This is missing the fact that the stainless steel from the ultra-durable umbrella is also easy to recycle. In fact, steel is far easier to recycle than any kind of plastic.
Also, the whole work seems to skip over the huge problem of insufficient customer information: There is a remark in there, that lots of people (about half) seem to choose the ultra-durable umbrella, rather than one of the less resource-intensive ones. The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified. People do not and usually can not know how durable each product they are offered will be. And buying something ultra-durable-seeming at least gives you a chance at a decent product lifetime. All the rest is usually crappier than expected.
One reason is that the environmentally friendlier alternatives are often also materials of lesser quality. E.g. recycled plastic degrades and is more brittle than "fresh".
The other reason is greedy manufacturers, saving on necessary materials, making products less durable. And maybe intentionally building in weak points, limiting lifetime to sell more stuff.
tichiian
12 days ago
Aside but one interesting consequence of using plastic in certain kinds of products is that it can be a sacrificial part. If you don’t design a point of failure into your system one will be assigned to it. I recently had this realization after installing a new garage door opener. The motor on it is much stronger than my old one but some parts are far flimsier. Then it dawned on me that I’d rather have a cheap plastic gear break if something goes wrong than have it burn up the unit or swing a high tension belt around.
Longevity doesn’t always mean making everything out of cast iron and stainless steel. It can mean making the thing repairable using cheap and available parts.
IgorPartola
12 days ago
3D printing options aside, there's no possibility of me replacing random plastic components that break. I'm dependent on some industrial manufacturer producing the random plastic broken part for me, and getting it to me. If something metallic fails, it's much simpler in comparison to fashion a replacement / repair the failure myself. I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.
thegrim33
11 days ago
> I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.
You're right that metal (and wood) are much more amenable to work with in a home workshop.
However:
> 3D printing options aside
I wouldn't put 3d printing aside. The main limitation is the size of what you can print, but if the part is small enough (depending what printers you have access to), it is a game changer. We don't have a 3d printer but my child has access to them at school and watching him fix all kinds of gadgets by 3d printing replacement parts has been very cool.
jjav
11 days ago
If you have the tools to work with metal, you can use those tools with few, if any, modifications and do the same thing with nylon.
mythhabit
7 days ago
Even for larger items I’ve often found printing sub-assemblies and gluing together to be a useful technique.
E.g. I needed to replace a shaped plastic cover for a handle mechanism on a motorhome/RV. Breaking the design into two parts and making it so they clip together (rather than permanently gluing in that particular case) meant I could print a complex design without supports.
CraigJPerry
11 days ago
Have you used polycaprolactone/PCL aka "InstaMorph" for hobby/projects? It's a very tough plastic that can be melted by putting it in hot water, then formed by hand. I think something like a linkage made out of this material could be a fantastic intentional failure point for certain mechanical systems, as long as the temperature requirement is not much higher than human conditions. Also, if you have a hot air blower, you can repair it in-situ.
I'm honestly not sure why we don't see more of this plastic used for consumer stuff. Something that you can melt down and fix stuff or make little ornaments sounds like a great marketing gimmick. It's also generally a pretty bio-safe plastic.
picture
11 days ago
In industry, it's because it's so low-temperature. The benefits of using it aren't outweighed by the potential failure risks in it in pieces not designed to be repaired.
Also, just kinda--it's not well known! You can't even find it as a 3D printer filament without a lot of effort, even though those "3D pens" often use it, because the output is so unimpressive to most people. That's not that it is unimpressive, it's because they don't know much about it, much like how people act like there's a "leveling up" by switching from PLA to PETG to ABS.
eropple
11 days ago
ABS is a level up because it curls like mad off the print bed because of internal stresses, and this will cause prints to fail if you do not have a heated chamber, which is a bit of a challenge to set up over Ender 3 like printers. PETG meanwhile likes to be dehumidified under heat first to avoid excessive stringing, which requires a separate doodad, and it likes all metal hotends that do not include the usual internal PTFE tube, which off-gasses nasty stuff if heated above roughly 250°C. PLA has none of these problems. "Level up" is about printability, not material characteristics of the end product.
skjoldr
11 days ago
> "Level up" is about printability, not material characteristics of the end product.
You think that. The people in forums who go "I never print in PLA" despite it having advantageous material properties for some use cases (it's very stiff, for example! sure, it snaps hard, but it's strong until then) do not.
Printability and usefulness aren't on the same axis, but when it comes to FDM materials, a lot of people do.
eropple
11 days ago
While from a materials standpoint, its more of a "what fits the needs", from a printing point of view it's definitely a level up going from PLA to PETG / ABS. Both in terms of skill (PETG can be annoying to dial in) and machine reqs (Hot End, ventilation, etc)
esyir
11 days ago
If you need heat resistance and can give up reforming and strength sugru is a moldable silicone that I’ve used for a quite a number of repairs. A knife handle I repaired in 2014 is still going strong.
(InstaMorph is new to me - but will certainly get used in the future)
nmcfarl
11 days ago
Can it be injection molded? If not, I would assume it would be much much more expensive to mass-produce than an ordinary injection molded part.
ElevenLathe
11 days ago
> I can't work with plastic.
Why not? If you can machine it from metal, it is easier to machine it from plastic. I fabricate plastic replacements often with a drill, files, and saw.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
It's because plastic injection molding has different constraints and trade-offs in parts design compared to metal machining. E.g. injection molding, after the mold is done, doesn't really care about machine time, complexity, or the availability of specific cutters and drills. So sometimes the geometry and tolerances of an injection molded part is a pain in the arse to replicate manually -- it's just not made to do it, unlike metal machining, which at scale is still a rough approximation of the manual process.
skjoldr
11 days ago
I get the manufacturing Tradeoffs. What I was responding to was not an issue with part complexity, but part material.
They said "I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic."
Sure, nobody is going to machine a plastic replacement complex injection molded housing. You probably werent going to re-create a complex press-formed metal part either.
IT seems like it is more of a design complaint than a material issue.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
How often do you encounter mass-produced consumer goods that include parts made of machined engineering plastics?
ElevenLathe
11 days ago
That's not what Im saying. Machined plastics are rarely encountered, but many molded plastic products can be trivially machined.
Im saying that the fabrication difficult is driven by design, not material.
almost nobody is going to home fabricate a spline gear at home, and it doesnt matter if it is metal or plastic. If something is like a plate or flange, it is trivial to fabricate and doesnt matter if it is metal or plastic.
For any given design, I think refabrication is the same or easier for plastic.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
Not sure why we're arguing, but I think we are on the same side. We would prefer that products have parts which are easily replaced by, in order of preference:
1) easily-sourced commodity products like standard screws, washers, bolts, etc.
2) barring that, parts that could easily be fabricated by realistic home production methods (hand tools, FDM printing, possibly simple machining)
3) barring that, parts that the consumer can have easily fabricated by a third party (maybe it requires a 5-axis CNC but all the CAD/CAM files are available to upload somewhere like Shapeways)
4) barring that, easily-ordered at-cost OEM parts
...and in all cases the user manual should require all relevant drawings with dimensions.
The problem is that if you tell an industrial designer to keep costs down, and that they can use injection-molded plastic parts, they will almost certainly NOT design parts that are conducive to 1-3. They could, but all the incentives run the other way, so they probably won't.
ElevenLathe
11 days ago
I was mostly just curious about the person who said they absolutely cant work with plastic, but can work with metal.
I like some things that are repairable, but don't think everything needs to be. My product choices rarely are willing to compromise cost, function, or aesthetics for repairability.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
That's the idea (I assume, not the same guy): you're right that is mostly the form of the part that makes it easy/hard to work, not the material, but nobody designs machinable plastic parts. they design injection-moldable ones. So in practice "plastic part" is synonymous with "impossible to recreate in small quantities". Yes, in theory plastic parts can be of the same shape (and therefore ease of boutique manufacturing) as metal ones, but they aren't, not in the real world.
ElevenLathe
10 days ago
I have a pocket knife in my pocket (perhaps not quite as mass produced as what you were imagining) whose handles are made of G10 which is a composite material made partly of epoxy. It has been 3d machined into its current shape.
MeImCounting
11 days ago
It's an... unusual skill to have, I'd say. Maybe it's the issue of education or culture, but I'm with GP here: in my mind, metal parts can often be repaired by hand, or an improvised replacement can be made; plastics break too easily, and you can't make new ones without a 3D printer or something.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
Yup. Same with wood and fabric. Those kind of parts or components I can replace and work with. Plastic? That's a whole different ball game due to the potentially low tolerances in terms of dimensions and the nature of the type of plastic used. With wood, metal, and fabric it is much easier to gauge the correct replacement material.
Freak_NL
11 days ago
I'd say education and culture might be right on the money. I'm not sure it's occurred to me to take a small block of some type of plastic and cut it to shape using knives, planes, chisels and files like someone could with wood, but now that I'm thinking about it, it seems like it might be considerable easier to work with than wood in some cases, especially with how easy it is to join two parts afterwards with some epoxy or maybe even through heat.
Additionally, it looks like you can possibly re-melt the shavings into another block (I'm not sure if specific plastic types are required).[1] That's like woodworking but being able to easily gather and compress your bits and ends and sawdust into more wood.
Yeah, I was gonna say. Not that I'd necessarily want to cut a gear with hand tools even in nylon, considering how exacting the profile would be to get right, but it's doable.
throwanem
11 days ago
I'd rather hand cut a gear in nylon than one in steel. If you arent doing it by hand, who cares what it is made of.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
Plastic welding is a thing, and has been used ever since the discovery of thermoplastics. Solvent glues also work well for some types of plastic.
The only reason why it's not more common is usually due to cost of repair vs replacement.
Thanks to YouTube, you can now find plenty of information on this.
I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.
How about pot metal, which is what has been replaced by plastic in many applications?
userbinator
11 days ago
Are you a machinist? I don't understand why you'd dismiss 3d printing and say metal is more feasible to work with. 3d printing is much more accessible to the average DIY-minded person.
alanbernstein
11 days ago
I think this is cultural or location based – I know at least a dozen people who can weld and no one who has a 3-D printer, but I live /way/ out and rural America. The Internet would suggest that urban America is the reverse.
nmcfarl
11 days ago
Sure, but if we're talking about replacing machine parts, I'm not sure how far welding will get you. You need to be able to machine custom metal parts, for parity with basic 3d printing capability.
alanbernstein
11 days ago
I 3D print jigs to hold things together for welding. Mind, blown.
buildsjets
11 days ago
You can bend small metal pieces with your bare hands, or with pliers, or you can beat it into shape with hammer (or any stiff object). Plastics get damaged and break when you try that.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
Then just replace the plastic parts with metal, problem solved.
pests
11 days ago
> 3D printing options aside
Aside from the solution, there's no solution?
If you don't want to get into 3d printing then fine, but don't act like that's not on you. you can work with plastic, you're choosing not to.
fragmede
11 days ago
On the subject of sacrificial parts, approx. 25 years ago I bought a lawnmower from a well established UK brand (Atco). The original design included a clutch-like mechanism that would decouple the drive from the drum blades if they encountered a serious obstruction and jammed. In the model that I bought, however, the mechanism had been replaced with a sacrificial plastic cog that would simply break if the blades jammed. Even though I was careful, on average, it would break every two to three years. This was before easy 3D printing was available, and I had no choice but to order an OEM replacement. If Atco had sold packs of the cog I wouldn't have minded, but instead you had to buy an entire repair kit with several other parts that weren't needed. After the fourth time it died, I replaced the entire lawn mower with a non-Atco alternative.
I've come across sacrificial parts in other contexts where they make perfect sense (e.g. holding car body parts in place) but I really don't like them being used as an opportunity for manufacturers to increase their lifetime profit from a long-lived product.
KineticLensman
11 days ago
Ideally that plastic gear would be a standard size and shape that you could find described in a parts list somewhere in the manual. I'd much rather be able to buy one out of a giant surplus bin somewhere in mainland china than trying to measure it and find/make a bespoke replacement.
Replaceable fuses make great failure points for things like motors that can draw silly amounts of current when stalled.
jimbobthrowawy
11 days ago
This really depends on many factors.
Will you be able to get those parts, how fast and how cheap, and how easy/hard is it to replace them? Garage door, maybe... it's an expensive thing... you'll investa lot of time/effort to get it fixed... buta battery powered drill? No way to get the parts. Someone mentione 3d printing... can you imagine some average drill owner designing a part for 3d printing, buying a 3d printer, going through the learning curve to get a usable part.. for a $50 drill? No way. Just having someone open it up to replace it is more expensive than the drill itself. On the other hand, you could pay 20 cents more when buying and got a long-lastin metal part.
If you want a part to fail to not cause greater damage, add some kinf of a standardized fuse to it, or detect the overload and stop it, before it fails. Yeah, sure, something is going to fail at some time (nothing lasts forever), but treating plastic gears that break (instead fo $1 more expensive metal ones) as a good thing,.. i have to disagree with that.
ajsnigrutin
11 days ago
Underrated is ordering SLS parts from a printer, like on CraftCloud. You can get small functional nylon parts made for $2 + shipping.
Modeling things has always been the biggest friction point. Not easy to make CAD interfaces easier. Part files from the manufacturer would be nice.
jkestner
11 days ago
Sure, but you still have to either open the device yourself, or pay someone to do it, find the broken part, find the part design, order it, ship it, replace it, and reassemble the device. If you don't do it yourself, it's not worth it at all financially, and if you do, it's quite a long process, usually not worth it for a $50 drill, where the company wanted to save a few cents with a plastic part.
ajsnigrutin
11 days ago
Oh yeah, overall, I don't think 3D printers are useful for this in the real world, not at this point. Just playing to the crowd, for those HNers determined to make use of 3D printing.
Nothing beats simply designing to repair, or at least YouTube how-to videos, and available replacement parts. I've kept a stupid $100 microwave going for 15 years with two $4 repairs, mostly for the principle of it.
jkestner
9 days ago
One could find the part design in a library, and print it at a coop hackerspace or order it online off some pay-per-print shop. It doesn't have to be as complicated as you put it.
btbuildem
11 days ago
But it's a $50 dollar drill, that failed due to a cheap part.
I don't know where you live, but just a diagnosis by a repair technician is more expensive than that. Even if you open it up yourself, find the broken part, find that part someone, get someone to print it,get the part delivered, and replace it, it'll be more than $50 of associated costs... and just because a company wanted to save 50 cents on a plastic gear.
ajsnigrutin
11 days ago
Recyclability isn't really an issue, because the steel umbrella is not viable as a product. This is on account of its weight.
