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4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

the-berliner.com

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Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

#121

Post by NedF »

Voultapher wrote: post #119
olieidel wrote: post #64

Berlin is a great place to observe policies with good intentions, yet negative second-order effects. Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhere else, as e.g. people will buy less potatoes in supermarkets. The waste just becomes less visible as supermarkets dispose of food every day. Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "ba…

Salting your ground water is also a second-order effect. The way you put that statement into quotes shows that you value human well being over everything else. Personally I don't. Life on earth is a co-op and we don't win by being the last ones standing, as we are desperately trying right now.

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Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

#123

Post by Aaronmacaron »

meindnoch wrote: post #108

>4,000 tons is almost four million kilograms It is exactly four million kilograms. (Germany uses the SI metric ton)

TIL there are two units of measurement that are both called ton but confusingly are not the same as a ton. One is a tiny bit more than a ton (1.016 tons) and one is a bit less (0.907 tons). Apparently people use the prefixes long and short to differentiate them, at least that part is intuitive.

Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

#124

Post by einsteinx2 »

jbm wrote: post #23
Aurornis wrote: post #4

This is an interesting example of what happens when the supply and demand curve goes into the extreme ends of the chart: The price of "selling" your product goes negative. It costs money to get rid of it. Negative prices occur from time to time in the electricity market because some types of power plants are slow to ramp up and down. So if demand falls too rapidly, spot electricity prices can negative.

When I worked at a Coke bottler in Japan, we had similar issues with product. Stuff that didn't sell was called "Flush Out" and had to be disposed of. You couldn't legally just dump the contents without paying money so I made an app that let employees get cases for shipping costs. It was popular, even though we were usually talking about weird flavours that no one liked (stuff akin to Apple Ginger ale) They eventuall…

> It was popular, even though we were usually talking about weird flavours that no one liked (stuff akin to Apple Ginger ale)

I know this is beside the point, but Apple Ginger Ale sounds legitimately awesome. I’ve never seen that flavor before, but now I really want to try it haha.

Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

#125

Post by uniq7 »

Xylakant wrote: post #118
Glawen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having hard time to visualize it, can you convert them in adult elephants and TV Tower height? Bear in mind I only saw asian elephants in zoo.

A ton is a big bag (yes, they get delivered in bags and that’s the name for them), which is pretty exactly a cubic meter. 4000 tons is hence a 2x2meter tower, 1km high. Or 20mx20m, 10m high.not sure how high you can stack TV towers or Asian elephants. The conversion is left as an exercise to the reader.

> which is pretty exactly a cubic meter

That would be if we were talking about water (and at 4ºC if we want to be "exact"), but potatoes have a different density and cannot fill the space entirely due to their irregular shapes. Are you saying that those two things cancel themselves out and the result is that 1 cubic meter of potatoes is "exactly" 1 tone?

Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

#126

Post by jbm »

einsteinx2 wrote: post #124
jbm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at a Coke bottler in Japan, we had similar issues with product. Stuff that didn't sell was called "Flush Out" and had to be disposed of. You couldn't legally just dump the contents without paying money so I made an app that let employees get cases for shipping costs. It was popular, even though we were usually talking about weird flavours that no one liked (stuff akin to Apple Ginger ale) They eventuall…

> It was popular, even though we were usually talking about weird flavours that no one liked (stuff akin to Apple Ginger ale) I know this is beside the point, but Apple Ginger Ale sounds legitimately awesome. I’ve never seen that flavor before, but now I really want to try it haha.

I remember liking it too; it was actually a Schweppes product but as my boss said, it was straight to flush out. The Japan market just doesn't like sweet drinks. The top drink was green tea, which probably caused consternation as it was so expensive to manufacture.

In retrospect I miss the teas from Japan more than any of the weird flavours we had. Thankfully one can make them oneself but there is something special about going to a corner store and having relatively healthy options instead of a hundred flavours of sugar water.

Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

#127

Post by Xylakant »

uniq7 wrote: post #125
Xylakant wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A ton is a big bag (yes, they get delivered in bags and that’s the name for them), which is pretty exactly a cubic meter. 4000 tons is hence a 2x2meter tower, 1km high. Or 20mx20m, 10m high.not sure how high you can stack TV towers or Asian elephants. The conversion is left as an exercise to the reader.

> which is pretty exactly a cubic meter That would be if we were talking about water (and at 4ºC if we want to be "exact"), but potatoes have a different density and cannot fill the space entirely due to their irregular shapes. Are you saying that those two things cancel themselves out and the result is that 1 cubic meter of potatoes is "exactly" 1 tone?

Pretty much. See the FAQ here https://4000-tonnen.de/faq.html

> Wie werden die Kartoffeln geliefert? Die Kartoffeln werden per LKW direkt an Ihre angegebene Adresse geliefert. Die Lieferung erfolgt in einem Big Bag, in das ca. 1000 Kilogramm Kartoffeln passen.

Standard Big bags are roughly 1x1x1m

Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

#128

Post by tmp10423288442 »

Voultapher wrote: post #119
olieidel wrote: post #64

Berlin is a great place to observe policies with good intentions, yet negative second-order effects. Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhere else, as e.g. people will buy less potatoes in supermarkets. The waste just becomes less visible as supermarkets dispose of food every day. Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "ba…

Salting your ground water is also a second-order effect. The way you put that statement into quotes shows that you value human well being over everything else. Personally I don't. Life on earth is a co-op and we don't win by being the last ones standing, as we are desperately trying right now.

When I hear people like you, I pray that natural selection will remove people like you from the population faster than mutations create them.

Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

#129

Post by pfannkuchen »

tmp10423288442 wrote: post #128
Voultapher wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salting your ground water is also a second-order effect. The way you put that statement into quotes shows that you value human well being over everything else. Personally I don't. Life on earth is a co-op and we don't win by being the last ones standing, as we are desperately trying right now.

When I hear people like you, I pray that natural selection will remove people like you from the population faster than mutations create them.

It isn’t genetic, it’s moral programming.

Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

#130

Post by fatata123 »

Voultapher wrote: post #119
olieidel wrote: post #64

Berlin is a great place to observe policies with good intentions, yet negative second-order effects. Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhere else, as e.g. people will buy less potatoes in supermarkets. The waste just becomes less visible as supermarkets dispose of food every day. Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "ba…

Salting your ground water is also a second-order effect. The way you put that statement into quotes shows that you value human well being over everything else. Personally I don't. Life on earth is a co-op and we don't win by being the last ones standing, as we are desperately trying right now.

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