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When Shoes Were Fit with X-Rays
- iforgotpassword 8y agoBoy, people were careless and stupid back then. I wonder how many things we do today will be seen in a similar way 50 years from now. If you believe everything you read somewhere online, then pretty much anything today is poisonous and will kill us, but just statistically some of these have to be right.
- LambdaComplex 8y agoTanning beds.
- i80and 8y agoTanning beds are already generally already accepted as being dangerous
- CydeWeys 8y agoThey're still allowed, though. The shoe X-ray machines were banned. Someone in fifty years could easily say "Can you believe they used to allow stores where you'd pay to go into a pod and purposely be given skin cancer?!"
- icefo 8y agoI'm betting for our carelessness towards endocrine disruptors. The toxic plastics in baby bottles and the non stick frying pans for example
- KineticLensman 8y ago> If you believe everything you read somewhere online, then pretty much anything today is poisonous Amongst the tools in our armoury here is 'kill or cure' [0], whose mission is "Help to make sense of the Daily Mail’s ongoing effort to classify every inanimate object into those that cause cancer and those that prevent it" [0] http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/ http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/
- aaaaaaaaaab 8y agoEating vast amounts of sugar for one
- ken 8y agoIt's not hard to identify plenty of other cases where we do crazy things. It's just hard to stop doing them when everybody else does them, and expects us to do the same. "When people moved around by getting in single-passenger human-piloted vehicles powered by burning fossil fuels and venting the exhaust directly into the atmosphere." That one's pretty easy to identify now because it's far enough along we're at the tipping point where it's no longer crazy to talk about replacements. There's a dozen others you see every day which aren't close to that tipping point, and I'd be called crazy just for mentioning them in this category.
- martin-adams 8y agoI do have this feeling that mobile phones will be the cancer causing thing of our generation. For what I understand, the World Health Organization has classified it as ‘possibly carcinogenic’. Others that I won’t be surprised if it bites us are Nitrates in food, Aspartame, Vaping, red meat, refined carbs.
- IggleSniggle 8y agoWHO has classified as “possibly carcinogenic,” which means “we don’t know, it’s hard to prove a negative.” Other things that WHO has classified as “possibly carcinogenic” are coffee, power-lines, and talc powder. In other words, we haven’t proven that there isn’t a risk, and it’s worth doing more research to try and discover if there is a risk because it would be a pretty big deal if there is...but it’s not an easy thing to control for. I don’t think we’ll have an answer to this during this century, unless it conclusively _does_ cause harm (current studies indicate that it does not).
- userbinator 8y agotalc powder Given the recent news about there being small bits of asbestos mixed in, one has to wonder if that was the actual reason for it being on the list.
- martin-adams 8y agoI think that is why I put these in the 50 year category before we'll know more confidently either way. Where we don't have a direct way to control the outcome because it's hard to simulate real word effects in a short period of time, we might see more causation effects over a 50 year period. That said, I'm not saying they are carcinogenic, but I'd rather err on the side of caution. Short answer, I don't hold the phone near my head, I leave it out of my jeans pocket as much as possible, and have it on flight mode at night.
- userbinator 8y agoBack then, people didn't worry too much about risk. They just lived and died. Which begs the philosophical question, if we continue on the trend of trying to reduce risk and take that to its extreme conclusion, what is really left of life? People do tons of things every day that put them at risk of an early death --- many of them even enjoy it.
- Klathmon 8y agoThere's a difference between not knowing and knowing but still choosing to do the activity. I ride a motorcycle, and I am fully aware of the dangers involved. I also know that going the speed limit, wearing a helmet, and not drinking anything will significantly reduce my risk of death, but that it's still more dangerous than driving a car. At the same time, I know that breathing in sawdust, paint fumes, and many other things is dangerous for me, so I have a mask that I wear when doing work around my house, and I ensure that there is good ventilation. The "cost" of doing those things is small compared to the possible benefits, so I do them. And without the information that those things are dangerous, I would be putting my wellbeing at risk for no good reason.
- tejtm 8y agoelectronic devices in the service anything other than the human holding it
- timcederman 8y agoThere are four I can think of off the top of my head: 1. We're pretty careless with VOCs and other chemicals (e.g. off-gassing new furniture in enclosed environments, or from heated teflon). Folks should open windows more often, plus it's a shame it's not more widely known how easy it is to get exposed to this. 2. There are flame retardant chemicals in just about all soft furniture in the US, which end up as dust particles and end up ingested/inhaled. 3. Phthalates in everything. 4. Glyphosate showing up in large quantities in food, particularly kids' cereal.
- c3534l 8y agoIt seems like the technology needs to be new and cause health effects that can blend in with normal mortality rates to avoid detection for some period of time. Radiation, asbestos, smoking - these avoided detection because they're from chronic use and it took a while to see the true side-effects of these things.
- dsego 8y agoI have problems ordering shoes online and getting the fit right. Depending on brand and type of shoe, I can be anywhere between 44 and 46. And then the US and EU size and cm don't match up, my Onitsuka are 11-45-28.5 and fit exactly the same as Chucks, which are 11-44.5-29. But cycling shoes are the worst, and I have to buy those online, because local bike shops don't offer a huge choice. Had to return a pair of Giro two times, first size 45, then 45.5 and 46 was the one that fit. We need more standardized sizing, but how to get all manufacturers on board? And how about a 3D foot scanner and online filters which pick the correct size based on your 3d foot model?
