[HN Gopher] First batch of student's washing machines shipped to...
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First batch of student's washing machines shipped to Iraq
Author : etewiah
Score : 157 points
Date : 2021-08-13 13:17 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| yholio wrote:
| This solution is targeted towards a very specific situation,
| concentrated communities for people fleeing disasters and war.
| Refugee camps happen unexpectedly, there is practically no
| infrastructure and there is a race against time to keep people
| fed, safe and healthy.
|
| In that specific environment, yes, a lightweight composite box
| that is easy to use and ship, requires little water and no
| infrastructure and accelerates manual washing by a factor of 5-10
| is a practical solution.
|
| But as a general solution for the "developing world", sorry, no,
| dumbed down versions of western household items that don't
| require electricity aren't the solution.
|
| The developing world is poor precisely because it lacks
| investments, such as in the infrastructure that makes appliances
| work, the electric, clean water, sewer, gas, road networks. A
| single KWh of energy is the equivalent of cranking by hand for
| many hours, people in developed counties can get it by flipping a
| switch and paying 15 cents. That's where the wealth lays, in
| investment that drastically enhances productivity.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Perfect is the enemy of good.
|
| This is a solution to a problem. It may not be the perfect
| solution to the root cause, it may just be treating the
| symptom, but it's still better than nothing.
| 256DEV wrote:
| This is a great initiative. Interestingly, manual washing
| machines like this were briefly an incredibly hot commodity in
| even wealthy suburbs in my home city Cape Town, SA during the
| extreme drought and water shortages we had in 2017/2018 [1].
|
| They used substantially less water than a traditional Samsung or
| LG washer and actually worked pretty well. Considering the
| draconian water rations that had to be put in place people were
| very keen to speed up washing while still very strictly
| controlling water use. The local brand that people used was
| called Sputnik [2]. Now that the drought has broken people often
| talk about how crazy in retrospect our water usage was before and
| I even know a few who actually still use these washers because of
| the efficiency. That said - most folks have gone back to machines
| now that the water situation is stabilised...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town_water_crisis
|
| [2] https://www.sputnikwashingmachine.co.za
| deltarholamda wrote:
| Those washing machines are also popular among cruising sailors
| for whom water efficiency is particularly important. While you
| can use seawater for washing clothes, it's not very nice and if
| you don't rinse the salt out, it will eventually damage the
| clothes.
|
| I have read of some folks who just use a big bucket with a lid.
| They poke a toilet plunger through a hole in the lid and pump
| away like churning butter.
| roel_v wrote:
| On Dutch tv, there was a show some time ago about people
| designing and building specific tools for people with
| disabilities; like there was a special floatation vest for a girl
| with a muscle disease for whom regular flotation jackets didn't
| fit; and a guy in a wheelchair also with a muscle disease who
| liked photography and needed some way to mount his camera on his
| wheelchair and operate it; and other guy whose Playstation
| controller didn't fit in his hands etc.
|
| It was right up HN's alley, they should throw some subtitles on
| it and put it on Youtube. So many engineers who love to build
| stuff for causes like this.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It would certainly get me out of my comfy chair. The problem is
| usually funding, and ensuring that you don't end up with a lot
| of grifters that are trying to steer the project into a
| direction where they can make money of it.
|
| The loners that do these jobs usually do an incredible job of
| combining both their skills and actually listening to the needs
| of their 'market of one'.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm going to save this thread as an example on how the tech world
| is structurally incapable of relating to the problems that people
| in the non-tech world have.
|
| Incredible.
| Animats wrote:
| You can buy something similar on Alibaba.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Handy-Portable-
| Cranke...
| FounderBurr wrote:
| Shhh can't you see they're collecting donations?
| jokoon wrote:
| Wow, I really want to try one. My dream would be a manual dish
| washing machine. I think there are some. Maybe a bigger one with
| a bicycle crankset would also be pretty cool.
|
| I think those are going to be really popular in the future due to
| climate change. The first level of comfort brought by a good
| supply of electricity is a washing machine.
| adventured wrote:
| Why would climate change impact dishwashers broadly? They're
| particularly highly effecient in terms of water usage and
| energy usage.
| jokoon wrote:
| Not really for people living alone.
|
| People who want to keep a low water/energy footprint might
| like buying those.
| glogla wrote:
| How does number of people impact dishwasher efficiency? If
| you're living alone, you can just "batch" the dishes.
| f6v wrote:
| Adding a couple of gears and a chain to make it like an exercise
| bike would have made it so much better.
| lbriner wrote:
| I don't think the developing world who cannot afford to eat
| well are really that bothered about formal exercise. Mostly
| just surviving.
| f6v wrote:
| It's just that simply looking at the guy operate it makes my
| back hurt. You need to rotate the handle hundreds of times
| per load.
| catillac wrote:
| I didn't get the sense that the parent comment to yours was
| talking about formal exercise, but as a way to use different,
| stronger muscles to achieve the same result as using ones
| arms, and with the added benefits of mechanical advantage the
| gears would provide. I tend to agree, putting this on
| something that is pedal powered seems like a really cool next
| step or future modular add on for efficiency.
| auslegung wrote:
| I read Wendell Berry quite a lot, and in one essay (I forget
| which) he posed a question, "where would our technology be if we
| had continued improving on simple things like the plow, without
| using combustion engines", or something like that. I think this
| washing machine is an answer to that question.
|
| What if many of our machines used human power like they did 100
| years ago, but were made far more efficient and effective than
| they were 100 years ago? One of the biggest health problems in
| America is lack of physical exercise. Biking for transportation,
| having a manual washing machine, etc would go a long way towards
| fixing that problem, while also reducing our use of electricity,
| gasoline, etc.
| justnotworthit wrote:
| You might like this manual cement mixer:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpxl5JizNc4
|
| "Improving on ... the plow". If I remember my history, there's
| a perplexing story around the asian (chinese?) plow and the
| highly inefficient (but necessary?) european plow that didnt
| improved for hundreds of years.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > "where would our technology be if we had continued improving
| on simple things like the plow, without using combustion
| engines"
|
| The bicycle, I guess.
|
| Thank god for bicycles. We could use more inventions like that.
| hiddencache wrote:
| Apparently the combustion engine was invented before the
| bicycle as bikes need ball bearings to function smoothly,
| which also requires advanced machinery.