> Total weight of assembled umbrella: 1.71kg
The average umbrella, and the plastic one at the link, weigh roughly a quarter of that amount. There are golf umbrellas, considered extremely heavy, at ~0.9kg, e.g.: https://shedrain.com/products/vortex-vent-pro
The ultra-durable umbrella is an exercise in making a product that appears to be an umbrella out of heavy-duty materials. But it's not an umbrella that's viable as a commercial product; it wasn't designed with the average user's capabilities in mind. Most people, even trained athletes, would not be happy to lug around an umbrella that weighs nearly four pounds.
I'm sure it's possible to strike a balance, perhaps with aluminum or magnesium (expensive!) instead of steel. But the project didn't attempt it -- it went with steel to make a point. In real-life product engineering, though, every gram saved is worth celebrating.
A_D_E_P_T
11 days ago
This is a beautifully done art project, but it's curious how relevant comparisons made are to reality. The handle could be easily made of tubes for massive weight reduction and potentially improved rigidity, for example.
It seems the idea is to take an existing umbrella, reproduce it faithfully in different materials, and then comparing results: like right-clicking an umbrella_object displayed on a 3D modeling tool and changing texture bitmaps. I suppose justification to that is it has to be apples to apples comparison.
But that's not how objects are manufactured in the real world: Parts are designed for specific materials and means of fabrication.
Replicating existing man-made object with a manufacturing method the object was not intended to be manufactured with leads to subpar results. If I'm making something out of carbon fiber, I'd try to minimize numbers of screw holes. If it's to be made of aluminum, I'd avoid repeated stresses, but if it's to be made of steel, flexure joints becomes an option. If I'm 3D printing something, I'd try to minimize overhangs below 45 degrees. If I'm designing for injection molding, I'd avoid wide flat surfaces and abrupt changes in cross sections. If I'm milling something, I'd repeatedly check for tool clearances, try to minimize amounts removed(which may result in thicker walls), and avoid complex curves as I design it.
I'm not going to take an J-shaped umbrella grip and instruct a factory worker to EDM it out of pre-tempered glass block. Even if I managed to have it done, and if it ended up weighing as much as a steel handle, that won't tell much about viability of glass-framed umbrella in general.
numpad0
11 days ago
My James Smith & Sons Umbrella has a lightweight steel frame (apparently invented by James Smith the 2nd in 1851) - weighs about 500g and has lasted 30+ years.
Mass is a tradeoff too, but I suppose you could shove half of the weight without compromising the durability. Would that still not be a viable product then? Something a tad heavier than standard big umbrella, much more expensive, but nearly indestructible?
I'd go for it. And yes, I'm very much the kind of user who says they'd go for durable umbrella and, at the same time, also says they use an umbrella very infrequently. Well, that's because umbrellas suck donkey balls, to borrow a phrase from the Expanse. I avoid the light ones as even a little breeze makes them flip their shape from convex to concave and eventually break struts. The heavier ones... well, they all seem to magically break within couple months, so it's always a lottery if I pick one with torn fabric or hanging strut, and then when I do, then what? Throw away the looks-fixable-but-really-too-cheeply-made-to-be-fixed one, and buy another one, fourth one this fall? The whole experience makes me avoid umbrellas except for the heaviest of rains, and it's mostly because of lack of durability.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
> In real-life product engineering, though, every gram saved is worth celebrating.
I would like to point out that I'm old enough that I think I've witnessed how aluminum soda cans have become much thinner over the years. Their contents are of course under pressure and that makes them a bit sturdier; they can be stacked 10 feet high with no problem. Usually. But someone tosses a case a little too hard, packing them in a truck, the angle that the force of that jolts off a few degrees... something, and the can just explodes and makes a mess. And the economics may mean that even with that loss it's still better financially, but this seems wrong to me somehow.
If it were only disposable cans I could probably ignore it. But everyone's shaving milligrams here and there, to the point that you'll get a potato peeler at the store because the last one broke, to bring the new one home and compare it... only to find out it was stamped out of even thinner steel. It breaks next month. You can't shop around and find a better one, they're all pumped out of the same no-name factory that a forensic accountant probably couldn't track down if he had access to all of the supply chain's paperwork.
A friend and I were discussing just a few weeks ago whether or not duct tape was of vastly different quality when we were small children (late 1970s) compared to today. I of course realize that 4 yr old me might have a much more difficult time tearing off a piece of identical duct tape that 50 year old me could tear without trying... but I seem to remember even my dad having to put a little too much effort. You really did have to rip into the stuff.
When you shave these milligrams off of items, it looks like it is win/win, that you're reducing cost without reducing any quality that anyone cares about, but I think that it might be true that you're shaving little pieces off of everyone's lives. Too little for them to complain about, but the sum total of that unpleasantness must be vast. I am not inclined to celebrate it.
NoMoreNicksLeft
11 days ago
Ultimately, I think that it depends entirely on the type of product and how it's used.
If you take an aluminum can from 17g to 12g, that may represent some cost savings in manufacturing and transport, but the average soda drinker won't notice a difference.
But if you take an umbrella from 1700g to 1200g, that's the difference between something that's entirely unusable, to something that has practical utility -- if only barely. 500g would be much better. All else being equal the optimal weight for an umbrella is probably around 100g. Enough to know it's there, but not enough that extended use by the fifth-percentile human would be difficult or metabolically demanding.
If a human has to wear or carry it, and if there's a meaningful weight/comfort threshold associated with the product's use, every gram counts. Duct tape and aluminum cans don't fall into this category -- but, at the same time, this is why hiking and camping equipment tends to be extremely light, and why the athletic shoe companies keep researching lighter and better foams.
The problem is heightened in aerospace and automotive engineering, where fuel economy mandates tend to impose hard weight caps -- and getting a design in at well under the cap is a real engineering accomplishment. Offhand, I recall hearing that there was once a program where ~$15M dollars were spent on efforts to make a commercial airplane lighter. This resulted in about 20kg shaved off the aircraft's weight. That doesn't sound like much of a value, but the program was considered a great success.
A_D_E_P_T
11 days ago
Why was the handle made of stainless steel, and not, say, wood ? Looks to be a significant fraction of mass, while not being the typical part that would break ?
BlueTemplar
11 days ago
Steel is more durable than wood.
hbosch
11 days ago
>while not being the typical part that would break ?
HideousKojima
11 days ago
Recycleability isn’t really an issue because there isnt really a consumer pipeline for recycling metals of nonstandard shapes like cans. You certainly can’t just throw it in the recycling bin, and anything else is more friction.
jwagenet
11 days ago
> The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified.
Personally I'm very aware of the labor and resources required to build a high quality item. This is why I buy them. It's made by humans, with great effort, to have a long life.
Honestly, I want all my items to "positively age" with me as much as possible, and even if they become slightly insufficient (storage devices, or electronics in general), I try to find uses for them until they reach their true end of their life.
And yes, I don't like crappy items. I want to buy one item once (or as few times possible) and have good performance performing its function. It can be an umbrella, a shoe, a keyboard or a pen. Anything, actually.
bayindirh
11 days ago
Another reason I seek the durable version is that I despise change.
Once I procure an umbrella that meets my needs, I don’t ever want to have to spend the time to go find another. If I manage to wear it out, I will grudgingly replace it with the exact same thing but if that’s not available I’ll go without rather than going through the process of finding a good one again. Modern casual clothing is a disaster in this regard because even the same sku often won’t be the same product year over year.
eep_social
12 days ago
About clothing: that and society tends to mock those who repeat the same clothes in a short period of time, promoting cheap/mass fashion and therefore waste.
I would rather focus on upcycling repairable clothes rather than promoting so much waste. Specially when a sweater I love tears, I (1) loss the sweater and (2) can't get said clothing item because as you say, the sku or even the brand may not exist anymore. Newer is not always better, both in function and form.
Point in case: Mark Zuckerberg and his style change from a anime/cartoon closet full of grey tshirts and blue jeans to a typical sugar daddy atire/style just to appeal to bigger audience without any internal change.
Stupid monkey brains.
mrbungie
12 days ago
I have clothes from 25 years ago, still looking pretty good but I can barely wear them now because they're so utterly out of fashion :D. I am by no means a "fashionable" person, but even I would be a bit hesitant to go out on my early 90's baggy shorts or my black leather jacket that looks straight out of an 80's action movie.
I believe that's why clothes these days barely last a year. People actually don't seem to mind because every year the fashion changes. I really hate that mindset but that seems to be how almost everyone thinks.
brabel
11 days ago
If you were a fashionable person, that's exactly what you'd be doing! ;)
The cycle is roughly 30 years, and teenagers are revisiting the 90s trends right now.
mdpye
11 days ago
The 90s is completely and utterly hot right now for anyone born after it. Embrace the faux nostalgia or make a mint on Vinted.
Freak_NL
11 days ago
If you were wearing traditional slacks, collared shirts, and suits 25 years ago this wouldn't be a problem. Timeless style is a real thing.
pnut
11 days ago
No, it would be a problem.
Suits and pants are much slimmer than they were 25 years ago. They're cut differently. Pants are different in length, with far less of a break now.
Look at photos of people in suits from 1999, or just watch movies from then. They're swimming in fabric. Not to mention how wide the neckties were.
Even for men, timeless style isn't a thing. Look at how gigantic shirt collars were in the 1970's.
Men's styles don't change as drastically as women's (remember shoulderpads?) but even traditional suits and shirts and ties go through major shifts of size and proportion every couple decades.
Sure you can wear suits and shirts and ties from 25 years ago, but you'll either look like someone who's making a deliberate retro-inspired fashion choice (if you're pulling it off), or else you'll look like someone who hasn't bought new clothes in 25 years (if you're not pulling it off).
But in neither case will you look "timeless". There's no such thing.
crazygringo
11 days ago
Even jeans, t-shirts and flannel shirts will get you through the better part of a century.
saalweachter
11 days ago
In my social circles youre far more likely to be mocked if you spend a lot of money on new clothes or cheap/low quality clothes. Its expected that you buy something high quality from a thrift store and wear it until it wears out/splurge on something new and high quality and wear it until it wears out and repair it indefinitely.
MeImCounting
11 days ago
people who mock people because repeated clothes aren't at their social circle (at least in a meaningful level) or if they do, sit & talk or it's time to move on...
i'm almost hitting 30, i still use some 14 y/o clothes and last time i bought stuff was more than 5 years ago because of a hobby. tho i appreciate stylistic people walking at streets. maybe fashion is not that hard to recycle if we use mostly compostable stuff? from leather of pineapple waste, (recycled) cotton and so on
luqtas
11 days ago
Yep - even the most famous clothing SKU in the world, the Levi’s 501, changes fabric specs and measurements year over year.
jameshart
11 days ago
For me a reason to choose the not so durable umbrella is that I tend to lose umbrellas rather than break them.
eru
11 days ago
I know you likely don't care but one thing idea I liked from the article is to use a QR code engraved/stamped/stickered onto an item so people can contact you without having to put your phone number directly on it.
I'd point them at a static website titled: "I've lost something haven't I? What? Where?" with a basic form put so they can give me details. You could go further and have the QR code put an item ID code into the url.
I like the possibilities.
_carbyau_
11 days ago
I live in Singapore, so even putting my home address on my things would be fine. (And we seldom even lock our front door.)
Well, your suggestion might help for some kinds of misplacing. But I often I know it's in the house, but can't remember where.
eru
11 days ago
> But I often I know it's in the house, but can't remember where.
Given the price/importance of a durable umbrella, it would make sense for you to stick a BLE locator tag to it. But for the love of $deity, let it not be built into the product itself, as putting electronics into products is the easiest way to make them fragile and obsolete within few years.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
Is your home address stable for times similar to the lifetime of that umbrella?
mcherm
11 days ago
I could leave a pointer at the old address to my new address, if necessary.
eru
11 days ago
Also keep in mind that metal is stronger than plastic. Sure it might rust if you don't use a preventitive coating....a coating is not a paint BTW theirs a massive difference.
Plastic is cheaper. Sure those injection molds are expensive as fuck to make and have a limited life just like anything but the major reason plastic is seen as desirable is that its cheap, and its way easier to produce 10000 plastic spoons than to cast 10000 spoons. Casting isn't fast and takes up a lot of space and its harder to heat up metal than plastic. And even if your machining a part, plastic is just cheaper when it comes to the footprint and the density of plastic is lower than metal which means handling raw materials is easier.
The downside is recycling and lifespan. A good metal part beats plastic when it comes to so many tests....but its not fast or cheap to make.
Is the metal recyclable....yes....but plastic dosnt have to get up to insane temps to get it molten, and you can machine plastic with basically anything as long as its sharp, while metal machining is a process that needs really strong sharp inserts, saws, or EDM machines, and all of that means a heavier footprint both in weight,and carbon footprint.
tonetegeatinst
11 days ago
> Many of the objects we use daily are made from mixed materials, ones are often difficult to separate [for recycling]. This cost can outweigh the value of the materials, so these objects are very likely to end up in Landfill. Of course, mixing materials offers functional benefits such as combinations of soft & hard structures, and nowhere else is this more true [than] with Umbrellas.
FTA with context added.
Aloisius
12 days ago
[deleted]
11 days ago
Ya this was the first thing I saw. It's a student project so we should be open that he's learning, but I wouldn't call this umbrella recyclable if it's constituent parts will likely end up floating in the ocean forever.
If umbrella's were built with repairability in mind I would love it, though. So many I've used were destined to break under the strain of the wind.
spandrew
11 days ago
Agreed on using energy consumption and how many times do you reasonably expect to use it as important considerations.
Additionally you have to factor in the toxicity you introduce, especially with things like cookware.
An umbrella maybe a 1000 times (massive upper bound), but a le creuset pot I would expect to use 3000 times, and we eat the foot made in it.
goeiedaggoeie
11 days ago
All true, but one missing is the one where people abuse things and use them in ways that were not intended by the manufacturer.
mc32
12 days ago
It really sucks when the product is so fragile you can't do it. Items do not have inherent, fixed purpose, they're physical objects. If I can use my umbrella as a hammer in a pinch, that's a value-add.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
[deleted]
12 days ago
@dang it would be good to link to the student's original website with RCA rather than this reproduction on Core 77. The article at Core 77 is almost entirely copy-pasted, and doesn't add any value.
