Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I Gave Up Alternating Current

robrhinehart.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 140 posts

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#41

Post by mortenjorck »

danielweber wrote: post #28
pavel_lishin wrote: post #14

> I have not done laundry in years. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than it would to wash them I'd like someone to run some more numbers on t…

It's crazy. If you were really committed to not using AC, you could still put some bleach + detergent + cold water in a basin with your clothes to manually agitate, and then air dry.

You can do even better than that. For $129, you can get a pedal-powered mini washing machine: http://www.gizmag.com/yirego-drumi-foot-powered-washer/37586...

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#42

Post by tedks »

colinbartlett wrote: post #21
seren wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is from the founder of Soylent[0], so likely not. While some ideas are delusional, it is refreshing to see someone taking nothing for granted. I also suspect the timing of the post is there only to generate discussion at the time of Soylent 2.0 release. So it is basically a link bait trying to push people hot buttons. It works superbly. Moreover, beyond Soylent, Rob's next startup is probably somewhere in there.…

Okay that explains a lot, thank you. The article mentioned Soylent 2.0 several times so I searched and found hours-old news articles about it, and become very skeptical that this whole thing wasn't just a big ad for Soylent 2.0.

As the creator of Soylent, Rob has probably had access to 2.0 for many years now. It's well known the military keeps civilian Soylent technology years behind what they're using.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#43

Post by ovulator »

condescendence wrote: post #34

As another user hinted at, this article is completely back-asswards. >I have not done laundry in years. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than…

When I got to the washing part (I skipped over the Soylent part because I assumed it was just a paid advertisement), I expected him to talk about using a washing board or something.

No, I just buy new clothes. So instead of using a little energy for a spin cycle, I have factories in China spew coal, then have shipping freights (some of the worst environmental offenders) bring it half way across the world for me so I can wear it once, then presumably add it to the land fill.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#44

Post by Azew »

> Even in less temperate locales I wonder if we really need to define our environment to within single degree Fahrenheit.

Hey, sure, tell that to everyone in the northern states, no need for heat right? I mean when it's 10°F outside you can just shut the windows and be nice and warm, right?

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#46

Post by teamonkey »

wklauss wrote: post #30

I have long wanted to fully switch to DC in my life and would love to see common appliances designed for a DC world. It's a shame that the opportunity to discuss this is lost in this post because of the pedantic tone of the author. Phrases like "I think it was a bit presumptuous for the architect to assume I wanted a kitchen with my apartment and make me pay for it" or "I don’t want to live with red hot heating eleme…

Just what practical options are currently available? With roof-mounted solar panels becoming commonplace (at least where I live) it seems like 12V DC is a practical target, but it irks me that it gets converted to AC before being reconverted back to DC by a wall wart a few meters away.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#47

Post by fezz »

justinph wrote: post #4

Interesting, but it seems like a lot of the lifestyle choices are just pushing the carbon/climate impact to someone else where the author doesn't have to think about it. Getting custom clothes made in china and shipped frequently is certainly far less environmentally friendly than simply re-using the clothes you already have. Taking an uber still burns gasoline. A bike would be better.

Agreed on the shifting the consumption down the line. However, the primary energy advantage of Uber-like car services is that it reduces the high cost of energy to produce a car by reducing the pool of cars through optimizing their use (meaning, instead of a majority of cars sitting around doing nothing, using a pool of cars working most of the time would mean fewer cars needed overall). If all cars end up being full time service vehicles (through self driving?), one car would hopefully be able to service 20 people and replace all those cars. If the carbon foot print of gas/electric consumption is 12% of a car's total (the rest going to manufacture), then moving to a full shared service model would be a huge gain (and loss of the auto industry)

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#48

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

Demiurge wrote: post #37
condescendence wrote: post #34

As another user hinted at, this article is completely back-asswards. >I have not done laundry in years. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than…

I stopped at >I utilize soylent only at home and go out to eat when craving company or flavor. right after we found out kitchens are nasty and wasteful. Of course, out of sight, out of mind?

I can spend the money I saved from groceries and take out to buy a friend lunch or dinner

Or you could learn to cook and make a friend a probably better tasting lunch or dinner at substantially lower cost.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#49

Post by tedks »

jhildings wrote: post #16

>First, I never cook. I am all for self reliance but repeating the same labor over and over for the sake of existence is the realm of robots. Well then he does cooking wrong, he could also try to improve himself but in the craft in itself but also add more creativity to it

Who the fuck wants to do that? Here are 10 things I could be doing besides slaving over a stove (the seventh might surprise you):

1. Reading hacker news

2. Reading reddit

3. Engaging with people engaging with my brand on Twitter

4. Reviewing my productized consultancy analytics

5. Reviewing my startup numbers and analytics

6. Emailing brand leaders to gauge interest in new startup ideas

7. Posting on hacker news

8. Writing blog posts about the freedom provided from abandoning things like laundry, cooking, cleaning, driving, and other mundane, bullshit tasks

9. Meditating, which I do for 15 minutes daily to center myself spiritually so that I can growth hack better. Growth hacking begins with personal growth.

10. Appreciating the beautiful life I've cultivated for myself, surrounded by dynamic people all focusing on the same beautiful goal as myself.

Cooking is boring and takes way too much skill to do right. Moreover, it is objectively unfun and isn't related to startups, technology, or growth hacking in any way. Why would I waste time learning to cook when I could be learning how to write single-page web apps in Haskell with the latest framework? Do you even test your code?

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#50

Post by munificent »

ForHackernews wrote: post #3

Is this a parody?

I can only assume it's a work of sublime satire. Consider: "As I mature I find myself optimizing for peace instead of posturing, conservation over consumption. Opulence in asceticism."

In two short sentences, the author describes himself as:

* Mature

* Ecologically sensitive

* Peaceful

* Humble (!)

* Opulent

* Ascetic (!!)

I don't think I've seen a more brilliantly delineated, comically absurd character since A Confederacy of Dunces.

Post reply on HN