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/9084f6ad-6146-4b38-8e7c-faf850f90.
| ..
| datameta wrote:
| Indeed! Interesting. According to wikipedia it may have
| been a feedback loop primarily in the direction of the car.
|
| > The bicycle's invention has had an enormous effect on
| society, both in terms of culture and of advancing modern
| industrial methods. Several components that eventually
| played a key role in the development of the automobile were
| initially invented for use in the bicycle, including ball
| bearings, pneumatic tires, chain-driven sprockets and
| tension-spoked wheels.
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| I can't find a citation for this, but a favorite quote of
| mine from Twain(?) is:
|
| "The bicycle is unique in that it's engine is also it's
| cargo."
| hiddencache wrote:
| Until the invention of the pogo stick. Which the internet
| informs me was only a few years later...
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I always liked Steve Jobs's description of the Mac as "a
| bicycle for the mind." It's not like he was unaware of the
| Ferrari or whatever, he chose to use a human-powered
| vehicle for his analogy.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| I read a series of novels called "The World Made by Hand,"
| which take more of a slow collapse approach to post-apocalyptic
| fiction. One part of the books that stood out was how important
| it is, both in terms of overall health and hygiene as well as
| morale, to have clean clothes. Some members of the town opened
| a town laundry where they would boil clean the clothes of their
| customers. Great series overall.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| We don't have much, no dish washer, no dryer, only one car in
| the extended family but I wouldn't want to let go of the
| washing machine. The reality would be a lot of drudgery traded
| off against wearing clothes long after they became dirty.
| mc32 wrote:
| Freeing people from the tedium of ordinary housework (as can
| still be witnessed in parts of Mexico, Philippines, etc.)
| allows for innovation.
|
| Half the population alive would likely not been born or
| survived to adulthood if we had followed a steampunkish model
| of industrialization and progress.
|
| We'd probably have more pollution as well.
| krona wrote:
| People 100-150 years ago washed their clothes one a month
| (victorian England). Rich families had more clothes and extra
| help; they could afford to have clean clothes.
|
| By using more efficient mechanical washing machines the effect
| wouldn't be more people with bulging biceps, they would just
| smell more. But slightly less than the victorians.
| asciimov wrote:
| Even the dumbest among us are clever, particularly when it
| comes to reducing work loads. It's not gonna be long before
| somebody figures out an alternative way to power that washer.
|
| > One of the biggest health problems in America is lack of
| physical exercise.
|
| I disagree. The biggest health problem is the abundance of high
| calorie foods that are designed to taste so good that it
| confuses are dumb monkey brains into eat more than we should.
| Limiting or eliminating the amounts of sugars and simple
| carbohydrates in our foods would go a long way at improving our
| overall health.
| lb1lf wrote:
| > Even the dumbest among us are clever, particularly when it
| comes to reducing work loads. It's not gonna be long before
| somebody figures out an alternative way to power that washer.
|
| The dean of the EE faculty when I got my MSc liked to quip
| that the best engineers were the lazy ones - lazy, yet bright
| enough to realise that if they expended some effort today,
| they'd be able to slack off tomorrow...
| majormajor wrote:
| Lack of exercise is also a problem, regardless of overall
| weight. There are heart, lung, and joint health improvements.
|
| Lots of skinny people in terrible shape out there.
| yarcob wrote:
| I think for general health/longevity its preferable to be
| out of shape but slim rather than heavier but fit.
| lebca wrote:
| Mark Rippletoe of Starting Strength has some
| counterarguments to this. E.g. being fit and heavy is
| better for bone density than out of shape and slim so in
| older age one is less likely to break something.
| dcow wrote:
| Built is not the same as fat, though. I'm guessing Mark
| is arguing for building strength not for being
| overweight.
| VygmraMGVl wrote:
| BUT, you say, look at his gut. A fat slob, obviously.
| Can't be healthy. Healthy is slim. I am 5'8" and weigh
| 225. At 5'8", "normal" is considered to be - incredibly
| enough - 125-163 pounds. Overweight is 164-196, and I am
| "obese" at 225. In reality, my bodyfat percentage is
| about 24%, and a 60-year-old guy who deadlifts 500 is an
| anomaly in terms of muscle mass anyway. So I'm not
| worried about my body composition. [1]
|
| Mark Rippetoe argues you should build strength to be
| healthy, not obsess about bodyfat% for health. If you
| want to look good, then by all means you should try to
| reduce your body fat. If you want to feel good, focus on
| strength.
|
| [1] https://startingstrength.com/article/your-gut-your-
| health-an...
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Why not do both?
| NathanielK wrote:
| His philosophy is that Strength is Everything, so cutting
| weight or limiting calorie intake for "lean gains" limits
| the muscle mass (and strength) you could be gaining.
|
| It all depends on your goals.
| im3w1l wrote:
| It's certainly valid for him to value strength above
| everthing else. But most of us don't, most are more
| interested in longevity and quality of life during those
| years. And so it raises the question if his lifestyle is
| good in those aspects or not.
| whoaisme wrote:
| I guess the counter to that is fat people are less likely
| to make to it the level where being fat becomes
| advantageous
| nradov wrote:
| That's not really true for older people. Muscle weakness
| is a critical risk for falls. Once a person falls and
| breaks a hip or something the lack of mobility typically
| kills them within a couple years.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| _understood_ wrote:
| American kids don't have a chance. Example: High School in
| Arkansas with a Sonic drive-in across the street and nothing
| else around it. A SLIM chance of success for a kid born into
| an environment like that I'd venture to guess.
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@35.3798403,-92.2227848,3a,75y,8.
| ..
|
| Also, I am a huge fan of Wendell Berry and this topic has so
| many implications that are worth exploring IMO.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| They don't have food at home?
|
| As a kid, eating at McDonald's was like a once-every-other-
| month treat.
| yardie wrote:
| McDonald's has had the $1 menu for how many years? Even
| the brokest of the broke can manage to splurge on a $1
| cheeseburger, $1 small fry, $1 Coke. Compared to $2.50
| for a USDA subsidized school lunch which has none of the
| chemicals that make McDonald's addictive.
|
| Access to fast food, even for children, has never been
| easier.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I wish I could get USDA Dominos at home.
|
| Never had it, maybe it does taste terrible.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| What addictive chemicals are you referencing here? Sugar?
| Salt?
|
| I still can't believe they limited salt for school
| lunches. If you want kids to eat the meals they need to
| taste good, and for 99.9% of kids and teenagers the
| amount of salt they eat has basically no effect on their
| health.
| MikusR wrote:
| I would like to know the evil mastermind that invented
| burning meat and adding salt.
