented in the C language and is available at [http://cmph.sf.net"](http://cmph.sf.net"), but that page has no mention of EPH and I even checked archive.org. I wonder why they ended up never actually releasing a version of cmph with that algorithm. Two years later they seem to have come up with another algorithm, CHD, which was actually released in cmph. Interestingly enough the CHD paper has no comparisons to EPH either.

<comment><USER3> Yes, interesting. Never heard of EPH before. cmph contains only: BDZ, BDZ_PH, BMZ, BMZ8, BRZ, CHD, CHD_PH, CHM and FCH.

EPH seems to be better than BDZ, CHM and FCH, but only for really huge tables, like >100.000 entries. For smaller hash tables a simple perfect hash or even an optimized memcmp switch table is still faster. [https://github.com/rurban/Perfect- Hash#benchmarks](https://github.com/rurban/Perfect-Hash#benchmarks) cmph is usually 2-3x slower than a trivial PH, and much slower for small tables.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love the reference to static structures. Indeed, I have a pet theory that most love of immutable lists is actually a love of static ones. Though, I typically expand that to measure statically visible in the code.

</comment><comment><USER5> perfect map in dart: [https://github.com/tatumizer/pigeon_map#how-it- works](https://github.com/tatumizer/pigeon_map#how-it-works)

</comment><comment><USER6> Relevant, alternate implementation for C and C++:

[https://www.gnu.org/software/gperf/](https://www.gnu.org/software/gperf/)

<comment><USER3> Nope, not at all. gperf creates totally different and unoptimized perfect hashes, not minimal at all.

<comment><USER6> Good to know, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "(although, for many methods, it can still be bounded by amortized O(1) time)"

I don't follow this. Does it mean that you can build the perfect hash table in constant time? Surely you can't beat linear.

<comment><USER8> Inserting into a non-static hash table is measured per-element so the blog is also saying O(1) per element, which is linear time.

<comment><USER9> tl;dr: Each insertion is O(n), but n insertions are also O(n). Saying "amortized time is O(1)" just means the time for n operations is O(n).

To be pedantic: some individual insertions can take more the O(1), namely when you have to rehash it can take O(n) time. So the tight upper bound on each insertion is O(n). So doing n of them seems like it might take O(n^2).

Except you can't rehash on every insertion. So even though the time to insert one is O(n), the time to insert n is also O(n). If you amortize that time over all n insertions, you get O(n) / n == O(1).</comment></comment></comment>


Writing Robust Bash Shell Scripts - <AUTHOR> http://www.davidpashley.com/articles/writing-robust-shell-scripts/ <comment><USER2> If you are interested in this, you may find ShellCheck a useful tool.

It is a static analyzer for Shell, that looks for some of the problems cited in the post.

[https://www.shellcheck.net](https://www.shellcheck.net)

</comment><comment><USER3> This article has some good points, and I was glad to learn about the "trap" command, to clean up temp files on unexpected exit.

There is also a little overlap with this "unofficial bash strict mode," which I now use all the time:

      #!/bin/bash
      set -euo pipefail
      IFS=$'\n\t'

\--- [http://redsymbol.net/articles/unofficial-bash-strict- mode/](http://redsymbol.net/articles/unofficial-bash-strict-mode/)

</comment><comment><USER4> > Be atomic

You can only fool yourself that multiple unrelated operations to the filesystem will be atomic. A more pragmatic approach is to clean up everything at the beginning of the script and start the actual operations with that assumption (and checking the exit status of every command). If the script is interrupted in the middle, just start it again.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great list. I've encountered almost all of these situations before and it's no fun if your bash script goes berserk.

I would add that you should use an explicit shebang such as #!/bin/bash instead of #!/bin/sh if your script is anything more complicated than a simple list of statements.</comment>


Some tea bags may shed billions of microplastics per cup - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/tea-bags-plastic-study-mcgill-1.5295662 <comment><USER2> Loose tea is often cheaper and of better quality in my experience. If you brew tea a lot using a reusable strainer seems like a much better choice. I'm also entirely convinced that these plastic pyramid-shaped bags are pure marketing. Then again, I find Lipton tea absolutely terrible regardless of the shape of the bag.

<comment><USER3> My buddy used to work for Lipton. He explained that they use the cheapest grade of tea (dust) available. Also many tea companies mix non-tea additives (fillers) to their tea bags.

After hearing this I decided, if it's not full loose leaf, I don't drink it. We found that companies like Elephant Chateau ([http://elephantchateau.com](http://elephantchateau.com)) deliver the 3 highest grades of tea direct from Ceylon mountain estates with the option for plant-based pyramid bags (soilon) or a free stainless steel infuser.

Bonus, the tea actually tastes like tea and is tasty enough to drink plain unlike Lipton dust. It always funny to hear people promote all the health benefits of tea then turn around and dump 100 grams of sugar into a cup to make it palatable.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, bagged tea exists because there are lots of buyers who only want quick refreshing non-coffee caffeine, and don't care for taste that much. Or sometimes they just want a background for those 100 g. of sugar you mentioned. Tea dust is a perfect match for this market, because it releases everything it holds to water immediately, while whole leaves may require some patience, and proper procedure.

<comment><USER5> FWIW, I'm personally fond of tea dust for cold brew, too. This summer I've been very much enjoying gyokuro dust steeped overnight in the fridge as my morning beverage. Not only is it less expensive than the whole leaf stuff (essentially free vs. some of the most expensive tea I own), but I think that works better with that brewing method, too.

Probably the main reason I don't use Lipton instead of the good stuff when I'm making cold brew is that I dislike all the packaging waste. Between the brewing method and the serving temperature, I don't necessarily find the taste alone to be enough better to justify the higher price.

