[HN Gopher] Industrial Design Student Work: "How Long Should Obj...
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Industrial Design Student Work: "How Long Should Objects Last?"
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 228 points
Date : 2024-05-07 10:10 UTC (2 days ago)
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| tichiian wrote:
| This is missing the fact that the stainless steel from the ultra-
| durable umbrella is also easy to recycle. In fact, steel is far
| easier to recycle than any kind of plastic.
|
| Also, the whole work seems to skip over the huge problem of
| insufficient customer information: There is a remark in there,
| that lots of people (about half) seem to choose the ultra-durable
| umbrella, rather than one of the less resource-intensive ones.
| The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the
| resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to
| assume that products are crappier than specified. People do not
| and usually can not know how durable each product they are
| offered will be. And buying something ultra-durable-seeming at
| least gives you a chance at a decent product lifetime. All the
| rest is usually crappier than expected.
|
| One reason is that the environmentally friendlier alternatives
| are often also materials of lesser quality. E.g. recycled plastic
| degrades and is more brittle than "fresh".
|
| The other reason is greedy manufacturers, saving on necessary
| materials, making products less durable. And maybe intentionally
| building in weak points, limiting lifetime to sell more stuff.
| mc32 wrote:
| All true, but one missing is the one where people abuse things
| and use them in ways that were not intended by the
| manufacturer.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It really sucks when the product is so fragile you can't do
| it. Items do not have inherent, fixed purpose, they're
| physical objects. If I can use my umbrella as a hammer in a
| pinch, that's a value-add.
| eep_social wrote:
| Another reason I seek the durable version is that I despise
| change.
|
| Once I procure an umbrella that meets my needs, I don't ever
| want to have to spend the time to go find another. If I manage
| to wear it out, I will grudgingly replace it with the exact
| same thing but if that's not available I'll go without rather
| than going through the process of finding a good one again.
| Modern casual clothing is a disaster in this regard because
| even the same sku often won't be the same product year over
| year.
| mrbungie wrote:
| About clothing: that and society tends to mock those who
| repeat the same clothes in a short period of time, promoting
| cheap/mass fashion and therefore waste.
|
| I would rather focus on upcycling repairable clothes rather
| than promoting so much waste. Specially when a sweater I love
| tears, I (1) loss the sweater and (2) can't get said clothing
| item because as you say, the sku or even the brand may not
| exist anymore. Newer is not always better, both in function
| and form.
|
| Point in case: Mark Zuckerberg and his style change from a
| anime/cartoon closet full of grey tshirts and blue jeans to a
| typical sugar daddy atire/style just to appeal to bigger
| audience without any internal change.
|
| Stupid monkey brains.
| luqtas wrote:
| people who mock people because repeated clothes aren't at
| their social circle (at least in a meaningful level) or if
| they do, sit & talk or it's time to move on...
|
| i'm almost hitting 30, i still use some 14 y/o clothes and
| last time i bought stuff was more than 5 years ago because
| of a hobby. tho i appreciate stylistic people walking at
| streets. maybe fashion is not that hard to recycle if we
| use mostly compostable stuff? from leather of pineapple
| waste, (recycled) cotton and so on
| MeImCounting wrote:
| In my social circles youre far more likely to be mocked if
| you spend a lot of money on new clothes or cheap/low
| quality clothes. Its expected that you buy something high
| quality from a thrift store and wear it until it wears
| out/splurge on something new and high quality and wear it
| until it wears out and repair it indefinitely.
| brabel wrote:
| I have clothes from 25 years ago, still looking pretty good
| but I can barely wear them now because they're so utterly
| out of fashion :D. I am by no means a "fashionable" person,
| but even I would be a bit hesitant to go out on my early
| 90's baggy shorts or my black leather jacket that looks
| straight out of an 80's action movie.
|
| I believe that's why clothes these days barely last a year.
| People actually don't seem to mind because every year the
| fashion changes. I really hate that mindset but that seems
| to be how almost everyone thinks.
| mdpye wrote:
| If you were a fashionable person, that's exactly what
| you'd be doing! ;)
|
| The cycle is roughly 30 years, and teenagers are
| revisiting the 90s trends right now.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| The 90s is completely and utterly hot right now for
| anyone born after it. Embrace the faux nostalgia or make
| a mint on Vinted.
| pnut wrote:
| If you were wearing traditional slacks, collared shirts,
| and suits 25 years ago this wouldn't be a problem.
| Timeless style is a real thing.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Even jeans, t-shirts and flannel shirts will get you
| through the better part of a century.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No, it would be a problem.
|
| Suits and pants are much slimmer than they were 25 years
| ago. They're cut differently. Pants are different in
| length, with far less of a break now.
|
| Look at photos of people in suits from 1999, or just
| watch movies from then. They're swimming in fabric. Not
| to mention how wide the neckties were.
|
| Even for men, timeless style isn't a thing. Look at how
| gigantic shirt collars were in the 1970's.
|
| Men's styles don't change as drastically as women's
| (remember shoulderpads?) but even traditional suits and
| shirts and ties go through major shifts of size and
| proportion every couple decades.
|
| Sure you _can_ wear suits and shirts and ties from 25
| years ago, but you 'll either look like someone who's
| making a deliberate retro-inspired fashion choice (if
| you're pulling it off), or else you'll look like someone
| who hasn't bought new clothes in 25 years (if you're not
| pulling it off).
|
| But in neither case will you look "timeless". There's no
| such thing.
| eru wrote:
| For me a reason to choose the not so durable umbrella is that
| I tend to lose umbrellas rather than break them.
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| I know you likely don't care but one thing idea I liked
| from the article is to use a QR code
| engraved/stamped/stickered onto an item so people can
| contact you without having to put your phone number
| directly on it.
|
| I'd point them at a static website titled: "I've lost
| something haven't I? What? Where?" with a basic form put so
| they can give me details. You could go further and have the
| QR code put an item ID code into the url.
|
| I like the possibilities.
| eru wrote:
| I live in Singapore, so even putting my home address on
| my things would be fine. (And we seldom even lock our
| front door.)
|
| Well, your suggestion might help for some kinds of
| misplacing. But I often I know it's in the house, but
| can't remember where.
| mcherm wrote:
| Is your home address stable for times similar to the
| lifetime of that umbrella?
| eru wrote:
| I could leave a pointer at the old address to my new
| address, if necessary.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _But I often I know it 's in the house, but can't
| remember where._
|
| Given the price/importance of a durable umbrella, it
| would make sense for you to stick a BLE locator tag to
| it. But for the love of $deity, let it not be built into
| the product itself, as putting electronics into products
| is the easiest way to make them fragile and obsolete
| within few years.
| jameshart wrote:
| Yep - even the most famous clothing SKU in the world, the
| Levi's 501, changes fabric specs and measurements year over
| year.
| Aloisius wrote:
| _> Many of the objects we use daily are made from mixed
| materials, ones are often difficult to separate [for
| recycling]. This cost can outweigh the value of the materials,
| so these objects are very likely to end up in Landfill. Of
| course, mixing materials offers functional benefits such as
| combinations of soft & hard structures, and nowhere else is
| this more true [than] with Umbrellas._
|
| FTA with context added.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Aside but one interesting consequence of using plastic in
| certain kinds of products is that it can be a sacrificial part.
| If you don't design a point of failure into your system one
| will be assigned to it. I recently had this realization after
| installing a new garage door opener. The motor on it is much
| stronger than my old one but some parts are far flimsier. Then
| it dawned on me that I'd rather have a cheap plastic gear break
| if something goes wrong than have it burn up the unit or swing
| a high tension belt around.