| adventured wrote:
| That's the correct answer. You can't exercise your way out of
| a high calorie, high sugar diet, unless you're willing to
| dedicate several hours per day to intense exercise. Normal
| exercise is an atrocious approach to countering high calorie
| intake, it simply can't work. You can work out for an hour,
| and one soda wipes it out entirely, or a couple slices of
| pizza.
|
| No, the problem is and will remain dietary in nature.
| Americans could stop all exercise across the board, change
| their diets, and lose massive amounts of weight trivially,
| just by cutting out a few common items that nearly all obese
| Americans over-consume. I've yet to meet an obese American
| whose diet I couldn't trivially radically alter by just
| removing a few particularly horrible things (eg sugary
| drinks, ice cream, pasta/pizza, high sugar snack goods).
| People think they have to change everything about what they
| eat and go to the gym five times per week to drop weight, and
| that's entirely false, all they have to do is eliminate or
| dramatically reduce the couple worst items in their diet and
| that's usually enough (it's rare that there are dozens of
| villains in their diet that matter, it's almost always just a
| few items that are doing 3/4+ of the damage).
| junker37 wrote:
| This is correct. I do cardio 10-15 hours/week and have to
| count my calories so I don't gain weight.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I read some research recently that showed that when you
| exercise you tend to be less active through the rest of
| the day. You balance it out without thinking about it.
|
| I've seen that myself, a long bike ride will often be
| followed by an evening on the sofa.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Americans could stop all exercise across the board,
| change their diets, and lose massive amounts of weight
| trivially, just by cutting out a few common items that
| nearly all obese Americans over-consume
|
| To be fair, the yanks don't even need to change their diets
| to loose weight .... they just need to eradicate those
| stupid portion sizes.
|
| A steak doesn't mean half the cow on your plate, a sandwich
| doesn't mean putting everything you can find in the shop
| (including the kitchen sink, if you could !) in between two
| slices of bread ... etc..etc..etc
|
| Its simply grotesque.
| cmurf wrote:
| Labor and rent are more expensive than the food. The
| large portions are intended to distract the consumer with
| the illusion they are paying primarily for food rather
| than a massive markup.
| handrous wrote:
| Free refills on sodas with waiters waiting to pounce and
| refill your cup every time it's 1/3 down from full, can
| be added to the list.
|
| Also, soda servings in excess of 20oz (already huge!) to
| begin with, regardless of refills.
| [deleted]
| porlune wrote:
| >> You can work out for an hour, and one soda wipes it out
| entirely, or a couple slices of pizza.
|
| Not exactly, just because you've replaced those calories
| doesn't mean that your body didn't gain muscle mass which
| itself requires calories just for your body to maintain.
| This leads to a higher basal metabolic rate, which ends up
| burning calories even while you rest.
| nradov wrote:
| Lean muscle at rest only burns about 8 kcal/day/kg more
| than fat. So the metabolic effect is pretty small.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| At rest sure, but you gotta carry all that extra weight
| around when you do anything else.
| dundarious wrote:
| Being overweight also raises your metabolism. Focus on
| the mass, not so much the rate.
| yarcob wrote:
| Having lots of muscle mass isn't healthier than being
| slim. It's healthier than being fat, but being slim is
| going to be a lot easier on your heart, joints, and other
| organs.
|
| (Have a look at people who are 80+ and fit. Most of them
| are slim. You don't see a lot of bulked up old people)
| zeku wrote:
| Your overall point might be correct, but your old people
| one is just wrong.
|
| Old people aren't super muscular because you need high
| levels of testosterone to support musculature, and it
| naturally declines with age and particularly tanks when
| you are elderly.
| nradov wrote:
| The digestive system also gradually loses the ability to
| absorb protein with age. Elderly people actually need
| _more_ protein just to maintain muscle mass, but most of
| them fail to adjust their diets accordingly.
| Retric wrote:
| That's overstated, look at say elite marathon runners who
| do incredible amounts of daily exercise without bulking
| up.
|
| A 500 calorie workout might only be 400 extra over
| spending that time sitting on that couch. Similarly extra
| muscle on it's own takes energy but fat also burns energy
| so even modest weight loss balances that out.
| BlackJack wrote:
| I upvoted this comment, but people are not so dumb to only
| eat junk food. There are environmental/psychological
| factors why people overeat. Other research shows that
| people will overeat "healthy food" i.e. huge dollops of
| olive oil, or fruit juice, because it's "healthy."
|
| I agree that reducing bad food and portion control is the
| answer, but it's very hard to drive behavioral change in
| people. And the health industry has done a "good" job of
| creating medication to enable bad lifestyles i.e. metformin
| for Type2 Diabetes, other drugs to manage cholesterol, etc.
| nradov wrote:
| There's no evidence that a diet high in olive oil
| increases obesity or all-cause mortality.
| [deleted]
| caylus wrote:
| There's plenty of evidence that eating too many calories
| increases obesity.
|
| GP's point is that calories coming from a "healthy"
| source doesn't mean they don't count. Drenching one's
| salad in olive oil rather than canola oil won't help
| someone lose weight, nor will switching from soda to a
| fruit juice with the same amount of sugar in it
| (ancillary benefits of e.g. vitamins notwithstanding)
| auslegung wrote:
| > One of the biggest health problems in America is...
|
| > I disagree. The biggest health problem is...
|
| You aren't disagreeing, you're making a claim about _the
| biggest health problem_, while I'm making a claim about _one
| of the biggest health problems_.
| BeefySwain wrote:
| Perhaps they are asserting that America only has one health
| problem?
| foobarian wrote:
| To be fair saying "One of... is..." is a tautology and
| doesn't make sense to disagree with.
| SECProto wrote:
| > To be fair saying "One of... is..." is a tautology and
| doesn't make sense to disagree with.
|
| I disagree pretty strongly and can provide as many
| examples as you would like:
|
| - One of the biggest health problems in America is too
| much bicycling
|
| - One of the biggest health problems in America is too
| little automobile travel
|
| - One of the biggest health problems in America is too
| much space travel
|
| - One of the most nutritious foods is rocks.
|
| I think instead what you mean can be best explained by
| reading the wikipedia article on weasel words. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word
| BeefySwain wrote:
| I was being facetious :)
| rnhmjoj wrote:
| You should take a look at the Low-tech Magazine[1]: there are
| several articles where the possibility of brinding back some
| outdated but still intersting technology is explored. For
| example DC transmission lines, wooden wind turbines, sailing
| ships for transporting goods, compressed air energy storage,
| etc. There's also an analysis on basing a society on human
| power[2].
|
| [1]: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com
|
| [2]: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/05/could-we-run-
| modern-...
