[HN Gopher] There Is a Tennis Ball Shortage Too Now
___________________________________________________________________
There Is a Tennis Ball Shortage Too Now
Author : elsewhen
Score : 113 points
Date : 2021-08-13 13:06 UTC (1 days ago)
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| nitwit005 wrote:
| I routinely pick up tennis balls next to the court near me and
| throw them into the dog park. Now I know I could have made tens
| of dollars if I'd just hoarded them.
| creaghpatr wrote:
| If you're using them to actually play tennis, they don't work
| nearly as well after a couple uses.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| They're not even great for dogs: https://www.akc.org/expert-
| advice/health/are-tennis-balls-sa...
| nemo44x wrote:
| We use balls that are made for togs and wound t be suitable
| for a game of tennis. However, after 1 use he isn't
| interested in the ball anymore and insists on a new ball
| next time.
| nostromo wrote:
| Next time you're about to complain about farm subsidies, take a
| moment to appreciate that the US makes more food than it needs
| and we don't depend on imports from China to put food on the
| table.
| convolvatron wrote:
| that might be true independent of farm subsidies. we don't
| really know. it is pretty clear that there are government
| programs being used to buy votes. which is a pretty stupid way
| to spend public money.
| unanswered wrote:
| As opposed to all of those dollars flowing into extremely
| republican-leaning cities... Oh wait.
| namdnay wrote:
| I always though cities were net contributors to
| taxation/redistribution?
| adventured wrote:
| You mean before we count their high environmental cost?
| Cities are higher net tax contributors due to population
| density. If we're going to fairly consider the equation,
| we have to include their high emissions over the decades
| and the price of that.
|
| Fossil fuel based electricity & heat production is by far
| the worst offender, 1/3 of all emissions. To say nothing
| of the food requirements of cities (agriculture alone
| being ~11% of emissions), which are potent emissions
| contributors.
|
| As such, should cities be made to pay for the vast
| destruction they've caused over time? Across a century,
| US cities were heavily utilizing cheap coal power to
| sustain their elevated population density. They took a
| very low cost, low penalty ride on helping to destroy the
| planet.
|
| Global climate change didn't happen in a day. There's a
| fair question of distribution of cost, reparations for
| the fossil fuel consumption & use of cities in the form
| of a tax to cover their century of past sins.
|
| A person might retort: yes, but, cities are more
| efficient than rural arrangements pound for pound. The
| issue is total emissions output, in the discussion of
| total cost (net tax +/- contribution equation), which is
| what the threat is with climate change. Low population
| rural areas can't destroy the planet with their resource
| demands, only large populations can do that.
|
| Then a person might retort: but what else were all of
| those people in cities going to do? Not exist at all?
| Starve? Go without electricity? I'd suggest environmental
| reparations via taxation for the net damage the cities
| did cause (if we're looking at fairly balancing the net
| tax contribution equation, that is; if their inflated tax
| net gets counted courtesy of elevated population density,
| then we must also consider their environmental cost).
| megablast wrote:
| > You mean before we count their high environmental cost?
|
| Are you saying those people in cities, spread out over
| the countryside instead would have a lower environmental
| cost??? Absolutely not.
|
| > Across a century, US cities were heavily utilizing
| cheap coal power to sustain their elevated population
| density.
|
| Whereas the country side used what for power?? Magic??
|
| > Low population rural areas can't destroy the planet
| with their resource demands, only large populations can
| do that.
|
| The problem is not cities then. The problem is people.
| Most of our current problems are due to too many people.
|
| And yes, more people spread over a larger area are would
| be worse.
| convolvatron wrote:
| i was very careful to phrase that in a way that was
| neurtral to which party was paying off whom
|
| its a terrible waste either way
| fullstop wrote:
| We pay farmers to _not_ produce crops.
| adrr wrote:
| Can't really ship perishables from China. What's the shelf life
| of lettuce or strawberries? One week at most? Other crops are
| protected by tariffs or pest quarantines like sugar, garlic,
| onions, citrus fruits.
| shalmanese wrote:
| Can you point to a country in 2020 that was affected by food
| shortages because they depended on food imports from China?
|
| Also, the US food supply chain was disrupted in 2020 despite
| not relying on imports.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Is it still okay if I complain about the colossal amount of
| food _waste_ that takes place in the US?
| handrous wrote:
| Food waste's a function of food prices. Raising prices is how
| you reduce it.
|
| We have a lot of waste, because food is cheap.
| coding123 wrote:
| Over half of the fresh fruit and veggies at the grocery store
| is thrown out. I wouldn't be surprised it it was more like
| 95% for specific foods. I have a feeling that onions don't
| have this problem, but the Avocados, I see like maybe the
| same batch sitting for 2 days and on the 3rd you can't even
| pick one up because it's so ripe it's basically mush. Then
| salad bags, I imagine that shredded lettuce doesn't go to
| waste (it's popular for tacos), but pretty much the rest is
| probably thrown out.
|
| What's the solution? I know that grocery stores make
| Guacamole that sits in the fridge and that helps it age
| slower, but the vast majority of the Avocados are just
| wasted.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Here's another one I just spotted: a dog shortage[1]. Good thing
| I guess, since we don't have the tennis balls to give them.
|
| [1]: https://www.axios.com/the-great-american-dog-
| shortage-632187...
| h2odragon wrote:
| People are going nuts about "yoga goats" too; bucklings this
| year have better prospects than ever before.
| doopy1 wrote:
| There's also an increasing shortage of rational thought.
| charles_f wrote:
| > if tennis balls are hard to find in stores now, I will buy a
| case of 24 cans online
|
| Standard panick reaction that's exacerbating the problem. People
| are piling up on all sorts of stuff right now. I needed new tyres
| for my mountain bike, largely impossible to find a few months
| ago. A neighbour told me "oh that's fine I can resell you a pair,
| I bought 6 a few weeks ago just in case" . Pair up tight supply
| chain and people virtually increasing the demand to stock up in
| case the offer runs dry, and you obtain magic.
| admn2 wrote:
| Seems very true. When mason jars were in low supply, all it
| took was a quick look to Ebay to see storage lockers full of
| them to understand part of the problem.
| invalidOrTaken wrote:
| > exacerbating the problem
|
| Problem for whom?
| lexapro wrote:
| Well, that's exactly what happened with the toilet paper, too.
| A few people bought more in fear of some worst-case scenario -
| and then everyone else noticed the supply dwindling and did the
| same to avoid not being able to buy any when their own, normal
| stock runs out.
| booleanbetrayal wrote:
| We are obsessed with manufacturing supply chain bullwhips.
