[HN Gopher] A Whale-Oiled Machine
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A Whale-Oiled Machine
Author : zeristor
Score : 91 points
Date : 2023-03-19 11:27 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (99percentinvisible.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (99percentinvisible.org)
| Damogran6 wrote:
| In the 90's we'd add a GM lubrication additive to
| transmissions...it instantaneously improved shift effort and we
| joked about it being whale jizz...turns out it isn't...and is.
|
| https://www.loandiscount.store/product/Gm-1050081-1965-75-No...
| DESCRIPTION GM# 1050081 1965-75 NOS POSI LUBRICANT QNTY 2 QTS ALL
| GENERAL MOTORS REAR HYPOID GEAR POSI LUBE EARLY SUPERIOR MIX WITH
| WHALE SPERM CHANGED TO 1052271 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971
| 1972 1973 1974 1975
| gmarx wrote:
| For a person of GenX this is a fascinating thread, most notably
| for the lack of moral posturing. We were raised to consider
| whaling an unspeakable evil. To the current generation it looks
| like an engineering and history discussion. I wonder if we could
| get away with wearing fur again? Has enough time passed that
| activists have forgotten they are supposed to hurl blood at
| anyone wearing a fur coat?
| pbj1968 wrote:
| Nye Lubricants for anyone else wondering.
| permo-w wrote:
| the article began by referring to the man himself, then started
| talking about the company, all the way referring to both as
| "Nye". I'm not sure why they didn't give the full company name
| at least once. perhaps to avoid the impression of a puff piece?
| notatoad wrote:
| The article appears to be written by taking key sentences out
| of the podcast transcript, and then doing a very light edit
| only to vaguely connect the sentences together.
|
| In the actual podcast they mention the company by name
| multiple times. I think including the company name just got
| missed in the edit
| pfdietz wrote:
| I wonder if any distant relation to Bill Nye the Science Guy.
|
| EDIT: I wasn't going to listen to a 40 minute podcast to hear
| that, so thanks.
| isaacdl wrote:
| Yep - they actually talk to him in the episode.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| From Nye Lubricants' web page
| (https://www.nyelubricants.com/the-science-guy-and-nye-1):
| "Bill Nye [the science guy] is a direct descendant of our
| founder's brother, Captain Nye."
| zeristor wrote:
| Fifty years of tribology
|
| http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/fifty-years-tribology
| brabel wrote:
| Wow, technology is really amazing:
|
| "Now, in modern drives, the heads fly at less than 10 nm, a
| feat that demands not only precise modelling of the air film
| and head dynamics but also the production of disk surfaces of
| extraordinary flatness, protected by a 15 nm coating of hard
| carbon and a lubricant layer only one nm (about 10 atoms)
| thick."
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Penguins and seals became an important alternative as whale
| populations waned at the end of the 19th century.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Hatch
| Epa095 wrote:
| Hot take: we should eat more whale!
|
| The common mink whale is least-concern, and can be harvested more
| without danger to the species. Morally I see no difference
| between eating mink whale and a hunted moose, definitely better
| than factory farmed animals (including farmed fish) with all the
| suffering they endure before beeing eaten.
|
| (But leave the endangered species alone).
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Well, it's more sustainable than fossil fuels.
| dustymcp wrote:
| Oil rigs would be so different
| Arrath wrote:
| Certainly not at the scale at which whale harvesting was being
| carried out, however.
| jeromegv wrote:
| How?
| acdanger wrote:
| Fun fact , sperm whale oil was used in car transmissions until
| the 1970s when it was outlawed by the Endangered Species Act.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_oil#Applications
| tda wrote:
| Wow:
|
| > The loss of sperm oil had a profound impact in the automotive
| industry, where for example, transmission failures rose from
| under 1 million in 1972 to over 8 million by 1975.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Yeah that stuck out to me too.