|
| Longevity doesn't always mean making everything out of cast
| iron and stainless steel. It can mean making the thing
| repairable using cheap and available parts.
| thegrim33 wrote:
| 3D printing options aside, there's no possibility of me
| replacing random plastic components that break. I'm dependent
| on some industrial manufacturer producing the random plastic
| broken part for me, and getting it to me. If something
| metallic fails, it's much simpler in comparison to fashion a
| replacement / repair the failure myself. I can work with
| metal. I can't work with plastic.
| picture wrote:
| Have you used polycaprolactone/PCL aka "InstaMorph" for
| hobby/projects? It's a very tough plastic that can be
| melted by putting it in hot water, then formed by hand. I
| think something like a linkage made out of this material
| could be a fantastic intentional failure point for certain
| mechanical systems, as long as the temperature requirement
| is not much higher than human conditions. Also, if you have
| a hot air blower, you can repair it in-situ.
|
| I'm honestly not sure why we don't see more of this plastic
| used for consumer stuff. Something that you can melt down
| and fix stuff or make little ornaments sounds like a great
| marketing gimmick. It's also generally a pretty bio-safe
| plastic.
| eropple wrote:
| In industry, it's because it's so low-temperature. The
| benefits of using it aren't outweighed by the potential
| failure risks in it in pieces not designed to be
| repaired.
|
| Also, just kinda--it's not well known! You can't even
| find it as a 3D printer filament without a lot of effort,
| even though those "3D pens" often use it, because the
| output is so unimpressive to most people. That's not that
| it is unimpressive, it's because they don't know much
| about it, much like how people act like there's a
| "leveling up" by switching from PLA to PETG to ABS.
| esyir wrote:
| While from a materials standpoint, its more of a "what
| fits the needs", from a printing point of view it's
| definitely a level up going from PLA to PETG / ABS. Both
| in terms of skill (PETG can be annoying to dial in) and
| machine reqs (Hot End, ventilation, etc)
| skjoldr wrote:
| ABS is a level up because it curls like mad off the print
| bed because of internal stresses, and this will cause
| prints to fail if you do not have a heated chamber, which
| is a bit of a challenge to set up over Ender 3 like
| printers. PETG meanwhile likes to be dehumidified under
| heat first to avoid excessive stringing, which requires a
| separate doodad, and it likes all metal hotends that do
| not include the usual internal PTFE tube, which off-
| gasses nasty stuff if heated above roughly 250degC. PLA
| has none of these problems. "Level up" is about
| printability, not material characteristics of the end
| product.
| eropple wrote:
| _> "Level up" is about printability, not material
| characteristics of the end product._
|
| You think that. The people in forums who go "I never
| print in PLA" despite it having advantageous material
| properties for some use cases (it's very stiff, for
| example! sure, it snaps hard, but it's strong until then)
| do not.
|
| Printability and usefulness aren't on the same axis, but
| when it comes to FDM materials, a _lot_ of people do.
| nmcfarl wrote:
| If you need heat resistance and can give up reforming and
| strength sugru is a moldable silicone that I've used for
| a quite a number of repairs. A knife handle I repaired in
| 2014 is still going strong.
|
| (InstaMorph is new to me - but will certainly get used in
| the future)
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Can it be injection molded? If not, I would assume it
| would be much much more expensive to mass-produce than an
| ordinary injection molded part.
| userbinator wrote:
| Plastic welding is a thing, and has been used ever since
| the discovery of thermoplastics. Solvent glues also work
| well for some types of plastic.
|
| The only reason why it's not more common is usually due to
| cost of repair vs replacement.
|
| Thanks to YouTube, you can now find plenty of information
| on this.
|
| _I can work with metal. I can 't work with plastic._
|
| How about pot metal, which is what has been replaced by
| plastic in many applications?
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Are you a machinist? I don't understand why you'd dismiss
| 3d printing and say metal is more feasible to work with. 3d
| printing is much more accessible to the average DIY-minded
| person.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| You can bend small metal pieces with your bare hands, or
| with pliers, or you can beat it into shape with hammer
| (or any stiff object). Plastics get damaged and break
| when you try that.
| nmcfarl wrote:
| I think this is cultural or location based - I know at
| least a dozen people who can weld and no one who has a
| 3-D printer, but I live /way/ out and rural America. The
| Internet would suggest that urban America is the reverse.
| buildsjets wrote:
| I 3D print jigs to hold things together for welding.
| Mind, blown.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Sure, but if we're talking about replacing machine parts,
| I'm not sure how far welding will get you. You need to be
| able to machine custom metal parts, for parity with basic
| 3d printing capability.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| > I can't work with plastic.
|
| Why not? If you can machine it from metal, it is easier to
| machine it from plastic. I fabricate plastic replacements
| often with a drill, files, and saw.
| throwanem wrote:
| Yeah, I was gonna say. Not that I'd necessarily _want_ to
| cut a gear with hand tools even in nylon, considering how
| exacting the profile would be to get right, but it 's
| doable.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I'd rather hand cut a gear in nylon than one in steel. If
| you arent doing it by hand, who cares what it is made of.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's an... unusual skill to have, I'd say. Maybe it's the
| issue of education or culture, but I'm with GP here: in
| my mind, metal parts can often be repaired by hand, or an
| improvised replacement can be made; plastics break too
| easily, and you can't make new ones without a 3D printer
| or something.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Yup. Same with wood and fabric. Those kind of parts or
| components I can replace and work with. Plastic? That's a
| whole different ball game due to the potentially low
| tolerances in terms of dimensions and the nature of the
| type of plastic used. With wood, metal, and fabric it is
| much easier to gauge the correct replacement material.
| kbenson wrote:
| I'd say education and culture might be right on the
| money. I'm not sure it's occurred to me to take a small
| block of some type of plastic and cut it to shape using
| knives, planes, chisels and files like someone could with
| wood, but now that I'm thinking about it, it seems like
| it might be considerable easier to work with than wood in
| some cases, especially with how easy it is to join two
| parts afterwards with some epoxy or maybe even through
| heat.
|
| Additionally, it looks like you can possibly re-melt the
| shavings into another block (I'm not sure if specific
| plastic types are required).[1] That's like woodworking
| but being able to easily gather and compress your bits
| and ends and sawdust into more wood.
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wPmcgDRmg
| skjoldr wrote:
| It's because plastic injection molding has different
| constraints and trade-offs in parts design compared to
| metal machining. E.g. injection molding, after the mold
| is done, doesn't really care about machine time,
| complexity, or the availability of specific cutters and
| drills. So sometimes the geometry and tolerances of an
| injection molded part is a pain in the arse to replicate
| manually -- it's just not made to do it, unlike metal
| machining, which at scale is still a rough approximation
| of the manual process.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I get the manufacturing Tradeoffs. What I was responding
| to was not an issue with part complexity, but part
| material.
|
| They said "I can work with metal. I can't work with
| plastic."
|
| Sure, nobody is going to machine a plastic replacement
| complex injection molded housing. You probably werent
| going to re-create a complex press-formed metal part
| either.
|
| IT seems like it is more of a design complaint than a
| material issue.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| How often do you encounter mass-produced consumer goods
| that include parts made of machined engineering plastics?
| MeImCounting wrote:
| I have a pocket knife in my pocket (perhaps not quite as
| mass produced as what you were imagining) whose handles
| are made of G10 which is a composite material made partly
| of epoxy. It has been 3d machined into its current shape.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| That's not what Im saying. Machined plastics are rarely
| encountered, but many molded plastic products can be
| trivially machined.