<comment><USER6> where do you get your gyokuro from? the last time I had it was literally almost a decade ago and I absolutely loved it but I haven't been able to really find it except for expensive online retailers that strike me more as vanity brands than anything. but if you know of any good sources, id love to check them out

<comment><USER7> [https://www.hibiki-an.com/sp/index.php/cPath/21](https://www.hibiki- an.com/sp/index.php/cPath/21)

This is a farm I quite like. They're high quality and not a terrible price point since your buying directly from the farmer without a middleman.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ugh, yet another "hmm, never thought of that" thing to worry about, but it comes at a good time. I was just giving thought to going to back to loose leaf and a tea ball as I was preparing some Trader Joe's Earl Grey that comes in an individual plastic wrapper, along with a string and a bag, and whatever else. For a cup of tea. I'm one step away from a Kuerig. Other brands in the cupboard aren't a whole lot better on packaging.

And now plastic in my tea. The wife's got to have a tea strainer in here somewhere...

<comment><USER9> I've been trying to avoid groceries that come with single-use plastic and it's tough. Grapes and cherry tomatoes come in plastic bags or cartons, even at salt-of-the-earth type places. Meat or cheese from the deli gets a zip lock. There's no way to use the olive bar without grabbing a plastic carton, in various sizes.

I wouldn't have even suspected the tea bags themselves. I assume some of them are still made with natural fibers but how would you know?

<comment> a-wu At the higher-end grocery stores near me (Whole Foods, Nugget, etc), you can bring your own container and tare it before filling. Maybe you can see if your local grocery store can do this at the deli/olive bar?

<comment><USER10> I've been doing this a while. At the big stores, cashiers are always happy to do it, it's just a mild inconvenience because they rarely know how to tare on their machines–they always have to call over a manager and figure it out together. I figure if enough people do it, they'll get used to it, but I don't hold hope for that, judging by the stares we get from everyone waiting in line behind us. It feels like the average person feels more averse to what we're trying to accomplish.

Our local co-op is a lot more streamlined for this, they even do periodical sales for people who bring reusable containers.

Our next goal is to bring our own containers when we eat out, in case we don't finish the food and want to bring the rest home. Often times we purposely order more than we can finish so we get a greater variety of things to share and a whole extra meal the next day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some of these fancy bags (e.g. from tea pigs) are made from polylactic acid. This is derived from corn starch and used in temporary medical implants (it degrades to lactic acid) so hopefully it's safe.

<comment><USER12> Thanks, I'm a Tea Pig drinker, was looking for this comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I drink a decent amount of tea, and I feel like this is largely confined to the mid-grade teas that are fancier than your basic Lipton or Twinings, but not-so-fancy as to be loose-leaf.

I'm thinking specifically of stuff like Harney and Sons, that you often see for sale at your nearest B&N or Starbucks: [https://www.amazon.com/Harney- Sons-Hot-Cinnamon-Spice/dp/B00...](https://www.amazon.com/Harney-Sons-Hot- Cinnamon-Spice/dp/B0065JA1IQ/)

I also see grocery-store versions at Target and such. Those appear to be the ones that employee the plastic triangle satchet. The cheaper stuff, from what I can tell, is still using paper.

<comment><USER14> Many cheap Lipton teas have this type of sachet. Using this plastic is a horrible trend and I'm not sure how it started. My worry was always more about leeching, but the microplastic results might even be more disturbing. Such a shame that a natural simple solution is compromised. I'm sticking to my looseleaf.

[https://www.amazon.com/Lipton-Tea-Fruits-Rouges- Red/dp/B00JN...](https://www.amazon.com/Lipton-Tea-Fruits-Rouges- Red/dp/B00JNS8L9C/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?keywords=lipton+iced+tea+sachet&qid=1569434867&sr=8-2-fkmr0)

<comment><USER13> If I had to _guess_ , the "plastic triangle" is a bit larger and would potentially allow larger tea-leaves to move more freely within the water and infuse better.

The cheapest end of commercial tea bags are all basically _tea powder_ , so they don't need the larger bags to infuse.

<comment><USER14> That's possible, but I think you've already reached a point of diminishing returns with a standard teabag. They do have a more premium feel, so it's probably a combination of perceived quality and cost savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The use of "some" and "may" in titles always bothers me. Seems like there should be more concrete language available to state the point the article is attempting to make.

<comment><USER16> The flip side of this is that scientists are terribly difficult people to get to not hedge their statements.

It's just a consequence of the scientific mindset -- scientists are aware that today's results are always provisional, someone may come along tomorrow with a new discovery that overturns them. So they tend to avoid making definitive statements like saying something applies to _all_ things, or that some thing _is_ , favoring less definitive statements like something applies to _some_ things, some thing _may be_ , etc.

<comment><USER15> I would prefer something similar to, "Test of single plastic teabag shown to release billions of microplastics and nanoplastics".

Accurate without overpromising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is bad, but most "paper" tea bags still include plastic in their manufacture as part of the heat sealing. English article about which brands do and don't here, note that it's all the mass market brands that include plastic, so that's most of the market.

[https://www.countryliving.com/uk/create/food-and- drink/news/...](https://www.countryliving.com/uk/create/food-and- drink/news/a3291/plastic-tea-bags-environment/)

<comment><USER18> This looks to be an equivalent US article: [https://www.becausehealth.org/plastic-in-my-tea- bag-26189340...](https://www.becausehealth.org/plastic-in-my-tea- bag-2618934044.html)

I was happy to see Celestial Seasonings have no plastic. They also don't have the string, tag or staple, which I always appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I drink tea over coffee (for digestive reasons), and I assume I am missing out on really good tea. Any readily-available loose-leaf tea recommendations?

