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My uncle was an engineer for a toilet paper manufacturing plant, that took logs in one end and put TP rolls out the other end. The path was over a mile long. He
by tlb 9y ago
My uncle was an engineer for a toilet paper manufacturing plant, that took logs in one end and put TP rolls out the other end. The path was over a mile long. He worked on variable speed electronic drives for the 1000 horsepower motors that turned the machinery.
TP illustrates the triumph of civilization: 1000s of people all doing specialized jobs so billions of people can each avoid a daily unpleasantness.
- gkya 9y agoThis made me recall immediately the "I, pencil" article. It's stunning to remember that almost anything one gets to touch or see throughout the day is a product of almost always global collaboration, if we include a things conception with its production, and also transportation, selling, etc.
- skookumchuck 9y agoThis is the result of free markets. Centralized economic planning is simply unable to deal with the complexity.
- makotech222 9y agoYeah, we certainly can't produce toilet paper unless 50% of the population is in poverty.
- cornholio 9y agoTo take your sarcasm further, it appears we can't: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-venezuela-toilet-paper-shortage-kass-0226-20160225-column.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-venezu... (Yes, I know we could)
- wyoh 9y agoFreer markets means less poverty though.
- makotech222 9y agoHaha, do they?
- lulmerchant 9y agoAbsolutely, nothing has brought a greater level of prosperity and equality to the world than free market capitalism. This is simply an empirical fact. Just like it is an empirical fact that every socialist nation in history has created huge levels of poverty and inequality.
- makotech222 9y agoHey, remember when the USSR started and they eliminated homelessness within 10 years. And also, were the first to space. In addition, had citizens that were better fed than the US, had more doctors per capita. And this is just from State Capitalism, not Socialism.
- lulmerchant 9y agoNo I don’t, because that never happened. I do remember millions of soviet citizens dying from famine though, and millions more dying from state sponsored killing. I don’t remember any famines taking place in developed free markets during that period. However, I have a pretty clear memory of the two class system that developed in all of the socialist nations that existed in the 20th century. One of the starving poor, and another of the rich oligarchs.
- Avshalom 9y agoI feel like the fall of the British Empire and subsequent reversion to the mean is probably responsible for most of that prosperity.
- lulmerchant 9y agoThe revision to what mean? The pre-British empire mean? Because pre-British empire wasn’t exactly a prosperous period.
- monochromatic 9y agoYes, 14.8% = 50% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
- makotech222 9y agoI believe OP was talking about trade throughout the world.
- gkya 9y agoThe USers should learn that there's a other continents, let alone countries. Do they not teach geography in primary schools there? Whenever I post sth about a global problem here there's always some people coming up with links to some data or wiki page on the instance of that in the US, which give me cringes.
- dang 9y agoNational slights, regardless of nation being slighted, aren't ok here. You've done this before, unfortunately. Would you please not do it again? It's obviously uncivil. If people can't respect each other here, they can't comment here. Because of HN's origins, it's often the case that there's some ambiguity about whether a statement is scoped to the US or more widely. The fix for that is disambiguation, not taking or making insults. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jtolmar 9y agoThat's not inherent to markets, it's caused by allowing a market system to have a feedback loop where investments are rewarded proportionately to their size (capitalism). The people able to participate in the feedback loop inevitably become wealthier than those who can't until the market prioritizes what they want over everyone else.
- gkya 9y agoWut? Do you really think you can convince me that USSR did not have toilet papers or pencils? Or send the first man to space? This is not about what economical model is better. People can collaborate both under central economic planning and through free markets. One might certainly be more preferable to the other, but that's totally a different conversation (I'm not a fan of either, for the records).
- hippich 9y agoYou will laugh, but yes, USSR also had troubles with toilet paper from time to time (while launching satellites i guess) - https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fru.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F%25D0%25A2%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B2%25D0%25B0%25D1%2580%25D0%25BD%25D1%258B%25D0%25B9_%25D0%25B4%25D0%25B5%25D1%2584%25D0%25B8%25D1%2586%25D0%25B8%25D1%2582_%25D0%25B2_%25D0%25A1%25D0%25A1%25D0%25A1%25D0%25A0&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
- gkya 9y agoWow, thanks! This is why I like to err in public sometimes, you never know how interesting things will come your way.
- Latteland 9y agoThe soviet union was one problem after another of limited availability of goods. I'm glad you are open to this info.