|
| Im saying that the fabrication difficult is driven by
| design, not material.
|
| almost nobody is going to home fabricate a spline gear at
| home, and it doesnt matter if it is metal or plastic. If
| something is like a plate or flange, it is trivial to
| fabricate and doesnt matter if it is metal or plastic.
|
| For any given _design_ , I think refabrication is the
| same or easier for plastic.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Not sure why we're arguing, but I think we are on the
| same side. We would prefer that products have parts which
| are easily replaced by, in order of preference:
|
| 1) easily-sourced commodity products like standard
| screws, washers, bolts, etc. 2) barring that, parts that
| could easily be fabricated by realistic home production
| methods (hand tools, FDM printing, possibly simple
| machining) 3) barring that, parts that the consumer can
| have easily fabricated by a third party (maybe it
| requires a 5-axis CNC but all the CAD/CAM files are
| available to upload somewhere like Shapeways) 4) barring
| that, easily-ordered at-cost OEM parts
|
| ...and in all cases the user manual should require all
| relevant drawings with dimensions.
|
| The problem is that if you tell an industrial designer to
| keep costs down, and that they can use injection-molded
| plastic parts, they will almost certainly NOT design
| parts that are conducive to 1-3. They could, but all the
| incentives run the other way, so they probably won't.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I was mostly just curious about the person who said they
| absolutely cant _work_ with plastic, but can _work_ with
| metal.
|
| I like some things that are repairable, but don't think
| everything needs to be. My product choices rarely are
| willing to compromise cost, function, or aesthetics for
| repairability.
| jjav wrote:
| > I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.
|
| You're right that metal (and wood) are much more amenable
| to work with in a home workshop.
|
| However:
|
| > 3D printing options aside
|
| I wouldn't put 3d printing aside. The main limitation is
| the size of what you can print, but if the part is small
| enough (depending what printers you have access to), it is
| a game changer. We don't have a 3d printer but my child has
| access to them at school and watching him fix all kinds of
| gadgets by 3d printing replacement parts has been very
| cool.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| Even for larger items I've often found printing sub-
| assemblies and gluing together to be a useful technique.
|
| E.g. I needed to replace a shaped plastic cover for a
| handle mechanism on a motorhome/RV. Breaking the design
| into two parts and making it so they clip together
| (rather than permanently gluing in that particular case)
| meant I could print a complex design without supports.
| pests wrote:
| Then just replace the plastic parts with metal, problem
| solved.
| fragmede wrote:
| > 3D printing options aside
|
| Aside from the solution, there's no solution?
|
| If you don't want to get into 3d printing then fine, but
| don't act like that's not on you. you can work with
| plastic, you're choosing not to.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| This really depends on many factors.
|
| Will you be able to get those parts, how fast and how cheap,
| and how easy/hard is it to replace them? Garage door,
| maybe... it's an expensive thing... you'll investa lot of
| time/effort to get it fixed... buta battery powered drill? No
| way to get the parts. Someone mentione 3d printing... can you
| imagine some average drill owner designing a part for 3d
| printing, buying a 3d printer, going through the learning
| curve to get a usable part.. for a $50 drill? No way. Just
| having someone open it up to replace it is more expensive
| than the drill itself. On the other hand, you could pay 20
| cents more when buying and got a long-lastin metal part.
|
| If you want a part to fail to not cause greater damage, add
| some kinf of a standardized fuse to it, or detect the
| overload and stop it, before it fails. Yeah, sure, something
| is going to fail at some time (nothing lasts forever), but
| treating plastic gears that break (instead fo $1 more
| expensive metal ones) as a good thing,.. i have to disagree
| with that.
| jkestner wrote:
| Underrated is ordering SLS parts from a printer, like on
| CraftCloud. You can get small functional nylon parts made
| for $2 + shipping.
|
| Modeling things has always been the biggest friction point.
| Not easy to make CAD interfaces easier. Part files from the
| manufacturer would be nice.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Sure, but you still have to either open the device
| yourself, or pay someone to do it, find the broken part,
| find the part design, order it, ship it, replace it, and
| reassemble the device. If you don't do it yourself, it's
| not worth it at all financially, and if you do, it's
| quite a long process, usually not worth it for a $50
| drill, where the company wanted to save a few cents with
| a plastic part.
| btbuildem wrote:
| One could find the part design in a library, and print it
| at a coop hackerspace or order it online off some pay-per-
| print shop. It doesn't have to be as complicated as you put
| it.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| But it's a $50 dollar drill, that failed due to a cheap
| part.
|
| I don't know where you live, but just a diagnosis by a
| repair technician is more expensive than that. Even if
| you open it up yourself, find the broken part, find that
| part someone, get someone to print it,get the part
| delivered, and replace it, it'll be more than $50 of
| associated costs... and just because a company wanted to
| save 50 cents on a plastic gear.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| On the subject of sacrificial parts, approx. 25 years ago I
| bought a lawnmower from a well established UK brand (Atco).
| The original design included a clutch-like mechanism that
| would decouple the drive from the drum blades if they
| encountered a serious obstruction and jammed. In the model
| that I bought, however, the mechanism had been replaced with
| a sacrificial plastic cog that would simply break if the
| blades jammed. Even though I was careful, on average, it
| would break every two to three years. This was before easy 3D
| printing was available, and I had no choice but to order an
| OEM replacement. If Atco had sold packs of the cog I wouldn't
| have minded, but instead you had to buy an entire repair kit
| with several other parts that weren't needed. After the
| fourth time it died, I replaced the entire lawn mower with a
| non-Atco alternative.
|
| I've come across sacrificial parts in other contexts where
| they make perfect sense (e.g. holding car body parts in
| place) but I really don't like them being used as an
| opportunity for manufacturers to increase their lifetime
| profit from a long-lived product.
| jimbobthrowawy wrote:
| Ideally that plastic gear would be a standard size and shape
| that you could find described in a parts list somewhere in
| the manual. I'd much rather be able to buy one out of a giant
| surplus bin somewhere in mainland china than trying to
| measure it and find/make a bespoke replacement.
|
| Replaceable fuses make great failure points for things like
| motors that can draw silly amounts of current when stalled.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| Recyclability isn't really an issue, because the steel umbrella
| is not viable as a product. This is on account of its weight.
|
| > _Total weight of assembled umbrella: 1.71kg_
|
| The average umbrella, and the plastic one at the link, weigh
| roughly a quarter of that amount. There are golf umbrellas,
| considered extremely heavy, at ~0.9kg, e.g.:
| https://shedrain.com/products/vortex-vent-pro
|
| The ultra-durable umbrella is an exercise in making a product
| that _appears_ to be an umbrella out of heavy-duty materials.
| But it 's not an umbrella that's viable as a commercial
| product; it wasn't designed with the average user's
| capabilities in mind. Most people, even trained athletes, would
| not be happy to lug around an umbrella that weighs nearly four
| pounds.
|
| I'm sure it's possible to strike a balance, perhaps with
| aluminum or magnesium (expensive!) instead of steel. But the
| project didn't attempt it -- it went with steel to make a
| point. In real-life product engineering, though, every _gram_
| saved is worth celebrating.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Why was the handle made of stainless steel, and not, say,
| wood ? Looks to be a significant fraction of mass, while not
| being the typical part that would break ?
| hbosch wrote:
| Steel is more durable than wood.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >while not being the typical part that would break ?
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| My James Smith & Sons Umbrella has a lightweight steel frame
| (apparently invented by James Smith the 2nd in 1851) - weighs
| about 500g and has lasted 30+ years.
|
| https://www.james-smith.co.uk/product/umbrellas/gents-
| umbrel...