Lots of really interesting work across a huge range of disciplines, from industrial design like this, through digital stuff and service design, to architecture, to fine art, to animation. I've been many times. It's hell on my feet but worth it!
twic
11 days ago
Thank you! The Core 77 version was chewing up my CPU.
nickm12
11 days ago
Same thing happened to me so I'm glad I'm not the only one.
mkerrigan
11 days ago
The other cool thing about the original article is you can find other student projects there - some of which are quite fun.
amykhar
11 days ago
@dang is a no-op. Someone shoot off an email.
jimbobthrowawy
11 days ago
This is an exercise in externalities. Sure, maybe the cheap umbrella comes out ahead in a raw materials game: X number of crummy ones may be more eco-friendly than a nice one that lasts Y times as long.
As long as you don’t consider anything else, like the fact you have to employ Y times the person-hours to make the crummy ones, and Y times the freight to deliver them, and Y times the customer getting pissed off that their cheap umbrella broke and they have to take time out of their day to acquire a replacement.
I swore off buying junky stuff a long time ago. Life’s too short to be surrounded by crap that’s going to break the first time you look at it wrong, student projects be damned.
(That doesn’t mean I only buy luxury items. Far from it! You can get Levi’s Premium line jeans that last X longer than the discount store ones for far less than X times the price. I’ve worn the same pair of leather boots for 6 years now. I’ve had my Birkenstocks resoled several times now instead of throwing them out while the rest of the sandal’s in great shape. It’s usually pretty easy to find the quality version of a given thing for not much more than the junky one.)
kstrauser
12 days ago
I agree with some of your points, but what about the frustration when someone breaks their nice & expensive umbrella by accident, or has it stolen from them? What about the inconvenience and anxiety of not wanting to lose it? What about not having a spare to lend (but actually give) to a friend or loved one?
nickff
12 days ago
Those are valid concerns, but I've found I keep my nicer stuff way longer than the cheaper things they replace.
I'm happy if I make it through a couple months with $30 sunglasses. I've had the same nicer ones for more than proportionally longer. For me, the difference is that I'm more watchful of the nice things. I'm not about to take off my good sunglasses and leave them somewhere that I'll forget about them. I know where my nice (not expensive, just nice and functional) water bottle is. I've kept the same pocket knife for many years because I'd go back and get it if I forgot to put it right back in my pocket after using it, which I wouldn't do, because it's nice and I subconsciously keep track of it.
However, I'm not dogmatic about this stuff. I want to own my stuff and not have it own me. There's a half-empty six pack of dirt cheap portable umbrellas over next to my shoe rack so I can dole them out to my kids who'll inevitably lose them at school.
kstrauser
12 days ago
>> I swore off buying junky stuff a long time ago. Life’s too short to be surrounded by crap that’s going to break the first time you look at it wrong, student projects be damned.
> For me, the difference is that I'm more watchful of the nice things.
Or, the items come to integrate themselves into personal rituals. Like you said, you want to own your things, and not vice-versa, so its nice to not stress over them, but have them joyfully integrated into your life.
bch
11 days ago
For sure. Everyone here who doesn’t carry a bag knows the routine: you stand up to leave and pat your pockets to make sure they’re all filled with the expected things. I also have a glasses case that’s always holding either my regular glasses or sunglasses. My umbrella goes right to the umbrella holder.
Huh, spelling it all out that sounds similar to my ADHD rituals, for good reason. I’ve done so many things until they’re automatic habits.
kstrauser
11 days ago
Many years ago, I used to like expensive pens. Over the years, they were either stolen, lost, or damaged, so I realized the futility of expensive pens. Now I'm used to disposable pens, where I don't have to worry about whatever happens to them.
At the same time, I have a lime-green plastic mechanical pencil that I got from a Microsoft printer room, and it's probably about 8 years old by now. This one never gets stolen, lost, or damaged.
chihuahua
11 days ago
My ideal pen price point is about $20. That’s where I can get good ones I enjoy using (Lamy Safari etc.) that I’ll keep track of. It also wouldn’t ruin my day to lose one.
kstrauser
11 days ago
Insurance.
The ability to quickly and more broadly insure any item, that would actually be a great economic incentive for higher quality goods. What the manufacturer doesn’t make in sales could be offset with insurance, and being a purely financial product doesn’t generate an impact in energy use, residues, etc… in addition to being a steady revenue, something companies today are trying to get with all sorts of membership plans.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
Zero people are going to insure an umbrella.
seventytwo
11 days ago
There’s a company around here that offers a membership plan, allowing you to grab one umbrella on the automatic dispensers around the city.
This sounds like insurance business model with extra convenience. The cost of just one month is already the price of an utilitarian umbrella, but you get a sturdy umbrella with UV protection.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
Corporations are people, my friend. Homeowners insurance already covers household items, making it an umbrella policy.
labster
11 days ago
If it was a lifetime-durable one and I knew the insurance wasn't total bullshit[0], I definitely would.
--
[0] - Customer trust in the whole enterprise is always an underappreciated factor.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
It used to be a feature of some manufacturers/sellers -- Tupperware, Cutco, Land's End (or was it LL Bean), you could return damaged items even decades later and have them replaced.
saalweachter
11 days ago
Hmm, I’m not sure what it means to consider the Y times as many people being employed making umbrellas as an externality. I mean, there are more damaging (for the world) and more unpleasant (for them) things they could get up to.
bee_rider
12 days ago
Making glass is probably a good industry to work in, but we don’t wish to employ window breakers to keep them busy.
kstrauser
11 days ago
Two thoughts:
First: Are glass makers/window breakers actually an externality? I guess the broken glass (not cleaned up by anybody, so the price is foist on society) could be considered an externality, but that isn’t typically the point of that story.
Aside: Or maybe, since breaking windows is usually a crime, having people break windows as a job might incline them toward other crimes. And further, if the field of window breaking is lucrative and these window-breakers become admired as a result, it could maybe cause a general increased tendency toward criminality in society! This could be seen as an externality, bringing in the other story about broken windows. Maybe we’re close to discovering the grand unified theory of broken windows!
Second: Poorly made umbrellas seem quite different from glass makers/breakers. There’s a price:quality trade off with umbrellas, it just isn’t where you (and I, actually, I prefer a good solid umbrella too) want it to be. The glass maker/breaker story is about the silliness of intentionally destroying something the folks who made it can make money replacing it.
Anyway, I think the umbrella employees aren’t an externality, they are just part of the cost of doing business.
bee_rider
11 days ago
There's also Y times more marketing, which is the more damaging negative externality.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
bought a pair of levis in december, they now have a hole in the crouch! this is the second pair in two years that have done that. thought it might be user error, but they used to not do this.
greenie_beans
11 days ago
Where did you get them? They make jeans as nice or as cheaply as stores want to carry.
The pair you find at an outlet is not the same as what you’d get from their online store, let alone their “premium” or “vintage” lines.
kstrauser
11 days ago
i bought them online during a sale, was that my problem?
greenie_beans
11 days ago
Wow, I’m not sure. I hope not. That’s exactly how I got my recent-ish “nice” jeans.
I’m not especially attached to Levis. They were just a convenient example for why I think (hope!) the nicer ones were worth the extra money. I’m certain lots of people who could point us at something much better, although perhaps with a proportional price tag.
kstrauser
11 days ago
Excellent article. I’m fascinated with this subject.
There is a temple in Japan that exists for hundreds of years. It’s the same temple only in a “Ship of Theseus” sense, as it gets rebuilt every 20 years by experts. But in a sense, it’s the same temple.
Or take another example: dressing shoe. A shoemaker can reform your father’s and grandfather’s shoe back to brand new if you so desire. The materials are easily sourced, all it takes is trained labor.
Why can’t we have this for everything?
Modern economic practice has optimized for cutting back intensive labour dependency in favor of simpler disposable goods. It’s a “win” from multiple angles: less durable goods means more sales, costs of materials and residue are externalized anyway so that makes up your margin, and you don’t have to deal with expert workers demanding better pay. It’s beautifully optimized - just not optimized for what matters.
If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-to-cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all the water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands years.
But like a professor once said: water is free - therefor we pollute the rivers with plastic by selling bottled water since free water doesn’t contribute to the GDP.
This discussion (how long should objects last?) is fundamentally tied to current economic practice and incentives.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
The name for this is the Baumol Effect [1]. Sometimes called the "cost disease".
The only real way to fix it is to increase the relative price of raw materials used compared to labor. Yes, this means government intervention, because it's a market failure.
A carbon tax would be a start, but there might have to be a non-renewable raw materials tax in the future, as well.
Slightly tangential. Somebody needs to eli5 why baumol effect is supposed to be so paradoxical or special. Of course services will tend to cost more over time as other industries generate wealth increases. The value of an orchestra performance is relative, two hours of enjoying art. Those two hours of enjoying art are not a commodity, they will cost whatever share of disposal income people like to spend on it.
I've encountered it so many times now, and for whatever reason, my mind grinds to a halt, why is this a discovery, what are the implications, why is it meaningful? Not being facetious, sincerely asking.
trgn
11 days ago
It's surprising or meaningful because the parts of the economy that don't get more productive get more expensive as a fraction of overall costs as other things grow.
It's surprising because intuitively you'd think those things would be devalued.
VHRanger
11 days ago
Thank you.
> It's surprising because intuitively you'd think those things would be devalued.
I guess this is where my intuition totally fails. In an economy that grows more productive, commodities _fall_ in value, as they cost less to produce. A society with more yards of linen is a wealthier one than one with fewer, all things being equal. That intuitively makes sense. But that non-commodities, say, two hours listening to music, would need to fall because they aren't part of that productivity increase in other industries makes no sense to me. You pay performers for two hours of _your_ enjoyment, not theirs. So obviously you would value it more if you're richer (say, as a highly productive linen producer). I mean, simple supply-demand should still explain it. Demand is elevated (more disposable income of linen producers), and supply remains constrained (only so many performers). Where is that paradox?
I don't know. Some things I never grok, and beaumol is really one of these things.
trgn
11 days ago
I mean, think about a plumber or a carpenter. Those jobs haven't really been more productive since the 1970s. Sure, PEX or nail guns are marginally better than previous methods, but not by that much.
But since we still need plumbers or carpenters, they're more expensive than they were in the 1970s. Because of opportunity cost - imagine 1h of plumber's time in terms of TVs over 50 years.
Because all opportunity cost is translated to cash, plumbers are more expensive now despite not being a growth sector.
It's the economic equivalent to Amdahl's law in a sense. Things that can't be easily improved become economic bottlenecks (healthcare, education, construction).
VHRanger
11 days ago
> Those jobs haven't really been more productive
But their services aren't commodities. You're not paying a plumber to lay pipe. You pay a plumber to be in a dry house that doesn't smell like excrement. That value of course rises since demand rises. So of course, their labour value increases, since they're keeping the houses of a wealthier people free of odors.
The same with education. The value of an education is the entry cost to participate in a productive economy. Of course that value is higher in more productive societies. Why should cost of an education drop, if its value rises? Again, it's not interchangeable in a global market, education is not a commodity.
And I mean, imagine everybody's time in terms of cost of TVs to produce, not just those in unproductive industries. Isn't this just the effect of commodity prices dropping?
Thanks for the explanation though, it starts to trickle, but there's nothing unintuitive about cost disease to me. It's just, well yeah, duh.
trgn
11 days ago
Myself (and a few others) fought to get rid of bottled water from our office. A location with great tap water quality. Filtered water dispensers. But still people wanted to have their (worse quality) bottled water. Eventually we won...
nsguy
11 days ago
Bottled water is invaluable in places where the naturally occurring water is not potable.
userbinator
11 days ago
It is. That also isn’t the reason keeping anyone in the bottled water business.
The top 10 bottled water markets are countries with good to excellent public water service.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
is flint, Michigan located inside one of these countries?
fragmede
11 days ago
Is Flint, Michigan a justification for bottled water everywhere else in the US?
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
Flint's city water is fine now, their biggest issue currently is that the city didn't replace all the pipes that they damaged in people's houses, so individuals are still getting lead poisoning but it's not the city as a whole. I personally don't think it's significantly better but it's worth noting if you're using Flint as an example.
Kerb_
11 days ago
I never understood the hate against bottled water. If you're on the go and get thirsty, what's wrong with getting water instead of an unhealthy soda? I can't drink only beer.
carlosjobim
11 days ago
Choosing between bottled water or soda/beer is the false dichotomy. Bottled water wasn’t mass produced prior the 90s, but started being heavily promoted since Pepsi and CocaCola would go out of business with people cutting back soda consumption.
I’m amazed how well their marketing worked to convince people that water is literally toxic unless it comes bottled.
I have a funny story: I went to a place here in the country with natural mineral water springs, the absolute purest water dripping straight from the rock - but visitors (US and Europe) not only requested but insisted bottled water during the stay. The funny part is the bottled water comes from the same place.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
FWIW, it may make sense to drink bottled water if you're traveling to faraway places. At least that's how we were briefed before a business trip to China - stick to bottled water and boiled water, do not drink tap water or some natural source, because we're not adapted to the local bacteriological environment. A co-worker did not obey that and ended up spending one of his trip sick instead of working. But then again, I'm not sure how true this is - after all, we'd all be exposed to the same pathogens when showering.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
That's definitely true, but also I don't understand why people want to drink _straight_ from the tap? I mean, don't people have simple water filters at home? These filters are effective for bacteria and heavy metals. It's common in my country even though we have good quality water from the tap.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
In countries with fine public water, it's common for people to be advertised and sold filters, but they don't actually need them, and other people prefer not to waste their money.
immibis
10 days ago
But only very slightly unless you deliberately drink large quantities of shower water.
thfuran
11 days ago
I drink bottled water for a couple of reasons:
- I did not plan well and I'm now in a situation where I need water I didn't bring my own bottle. I don't want to be chained to a water fountain if one even exists conveniently near me.
- I don't like the taste of the water where I am. Clean water isn't always tasty water. As someone who grew up on aquifer water, I found the chemically water of my college town hard to deal with. At least bottled water was inoffensive. For some brands anyway.
- I want easily sharable water. This one became pretty important when I was a parent. It's just easy to keep a bunch of water in my trunk and pass it out to my and other kids on demand. I knew people like this, but it wasn't until I had kids that I got it. Kids will ignore their body needs and aren't always capable of finding sources of water on the even if they were aware.
iteria
11 days ago
So much depends on having public spaces to be kid- (/parents-) friendly !
BlueTemplar
11 days ago
I've worked places where the water fountains are taped off with notes saying the water isn't potable, and to get bottled water from the fridge. Another scenario is walking around town in the summer. Sometimes a park with a working fountain is nearby, but if not then bottled water from a shop is the low-effort option (you could also ask for a cup of water from a restaurant, always free in America although not necessarily in other parts of the world, but that requires a more awkward social interaction..) If a working clean water fountain is available I'm happy to drink from it, but often that isn't the case.
lupusreal
11 days ago
> I’m amazed how well their marketing worked to convince people that water is literally toxic unless it comes bottled.
