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Elimination of competitors through safety standards has happened before. Heinz was the first company to make shelf stable ketchup without any of the chemical s
by bobthepanda 3y ago
Elimination of competitors through safety standards has happened before.
Heinz was the first company to make shelf stable ketchup without any of the chemical stabilizers that had been in use before, and then successfully lobbied against preservatives. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-heinz-ketchup https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-heinz-ketch...
- dmbche 3y agoGreat read - didn't expect to learn that today!
- willcipriano 3y agoStandard oil invented tanker cars and built pipelines. Everyone else was stuck unloading 55 gallon drums from normal railcars beacuse of patents and relative lack of investment. Then the government broke standard oil up, rather than revoke the patent or reform the system in away way, and prices got higher for consumers in the end. This is often brought up as a success story. Patents never have worked as intended.
- bobthepanda 3y agoAt least with Heinz recipes are specifically not covered by patents.
- willcipriano 3y agoMilk "recipes" are: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2550584A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US2550584A/en So are fruit leather "recipes": https://patents.google.com/patent/AU2021200204B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/AU2021200204B2/en I'd imagine they had something like that. Probably have to do something special to not burn the ketchup while you heat it.
- nashashmi 3y agoCalling almond milk a milk drink is a bad idea. It should be milk-like almond drink.
- bobthepanda 3y agoAlmond milk has a etymology in English dating all the way back to 1381. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/almond-milk_n https://www.oed.com/dictionary/almond-milk_n Alternative milks were common in a time period before refrigeration and pasteurization. It just kept longer.
- 0cVlTeIATBs 3y agoMy favorite snack ever, since discontinued, are also covered by patent. Partially popped popcorn that used to be at Trader Joe's. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7579036B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7579036B2/en
- bobthepanda 3y agoThis patents a machine for pasteurization. The fact of pasteurization, getting milk to the target temperature, is not copyrightable. You would just have to use a different machine but you could still pasteurize.
- Spivak 3y agoIt's the same with efficiency standards, happened with lightbulbs, is currently happening with the "technically not an EV mandate." I wish we had a way to enact this kind of legislation without massively distorting markets.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoIs there a downside to lightbulb efficiency standards? I am glad that my lightbulbs are now 10 watts instead of 60w.
- erik_seaberg 3y agoFlicker and color temperature. They also used to be expensive for renters who wouldn't see out their lifetimes.
- floxy 3y agoYou might be forgetting the decade of crappy compact fluorescent bulbs before reasonably-priced decent-quality LED bulbs became viable. Crappy, in that I don't think I ever owned one that lasted anywhere near their supposed 10-year life. And the long warm-up time for at least some models, but you didn't know which ones. And how to dispose of them properly. And the concerns with mercury when you broke one.
- hollerith 3y agoThe "wasteful" infrared light turns out to have important health benefits. The same health benefits can be got from sunlight, but when indoor light was incandescent, people who couldn't get sunlight because they had to work all day would get at least some infrared from indoors lighting.
- gus_massa 3y agoI don't remember any benefit of IR. Do you have a link?
- 3y ago