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Mass is a tradeoff too, but I suppose you could shove half of
| the weight without compromising the durability. Would that
| still not be a viable product then? Something a tad heavier
| than standard big umbrella, much more expensive, but nearly
| indestructible?
|
| I'd go for it. And yes, I'm very much the kind of user who
| says they'd go for durable umbrella and, at the same time,
| also says they use an umbrella very infrequently. Well,
| that's because _umbrellas suck donkey balls_ , to borrow a
| phrase from _the Expanse_. I avoid the light ones as even a
| little breeze makes them flip their shape from convex to
| concave and eventually break struts. The heavier ones...
| well, they all seem to magically break within couple months,
| so it 's always a lottery if I pick one with torn fabric or
| hanging strut, and then when I do, then what? Throw away the
| looks-fixable-but-really-too-cheeply-made-to-be-fixed one,
| and buy another one, fourth one this fall? The whole
| experience makes me avoid umbrellas except for the heaviest
| of rains, and it's mostly because of lack of durability.
| numpad0 wrote:
| This is a beautifully done art project, but it's curious how
| relevant comparisons made are to reality. The handle could be
| easily made of tubes for massive weight reduction and
| potentially _improved_ rigidity, for example.
|
| It seems the idea is to take an existing umbrella, reproduce
| it faithfully in different materials, and then comparing
| results: like right-clicking an umbrella_object displayed on
| a 3D modeling tool and changing texture bitmaps. I suppose
| justification to that is it has to be apples to apples
| comparison.
|
| But that's not how objects are manufactured in the real
| world: Parts are designed _for specific materials and means
| of fabrication_. Replicating existing man-made object with a
| manufacturing method the object was not intended to be
| manufactured with leads to subpar results. If I 'm making
| something out of carbon fiber, I'd try to minimize numbers of
| screw holes. If it's to be made of aluminum, I'd avoid
| repeated stresses, but if it's to be made of steel, flexure
| joints becomes an option. If I'm 3D printing something, I'd
| try to minimize overhangs below 45 degrees. If I'm designing
| for injection molding, I'd avoid wide flat surfaces and
| abrupt changes in cross sections. If I'm milling something,
| I'd repeatedly check for tool clearances, try to minimize
| amounts removed(which may result in thicker walls), and avoid
| complex curves as I design it.
|
| I'm not going to take an J-shaped umbrella grip and instruct
| a factory worker to EDM it out of pre-tempered glass block.
| Even if I managed to have it done, and if it ended up
| weighing as much as a steel handle, that won't tell much
| about viability of glass-framed umbrella in general.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > In real-life product engineering, though, every gram saved
| is worth celebrating.
|
| I would like to point out that I'm old enough that I think
| I've witnessed how aluminum soda cans have become much
| thinner over the years. Their contents are of course under
| pressure and that makes them a bit sturdier; they can be
| stacked 10 feet high with no problem. Usually. But someone
| tosses a case a little too hard, packing them in a truck, the
| angle that the force of that jolts off a few degrees...
| something, and the can just explodes and makes a mess. And
| the economics may mean that even with that loss it's still
| better financially, but this seems wrong to me somehow.
|
| If it were only disposable cans I could probably ignore it.
| But everyone's shaving milligrams here and there, to the
| point that you'll get a potato peeler at the store because
| the last one broke, to bring the new one home and compare
| it... only to find out it was stamped out of even thinner
| steel. It breaks next month. You can't shop around and find a
| better one, they're all pumped out of the same no-name
| factory that a forensic accountant probably couldn't track
| down if he had access to all of the supply chain's paperwork.
|
| A friend and I were discussing just a few weeks ago whether
| or not duct tape was of vastly different quality when we were
| small children (late 1970s) compared to today. I of course
| realize that 4 yr old me might have a much more difficult
| time tearing off a piece of identical duct tape that 50 year
| old me could tear without trying... but I seem to remember
| even my dad having to put a little too much effort. You
| really did have to rip into the stuff.
|
| When you shave these milligrams off of items, it looks like
| it is win/win, that you're reducing cost without reducing any
| quality that anyone cares about, but I think that it might be
| true that you're shaving little pieces off of everyone's
| lives. Too little for them to complain about, but the sum
| total of that unpleasantness must be vast. I am not inclined
| to celebrate it.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| Ultimately, I think that it depends entirely on the type of
| product and how it's used.
|
| If you take an aluminum can from 17g to 12g, that may
| represent some cost savings in manufacturing and transport,
| but the average soda drinker won't notice a difference.
|
| But if you take an umbrella from 1700g to 1200g, _that 's_
| the difference between something that's entirely unusable,
| to something that has practical utility -- if only barely.
| 500g would be much better. _All else being equal_ the
| optimal weight for an umbrella is probably around 100g.
| Enough to know it 's there, but not enough that extended
| use by the fifth-percentile human would be difficult or
| metabolically demanding.
|
| If a human has to wear or carry it, and if there's a
| meaningful weight/comfort threshold associated with the
| product's use, every gram counts. Duct tape and aluminum
| cans don't fall into this category -- but, at the same
| time, this is why hiking and camping equipment tends to be
| extremely light, and why the athletic shoe companies keep
| researching lighter and better foams.
|
| The problem is heightened in aerospace and automotive
| engineering, where fuel economy mandates tend to impose
| hard weight caps -- and getting a design in at well under
| the cap is a real engineering accomplishment. Offhand, I
| recall hearing that there was once a program where ~$15M
| dollars were spent on efforts to make a commercial airplane
| lighter. This resulted in about 20kg shaved off the
| aircraft's weight. That doesn't sound like much of a value,
| but the program was considered a great success.
| jwagenet wrote:
| Recycleability isn't really an issue because there isnt
| really a consumer pipeline for recycling metals of
| nonstandard shapes like cans. You certainly can't just throw
| it in the recycling bin, and anything else is more friction.
| bayindirh wrote:
| > The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about
| the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned
| to assume that products are crappier than specified.
|
| Personally I'm _very aware_ of the labor and resources required
| to build a high quality item. This is why I buy them. It 's
| made by humans, with great effort, to have a long life.
|
| Honestly, I want all my items to "positively age" with me as
| much as possible, and even if they become slightly insufficient
| (storage devices, or electronics in general), I try to find
| uses for them until they reach their true end of their life.
|
| And yes, I don't like crappy items. I want to buy one item once
| (or as few times possible) and have good performance performing
| its function. It can be an umbrella, a shoe, a keyboard or a
| pen. Anything, actually.
| goeiedaggoeie wrote:
| Agreed on using energy consumption and how many times do you
| reasonably expect to use it as important considerations.
|
| Additionally you have to factor in the toxicity you introduce,
| especially with things like cookware.
|
| An umbrella maybe a 1000 times (massive upper bound), but a le
| creuset pot I would expect to use 3000 times, and we eat the
| foot made in it.
| spandrew wrote:
| Ya this was the first thing I saw. It's a student project so we
| should be open that he's learning, but I wouldn't call this
| umbrella recyclable if it's constituent parts will likely end
| up floating in the ocean forever.
|
| If umbrella's were built with repairability in mind I would
| love it, though. So many I've used were destined to break under
| the strain of the wind.
| tonetegeatinst wrote:
| Also keep in mind that metal is stronger than plastic. Sure it
| might rust if you don't use a preventitive coating....a coating
| is not a paint BTW theirs a massive difference.