<comment><USER20> I mail ordered from TeeGschwendner ([https://www.teegschwendner.de/en](https://www.teegschwendner.de/en)) for years, and their quality is very solid. I stopped because our local yarn store (!) had a truly excellent looseleaf tea selection.

Sadly, going to an upscale tea place in an urban area does not guarantee you decent tea, nor are places consistent. There are places that have nice blacks and greens, but utterly miserable rooibos (this is quite common).

<comment><USER19> Thanks. I bought some loose black tea from a shop in NYC's Chelsea Market last year. I figured I would be in for a treat, but it was completely bland and tasteless. Been hesitant to splurge much since then, but will definitely be checking these recommendations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder how this compares to the several grams of plastic per week consumed from drinking water.

[https://phys.org/news/2019-06-consume-credit-card-worth- plas...](https://phys.org/news/2019-06-consume-credit-card-worth-plastic.html)

<comment><USER22> That's disturbing. Can any consumer grade filters remove plastics that small?

<comment><USER23> Just stop drinking bottled water.

<comment><USER24> That article also suggests tap water contains plastics, so "stop drinking bottled water" will help, but doesn't remove it all from the equation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There have been a lot of news stories about microplastics being basically everywhere recently.

Is there any good research on if it's a problem? What are the effects on humans of consuming them? What are the effects on aquatic ecosystems, etc?

</comment><comment><USER26> Billions of microplastics... why don't they just say thousands of plastics?

<comment><USER27> Because graphite is not diamond.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > the tea bags released microplastic and even smaller nanoplastic particles — > and not just the hundreds or thousands Tufenkji had been expecting.

this is a misleading title. if one microplastic is a thousand nanoplastics then obviously it's going to be _trillions_ of nanoplastics and billions of microplastics.

> "We were shocked when we saw billions of particles in a single cup of tea," > she said.

So if you get this "bubble tea" with tapioca balls in it, are they macro particles?

<comment><USER29> No, because it depends on how it's breaking down. If you have one cohesive sheet of plastic, it would be wrong to say that you have trillions of nanoparticles of plastic.

The concerns with plastics that break up into many smaller pieces and enter the body and wider ecosystem are different (and potentially worse) than the concerns of the impacts of a single macro piece.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > _But it 's not known if that poses health risk_

This is the big question. I think people around the world have been ingesting microplastic for 30 years or longer, yet there's no reported case of any direct toxic effects. So I guess microplastic doesn't have immediately effects on health, but I won't be surprised if future studies find longterm effects, such as increasing the risk of cancer, damage to the circulatory system or the brain.

Overall, I think we must take actions immediately for solutions, but I won't particularly worry about this problem and I'll continue buying bottled water. It's not unlike the air pollution in the 20th century, one has to live with it.

Nevertheless, "microplastic is going to kill all of us" surely is going to be the trope of the next decade.

See also:

* Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16793888](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16793888)

* Microplastics found in 90 percent of table salt [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18248471](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18248471)

* Microplastics Are Blowing in the Wind [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19672514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19672514)

* Microplastics found in supermarket fish, shellfish [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14245133](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14245133)

</comment><comment><USER31> Plastic tea bags aside, I was shocked to learn that many paper tea bags still use plastic glue [1], which can contaminate compost.

[1] [https://www.countryliving.com/uk/create/food-and- drink/news/...](https://www.countryliving.com/uk/create/food-and- drink/news/a3291/plastic-tea-bags-environment/)

<comment><USER32> There really aren't many glues which are compostable, non-plastic, non-toxic and can withstand 10 minutes of boiling water.

<comment><USER33> Are staples bad for compost? I've had some teabags that used staples, they worked fine for the purpose

<comment><USER34> Staples can't be microwaved. Yes I know, you can microwave the cup and then put the bags in, but some people make that mistake and (rightly) freak out when they see the fireworks.

<comment><USER35> Staples microwave OK. A microwave's wavelength is about 12 cm. A staple is a small fraction of that and won't couple much energy.

<comment><USER36> Not to mention the water it is submerged in absorbs the actual radiation, so it generally doesn't even make it to the staple to begin with (at least, if you push the bad down to flood it before heating).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The other problem, in the US at least, is that many coffee shops and restaurants are sellers of a popular brand of tea that comes with plastic mesh bags (Might Leaf) yet have not thought through/do not understand (/do not care?) they are mixing compostable matter with non-compostable matter. The results are tea in the trash or plastic in compostables.

</comment><comment><USER38> Not a single mention in this thread of a gaiwan.

It's stunning how there's an ancient, effective, wasteless, flavorless, attractive and elegant alternative to tea bags that western culture simply has no clue about. The Chinese and other asian cultures have been using it for thousands of years. (Or at least since the Ming dynasty, and far earlier if you include the "tea bowl" precursors.)

There is zero need for a tea bag when you have such a simple, elegant, and effective ceramic dish in which to steep tea.

That and the fact that tea bag tea is virtually synonymous with ignorance of the full range of quality that exists in the world of tea, as far I can tell. The good teas from around the world just do not come in tea bags, and routinely when I share them with friends who think tea comes in tea bags, they are blown away.

</comment><comment><USER39> If you want good tea:

Forget about Lipton, Celestial Seasonings, anything that comes in tea bags, or has a name brand on it.

If there's a Chinatown or international market street in your area, go there. Ask around for where there's a tea shop.

A good tea shop will offer to make you some tea when you walk in. Accept and try whatever they give you. Buy what you like. There are hundreds of varieties of green tea alone, not to mention white, black, oolong, pu-erh, etc.

Tea is sold loose and by weight. When you make it, you can put water just off the boil in a tall glass with the tea leaves. They will sink to the bottom and you don't need to filter it. Later you can get more sophisticated about your brewing and buy a clay teapot, or a special glass flask with a pop-in stainless steel strainer at the mouth.

