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

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

#281

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

imchillyb wrote: post #23
dustincoates wrote: post #7

This reminds me of the same types of complaints around air travel now versus the 50s/60s. Both ignore the relative costs and the fact that you can still buy high-end fridges or first class tickets if you are willing to spend the same amount of money that you would have had to back then.

There is no real world comparison between air travel in the 50’s with anything else, except perhaps rampant enshitification. Double decker airframes, a standing lounge, smoking on board, unrestrained pets at the lounge… Nothing compares to the removal of these standards on all domestic flights. No industry did the consumer as dirty.

...orders of magnitude improvement in safety don't matter, but yeah, you could light up back then and get bit by someone's lap rat for good measure.

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

#282

Post by dav_Oz »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #79
idlewords wrote: post #8

My girlfriend's mom has a teaching oven (used in home economics classes) from the 1950s. The 'teaching' part mostly means it has a more accurate and detailed temperature gauge. This gas oven is so heavy that light in the kitchen gravitationally lenses around it, but it's still going strong and the best oven I ever used.

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

A quick search would tell you:

>The angle of deflection (theta) is:

theta = (4GM)/(cr^2)

toward the mass M at a distance r from the affected radiation, where G is the universal constant of gravitation and c is the speed of light in vacuum.[0]

The best resolution our eyes can offer is about one arcminute (1/21600 of a turn). Depending on your distance from the object, just plug in some numbers.

Say at the earth-moon distance 384400 km the object must be about 24x the mass of the sun to bend the incoming light at one arcminute (~0,0002909rad).

The sun actually bends light at about 2 arcseconds as seen from Earth; the focal point would be about 542x the distance Sun-Earth. [1]

Alternatively the object of say 1m^3 volume at a distance of 10 meters will bend light by 1 arcminute if it weighs 3.27x10^16 kg, the density of about 1/10th of a neutron star.

To conclude: one will be instantly overwhelmed by the gravitational forces before being able to see an object bend light with one own eyes. That's why this kind of extreme bending/lending is reserved for galaxy clusters.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens#Explanation...

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens

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

#283

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

ethbr0 wrote: post #142
marricks wrote: post #5

Some of those fridges are refurbished and still around[1]! It's my dream to own one someday when my fridge from the 90's dies. Every couple years there's a HN link to a blog post about how those appliances were built better in the day. Couple highlights I remember were: - Parts were dipped in paint rather than sprayed leading to fuller and thicker paint coverage - Motors had some changes so were actually built to las…

There was a motor teardown linked on HN at some point. Essentially: electric motors from the 50s were vastly over designed, which meant they were extremely robust to physical failures The larger point about stuff now vs then is likely the use of capacitors. And specifically, cheap capacitors in consumer electronics. Absent electronics, you're talking an order of magnitude longer lifespan.

> And specifically, cheap capacitors in consumer electronics.

Speaking of reliability, I just replaced the start capacitor in my 20 year-old garage door opener. The replacement failed in less than 3 weeks!

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

#284

Post by rsynnott »

topspin wrote: post #240
ethbr0 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a motor teardown linked on HN at some point. Essentially: electric motors from the 50s were vastly over designed, which meant they were extremely robust to physical failures The larger point about stuff now vs then is likely the use of capacitors. And specifically, cheap capacitors in consumer electronics. Absent electronics, you're talking an order of magnitude longer lifespan.

An anecdote... Bought a Sony receiver around June 2021. The thing has barely had time to get dusty and its never been over ~20W. It's already dead, or dying at least. The power supply caps are bad and it power cycles itself when it tries to drive the speakers. It's not a high end model; I'm not an audiophile trying to get 0.001% THD at 10KWs. But lunching itself 25 months into a 24 month warranty... wtf.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve - if it's going to break, statistically it'll probably do so in the first few years.

Have you tried bringing it back to where you bought it? Depending on where you live, failing after 25 months may not be okay, regardless of what the warranty says.

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

#285

Post by bombcar »

Phrenzy wrote: post #255
bombcar wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vegetable box on mine makes things last a long time with a filter for ethylene gas, perhaps something like these could help: https://www.amazon.com/ethylene-gas-absorber-fridge/

How will that help? Does the dog inhale the ethylene gas?

Stupid amazon will give you URLs that then stop working, maybe this will work: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ethylene+gas

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

#286

Post by rsynnott »

cde-v wrote: post #40
mongol wrote: post #10

I don't think it is better where it matters. Modern fridges circulate the air to manage humidity and temperature better for different zones (meat, vegetables etc). Also, less energy usage and no ozone-destroying coolants.

Having to throw a fridge in the landfill every 5 years negates the energy usage and ozone issues.

Where are you buying these fridges that fail every five years? Perhaps consider a different brand next time; that's not normal. Modern fridges probably will not last 50 years (or at least only a tiny fraction of them will) but you should be getting a lot more than 5.

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

#287

Post by Qwertious »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #265
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 get a little tired of repeating this, but there are some good reasons why fridges (and most appliances) are the way they are now: * Strong regulation on energy use by appliances (modern fridges are much, much more efficient than ones from 70 years ago) * Extreme competition from companies all over the world * Consumers who care more about convenience and cost above all else, and reliability basically not at all The…

>* Consumers who care more about convenience and cost above all else, and reliability basically not at all

Don't blame the consumer for this. It's just The Market For Lemons at work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

If you really need someone to blame, then blame the MBAs who buy up quality brands and then sell junk until the reputation is all ground up.

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

#288

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

jpl56 wrote: post #267

Last year I almost needed to replace my 20-yo fridge because of temperature issues, condensation and short bulb life. New equivalent fridges didn't even had a door for spreadable butter, so I didn't buy any without continuing searching bot the best one. Then I realized the lamp never turns off when I close the door. The door sensor isn't easy to replace, I just removed the bulb and bought a rechargeable closet lamp w…

Temperature and condensation issues sounds like a leaking door seal. Should be easy enough to replace.

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

#289

Post by Qwertious »

masklinn wrote: post #127
jrochkind1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. One of the difficulties is it's become very hard to know if an item is more expensive because: - it's better quality - it's full of bullshit - it's marketing However 3-5k for a fridge is well into "professional kitchen commercial refrigerator / refrigerated cabinet" range. At…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

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

#290

Post by MostlyStable »

stickfigure wrote: post #277
ethbr0 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster that still works flawlessly. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y They used a shielded bimetalic thermostat to measure the radiant heat coming from the toast surface , instead of a timer, to establish doneness (consistently toasting despite heating element variance) and implemented the mechanical lowering & raising of toast without a single motor (which is why 60+ year ol…

I've lived with two of these (at home growing up, and later via a roommate) and I hated both of them. The toast slot is too narrow. You can't heat a bagel - well, technically you can force it in there, but it won't come back out with some help from a utensil. They get flakey and you end up bouncing the toast a dozen times to get it to lower. Yes, I know there's an adjustment, but it's finicky and annoying. It's a toa…

I'm pretty sure that the reason they stopped getting made was influx of dramatically cheaper toasters, at a time when the idea of paying top dollar for premium kitchen tools was not very common. I'm also pretty sure that fixing all of your issues would not be hard with a modern re-design. It would just result in a ~$100+ toaster. The crazy thing is is that _there are more expensive toasters than that_, that are basically identical to cheap toasters except they look better. I'd _gladly_ pay $100 for a new toaster that had the features of the Sunbeam and was well made enough to not have the finicky features bits you mention. And paying for premium kitchen tools is _common_ now, to the point where even people who don't really care about cooking will still have a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and a Vitamix Blender.
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