|
| Plastic is cheaper. Sure those injection molds are expensive as
| fuck to make and have a limited life just like anything but the
| major reason plastic is seen as desirable is that its cheap,
| and its way easier to produce 10000 plastic spoons than to cast
| 10000 spoons. Casting isn't fast and takes up a lot of space
| and its harder to heat up metal than plastic. And even if your
| machining a part, plastic is just cheaper when it comes to the
| footprint and the density of plastic is lower than metal which
| means handling raw materials is easier.
|
| The downside is recycling and lifespan. A good metal part beats
| plastic when it comes to so many tests....but its not fast or
| cheap to make. Is the metal recyclable....yes....but plastic
| dosnt have to get up to insane temps to get it molten, and you
| can machine plastic with basically anything as long as its
| sharp, while metal machining is a process that needs really
| strong sharp inserts, saws, or EDM machines, and all of that
| means a heavier footprint both in weight,and carbon footprint.
| kstrauser wrote:
| This is an exercise in externalities. Sure, maybe the cheap
| umbrella comes out ahead in a raw materials game: X number of
| crummy ones may be more eco-friendly than a nice one that lasts Y
| times as long.
|
| As long as you don't consider anything else, like the fact you
| have to employ Y times the person-hours to make the crummy ones,
| and Y times the freight to deliver them, and Y times the customer
| getting pissed off that their cheap umbrella broke and they have
| to take time out of their day to acquire a replacement.
|
| I swore off buying junky stuff a long time ago. Life's too short
| to be surrounded by crap that's going to break the first time you
| look at it wrong, student projects be damned.
|
| (That doesn't mean I only buy luxury items. Far from it! You can
| get Levi's Premium line jeans that last X longer than the
| discount store ones for far less than X times the price. I've
| worn the same pair of leather boots for 6 years now. I've had my
| Birkenstocks resoled several times now instead of throwing them
| out while the rest of the sandal's in great shape. It's usually
| pretty easy to find the quality version of a given thing for not
| much more than the junky one.)
| nickff wrote:
| I agree with some of your points, but what about the
| frustration when someone breaks their nice & expensive umbrella
| by accident, or has it stolen from them? What about the
| inconvenience and anxiety of not wanting to lose it? What about
| not having a spare to lend (but actually give) to a friend or
| loved one?
| kstrauser wrote:
| Those are valid concerns, but I've found I keep my nicer
| stuff _way_ longer than the cheaper things they replace.
|
| I'm happy if I make it through a couple months with $30
| sunglasses. I've had the same nicer ones for more than
| proportionally longer. _For me_ , the difference is that I'm
| more watchful of the nice things. I'm not about to take off
| my good sunglasses and leave them somewhere that I'll forget
| about them. I know where my nice (not expensive, just nice
| and functional) water bottle is. I've kept the same pocket
| knife for many years because I'd go back and get it if I
| forgot to put it right back in my pocket after using it,
| which I wouldn't do, because it's nice and I subconsciously
| keep track of it.
|
| However, I'm not dogmatic about this stuff. I want to own my
| stuff and not have it own me. There's a half-empty six pack
| of dirt cheap portable umbrellas over next to my shoe rack so
| I can dole them out to my kids who'll inevitably lose them at
| school.
| bch wrote:
| >> I swore off buying junky stuff a long time ago. Life's
| too short to be surrounded by crap that's going to break
| the first time you look at it wrong, student projects be
| damned.
|
| > For me, the difference is that I'm more watchful of the
| nice things.
|
| Or, the items come to integrate themselves into personal
| rituals. Like you said, you want to own your things, and
| not vice-versa, so its nice to not _stress_ over them, but
| have them joyfully integrated into your life.
| kstrauser wrote:
| For sure. Everyone here who doesn't carry a bag knows the
| routine: you stand up to leave and pat your pockets to
| make sure they're all filled with the expected things. I
| also have a glasses case that's always holding either my
| regular glasses or sunglasses. My umbrella goes right to
| the umbrella holder.
|
| Huh, spelling it all out that sounds similar to my ADHD
| rituals, for good reason. I've done so many things until
| they're automatic habits.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| Insurance.
|
| The ability to quickly and more broadly insure any item, that
| would actually be a great economic incentive for higher
| quality goods. What the manufacturer doesn't make in sales
| could be offset with insurance, and being a purely financial
| product doesn't generate an impact in energy use, residues,
| etc... in addition to being a steady revenue, something
| companies today are trying to get with all sorts of
| membership plans.
| seventytwo wrote:
| Zero people are going to insure an umbrella.
| labster wrote:
| Corporations are people, my friend. Homeowners insurance
| already covers household items, making it an umbrella
| policy.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| There's a company around here that offers a membership
| plan, allowing you to grab one umbrella on the automatic
| dispensers around the city.
|
| This sounds like insurance business model with extra
| convenience. The cost of just one month is already the
| price of an utilitarian umbrella, but you get a sturdy
| umbrella with UV protection.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| If it was a lifetime-durable one and I knew the insurance
| wasn't total bullshit[0], I definitely would.
|
| --
|
| [0] - Customer trust in the whole enterprise is always an
| underappreciated factor.
| saalweachter wrote:
| It used to be a feature of some manufacturers/sellers --
| Tupperware, Cutco, Land's End (or was it LL Bean), you
| could return damaged items even decades later and have
| them replaced.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Many years ago, I used to like expensive pens. Over the
| years, they were either stolen, lost, or damaged, so I
| realized the futility of expensive pens. Now I'm used to
| disposable pens, where I don't have to worry about whatever
| happens to them.
|
| At the same time, I have a lime-green plastic mechanical
| pencil that I got from a Microsoft printer room, and it's
| probably about 8 years old by now. This one never gets
| stolen, lost, or damaged.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Hmm, I'm not sure what it means to consider the Y times as many
| people being employed making umbrellas as an externality. I
| mean, there are more damaging (for the world) and more
| unpleasant (for them) things they could get up to.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Making glass is probably a good industry to work in, but we
| don't wish to employ window breakers to keep them busy.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Two thoughts:
|
| First: Are glass makers/window breakers actually an
| externality? I guess the broken glass (not cleaned up by
| anybody, so the price is foist on society) could be
| considered an externality, but that isn't typically the
| point of that story.
|
| Aside: Or maybe, since breaking windows is usually a crime,
| having people break windows as a job might incline them
| toward other crimes. And further, if the field of window
| breaking is lucrative and these window-breakers become
| admired as a result, it could maybe cause a general
| increased tendency toward criminality in society! This
| could be seen as an externality, bringing in the other
| story about broken windows. Maybe we're close to
| discovering the grand unified theory of broken windows!