</comment><comment><USER40> Lots of comments promoting loose-leaf teas. My favorite suppliers are:

\+ [https://www.meimeitea.com/](https://www.meimeitea.com/)

\+ [https://yunnansourcing.com/](https://yunnansourcing.com/)

If you live in the DC Area, Victoria (who runs Meimei Fine Teas) hosts tea classes, and is happy to share stores of her annual tea sourcing trips to China. Really high quality products from a trustworthy source.

There's something really special about knowing trusting an individual (rather than a company) to deliver you a fantastic product and experience.

<comment><USER41> Thanks for these. I've been looking for an alternative to [https://www.rareteacompany.com/](https://www.rareteacompany.com/) – which also supplies great tea, but seems to have issues (reliably) shipping internationally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Lipton tea in mainstream US stores has always suffered by comparison to the English brands. (Tea-drinking is relatively uncommon in the US.)

If they even have any, many US restaurants will often serve tea that's obviously been open-to-the-atmosphere for a long time. They just don't know any better.

In the northern US, we could border-cross to buy Canadian teabags which were far better than US bags ... owing, no doubt, to the number of Canadians of UK- extraction. (Which may also explain why most Canadian beer is better.)

</comment><comment><USER43> The good thing, if you can call it that, is PET and nylon (what these silk teabags are made of) are some of the least reactive and most human-safe plastics you can put in your body.

<comment><USER44> Researching this it seems like PLA is also common. "Plastic" is a super vague term, and it seems like non-petroleum plastics are the norm for this application. One benefit is that these types of plastics readily biodegrade into lactic acid (which naturally occurs in many foods). From a health standpoint it seems like they could be safer than some petroleum based plastics. Would be interested to learn more from someone who knows this area better.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> One should also mention that tea is an imported good in most developed countries. It's externalities and environmental impact go far beyond microplastics.

</comment><comment><USER46> I hope this news tempts some convenience-tea drinkers to explore the incredible world of loose, whole leaf tea.

Many aromatic and delicious rabbit holes await you if you start to explore the original world of tea which is still very much alive and well.

All the styles and sub-styles of Chinese and Japanese teas are rewarding to prepare and serve and drink. Smaller footprint for processing, packaging, transport, storage, and waste.

</comment><comment><USER47> Lidl (in Europe) has pyramid teabags that look the same but are made of cellulose and bio-degradeable (according to the packaging).

</comment><comment><USER48> I am a fan of buying empty tea bags and then filling them with loose-leaf tea. The more enviromentally friendly way to have tea that is not oversteeped would be to use a metal strainer, but those can be a pain to clean.

I didn't know to check what those bags are made of, but now I do.

<comment><USER49> I use a Japanese teapot, and most have a metal mesh inside. You can just give it a rinse with water after using it and you're pretty much done. If you're using decent quality tea leaves, they'll expand to a pretty large size within the pot and there's really nothing to get caught in the filter. Just flip it over and dump it.

Definitely a worthwhile purchase if you're a big drinker.

Here's an example: [http://kyonagomi.ocnk.net/data/kyonagomi/product/20141028_ki...](http://kyonagomi.ocnk.net/data/kyonagomi/product/20141028_kiusuhimetu/RIMG0142.JPG)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> My pet peeve is piping hot coffee which is brewed or delivered using plastic. It is almost impossible to buy prepared coffee that doesn't come in contact with some kind of plastic. I don't trust any of it.

</comment><comment><USER51> Very slightly related. I thought I could throw tetley tea bags in the yard, turns out they do not biodegrade at all. Even though the thing looks like natural fibers.. maybe they're just thin plastic fibers ?

</comment><comment><USER52> Commentary published in Environmental Health Perspectives in April 2010 suggested that PET might yield endocrine disruptors under conditions of common use and recommended research on this topic.[26]

</comment><comment><USER53> I wish they had reported the brands :/

<comment><USER54> This. How does one tell whether this affects a particular brand or not?

<comment><USER55> The article says that it is the "silken" pyramid shaped tea bags that are made of plastic.

I buy tea loose-leaf at the asian grocery store and steep it in a glass coffee press to filter out the leaves. Yay super cheap and no microplastics!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Are there devices that can count microplastic particles? If not, how would you build one?

<comment><USER57> My guess is you take a very small sample, count the particles, extrapolate to the whole (I suppose image recognition might automate this somewhat)

<comment><USER56> Yes but how do you distinguish the microplastics from small tea dust?

<comment><USER58> With an electron microscope and infrared and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. From the article:

 _The researchers counted the plastic particles by cutting open bags of tea, removing the tea, rinsing off any pieces that might have come off during cutting, and then steeping the bags in distilled water at 95 C. They then took a sample, let the water evaporate, and counted the plastic particles under an electron microscope, then extrapolated to get the amount in one cup. They also used other instruments to identify the type of plastic in each bag._

 _The researchers also repeated the experiment with uncut bags that still contained tea to make sure the cutting didn 't cause the bags to shed, and with loose tea leaves, confirming that uncut bags shed microplastics too (although they were harder to count) and the plastic didn't originate from the tea itself._

The original study references the use of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Guess its back to using my led ball tea steeper.

</comment><comment><USER60> Part of the reason I don't use sea salt at home. Here in Canada we can pump salt out of the ground and it's largely free of microplastics.

</comment><comment><USER61> Starbucks uses them I believe.

</comment><comment><USER62> Billions.

</comment><comment><USER63> There is no going back about cleaning plastics by traditional methods now unfortunately.

