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The Decline of the American Laundromat

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Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#201

Post by laurencerowe »

dijit wrote: post #66
Symbiote wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden and the UK seem roughly the same to me. The main streets of large cities are perhaps a bit dirtier in England, but the parks in Sweden are far worse when people leave all their trash for the bottle collector (not just the bottles).

As a person who grew up in Britain and now live in Sweden in cities with a comparable population size, I disagree. London is an exception when it comes to the UK, there is a lot more investment in public services and it's not a true representation of Britain due to its multicultural component.

Sure, London has a level of investment in public services which is unrepresentative of Britain as a whole (though they also pay most of the taxes that fund public services.) But all big cities (and many small ones) are multicultural.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#202

Post by dijit »

laurencerowe wrote: post #201
dijit wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person who grew up in Britain and now live in Sweden in cities with a comparable population size, I disagree. London is an exception when it comes to the UK, there is a lot more investment in public services and it's not a true representation of Britain due to its multicultural component.

Sure, London has a level of investment in public services which is unrepresentative of Britain as a whole (though they also pay most of the taxes that fund public services.) But all big cities (and many small ones) are multicultural.

that's a stupid point to make.

London is more multicultural than the rest of Britain.

even if you count the duo-culture the rest of britain has (Pakistani is usually what people refer to when defining "multi-cultural" in the greater context of the UK) then London is still absolutely outclassing everything else by an amazingly wide margin in terms of multi-culturalism.

You could argue the Polish influx has created a tri-culture, but really, I lived in London and my neighbors were Russian, Estonian, Finnish, Canadian, South African, Eritrean, Saudi, Indian, Danish, Italian, Brazillian and there was even a girl from Zimbabwe. Nothing like where I came from.. That's a true multi-culture.

Regardless, as a person having lived in 2 comparable places in different countries I see a huge difference in the way public spaces are treated (to the benefit of Sweden). I don't doubt that the parent has similar experiences as I wasn't saying it's uncommon. But I have this opinion having actual experience. If you do not have similar experience you are not an authority to tell me how things are.

I'm not sure what point you were even trying to make, that Britain has more than just British culture therefore my argument has no ground? :S

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#203

Post by brightball »

justforFranz wrote: post #189
brightball wrote: post #88

I live in a house with a washer and dryer. After we had our first child there was a stretch where my wife and I were both sick for about 2 weeks and the laundry ended up building up significantly. We had probably 10 loads worth to catch up on and it was going to take all of at least one day, maybe two. Threw it all in the car, went to the laundromat and had it done in 2 hours. Laundromat's are now how I explain "the…

Heeeyyyyy I hope "Laundromat's" aren't how you explain plural nouns to non-technical people. :P :)

facepalm

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#204

Post by gozur88 »

brightball wrote: post #88

I live in a house with a washer and dryer. After we had our first child there was a stretch where my wife and I were both sick for about 2 weeks and the laundry ended up building up significantly. We had probably 10 loads worth to catch up on and it was going to take all of at least one day, maybe two. Threw it all in the car, went to the laundromat and had it done in 2 hours. Laundromat's are now how I explain "the…

Heh. Home laundry was how I used to describe processor pipelines.

"So you put the load from the washer into the dryer, but if you have a second load you don't wait for the first load to finish drying before you put the second load in the washer, do you?"

Probably doesn't work as well in countries where people mostly buy the all-in-one units.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#205

Post by gozur88 »

brightball wrote: post #157
fuzzybeard wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this only make sense for small machines? I bought a gigantic washer/dryer and have no problem working through a large buildup that results from some disruption in life. Borrowing from your analogy, I have large on-prem servers so I don't need the scalability of the cloud.

Just assuming you have a giant washer/dryer at home and it would handle say, 3 of the loads at one time. 10 loads total. 1. Put 3 loads in washer. Wait for cycle. 7 loads waiting to start. 2. Move 3 loads to dryer. Put 3 new loads in washer. 4 loads waiting to start. 3. Move 3 loads out of dryer and fold, move 3 loads from washer into dryer, put 3 new loads in washer. 1 load waiting to start. 4. Move 3 loads out of d…

>10 loads at laundromat

>1. Put 10 loads in 10 washers.

>2. Move 10 loads from 10 washers to 10 dryers.

>3. Move 10 loads out of dryers and fold.

As if. More like:

1. Arrive at the laundromat and realize there are only four washers free.

2. Start three loads because the fourth one doesn't work no matter how many coins you put in.

3. Wait for a dryer when the the three loads finish. Because washers are faster there are already two people waiting for a free dryer. You realize there's no point in hurrying to do the next three loads, since your first three are only making the dryer situation worse.

4. One dryer is finished but nobody is there to unload it. What's the etiquette at this place - should you take a stranger's load out and put it in one of the dingy carts? You wonder how big the owner of those clothes is, and if he's sane.

5. Eventually you get ten loads of clothes through three washers, read an entire three year old issue of Glamour magazine upside-down to make it last, and get all but the last two loads through the dryers before deciding to dry the last two at home by draping them over your furniture.

Total run time, a little over five hours and ten sanity points.

There's probably another cloud analogy in here somewhere.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#206

Post by ihaveajob »

chongli wrote: post #184
ihaveajob wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a big place, which averages away the extremes. In San Francisco, population 868k, there are about 10-12k homeless folks ( http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-homeless... ), which puts it at over 1% homelessness. That's a tragic number for such a wealthy city.

It's only a tragic reflection on the city if you assume all the homeless are born and raised there. How many of those migrated there from colder climates? How many were given a bus ticket by their home city and sent there? SF spends an absolute fortune on homeless people. That, coupled with its temperate climate, makes it a magnet for many types of homeless people.

Correct, but I have never seen such concentration of homeless people anywhere in Spain, where climate varies significantly as well, and economic conditions are historically harsher. But there's a safety net that prevents most people from falling all the way down.
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