- martin-adams 8y agoSounds like we should have a standard set of feet moulds that manufacturers can rate against. A bit like how you can have a measure of a Kilo based on an agreed original. Consumers only then need to match the best mould version.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoPhones with depth sensors could be helpful here. It’s actually possible to do photogrammetry with just the camera, but the depth sensors make it easier and more reliable. What I’d really like though is a machine that can construct a good shoe specifically for your foot in a reasonable amount of time. Even if it took a week, I might be willing to wait for that for custom fit shoes (as I do for new glasses for example). Generally I could build this machine and would really like to, but I haven’t found a good idea on materials. If you could make them from recycled bottles and natural fibers it would be interesting too. Or maybe a totally woven shoe? Does anyone have any YouTube links or similar on unique ways to make shoes that could be done in a machine of some limited cost and complexity?
- grahn 8y agoTechnologies for mass scale customisation is being developed by several big players in the market. However, also consider that there are already hundreds of thousands of different shoe styles in the market, so finding a pair of perfectly fitting shoes can to a large degree be considered a search problem rather than a customisation problem. With appropriate 3D scanning technology, this can be done today. Disclosure: I work for a technology provider in this field.
- dammitcoetzee 8y agoCould we actually do this in a safe way? Having ill fitting shoes can cause a lot of long term damage. There could be a case that it's worth the X-ray risk...
- userbinator 8y agoMedical X-rays are a thing, but I doubt most people would now accept even more of them --- there's enough public fear of them as it is.
- toufiqbarhamov 8y agoEven if the risk were worth it for the person being fitted, it might not be for the techs using it. Remember that this was only affordable at the time because there was zero health and safety. If you take proper precautions and only use trained personnel, it’s going to be cost prohibitive. I think sonagrams and laser scanning would be the better choice, safer, and cheaper.
- CydeWeys 8y agoMedical/dental techs leave the room when they're taking these X-rays for precisely this reason. You could have a separate room in a shoe store just for the X-rays ... but realistically I can't see that happening. How many people would even go for this? I sure as hell wouldn't want X-rays taken in a shoe store.
- opencl 8y agoModern xray machines deliver low enough radiation doses that they could probably be used for this reasonably safely. They are routinely used in medical settings after all, but I suspect it would still be a liability nightmare. But there's no real need to see the bones for fitting shoes. There's plenty of 3D scanning technologies today that do not involve ionizing radiation and would probably be more useful for fitting shoes anyway.
- grahn 8y agoNot only are there technologies that could be used for this, there are working products in the market that do it already. I work for one of the technology providers in this area. Having x-ray images or such would actually be somewhat helpful, as you could much more easily identify the metatarsophalangeal joints (the joint where the toe meets the foot), the locations of which do influence shoe fit to some extent. However, the cost, safety, usability etc. of using x-ray machines in a retail setting makes it infeasible by a wide margin compared to optical measurement methods, and those generally take you far enough anyway. I'd rather go for dynamic analysis (i.e. scanning the foot while it is in motion taking a step) if more data on the skeletal structure is required.
- userbinator 8y agoThey were designed to look like furniture, not medical objects. One on view at Chicago’s International Museum of Surgical Science has floral cut-outs in its wooden cabinet, giving it the look of an heirloom chest. A lot of late 19/early 20th century equipment is like that. Wood was a common material and ornate design was simply a way to show off craftsmanship.
- ummonk 8y agoIs there no service that uses automation to make custom-fitted shoes yet? This seemed like such an obvious thing to me several years ago when 3d printing and the like started becoming a fad, and I figured there would be a startup that did it (or one of the big companies would work on it). But if anyone is doing it, I as a consumer haven't noticed yet. What gives? I can't see cost being an issue - when you look at how shoe construction works, it should be straightforward to tweak the shoe shape for each shoe without significant increase in manufacturing cost.
- grahn 8y agoSeveral well-known brands are working on this in various ways. Adidas has a cooperation with Carbon 3D to produce individualised soles for shoes you order, as one example[1]. Robotic knitting is another area I know some players are working on, for making custom uppers. You'll likely see offerings for customised footwear based on these technologies appear on the market in the next couple of years. I'd expect it to take a number of years before the manufacturing processes have matured and evolved enough to get the price points down to the level that most people would consider an option when buying footwear, though. [1] https://www.carbon3d.com/stories/adidas/ https://www.carbon3d.com/stories/adidas/
- jacquesm 8y agoThe Chinese would check for 'illegal' pregnancies during the days of the one-child policy. They would use a solid state x-ray emitter as a source of radiation and a passive fluorescent screen, both probably because there was no reliable electrical power available and this is a very cheap to manufacture setup. The dose emitted would be quite high due to the insensitivity of the screen, the degradation over time of the source (requiring a higher than necessary quantity of radioactive material at the start to get a long useful operating life) and the duration, on the order of seconds. I've tried to find a video of this but alas, no luck. The one I remember seeing was extremely primitive, safety was basically non-existent, both for the woman being screened (and her unborn child, quite possibly to be aborted anyway if detected) and the operator of the device.
- ggm 8y agoWas in my local shoeshop in the sixties. Have used. Was removed pretty soon after I used it.
- dmitrybrant 8y agoA name like "Pedoscope Company" would certainly raise a few eyebrows today!