The only real solution I see is if we bio-engineer some bacteria/microorganism capable of decomposing it and release it in the environment. It might be a danregous proposition, but (expect the even more advanced and potentially dangerous proposition of nanites) I can't see any other way of getting rid of all the plastic we already put into the environment even if we stop producing it.

</comment><comment><USER63> And add the problem with plastics with the fact that this marketing stunt with pyramidal tea bags, occupies about 3x more volume and as such take 3x more resources to store and transport than traditional tea bags.

</comment><comment><USER64> Those fancy bags are called "sachets" in the tea world

<comment><USER65> Which means "bag" in French

<comment><USER21> Small bag. It's the diminutive of "sac" (bag).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Modern tea paraphernalia is stupid. Like those fancy woven strings that act like wicks and dribble tea down the side. It's hard to even find normal tea anymore. I ask for tea and people ask "what flavor." And I'm like "tea flavor." My Bangladeshi mom uses Lipton tea bags and a bit of milk. Should be good enough for everybody.

<comment><USER8> _My Bangladeshi mom uses Lipton tea bags and a bit of milk._

I hope that wasn't an appeal to some kind of authority. All that tells me is that some Bangladeshi women have even worst taste in tea than this ignorant American. There's quite a wide gulf between not wanting to consume the least common denominator and making a lifestyle out of it. As for flavors, just because one's view says tea should only come in one flavor doesn't mean reality has to agree.

<comment><USER67> > than this ignorant American

I can't see rayiner giving any indication that they were American, though.

<comment><USER8> No, _I 'm_ the ignorant American. Lipton is suitable only for iced tea. Then again, maybe Lipton is fine and I just don't like orange pekoe tea.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-bamboo-wood-a-bigger-worldwide-industry-since-it-grows-so-quickly-and-is-so-strong-Couldnt-it-replace-lumber-and-save-many-trees/answer/Raphaël-du-Sablon?share=1 <comment><USER3> Bamboo isn't going to replace lumber for most permanent uses, but it sure is handy when you need to put something together in a pinch.

I was once trekking in northern Thailand with some Akha hill tribe guides. When it was time for dinner, they cut down a large bamboo and within minutes fashioned essentially a complete dinner service out of it:

* A framework for their overnight hut/lean-to

* A pot for boiling rice

* A frame to hold the pot over an open fire

* Bowls for serving and eating

Crappy pics:

[http://www.patokallio.name/photo/travel/Thailand/ChiangDao/C...](http://www.patokallio.name/photo/travel/Thailand/ChiangDao/Camp_Dinner_Large.JPG)

[http://www.patokallio.name/photo/travel/Thailand/ChiangDao/C...](http://www.patokallio.name/photo/travel/Thailand/ChiangDao/Camp_Base_Large.JPG)

[http://www.patokallio.name/photo/travel/Thailand/ChiangDao/F...](http://www.patokallio.name/photo/travel/Thailand/ChiangDao/Forest_Bamboo_Large.JPG)

(...and obviously the darker pieces of bamboo were reused from previous camps.)

<comment><USER4> Wow, those bowls are great, yet so simple. It's amusing to think they'd probably be about £25 each from John Lewis.

<comment><USER5> I'd buy them, but it would have to be a set for £25, and on sale during one of the 100 sales they have each year.

Side Note: I don't know why they haven't made their way stateside, they are one of my favorite department stores. Always clean, friendly staff, toilets are impeccable (though that might just be a British thing).

<comment><USER6> John Lewis? It's insanely expensive and the variety of products is risible.

I remember looking at the pans and the fans this summer. There were more options above £100 than below. There was hardly anything basic and certainly not at a basic price.

When my vacuum cleaner died last year, I went to look for another one and they didn't have any except Dyson and its luxury competitors.

<comment><USER4> It's often cheaper than Amazon for the market segment it serves.

I don't think 'JL has more pans above £100 than below' is any more valid a complaint than 'Target has more pans below $100 than above'.

(I've been to a Target once, sorry if that's not accurate, but I'm sure you see what I mean and can substitute something that is!)

<comment><USER6> I don't know about the luxury market segment, didn't try to compare there. I'm trying to illustrate that they are not competing on the low to medium range.

Going there a few times only to find nothing and have to buy on Amazon. Ain't going again.

IMO they're ignoring a big market segment and they are missing out on customers. Maybe it works out in the city and canary wharf but I doubt it would fare well in the less affluent countryside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Relatives that lived in Japan brought back bamboo stuff to the US, and it all cracked within a year or so.

The reason was that bamboo does well in wet climates where the moisture in the air keeps in flexible. (or something like that) But in the US, it's much drier (most places) than in Japan.

This fits with my experience of bamboo furniture over the years as well. It becomes brittle and fragile the older it gets. But oak/pine/maple don't seem to suffer this fate nearly as bad.

<comment><USER8> I don't doubt what you're saying, but I wonder why my bamboo ski poles don't crack. I have lots of them, and they've been used every winter for nearly forty years, from back when I bought them. They're as good as new, still. I bought all the stock of the last shop selling them at the time, in my student town, as I didn't want to use fiber or metal poles in the mountains (can't easily be fixed if they break, while bamboo poles can be fixed if they split, and, with some tape, can even be prevented from breaking in the first place).

<comment><USER9> Bamboo is anisotropic like timber, which means that expansion and contraction caused by drying or temperature variation will happen at different rates along the tangential, longitutional and radial axis. Crack happens when stress exceed the tensile strength of the material in one direction. Thus a long and thin object is less vulnerable to this type of failure as only one axis undergoes a significant change in size.

In addition, the bamboo ski poles may have been thoroughly dried by kiln heating and sealed with some type of resin or lacquer to prevent moisture ingress, especially if they were made to get wet.