| Bracing for impact again. re:
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/massive-china-port-shutdown-r...
| charles_f wrote:
| Oh wow, you made my day so much worse with just one link!
| kirubakaran wrote:
| Your day was already as bad as it was going to be. You just
| didn't know about it ;)
| BurningFrog wrote:
| This is pretty weird if you know some economics.
|
| On a free market, there are only very temporary shortages or
| surpluses. Those conditions morph quickly into equilibrium with
| raised or lower prices.
|
| The spring 2020 TP shortage illustrates this. Because if the
| pandemic, there were "profiteering" laws in effect that made
| price hikes illegal, so we got empty shelves instead.
|
| Pretty sure there are no such laws for tennis balls now. So
| what's going on?
|
| My best guess is that retailers don't want to take the PR hit of
| raising prices for something that should be resolved quickly
| enough?
| redisman wrote:
| More seriously there seems to be many parts shortages. I have a
| big crack in my windshield but there are no replacements
| available until some unknown date
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Here here. When the pandemic started i prepared for food
| shortages. As it turns out it's been psychologically bad but
| physically nothing like the disaster it could have been.
| unanswered wrote:
| Never forget that this was done to us intentionally. The virus
| was unexpected; but the reaction was deliberate.
| charles_f wrote:
| Based on what source are you saying that exactly?
|
| Those shortages have been explained for a while by a
| combination of overlean JIT manufacturing(1) and supply chain
| issues.
|
| (1) https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/lean-supply-chain-
| jit-i...
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| Does this also hold for padel (not paddle) balls?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padel_(sport)
| underseacables wrote:
| This is serious. Think of the dogs!
| fsagx wrote:
| My dog has been stockpiling for years. She's not worried. I'm
| more concerned what the old folks will put on the feet of their
| walkers.
| valleyjo wrote:
| Savage lol
| underseacables wrote:
| Same. We have a strategic supply basket full of tennis balls
| for our three mouth breathers.
| nemo44x wrote:
| My dog won't play with used balls. They have to be new or
| he's not interested. We keep a bag of "used" balls and drop
| them off at the dog park after awhile and they seem to get
| used.
|
| God this dog is spoiled.
| mrfusion wrote:
| If this is real give pickleball a shot. It's surprisingly fun and
| you can start having competitive games right away.
|
| A lot carries over from tennis too so you'd have a good head
| start.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Although I'd imagine pickleballs are also made in Asia and thus
| subject to similar shipping issues, but maybe they last longer
| than tennis balls so you need fewer of them?
| JeffL wrote:
| The "good" Pickleballs, Franklin and Dura, seem to last a few
| to several days before cracking or warping while the "bad"
| ones that nobody wants to use because they are softer seem to
| last forever. It's a bit better than tennis where people want
| a new can every time they play. No shortage in Pickleballs
| that I've seen so far.
| yuy910616 wrote:
| I will die on this hill but I'm never trying pickleball. Silly
| reason - tennis looks cool, look at Roger. Pickle ball
| looks...less cool
| mrfusion wrote:
| Seriously give it a try! My uncle tried to get me to play for
| years and I thought it was silly. But it's the most fun I've
| ever had and I'm in the best shape of my life.
| syedkarim wrote:
| I'm a former recreational tennis player and I previously
| thought that pickleball was lame. Now I only play pickleball
| (mostly singles) and sold off my tennis racquets. After two
| years of playing, I still can't figure out why 4.0-level
| pickleball is way more fun than 4.0-level tennis. If you play
| singles pickleball and live in the northwest Chicago suburbs,
| hit me up!
| mrfusion wrote:
| Awesome. Hit me up if you're in Florida!
| xyzelement wrote:
| I grew up in the USSR in the 80s, so my view of what a shortage
| actually feels like are quite different.
|
| Since the pandemic, there are 3 shortages that were in the news
| that were relevant to my family: toilet paper, chips/automotive,
| and ammunition (my father in law and I got into target shooting
| during the pandemic)
|
| I would say the max impact of all these things was: you had to
| work a LITTLE harder, pay a LITTLE more, and wait a LITTLE longer
| to get what you wanted.
|
| For example, in USSR I remember wiping my ass with cut-up
| newspaper for months at a time. That's what a TP shortage /
| deficit is. Over the last year, the max I had to deal with was
| going to a second store and not being able to buy lots and lots
| at once.
|
| We ended up having to buy a car this summer. Shortage manifested
| in two ways - some trims/models were not available. IE - you
| could still get a car at any point, just may not be the exact one
| you want. We ended up ordering one because we cared about
| something specific and despite warning, we picked it up in a few
| weeks.
|
| In contrast, my dad had to wait something like 10 years to get
| his Lada Niva.
|
| What this means to me is our supply chains are INCREDIBLY
| resilient. The fact that these things basically translated into
| mild inconveniences is quite impressive.
| oblio wrote:
| Hey, more than cut up! Crumpled! :-D
| contravariant wrote:
| Not sure there ever was a real shortage in toilet paper. I mean
| sure the stores ran out at some point, but that's mostly
| because you can only realistically have so many toilet paper in
| the store at once, so if people buy more for whatever insane
| reason then it's going to run out soon. The supply didn't ever
| run into any issues as far as I can tell.
| javagram wrote:
| There was still supply of "toilet paper" but not of the kind
| that was sold in the store. Normally large amounts of
| commercial paper was sold but that wasn't in grocery stores
| and sales stopped because of offices closing. Things got
| figured out eventually both as panic buying subsided and some
| commercial paper (single rolls, etc) was diverted to the
| grocery store supply chain.
| scott_s wrote:
| Correct; there was a _market shift_ , where all of the
| demand for commercial toilet paper went to consumer toilet
| paper. Because of that shift, there was a real shortage in
| consumer toilet paper. Unfortunately, the myth that this
| shortage was entirely an induced panic seems to have caught
| on. For more, see https://www.vox.com/the-
| goods/2020/4/3/21206942/toilet-paper...
| raspasov wrote:
| There might have been a short-term panic over-buying plus the
| fact that everybody all of a sudden was staying home (and
| *ahem*, going to the toilet at home more) as opposed to going
| to the office. That's just a hypothesis, I haven't looked at
| any data. But your point is essentially correct, I assume it
| just takes a bit of time to shift the supply from
| commercial/business channels (delivering to office buildings
| in the city) to consumer ones (delivering to stores like
| Costco, Walmart, etc).