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > I read Wendell Berry quite a lot, and in one essay (I forget
| which) he posed a question, "where would our technology be if
| we had continued improving on simple things like the plow,
| without using combustion engines"
|
| We'd still have slaves. That's where we'd be.
|
| The development of steam, IC, and electric machinery is what
| actually put an end to slavery, by making it uneconomic.
|
| Slavery (or near-equivalents, such as serfdom) was a constant
| of virtually all human societies above the hunter-gatherer band
| level, until the development of powered equipment.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Emancipation happened over 100 years ago, so no that is not
| what would have happened when imagining an alternative future
| starting 100 years in the past.
| whoaisme wrote:
| Blacks in the south were more or less slaves until 60 years
| ago. Slavery still exists in the world today. Your opinions
| reflect a totally sterile mind.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > Emancipation happened over 100 years ago,
|
| So did the introduction of steam, IC, and electric
| machinery. Your quibble is with the OP.
|
| Emancipation happened right around the time of the
| introduction of large-scale steam power.
|
| This was not a coincidence.
| IncRnd wrote:
| That also doesn't apply to the conversation, which was
| about a branch of history that could have started 100
| years ago, not 160 years ago.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| The "conversation", such as it is, had its origin in the
| OP (or the person he's citing) incorrectly stating that
| the power revolution happened 100 years ago. It didn't.
|
| Now, some might try to argue that the process of
| eliminating slavery/serfdom _just happened_ to coincide
| with the development of non-human-powered machinery (like
| maybe humans just _somehow_ became more moral and less-
| prone to exploiting their fellow-humans).
|
| But you know what? That's basically just a load of crap.
|
| It doesn't explain the near-perfect correlation between
| the development of powered equipment and the
| disappearance of slavery/serfdom, world-wide, carried out
| over the course of centuries, appearing first (again,
| apparently just by coincidence) in the more
| technologically-advanced countries (such as Western
| Europe), and later in the less-technologically-advanced
| countries (such as Russia, Asia, and (at that time) the
| United States)
|
| Water, steam, internal combustion, and electricity is
| what ended slavery/serfdom. Get rid of those and
| slavery/serfdom will be back before you know it.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Note that _even within the United States_ , slavery
| disappeared first in the industrialized North, and last
| in the rural South.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Emancipation (at least as is taught in south american
| schools) was a direct result of the industrial revolution
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| But yet the industrial revolution, e.g. cotton gin and
| better ways to make textiles, made slavery more
| profitable for the owners.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| That's all well and good, but the revolution of motorized
| washing machines and dishwashers was to free western women of
| having to spend large parts of their days washing things.
| Making it hand powered may shorten the time vs a wash tub, but
| is still going to miss the positive social outcomes.
|
| [EDIT] I don't mean to be dismissive of this pretty cool
| improvement on manual washing. It seems like it will be really
| helpful for a lot of people until their economic situation
| improves.
| neartheplain wrote:
| On the other hand, manual laundry was one of only a few
| common means of self-support for 18th century working-class
| women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK9OyW4Jx_g
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Crappy jobs shouldn't have to exist just for the sake of
| desperate people being able to have one. A justice issue
| demands a justice solution, not the scraps that fall from
| the table.
|
| See also: the current argument raging around minimum wage
| in the US, and whether the the millions of grocery-bagging
| and burger-flipping gigs are supposed to be something you
| can actually survive on, or are they just meant to be short
| term jobs for middle class teenagers who have no dependents
| or living expenses to cover? Or maybe we don't love this
| reality but there's nothing anyone can do about it because
| The Market has declared that these jobs are worth less than
| a living wage so whatever (obligatory FDR meme:
| https://imgur.com/gallery/SvuwZrm).
| neartheplain wrote:
| Yes, washing clothes was a crappy job, just like coal
| mining was/is in certain parts of Appalchia. That said,
| it was an important and necessary job in its day, and it
| generated valuable income for workers with no other
| useful skills. Removing crappy jobs and the income they
| generate is rarely good for the laid-off workers,
| especially in the absence of any social safety net. I
| wonder how many laundresses became washing machine
| mechanics, or laundromat owner-proprietors. I'm guessing
| the answer is "not many."
|
| I'd certainly agree that both coal miners and laundresses
| deserved better wages and working conditions.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Absolutely, but of course "better wages and working
| conditions" has a time and place element to it as well.
| Coal mining conditions were obviously terrible in
| hindsight, but my impression is that they were considered
| "good jobs" at the time, with union protection and so on
| (depictions in media like _October Sky_ notwithstanding).
|
| In any case, it appears that the purpose of this human-
| powered laundry machine is not to put anyone doing
| laundry for pay out of work, but rather to allow some
| combination of doing laundry at home cheaper, faster, or
| with less physical strain (a crank may be more ergonomic
| than being bent over a tub, and your hands don't have to
| be in wet soapy water the whole time).
| lbriner wrote:
| But wasn't the counter-intuitive result that women spent more
| time washing since it was so "easy" now, they could wash
| things much more frequently.
|
| I can't find the reference but I did read it recently.
| rvense wrote:
| I don't think that's the case for washing machines, but it
| is the case for some inventions. Like the typewriter, which
| allows you to write four-five times faster than when using
| a pen, and communications networks that are however many
| million times faster than carrier pigeons and pony
| expresses and what have you... So we should be spending
| less time writing and sending letters, and more time
| frolicking in the sun, right?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| If the time spent stays the same but more stuff gets washed
| that's still a win for living standards. If you reduce the
| cost of something then that labor gets spent elsewhere,
| maybe on more of the same but then you have more to show
| for it. Labor hours are fairly fungible at scale like that.
|
| Your cuts are less likely to get infected when your clothes
| don't have the manure you put on the field last week on
| them.
| [deleted]
| ch4s3 wrote:
| No [1], that's not the case. Even while we own more
| clothing and wash it more often, it still takes less time.
| You can also do other tasks while a washing machine is
| running.
|
| [1]https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mfr/4919087.0011.104/--deco
| nstr...
| suyjuris wrote:
| I do not think that your source supports your claim,
| although I might have missed something. To the contrary,
| it states:
|
| > Although the physical labor of laundry was lessened
| somewhat by the machines, the actual time housewives
| allocated to their family laundry increased.
