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

A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

mstdn.social

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 531 posts

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#221

Post by LorenPechtel »

leidenfrost wrote: post #143
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a serious note, how heavy does an object have to be for gravitational lensing or bending to be noticeable with a naked eye? s/visible/noticeable s/noticeable/noticeable with a naked eye s/lensing/gravitational lensing

Depends on how you define "noticeable". If you can measure a small enough distance, you can see the lensing effect of any object.

Only in a Newtonian world--but there wouldn't be lensing in a Newtonian world. Once you consider Heisenberg and quantum mechanics you find your signal swamped by noise for smaller objects.

Now, figuring out this limit is left as an exercise for the reader as it's way beyond my abilities.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#223

Post by dustincoates »

BeetleB wrote: post #212
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > This reminds me of the same types of complaints around air travel now versus the 50s/60s The huge difference compared to banck then is TSA, for cultural reasons I don't think many people would complain about not being able to smoke on board or the fact that planes are a tad slower. Air travel completely changed because for some reason ill intentioned people decided to bring their ill intentions to fruition on a p…

I think what GP was referring to were the larger seats, more leg room, free meals, and a few other perks.

Precisely. If you want a high-end dinner and an open bar with a lay-down bed while you fly, well you pay for it, and if you fly Emirates, you can even have a shower thrown in.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#224

Post by lb1lf »

thomasahle wrote: post #194
lb1lf wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll recycle a comment I made in another thread a few years ago: When clearing out my grandmother's house a few years ago, my uncle and I almost broke our backs trying to get the freezer out. It felt like it weighed a ton, even empty. My grandmother told us it had been a wedding present, and that they had been totally awestruck at the time at the generous present from her parents-in-law. After all, a decent freezer c…

2,000kr is $300. If you earn that in five hours, you make around $10,000/month after taxes. So more than double the median of $4,632/month. But okay, even at that median, I guess it's just two days of work. Are you sure you had to work 5 months for a freezer at median work in 1950? Seems nobody would buy them then.

I am Norwegian, our kroner are somewhat less sought after than the Danish krone.

As for the cost in 1950, I have no idea except what my grandmother told me - but the 7,000kr average annual pay I looked up at the bureau of statistics.

My paternal grandmother, though, upon hearing my maternal grandmother had a freezer already in 1950, was green with envy - they had not got one until the end of that decade.

I guess being an early adopter came at a price back then, too.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#225

Post by photonerd »

Retric wrote: post #92
photonerd wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had 8 fridges in 22 years, up until my latest I’ve they were all from this supposedly better age. All failed, in some cases disastrously. The only one that’s survived longer than a few years for me ? The new one. Going 6 years strong. Not everything on my new one is perfect—I managed to break the built in water jug—but I feel a lot of the replies here need to take into account survivorship bias.

So you needed to replace 7 fridges in 16 years? You’re either a crazy statistical outlier or doing something very very wrong. Something seriously wrong with your houses electrical supply is the obvious explanation but it’s far from the only possibility.

It’s called “old fridges eventually fail”.

Nothing statistically strange about that.

Luckily most were either “came with the place” ones or cheap 2nd hand ones. The point being: old fridges also fail, in fact they’re more likely to as they get older!

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#226

Post by LorenPechtel »

distances wrote: post #120
rwultsch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am getting a Sub-zero in a few weeks which is damn near the most expensive fridge. It does not have nice pull out shelves or the veggie compartments. I expect the sealing and ethylene scrubbing will keep veggies fresh linger.

Why does everyone keep their veggies in the fridge, do you buy them in bulk? Basic veggies like onions, tomatoes, cucumber I eat fast enough to just keep on shelves and in regular rotation, and all more special plants are anyway bought for a certain meal in mind so they're used within a day or two. My fridge does have a veggie section but I use that for beer.

That assumes you go shopping every couple of days.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#227

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

Levitz wrote: post #24
starbugs wrote: post #3

> Thing is, producing crappy, cookie-cutter, uninspired, overpriced junk that falls apart within 5 years (generously speaking) pays more to the shareholders. That's how we got from there to here. This summarizes it quite well for me.

It's also a consequence of constant R&D improvements. We can make appliances that last for 20 years or more, sure, but then when 20 years pass you have an appliance that is 20 years old and doesn't have any of that new stuff that came out in the last 20 years.

Making a fridge last 100 years seems like an R&D activity though. They can sell it as a subscription too.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#228

Post by sameerds »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #101
starbugs wrote: post #3

> Thing is, producing crappy, cookie-cutter, uninspired, overpriced junk that falls apart within 5 years (generously speaking) pays more to the shareholders. That's how we got from there to here. This summarizes it quite well for me.

I mean, in general, things we buy today are a lot more "affordable" while being lower quality. Googling says the average cost of a refrigerator in 1950 was $250 to $400 (for 10 cubic feet -- a fridge today is 20 to 30 ft^3), which would be $3K to $5K in 2023 dollars. If you pay $3K to $5K for a fridge today (for a fridge 2-3x as big as the 1950 fridge), do you get a better longer-lasting one? I'm not sure.

To use a very imprecise comparison, the fridge that my parents purchased way back when, cost them three months of savings, while the fridge that I purchased would cost half a month's savings for a similar job.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#230

Post by photonerd »

marricks wrote: post #57
photonerd wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had 8 fridges in 22 years, up until my latest I’ve they were all from this supposedly better age. All failed, in some cases disastrously. The only one that’s survived longer than a few years for me ? The new one. Going 6 years strong. Not everything on my new one is perfect—I managed to break the built in water jug—but I feel a lot of the replies here need to take into account survivorship bias.

What do you do to your fridges??? I'm in my 30's and have never had to replace a fridge. Never had a "modern" fridge except as a kid. All looked like low budget fridges from the 80's or 90's.

They were old. They failed. That’s what happens.

One the compressor died & would have cost about 5 times the value of the fridge to replace. One a coolant line cracked (guessing just age). One the seals on the doors failed. One actually started HEATING things… that was ODD. One just… stopped, no idea what was wrong but nothing obvious.

Old stuff breaks.

Post reply on HN