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| Do people really go at the office on a regular enough basis
| to have an impact like that on the supply chain?
| scott_s wrote:
| Yes.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I don't believe it's that pragmatic. There's a great sense
| of the unknown, as if society will totally shut down. After
| all, you don't see people shop the same way when they plan
| to be home for a while (vacations, kids not going to school
| during the summer, etc)
| lazide wrote:
| It can be both. I personally think of uncertainty like
| the exponent of the function for buying. More
| uncertainty, higher value exponentially.
| klyrs wrote:
| > ... staying home (and _ahem_ , going to the toilet at
| home more) as opposed to going to the office.
|
| From what I understand, this was the real driver of the
| shortage. The toilet paper manufacturers had to retool for
| home-size rolls to meet demand, where they were previously
| making tons of office-size rolls. Highly efficient
| manufacturing processes don't turn on a dime.
| lazide wrote:
| Also, most offices buy super terrible toilet paper (like
| 1 ply, thinner than a tissue). I don't know if it is to
| discourage pooping on the company dime or what, but I
| don't know if any individuals that would be ok with
| buying that for their own use. So retooling in more than
| just roll size/length probably also needed to happen.
| dmoy wrote:
| > I don't know if it is to discourage pooping on the
| company dime or what
|
| It's because it doesn't clog toilets as much. If you
| stock two ply in an office, people will do unspeakable
| things with their literal shit, and it's just not good
| times.
|
| I worked in one place that switched briefly to more home-
| style twoply, and we _very_ quickly switched back. It
| wasn 't because of the cost. It was because of the poop.
| Everywhere. All the poop.
| syshum wrote:
| In some cases that is result of super super low flow
| fixtures + bad pressure.
|
| Commercial fixtures need higher pressure than a home
| fixture, and sometimes the office building can not
| provide proper pressure, combined with wanting under a
| gallon of water per flush and well bad things happen
| syshum wrote:
| The shortages came too quickly to claim it was just WFH
| unless people generally only buy enough to get by for a
| week at a time..
|
| I generally restock on paper goods like that ever 3-6
| months, not weekly...
| scott_s wrote:
| Even if people bought for just the next week, they had to
| buy _more_ , because now they were using their toilet at
| home, exclusively. Everyone buying more at once caused a
| real shortage.
| [deleted]
| klyrs wrote:
| I shouldn't have said _the_ driver. The initial panic-
| buys were definitely what kicked it off. The need for
| retooling is what sustained the shortage for months
| despite rationing by grocery stores.
| ghaff wrote:
| As I recall, even though I normally keep pretty well
| stocked with paper goods and other staples, I did a
| shopping trip right before everything went a bit crazy
| and definitely picked up some additional reserves just in
| case. It certainly wasn't prepping levels but enough to
| throw off stocking levels if everyone did what I did
| during the first month or three. I still have a 10 pound
| bag of flour which I would normally never buy but it's
| what was there of my preferred brand at one point when
| shelves were a bit scant.
| lazide wrote:
| A lot of people (especially in apartments), do buy a week
| at a time - not the weirdest or craziest thing I guess,
| but definitely not something I would be comfortable
| doing!
| SECProto wrote:
| If everyone buys for a month at a time, it would be
| spread out over that month. With lockdowns, people bought
| more than usual, and everyone was trying to buy it at the
| same time rather than spread out. And then people heard
| about shortages and it just reinforced it - people who
| still had a month worth at home would throw another
| package in the care "just in case".
| jessaustin wrote:
| The rational reaction to the TP event was to install one of
| those bidet seats on one's toilet. I haven't bought a roll
| since.
| rolleiflex wrote:
| Except right at the same time the bidet seats were also out
| of stock everywhere. I scored one by being slightly earlier
| to wake up to what's happening, but I know many friends
| that weren't able to pick one up.
| pedrocr wrote:
| Having gone through that on the supply side it was a
| manufactured crisis. When news organizations were still
| waiting for the first COVID19 cases to happen in their
| country they would run fluff stories from other places. A
| very common one was the toilet paper shortage. They probably
| got some intern to write it sloppily so in some it wasn't
| even clear that the photos and examples were from a different
| country. That drove people to rush to stores and hoard
| creating a self-fulfilling phrophecy as no grocery store will
| keep too many days of stock of toilet paper as it has too
| much volume. That this then happened in more places made it
| even more of a story and it sort of snowballed.
|
| The fact that people were now at home and using different
| types of paper than what offices use was as far as I can tell
| a very small factor, it was mostly panic hoarding.
| paganel wrote:
| > For example, in USSR I remember wiping my ass with cut-up
| newspaper for months at a time.
|
| As a Romanian who grew up as a kid in the '80s and the '90s I'm
| sort of glad that this was a shared Eastern-European
| experience, it's something that people from the other side of
| the wall will most probably never understand completely. When I
| was spending the summer at my grandparents me and my brother
| were sometime wiping our asses off with pages taken from "Munca
| de Partid" (roughly translated as "Party Work"), which was the
| official magazine of the Romanian Communist Party's Central
| Committee. Our granddad had been a communist mayor in the
| village and he had almost the entire collection of those
| magazines.
|
| [1] https://www.cosminnasui.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2014/01/Munca...
| nickpp wrote:
| I still wonder what effect all that led (from the newspaper
| ink) will have on our rectums' health.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| Similar experience.
|
| In India I tagged along with my father when he applied for a
| physical phone connection when I was in class 8. By the time
| the application made it through the bureaucratic labyrinthine
| and all sorts of hurdles I was in class 10.
|
| So now a days when I see someone rant for 2 month wait period
| for a car I silently laugh. The current generation though is
| growing up getting conditioned to instant gratification.
|
| Listening to my favourite song for me, while growing up, meant
| convincing my father to give me money, walking to a cassette
| store, wading through their catalogue and finally get it. So
| for me waiting comes naturally. In a way for my generation (and
| earlier) waiting is second nature. Wait in line for movie
| tickets, at bank counter, ration stores, just to name a few.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Having grown up in a Third World country makes almost every
| issue people around me complain about nontrivial. But that
| doesn't mean that they are. Just because others had/have it
| harder doesn't make those issues any less valid.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| > ...doesn't make those issues any less valid.
|
| Certainly, the issues are indeed valid for them and nothing
| to be scoffed at.
|
| What is fascinating about India of my growing up years was
| that most of the scarcity was artificial, mostly due to
| government regulations and policies. So money didn't speed
| up things in a big way. But all that has changed
| unrecognisably now. Now, if one has money there's almost
| nothing that can't be gotten.
| u801e wrote:
| > when I see someone rant for 2 month wait period for a car I
| silently laugh.
|
| Things improve, so people's expectations change. People from
| generations ago could "silently laugh" at someone complaining
| about a missed flight and a long layover when they had to
| travel by sea instead of air.
