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“I’m so enlightened I forgot women play soccer” is definitely a weird take.
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Avery Trufelman does an incredibly well-researched podcast on clothing of all kinds by the name of Articles of Interest. They did a whole show on the pointe shoe. You can check it out here: https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/p/on-pointe
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While we’re on the topic, on the last year, NPR interviewed an expert who warned of lifelong debilitating injury (pain walking) that dancers developed by going en pointe too young. The woman recommended waiting until 15. But searching for this to share with dancers, I cannot find the interview now. Did NPR retract this?
And on that topic, our cultures default to shoes that press your big toe in, creating bunions in everyone predisposed to bunions. Just because we think it's cute when a shoe is rounded. You have to specifically look for shoes that don't do it. (I recommend Whitins on Amazon. $35 shoes.)
I've got massive bunions and I remember as a kid (in the '70s-80s) that shoes for my big feet seemed to come in one width no matter the length. A size 8 and a size 10 seemed to be about the same width, the 10s just looked clownishly long. It was like I was wearing canoes on my feet.
I have giant bunions which thankfully don't bother me unless I put them in the wrong shoe, then every step is a world of pain. Finally in my mid-50s I was like "Wait, what is this 'wide toebox' shoe, that sounds like just the ticket. And it absolutely was.
Pro tip: Unless you have a narrow foot, try a cheap wide toebox shoe.
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> Speaking of shoes Can you please avoid generic tangents? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . "Shoes" is about as generic as one could get in a single hop from the topic.
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> Speaking of shoes Can you please avoid generic tangents? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . "Shoes" is about as generic as one could get in a single hop from the topic.
Okay, fine, but how on earth is the posted article submission even on-topic for the site? And for the front page?
That doesn't mean it has to gratify your curiosity or mine - no single article can do that for everyone. But it's clear that that's what makes the article on topic.
One other aspect: the best HN submissions are the ones that are most uncorrelated with anything else that's gotten attention recently - or, as I used to put it, can't be predicted from any existing sequence*. This one has that property for sure!
* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I've seen the pictures of ballerinas' toes -- in this era of 3D printing is there no way to distribute the load up to where the foot widens into the heel?
> Dancers are taught to make everything look a certain way. There has been innovation in ballet, but always in a small angle, and in a very rigid system
> No matter how comfortable or functional, unconventional shoe designs tend to be a hard sell in the ballet community—often because they look different, featuring nontraditional materials or shapes.
The act’Pointe shoes look good IMO and they do precisely what you suggest. Not sure how well they sell given what they say Re: the culture being rigid on choice. If they don't sell well, it could be a cultural problem or one of affordability if it's e.g. patented.
I've seen the pictures of ballerinas' toes -- in this era of 3D printing is there no way to distribute the load up to where the foot widens into the heel?
> In 2023, the German company act’ble released a 3-D-printed and knit shoe, act’Pointe. The shoe features a scored sole made from a rubber-like elastomer and a compressive “skin” that covers the entire foot. > Dancers are taught to make everything look a certain way. There has been innovation in ballet, but always in a small angle, and in a very rigid system > No matter how comfortable or functional, unconventional s…
There is also a whole process of customization, where the dancers spend quite a bit of time bending the shoes to their will and tweaking them to their liking.
I’d the 3D printed ones don’t last long enough to make up the price difference, or can’t be tweaked and tuned in the same way, those could both be problems.
I’d also imagine if a dancer learned in one style of shoe, they may just be comfortable with it… like Linus Torvalds maintaining an ancient obscure version of uemacs, just because that’s where is muscle memory and comfort zone is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In 2023, the German company act’ble released a 3-D-printed and knit shoe, act’Pointe. The shoe features a scored sole made from a rubber-like elastomer and a compressive “skin” that covers the entire foot. > Dancers are taught to make everything look a certain way. There has been innovation in ballet, but always in a small angle, and in a very rigid system > No matter how comfortable or functional, unconventional s…
I think the affordability would depend on how long they last. I watched a pretty lengthy video on point shoes once. They were decently expensive and almost disposable. They do not last long, especially for professionals. I think they said some might just last a day. There is also a whole process of customization, where the dancers spend quite a bit of time bending the shoes to their will and tweaking them to their li…