|
| (This is claimed to be the result of housewives being
| responsible for the entirety of laundry, instead of
| employing help, however.)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| That's the Jevons Paradox, generally:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
| ch4s3 wrote:
| It could be, but not in the way the parent thinks.
| Washing machines and dish washers are what allowed women
| to enter the work force, but they didn't cause them to
| spend more time washing. It _probably_ increased demand
| for freshly washed clothes and clothing in general.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The Jevons Paradox is an economy-wide effect, not (just /
| only) an individual one.
|
| Cheaper washing machines mean more clothes, more laundry,
| more people washing more often.
|
| Individuals may spend less time doing laundry. But more
| laundry is being done, above and beyond simply meeting
| previous latent demand.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Right, I was clarifying that it didn't in this case mean
| more time spent washing at an individual level, the
| resource here is probably labor.
| frutiger wrote:
| Indeed. And having women in the workforce is literally worth
| trillions of dollars, far exceeding the costs of "obese
| Americans".
| koolba wrote:
| IIUC the angle here, it's not that they don't go to work.
| It's that rather than going to the gym, they'll work out as
| they do their laundry at home.
| eagerpace wrote:
| I'm not a fan of the gym, as I prefer to stay active other
| ways, but I often wonder if the effort and energy expended
| there could be put to better use? This is perhaps an
| example of that.
| dragontamer wrote:
| How many men do you need before you have one horsepower?
|
| One horsepower is .7 kW. A horse working for an hour
| nonstop would be .7kW hrs.
|
| Now, how many men do you need working constantly before
| you have comparable strength to a 20kW generator sipping
| a little bit of gasoline?
| [deleted]
| kaybe wrote:
| Here is an olympic cyclist barely managing to toast
| bread:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ
|
| Electricity is nice.
| dragontamer wrote:
| The idea that a singular man can output a horsepower
| (~700W) for enough time to toast bread is still very
| impressive to me!
|
| Clearly an Olympic-level athlete. That being said, I
| can't help but imagine that with some optimization, it
| could make the electricity generation a bit easier (maybe
| more RPM but less torque needed?). Clearly, the video
| shows him straining and pushing.
|
| Power == RPM * Torque, converting to less torque but more
| RPM with gears probably would be easier.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| > A horse working for an hour nonstop would be .7kW hrs.
|
| More like 8.4kWh.
|
| > data from the horse pulling contest at the 1925 Iowa
| State Fair showing that peak mechanical power output of a
| horse is 12-14.9 HP.
|
| https://doi.org/10.1038/364195a0
| Animats wrote:
| That's peak. Average is much lower. 1 HP is supposed to
| be a horse on a treadmill for a full day of work. A horse
| in acceleration is outputting far more than that for a
| few seconds.
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| 100 years ago was 1921. We had many very advanced electric,
| internal combustion, and external combustion (e.g. steam)
| machines.
|
| > In the 1920s, mass production led to falling prices for
| washing machines (Cowan, 1983, p. 94). As of 1926, 80% of
| affluent households studied by market researchers in 36
| American cities had washing machines. Only 28% of homes in
| small town Zanesville, Ohio had electric washers. Most of those
| with washing machines were among the affluent homes (Cowan,
| 1983, p. 173). During the single year of 1936, over 1.4 million
| washing machines were sold in the U.S., and the average price
| had dropped by more than half. However, many could not afford
| washing machines during the Great Depression (Cohen, 1982, p.
| 95).
|
| https://evolutionhomeappliances.weebly.com/washing-machines-...
|
| Tractors on farms were already pretty common and became more so
| over that decade.
|
| > In August, 1917, a small tent city was erected in Fremont,
| Nebraska. Under the canvas, 48 tractor companies exhibited
| their wares. There were over 300 tractor models on display
| worth over $1.5 million. But that was only a fraction of the
| tractors being offered to farmers in the 1920s. The number of
| tractor manufacturer peaked in 1921 when there were 186
| different firms trying to entice farmers to buy their tractors.
| The next decade saw amazing changes in the technology, and more
| and more farmers moving from farming with horses to farming
| with tractors.
|
| https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe20s/machines_08.ht...
|
| While air travel wasn't something the common person would do,
| planes weren't rare and commercial air travel was in its
| infancy.
|
| https://www.century-of-flight.net/commercial-aviation-indust...
|
| The in-home electric refrigerator wouldn't appear until 1927,
| but in 1921 the technology was known and used in industry.
|
| https://evolutionhomeappliances.weebly.com/refrigerators-190...
|
| https://bigchill.com/us/blog/refrigerators-through-the-decad...
|
| While I understand your sentiment, it's wrong to portray the
| early 20th century (or even the 19th century) as a
| technological backwater. We have certainly made advancements in
| material sciences and electronics (e.g. computers) in the past
| 100 years that have arguably changed many, many things; I don't
| think an engineer from 1921 would be lost in understanding the
| mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and non-computer electrical
| technology we have today.
|
| For what it's worth, I do wish we, as a society, had chosen or
| will choose to move to less energy-intensive means of living. I
| try to do my part, for instance I live somewhere where I can
| walk to 80% of the places I want to go or could take public
| transit to about 90% and I use a reel mower when the grass
| isn't too high. Even as, maybe especially as, a software
| engineer I hate that more and more devices are becoming
| computerized, or worse "smart" or "connected". Computers are
| wonderful, but my toaster oven and refrigerator doesn't need
| one, thank you very much. I also try to avoid single-use
| plastics when possible an purchase better quality items to last
| longer when possible.
|
| Don't get me wrong, there are many conveniences that I
| personally wouldn't give up (clothes washing machine), but in
| general I think we could stand to reevaluate much of our
| culture and civilization in terms of energy and material usage.
| Animats wrote:
| _" where would our technology be if we had continued improving
| on simple things like the plow, without using combustion
| engines"_
|
| As tractors started to become common, the Horse and Mule
| Association, in conjunction with, I think, Iowa State
| University, did considerable work on optimizing plowing with
| horses. The optimal angle between horse and plow (17deg below
| horizontal) was worked out experimentally. A clever set of
| standard harness parts was worked out, with equalizers so none
| of the horses in the hitch could slack off.
|
| Didn't help much. Improved things maybe 20%, after which they'd
| hit an optimum. Those who farm with horses today do use those
| optimized techniques; they're in draft horse books. But
| tractors are just better.