| [deleted]
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| You are just a little early.
|
| TP and ammo were user-caused panics. Superficial.
|
| Microchip/Atmel just gave me 50 week lead times on really
| common chips. My products use these common chips, so do a TON
| of other things. If you can't buy a tooshbrush or a thermostat
| in a few months, you might not realize it's because of chip
| shortage or containers.
|
| I think things are going to get worse. Our supply chains aren't
| resilient, more than they are so large it takes a lot/longer
| time to see effects.
|
| I think we're going to hit the peak of the bullwhip soon and
| it's going to surprise a lot of people what shutting the world
| down for almost 2 years will do.
| cascom wrote:
| It seems like ammo has been in experiencing semi-perpetual
| issues for the past 12+ years
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| That's not unfair. The biggest "real" one I can think of
| was Sandy Hook, the biggest "fake" (consumer caused and
| perpetuated) was the 2016 election, after Trump won, 22lr
| ammo was impossible to find. Gun store talk is always bad
| (said as a gun guy that doesn't like gun store bullshit)
| but this was on a whole different level.
|
| This latest... similar, but worse obviously. At least there
| is a real world event tied to it.
|
| It's coming down, but I feel like between inflation and
| commodity prices we aren't going to see pre-panic prices
| ever again. Extremely skeptical I'll be able to get 1k of
| 9mm delivered to my door under $250 going forward let alone
| the previous $160.
|
| It's a larger condition that there is distrust of
| government, the spread of bullshit at light speeds,
| diminishing personal freedoms, and a media cheering it all
| on. So I get why people are hording bullets a bit, but it's
| funny that actual good defensive ammo isn't more sought
| after. Just the cheap training stuff.
| newsclues wrote:
| Ammo is weird because you have the government and
| consumer markets. We only see shortages for consumers.
|
| High prices and a larger market should attract increased
| manufacturing capacity.
|
| Could be interesting for a new highly automated robotic
| factory to bring down costs?
| beerandt wrote:
| Ammo is a government first market, not a parallel market.
|
| Factories generally have to fill their government orders
| first, then sell govt runs 2nds/rejects (in military
| calibers) to consumers, and then manufacture consumer
| specific rounds with surplus factory capacity.
|
| Automation at factories to this point has generally
| resulted in lower quality products. People still want it
| because it's cheap, but there's a balance between price
| and how bad of a product people will tolerate.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| As far as automation and larger throughput, the machine
| exist, but at the scale of the market under normal
| conditions, it doesn't make sense to plan on panics. At
| least it didn't traditionally.
|
| If Federal or Sellier invest in a n% more machines now,
| they will be a year or two out, and who knows what the
| market will look like then? Under Trump, the market was
| fairly slow and these companies would have had too much
| capacity for their sales.
|
| Normally, I'm told the ammo companies like to plan
| perfectly filling one shift. Then on panics being able to
| run 3 shifts a day (which they all are now). Being set up
| to run your 10 big machines for 24hr at a time is a
| better plan than 30 machines and 20 normally sitting
| idle, because in the scenario you COULD run 30 machines
| at 24hr, you are going to run out of components anyhow.
|
| That is another issue, it isn't the assembly that is the
| ultimate bottleneck, almost powder comes out of maybe
| four places in the world, same for primers. Right now as
| I understand, it's really a primer shortage, but no on is
| sitting on mountains of spare powder either.
|
| I've had 20k primers on order for 9 months now. I don't
| expect to see them anytime soon.
| neither_color wrote:
| This is true. I see a lot of comments that turn this into a
| philosophical debate but not enough actionable talk. Earlier
| this summer I wanted to buy a graphics card, so I spent weeks
| following discord "drop" servers where people were running
| scripts checking inventories of every online store and
| sending out alerts as soon as, say, Best Buy restocks Nvidia
| cards. Naturally these would sell out instantly and/or
| websites would crash from thousands of gamers/miners/scalpers
| ALL trying to buy something at once.
|
| During this experience I had the morbid thought that we're
| only a a natural/human disaster away from having to do the
| same for more necessary things. Get familiar with web
| scraping or buying communities of things you need while you
| can.
| ozim wrote:
| In absolute terms you are right.
|
| In relative terms well in east block in 80s you were not
| expecting to have anything on the shelves when you went to the
| shop. You were expecting to wipe with newspaper for rest of
| your life and sometimes if you are lucky get rolls of TP.
|
| When we live nowadays, we plan that we go to the shop and we
| will have it.
|
| Like a car example, your father was not planning a road trip
| next year because he knew he is not going to get a car.
|
| Nowadays people might plan a road trip make arrangements and
| then be surprised by car shortage - who is losing more? I
| expect that person who made arrangements for a road trip and
| then got nothing because there are no ICUs to make cars.
| xyzelement wrote:
| On one level I agree with you: happiness = reality -
| expectations.
|
| However what I am saying is that we don't actually have real
| impact on our lives today. From what I can tell, nobody
| actually failed to get a car and had to cancel their road
| trip (to use your example)
| bdcravens wrote:
| Tangent, but wouldn't it be happiness = expections -
| reality?
| sk5t wrote:
| No, high but unmet expectations are the opposite of
| happiness.
| raspasov wrote:
| Perhaps surprised that they can't make the trip in the car
| with the specifically selected Premium Leather Seats and the
| Piano Black trim within the next 2 weeks? :)
|
| In all seriousness, that's not entirely true. From first
| person accounts I've heard, in the early 80s and throughout
| the 70s everything was more or less OK in the Soviet block.
| Of course the selection was not as great as in the West, but
| essential 20th century conveniences were available. In the
| late 80s things really started to fall apart and it became
| painfully obvious that their economic model is not
| competitive and ultimately unsustainable.
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| As an observation, we have become extremely accustomed to the
| unprecedented easy with which we can buy things, from a
| gigantic selection of vendors, levels of quality and design,
| and other (real or artificial) differentiators.
|
| Now that this comfortable situation is starting to unravel even
| slightly, the reaction is one of incredulous disbelief. "Surely
| this can't be happening, we live in prosperous times!" seems to
| be the gist of a lot of people's reactions.
|
| We have become so used to (near-)instant gratification, that
| maybe we need to take a step back and recalibrate our desires,
| demands and expectations.
|
| I'm glad my family has always had a modest outlook and ability
| to comfortably live within our means, often finding creative
| solutions when money was a bit short.
|
| It has ingrained in me that compromise is not a hateful thing,
| realistic expectations make everything more manageable. For
| instance, I don't hold the specific car I own* to be some
| essential part of my identity or image. I take the more
| practical view that if it performs the tasks I need and meets
| an acceptable level of quality and economy, I am satisfied.
| Then it doesn't matter if it's a Mercedes, a Toyota or a KIA.
| If someone looks down on me or thinks less of me because they
| don't agree with my choice, then that is their problem, not
| mine.
|
| * I don't own one right now, but it goes for any other
| possession, really.
|
| Moderation needs to come back into fashion, in a big way.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Is there a button for, I don't agree 100% but your comment
| shouldn't be gray?
