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A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

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Re: A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

#91

Post by eru »

distances wrote: post #80
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a problem though? The other day I got a whole lecture on HN, complete with math, proving that keeping the water running entire time while showering isn't meaningfully wasteful... I still can't believe it on an emotional level, but the math checks out...

Was that about water, or about energy spent on heating the water? My gut feeling is that keeping the water running would roughly double the amount of water, so double the energy.

Yes, unless you take cold showers.

Re: A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

#92

Post by eru »

mikro2nd wrote: post #85
Kuinox wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catastrophical failure would be way worse. Flying is less energy efficient. You need to find cheaper and clean energy source. You need to find a tech that allow to fly quietly. Forcing to make people walk more is better for the society as a whole.

I'm forced to disagree. Catastrophic failure would be a feature not a bug. "Natural selection against stupidity."

Alas, that doesn't really work, if catastrophic failure also harms innocent bystanders.

Re: A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

#93

Post by ndjdjddjsjj »

rkagerer wrote: post #79
riiii wrote: post #75

I'm pretty sure if the automatic mixer/heat adjustment on the shower were to be invented today it would be a subscription add-on.

And it would interrupt the cycle every few minutes with an ad.

And their public mongodb hacked into 6 months later causing the company to go bust 12 months later. 18 months later there is a Github project that impersonates the server as a workaround.

Re: A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

#94

Post by bayindirh »

eru wrote: post #90
bayindirh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nominal water aerator limits water around 5L-6L/min levels. For every minute I don't use the water, I spend approximately two full kettles of water. With every 5L of water I can - Cook 4 servings (~400 grams) of pasta. - Brew 5L of tea/coffee - Water all the plants at home two times. - Possibly wash most of my handwash-only dishes in one go. - etc. So it's not not meaningfully wasteful . However, I can't turn off t…

Well, even if the city doesn't re-use the water, it doesn't just disappear.

Yeah, but getting rid of chemicals and returning it to a non-poisonous state for the nature is a big plus.

You can't dump everything to the soil and say "that's your problem now, nature. Cope!".

Re: A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

#96

Post by eru »

sneak wrote: post #66

Before I clicked, I thought it was going to be a washing machine with a three position knob that says “hot wash, cold wash, off”. modern washing machine UI is terrible.

Our Miele washing machine isn't too bed, if you ever had even a brief look at the manual.

The main annoyance I can find is that it's overly cautious about when it lets you open the door. I guess they take mild annoyance and waiting for the user, over Miele being responsible for major water spills.

Re: A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

#97

Post by Freak_NL »

makeitdouble wrote: post #71
Freak_NL wrote: post #68

The future of the past looked so much more interesting. Not practical, but certainly interesting. I'm curious why the author of this piece decided to use the gender neutral pronoun for the women who modelled this odd machine. They wrote: > The demonstration model would climb into the six-foot-tall machine via ladder, then enter the chamber, with their head sticking out of the top. They'd set the water temperature, th…

> gender neutral pronoun I can't speak for the author, but it can just be easier to just go for a more impersonal tone. At no point do you need to keep in my the gender of the people and the writing is a lot clearer (the models being women has no impact on the subject, which is the machine, so it's noise in this case)

> the models being women has no impact on the subject

It's part of the context; design doesn't exist in isolation. Was this prototype aimed at women? Was it just sexism or its off-shoot 'sex sells'? Or were there actually male models, but the author isn't mentioning it?

I would also argue that explicitly ignoring the fact that these models were women amounts to erasure, which is probably not intended, but a consequence of doing this.

Re: A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

#98

Post by eru »

iancmceachern wrote: post #14
do_not_redeem wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it works anything like a modern dishwasher, it would use less water than a normal bath or shower.

But if it worked that way (using a small amount of water over and over to clean) would be gross and unsanitary in this case. One could filter it but that costs a lot of energy and changing a filter weekly on your shower pod would not be very green.

> But if it worked that way (using a small amount of water over and over to clean) would be gross and unsanitary in this case.

Have you ever taken a bath?

Re: A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

#99

Post by eru »

ginko wrote: post #65

Back in high school lab I remember we were told not to put our hands into ultrasonic cleaners because it messes with your bones or joints or something like that. Was that just bullshit?

They probably wanted to keep you from making a mess. (And perhaps also wanted to mess with you.)

Re: A washing machine for human beings, from 1970

#100

Post by saxonww »

Freak_NL wrote: post #68

The future of the past looked so much more interesting. Not practical, but certainly interesting. I'm curious why the author of this piece decided to use the gender neutral pronoun for the women who modelled this odd machine. They wrote: > The demonstration model would climb into the six-foot-tall machine via ladder, then enter the chamber, with their head sticking out of the top. They'd set the water temperature, th…

Hypercorrection.

I think it's historically been OK to refer to any person using they/them/their. More recently, even in progressive circles I think, it's still OK as long as you don't have information about the person's preference that would make neutral pronouns offensive to them. Basically, it's fine until you know it's not.

It's true that all the supporting pictures in the article are of women, and you're likely right that all the demonstration models were probably women. But the machine is not gender-specific, the process of using it doesn't seem like it would be gender-specific, and the author was generalizing a series of demonstrations instead of a specific demonstration with a specific model. The subject of the sentences/paragraph you're concerned about - 'the demonstration model' - is itself gender neutral. For all of these reasons I think it makes sense why they/them pronouns were used here. Not strange or controversial at all.

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