10 ms·
I came across an interesting video about this a couple days ago: https://youtu.be/PwQQhQWU3nI https://youtu.be/PwQQhQWU3nI tl;dw: it reduces the moving parts f
by slau 3y ago
I came across an interesting video about this a couple days ago: https://youtu.be/PwQQhQWU3nI https://youtu.be/PwQQhQWU3nI
tl;dw: it reduces the moving parts from thousands to just a hundred, means that the relatively untrained staff can untangle a few pins every night, and not get crushed to death.
Apparently, bowling machines crushing people to death is not as uncommon as we might want it, and therefore, the industry was due for an upgrade.
Anecdotal: I went bowling last week, and my local bowling alley has switched over to this system (Denmark). It wasn’t terrible. I had much more of an issue with the state of the oil pattern than the pins or the pin setter. Our 3 lanes didn’t jam in 2 hours.
- colordrops 3y agoIt's not an upgrade though. Well, perhaps for the "industry" it's an upgrade, but it's a downgrade for the game itself.
- verve_rat 3y agoMaybe, but if maintaining the current standard of the game requires the sacrifice of multiple human lives each year then it doesn't seem like there is much of an argument against downgrading.
- Andrex 3y agoBan them both and go back to pinboys, I say. Best of both worlds (free pins and no fatalities).
- allenrb 3y agoAnd employment opportunities galore!
- riversflow 3y agoThat's a false dichotomy, it doesn't "require" the sacrifice, they could definitely make the machines more safe, or make working on them safer, but likely they were made before worker safety was considered so critical and "pinsetter mechanic" is probably too niche to get special work safety provisions.
- lolinder 3y agoThey have made them safer—by reducing the complexity of the machines and the frequency of necessary human intervention by adding strings to pull the pins back into place.
- maxerickson 3y agoYeah, that's not what is meant above by "machines", they mean machines that have equivalent function, not machines that result in a different game. Looking at accident reports, it sounds like there are some easy changes, adding guards to the machines and changing industry practices to de-energize the machines during the maintenance activity: https://www.atlantictraining.com/blog/bowling-alley-worker-strangled-in-pinsetter-osha-issues-fines/ https://www.atlantictraining.com/blog/bowling-alley-worker-s...
- JohnFen 3y agoThey could make them safer without making the game worse, though.
- seanhunter 3y agoYou are presenting the classic logical fallacy of We must do something This is a thing Therefore we must do this. There are other ways they could make the machine safer that don't involve adding strings and thereby changing the game.
- mike_hock 3y agoYeah, this isn't Vietnam. This is bowling. There are rules.
- Eji1700 3y agoHow many is multiple? The only information I can find says it's 4 a year https://raisedbyturtles.org/bowling-deaths-double https://raisedbyturtles.org/bowling-deaths-double It's even better when supposedly one of these deaths occurred due to "Extreme bowling" which apparently involves a half pipe. So yeah, this comes off as extremely misleading and just for clicks. You'd probably save more lives banning all the beer and unhealthy food served at the alley, or by banning sports with a higher death toll, like soccer. Strikes me as a way for alleys to operate cheaper by several magnitudes, and then just cover that up in safety rather than say "look people don't want to pay enough to bowl with machines"
- freejazz 3y agoIs there a world where 4 is not more than one?
- Eji1700 3y agoMy god people still post worthless sarcastic crap like this? Multiple can range from 2 to 2 million and magnitude matters.
- mutualaidwins 3y ago[dead]
- freejazz 3y agoI'm sorry, but you were the one suggesting that 4 deaths somehow didn't suffice to meet the criteria of "multiple deaths" which seems absurd and in defiance of any common use of the language.
- jonathankoren 3y agoThere's only one hobby that we are more than happy to give a blood offering for, and it's not bowling.
- JohnFen 3y agoWhat hobby is that?
- jonathankoren 3y agoGuns.
- exclusiv 3y agoThere is no sacrifice. It's negligence.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoIt’s an upgrade of it makes bowling alleys less expensive, or helps keep existing ones in business or helps open up the market for new ones. We are losing bowling alleys at a rapid clip, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good here.
- mike_hock 3y agoSome people just want to play a traditional game with no strings attached.
- redwall_hp 3y agoIf an economic system continuously gets in the way of having nice things, the problem isn't the nice things. Community-centric recreation spaces are getting squeezed out in general, because fewer people have disposable income. And it's not just bowling alleys, with the complex equipment. Skating rinks are basically just a warehouse with some lines on the ground, and they've been going away too.
- Noumenon72 3y agoDisposable income is not down (except from the pandemic). It's near an all-time high, like the economy in general. https://www.statista.com/statistics/710215/us-disposable-income-per-capita/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/710215/us-disposable-inc... If skating rinks are going away I would bet they are being replaced by entertainment for people with _more_ disposable income, like trampoline parks. It's a rich country.
- rini17 3y agoIt requires account. Also, average does not say much about actual number of people with increased disposable income, that's what matters on this market. What about median?
- throwaway81523 3y agoThat says disposable income per capita is up, but nothing about how it is distributed. Give Elon and a few others an extra 50 billion each and that will bump the national average even if everyone else goes slightly backwards.
- dendrite9 3y agoA friend of mine told me once about working at his family's bowling alley after school one night and suddenly having his shirt ripped off him by one of the setting machines. He said it was sobering and he felt lucky he didn't go with it.
- viraptor 3y agoThis feels so weird. The machines don't need to put that much force into the usual operation. We know how much the arm/scoop weights and the usual resistance the pins can give... So why would there be instances of people being crushed? We've got mechanical ways to restrict the force - what are the issues preventing adding that to the design?
- malfist 3y agoPins are pretty heavy, and the machine needs to throw them around pretty quickly
- SteveNuts 3y agoI'm surprised they don't have failsafes that would stop it immediately if it suddenly has an extra 130+ pounds of load
- TylerE 3y agoThe common models in service haven’t really changed much since the 1970s.
- usrusr 3y agoI guess this is also the reason for the dangerously strong forces involved: lots of outputs (surfaces that move pins) powered from few big motors because there's hardly any control besides synchronisation through gears. If the market was big enough to support the adoption of robots arms to the pin setting use case there would be neither strings nor danger from old string-less machines.
- judge2020 3y agoHalf as Interesting does a lot of explaining what things are and asserting that there is a controversy instead of describing what specifically is controversial or getting bowlers' opinion on the change. I guess that's why we have the LA Times article to read.