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory .
|
| Second: Poorly made umbrellas seem quite different from
| glass makers/breakers. There's a price:quality trade off
| with umbrellas, it just isn't where you (and I, actually, I
| prefer a good solid umbrella too) want it to be. The glass
| maker/breaker story is about the silliness of intentionally
| destroying something the folks who made it can make money
| replacing it.
|
| Anyway, I think the umbrella employees aren't an
| externality, they are just part of the cost of doing
| business.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| There's also Y times more marketing, which is the more
| damaging negative externality.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| bought a pair of levis in december, they now have a hole in the
| crouch! this is the second pair in two years that have done
| that. thought it might be user error, but they used to not do
| this.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Where did you get them? They make jeans as nice or as cheaply
| as stores want to carry.
|
| This thread is representative of what I'm talking about: http
| s://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/comments/uf591v/has_le...
|
| The pair you find at an outlet is not the same as what you'd
| get from their online store, let alone their "premium" or
| "vintage" lines.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| i bought them online during a sale, was that my problem?
| kstrauser wrote:
| Wow, I'm not sure. I hope not. That's exactly how I got
| my recent-ish "nice" jeans.
|
| I'm not especially attached to Levis. They were just a
| convenient example for why I think (hope!) the nicer ones
| were worth the extra money. I'm certain lots of people
| who could point us at something much better, although
| perhaps with a proportional price tag.
| harimau777 wrote:
| Semi-off-topic, but I carry a unbreakable umbrella and have been
| very happy with it. Worth a try if you are interested in a real
| world application of this post.
|
| https://unbreakableumbrella.com/
| komali2 wrote:
| I love the videos, but 200$ is a hard pill to swallow for an
| umbrella!
| jpgvm wrote:
| Especially if living in Japan. You had best hope it came with
| a GPS tracker.
| Biganon wrote:
| I think I'm missing the joke. Is it just an umbrella, or is it
| a weapon as well?... They seem to constantly allude to it being
| a weapon. Is it just because it's strong?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Isn't any umbrella obviously looking like a weapon? Am I the
| only one who role-played it's a rifle as a kid (and still do
| as an adult, sometimes)?
|
| And then, a well-made long umbrella would effectively double
| as a cane, at which point it fits well in the martial art of
| Bartitsu.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu
|
| EDIT: see also Bartitsu reference and other applications
| here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella#As_a_weapon_of_attack.
| dunekid wrote:
| I think this is cool and has been referenced in the
| Kingsman?
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| I think Gandhi sorta covers the penultimate conclusion of this
| train, and that's highly local production.
|
| A sort of sentimentality and pride. Maybe you chipped in
| somewhere along the chain, all the socks in the city have a
| little bit of your blood, sweat, and tears in the fibers. I think
| we try to replicate these sensations with all the green-washed
| corporate mission statement bullshit, and psychologically I think
| it's a very successful line. Practically, though, not so much.
|
| This of course comes with the curing of all the one-size-fits all
| shit, too.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| Excellent article. I'm fascinated with this subject.
|
| There is a temple in Japan that exists for hundreds of years.
| It's the same temple only in a "Ship of Theseus" sense, as it
| gets rebuilt every 20 years by experts. But in a sense, it's the
| same temple.
|
| Or take another example: dressing shoe. A shoemaker can reform
| your father's and grandfather's shoe back to brand new if you so
| desire. The materials are easily sourced, all it takes is trained
| labor.
|
| Why can't we have this for everything?
|
| Modern economic practice has optimized for cutting back intensive
| labour dependency in favor of simpler disposable goods. It's a
| "win" from multiple angles: less durable goods means more sales,
| costs of materials and residue are externalized anyway so that
| makes up your margin, and you don't have to deal with expert
| workers demanding better pay. It's beautifully optimized - just
| not optimized for what matters.
|
| If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit
| product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic
| bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-to-
| cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all the
| water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands years.
|
| But like a professor once said: water is free - therefor we
| pollute the rivers with plastic by selling bottled water since
| free water doesn't contribute to the GDP.
|
| This discussion (how long should objects last?) is fundamentally
| tied to current economic practice and incentives.
| nsguy wrote:
| Myself (and a few others) fought to get rid of bottled water
| from our office. A location with great tap water quality.
| Filtered water dispensers. But still people wanted to have
| their (worse quality) bottled water. Eventually we won...
| userbinator wrote:
| Bottled water is invaluable in places where the naturally
| occurring water is not potable.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| It is. That also isn't the reason keeping anyone in the
| bottled water business.
|
| The top 10 bottled water markets are countries with good to
| excellent public water service.
| fragmede wrote:
| is flint, Michigan located inside one of these countries?
| Kerb_ wrote:
| Flint's city water is fine now, their biggest issue
| currently is that the city didn't replace all the pipes
| that they damaged in people's houses, so individuals are
| still getting lead poisoning but it's not the city as a
| whole. I personally don't think it's significantly better
| but it's worth noting if you're using Flint as an
| example.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Is Flint, Michigan a justification for bottled water
| everywhere else in the US?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| I never understood the hate against bottled water. If you're on
| the go and get thirsty, what's wrong with getting water instead
| of an unhealthy soda? I can't drink only beer.
| fragmede wrote:
| because of all the oil and plastic (which comes from oil)
| that is used to get it to you means more emissions which
| contributes to global climate change.
| int_19h wrote:
| In the described scenario, the oil and plastic are going to
| be used either way; the only question is which liquid is
| going to be inside the container.
| thfuran wrote:
| The described scenario is a false dichotomy.
| int_19h wrote:
| How so? People do need to hydrate while running errands
| etc.
|
| You could argue that we need to install more water
| fountains around so that one doesn't need to use bottled
| drinks for this. That's fine, but right here and now
| there are very few working water fountains, so if someone
| finds themselves in the middle of a city needing to
| drink, bottled water is their best option; so why would
| you disparage them for it?
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| Choosing between _bottled_ water or soda /beer is the false
| dichotomy. Bottled water wasn't mass produced prior the 90s,
| but started being heavily promoted since Pepsi and CocaCola
| would go out of business with people cutting back soda
| consumption.
|
| I'm amazed how well their marketing worked to convince people
| that water is literally toxic unless it comes bottled.
|
| I have a funny story: I went to a place here in the country
| with natural mineral water springs, the absolute purest water
| dripping straight from the rock - but visitors (US and
| Europe) not only requested but _insisted_ bottled water
| during the stay. The funny part is the bottled water comes
| from the same place.
| iteria wrote:
| I drink bottled water for a couple of reasons:
|
| - I did not plan well and I'm now in a situation where I
| need water I didn't bring my own bottle. I don't want to be
| chained to a water fountain if one even exists conveniently
| near me. - I don't like the taste of the water where I am.
| Clean water isn't always tasty water. As someone who grew
| up on aquifer water, I found the chemically water of my
| college town hard to deal with. At least bottled water was
| inoffensive. For some brands anyway. - I want easily
| sharable water. This one became pretty important when I was
| a parent. It's just easy to keep a bunch of water in my
| trunk and pass it out to my and other kids on demand. I
| knew people like this, but it wasn't until I had kids that
| I got it. Kids will ignore their body needs and aren't
| always capable of finding sources of water on the even if
| they were aware.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| _So_ much depends on having public spaces to be kid- (
| /parents-) friendly !
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| FWIW, it may make sense to drink bottled water if you're
| traveling to faraway places. At least that's how we were
| briefed before a business trip to China - stick to bottled
| water and boiled water, do _not_ drink tap water or some
| natural source, because we 're not adapted to the local
| bacteriological environment. A co-worker did not obey that
| and ended up spending one of his trip sick instead of
| working. But then again, I'm not sure how true this is -
| after all, we'd all be exposed to the same pathogens when
| showering.
| thfuran wrote:
| But only very slightly unless you deliberately drink
| large quantities of shower water.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I've worked places where the water fountains are taped off
| with notes saying the water isn't potable, and to get
| bottled water from the fridge. Another scenario is walking
| around town in the summer. Sometimes a park with a working
| fountain is nearby, but if not then bottled water from a
| shop is the low-effort option (you could also ask for a cup
| of water from a restaurant, always free in America although
| not necessarily in other parts of the world, but that
| requires a more awkward social interaction..) If a working
| clean water fountain is available I'm happy to drink from
| it, but often that isn't the case.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > I'm amazed how well their marketing worked to convince
| people that water is literally toxic unless it comes
| bottled.
|
| Not too many people think this, there are so many places
| where the tap water is not good for drinking.
|
| I have never in my life heard anybody talk about improving
| tap water to make it good for drinking, and when I mention
| it people dismiss it. And then everybody rages against
| bottled water.