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| People _really_ don 't like having their overconsumption
| and shallow consumerism-based self-images pointed out.
| squarefoot wrote:
| And some of them make money out of it; some probably read
| also HN. Upvoted, of course.
| syshum wrote:
| >>What this means to me is
|
| What this means to me is capitalism is awesome, and people
| attempting to destroy it or replace it would rather have the
| world you describe from the USSR...
|
| Remember kids, with capitalism you some times have bread lines,
| with socialism you some times have bread....
| squarefoot wrote:
| Capitalism is not bad per se, but capitalism without control
| can be disastrous. We have not yet reached the point in which
| corporations took over on governments; the process already
| started, but the complete takeover at global scale will need
| some time, from several decades to a couple centuries or so.
| When it will happen, living under socialism or capitalism
| won't be that different anymore for those who are not part of
| the elite.
| syshum wrote:
| Corporations are not capitalism... Corporation are
| fictitious legal entities created by government. With out
| government there can be no corporations.
|
| Corporatism is not "capitalism without control", Corportism
| is the direct result of governments picking winners and
| loosers in the market place. It is the direct result of
| government putting their hands on the scale of the market.
|
| So expecting government to solve the problem it created is
| foolish. I have no love for corporation, or corporatism.
| you want to eliminate that I am all for it. However lets
| stop blaming capitalism for the problems created by
| government
| squarefoot wrote:
| That's the "without control" I was referring to.
| code_duck wrote:
| Most Americans have absolutely no idea what it is like to
| endure that sort of hardship. I mean, in the most extreme
| examples I know adults who act like they're going to starve
| because their peas were touching their potatoes.
| midev wrote:
| > Most Americans have absolutely no idea what it is like to
| endure that sort of hardship
|
| Which is great! Despite the flaws of capitalism, it's
| literally the point! As supply chains were impacted, new
| businesses and solutions filled the void. Given the vast
| amount of competition in things like toilet paper,
| automotive, etc, "shortages" just meant not getting your
| favorite brand for a few weeks.
|
| > I know adults who act like they're going to starve because
| their peas were touching their potatoes.
|
| I would take this over the horror shows of communism any day.
|
| It's never a knock to say "your country is so good you've
| never had the massive hardships we have had!"
| code_duck wrote:
| Yes, my criticism is not directed towards the effectiveness
| of the supply chain. It's true that we are mostly rich with
| consumer goods. However there are also numerous very
| serious problems with how we live in the United States,
| such as sustainability, even distribution of resources,
| efficiency and waste.
|
| My point was that people in the United States do not have
| experience dealing with even very minor hardships
| effectively. If they were presented with truly difficult
| physical situations similar to what people in many parts of
| the world deal with frequently, they would not be able to
| handle it effectively on a number of levels.
| midev wrote:
| > My point was that people in the United States do not
| have experience dealing with even very minor hardships
| effectively
|
| Again, yes! Due to our success! These aren't at all a
| knock on American's. It's what every generation of ours
| has fought for. An easier life for our children.
|
| I am very very very grateful that my son does not have to
| deal with what people in other parts of the world deal
| with. I love that the idea of having no running water,
| defecating in the streets, surrounded by dead bodies is a
| completely foreign concept to him. That he wouldn't know
| how to deal with such a situation. And I hope his
| children have it even easier. That we're so wealthy we
| have UBI, and they can study art and music, and want for
| nothing.
| code_duck wrote:
| Sure, that's all true. My concerns are somewhat unrelated
| to celebrating our success, though. I don't believe
| Americans would have the experience, social customs,
| physical stamina, emotional fortitude or knowledge to
| survive reasonably well if conditions took a serious turn
| for the worse.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > That we're so wealthy we have UBI, and they can study
| art and music, and want for nothing.
|
| I'm not going to romanticize Communist shortages, but I
| think this sentence shows a fundamental misunderstanding
| of human nature, and highlights the primary problem with
| capitalism. The idea that if we have UBI, that we're
| suddenly going to be a nation of poets, artists and
| philosophers is a utopian fantasy in my opinion.
|
| I know more than a couple trust fund kids. They literally
| do "want for nothing", and they are universally
| miserable. Anecdata, sure, but even when you look at
| trust fund kids that _are_ happy, it 's usually because
| they were instilled with a strong work ethic - they had
| to find how to struggle at _something_ , even if it
| wasn't financial.
|
| If you talk to what most people and find what really
| makes them happy (and their _have_ been actual studies
| about this), it is human relationships, a sense of
| dignity, and pride in themselves that brings them
| happiness. More cheap consumer goods from China are
| unlikely to fill that void.
| ghaff wrote:
| Just one (somewhat trivial but perhaps not) thing was all
| the entrepreneurial activity by individual and adjacent
| businesses to create more stylish/higher quality/etc.
| masks. Now perhaps one could make a rational argument that
| we'd be better off with just a bunch of standard N95 masks
| period. But people are funny and one shouldn't let the
| perfect be the enemy of the good.
| seriousquestion wrote:
| That's important perspective. What did it look like in the
| early days of the shortage tho? Did it start off as minor and
| become more severe over time? Or did it go from plentiful to
| none right away?
| raspasov wrote:
| Pretty instant. Since there was essentially no internet or
| nothing substantial was online (mid 90s in Bulgaria), you'd
| hear from people that there's shortage of something, and it's
| already too late.
|
| The line is hours long and your best option is to simply line
| up or you're gonna be out of gas, for example. Family members
| sometimes would take turns waiting at the gas station for a
| few hours.
|
| There were more shortages in the early 90s right after the
| collapse of the Soviet block, but I don't personally remember
| those.
| djitz wrote:
| Cubans have a saying "cuando no hay papel de bano, el culo
| aprende a leer."
|
| When there is no toilet paper, your ass learns to read.
| apengwin wrote:
| What does this mean, actually? Are you picking and choosing
| which newspaper sections to keep, or are you just sitting on
| the toilet a lot more?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| You're wiping with a newspaper.
| notheretoo wrote:
| That's because the shortages you experienced were real. The
| shortages we've had over the pandemic are greatly exaggerated
| by our trash tabloid media which vice is a prime offender.
| raspasov wrote:
| My experience exactly.