<comment><USER8> I suspect you are correct in your assumptions in the last paragraph, at least about being kiln heated. That seems very likely. There is also a thin layer of something, could be resin or lacquer as you suggest. It is definitely not epoxy though (re. next poster)

<comment><USER9> The other poster was probably thinking about bamboo fibre-epoxy composite which is more like fibreglass.

I vaguely remember the sealant is not really food safe, which is why many bambio utensils still crack after a few years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a wood worker, the answer on the post does agreat job. I will add only one more point. Wood working in 99% of cases does not lead to deforestation. In most countries it is hard to buy illegal wood. In South Africa we buy mostly pine where 2 trees are planted for every one sold. These forestries are heavily regulated and protected. They are businesses. The deforestation you usually hear about is in third world countries and not for wood sales but rather for land gain or things like palm oil.

If you are buying wood from a hardware outlet you can pretty much be guaranteed that it is safe wood. Many trees are protected by law nowadays.

In most cases, buying wood products actually increases tree mass globally and decreases pollution.

Buy wood products when you can. You will be planting more trees and decreasing pollution.

<comment><USER11> In terms of product lifecycle, there's no doubt that wood (or bamboo) is a good choice of material, plants are pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and as long as what's built is maintained, that CO2 will remain sequestered. Contrast that with metals (which have to mined and processed, using huge amounts of energy) or plastics (from fossil fuels, also a headache to dispose of). Not to mention wood has grain, making it pleasant to look at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's a YouTube channel (0) that uploads videos from a girl in China building things out of bamboo, watching her work is entrancing: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LTejJnrzGPM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LTejJnrzGPM)

[0] I think the channel is fan made and she actually posts them to a Chinese social media site.

<comment><USER13> The channel is hosted by a fan but owned by the girl, she uploads her actual content to a short-video site

<comment><USER14> I'm not entirely comfortable with the ethics of this but one great opportunity is going to be content arbitrage, especially between Chinese internet sites and then greater world's. There are some pretty funny memes coming out of Tik Tok now.

<comment><USER15> Content arbitrage has been a thing inside China for a few years, particularly due to the Great Fire Wall blocking a great deal of websites. Quite a few accounts exist on Wechat and Weibo that aggregate memes and viral videos from Youtube and Twitter.

A few prominent Chinese video creators have made their way to launch official Youtube channels. Chinese-language Youtube has been experiencing a boom since 2015 due to increasing numbers of international students living abroad, proliferation of VPNs, and users in HK/TW.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> village-idiot I feel that a lot of concern about replacing wood is misplaced or fails to properly differentiate between different species of wood harvested in different locations.

America has a mix of forests for nature preservation, recreation, and lumber production. The latter are very well managed, with loggers very careful to replace all the trees they remove with saplings so their sons and daughters have something to harvest in 50 years. The total result is that the number of US trees has doubled in 70 years, and were actually back up to 2/3 of the estimated 1600s tree count. I personally have no qualms about consuming American harvested hardwood, because I know that it's part of a successful forestry program that's planting more trees than it takes.

Now the one place the above doesn't apply are South American and African hardwoods, which are currently not super well managed. So feel free to enjoy your Oak or Cherry floors, but maybe pass on the Mahogany and Teak.

<comment><USER16> What part of the states do you live in?

Lumber in the three states in my area is harvested in a completely unsustainable manner. Loggers will purchase the rights to log from farmers, and clear-cut every single piece of whatever is popular at the moment (black walnut right now, Ash and Maple in the 90's). No plan to replant, other than if nature itself makes a recovery.

<comment><USER17> Are you in the southeast US? A generation ago, so many investors planted trees that it's all but worthless now once you consider the costs of bringing the lumber to market. I imagine that a lot of people just want to liquidate their holdings and get whatever money they can back.

<comment> village-idiot Either way, current estimates are that we're consuming about 42% of the lumber that's growing per year. I'm personally ok with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article makes no mention of biomass per acre when farmed.

As a C4 photosynthesis plant, bamboo presumably grows more biomass per year than other trees.

If true, that would seem significant enough to outweigh many of the disadvantages.

<comment><USER19> Iirc, there's a bamboo tree that grows very fast and has been considered for carbon sequestration. But the problem is, as with all trees, the carbon isn't locked away from the atmosphere. It also takes up valuable farm land as they need something more like marshland than drier, more common land.

<comment> barry-cotter You can make charcoal from it which generates some heat from burning but doesn't release near as much of the carbon. Then you can treat the charcoal to make terra preta, which is a soil additive that lasts centuries and encourages soil formation and carbon retention itself.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta)

<comment><USER20> Commonly known as "biochar", particularly among permaculturists:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The list of uses is missing the best one: clothing!

Bamboo fabric is very soft and comfortable, if you haven't tried it yet you should!

Downside: it doesn't last as long as cotton, and takes a bit longer to dry after washing.

<comment><USER22> It's also missing scaffolding. Bamboo is often used to make construction scaffolding in areas where it is abundant.

<comment><USER23> I can confirm on scaffolding. Having traveled in Asia a fair share, I have come across some _interesting_ creations with bamboo scaffolding. It's incredible to see just how much the material can hold above itself without breaking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Bamboo, coconut, neem and maybe banana are considered "wonder trees or plants", IIRC, because each has many uses. Banana maybe a bit less than the other three. Also garlic for health (neem is known for health uses but also has many uses).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azadirachta_indica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azadirachta_indica)

In India neem cake (residue after extracting oil from neem seeds) is fed to cattle and used as an organic fertilizer (IIRC, as are some other oilseed cakes, some of them are used as feed in aquaculture too), fresh young neem leaves are made into a paste/curry and eaten in some states (good for purifying the blood and skin and getting rid of worms), neem twigs are used as toothbrushes (the germicidal properties help), neem oil is applied on cattle (and sometimes humans use it) to keep away flies and insects, etc. etc.