|
| > not only requested but insisted bottled water during the
| stay.
|
| Yes, this happens all the time. It is amazing how
| distrustful people can be of fresh water in nature. I blame
| it on urbanisation and the cattle-fication of the
| population by the human farmers controlling schooling and
| media.
| febusravenga wrote:
| I don't think it's hate for usage of bottled water outside of
| home/on trip/in transit. The hate is about people using
| bottled water in their home en masse even if they have it for
| "free" in kitchen. Some been not consider drinking water from
| public services and don't trust and public assurances of its
| quality.
| otherme123 wrote:
| Where I live I have free tap water. But it's very
| inconsistent: somedays it tastes like a swimming pool (safe
| to drink, but...), and some days specially after heavy
| rains it has so much dust in suspension that the major has
| to reassure that it's safe to drink.
|
| I can afford 5 liters of always clean, always taste free
| water at less than 1EUR per bottle, so tap water doesn't
| ruin my foods randomly.
| dsego wrote:
| Any thoughts on brita filters for rainy days when there
| is high turbidity? I know we used to sometimes boil water
| as a precaution when I was a kid.
| otherme123 wrote:
| Taste doesn't change that much, IMO. Slightly less
| "earthy" taste, but still there. I had a Brita jar, not
| the tap attachment. In my city I don't doubt the quality
| to boil the water, just the taste. Still use tap water as
| it comes to wash the fruit, vegetables, dishes... but
| can't drink it.
| onthecanposting wrote:
| >I can't drink only beer.
|
| Can't? Don't sell yourself short.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| I carry around a water bottle but in a lot of places, the
| only area you can refill is the public restroom. I'm npt
| filling my drinks from there. but if there was areas with
| clean filtered water, I'd even pay for it.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Why not, it's not like the input/output pipes are shared...
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| you ever seen how some people conduct themselves in a
| public restroom?
| jimbobthrowawy wrote:
| In a lot of places, the water supply in bathrooms isn't
| considered potable. I've seen stickers up in airports
| advising this. e.g. every house I've lived in has had
| cold/hot water fed from an uncovered tank in the attic.
| VHRanger wrote:
| The name for this is the Baumol Effect [1]. Sometimes called
| the "cost disease".
|
| The only real way to fix it is to increase the relative price
| of raw materials used compared to labor. Yes, this means
| government intervention, because it's a market failure.
|
| A carbon tax would be a start, but there might have to be a
| non-renewable raw materials tax in the future, as well.
|
| 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
| trgn wrote:
| Slightly tangential. Somebody needs to eli5 why baumol effect
| is supposed to be so paradoxical or special. Of course
| services will tend to cost more over time as other industries
| generate wealth increases. The value of an orchestra
| performance is relative, two hours of enjoying art. Those two
| hours of enjoying art are not a commodity, they will cost
| whatever share of disposal income people like to spend on it.
|
| I've encountered it so many times now, and for whatever
| reason, my mind grinds to a halt, why is this a discovery,
| what are the implications, why is it meaningful? Not being
| facetious, sincerely asking.
| VHRanger wrote:
| It's surprising or meaningful because the parts of the
| economy that don't get more productive get more expensive
| as a fraction of overall costs as other things grow.
|
| It's surprising because intuitively you'd think those
| things would be devalued.
| trgn wrote:
| Thank you.
|
| > It's surprising because intuitively you'd think those
| things would be devalued.
|
| I guess this is where my intuition totally fails. In an
| economy that grows more productive, commodities _fall_ in
| value, as they cost less to produce. A society with more
| yards of linen is a wealthier one than one with fewer,
| all things being equal. That intuitively makes sense. But
| that non-commodities, say, two hours listening to music,
| would need to fall because they aren't part of that
| productivity increase in other industries makes no sense
| to me. You pay performers for two hours of _your_
| enjoyment, not theirs. So obviously you would value it
| more if you're richer (say, as a highly productive linen
| producer). I mean, simple supply-demand should still
| explain it. Demand is elevated (more disposable income of
| linen producers), and supply remains constrained (only so
| many performers). Where is that paradox?
|
| I don't know. Some things I never grok, and beaumol is
| really one of these things.
| VHRanger wrote:
| I mean, think about a plumber or a carpenter. Those jobs
| haven't really been more productive since the 1970s.
| Sure, PEX or nail guns are marginally better than
| previous methods, but not by that much.
|
| But since we still need plumbers or carpenters, they're
| more expensive than they were in the 1970s. Because of
| opportunity cost - imagine 1h of plumber's time in terms
| of TVs over 50 years.
|
| Because all opportunity cost is translated to cash,
| plumbers are more expensive now despite not being a
| growth sector.
|
| It's the economic equivalent to Amdahl's law in a sense.
| Things that can't be easily improved become economic
| bottlenecks (healthcare, education, construction).
| trgn wrote:
| > Those jobs haven't really been more productive
|
| But their services aren't commodities. You're not paying
| a plumber to lay pipe. You pay a plumber to be in a dry
| house that doesn't smell like excrement. That value of
| course rises since demand rises. So of course, their
| labour value increases, since they're keeping the houses
| of a wealthier people free of odors.
|
| The same with education. The value of an education is the
| entry cost to participate in a productive economy. Of
| course that value is higher in more productive societies.
| Why should cost of an education drop, if its value rises?
| Again, it's not interchangeable in a global market,
| education is not a commodity.
|
| And I mean, imagine everybody's time in terms of cost of
| TVs to produce, not just those in unproductive
| industries. Isn't this just the effect of commodity
| prices dropping?
|
| Thanks for the explanation though, it starts to trickle,
| but there's nothing unintuitive about cost disease to me.
| It's just, well yeah, duh.
| dunekid wrote:
| >If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit
| product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic
| bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-
| to-cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all
| the water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands
| years.
|
| Oh my! I have been telling people just this. The sheer number
| of people who consume and throw this needlessly created
| packages is baffling. We have figured out water and its
| sanitation for most of the cases now. Just carrying a reusable
| bottle with water from home, and refilling potable water from
| sources you trust would save the environment from a lot of
| empty bottles. I would not say everyone can do this. But a lot
| of us can do this. Besides the bottles with less than a litre
| capacity are the worst.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| TLDR: guy builds a bunch of umbrellas, but fails to answer the
| question posed in the title.
| radus wrote:
| The answer is "it depends"
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| At least we got to see a milspec umbrella.
| jkestner wrote:
| I think the point was to explore different approaches and spark
| discussion about what we care about.
| userbinator wrote:
| As long as they can.
|
| I can actually see all 3 of these umbrellas as being repairable,
| just by different methods, and if I were forced to use any of
| them, I would definitely attempt to keep them working as long as
| I could. Maybe that's the ultimate lesson here.
|
| _An example is a coffee lid, sometimes it 's active use is less
| than six seconds, but it's 'actual' life may be over a thousand
| years._
|
| A thousand years of "sleep", during which it may be reused or
| recycled by those in the future in some as yet unknown way,
| meanwhile continuing to store the energy that was expended in its
| production. I like to think of "waste" as things which are merely
| not _currently_ useful.
| dawidloubser wrote:
| That's a nice thought, but unfortunately the environmental cost
| of "storing" all of this material - i.e. all the billions of
| tonnes of plastic pollution already out there, and in there
| (inside you in the form of microplastics) - doesn't come for
| free.
|
| It's a current problem, and we don't seem to have the
| technology or even the political will to solve it currently.
| Nevermark wrote:
| That "Pretty Illogical" blob on the bottom-right would be all the
| plastic packaging in the world.
