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Extreme Ironing

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Re: Extreme Ironing

#131

Post by derefr »

jacobolus wrote: post #124
derefr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

• For a lot of people, having to learn something new as an adult, no matter how small, causes them some kind of psychic pain. • People (all animals?) seem to have a quirk about learning hygiene practices in particular, where the criteria they have for what is hygenic/unhygenic gets formed when they're children, and then becomes unalterable. People generally seem to intuitively believe that whatever hygiene practices…

Note: kids also often chafe at learning new things, if it feels like someone is telling them what to do. Source: My kids are 2.5 and 5, and I hang out with a lot of other small kids and their parents these days.

Depends on the thing. Children tend to be fine at self-directed learning, e.g. figuring out how to play a new video game. Some—most?—adults chafe at even the idea of engaging in an activity that requires self-directed learning. (To the point that we even have an English word for those adults that don't: "neophiles.")

Re: Extreme Ironing

#133

Post by Qworg »

dragontamer wrote: post #129
duckmysick wrote: post #80

Mildly related: I'm curious what are the latest advances in consumer irons and ironing boards. Something that improved them in the last 10-15 years, even incrementally. For example SSDs became much more common and affordable over the past 15 years and their parameters also improved. Are there similar improvements in household appliances like irons? Where would one look for an industry overview?

> Are there similar improvements in household appliances like irons? I bought a new washer/dryer recently. A bunch of bells and whistles, but... the "autosense the water level" feature is awesome, and likely saves water in the long run. It seems like washers use so much less water these days, its not like the old agitator models from 2000s which filled up a tank. Instead, modern washers thoroughly wet the clothes, ad…

As an extension to the soap, there are single squeeze detergent bottles now that precisely meter on a one handed squeeze. So simple, yet phenomenally useful.

Re: Extreme Ironing

#134

Post by bluGill »

cpcallen wrote: post #119
duckmysick wrote: post #80

Mildly related: I'm curious what are the latest advances in consumer irons and ironing boards. Something that improved them in the last 10-15 years, even incrementally. For example SSDs became much more common and affordable over the past 15 years and their parameters also improved. Are there similar improvements in household appliances like irons? Where would one look for an industry overview?

You can now get 'cordless' (electric) irons. Like an electric kettle, they heat up while sitting in the (decidedly non-cordless) base, but you don't have to contend with the cord while actually doing the pressing. I am a bit doubtful about whether they are much of an improvement over the usual corded kind, but the one person I know who has one insists that she greatly prefers it.

My grandma used them for years. Hers weren't electric though, she had to put them on the wood stove to heat. The wood stove was next to her sewing machine, while the electric iron was in a different room, so it was a lot faster for her to pick up the iron than use the electric one. They didn't have automatic steam, but otherwise worked just as well.

Re: Extreme Ironing

#135

Post by kyle-rb »

Interesting, but something about this article is weird. Overall it doesn't feel like it's in the Wikipedia style and some parts are very editorialized, e.g.

> As extreme ironing has branched off, the conditions can gain in extreme activity. For example, a branch of ironing has been developed that includes both bungee jumping and well-pressed clothing. Bungee ironing is what some would call the ultimate in the thrill of extreme ironing.[8]

That citation leads to https://averyj12.weebly.com/extreme-ironing.html, which was clearly copied wholesale from Wikipedia (all its links and citations go directly back to Wikipedia).

Looking at the history, there have been a lot of edits since that text was added in 2007, so it's surprising that someone hasn't rewritten it since then.

Re: Extreme Ironing

#136

Post by dragontamer »

Qworg wrote: post #133
dragontamer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there similar improvements in household appliances like irons? I bought a new washer/dryer recently. A bunch of bells and whistles, but... the "autosense the water level" feature is awesome, and likely saves water in the long run. It seems like washers use so much less water these days, its not like the old agitator models from 2000s which filled up a tank. Instead, modern washers thoroughly wet the clothes, ad…

As an extension to the soap, there are single squeeze detergent bottles now that precisely meter on a one handed squeeze. So simple, yet phenomenally useful.

I've seen those, but... how does the bottle know how big your washer is? Or how water efficient it is?

A agitator "tub washer" uses 40-gallons of water to wash clothes. A modern front-loading HE washer uses 10-gallons.

If you use the same amount of soap on both washers, you'll naturally be either... adding too much soap to the HE washer, or too little soap to the agitator washer.

-------

Same thing with "Tide Pods". The idea of those things is "one pod per load", which removes the mental need to think of how much soap to add per load. But... once again, there's many different washers that all use different amounts of water. There's no way we really have a one-side fits all situation.

Re: Extreme Ironing

#137

Post by jacobolus »

derefr wrote: post #131
jacobolus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: kids also often chafe at learning new things, if it feels like someone is telling them what to do. Source: My kids are 2.5 and 5, and I hang out with a lot of other small kids and their parents these days.

Depends on the thing. Children tend to be fine at self-directed learning, e.g. figuring out how to play a new video game. Some—most?—adults chafe at even the idea of engaging in an activity that requires self-directed learning. (To the point that we even have an English word for those adults that don't: "neophiles.")

Some children enjoy playing some new video games. (As do some adults.) Some children (and some adults) would refuse to play a video game that someone else told them to play. Their decisions and feelings are contingent on the context (including social context).

If you slow down and have a conversation you can sometimes figure out what the specific emotional problem is, often involving shame or fear, and what triggers it has. The problem is seldom if ever “so-and-so is incapable of learning anything new”.

Re: Extreme Ironing

#138

Post by thorin »

The original extreme ironing site must be very old. I'm pretty sure I remember browsing it in mosaic on a sun workstation in the mid 90s.

Extreme ironing forever.

Re: Extreme Ironing

#140

Post by sydd »

duckmysick wrote: post #80

Mildly related: I'm curious what are the latest advances in consumer irons and ironing boards. Something that improved them in the last 10-15 years, even incrementally. For example SSDs became much more common and affordable over the past 15 years and their parameters also improved. Are there similar improvements in household appliances like irons? Where would one look for an industry overview?

> Are there similar improvements in household appliances like irons?

Some examples that I know of:

- modern robot vacuums, that can mop, use LIDAR etc. We have a pretty decent one, it works OK, but we still have to vacuum by ourselves every 2 weeks or so.

- battery operated vacuums, irons, hair dryers etc.

- smart homes -- automaticcally setting heat, window blinds

- tons of gimmicky stuff like smart fridges, or water taps with touch screens.

But I'd consider these just some quality of life improvements, not major time savers like washing things by hand vs a washing machine. IMO the next big thing will be household 3D printers when someone finds out how to make them safe and reliable for everyday use by non-technical people.

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