Not too many people think this, there are so many places where the tap water is not good for drinking.
I have never in my life heard anybody talk about improving tap water to make it good for drinking, and when I mention it people dismiss it. And then everybody rages against bottled water.
> not only requested but insisted bottled water during the stay.
Yes, this happens all the time. It is amazing how distrustful people can be of fresh water in nature. I blame it on urbanisation and the cattle-fication of the population by the human farmers controlling schooling and media.
carlosjobim
11 days ago
I don't think it's hate for usage of bottled water outside of home/on trip/in transit. The hate is about people using bottled water in their home en masse even if they have it for "free" in kitchen. Some been not consider drinking water from public services and don't trust and public assurances of its quality.
febusravenga
11 days ago
Where I live I have free tap water. But it's very inconsistent: somedays it tastes like a swimming pool (safe to drink, but...), and some days specially after heavy rains it has so much dust in suspension that the major has to reassure that it's safe to drink.
I can afford 5 liters of always clean, always taste free water at less than 1€ per bottle, so tap water doesn't ruin my foods randomly.
otherme123
11 days ago
Any thoughts on brita filters for rainy days when there is high turbidity?
I know we used to sometimes boil water as a precaution when I was a kid.
dsego
11 days ago
Taste doesn't change that much, IMO. Slightly less "earthy" taste, but still there. I had a Brita jar, not the tap attachment. In my city I don't doubt the quality to boil the water, just the taste. Still use tap water as it comes to wash the fruit, vegetables, dishes... but can't drink it.
otherme123
11 days ago
I carry around a water bottle but in a lot of places, the only area you can refill is the public restroom. I'm npt filling my drinks from there. but if there was areas with clean filtered water, I'd even pay for it.
cultofmetatron
11 days ago
Why not, it's not like the input/output pipes are shared...
BlueTemplar
11 days ago
In a lot of places, the water supply in bathrooms isn't considered potable. I've seen stickers up in airports advising this. e.g. every house I've lived in has had cold/hot water fed from an uncovered tank in the attic.
jimbobthrowawy
11 days ago
Right, it depends I guess. I was more thinking how restaurants are legally obligated to provide free (potable) water, not sure how much this is an incentive for them to have their tap water potable ? (And I guess they already need to have potable-after-boiling water anyway just to be able to cook ?)
BlueTemplar
6 days ago
you ever seen how some people conduct themselves in a public restroom?
cultofmetatron
11 days ago
because of all the oil and plastic (which comes from oil) that is used to get it to you means more emissions which contributes to global climate change.
fragmede
11 days ago
In the described scenario, the oil and plastic are going to be used either way; the only question is which liquid is going to be inside the container.
int_19h
11 days ago
The described scenario is a false dichotomy.
thfuran
11 days ago
How so? People do need to hydrate while running errands etc.
You could argue that we need to install more water fountains around so that one doesn't need to use bottled drinks for this. That's fine, but right here and now there are very few working water fountains, so if someone finds themselves in the middle of a city needing to drink, bottled water is their best option; so why would you disparage them for it?
int_19h
11 days ago
>I can't drink only beer.
Can't? Don't sell yourself short.
onthecanposting
11 days ago
>If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-to-cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all the water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands years.
Oh my! I have been telling people just this. The sheer number of people who consume and throw this needlessly created packages is baffling. We have figured out water and its sanitation for most of the cases now. Just carrying a reusable bottle with water from home, and refilling potable water from sources you trust would save the environment from a lot of empty bottles. I would not say everyone can do this. But a lot of us can do this. Besides the bottles with less than a litre capacity are the worst.
dunekid
11 days ago
I think they're missing a dimension, how annoying is something to replace. In particular for car tires this called out to me. Going to an auto shop is an all day adventure for me, whereas almost anything else can easily be ordered or picked up without too much hassle. Furniture is another category though where there's a non trivial investment required to replace it.
Therefore, these should be more durable, even if they're not something we're otherwise attached to.
You could also think about the consequences of something breaking, and the cost of the loss of use.
E.g., for a car, if it breaks down you might run the risk of an accident, and while it's broken down you might not be able to commute to work, etc., whereas some things are relatively inconsequential when they break.
foota
11 days ago
Car tires take about an hour and are actually one of the things I buy used every time. 90% of the tread for 1/4 the price.
bongodongobob
11 days ago
Semi-off-topic, but I carry a unbreakable umbrella and have been very happy with it. Worth a try if you are interested in a real world application of this post.
I think I'm missing the joke. Is it just an umbrella, or is it a weapon as well?... They seem to constantly allude to it being a weapon. Is it just because it's strong?
Biganon
11 days ago
Isn't any umbrella obviously looking like a weapon? Am I the only one who role-played it's a rifle as a kid (and still do as an adult, sometimes)?
And then, a well-made long umbrella would effectively double as a cane, at which point it fits well in the martial art of Bartitsu.
I think this is cool and has been referenced in the Kingsman?
dunekid
11 days ago
I love the videos, but 200$ is a hard pill to swallow for an umbrella!
komali2
11 days ago
Especially if living in Japan. You had best hope it came with a GPS tracker.
jpgvm
11 days ago
[dead]
bigbacaloa
11 days ago
The durable umbrella weighs in at 1.7 kg / 3.7 lb, four times what a normal umbrella would weigh. That is absurdly impractical.
ooterness
11 days ago
From TFA:
[...] the assumption of 'less but better' being a superior approach to product design is rarely practically evaluated.
The third umbrella in the series takes durability to an almost cartoon-like level [...]
This was a study of materials and design, not a product someone would like to sell . It's research on object longevity.
pxndxx
11 days ago
Yes, but with all studies, it can be made in an objective way or in a way that already enforces a particular conclusion.
This is why, in serious scientific work, so much focus is placed on methods and reproducibility.
Here he used the less rigorous field of arts and design to wiggle out of that responsibility and present a blatantly biased study.
xg15
11 days ago
We can think of it as the arts equivalent of the spherical cows in vacuum.
dunekid
11 days ago
Objects should completely break down 1d after warranty expires so we can sell another one to the customer. This will increase economic growth, profits and GDP and helps with yacht purchases
foobarkey
11 days ago
I think Gandhi sorta covers the penultimate conclusion of this train, and that's highly local production.
A sort of sentimentality and pride. Maybe you chipped in somewhere along the chain, all the socks in the city have a little bit of your blood, sweat, and tears in the fibers. I think we try to replicate these sensations with all the green-washed corporate mission statement bullshit, and psychologically I think it's a very successful line. Practically, though, not so much.
This of course comes with the curing of all the one-size-fits all shit, too.
brnaftr361
12 days ago
Of course it's going to be a commercial question.
But from a design standpoint, there are four major components to the umbrella.
The cover, the stem, the handle, and the lever-branches (if collapsible) or straight branches (otherwise).
The cover is typically a synthetic polymer based material. In collapsible models, due to levers and fiddly connections it's hugely PITA to replace. If it rips or develops a hole you could theoretically push to use a more readily patchable material, however, the high tension at which this is often maintained will rapidly break down many approaches to patching. Realistically, this sort of thing is best done at a factory given the input costs.
The stem and handle virtually never break down and can be any form of metal or wood, depending upon whether you want a telescopic collapsible design or rigid full length. Aluminium is supposed to be the best recyclable metal in terms of recovery rate and is also light, however is prone to deformation in thin configurations. It may be possible to consider carbon fiber, which is very cheap now.
The lever-branches of a collapsible model are the biggest problem. They are fiddly, prone to breakage in most designs, and in most designs relatively tedious and difficult to securely re-attach to the cover should the cover require replacement.
Original suggestion: Design instead a standard interface between the umbrella stem and the cover-and-lever assembly. This would allow easily replacement of the cover-and-lever assembly as the most frequently broken portion. Alternatively, seek out a full length umbrella with strong branches instead of the tiny collapsible ones. Probably these days you could make them with carbon fiber quite cheaply.
contingencies
11 days ago
Yeah, sorry. If you prop-up the "recyclable" umbrella with corpospeak sentences like this one:
> The Recyclable Umbrella is a reappraisal of the potential for plastic, a material which if properly managed offers carbon savings and excellent recyclability when compared with many organic alternatives.
(ignoring that this construction would probably break on a moderately windy day, and naively assumes that it won't end up on a landfill only because it could be recycled)
and then purposely over-engeneer the "long-lived" variant so it weighs 1.7 kilos and is practically unusable, you have motivated reasoning.
The whole artsy handwaving of this piece also ignores that planned obsolescence often happens in products where the amount of uses is well-known and generally independent on the product's materials, e.g. dishwashers, fridges, etc.
xg15
11 days ago
How is the technology in a product expected to change over time?
If you're expecting modest or radical changes (with presumably big boosts in efficiency, performance, etc.), why build a long life span product? In a rapidly changing environment, keeping old equipment can be detrimental. Servers can last longer than what they are rated for. Depending on SKU, Intel CPUs are rated for 3, 5, or even 10 years of use, however, servers are refreshed/replaced because of the ongoing performance increases per unit electrical consumption from newer CPU SKUs. In businesses where IT equipment isn't core to the business, old equipment is kept around if IT efficiency isn't really a concern, there's a very high cost of re-engineering, or re-certifying a system.
If changes are not reasonably expected, then build products that last a long time. One of my children will inherit my kitchenaid blender.
c_o_n_v_e_x
11 days ago
That "Pretty Illogical" blob on the bottom-right would be all the plastic packaging in the world.
A line between each "useful longevity" point, to the respective "physical longevity" point (which in turn could be colored for "benign" or "harmful"), would be provocative.
Nevermark
11 days ago
An interesting thing is the graph mapping user bond against physical longevity: https://res.cloudinary.com/rca2020/image/upload/f_webp,h_108.... I would love something like this with more object, but also a third dimension, how possible it is to do it yourself. For example, wooden furniture is pretty doable, and considering the strong user bond and long-lasting life, I see why so many people pick up woodworking.
Zababa
10 days ago
I thought its about programming and someone is planning to implement timer based garbage collectors.
v3ss0n
11 days ago
As long as they can.
I can actually see all 3 of these umbrellas as being repairable, just by different methods, and if I were forced to use any of them, I would definitely attempt to keep them working as long as I could. Maybe that's the ultimate lesson here.
An example is a coffee lid, sometimes it's active use is less than six seconds, but it's 'actual' life may be over a thousand years.
A thousand years of "sleep", during which it may be reused or recycled by those in the future in some as yet unknown way, meanwhile continuing to store the energy that was expended in its production. I like to think of "waste" as things which are merely not currently useful.
userbinator
11 days ago
That's a nice thought, but unfortunately the environmental cost of "storing" all of this material - i.e. all the billions of tonnes of plastic pollution already out there, and in there (inside you in the form of microplastics) - doesn't come for free.
It's a current problem, and we don't seem to have the technology or even the political will to solve it currently.
dawidloubser
11 days ago
Is the full dissertation available anywhere? The link on the author's website is dead.
moonchild
11 days ago
I'd just go with some kind of raincoat.
pfdietz
11 days ago
I really appreciate that they added weight to the description. Puts things into perspective. Nowadays typically umbrella weights 300 to 500 grams
hamilyon2
11 days ago
Once you start optimising for one parameter the other ones suffer. Over 500g for an umbrella is not acceptable in the space age.
I bought a cheap Chinese umbrella for $10. It almost never gets used. It probably is not designed to be repairable or durable yet I have had it for over ten years so the environmental impact is minimal.
It is also very lightweight so I have it with me often.
Temporary_31337
11 days ago
If I have to use the stainless steel umbrella x6 just for it to be equal to the garbage-tier plastic umbrella, then I will landfill six of the plastic umbrellas. I know it's meant to be recyclable, and I will dutifully put it in the recycle bin, but then my city government will contract it out to some outfit that picks through to find some token recyclables and sends the rest to landfill anyway.
So, out of 100 uses of the durable umbrella, or 100 uses of the garbage umbrellas (across six of those), which is a more pleasant experience? Am I wrong to think that it's the obvious one? The umbrella that doesn't flex in the wind like it's going to snap off? The one that doesn't feel slimy for the three days it'll take to dry, the one in fact that won't take that long to dry? The one that doesn't accumulate grime but if it did could easily be wiped off and then be as clean as the day it was bought new? How often does thermoset plastic get a bad mix and end up being a little more brittle than usual? How often does the injection mold not fill completely, but it sails past QA, and so the umbrella handle will snap off when there's a gust... and with my luck when I'm halfway between the car and the building? If someone had a toddler chewing on it, or a dog, which holds up better? The worst you can say about the stainless steel is that it might prompt a trip to the dentist.
For anything that I'll use throughout my life, I think I prefer the "durable", unless it's just impossible from an engineering standpoint or is cost-prohibitive.
NoMoreNicksLeft
11 days ago
A find this topic fascinating, and several times in the past I tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to buy items (mainly clothing and shoes/boots) that are made to last a long time.
Is there any project that tracks these high durability items?
wtcactus
11 days ago
Reddit r/BuyItForLife
landgenoot
11 days ago
That subreddit is basically just an ad for various crappy US brands. There is zero interest in discussion of actual BIFL products, or practices.
alextingle
11 days ago
If I wanted to hire a bunch of fake accounts to upvote my shill posts it does seem like a great subreddit to do it in.
ericmcer
11 days ago
I think the main market is people who buy umbrellas when it rains then leave them behind or pile them up in the garage.
throwaway14356
10 days ago
Insurance period minus one standard deviation
remorses
11 days ago
I am confused by what people in the academic design/art community think the word ‘celebrate’ means.
jameshart
11 days ago
industrial Design Student Work @data #story
Tabiroxx
11 days ago
TLDR: guy builds a bunch of umbrellas, but fails to answer the question posed in the title.
engineer_22
11 days ago
I think the point was to explore different approaches and spark discussion about what we care about.
This is missing the fact that the stainless steel from the ultra-durable umbrella is also easy to recycle. In fact, steel is far easier to recycle than any kind of plastic.
Also, the whole work seems to skip over the huge problem of insufficient customer information: There is a remark in there, that lots of people (about half) seem to choose the ultra-durable umbrella, rather than one of the less resource-intensive ones. The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified. People do not and usually can not know how durable each product they are offered will be. And buying something ultra-durable-seeming at least gives you a chance at a decent product lifetime. All the rest is usually crappier than expected.