- kingofhdds 9y agoIn my Soviet childhood it was quite permanent, actually. So permanent as a child I would be surprised to hear it's a trouble :-) We used newspapers cut into rectangular pieces, and it was such a usual thing that cultural norms already existed around it. Where I lived, for example, cutting newspapers for bathroom use was definitely a men's chore. A lady could be very angry at her husband, not finding accurate pieces in time of need.
- 9y ago
- dang 9y agoPlease don't take HN on generic ideological tangents. They lead to generic ideological flamewars, which are more or less all the same, and therefore off topic here.
- globuous 9y agoGoing off of that, when I realized that an ice cube was proof of incredible engineerning and that in terms of mankind, it's brand new tech !! I "couldn't believe it". I got that the concept of freezing water was some complex thermodynamics, but never realized it implied I couldn't make an ice cube without it when it's hot outside ! I thought the French had been drinking cold champagne all these years ! (turns out they have, since mostly only the rich ere drinking it and they were using various caves to keep cold temperatures, and they shipped ice from the Alpes; no source on my hands, but that's what I remember when looking into it). Shizzles, I couldn't make a simple flame by myself ;p
- toomanybeersies 9y agoBefore refrigeration, people would use evaporative cooling to keep things cool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoAnd cooler cabinets, where they had blocks of ice in a compartiment at the top of a closet (of sorts). (source: guided tour of a late-1800s castle with a fully equipped French kitchen complex. Complex because they had rooms for separate tasks.)
- BuildTheRobots 9y agoIce Houses were really popular; especially in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_(building) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_(building)
- noefingway 9y agoHarvesting ice in the winter was a common and wide spread activity in North America (and most of Europe). Short article on Hudson River ice harvesting http://www.genealogy.clifflamere.com/Aid/History/IceHarvesting.htm http://www.genealogy.clifflamere.com/Aid/History/IceHarvesti...
- iQuercus 9y agoShameless plug, I made a short podcast episode about this, from a systems perspective. It looks at what it takes to clean your teeth...and how systems have a tendency to spiral out this way. It’s a feature of problem solving systems: they generate new/different problems that need to be solved, and therefore propagate the system into something like global collaboration. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-0-cleaning-your-teeth/id1341489523?i=1000400906742&mt=2 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-0-cleaning-your-...
- SeeDave 9y agoToilet Paper is one of my favorite "How it's Made" episodes. Feel free to check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z74OfpUbeac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z74OfpUbeac. My favorite part is at 4:43 with the Circular Saw!
- sytse 9y agoDeeplink to 4:43 https://youtu.be/Z74OfpUbeac?t=283 https://youtu.be/Z74OfpUbeac?t=283
- maaarghk 9y agooof, look at those wee small rolls at the edges... seems the machine is a bit out of sync!
- lifeformed 9y agoI think those are trimmed off because they're uneven?
- gruez 9y agoThey might be trimming the first inch or so, so that there's a neat edge
- cm2187 9y agoOne can recognise an engineer to how long one can watch, fascinated, "how it's made"! It's a great show.
- eveningcoffee 9y agoIt is not just unpleasantness. It is an essential tool for the contamination risk management.
- toephu2 9y agoExcept TP is not the solution. If a bird pooped on your arm, would you rather use a dry paper towel to clean it off or water?
- fiter 9y agoSoap and water. Never just water alone.
- dancek 9y agoThat's a common argument, and a flawed one at that IMHO. If a bird pooped on a table, would you rub it off with your bare finger with some soap water, or would you use paper? (Granted, even this might give you the hint that dry paper isn't always the best idea.)
- PeterisP 9y agoWell no, the whole point is that there's shit on you in the first place already, not touching it is not an option. You clean your arse with water so that it's clean and not just wiped with paper, just as you afterwards will wash your hands instead of just wiping them on a paper towel.
- dancek 9y agoWell, that comes down to cultural or personal preference. Some cultures consider feet unclean. Some people consider the anus unclean. How clean you try to make a body part depends on how clean you consider or expect it to be.
- tomcooks 9y agoIf a bird pooped the human way (same diet and result) the solution would be a piece of dry paper or leaf
- sorenjan 9y agoI don't get the false equivalency between your arm and your anus. The anus is neatly tucked away, and is supposed to handle fecal matter. You're not going to accidentally rub your unclean anus on some food or in your face, unless you cook differently than most people and is more flexible. Would you put your face in your shoes for hours at a time, or rub it on the ground when you walked? Probably not, but thats no problem for the feet, because they're a different body part with different strengths and requirements.
- newnewpdro 9y agoWiping with TP is still relatively unpleasant and ineffective in terms of cleanliness.