|
| Growing up in the 90s in Bulgaria, my parents had to line up
| for hours or half a day to fill up gas in the car. This went on
| for weeks/months.
|
| If I complain that people are complaining too much in the
| modern world, I would be complaining as well. So I won't,
| otherwise it will be an infinite loop.
| [deleted]
| akomtu wrote:
| Someone from North Korea could tell you that USSR people had
| an easy life. We don't see those stories on HN because
| there's only one person in NK who has internet.
| dheera wrote:
| The reason there was a TP "shortage" in the US is everyone
| started hoarding it. There really wasn't a shortage, it was
| just idiots taking advantage of the situation to resell {masks,
| TP, lysol, sanitizer} to other people on ebay at 10x the cost.
|
| If the government had some guts they would put their foot down,
| personally go to every single one of those ebay sellers' homes,
| throw them in jail, and then restrict sales of all of the above
| products to a generous and reasonable amount per person with
| government ID required to purchase. Problem would have been
| solved.
|
| But our government is too chicken to do that.
| nickpp wrote:
| The reason we had true shortages in Easter Europe in the 80s
| in because the government thought it knew better and
| interfered (planned).
|
| The reason you had fake shortages last year is exactly
| because the government stayed out of it.
| swiley wrote:
| There's a word for an everything shortage: "inflation."
| blacktriangle wrote:
| I suspect it's more like two words: JIT Manufacturing
| raspasov wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/Penn-Tennis-Balls-Case-Extra/dp/B001C...
|
| It's Saturday morning. I can get 45 balls delivered Monday.
|
| Click-bait shortage-mongering?
| admn2 wrote:
| These usually go for around $2.25 a can, but this isn't such a
| horrible price.
| starky wrote:
| The store I usually buy tennis balls at is showing over 1200
| tubes of just one brand of balls in stock at the store near me,
| must be pretty localized if it is a problem.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I know someone very closely and heavily involved with
| international logistics.
|
| One of the major problems are the East Coast ports in the United
| States.
|
| They're relatively small and cannot handle some of the cargo
| ships that are used today.
|
| Then other is the lack of labor, because docks are union jobs;
| the kind that pass on from generation to generation because of
| how good the work is.
| greedo wrote:
| Are the unions restricting new memberships? If there's a
| surplus of unfulfilled jobs, the unions can just get new
| members during the peak times, and then when demand drops, they
| can give priority to senior members.
| barbarbar wrote:
| Just use old balls. They may not have much hair and be a little
| slow but it is the same for both players. In fact a bit more
| entertaining than 250km/h first serve (that nobody can see) and
| better for the environment.
| nwellinghoff wrote:
| lol. No.
| osrec wrote:
| I don't know why you're being down voted. The OPs suggestion
| is so silly, primarily because they don't understand that
| even balls from the same pack deflate at different rates. You
| end up with a bunch of tennis balls that all behave very
| differently, and you can't really have a good game. A better
| suggestion would be to take unpressurized tennis balls...
| kzrdude wrote:
| Why should we overconsume balls like this. It's just more
| pointless resource waste. We need to be smarter about how
| we live on this planet - in the large and the small.
|
| Tennis balls might be a small thing, but it is symbolic of
| the general thinking: just buy more of it, to solve
| whatever the problem is.
| jffry wrote:
| The post you are replying to got downvoted because "lol.
| No" is not a constructive response to a well-meaning
| suggestion.
|
| From the Hacker News guidelines [1], "In Comments" section:
| Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us
| something.
|
| Likewise, re: your comment, some other guidelines also
| apply: Please don't comment about the
| voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes
| boring reading. Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have
| curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't
| fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the
| community.
|
| A kinder way to say what you said would be to remove this
| part entirely: "The OPs suggestion is so silly, primarily
| because they don't understand that...". You're phrasing it
| in a way that suggests that OP has been exposed to your
| knowledge already and simply came to the wrong conclusion,
| instead of assuming that perhaps OP simply doesn't have a
| lot of experience playing tennis with balls in different
| condition.
|
| An example for you to try instead would be something like:
| "Many players prefer not to use old balls because each one
| behaves differently and makes the game less fun. Even balls
| from the same pack deflate at different rates" etc etc
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| osrec wrote:
| I appreciate your response, however, to a serious tennis
| player, the OPs comment is so naive, to the point that
| you wonder if they're being sarcastic. They probably lack
| the experience of playing tennis at a reasonable level,
| and have come to their conclusion in a very uninformed
| way. Almost suggesting all other tennis players are daft
| to not reuse balls!
|
| Why the heck would people spend money on a new set of
| balls before each match if it didn't materially impact
| the quality of the game?!
|
| Also, your post attempting to educate me is rather
| passive aggressive. In some ways, that's meanest kind of
| mean on HN :(
| jffry wrote:
| You continue to demean and put down the OP, in violation
| of this site's commenting guidelines.
|
| Telling you that your post is uncivil and pointing out
| specific problems and how to improve them is far from
| passive-aggression.
| barbarbar wrote:
| Have played - though mostly from baseline and mostly on
| clay court and hate new balls. So I do understand.
| osrec wrote:
| Why do you hate new balls? Does it make the game too fast
| for you?
| barbarbar wrote:
| Yes. And certainly on indoor courts and with someone with
| fast serves.
| jansan wrote:
| Even 10 year olds use a set of new balls per match in league
| plays. Not that it makes much sense, but that's how it is.
| yuy910616 wrote:
| Are we savages or what?
| barbarbar wrote:
| Actually I was not. But I think I see what you mean when
| reading it again.
| oblio wrote:
| Well, he is bar bar bar.
| admn2 wrote:
| They do make "pressureless" balls that arguably last a bit
| longer (which no one in the US uses it seems), but
| pressurized balls will go flat even if they're not being used
| if they're opened. Wilson has a new plastic-free ball that
| uses similar tech to pressureless called the Triniti, which
| attempts to solve the plastic part and they last about 5 sets
| plus.
| racl101 wrote:
| A lot of dogs will be sad.
| monstrado wrote:
| Not sure about the large stores, but i've had luck getting my
| balls at the local mom and pop tennis supply stores.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Apparently, because this clown ordered 24 cans for himself. What
| the hell, man?
| h2odragon wrote:
| The black market opportunities are obvious, no? The man with
| the hookup gets the riches.
|
| "Hey buddy, you lookin' for some _bounce_? "
| throwaway59553 wrote:
| It sure was a good idea to allow every factory to move to East
| Asia.
| parineum wrote:
| I am pretty shocked that this hasn't been more of a narrative
| since the PPE shortages of COVID.