One reason is that the environmentally friendlier alternatives are often also materials of lesser quality. E.g. recycled plastic degrades and is more brittle than "fresh".
The other reason is greedy manufacturers, saving on necessary materials, making products less durable. And maybe intentionally building in weak points, limiting lifetime to sell more stuff.
tichiian
12 days ago
Aside but one interesting consequence of using plastic in certain kinds of products is that it can be a sacrificial part. If you don’t design a point of failure into your system one will be assigned to it. I recently had this realization after installing a new garage door opener. The motor on it is much stronger than my old one but some parts are far flimsier. Then it dawned on me that I’d rather have a cheap plastic gear break if something goes wrong than have it burn up the unit or swing a high tension belt around.
Longevity doesn’t always mean making everything out of cast iron and stainless steel. It can mean making the thing repairable using cheap and available parts.
IgorPartola
12 days ago
3D printing options aside, there's no possibility of me replacing random plastic components that break. I'm dependent on some industrial manufacturer producing the random plastic broken part for me, and getting it to me. If something metallic fails, it's much simpler in comparison to fashion a replacement / repair the failure myself. I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.
thegrim33
11 days ago
> I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.
You're right that metal (and wood) are much more amenable to work with in a home workshop.
However:
> 3D printing options aside
I wouldn't put 3d printing aside. The main limitation is the size of what you can print, but if the part is small enough (depending what printers you have access to), it is a game changer. We don't have a 3d printer but my child has access to them at school and watching him fix all kinds of gadgets by 3d printing replacement parts has been very cool.
jjav
11 days ago
If you have the tools to work with metal, you can use those tools with few, if any, modifications and do the same thing with nylon.
mythhabit
7 days ago
Even for larger items I’ve often found printing sub-assemblies and gluing together to be a useful technique.
E.g. I needed to replace a shaped plastic cover for a handle mechanism on a motorhome/RV. Breaking the design into two parts and making it so they clip together (rather than permanently gluing in that particular case) meant I could print a complex design without supports.
CraigJPerry
11 days ago
Have you used polycaprolactone/PCL aka "InstaMorph" for hobby/projects? It's a very tough plastic that can be melted by putting it in hot water, then formed by hand. I think something like a linkage made out of this material could be a fantastic intentional failure point for certain mechanical systems, as long as the temperature requirement is not much higher than human conditions. Also, if you have a hot air blower, you can repair it in-situ.
I'm honestly not sure why we don't see more of this plastic used for consumer stuff. Something that you can melt down and fix stuff or make little ornaments sounds like a great marketing gimmick. It's also generally a pretty bio-safe plastic.
picture
11 days ago
In industry, it's because it's so low-temperature. The benefits of using it aren't outweighed by the potential failure risks in it in pieces not designed to be repaired.
Also, just kinda--it's not well known! You can't even find it as a 3D printer filament without a lot of effort, even though those "3D pens" often use it, because the output is so unimpressive to most people. That's not that it is unimpressive, it's because they don't know much about it, much like how people act like there's a "leveling up" by switching from PLA to PETG to ABS.
eropple
11 days ago
ABS is a level up because it curls like mad off the print bed because of internal stresses, and this will cause prints to fail if you do not have a heated chamber, which is a bit of a challenge to set up over Ender 3 like printers. PETG meanwhile likes to be dehumidified under heat first to avoid excessive stringing, which requires a separate doodad, and it likes all metal hotends that do not include the usual internal PTFE tube, which off-gasses nasty stuff if heated above roughly 250°C. PLA has none of these problems. "Level up" is about printability, not material characteristics of the end product.
skjoldr
11 days ago
> "Level up" is about printability, not material characteristics of the end product.
You think that. The people in forums who go "I never print in PLA" despite it having advantageous material properties for some use cases (it's very stiff, for example! sure, it snaps hard, but it's strong until then) do not.
Printability and usefulness aren't on the same axis, but when it comes to FDM materials, a lot of people do.
eropple
11 days ago
While from a materials standpoint, its more of a "what fits the needs", from a printing point of view it's definitely a level up going from PLA to PETG / ABS. Both in terms of skill (PETG can be annoying to dial in) and machine reqs (Hot End, ventilation, etc)
esyir
11 days ago
If you need heat resistance and can give up reforming and strength sugru is a moldable silicone that I’ve used for a quite a number of repairs. A knife handle I repaired in 2014 is still going strong.
(InstaMorph is new to me - but will certainly get used in the future)
nmcfarl
11 days ago
Can it be injection molded? If not, I would assume it would be much much more expensive to mass-produce than an ordinary injection molded part.
ElevenLathe
11 days ago
> I can't work with plastic.
Why not? If you can machine it from metal, it is easier to machine it from plastic. I fabricate plastic replacements often with a drill, files, and saw.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
It's because plastic injection molding has different constraints and trade-offs in parts design compared to metal machining. E.g. injection molding, after the mold is done, doesn't really care about machine time, complexity, or the availability of specific cutters and drills. So sometimes the geometry and tolerances of an injection molded part is a pain in the arse to replicate manually -- it's just not made to do it, unlike metal machining, which at scale is still a rough approximation of the manual process.
skjoldr
11 days ago
I get the manufacturing Tradeoffs. What I was responding to was not an issue with part complexity, but part material.
They said "I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic."
Sure, nobody is going to machine a plastic replacement complex injection molded housing. You probably werent going to re-create a complex press-formed metal part either.
IT seems like it is more of a design complaint than a material issue.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
How often do you encounter mass-produced consumer goods that include parts made of machined engineering plastics?
ElevenLathe
11 days ago
That's not what Im saying. Machined plastics are rarely encountered, but many molded plastic products can be trivially machined.
Im saying that the fabrication difficult is driven by design, not material.
almost nobody is going to home fabricate a spline gear at home, and it doesnt matter if it is metal or plastic. If something is like a plate or flange, it is trivial to fabricate and doesnt matter if it is metal or plastic.
For any given design, I think refabrication is the same or easier for plastic.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
Not sure why we're arguing, but I think we are on the same side. We would prefer that products have parts which are easily replaced by, in order of preference:
1) easily-sourced commodity products like standard screws, washers, bolts, etc. 2) barring that, parts that could easily be fabricated by realistic home production methods (hand tools, FDM printing, possibly simple machining) 3) barring that, parts that the consumer can have easily fabricated by a third party (maybe it requires a 5-axis CNC but all the CAD/CAM files are available to upload somewhere like Shapeways) 4) barring that, easily-ordered at-cost OEM parts
...and in all cases the user manual should require all relevant drawings with dimensions.
The problem is that if you tell an industrial designer to keep costs down, and that they can use injection-molded plastic parts, they will almost certainly NOT design parts that are conducive to 1-3. They could, but all the incentives run the other way, so they probably won't.
ElevenLathe
11 days ago
I was mostly just curious about the person who said they absolutely cant work with plastic, but can work with metal.
I like some things that are repairable, but don't think everything needs to be. My product choices rarely are willing to compromise cost, function, or aesthetics for repairability.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
That's the idea (I assume, not the same guy): you're right that is mostly the form of the part that makes it easy/hard to work, not the material, but nobody designs machinable plastic parts. they design injection-moldable ones. So in practice "plastic part" is synonymous with "impossible to recreate in small quantities". Yes, in theory plastic parts can be of the same shape (and therefore ease of boutique manufacturing) as metal ones, but they aren't, not in the real world.
ElevenLathe
10 days ago
I have a pocket knife in my pocket (perhaps not quite as mass produced as what you were imagining) whose handles are made of G10 which is a composite material made partly of epoxy. It has been 3d machined into its current shape.
MeImCounting
11 days ago
It's an... unusual skill to have, I'd say. Maybe it's the issue of education or culture, but I'm with GP here: in my mind, metal parts can often be repaired by hand, or an improvised replacement can be made; plastics break too easily, and you can't make new ones without a 3D printer or something.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
Yup. Same with wood and fabric. Those kind of parts or components I can replace and work with. Plastic? That's a whole different ball game due to the potentially low tolerances in terms of dimensions and the nature of the type of plastic used. With wood, metal, and fabric it is much easier to gauge the correct replacement material.
Freak_NL
11 days ago
I'd say education and culture might be right on the money. I'm not sure it's occurred to me to take a small block of some type of plastic and cut it to shape using knives, planes, chisels and files like someone could with wood, but now that I'm thinking about it, it seems like it might be considerable easier to work with than wood in some cases, especially with how easy it is to join two parts afterwards with some epoxy or maybe even through heat.
Additionally, it looks like you can possibly re-melt the shavings into another block (I'm not sure if specific plastic types are required).[1] That's like woodworking but being able to easily gather and compress your bits and ends and sawdust into more wood.
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wPmcgDRmg
kbenson
11 days ago
Yeah, I was gonna say. Not that I'd necessarily want to cut a gear with hand tools even in nylon, considering how exacting the profile would be to get right, but it's doable.
throwanem
11 days ago
I'd rather hand cut a gear in nylon than one in steel. If you arent doing it by hand, who cares what it is made of.
s1artibartfast
11 days ago
Plastic welding is a thing, and has been used ever since the discovery of thermoplastics. Solvent glues also work well for some types of plastic.
The only reason why it's not more common is usually due to cost of repair vs replacement.
Thanks to YouTube, you can now find plenty of information on this.
I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.
How about pot metal, which is what has been replaced by plastic in many applications?
userbinator
11 days ago
Are you a machinist? I don't understand why you'd dismiss 3d printing and say metal is more feasible to work with. 3d printing is much more accessible to the average DIY-minded person.
alanbernstein
11 days ago
I think this is cultural or location based – I know at least a dozen people who can weld and no one who has a 3-D printer, but I live /way/ out and rural America. The Internet would suggest that urban America is the reverse.
nmcfarl
11 days ago
Sure, but if we're talking about replacing machine parts, I'm not sure how far welding will get you. You need to be able to machine custom metal parts, for parity with basic 3d printing capability.
alanbernstein
11 days ago
I 3D print jigs to hold things together for welding. Mind, blown.
buildsjets
11 days ago
You can bend small metal pieces with your bare hands, or with pliers, or you can beat it into shape with hammer (or any stiff object). Plastics get damaged and break when you try that.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
Then just replace the plastic parts with metal, problem solved.
pests
11 days ago
> 3D printing options aside
Aside from the solution, there's no solution?
If you don't want to get into 3d printing then fine, but don't act like that's not on you. you can work with plastic, you're choosing not to.
fragmede
11 days ago
On the subject of sacrificial parts, approx. 25 years ago I bought a lawnmower from a well established UK brand (Atco). The original design included a clutch-like mechanism that would decouple the drive from the drum blades if they encountered a serious obstruction and jammed. In the model that I bought, however, the mechanism had been replaced with a sacrificial plastic cog that would simply break if the blades jammed. Even though I was careful, on average, it would break every two to three years. This was before easy 3D printing was available, and I had no choice but to order an OEM replacement. If Atco had sold packs of the cog I wouldn't have minded, but instead you had to buy an entire repair kit with several other parts that weren't needed. After the fourth time it died, I replaced the entire lawn mower with a non-Atco alternative.
I've come across sacrificial parts in other contexts where they make perfect sense (e.g. holding car body parts in place) but I really don't like them being used as an opportunity for manufacturers to increase their lifetime profit from a long-lived product.
KineticLensman
11 days ago
Ideally that plastic gear would be a standard size and shape that you could find described in a parts list somewhere in the manual. I'd much rather be able to buy one out of a giant surplus bin somewhere in mainland china than trying to measure it and find/make a bespoke replacement.
Replaceable fuses make great failure points for things like motors that can draw silly amounts of current when stalled.
jimbobthrowawy
11 days ago
This really depends on many factors.
Will you be able to get those parts, how fast and how cheap, and how easy/hard is it to replace them? Garage door, maybe... it's an expensive thing... you'll investa lot of time/effort to get it fixed... buta battery powered drill? No way to get the parts. Someone mentione 3d printing... can you imagine some average drill owner designing a part for 3d printing, buying a 3d printer, going through the learning curve to get a usable part.. for a $50 drill? No way. Just having someone open it up to replace it is more expensive than the drill itself. On the other hand, you could pay 20 cents more when buying and got a long-lastin metal part.
If you want a part to fail to not cause greater damage, add some kinf of a standardized fuse to it, or detect the overload and stop it, before it fails. Yeah, sure, something is going to fail at some time (nothing lasts forever), but treating plastic gears that break (instead fo $1 more expensive metal ones) as a good thing,.. i have to disagree with that.
ajsnigrutin
11 days ago
Underrated is ordering SLS parts from a printer, like on CraftCloud. You can get small functional nylon parts made for $2 + shipping.
Modeling things has always been the biggest friction point. Not easy to make CAD interfaces easier. Part files from the manufacturer would be nice.
jkestner
11 days ago
Sure, but you still have to either open the device yourself, or pay someone to do it, find the broken part, find the part design, order it, ship it, replace it, and reassemble the device. If you don't do it yourself, it's not worth it at all financially, and if you do, it's quite a long process, usually not worth it for a $50 drill, where the company wanted to save a few cents with a plastic part.
ajsnigrutin
11 days ago
Oh yeah, overall, I don't think 3D printers are useful for this in the real world, not at this point. Just playing to the crowd, for those HNers determined to make use of 3D printing.
Nothing beats simply designing to repair, or at least YouTube how-to videos, and available replacement parts. I've kept a stupid $100 microwave going for 15 years with two $4 repairs, mostly for the principle of it.
jkestner
9 days ago
One could find the part design in a library, and print it at a coop hackerspace or order it online off some pay-per-print shop. It doesn't have to be as complicated as you put it.
btbuildem
11 days ago
But it's a $50 dollar drill, that failed due to a cheap part.
I don't know where you live, but just a diagnosis by a repair technician is more expensive than that. Even if you open it up yourself, find the broken part, find that part someone, get someone to print it,get the part delivered, and replace it, it'll be more than $50 of associated costs... and just because a company wanted to save 50 cents on a plastic gear.
ajsnigrutin
11 days ago
Recyclability isn't really an issue, because the steel umbrella is not viable as a product. This is on account of its weight.
> Total weight of assembled umbrella: 1.71kg
The average umbrella, and the plastic one at the link, weigh roughly a quarter of that amount. There are golf umbrellas, considered extremely heavy, at ~0.9kg, e.g.: https://shedrain.com/products/vortex-vent-pro
The ultra-durable umbrella is an exercise in making a product that appears to be an umbrella out of heavy-duty materials. But it's not an umbrella that's viable as a commercial product; it wasn't designed with the average user's capabilities in mind. Most people, even trained athletes, would not be happy to lug around an umbrella that weighs nearly four pounds.