|
| Even if you assume that it's a raw number and is also
| reflecting increased adoption of automatic transmission it's
| kind of hard to blame a huge 8x multiple on solely the oil
| without something else to corroborate it (like sales figures
| for wet clutch and brake friction parts used in industrial
| applications which would be subject to the same increased
| wear if the oil was sub-par).
|
| Transmission fluid isn't special. It's basically just yet
| another variant of hydraulic fluid. The hydraulic parts of a
| transmission pretty much never have problems relative to the
| frequency with which the friction parts simply wear out. So
| other oil running clutches so see the same increase in
| failure rate over that time.
|
| Assuming the number itself is accurate OEMs producing designs
| with additional gears and lockup converters with the bare
| minimum of refinement (ship now fix later type engineering)
| in response to the fuel crisis probably deserves some blame.
| permo-w wrote:
| this is fairly typical behaviour. when a product is
| outlawed, there's nearly always an adaptation phase
|
| for example, solder from the few years after the British
| ban on production use of the leaded stuff is often very
| poor, but--contrary to what vested interests would have you
| believe--humans adapt. demand creates solutions
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I remember a datacenter at an old job had a run in with
| "tin whiskers" forming off power supplies and eventually
| causing shorts that I believe was related to the solder
| issue.
| permo-w wrote:
| could someone explain to me why might this be being
| downvoted?
| hinkley wrote:
| Those whiskers can only be so long, right?
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Spermaceti (whale oil) based lubricants handled much higher
| temperatures than petroleum based lubricants. That was why
| automatic transmissions used spermaceti instead of
| petroleum based lubricants. That's also why the shift away
| from spermaceti impacted reliability: automatic
| transmissions in the 1970s needed lubricants that handled
| higher temperatures.
|
| Fun fact: Spermaceti is actually a wax, not an oil.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| This doesn't make any sense, because sperm oil was known
| for its low temperature advantages. Not its high
| temperature ones.
|
| Even in 1975 the problem cited was corrosion:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/17/archives/transmission-
| pro...
|
| "The fittings between the cooling unit and the radiator
| gave no trouble when whale oil was the fluid, but the
| substitute allowed the fittings to corrode. "
|
| The resulting corrosion allowed mixing of oil and
| coolant. Causing issues in both, although the
| transmission is going to be the first to have problems.
|
| I will also point at the idea that the lack of sperm oil
| caused this is....stupid. The way you avoid this entire
| problem is by using a device called an oil cooler. It's a
| separate finned radiator from the coolant radiator. If it
| leaks you get a little pinhole leak. Then you replace it
| & topoff the fluid. Automotive manufacturers insist on
| using combined units because they are being cheap and
| don't care about the long term practicality of a vehicle.
| So even if there was some amazing advantage to sperm oil,
| it neither prevented this specific problem nor did the
| ban on it cause it.
| hinkley wrote:
| The fact that engines are designed so that coolant and
| lubricants can mix has always left me a bit suspicious of
| planned obsolescence.
|
| I think realistically it's a limitation of the casting
| process, but it is to me the dumbest part of internal
| combustion engine design. Point the channels in two
| different directions on the casting, and only a cracked
| block should allow them to touch.
| mech987 wrote:
| You should watch videos on how hard head gaskets are to
| design if you want an idea of some of the engineering
| involved- I think "engineering explained" did one
| recently on youtube.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| but that is unrelated. Automatic transmission fluid isn't
| circulating through the engine on any vehicle by design
| that I have seen.
|
| Plenty of vehicles with a standard gearbox just use the
| engine oil as the transmission lubricant. In motorcycles
| this is called "unit construction". I've heard of some
| older Saabs that did this as well.
| hinkley wrote:
| > The resulting corrosion allowed mixing of oil and
| coolant.
|
| Why is that unrelated?