| extra88 wrote:
| _The Windup Girl_ by Paolo Bacigalupi is an excellent novel set
| in a future in which "carbon fuel sources have become
| depleted, and manually wound springs are used as energy storage
| devices [0]." There are also genetically-engineered animals
| that are particularly strong and good at converting food
| calories into kinetic energy (for winding storage springs or
| other uses) and treadle-powered desktop computers [1], like
| sewing machines before electricity.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treadle
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| >"where would our technology be if we had continued improving
| on simple things like the plow, without using combustion
| engines"
|
| I really enjoy questions like this! One area you can see this
| in practice is in the field of valve amplifiers, they're
| hideously inefficient and unreliable when compared to modern
| transistor amplifiers but there's huge numbers of guitarists
| and HiFi enthusiasts (myself included) who love the subjective
| qualities of the sound they make, so an effectively obsolete
| technology has been kept around and developed far longer than
| its "natural" lifespan and looks likely to be for a long while
| yet.
|
| Radio is another example of subcultures further developing
| "obsolete" tech, things like Morse code have been kept in
| modern use and further developed by amateur radio enthusiasts
| long after its commercial demise as a tool for communication,
| and even after AM radio's heavy decline in Europe you can still
| hear hobbyist pirates on Sunday mornings (especially from the
| Netherlands) keeping the ionosophere warm on those frequencies.
| jfoster wrote:
| One example where both are fairly common is coffee equipment.
| Obviously you've got big automatic grinders & espresso machines
| in most cafes, but it's quite common for coffee enthusiasts to
| use a hand grinder and AeroPress or V60 at home or for travel.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| There's a story about the introduction of a scythe to a remote
| village in - I want to say - 90s or early 2000s, and the mayor
| thanking the charity for showing them this new invention, that
| really helped them during harvest. It's not like the place
| didn't have sticks or blades, but the combination isn't
| obvious.
|
| I saw it on a TIL on reddit, so take it with a grain of salt.
| Trying to google it now, but all results for queries containing
| the word "scythe" seems to be related to a board game.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| It's not even that the combination isn't obvious; it's also
| that the orientation of the parts is touchy and makes the
| difference between "I could do this all day!" and "Can I
| please just hold the knife in my hands?"
| dredmorbius wrote:
| There's Scythe Works Without Borders:
|
| https://scytheworks.ca/scythe-works-without-borders/
|
| They seem to be active in Nepal. There are other similar
| groups elsewhere.
|
| This DDG search turns up several: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=i
| ntroducing+scythe+village+-game&i...
|
| Including a Reddit thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/co
| mments/i14bak/oddly_mesmer...
| Thlom wrote:
| For some reason I have a scythe in my shed. I've used it a
| couple of times when my lawn mower was dead after I came back
| from holiday and the grass and weeds were waist high. It's
| surprisingly efficient and easy to use as soon as you get the
| hang of it.
| joshuahedlund wrote:
| > He said up to 70% of the world's population do not have access
| to electric washing machines.
|
| Is this accurate? Seems remarkably higher than I would have
| guessed, especially given ~90% of the world has access to
| electricity and roughly half the world is now middle class or
| better (depending on your definition)
|
| Edit: Number seems way too high based on this -
| https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-the-world-does-laundry-...
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| apartmenttherapy fails to cite the actual study they are
| working off of. I'm guessing it is this one:
| https://www.nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/04/N...
|
| Their methodology states:
|
| > ABOUT THE SURVEY METHODOLOGY The findings in this survey are
| based on respondents with online access in 61 countries (unless
| otherwise noted). While an online survey methodology allows for
| tremendous scale and global reach, it provides a perspective
| only on the habits of existing Internet users, not total
| populations. In developing markets where online penetration is
| still growing, respondents may be younger and more affluent
| than the general population of that country. In addition,
| survey responses are based on claimed behavior rather than
| actual metered data. Cultural differences in reporting
| sentiment are likely factors in the outlook across countries.
| The reported results do not attempt to control or correct for
| these differences; therefore, caution should be exercised when
| comparing across countries and regions, particularly across
| regional boundaries. Where noted, the survey research is
| supplemented with purchasing behavior using Nielsen's Retail
| Measurement Services data, which is adjusted for inflation.
|
| In 2016 it looks like 46% of the population had access to the
| internet.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/internet
|
| Assuming that people that don't have internet access don't have
| access to electric washing machines would give 0.69 * 0.46 =
| 0.31 have access to electric washing machines. 1 - 0.31 gives
| 69%, remarkably close to the figure given in the article.
| amriksohata wrote:
| Hardly an invention, used in India in barrels with spindles for
| years
| lbriner wrote:
| He's not claiming he invented the first manual washing machine,
| just mass producing them with modern techniques at a low cost
| for the developing world.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >The first batch of 30 hand-cranked washing machines
|
| >Mass production
|
| Okay
| anonymousab wrote:
| > Working with humanitarian charity Care International he
| is now aiming to deliver 7,500 of his manual washer and
| dryers to those most in need in 10 countries including
| Lebanon, Kenya and India over the next three years.
|
| "Mass production" can look different for different things.
| If I had a complicated widget that normally took a month to
| produce, and I found a way to crank out 10, then that'd be
| a massive increase in production by comparison.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I worked with appliance makers a lot, in Turkey, Bangladesh, and
| Pakistan.
|
| The cost of an automatic washing machine is closing on below $100
| with mass manufacturing taken to its extremes.
|
| Think of it, a PVC tank with a handle for $20-$30, or a normal
| washing machine made by a profit making business for $100?
| burkaman wrote:
| These are being sent to refugee camps, where people don't have
| regular access to electricity or water (or $100).
| baybal2 wrote:
| A generator + second hand industrial washing machine will
| cost less than $1000 together, and will probably be enough to
| wash clothes of hundreds of people in a day.
|
| That's more usefulness than any of these space toilets NGOs
| splurge millions of bucks on.
| burkaman wrote:
| If you have a plan for a generator that can power washing
| machines for an entire refugee camp, plus the machines
| themselves, plus a supply chain to deliver fuel for the
| generator, plus a stable supply of water for the machines,
| plus plumbing to distribute water throughout the camp, plus
| electrical infrastructure for the camp, plus education and
| materials for residents to maintain and repair all of that,
| all for under $1000, I'm sure Oxfam would be very
| interested to hear it.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I see it very simple, and my firsts ache to reach the
| face of a first person to shout "lets do SWOT analysis!"
|
| First, water must be coming to the camp some way, or
| another, or people would've been dead.
|
| Whether it's in tankers, or anything else.
|
| Second, just go, and buy a 2nd hand 1kva generator from
| eBay for $150-$200, and a cheapest owned 10-15kg washing
| machine.