I'm sure it's possible to strike a balance, perhaps with aluminum or magnesium (expensive!) instead of steel. But the project didn't attempt it -- it went with steel to make a point. In real-life product engineering, though, every gram saved is worth celebrating.
A_D_E_P_T
11 days ago
This is a beautifully done art project, but it's curious how relevant comparisons made are to reality. The handle could be easily made of tubes for massive weight reduction and potentially improved rigidity, for example.
It seems the idea is to take an existing umbrella, reproduce it faithfully in different materials, and then comparing results: like right-clicking an umbrella_object displayed on a 3D modeling tool and changing texture bitmaps. I suppose justification to that is it has to be apples to apples comparison.
But that's not how objects are manufactured in the real world: Parts are designed for specific materials and means of fabrication. Replicating existing man-made object with a manufacturing method the object was not intended to be manufactured with leads to subpar results. If I'm making something out of carbon fiber, I'd try to minimize numbers of screw holes. If it's to be made of aluminum, I'd avoid repeated stresses, but if it's to be made of steel, flexure joints becomes an option. If I'm 3D printing something, I'd try to minimize overhangs below 45 degrees. If I'm designing for injection molding, I'd avoid wide flat surfaces and abrupt changes in cross sections. If I'm milling something, I'd repeatedly check for tool clearances, try to minimize amounts removed(which may result in thicker walls), and avoid complex curves as I design it.
I'm not going to take an J-shaped umbrella grip and instruct a factory worker to EDM it out of pre-tempered glass block. Even if I managed to have it done, and if it ended up weighing as much as a steel handle, that won't tell much about viability of glass-framed umbrella in general.
numpad0
11 days ago
My James Smith & Sons Umbrella has a lightweight steel frame (apparently invented by James Smith the 2nd in 1851) - weighs about 500g and has lasted 30+ years.
https://www.james-smith.co.uk/product/umbrellas/gents-umbrel...
helsinkiandrew
11 days ago
Mass is a tradeoff too, but I suppose you could shove half of the weight without compromising the durability. Would that still not be a viable product then? Something a tad heavier than standard big umbrella, much more expensive, but nearly indestructible?
I'd go for it. And yes, I'm very much the kind of user who says they'd go for durable umbrella and, at the same time, also says they use an umbrella very infrequently. Well, that's because umbrellas suck donkey balls, to borrow a phrase from the Expanse. I avoid the light ones as even a little breeze makes them flip their shape from convex to concave and eventually break struts. The heavier ones... well, they all seem to magically break within couple months, so it's always a lottery if I pick one with torn fabric or hanging strut, and then when I do, then what? Throw away the looks-fixable-but-really-too-cheeply-made-to-be-fixed one, and buy another one, fourth one this fall? The whole experience makes me avoid umbrellas except for the heaviest of rains, and it's mostly because of lack of durability.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
> In real-life product engineering, though, every gram saved is worth celebrating.
I would like to point out that I'm old enough that I think I've witnessed how aluminum soda cans have become much thinner over the years. Their contents are of course under pressure and that makes them a bit sturdier; they can be stacked 10 feet high with no problem. Usually. But someone tosses a case a little too hard, packing them in a truck, the angle that the force of that jolts off a few degrees... something, and the can just explodes and makes a mess. And the economics may mean that even with that loss it's still better financially, but this seems wrong to me somehow.
If it were only disposable cans I could probably ignore it. But everyone's shaving milligrams here and there, to the point that you'll get a potato peeler at the store because the last one broke, to bring the new one home and compare it... only to find out it was stamped out of even thinner steel. It breaks next month. You can't shop around and find a better one, they're all pumped out of the same no-name factory that a forensic accountant probably couldn't track down if he had access to all of the supply chain's paperwork.
A friend and I were discussing just a few weeks ago whether or not duct tape was of vastly different quality when we were small children (late 1970s) compared to today. I of course realize that 4 yr old me might have a much more difficult time tearing off a piece of identical duct tape that 50 year old me could tear without trying... but I seem to remember even my dad having to put a little too much effort. You really did have to rip into the stuff.
When you shave these milligrams off of items, it looks like it is win/win, that you're reducing cost without reducing any quality that anyone cares about, but I think that it might be true that you're shaving little pieces off of everyone's lives. Too little for them to complain about, but the sum total of that unpleasantness must be vast. I am not inclined to celebrate it.
NoMoreNicksLeft
11 days ago
Ultimately, I think that it depends entirely on the type of product and how it's used.
If you take an aluminum can from 17g to 12g, that may represent some cost savings in manufacturing and transport, but the average soda drinker won't notice a difference.
But if you take an umbrella from 1700g to 1200g, that's the difference between something that's entirely unusable, to something that has practical utility -- if only barely. 500g would be much better. All else being equal the optimal weight for an umbrella is probably around 100g. Enough to know it's there, but not enough that extended use by the fifth-percentile human would be difficult or metabolically demanding.
If a human has to wear or carry it, and if there's a meaningful weight/comfort threshold associated with the product's use, every gram counts. Duct tape and aluminum cans don't fall into this category -- but, at the same time, this is why hiking and camping equipment tends to be extremely light, and why the athletic shoe companies keep researching lighter and better foams.
The problem is heightened in aerospace and automotive engineering, where fuel economy mandates tend to impose hard weight caps -- and getting a design in at well under the cap is a real engineering accomplishment. Offhand, I recall hearing that there was once a program where ~$15M dollars were spent on efforts to make a commercial airplane lighter. This resulted in about 20kg shaved off the aircraft's weight. That doesn't sound like much of a value, but the program was considered a great success.
A_D_E_P_T
11 days ago
Why was the handle made of stainless steel, and not, say, wood ? Looks to be a significant fraction of mass, while not being the typical part that would break ?
BlueTemplar
11 days ago
Steel is more durable than wood.
hbosch
11 days ago
>while not being the typical part that would break ?
HideousKojima
11 days ago
Recycleability isn’t really an issue because there isnt really a consumer pipeline for recycling metals of nonstandard shapes like cans. You certainly can’t just throw it in the recycling bin, and anything else is more friction.
jwagenet
11 days ago
> The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified.
Personally I'm very aware of the labor and resources required to build a high quality item. This is why I buy them. It's made by humans, with great effort, to have a long life.
Honestly, I want all my items to "positively age" with me as much as possible, and even if they become slightly insufficient (storage devices, or electronics in general), I try to find uses for them until they reach their true end of their life.
And yes, I don't like crappy items. I want to buy one item once (or as few times possible) and have good performance performing its function. It can be an umbrella, a shoe, a keyboard or a pen. Anything, actually.
bayindirh
11 days ago
Another reason I seek the durable version is that I despise change.
Once I procure an umbrella that meets my needs, I don’t ever want to have to spend the time to go find another. If I manage to wear it out, I will grudgingly replace it with the exact same thing but if that’s not available I’ll go without rather than going through the process of finding a good one again. Modern casual clothing is a disaster in this regard because even the same sku often won’t be the same product year over year.
eep_social
12 days ago
About clothing: that and society tends to mock those who repeat the same clothes in a short period of time, promoting cheap/mass fashion and therefore waste.
I would rather focus on upcycling repairable clothes rather than promoting so much waste. Specially when a sweater I love tears, I (1) loss the sweater and (2) can't get said clothing item because as you say, the sku or even the brand may not exist anymore. Newer is not always better, both in function and form.
Point in case: Mark Zuckerberg and his style change from a anime/cartoon closet full of grey tshirts and blue jeans to a typical sugar daddy atire/style just to appeal to bigger audience without any internal change.
Stupid monkey brains.
mrbungie
12 days ago
I have clothes from 25 years ago, still looking pretty good but I can barely wear them now because they're so utterly out of fashion :D. I am by no means a "fashionable" person, but even I would be a bit hesitant to go out on my early 90's baggy shorts or my black leather jacket that looks straight out of an 80's action movie.
I believe that's why clothes these days barely last a year. People actually don't seem to mind because every year the fashion changes. I really hate that mindset but that seems to be how almost everyone thinks.
brabel
11 days ago
If you were a fashionable person, that's exactly what you'd be doing! ;)
The cycle is roughly 30 years, and teenagers are revisiting the 90s trends right now.
mdpye
11 days ago
The 90s is completely and utterly hot right now for anyone born after it. Embrace the faux nostalgia or make a mint on Vinted.
Freak_NL
11 days ago
If you were wearing traditional slacks, collared shirts, and suits 25 years ago this wouldn't be a problem. Timeless style is a real thing.
pnut
11 days ago
No, it would be a problem.
Suits and pants are much slimmer than they were 25 years ago. They're cut differently. Pants are different in length, with far less of a break now.
Look at photos of people in suits from 1999, or just watch movies from then. They're swimming in fabric. Not to mention how wide the neckties were.
Even for men, timeless style isn't a thing. Look at how gigantic shirt collars were in the 1970's.
Men's styles don't change as drastically as women's (remember shoulderpads?) but even traditional suits and shirts and ties go through major shifts of size and proportion every couple decades.
Sure you can wear suits and shirts and ties from 25 years ago, but you'll either look like someone who's making a deliberate retro-inspired fashion choice (if you're pulling it off), or else you'll look like someone who hasn't bought new clothes in 25 years (if you're not pulling it off).
But in neither case will you look "timeless". There's no such thing.
crazygringo
11 days ago
Even jeans, t-shirts and flannel shirts will get you through the better part of a century.
saalweachter
11 days ago
In my social circles youre far more likely to be mocked if you spend a lot of money on new clothes or cheap/low quality clothes. Its expected that you buy something high quality from a thrift store and wear it until it wears out/splurge on something new and high quality and wear it until it wears out and repair it indefinitely.
MeImCounting
11 days ago
people who mock people because repeated clothes aren't at their social circle (at least in a meaningful level) or if they do, sit & talk or it's time to move on...
i'm almost hitting 30, i still use some 14 y/o clothes and last time i bought stuff was more than 5 years ago because of a hobby. tho i appreciate stylistic people walking at streets. maybe fashion is not that hard to recycle if we use mostly compostable stuff? from leather of pineapple waste, (recycled) cotton and so on
luqtas
11 days ago
Yep - even the most famous clothing SKU in the world, the Levi’s 501, changes fabric specs and measurements year over year.
jameshart
11 days ago
For me a reason to choose the not so durable umbrella is that I tend to lose umbrellas rather than break them.
eru
11 days ago
I know you likely don't care but one thing idea I liked from the article is to use a QR code engraved/stamped/stickered onto an item so people can contact you without having to put your phone number directly on it.
I'd point them at a static website titled: "I've lost something haven't I? What? Where?" with a basic form put so they can give me details. You could go further and have the QR code put an item ID code into the url.
I like the possibilities.
_carbyau_
11 days ago
I live in Singapore, so even putting my home address on my things would be fine. (And we seldom even lock our front door.)
Well, your suggestion might help for some kinds of misplacing. But I often I know it's in the house, but can't remember where.
eru
11 days ago
> But I often I know it's in the house, but can't remember where.
Given the price/importance of a durable umbrella, it would make sense for you to stick a BLE locator tag to it. But for the love of $deity, let it not be built into the product itself, as putting electronics into products is the easiest way to make them fragile and obsolete within few years.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
Is your home address stable for times similar to the lifetime of that umbrella?
mcherm
11 days ago
I could leave a pointer at the old address to my new address, if necessary.
eru
11 days ago
Also keep in mind that metal is stronger than plastic. Sure it might rust if you don't use a preventitive coating....a coating is not a paint BTW theirs a massive difference.
Plastic is cheaper. Sure those injection molds are expensive as fuck to make and have a limited life just like anything but the major reason plastic is seen as desirable is that its cheap, and its way easier to produce 10000 plastic spoons than to cast 10000 spoons. Casting isn't fast and takes up a lot of space and its harder to heat up metal than plastic. And even if your machining a part, plastic is just cheaper when it comes to the footprint and the density of plastic is lower than metal which means handling raw materials is easier.
The downside is recycling and lifespan. A good metal part beats plastic when it comes to so many tests....but its not fast or cheap to make. Is the metal recyclable....yes....but plastic dosnt have to get up to insane temps to get it molten, and you can machine plastic with basically anything as long as its sharp, while metal machining is a process that needs really strong sharp inserts, saws, or EDM machines, and all of that means a heavier footprint both in weight,and carbon footprint.
tonetegeatinst
11 days ago
> Many of the objects we use daily are made from mixed materials, ones are often difficult to separate [for recycling]. This cost can outweigh the value of the materials, so these objects are very likely to end up in Landfill. Of course, mixing materials offers functional benefits such as combinations of soft & hard structures, and nowhere else is this more true [than] with Umbrellas.
FTA with context added.
Aloisius
12 days ago
11 days ago
Ya this was the first thing I saw. It's a student project so we should be open that he's learning, but I wouldn't call this umbrella recyclable if it's constituent parts will likely end up floating in the ocean forever.
If umbrella's were built with repairability in mind I would love it, though. So many I've used were destined to break under the strain of the wind.
spandrew
11 days ago
Agreed on using energy consumption and how many times do you reasonably expect to use it as important considerations.
Additionally you have to factor in the toxicity you introduce, especially with things like cookware.
An umbrella maybe a 1000 times (massive upper bound), but a le creuset pot I would expect to use 3000 times, and we eat the foot made in it.
goeiedaggoeie
11 days ago
All true, but one missing is the one where people abuse things and use them in ways that were not intended by the manufacturer.
mc32
12 days ago
It really sucks when the product is so fragile you can't do it. Items do not have inherent, fixed purpose, they're physical objects. If I can use my umbrella as a hammer in a pinch, that's a value-add.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
12 days ago
@dang it would be good to link to the student's original website with RCA rather than this reproduction on Core 77. The article at Core 77 is almost entirely copy-pasted, and doesn't add any value.