For banana, apart from eating the ripe fruit, in southern states at least, the raw fruit is also cooked, the flowers and stems are also eaten as vegetables in curries (dry or wet), the leaves are used as plates for eating (thrown after one use), etc.

It's really amazing the number of different uses that many plants and trees have been put to, traditionally. I read a lot about this for Indian plants in a government research institute's publications some time ago. Fuel, food, timber, other construction material, medicine (both external and internal), are some of the uses known.

<comment><USER24> Moringa (drumstick) and jackfruit are two others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe they should focus on the carbon capture aspects (which are remarkable, bamboo grows _fast_ ) and try to work around the other issues

Does bamboo aggregate exists?

Though cellulose to fuel is kinda promising and still something to be cracked (pun intended), maybe it will never work.

</comment><comment><USER26> Thank you for sharing this. I have been wondering about bamboo's utility for paper & packaging, to perhaps displace some plastic. This article has a better roundup of the state of things.

FWIW, Last time I asked about this, I found Ecoplanet Bamboo Group is trying to address some of the short-comings:

[http://www.ecoplanetbamboo.com](http://www.ecoplanetbamboo.com)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecoplanet_Bamboo_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecoplanet_Bamboo_Group)

[http://www.ecoplanetbamboo.com/fsc- certification](http://www.ecoplanetbamboo.com/fsc-certification)

</comment><comment><USER27> IMO bamboo can't be a bigger thing than wood simply because:

\- bamboo cultivation came from not-much-developed countries, so not much good for us and not much easy to develop for them;

\- bamboo duration, even with not so cheap treatments, is far less than the wood;

\- bamboo fire resistance is very low, even with not so cheap treatments;

There is a trend in the western for bamboo simply because we consume more wood than natural regeneration and we need cheaper alternatives but this trend is really limited to consumer stuff, not structural/real architecture one as many do in some Asian and south-American countries...

</comment><comment> village-idiot I'm not a big fan of bamboo as a hardwood for all the reasons listed above. But the stuff does make some rather lovely, but expensive, flyrods.

</comment><comment><USER28> In warm, wet climates, it appears to work pretty well to make buildings out of bamboo, if you leave it looking like bamboo instead of turning it into lumber. For example: [https://qz.com/367284/spectacular-bamboo- architecture/](https://qz.com/367284/spectacular-bamboo-architecture/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Is there a pressing need to replace wood? I think, at least in the USA, most wooden goods are made from cheap soft woods that grow quickly, and can basically be treated as an agricultural commodity. Are trees inefficient at converting light/water/nitrogen to cellulose?

<comment><USER30> Well i think it's more that bamboo grows significantly faster than even the cheapest woods.

FFS some species of bamboo can grow over an inch an hour!

<comment><USER24> Yes, I don't have data (can be looked up), but I've read that some bamboo species grow really fast.

<comment><USER24> There's also this interesting and devastating phenomenon I read about a while ago: in some places where bamboo grows (IIRC, one or more of the north-eastern Indian states, like Assam, is one of them), there are periodic famines or at least great shortages of food, and hence human deaths or migration, due to rats breeding like mad due to bamboo's flowering (which the rats eat - <USER2> be flowers or seeds) or something, every some number of years, and then when the bamboo food is over, they invade human habitation to continue getting food. Not sure if it is a solved problem yet.

Update: Just googled about it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mautam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mautam)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have a bamboo plant(s) in my back yard. I frequently harvest a few pieces here and there for projects that need light, flexible materials. Very convenient.

</comment><comment><USER32> You would think quora learned their lesson about forcing uses to login just to browse the site after they got hacked. Apparently not.

</comment><comment><USER33> Great Question... and one I think about a lot. I work for a company called BamCore -- we make prefab home materials out of bamboo (wall systems for right now, but hoping to expand our product portfolio to include the entire building envelope). I have tried to outline the below with reasons why _today_ bamboo is still considered niche in the west, and why I am so bullish on it breaking that mold in the future.

1\. Supply of the good stuff is limited. There are thousands of species of bamboo, but only a handful are good for creating traditional buildings and other highly valuable commercial products. Bamboo forests make up about 3-4% of total forest cover (30-40mil ha), and the majority of it is in India and China, which means western access to the fiber is limited, and access to the really valuable fiber, is even more limited. 2\. Knowledge diffusion has been limited. Because of Bamboo's geography, its mainly used in the east, and is often seen as a "poor man's" timber... an unfortuante stereotype we are trying to get around. Also, if you ask anyone what they think about bamboo in the west, they will invariably say something like "oh, we had bamboo in our backyard and we just couldn't get rid of it!!" Running bamboo, different than clumping bamboo, are more common in the temperate countries in the west and give the fiber a reputation for being rather frustrating... 3\. Western timber companies create very tall barriers to entry. Companies like Weyerhaueser are massive... they, unfortunately, could rather easily shut down a budding bamboo plantation.

For all intents and purposes, bamboo is a cottage industry in most western countries. Yes, the bamboo utensils, plates, and high-end flooring are cool, but until there is a truly amazing commercial opportunity for us to showcase bamboo fiber's quite amazing properties (tensile and flexural strength in particular), timber will always be cheaper, and easier.

Now, why I think the tides may change for bamboo (particularly the Guadua, Dendrocalamus Asper, Bambusa Bambos and Textilis species).