|
| Spend the rest on few months of water in tankers, and
| fuel.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > First, water must be coming to the camp some way, or
| another, or people would've been dead.
|
| The water (and fwiw, also food, medicine, literally
| _everything_ ) coming into refugee camps is extremely,
| _extremely_ rationed to a point where even in summer
| months, people have to get by with sometimes half a liter
| per day and person. Forget about showering, forget about
| washing clothes.
|
| The biggest single cause of the 2015 mass migration was
| that Germany withdrew its UNHCR funding from 301 million
| $ to 143 million $ (per
| https://www.heise.de/tp/features/EU-Staaten-
| hatten-2015-fast...). The result of that loss of a
| _small_ amount of money was that suddenly hundreds of
| thousands of people lost access to food.
|
| With the current financing situations, the last thing
| refugee camps need is _more_ to take account for in the
| supply chain.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I don't swallow this.
|
| Even in the most water starved countries, 10000 litre
| tanker delivery costs $10 at most. That's 1 million tons
| of water for 1 million bucks a year.
|
| It will be an insult to my intelligence to believe this.
|
| If you don't need _drinking water_ the cost will go down
| further.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| > 10000 litre tanker delivery costs $10 at most.
|
| Source? Because I _highly_ doubt that the entire supply
| chain, from getting the water to the tanker, to getting
| the tanker to the refugee camp, to unloading and making
| it available for use, costs $10 at most for a single
| tanker.
|
| Hell, even without the last step. Even without the first
| step. The fuel alone to get a tanker _to_ the camp from
| wherever is itself more than $10.
| baybal2 wrote:
| That's the cost in Karachi with its completely depleted
| water table, where water comes from tens of kms from
| outside of the city.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Once again, source?
|
| You're making pretty wild claims, you really need numbers
| to back it up.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| A quick google for "karachi water cost" brought up this:
| https://www.samaa.tv/news/pakistan/2021/01/karachi-water-
| tan...
|
| Given 2340 pakistani rupees for a 3000 gal tanker, it's
| about 12EUR or 14$ by today's exchange rate. A tiny bit
| more expensive than GP claimed, but acceptably close
| enough.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| A centralised service seems far more likely to be an
| efficient use of capital, labour, and scarce resources than
| distributing hundreds or thousands of hand-cranked tubs to
| individuals.
|
| Though as a make-work scheme, the latter might have benefits.
| burkaman wrote:
| I agree, but this is a human system so efficiency is never
| the only concern. Would people feel comfortable handing
| their possessions over to a central service? Would they
| trust the people running it? Should they? Would people
| appreciate the overall time savings of a centralized
| service, or would they prefer the flexibility of being able
| to wash whenever they need? Which solution is more
| efficient for people who live in very remote places and
| can't easily travel? Is it really feasible to ask
| overburdened and underfunded administrators to set up
| another centralized system on top of food, water, medicine,
| shelter, education, etc.? If they have no capacity to take
| on more work, a distributed system might be better.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| There are different models of centralisation, and yes,
| trust is a factor in several ways.
|
| "Centralised" needn't be "a single centre serving an
| entire camp", though that's clearly one model. It could
| also be nodes distributed amongst every-so-many refugees,
| based on a full-utilisation estimate. Say: every family
| does laundry 1x weekly, for 2 hours, within a 12-hour
| day, 6 days a week, giving one washing machine per 36
| families. Hypothetical though plausible numbers, modify
| assumptions to arrive at different values. If a family
| has 4 members, this would be about 7 machines per 1,000
| camp inhabitants. Are we comparing 250 x $30 hand laundry
| systems (1 per family) vs. 7 x $100 laundry systems (plus
| power and water)? The electrically-powered machines would
| be 1/10th the total cost, though requiring greater
| coordination and infrastructure.
|
| The service might be fully staffed, or a family member
| would operate the washer. The risks for a full-service
| laundry are of loss of clothes to the refugees. The risks
| of a self-service laundry is abuse or damage to the
| equipment to the providing and/or managing agency or
| operators.
|
| One problem facing refugee camps is that they're
| organised on the explicit assumption that they are
| temporary, and that there _isn 't_ an economy --- people
| not only don't work and produce goods and services, they
| often _cannot_ by camp and government regulations. A
| resident-operated laundry might be sensible, but
| prohibited.
| dashundchen wrote:
| I would imagine the manual powered machine is intended for
| areas where electricity or water hookups aren't necessarily
| reliable or even available.
| baybal2 wrote:
| What about those billion dollar NGOs not funding Bill
| Gates'es space toilet, or these expensive PVC tanks with
| handles, but actually trying to do just something on the
| ground like building a power station?
| burkaman wrote:
| Before posting a question like this, why not take a few
| seconds to see if any NGOs are working on expanding access
| to electricity? I think you'll find there are quite a few.
|
| And why work so hard to find a negative angle on this
| story? There's plenty of actual bad stuff happening in the
| world for you to criticize.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I am abhorred at an enormous spend on many vanity
| projects by the "development community," and hipster
| NGOs. That's why.
|
| I keep repeating a line about Bill Gates'es space toilet
| exactly because of it being the most glaring example of
| that.
|
| For the money spent, Bill could've easily built like
| 200-300 sewage treatment plants.
| burkaman wrote:
| I understand you're upset about that, but it's not
| productive to take out your frustration on unrelated
| stories like this, and ultimately it probably won't make
| you feel better.
| anonymousab wrote:
| Sometimes the blockers are not purely money-based, and
| greasing palms can do more harm than good. And sometimes
| you run out of palms to grease.
| [deleted]
| christkv wrote:
| Now hook it up to a bike and get the kids to do the work.
| newsbinator wrote:
| Video report on BBC (demo at 1:35):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRAGzPtLS2M
| punnerud wrote:
| Video of one of the first versions in use:
| https://youtu.be/WDzGeGcQQYs
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| skip to 1:26 to see the machine, the rest is an interview with
| the creator.
|
| I know that I'm not the target for this product but if I had
| one I would love to hook it up to a stationary bicycle. I feel
| like my arms would get tired much faster than my legs would.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Especially given that a typical washing machine has a <50W
| motor.
|
| I think you could easily rinse the clothes through spinning
| using such a setup.
| [deleted]
| vanilla-almond wrote:
| This is a very inspiring story. I was struck by the following:
|
| " _Mr Sawhney...said up to 70% of the world 's population do not
| have access to electric washing machines._"
|
| As someone who belongs to the 30% (as I suspect are the vast
| majority of HN), it's a humble reminder how much we take for
| granted - even with common appliances.