Original: https://2021.rca.ac.uk/students/charlie-humble-thomas/
hydrox24
11 days ago
For anyone in or near London, the RCA degree show is worth a visit:
https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/rca2024/
Lots of really interesting work across a huge range of disciplines, from industrial design like this, through digital stuff and service design, to architecture, to fine art, to animation. I've been many times. It's hell on my feet but worth it!
twic
11 days ago
Thank you! The Core 77 version was chewing up my CPU.
nickm12
11 days ago
Same thing happened to me so I'm glad I'm not the only one.
mkerrigan
11 days ago
The other cool thing about the original article is you can find other student projects there - some of which are quite fun.
amykhar
11 days ago
@dang is a no-op. Someone shoot off an email.
jimbobthrowawy
11 days ago
This is an exercise in externalities. Sure, maybe the cheap umbrella comes out ahead in a raw materials game: X number of crummy ones may be more eco-friendly than a nice one that lasts Y times as long.
As long as you don’t consider anything else, like the fact you have to employ Y times the person-hours to make the crummy ones, and Y times the freight to deliver them, and Y times the customer getting pissed off that their cheap umbrella broke and they have to take time out of their day to acquire a replacement.
I swore off buying junky stuff a long time ago. Life’s too short to be surrounded by crap that’s going to break the first time you look at it wrong, student projects be damned.
(That doesn’t mean I only buy luxury items. Far from it! You can get Levi’s Premium line jeans that last X longer than the discount store ones for far less than X times the price. I’ve worn the same pair of leather boots for 6 years now. I’ve had my Birkenstocks resoled several times now instead of throwing them out while the rest of the sandal’s in great shape. It’s usually pretty easy to find the quality version of a given thing for not much more than the junky one.)
kstrauser
12 days ago
I agree with some of your points, but what about the frustration when someone breaks their nice & expensive umbrella by accident, or has it stolen from them? What about the inconvenience and anxiety of not wanting to lose it? What about not having a spare to lend (but actually give) to a friend or loved one?
nickff
12 days ago
Those are valid concerns, but I've found I keep my nicer stuff way longer than the cheaper things they replace.
I'm happy if I make it through a couple months with $30 sunglasses. I've had the same nicer ones for more than proportionally longer. For me, the difference is that I'm more watchful of the nice things. I'm not about to take off my good sunglasses and leave them somewhere that I'll forget about them. I know where my nice (not expensive, just nice and functional) water bottle is. I've kept the same pocket knife for many years because I'd go back and get it if I forgot to put it right back in my pocket after using it, which I wouldn't do, because it's nice and I subconsciously keep track of it.
However, I'm not dogmatic about this stuff. I want to own my stuff and not have it own me. There's a half-empty six pack of dirt cheap portable umbrellas over next to my shoe rack so I can dole them out to my kids who'll inevitably lose them at school.
kstrauser
12 days ago
>> I swore off buying junky stuff a long time ago. Life’s too short to be surrounded by crap that’s going to break the first time you look at it wrong, student projects be damned.
> For me, the difference is that I'm more watchful of the nice things.
Or, the items come to integrate themselves into personal rituals. Like you said, you want to own your things, and not vice-versa, so its nice to not stress over them, but have them joyfully integrated into your life.
bch
11 days ago
For sure. Everyone here who doesn’t carry a bag knows the routine: you stand up to leave and pat your pockets to make sure they’re all filled with the expected things. I also have a glasses case that’s always holding either my regular glasses or sunglasses. My umbrella goes right to the umbrella holder.
Huh, spelling it all out that sounds similar to my ADHD rituals, for good reason. I’ve done so many things until they’re automatic habits.
kstrauser
11 days ago
Many years ago, I used to like expensive pens. Over the years, they were either stolen, lost, or damaged, so I realized the futility of expensive pens. Now I'm used to disposable pens, where I don't have to worry about whatever happens to them.
At the same time, I have a lime-green plastic mechanical pencil that I got from a Microsoft printer room, and it's probably about 8 years old by now. This one never gets stolen, lost, or damaged.
chihuahua
11 days ago
My ideal pen price point is about $20. That’s where I can get good ones I enjoy using (Lamy Safari etc.) that I’ll keep track of. It also wouldn’t ruin my day to lose one.
kstrauser
11 days ago
Insurance.
The ability to quickly and more broadly insure any item, that would actually be a great economic incentive for higher quality goods. What the manufacturer doesn’t make in sales could be offset with insurance, and being a purely financial product doesn’t generate an impact in energy use, residues, etc… in addition to being a steady revenue, something companies today are trying to get with all sorts of membership plans.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
Zero people are going to insure an umbrella.
seventytwo
11 days ago
There’s a company around here that offers a membership plan, allowing you to grab one umbrella on the automatic dispensers around the city.
This sounds like insurance business model with extra convenience. The cost of just one month is already the price of an utilitarian umbrella, but you get a sturdy umbrella with UV protection.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
Corporations are people, my friend. Homeowners insurance already covers household items, making it an umbrella policy.
labster
11 days ago
If it was a lifetime-durable one and I knew the insurance wasn't total bullshit[0], I definitely would.
--
[0] - Customer trust in the whole enterprise is always an underappreciated factor.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
It used to be a feature of some manufacturers/sellers -- Tupperware, Cutco, Land's End (or was it LL Bean), you could return damaged items even decades later and have them replaced.
saalweachter
11 days ago
Hmm, I’m not sure what it means to consider the Y times as many people being employed making umbrellas as an externality. I mean, there are more damaging (for the world) and more unpleasant (for them) things they could get up to.
bee_rider
12 days ago
Making glass is probably a good industry to work in, but we don’t wish to employ window breakers to keep them busy.
kstrauser
11 days ago
Two thoughts:
First: Are glass makers/window breakers actually an externality? I guess the broken glass (not cleaned up by anybody, so the price is foist on society) could be considered an externality, but that isn’t typically the point of that story.
Aside: Or maybe, since breaking windows is usually a crime, having people break windows as a job might incline them toward other crimes. And further, if the field of window breaking is lucrative and these window-breakers become admired as a result, it could maybe cause a general increased tendency toward criminality in society! This could be seen as an externality, bringing in the other story about broken windows. Maybe we’re close to discovering the grand unified theory of broken windows!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory .
Second: Poorly made umbrellas seem quite different from glass makers/breakers. There’s a price:quality trade off with umbrellas, it just isn’t where you (and I, actually, I prefer a good solid umbrella too) want it to be. The glass maker/breaker story is about the silliness of intentionally destroying something the folks who made it can make money replacing it.
Anyway, I think the umbrella employees aren’t an externality, they are just part of the cost of doing business.
bee_rider
11 days ago
There's also Y times more marketing, which is the more damaging negative externality.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
bought a pair of levis in december, they now have a hole in the crouch! this is the second pair in two years that have done that. thought it might be user error, but they used to not do this.
greenie_beans
11 days ago
Where did you get them? They make jeans as nice or as cheaply as stores want to carry.
This thread is representative of what I’m talking about: https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/comments/uf591v/has_le...
The pair you find at an outlet is not the same as what you’d get from their online store, let alone their “premium” or “vintage” lines.
kstrauser
11 days ago
i bought them online during a sale, was that my problem?
greenie_beans
11 days ago
Wow, I’m not sure. I hope not. That’s exactly how I got my recent-ish “nice” jeans.
I’m not especially attached to Levis. They were just a convenient example for why I think (hope!) the nicer ones were worth the extra money. I’m certain lots of people who could point us at something much better, although perhaps with a proportional price tag.
kstrauser
11 days ago
Excellent article. I’m fascinated with this subject.
There is a temple in Japan that exists for hundreds of years. It’s the same temple only in a “Ship of Theseus” sense, as it gets rebuilt every 20 years by experts. But in a sense, it’s the same temple.
Or take another example: dressing shoe. A shoemaker can reform your father’s and grandfather’s shoe back to brand new if you so desire. The materials are easily sourced, all it takes is trained labor.
Why can’t we have this for everything?
Modern economic practice has optimized for cutting back intensive labour dependency in favor of simpler disposable goods. It’s a “win” from multiple angles: less durable goods means more sales, costs of materials and residue are externalized anyway so that makes up your margin, and you don’t have to deal with expert workers demanding better pay. It’s beautifully optimized - just not optimized for what matters.
If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-to-cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all the water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands years.
But like a professor once said: water is free - therefor we pollute the rivers with plastic by selling bottled water since free water doesn’t contribute to the GDP.
This discussion (how long should objects last?) is fundamentally tied to current economic practice and incentives.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
The name for this is the Baumol Effect [1]. Sometimes called the "cost disease".
The only real way to fix it is to increase the relative price of raw materials used compared to labor. Yes, this means government intervention, because it's a market failure.
A carbon tax would be a start, but there might have to be a non-renewable raw materials tax in the future, as well.
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
VHRanger
11 days ago
Slightly tangential. Somebody needs to eli5 why baumol effect is supposed to be so paradoxical or special. Of course services will tend to cost more over time as other industries generate wealth increases. The value of an orchestra performance is relative, two hours of enjoying art. Those two hours of enjoying art are not a commodity, they will cost whatever share of disposal income people like to spend on it.
I've encountered it so many times now, and for whatever reason, my mind grinds to a halt, why is this a discovery, what are the implications, why is it meaningful? Not being facetious, sincerely asking.
trgn
11 days ago
It's surprising or meaningful because the parts of the economy that don't get more productive get more expensive as a fraction of overall costs as other things grow.
It's surprising because intuitively you'd think those things would be devalued.
VHRanger
11 days ago
Thank you.
> It's surprising because intuitively you'd think those things would be devalued.
I guess this is where my intuition totally fails. In an economy that grows more productive, commodities _fall_ in value, as they cost less to produce. A society with more yards of linen is a wealthier one than one with fewer, all things being equal. That intuitively makes sense. But that non-commodities, say, two hours listening to music, would need to fall because they aren't part of that productivity increase in other industries makes no sense to me. You pay performers for two hours of _your_ enjoyment, not theirs. So obviously you would value it more if you're richer (say, as a highly productive linen producer). I mean, simple supply-demand should still explain it. Demand is elevated (more disposable income of linen producers), and supply remains constrained (only so many performers). Where is that paradox?
I don't know. Some things I never grok, and beaumol is really one of these things.
trgn
11 days ago
I mean, think about a plumber or a carpenter. Those jobs haven't really been more productive since the 1970s. Sure, PEX or nail guns are marginally better than previous methods, but not by that much.
But since we still need plumbers or carpenters, they're more expensive than they were in the 1970s. Because of opportunity cost - imagine 1h of plumber's time in terms of TVs over 50 years.
Because all opportunity cost is translated to cash, plumbers are more expensive now despite not being a growth sector.
It's the economic equivalent to Amdahl's law in a sense. Things that can't be easily improved become economic bottlenecks (healthcare, education, construction).
VHRanger
11 days ago
> Those jobs haven't really been more productive
But their services aren't commodities. You're not paying a plumber to lay pipe. You pay a plumber to be in a dry house that doesn't smell like excrement. That value of course rises since demand rises. So of course, their labour value increases, since they're keeping the houses of a wealthier people free of odors.
The same with education. The value of an education is the entry cost to participate in a productive economy. Of course that value is higher in more productive societies. Why should cost of an education drop, if its value rises? Again, it's not interchangeable in a global market, education is not a commodity.
And I mean, imagine everybody's time in terms of cost of TVs to produce, not just those in unproductive industries. Isn't this just the effect of commodity prices dropping?
Thanks for the explanation though, it starts to trickle, but there's nothing unintuitive about cost disease to me. It's just, well yeah, duh.
trgn
11 days ago
Myself (and a few others) fought to get rid of bottled water from our office. A location with great tap water quality. Filtered water dispensers. But still people wanted to have their (worse quality) bottled water. Eventually we won...
nsguy
11 days ago
Bottled water is invaluable in places where the naturally occurring water is not potable.
userbinator
11 days ago
It is. That also isn’t the reason keeping anyone in the bottled water business.
The top 10 bottled water markets are countries with good to excellent public water service.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
is flint, Michigan located inside one of these countries?
fragmede
11 days ago
Is Flint, Michigan a justification for bottled water everywhere else in the US?
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
Flint's city water is fine now, their biggest issue currently is that the city didn't replace all the pipes that they damaged in people's houses, so individuals are still getting lead poisoning but it's not the city as a whole. I personally don't think it's significantly better but it's worth noting if you're using Flint as an example.
Kerb_
11 days ago
I never understood the hate against bottled water. If you're on the go and get thirsty, what's wrong with getting water instead of an unhealthy soda? I can't drink only beer.
carlosjobim
11 days ago
Choosing between bottled water or soda/beer is the false dichotomy. Bottled water wasn’t mass produced prior the 90s, but started being heavily promoted since Pepsi and CocaCola would go out of business with people cutting back soda consumption.
I’m amazed how well their marketing worked to convince people that water is literally toxic unless it comes bottled.
I have a funny story: I went to a place here in the country with natural mineral water springs, the absolute purest water dripping straight from the rock - but visitors (US and Europe) not only requested but insisted bottled water during the stay. The funny part is the bottled water comes from the same place.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
FWIW, it may make sense to drink bottled water if you're traveling to faraway places. At least that's how we were briefed before a business trip to China - stick to bottled water and boiled water, do not drink tap water or some natural source, because we're not adapted to the local bacteriological environment. A co-worker did not obey that and ended up spending one of his trip sick instead of working. But then again, I'm not sure how true this is - after all, we'd all be exposed to the same pathogens when showering.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
That's definitely true, but also I don't understand why people want to drink _straight_ from the tap? I mean, don't people have simple water filters at home? These filters are effective for bacteria and heavy metals. It's common in my country even though we have good quality water from the tap.
hcarvalhoalves
11 days ago
In countries with fine public water, it's common for people to be advertised and sold filters, but they don't actually need them, and other people prefer not to waste their money.
immibis
10 days ago
But only very slightly unless you deliberately drink large quantities of shower water.
thfuran
11 days ago
I drink bottled water for a couple of reasons:
- I did not plan well and I'm now in a situation where I need water I didn't bring my own bottle. I don't want to be chained to a water fountain if one even exists conveniently near me. - I don't like the taste of the water where I am. Clean water isn't always tasty water. As someone who grew up on aquifer water, I found the chemically water of my college town hard to deal with. At least bottled water was inoffensive. For some brands anyway. - I want easily sharable water. This one became pretty important when I was a parent. It's just easy to keep a bunch of water in my trunk and pass it out to my and other kids on demand. I knew people like this, but it wasn't until I had kids that I got it. Kids will ignore their body needs and aren't always capable of finding sources of water on the even if they were aware.
iteria
11 days ago
So much depends on having public spaces to be kid- (/parents-) friendly !