1\. Bamboo is much better than wood at sequestering carbon. over the past year, I, and a team of researchers, have undertaken a life cycle comparison of wood and bamboo's carbon sequestration effectiveness when productizing the fiber. The results were astounding and were somewhat unexpected. Bamboo's incredibly short time to maturity (6-7 years) and annual growth dynamics make it a far better sequestration engine than wood, which normally takes between 25 and 70 years. It also turns out that clear-cutting, the most popular form of harvesting wood fiber, is actually rather catastrophic for carbon flowing from growth to captured in product. In fact, on average only about 35% of the carbon that a tree stand captures makes it into a product (pulp, osb, paper, etc). Bamboo is never clear cut, because it grows rhizomally (its technically a grass). And therefore keeps a much higher amount of the carbon sequestered when being harvested and productized. The world seems to be somewhat waking up to the threat of climate change (unfortunately our president is still asleep)... we hope bamboo might be able to ride some of those tailwinds into becoming a more mainstream fiber source. There are also a few reforestation projects worldwide that contemplate bamboo projects.

2\. There are smart people working on making bamboo fiber more popular. Besides BamCore, there have popped up a bunch of different bamboo-based companies in the US, and there are 100,000s of acres of bamboo being planted currently in Alabama by a company called Resource Fiber.

3\. bamboo tech is improving rapidly. BamCore has developed a few different patented processes to make the bamboo stem into walls. Other companies are working on composites that would be as light as carbon fiber and completely bullet proof. The knowledge of how to use the fiber is still so young compared to wood, the only way to go is up.

4\. Building and energy laws are going green fast. California and other states are adopting very green policy goals over the coming decades. BamCore's prefab wall system is already code commpliant, and the bamboo's natural thermal, air transmissivity, acoustic, tensile, compressive, flexural (etc etc) make it fit well with the goals of policy makers.

But, we shall see how it all pans out.

Resources: [https://bamcore.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BamCore- and-G...](https://bamcore.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BamCore-and-Global- Warming_2017-06-19.pdf) [https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/ne_gtr343.pdf](https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/ne_gtr343.pdf) [https://bamcore.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/11/attachment-1....](https://bamcore.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/11/attachment-1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER34> Rubberwood. Rubberwood has seen huge growth in use in the last couple decades, particularly in furniture.

</comment><comment><USER35> Because it splinters and falls apart.

</comment><comment><USER36> TL;DR answer: because they're different things.

Using bamboo for building houses tends to result in using different building methods & architecture. Which can look amazing (see [http://ibuku.com/](http://ibuku.com/)). But I doubt it'd make sense to use bamboo to build my house in snowy Norway, rather than locally sourced lumber.

<comment><USER37> Your TL;DR doesn't do the answer justice IMO, especially the "Lumber" section. It's not just that they're different, it's that lumber is more versatile because it's more easy to shape it to fit your design.

I don't know anything about woodworking (or bamboo-working for that matter) but if I am to trust this Quora answer it seems that bamboo is only really good if you want bamboo-shaped elements. Otherwise you need highly processed bamboo to emulate the versatile lumber boards:

>The process is fairly involved. Typically, bamboo is harvested, leached in water to remove starches (so it does not rot so quickly) or boiled in hydrogen peroxide (or both), dried, and baked at high temperature to darken its color. Sliced into thin strips, it is arranged in layers, usually with some degree of weaving to improve strength, mixed with resins, and then subject to high temperature and pressure to set the epoxy.[10] The resulting "board" is then stained and sealed, much like a regular hardwood floor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> TL;DR:?Black liquor used in leaching bamboo of its high silica and its absorption rate of that silica requires expensive chemical.</comment>


Dear NASA please put a particle collider on the moon - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/insider/2020/06/10/dear-nasa-please-put-a-particle-collider-on-the-moon/ <comment><USER2> To make a source like they're talking about would probably involve either spallation of a heavy metal target with protons (see the oak ridge SNS), or in-flight decay of muons (fermilab). The main (far) detectors would presumably be on earth where background isn't an issue, but neutrino experiments typically also have a detector near the source also. That would probably have to be underground.

Some numbers for reference: the SNS delivers MW levels of thermal power to a 20 ton mercury target, which is circulated as it's own coolant. Just the target itself would be a monumental undertaking, and we havent even mentioned the massive proton accelerator needed at the input end. Accelerators also tend to be very heavy because of all the magnets, and they are very sensitive to misalignment, so the surrounding building will have to be well made assuming the seismic situation is workable.

It would be great to focus our resources toward being able to do this sort of thing more feasibly. However, this project is well beyond the scope and budget of NASA. It would take concerted political will and military levels of funding sustained over decades to build up the underlying tech. I would love to see this reprioritization, but i have no expectation of it happening in my lifetime.

</comment><comment><USER3> > But what if, instead of spending trillions hurtling mammals towards distant > rocks just to prove it's possible, we actually did something so > technologically innovative it fundamentally changes how we approach science?

The author doesn't seem to understand or value the human spaceflight, including its uses for science. I'm pausing to imagine a robot which would build - or run - a highly specialized equipment of a particle accelerator and sensor kind on the Moon. Ain't it easier just to send humans to the Moon to do that?

And regarding Mars - let's not go there, it's a whole another topic which alas was so casually dismissed.

</comment><comment><USER4> Note that the idea is not to put a very big accelerator like the LHC, but something smaller.

Does someone have an estimated weight of a neutrino source? The price to GEO is $30000/kg. It't a very low bound to carry some equipment to the Moon.

It is strange that the article has only one author. (The other preprint looks interesting and relevant to this proposal, anyway.)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not a quantum physicist by any means, but won't the background radiation be a big problem? LHC is deep underground to keep out even the residual radiation of the earth's surface (after filtering by the ionosphere, and atmosphere). What chance does a collider on the moon have?

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not convinced that taking two of the hardest technical problems humanity has ever attempted (space flight and particle colliders) and trying to do them both at the same time will go well.</comment>