|
| I guess it's expected that the people who have been pushing the
| free trade globalization angle wouldn't want to turn and admit
| that strategy has a significant downside that's been ignored.
| Not to say that it doesn't have upside.
| leppr wrote:
| The upside is shifting resources to focus on industries with
| less competition like software and semiconductors. No country
| can sustain the current quality of life of their citizens
| without imports.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Our planet as a whole does, so this doesn't seem to be a
| universal truth.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| This. I make the same argument when the question is in
| regards to whether a large national economy can do well
| in a silo. It seems to me that the U.S. is large enough
| to provide all types of resources, were they developed.
| vajrabum wrote:
| And combining that with the JIT, minimize inventory thing makes
| it just that much more fun doesn't it.
| 8note wrote:
| And then there wouldn't be a shortage because western countries
| didn't lock down non-essentials due to covid?
| missedthecue wrote:
| Investing in creating an autarky so that you can buy as many
| tennis balls as you want during every black swan event?
| monkeybutton wrote:
| We should've invested in a strategic tennis ball reserve at the
| bare minimum.
| FriedPickles wrote:
| Tennis balls always felt like a planned obsolescence item to me.
| Are we really unable to make balls that don't lose their bounce
| after a few matches? Or a tennis ball that can be reinflated?
|
| I'm sure longevity will always be traded for weight and
| bounciness at the extremes, but for general play it's time for a
| reusable tennis ball.
| opinion-is-bad wrote:
| It's more than just the air that gets lost from a ball, the
| felt is delicate and even small changes in distribution affect
| the spin. The stresses in tennis are intense, with 100 mph
| common for even pretty low level amateur serves. Most players
| keep used balls after a match for practice hitting too, and
| they stay usable for months.
|
| My aunt has been playing competition tennis for about 50 years
| now, and she jokes that even with all the inflation on other
| stuff, a can of balls cost $3 in 1970 just like it does now, so
| they have definitely been making some pretty big efficiency
| gains in the manufacturing.
| latchkey wrote:
| Or they just pay the workers less.
|
| (before you apply that comment to just tennis balls, think
| bigger picture)
| notRobot wrote:
| Just from HN I've learned that so far this year we've had a:
|
| Pasta shortage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25566652
|
| Shipping container shortage:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26574077
|
| Chip shortage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27095558
|
| And now a tennis ball shortage...
| londons_explore wrote:
| Shortages wouldn't be so severe if market prices could reward
| those who had done work to mitigate the shortage. For example,
| when cups are in short supply, the person who sells their
| reserve stock for a healthy profit.
|
| Unfortunately anti-price-gouging laws are being enforced more
| strictly, which means those who can alleviate a shortage are
| usually not rewarded. End result is people no longer go to
| great lengths to come up with ways to alleviate shortages, and
| the shortages end up worse.
| Yoric wrote:
| I suspect that gouging-without-countermeasures causes much
| more damage than anti-gouging, though.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Specifically in case of tennis balls, I would argue that
| having them expensive is still better than not having them
| at all - tennis players need to practise.
| Const-me wrote:
| How long do they last?
|
| Can we possibly change these arbitrary sport regulations
| making the balls last 100x as much?
| jbay808 wrote:
| Wasn't there also a sofa shortage, caused in part by a foam
| shortage?
|
| https://slate.com/business/2021/07/furniture-shortage-couch-...
| Yoric wrote:
| Obviously, they're after the MyPillow guy.
|
| /s
| Arrath wrote:
| I can chime in with my own anecdote, I was quoted (back in
| May) a 28-week delivery timeframe for a couch, much like in
| that article.
| toiletaccount wrote:
| I'll jump onto the dog pile and add air filters for your
| vehicle. Dealerships are buying them up like toilet paper so
| you have to call around and ask them very nicely if they'd mind
| shipping it to you. And during fire season too.
| s0rce wrote:
| I just picked up mine from Amazon. Random cheap brands but
| everything was in stock. Rock Auto seemed to have stock as
| well. Maybe I got lucky.
| toiletaccount wrote:
| i had trouble with the engine air filter specifically.
| might have been a make/model specific thing, but i found
| one of the last ones in my state according to the dealers
| inventory system.
| auxym wrote:
| I had to wait 2 months to order a Fluke DMM at work.
|
| Also bikes and all sorts of bike parts and accessories.
| fy20 wrote:
| I went into Decathlon yesterday, and only two bikes were out
| of stock. Compare to this time last year when there were only
| two in stock...
| spamizbad wrote:
| Lucky. I went to take delivery of a new bike at a local
| bike shop last month and it was completely picked over.
| They had a few models left but easily 80% of their stock
| was gone. They also had 2 bike mechanics working in a
| crowded workspace diligently fixing what looked like a
| sizable backlog of bikes in need of repairs and upgrades. I
| asked one of the guys working there about the shortage and
| he also mentioned it's related to holdup in overseas
| shipping.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yeah I heard the same. Because of very low inventory and
| multi month delivery times, folks are opting to get their
| old bikes fixed and causing a backlog in the repair shop.
| smichel17 wrote:
| People's experience will vary eidely because the problem is
| in the supply chains, not production. In most cases, there
| exists plenty of X, it's getting it from Y to Z that's the
| problem.
| cableshaft wrote:
| There's a lot more than that going on right now. A whole
| subreddit dedicated to it[1].
|
| [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Shortages/
| knownjorbist wrote:
| Doom & gloom is a borderline fetish. Look closer and for most
| things the shortage is an inconvenience at most.
| megablast wrote:
| Looks just like a preppers sub.
| tmh88j wrote:
| Hmm, could have potential but it needs some better
| moderation. It seems to consist mostly of knee-jerk reactions
| to local stores selling out of a very specific random product
| and calling it a shortage, or vague statements without any
| useful details. "HEB is out of Valentina hot sauce" and
| "Walmart has limits on basic food".
| Kluny wrote:
| Also bike parts, raw textiles, and tofu!
|
| For the tennis ball problem, I invite everyone to visit my
| balcony, where my upstairs neighbour's dog leaves all his
| balls.
| Finnucane wrote:
| There's a tofu factory in my neighborhood, so no shortage
| here.
| curmudgeon22 wrote:
| for maybe ~6 weeks, i noticed dramatically reduced tofu
| supply in stores near me (Vancouver BC), including from
| local brands. There was usually something... the
| soft/dessert tofu being most common. Seems to be back to
| normal the last couple weeks.
| shusaku wrote:
| Somewhere, an economist is regretting creating an inflation
| measure based on a shipping container of pasta, chips, and
| tennis balls.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Containers are real.