BlueTemplar
11 days ago
I've worked places where the water fountains are taped off with notes saying the water isn't potable, and to get bottled water from the fridge. Another scenario is walking around town in the summer. Sometimes a park with a working fountain is nearby, but if not then bottled water from a shop is the low-effort option (you could also ask for a cup of water from a restaurant, always free in America although not necessarily in other parts of the world, but that requires a more awkward social interaction..) If a working clean water fountain is available I'm happy to drink from it, but often that isn't the case.
lupusreal
11 days ago
> I’m amazed how well their marketing worked to convince people that water is literally toxic unless it comes bottled.
Not too many people think this, there are so many places where the tap water is not good for drinking.
I have never in my life heard anybody talk about improving tap water to make it good for drinking, and when I mention it people dismiss it. And then everybody rages against bottled water.
> not only requested but insisted bottled water during the stay.
Yes, this happens all the time. It is amazing how distrustful people can be of fresh water in nature. I blame it on urbanisation and the cattle-fication of the population by the human farmers controlling schooling and media.
carlosjobim
11 days ago
I don't think it's hate for usage of bottled water outside of home/on trip/in transit. The hate is about people using bottled water in their home en masse even if they have it for "free" in kitchen. Some been not consider drinking water from public services and don't trust and public assurances of its quality.
febusravenga
11 days ago
Where I live I have free tap water. But it's very inconsistent: somedays it tastes like a swimming pool (safe to drink, but...), and some days specially after heavy rains it has so much dust in suspension that the major has to reassure that it's safe to drink.
I can afford 5 liters of always clean, always taste free water at less than 1€ per bottle, so tap water doesn't ruin my foods randomly.
otherme123
11 days ago
Any thoughts on brita filters for rainy days when there is high turbidity? I know we used to sometimes boil water as a precaution when I was a kid.
dsego
11 days ago
Taste doesn't change that much, IMO. Slightly less "earthy" taste, but still there. I had a Brita jar, not the tap attachment. In my city I don't doubt the quality to boil the water, just the taste. Still use tap water as it comes to wash the fruit, vegetables, dishes... but can't drink it.
otherme123
11 days ago
I carry around a water bottle but in a lot of places, the only area you can refill is the public restroom. I'm npt filling my drinks from there. but if there was areas with clean filtered water, I'd even pay for it.
cultofmetatron
11 days ago
Why not, it's not like the input/output pipes are shared...
BlueTemplar
11 days ago
In a lot of places, the water supply in bathrooms isn't considered potable. I've seen stickers up in airports advising this. e.g. every house I've lived in has had cold/hot water fed from an uncovered tank in the attic.
jimbobthrowawy
11 days ago
Right, it depends I guess. I was more thinking how restaurants are legally obligated to provide free (potable) water, not sure how much this is an incentive for them to have their tap water potable ? (And I guess they already need to have potable-after-boiling water anyway just to be able to cook ?)
BlueTemplar
6 days ago
you ever seen how some people conduct themselves in a public restroom?
cultofmetatron
11 days ago
because of all the oil and plastic (which comes from oil) that is used to get it to you means more emissions which contributes to global climate change.
fragmede
11 days ago
In the described scenario, the oil and plastic are going to be used either way; the only question is which liquid is going to be inside the container.
int_19h
11 days ago
The described scenario is a false dichotomy.
thfuran
11 days ago
How so? People do need to hydrate while running errands etc.
You could argue that we need to install more water fountains around so that one doesn't need to use bottled drinks for this. That's fine, but right here and now there are very few working water fountains, so if someone finds themselves in the middle of a city needing to drink, bottled water is their best option; so why would you disparage them for it?
int_19h
11 days ago
>I can't drink only beer.
Can't? Don't sell yourself short.
onthecanposting
11 days ago
>If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-to-cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all the water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands years.
Oh my! I have been telling people just this. The sheer number of people who consume and throw this needlessly created packages is baffling. We have figured out water and its sanitation for most of the cases now. Just carrying a reusable bottle with water from home, and refilling potable water from sources you trust would save the environment from a lot of empty bottles. I would not say everyone can do this. But a lot of us can do this. Besides the bottles with less than a litre capacity are the worst.
dunekid
11 days ago
I think they're missing a dimension, how annoying is something to replace. In particular for car tires this called out to me. Going to an auto shop is an all day adventure for me, whereas almost anything else can easily be ordered or picked up without too much hassle. Furniture is another category though where there's a non trivial investment required to replace it.
Therefore, these should be more durable, even if they're not something we're otherwise attached to.
You could also think about the consequences of something breaking, and the cost of the loss of use.
E.g., for a car, if it breaks down you might run the risk of an accident, and while it's broken down you might not be able to commute to work, etc., whereas some things are relatively inconsequential when they break.
foota
11 days ago
Car tires take about an hour and are actually one of the things I buy used every time. 90% of the tread for 1/4 the price.
bongodongobob
11 days ago
Semi-off-topic, but I carry a unbreakable umbrella and have been very happy with it. Worth a try if you are interested in a real world application of this post.
https://unbreakableumbrella.com/
harimau777
12 days ago
I think I'm missing the joke. Is it just an umbrella, or is it a weapon as well?... They seem to constantly allude to it being a weapon. Is it just because it's strong?
Biganon
11 days ago
Isn't any umbrella obviously looking like a weapon? Am I the only one who role-played it's a rifle as a kid (and still do as an adult, sometimes)?
And then, a well-made long umbrella would effectively double as a cane, at which point it fits well in the martial art of Bartitsu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu
EDIT: see also Bartitsu reference and other applications here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella#As_a_weapon_of_attack.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
I think this is cool and has been referenced in the Kingsman?
dunekid
11 days ago
I love the videos, but 200$ is a hard pill to swallow for an umbrella!
komali2
11 days ago
Especially if living in Japan. You had best hope it came with a GPS tracker.
jpgvm
11 days ago
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bigbacaloa
11 days ago
The durable umbrella weighs in at 1.7 kg / 3.7 lb, four times what a normal umbrella would weigh. That is absurdly impractical.
ooterness
11 days ago
From TFA: [...] the assumption of 'less but better' being a superior approach to product design is rarely practically evaluated.
The third umbrella in the series takes durability to an almost cartoon-like level [...]
This was a study of materials and design, not a product someone would like to sell . It's research on object longevity.
pxndxx
11 days ago
Yes, but with all studies, it can be made in an objective way or in a way that already enforces a particular conclusion.
This is why, in serious scientific work, so much focus is placed on methods and reproducibility.
Here he used the less rigorous field of arts and design to wiggle out of that responsibility and present a blatantly biased study.
xg15
11 days ago
We can think of it as the arts equivalent of the spherical cows in vacuum.
dunekid
11 days ago
Objects should completely break down 1d after warranty expires so we can sell another one to the customer. This will increase economic growth, profits and GDP and helps with yacht purchases
foobarkey
11 days ago
I think Gandhi sorta covers the penultimate conclusion of this train, and that's highly local production.
A sort of sentimentality and pride. Maybe you chipped in somewhere along the chain, all the socks in the city have a little bit of your blood, sweat, and tears in the fibers. I think we try to replicate these sensations with all the green-washed corporate mission statement bullshit, and psychologically I think it's a very successful line. Practically, though, not so much.
This of course comes with the curing of all the one-size-fits all shit, too.
brnaftr361
12 days ago
Of course it's going to be a commercial question.
But from a design standpoint, there are four major components to the umbrella.
The cover, the stem, the handle, and the lever-branches (if collapsible) or straight branches (otherwise).
The cover is typically a synthetic polymer based material. In collapsible models, due to levers and fiddly connections it's hugely PITA to replace. If it rips or develops a hole you could theoretically push to use a more readily patchable material, however, the high tension at which this is often maintained will rapidly break down many approaches to patching. Realistically, this sort of thing is best done at a factory given the input costs.
The stem and handle virtually never break down and can be any form of metal or wood, depending upon whether you want a telescopic collapsible design or rigid full length. Aluminium is supposed to be the best recyclable metal in terms of recovery rate and is also light, however is prone to deformation in thin configurations. It may be possible to consider carbon fiber, which is very cheap now.
The lever-branches of a collapsible model are the biggest problem. They are fiddly, prone to breakage in most designs, and in most designs relatively tedious and difficult to securely re-attach to the cover should the cover require replacement.
Original suggestion: Design instead a standard interface between the umbrella stem and the cover-and-lever assembly. This would allow easily replacement of the cover-and-lever assembly as the most frequently broken portion. Alternatively, seek out a full length umbrella with strong branches instead of the tiny collapsible ones. Probably these days you could make them with carbon fiber quite cheaply.
contingencies
11 days ago
Yeah, sorry. If you prop-up the "recyclable" umbrella with corpospeak sentences like this one:
> The Recyclable Umbrella is a reappraisal of the potential for plastic, a material which if properly managed offers carbon savings and excellent recyclability when compared with many organic alternatives.
(ignoring that this construction would probably break on a moderately windy day, and naively assumes that it won't end up on a landfill only because it could be recycled)
and then purposely over-engeneer the "long-lived" variant so it weighs 1.7 kilos and is practically unusable, you have motivated reasoning.
The whole artsy handwaving of this piece also ignores that planned obsolescence often happens in products where the amount of uses is well-known and generally independent on the product's materials, e.g. dishwashers, fridges, etc.
xg15
11 days ago
How is the technology in a product expected to change over time?
If you're expecting modest or radical changes (with presumably big boosts in efficiency, performance, etc.), why build a long life span product? In a rapidly changing environment, keeping old equipment can be detrimental. Servers can last longer than what they are rated for. Depending on SKU, Intel CPUs are rated for 3, 5, or even 10 years of use, however, servers are refreshed/replaced because of the ongoing performance increases per unit electrical consumption from newer CPU SKUs. In businesses where IT equipment isn't core to the business, old equipment is kept around if IT efficiency isn't really a concern, there's a very high cost of re-engineering, or re-certifying a system.
If changes are not reasonably expected, then build products that last a long time. One of my children will inherit my kitchenaid blender.
c_o_n_v_e_x
11 days ago
That "Pretty Illogical" blob on the bottom-right would be all the plastic packaging in the world.
A line between each "useful longevity" point, to the respective "physical longevity" point (which in turn could be colored for "benign" or "harmful"), would be provocative.
Nevermark
11 days ago
An interesting thing is the graph mapping user bond against physical longevity: https://res.cloudinary.com/rca2020/image/upload/f_webp,h_108.... I would love something like this with more object, but also a third dimension, how possible it is to do it yourself. For example, wooden furniture is pretty doable, and considering the strong user bond and long-lasting life, I see why so many people pick up woodworking.
Zababa
10 days ago
I thought its about programming and someone is planning to implement timer based garbage collectors.
v3ss0n
11 days ago
As long as they can.
I can actually see all 3 of these umbrellas as being repairable, just by different methods, and if I were forced to use any of them, I would definitely attempt to keep them working as long as I could. Maybe that's the ultimate lesson here.
An example is a coffee lid, sometimes it's active use is less than six seconds, but it's 'actual' life may be over a thousand years.
A thousand years of "sleep", during which it may be reused or recycled by those in the future in some as yet unknown way, meanwhile continuing to store the energy that was expended in its production. I like to think of "waste" as things which are merely not currently useful.
userbinator
11 days ago
That's a nice thought, but unfortunately the environmental cost of "storing" all of this material - i.e. all the billions of tonnes of plastic pollution already out there, and in there (inside you in the form of microplastics) - doesn't come for free.
It's a current problem, and we don't seem to have the technology or even the political will to solve it currently.
dawidloubser
11 days ago
Is the full dissertation available anywhere? The link on the author's website is dead.
moonchild
11 days ago
I'd just go with some kind of raincoat.
pfdietz
11 days ago
I really appreciate that they added weight to the description. Puts things into perspective. Nowadays typically umbrella weights 300 to 500 grams
hamilyon2
11 days ago
Once you start optimising for one parameter the other ones suffer. Over 500g for an umbrella is not acceptable in the space age.
I bought a cheap Chinese umbrella for $10. It almost never gets used. It probably is not designed to be repairable or durable yet I have had it for over ten years so the environmental impact is minimal. It is also very lightweight so I have it with me often.
Temporary_31337
11 days ago
If I have to use the stainless steel umbrella x6 just for it to be equal to the garbage-tier plastic umbrella, then I will landfill six of the plastic umbrellas. I know it's meant to be recyclable, and I will dutifully put it in the recycle bin, but then my city government will contract it out to some outfit that picks through to find some token recyclables and sends the rest to landfill anyway.
So, out of 100 uses of the durable umbrella, or 100 uses of the garbage umbrellas (across six of those), which is a more pleasant experience? Am I wrong to think that it's the obvious one? The umbrella that doesn't flex in the wind like it's going to snap off? The one that doesn't feel slimy for the three days it'll take to dry, the one in fact that won't take that long to dry? The one that doesn't accumulate grime but if it did could easily be wiped off and then be as clean as the day it was bought new? How often does thermoset plastic get a bad mix and end up being a little more brittle than usual? How often does the injection mold not fill completely, but it sails past QA, and so the umbrella handle will snap off when there's a gust... and with my luck when I'm halfway between the car and the building? If someone had a toddler chewing on it, or a dog, which holds up better? The worst you can say about the stainless steel is that it might prompt a trip to the dentist.
For anything that I'll use throughout my life, I think I prefer the "durable", unless it's just impossible from an engineering standpoint or is cost-prohibitive.
NoMoreNicksLeft
11 days ago
A find this topic fascinating, and several times in the past I tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to buy items (mainly clothing and shoes/boots) that are made to last a long time.
Is there any project that tracks these high durability items?
wtcactus
11 days ago
Reddit r/BuyItForLife
landgenoot
11 days ago
That subreddit is basically just an ad for various crappy US brands. There is zero interest in discussion of actual BIFL products, or practices.
alextingle
11 days ago
If I wanted to hire a bunch of fake accounts to upvote my shill posts it does seem like a great subreddit to do it in.
ericmcer
11 days ago
I think the main market is people who buy umbrellas when it rains then leave them behind or pile them up in the garage.
throwaway14356
10 days ago
Insurance period minus one standard deviation
remorses
11 days ago
I am confused by what people in the academic design/art community think the word ‘celebrate’ means.
jameshart
11 days ago
industrial Design Student Work @data #story
Tabiroxx
11 days ago
TLDR: guy builds a bunch of umbrellas, but fails to answer the question posed in the title.
engineer_22
11 days ago
I think the point was to explore different approaches and spark discussion about what we care about.
jkestner
11 days ago
The answer is “it depends”
radus
11 days ago
At least we got to see a milspec umbrella.
TeMPOraL
11 days ago
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spintin
11 days ago