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| because the mixing the article talks about it
| transmission oil and coolant.
|
| When a passageway cracks in a cylinder head & engine oil
| becomes "milkshake" that is the mixing of engine oil and
| coolant. Two separate kinds of oil in different places.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| The plot thickens. Those coolers have been constructed of
| brass since forever and often still are. IDK if the
| specific brass alloy has changed. Perhaps the new fluid
| was slightly corrosive to yellow metals? That's not
| unheard of but plenty of transmissions have bronze
| bushings in various places do you'd think they'd create a
| fluid that was safe for yellow metals.
|
| Edit: It was the solder.
|
| https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2015/03/16/tech-101-auto
| mat...
|
| They hint that the whale oil was relevant to the
| performance of friction modifiers. Friction modifiers are
| notoriously nasty so it doesn't surprise me that without
| the whale oil they had to use the "next best thing" which
| wasn't quite good enough at the margin.
|
| https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/218915/do-the-
| japane...
|
| These ^ guys allege to have done some research and stop
| just short of saying "gm was making excuses for problems
| they brought on themselves".
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| There is an interesting assertion in there:
|
| "because when combined with sulfur it made an excellent
| lubricant,"
|
| Almost anything is a good lubricant when you add sulfur.
| The reason why sulfur isn't added anymore is
| environmental reasons. Newer diesel fuel isn't as good of
| a lubricant as the old fuel was because highway diesel
| has to be low sulfur now.
|
| So if sperm oil was only a good lubricant when mixed with
| sulfur, then it's a pretty average lubricant.
|
| Also the article says 5500 transmissions "failed
| prematurely" 1973-1975. In the US, 5550 transmissions
| might as well be zero. Even in 1975, most cars were
| already being sold with automatic transmissions. This
| whole thing sounds like GM was using sperm oil because it
| was available and known to work. Then the ban comes in &
| GM made some poor decisions, then blamed the whole thing
| on "conservationists".
|
| If only whalers had managed to hunt all whales to
| extinction in the 19th century GM could have been saved
| the total embarassment of selling junk cars.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| The magnitude of the claim is contradicted by the lack of
| circumstantial evidence.
|
| If the difference was that stark aren't there old timers
| talking about how the old whale oil stuff was so good and
| why don't people find gallons of it saved here and there
| the same way you find lead paint or R12 refrigerant? Why
| isn't there some body of tribal knowledge saying that
| transmissions sucked in the 70s like we have for engines?
|
| I don't doubt for a minute that the government would ham-
| fistedly ban something without a viable alternative and
| that the textbook engineer types would crunch numbers on
| the replacement and conclude that "it'll be fine with no
| changes to our hardware, run it" leading to a higher
| failure rate, but 8x failure (or even 5x failure rate, to
| account for increased number of automatic transmissions
| out there) rate? That's absurd.
|
| I'd love to read the source for the claim but it's a
| paper version of a trade publication...
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > If the difference was that stark aren't there old
| timers talking about how the old whale oil stuff was so
| good
|
| When I was wrenching on cars in the 80s there absolutely
| were! We're talking about 50 years ago so you might need
| to find some older old timers but this was totally a
| thing.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Due to my hobby I hang out with mechanically inclined men
| aged ~30-70. I have heard them praise all manner of
| things from years past. If there's one thing they agree
| has pretty much constantly gotten better with no
| regressions along the way it's automotive lubricants, at
| least up until the point where they took the zinc out of
| motor oil. Now, I suspect there definitely are some
| regressions, but they're definitely small enough to get
| lost.
| zokier wrote:
| But even 70 year old today would have been only 20 years
| old in 1973 when whale oil was banned, so likely they
| would have had only very few years of experience if any
| of using whale oil
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I don't know how good whale oil transmission fluid
| _actually_ was btw, I didn 't experience the transition.
|
| I remember older people talking about how much better it
| was. But like most times when people talk about how much
| better something used to be, I assume it was mostly not
| as good as they remember it.