|
| We used to pay $3000 per container.
|
| We are now paying $11,000 per, and can't get enough of them.
| gregoriol wrote:
| Tennis balls are not vital equipment, they are just for fun, so
| it's not a big deal. Some other shortages are more worrying as
| they affect more important situations like food supply, work
| tools, ...
| gwright wrote:
| I don't think modern economies and supply chains work that
| way. It isn't like the tennis ball supply chain is an
| independent entity from everything else. It is all connected
| in somewhat intricate and non-obvious ways.
|
| It isn't particularly surprising to me that we are seeing all
| sorts of side-effects of the unpresidented shutdown of vast
| parts of our economy as a response to COVID.
| kibbleznbits wrote:
| My dog disagrees.
| smegger001 wrote:
| your dog can continue using his old tennis ball over and
| over again though.
| weavie wrote:
| You've clearly not met my dog..
| megablast wrote:
| Get him onto old branches.
| weavie wrote:
| Oh she loves sticks. The problem is she eats them, which
| results in her throwing them up all over my carpet an
| hour or so later.
| snug wrote:
| There were also boba shortages earlier this year
| [deleted]
| CarVac wrote:
| A few years ago at family meals, for grace I started thanking
| the industrial supply complex for bringing us all the wonderful
| food.
|
| I was being more prescient than I could have imagined.
| eddanger wrote:
| I have purchased maybe one or two packs in my lifetime but
| somehow I have half the worlds supply of tennis balls in my back
| yard.
| joezydeco wrote:
| My son was waiting on a new racket from Head this spring and was
| told that they lost a number of shipping containers in a storm
| off the coast of Hawaii.
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/where-shoes-ordered-check-ocean-...
| dcolkitt wrote:
| For those who are more domain knowledgeable in the logistics
| space, when can we expect these sporadic shortages to end?
|
| I know that there's a supply chain whipsaw effect. Where a
| disruption in one component leads to a delayed downstream
| distortion somewhere else. But at what point can we expect these
| ghosts lurking in the system to finally work themselves out.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| What caused the initial issue, the Suez fiasco?
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| The pandemic in general? Trans-pacific shipping got
| completely blown up (on both ends) multiple times since
| Feb/March 2019.
|
| Already while COVID was largely confined to China, supply
| problems were beginning to emerge, starting with China
| factories shutting down and internal networks (trucking)
| being disrupted by the pandemic and lockdowns. Everything
| just compounded from there. I remember reading daily posts on
| a supply chain subreddit talking about shipping indexes
| dropping daily in March.
|
| Like honestly, it's pretty amazing that shortages aren't
| worse. Perhaps a testament to how much of our trade is in
| non-critical goods.
| Kluny wrote:
| Well no, covid. It's still fallout from that. Factories in
| the cheap-labour countries like Taiwan closed down due to
| covid, and oftentimes management made conservative bets about
| how long covid would continue, so they didn't ramp up
| production or efficiency (or couldn't).
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I'm an industrial engineer, more manufacturing focused than
| specifically logistics. From what I've seen and heard from
| talking with other IE's at other companies, we're probably
| looking at a couple years before things are "normal" again, and
| they'll continue to be a mess in a way that's transparent to
| the consumer longer than that.
|
| As long as there are areas of the world with significant trade
| that are being hit hard by COVID there will be disruptions. In
| the last few weeks, Southeast Asia has had reduced port
| capacity due to a COVID surge.
|
| Heck, even in US production it's tough to get production and
| warehouse employees right now! Weird times for sure, even if
| you're paying a strong wage.
|
| If you're curious about general global shipping, in 2017
| Flexport put out a great podcast about cargo ships. I really
| wish they would do an additional podcast about the current
| happenings, though their blog posts are quite interesting.
|
| https://www.flexport.com/blog/alexis-madrigal-containers-pod...
|
| Odd Lots (a Bloomberg podcast) also had a great interview from
| earlier this month.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-02/gene-sero...
| dmje wrote:
| I'm sure it'll bounce back
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Shortage of something? Let me try to do without.
|
| No wait, let me try to order 24 (24 for goodness sake) tennis
| balls online!
| notadev wrote:
| "Naturally, as an experienced investigative reporter, my next
| move was the highly advanced research technique of Googling
| "Tennis Ball Shortage?" There were enough hits on Reddit and
| tennis forums to confirm there are, at least in some parts of the
| country, indeed tennis ball shortages."
|
| I feel like this fairly accurately sums up modern journalism.
| adventured wrote:
| $200,000 degree from Northwestern. Learned to Google.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Can you explain why you think this doesn't count as journalism?
|
| A journalist who _doesn 't_ do simple Google searches on
| popular internet forums in order to discover what people are
| talking about would seem to me to not be doing their job.
| _s wrote:
| My partner is a journalist in a specific niche (science).
|
| Unfortunately - folks have shown time and time again they will
| not pay content when an alternative is available for free.
|
| Most, if not all journalists, would prefer to be do doing
| investigative work over a few weeks and months - highlighting
| what is in the publics interests.
|
| Publishers on the other hand, with the sales / advertising /
| marketing requirements & constraints, would much prefer they
| crunch out 10x stories a day that can drive traffic (ergo
| revenue).
|
| What you are left with are tight deadlines, incredibly poor
| pay, and most of the experienced folks who actually care about
| what articles are written under their name just hanging up
| their pens and taking up cushy gigs in comms / marketing.
|
| Journalism still exists, but has been dying steadily - nearly
| all folks in positions of wealth and power would prefer it
| didn't exist, and for the folks that should be reading what
| they write - they won't pay for it, and won't trust it.
| sgregnt wrote:
| There seems to be more demand for podcasts or video blogs,
| maybe your partner can think of starting a podcasts?
| comicjk wrote:
| I think investigative journalism nonprofits like ProPublica
| are the best point of leverage for this problem. Big
| newspapers like the Washington Post & NY Times do good
| investigative work too, but pair it with lots of duplicate
| stories.
| rvnx wrote:
| Vice should better check their articles. I typed tennis balls on
| US websites, same day delivery available...
|
| Even for the same website as they said, there is stock in large
| quantities: https://www.tennis-
| warehouse.com/Wilson_US_Open_XD_Tennis_Ba...
|
| This is 72-balls, way enough to play.
| spamizbad wrote:
| That's pretty expensive
| IshKebab wrote:
| It's like $1.32 per ball. That doesn't seem very expensive
| for fancy branded balls.
| nradov wrote:
| There was a hot tub (spa) shortage in 2020. No one could go on
| vacation so people spent their money on home hot tubs instead.
| First world problems.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Same thing with swimming pools.
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