|
| A line between each "useful longevity" point, to the respective
| "physical longevity" point (which in turn could be colored for
| "benign" or "harmful"), would be provocative.
| foota wrote:
| I think they're missing a dimension, how annoying is something to
| replace. In particular for car tires this called out to me. Going
| to an auto shop is an all day adventure for me, whereas almost
| anything else can easily be ordered or picked up without too much
| hassle. Furniture is another category though where there's a non
| trivial investment required to replace it.
|
| Therefore, these should be more durable, even if they're not
| something we're otherwise attached to.
|
| You could also think about the consequences of something
| breaking, and the cost of the loss of use.
|
| E.g., for a car, if it breaks down you might run the risk of an
| accident, and while it's broken down you might not be able to
| commute to work, etc., whereas some things are relatively
| inconsequential when they break.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Car tires take about an hour and are actually one of the things
| I buy used every time. 90% of the tread for 1/4 the price.
| hydrox24 wrote:
| @dang it would be good to link to the student's original website
| with RCA rather than this reproduction on Core 77. The article at
| Core 77 is almost entirely copy-pasted, and doesn't add any
| value.
|
| Original: https://2021.rca.ac.uk/students/charlie-humble-thomas/
| nickm12 wrote:
| Thank you! The Core 77 version was chewing up my CPU.
| mkerrigan wrote:
| Same thing happened to me so I'm glad I'm not the only one.
| amykhar wrote:
| The other cool thing about the original article is you can find
| other student projects there - some of which are quite fun.
| twic wrote:
| For anyone in or near London, the RCA degree show is worth a
| visit:
|
| https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/rca2024/
|
| Lots of really interesting work across a huge range of
| disciplines, from industrial design like this, through digital
| stuff and service design, to architecture, to fine art, to
| animation. I've been many times. It's hell on my feet but worth
| it!
| jimbobthrowawy wrote:
| @dang is a no-op. Someone shoot off an email.
| c_o_n_v_e_x wrote:
| How is the technology in a product expected to change over time?
|
| If you're expecting modest or radical changes (with presumably
| big boosts in efficiency, performance, etc.), why build a long
| life span product? In a rapidly changing environment, keeping old
| equipment can be detrimental. Servers can last longer than what
| they are rated for. Depending on SKU, Intel CPUs are rated for 3,
| 5, or even 10 years of use, however, servers are
| refreshed/replaced because of the ongoing performance increases
| per unit electrical consumption from newer CPU SKUs. In
| businesses where IT equipment isn't core to the business, old
| equipment is kept around if IT efficiency isn't really a concern,
| there's a very high cost of re-engineering, or re-certifying a
| system.
|
| If changes are not reasonably expected, then build products that
| last a long time. One of my children will inherit my kitchenaid
| blender.
| moonchild wrote:
| Is the full dissertation available anywhere? The link on the
| author's website is dead.
| ooterness wrote:
| The durable umbrella weighs in at 1.7 kg / 3.7 lb, four times
| what a normal umbrella would weigh. That is absurdly impractical.
| pxndxx wrote:
| From TFA: [...] the assumption of 'less but better' being a
| superior approach to product design is rarely practically
| evaluated.
|
| The third umbrella in the series takes durability to an almost
| cartoon-like level [...]
|
| This was a study of materials and design, not a product someone
| would like to sell . It's research on object longevity.
| xg15 wrote:
| Yes, but with all studies, it can be made in an objective way
| or in a way that already enforces a particular conclusion.
|
| This is why, in serious scientific work, so much focus is
| placed on methods and reproducibility.
|
| Here he used the less rigorous field of arts and design to
| wiggle out of that responsibility and present a blatantly
| biased study.
| dunekid wrote:
| We can think of it as the arts equivalent of the spherical
| cows in vacuum.
| foobarkey wrote:
| Objects should completely break down 1d after warranty expires so
| we can sell another one to the customer. This will increase
| economic growth, profits and GDP and helps with yacht purchases
| wtcactus wrote:
| A find this topic fascinating, and several times in the past I
| tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to buy items (mainly clothing and
| shoes/boots) that are made to last a long time.
|
| Is there any project that tracks these high durability items?
| landgenoot wrote:
| Reddit r/BuyItForLife
| alextingle wrote:
| That subreddit is basically just an ad for various crappy US
| brands. There is zero interest in discussion of actual BIFL
| products, or practices.
| ericmcer wrote:
| If I wanted to hire a bunch of fake accounts to upvote my
| shill posts it does seem like a great subreddit to do it
| in.
| Tabiroxx wrote:
| industrial Design Student Work @data #story
| xg15 wrote:
| Yeah, sorry. If you prop-up the "recyclable" umbrella with
| corpospeak sentences like this one:
|
| > _The Recyclable Umbrella is a reappraisal of the potential for
| plastic, a material which if properly managed offers carbon
| savings and excellent recyclability when compared with many
| organic alternatives._
|
| (ignoring that this construction would probably break on a
| moderately windy day, and naively assumes that it won't end up on
| a landfill only because it _could_ be recycled)
|
| and then purposely over-engeneer the "long-lived" variant so it
| weighs 1.7 kilos and is practically unusable, you have motivated
| reasoning.
|
| The whole artsy handwaving of this piece also ignores that
| planned obsolescence often happens in products where the amount
| of uses is well-known and generally independent on the product's
| materials, e.g. dishwashers, fridges, etc.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I'd just go with some kind of raincoat.
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| Once you start optimising for one parameter the other ones
| suffer. Over 500g for an umbrella is not acceptable in the space
| age.
|
| I bought a cheap Chinese umbrella for $10. It almost never gets
| used. It probably is not designed to be repairable or durable yet
| I have had it for over ten years so the environmental impact is
| minimal. It is also very lightweight so I have it with me often.
| hamilyon2 wrote:
| I really appreciate that they added weight to the description.
| Puts things into perspective. Nowadays typically umbrella weights
| 300 to 500 grams
| remorses wrote:
| Insurance period minus one standard deviation
| v3ss0n wrote:
| I thought its about programming and someone is planning to
| implement timer based garbage collectors.
| jameshart wrote:
| I am confused by what people in the academic design/art community
| think the word 'celebrate' means.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| If I have to use the stainless steel umbrella x6 just for it to
| be equal to the garbage-tier plastic umbrella, then I will
| landfill six of the plastic umbrellas. I know it's meant to be
| recyclable, and I will dutifully put it in the recycle bin, but
| then my city government will contract it out to some outfit that
| picks through to find some token recyclables and sends the rest
| to landfill anyway.
|
| So, out of 100 uses of the durable umbrella, or 100 uses of the
| garbage umbrellas (across six of those), which is a more pleasant
| experience? Am I wrong to think that it's the obvious one? The
| umbrella that doesn't flex in the wind like it's going to snap
| off? The one that doesn't feel slimy for the three days it'll
| take to dry, the one in fact that won't take that long to dry?
| The one that doesn't accumulate grime but if it did could easily
| be wiped off and then be as clean as the day it was bought new?
| How often does thermoset plastic get a bad mix and end up being a
| little more brittle than usual? How often does the injection mold
| not fill completely, but it sails past QA, and so the umbrella
| handle will snap off when there's a gust... and with my luck when
| I'm halfway between the car and the building? If someone had a
| toddler chewing on it, or a dog, which holds up better? The worst
| you can say about the stainless steel is that it might prompt a
| trip to the dentist.
|
| For anything that I'll use throughout my life, I think I prefer
| the "durable", unless it's just impossible from an engineering
| standpoint or is cost-prohibitive.
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