| int_19h wrote:
| There seems to have been a similar issue with gun lubricants
| - sperm oil was used for that, as well, and for similar
| reasons, so when transition happened, it affected
| reliability:
|
| https://www.cherrybalmz.com/history-sperm-whale-oil
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Even more fun fact:
|
| Yes wrote the song "Don't Kill the Whale:"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NO8h_uTkdU&pp=ygUYeWVzIGdvd...
|
| They also were known to travel in separate private limousines
| in LA, which probably had whale oil transmissions.
|
| I always think about them traveling to a vegetarian restaurant
| in LA in separate limos when I listen to that song.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| If you ever find yourself in New Bedford, I cannot recommend the
| whaling museum highly enough.
|
| Fun fact: Clifford Ashley of Ashley's Book of Knots (ABOK) was
| also a painter. The museum has some of his work in their
| collection.
|
| Also: if you have any interest in whaling and haven't read Moby
| Dick, you really ought to. People will complain that it's
| principally a book about whaling with a bit of story mixed in.
| That's true, but it turns out whaling is _fascinating_.
|
| Imagine a world without whales. If JK Rowling had written a book
| about people sailing to the far side of the world to hunt sea
| creatures whose heads are full of substance that looks
| suspiciously like semen, nobody would have published it because
| it would be too unrealistic.
| psychphysic wrote:
| I also enjoyed the recent whaling documentary that takes up the
| middle hour of Avatar 2.
|
| I'd recommend cutting that middle out if you just want to watch
| Avatar2. And then at a later date watch that hour as a in-world
| whaling doc.
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| BBC presents: Avatar 2 Narrated by: David Attenborough
| scop wrote:
| I love your last observation. Reminds me of:
|
| > It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this
| Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire
| delusion. (Moby Dick)
|
| Melville's meditations on the anatomy of the whale are
| absolutely stunning, especially when you add layers of meaning
| to what "the whale" may represent (God, justice or injustice,
| morality, nature, etc etc...)
| robin_reala wrote:
| I produced a nice PD edition of _Moby Dick_ for Standard Ebooks
| if you're looking for a copy:
| https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/herman-melville/moby-dick
|
| It also lead to one of my geekier deep-dive commits:
| https://github.com/standardebooks/herman-melville_moby-dick/...
| comfypotato wrote:
| I'm currently reading your standard ebook! Very nice.
|
| I have to admit, "very nice" here just means I haven't
| noticed your work because it sits in the background and lets
| me enjoy the book. Lol. Such is the fate of a good front end
| developer as well.
| mstudio wrote:
| Great tip. I hadn't heard of that museum and will have to check
| it out. If anyone else is interested in whaling, particularly
| Nantucket's past sperm whale industry, "In the Heart of the
| Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" is a great read.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I was going to write the same comment. That's a great book!
| SnoJohn wrote:
| Tom Nicholas, an HBS professor, wrote a book about the history of
| VC (1) which spends the first chapter of the book talking about
| the whaling industry and how it created the venture structure we
| know today. Many whaling voyages failed to find whales, and some
| outright sank or disappeared, but some came home full of whale
| oil. He found the parallels in the data striking. It is a great
| book and a good companion to Mallaby's Power Law.
|
| Fun fact: his source for whaling data was a book by Alexander
| Starbuck.
|
| 1. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/42449471
| flohofwoe wrote:
| When I played Dishonored (very recommended if you like "a
| thinking man's FPS") I thought the whole Victorian "whale oil
| economy" of the game world was very interesting but ultimately
| fiction, but somehow the game triggered a desire to learn more
| about the actual history of whale oil usage and I was surprised
| that the basic idea of the game's economy based on whale oil
| wasn't that far from the truth.
| dsalzman wrote:
| There is a very interesting HBS case on whaling [0]. It explains
| how the high risk and high return nature of whaling drove the
| development of concepts like syndication and limited liability
| corps that we take for granted today. Pretty interesting the
| tangible connections of modern startups and VC to hunting for
| whales.
|
| [0] - https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=43322
| tsejerome97 wrote:
| so dishonored is true
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(page generated 2023-03-21 23:01 UTC)