|
| The latest video from the Washing Machine Project channel on
| YouTube shows the machine in operation. The drum is angled during
| washing. It then moves to a vertical position and the drum spins
| faster to rinse the washing while water collects below the drum:
|
| https://youtu.be/Pmh4Uwjo-GE?t=62
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I re-read the article to make sure I had not missed any mention
| of some sort of DRM on the washing machine soap, or perhaps Terms
| & Conditions that prevent you from repairing the washing
| machine....
|
| I'm not sure how these do-gooders expect to make their next round
| of funding.
|
| (Man, I need to get off HN. :-))
| martin_a wrote:
| WaaS - Washing as a Service is going to be HUGE in 2023! Better
| get in now!
| f6v wrote:
| You're laughing but "appliances as a service" exists. Someone
| legit is using a coffee maker and a washing machine on
| subscription.
| martin_a wrote:
| I'm working in the printing industry, printing machines are
| becoming more and more like that, too.
|
| Our packaging department just got a new machine for
| producing filling material, it works like that, too. The
| machine is free, but you'll have to buy the raw material
| from the guy who provided you with the machine and so on.
|
| It's a thing for sure.
| condour75 wrote:
| Martinizr
| neartheplain wrote:
| The most labor-intensive step of handwashing clothes is not the
| washing itself, but the wringing:
| http://www.handlaundry.com/clothes-wringer/
|
| It's possible to line-dry clothes without wringing water out
| first, but it takes much longer for soggy clothes to dry and the
| potential for water stains is greater.
|
| I don't see a wringer pictured or mentioned in the article.
| Perhaps there's also a market for hand- or pedal-powered
| wringers, as well as the manual washers.
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| It centrifuges the clothes with a geared crank (similar to a
| salad spinner). So the clothes come out ready to line-dry.
| Veliladon wrote:
| It's listed as a washer and dryer. The crank spins the drum
| which would have the effect of drawing water out of the clothes
| just like a front loader.
| neartheplain wrote:
| Ah, missed that part- thanks for pointing it out! Given the
| absence of a heater element, I'd guess the idea is to spin-
| dry the clothes before hanging them on a drying line.
| Amin699 wrote:
| "It was through the frustration of seeing her daily struggles,
| hand washing her and her family's clothes, that I promised her a
| manual washing machine," he said.
| zohch wrote:
| I think the first time I saw something like this was in the 90s,
| and I'm sure it was around before that. Not sure what is so
| unique about this.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmh4Uwjo-GE&t=1m
|
| Also, _it exists_. The people who will go from having to slap
| clothes on rocks to this wouldn 't be as quick to shout "meh,
| it's been done before"
| namdnay wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_machine#/media/File:Py...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| After watching it work, I want to add a flywheel and a
| treadle.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| The clothes are sort of a flywheel.
| h2odragon wrote:
| It made me think of a contraption I saw once. It was exactly
| the opposite of a washing machine, for covering big cloth tubes
| with some tar-like goop.
|
| Someone took a bush hog, turned it upside down, welded a steel
| drum to it with some drain holes and a collar that slipped up
| or down to block them. Hooked up to a tractor it spun the drum
| around; they used the higher PTO speed and lifted the collar
| for the drain cycle.
|
| I'm sure rednecks have been making washing machines on similar
| principles since steam engines.
| notahacker wrote:
| You can buy plenty of cheap hand or foot cranked ones from
| China on Amazon for camping or for supposed environmental
| friendliness. This one has a nice story, donated labour and
| _possibly_ adaptations unique to the situation of refugee camps
| cstross wrote:
| See also this TED talk by the late Hans Rosling:
|
| https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_magic_washing_mac...
|
| Traditional washing, by beating cloth on stones beside a river,
| can take 10-20 person-hours a week for a family's worth of linens
| (and that's assuming the same clothing is worn day-in, day-out,
| between weekly washes): it's a horribly inefficient chore than
| amounts to manual labour, and because it's usually left to women
| it's one that policy-makers and development economists overlook
| or discount. _Automating_ it could potentially free up enough
| time to provide extra years of education, or to increase
| available worker-hours in an economy by 10%. But if you can 't
| provide everyone with automatic washer/driers, something like
| this is still a huge improvement.
| mhh__ wrote:
| His death was a real loss to the world, I think.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And that method wears out the fabric pretty rapidly compared to
| a washer.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Freeing people from this chore probably would help families to
| grow more food.
| jnsie wrote:
| I remember similar noise/promise/talk when the 'Drumi' won a
| James Dyson Award years ago:
|
| https://www.jamesdysonaward.org/en-GB/2015/project/the-drumi...
|
| Drumi has since come to market. These machines are great but I
| think drying clothes (I live in a tiny apartment with no outdoor
| space) might be the more difficult challenge.
| mythrwy wrote:
| I lived in an apartment some years back and tired of using the
| (often filthy) public laundromat.
|
| So I got a breather washer, a small spin dryer and a heat
| dryer.
|
| https://www.lehmans.com/product/breathing-hand-washer/
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Panda-PANSP23B-Swimsuits-Laundry-Extr...
|
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/265264876599?var=565132371636&hash=...
|
| (They weren't these exact models but hopefully you catch the
| idea.)
|
| The breather washer and spin dryer both worked wonderfully.
| Clothes came out cleaner with the breather washer then a
| washing machine. I don't know why those aren't in more common
| use in non-industrialized societies.
|
| For larger stuff I'd still have to go to the laundromat.
|
| The heated dryer was kind of meh, it worked but produced a lot
| of humid air and I'd have to have windows opened to use it. But
| much of the time I could just spin dry the clothes then hang in
| bathroom overnight.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| A wringer is the basic option for that. A spinner works
| remarkably well, after which line-drying is fast.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Is there a better link to the organisation, its goals, the use-
| case, and design objectives here?
|
| There are numerous small/portable washing machines already
| available, whether electrically-driven or human-powered.
|
| The crank and coupling look terribly inefficient and prone to
| breakage. A fixed handle would be more robust, a foot-treadle far
| more efficient.
|
| I have ... doubts and questions.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Ships as in the verb, not the plural noun!
| Veen wrote:
| Yes, that title is a bit of a garden path.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
| mattlondon wrote:
| Yeah I was also interested in these ships made of washing
| machines, and which used hand-cranks for propulsion!
|
| Slightly disappointed to hear that they are actually hand-
| cranked washing machines. Sigh - maybe next year!
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