Interesting Links for 23-01-2023

[andrewducker]

1. The Broom Method of telling if you're about to walk into a cloud of burning hydrogen

(tags:hydrogen fire history NASA )

2. How much would you need to sell a shirt for in the USA if you paid your employees a living wage?

(tags:clothes economics USA )

3. Scientists Discover Species of Gut Microbes That Can Boost the Motivation To Exercise (in mice)

(tags:microbiome bacteria exercise mice )

4. How our microbiome is shaped by family, friends and even neighbours

(tags:microbiome bacteria )

5. How the 'deal' between the monarchy and the media really works

(tags:monarchy media journalism uk )

Comments

2

[danieldwilliam]

Garment manufacturing is one of the main things developing economies do to improve their incomes. It's pretty easy to set up with lower barriers to entry and there's a large, liquid global market.

At some point as the developing world continues to develope we're going to run out of people for whom working in a clothing factory for a dollar a day is a better choice than the alternatives they have in their country. At which point we'll see how people react to paying $250 for a shirt made by humans.

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

We may well get to automated clothing factories by that point. At the moment it's too fiddly and not worth investing in when you can just get cheap labour to do it. When the prices go up that may well change.

Re: 2

[danieldwilliam]

Automation in this area has always felt like a really fiddly bit of tech.

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Good writeup here: https://www.wired.com/story/why-robots-cant-sew-t-shirt/ - but basically fabric is a pain. And robots aren't competitive with the current model.

Quite a good video here - but noteable that it's from 7 years ago and very little has changed in the meantime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA96-WX-oXc

Re: 2

[adrian_turtle]

The difficulty of clothing manufacturing (and the feasibility of automating it) depends on the type and quality of the clothing. A machine can make a tube sock pretty easily. It can almost all the work of making a straight skirt, or a shift dress. But if we're looking at a jacket with shaped shoulders and pockets, or a shirt with a placket, or anything with crochet trim...somebody has to put time into making it.

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. Apparently we're at the t-shirt stage right now, which is pretty cool, but obviously still a simple piece of clothing.

Re: 2

[gingicat]

There's also the problem that many of us would have to run up our credit cards to get more one or two items of clothing per year per family member. Not doable for families with kids young enough to grow quickly, even with a hand-me-down circle.

Re: 2

[danieldwilliam]

Yes, many people are going to find they are very very poor again.

[mountainkiss]

What happens to you if you walk into a cloud of burning hydrogen? Do you get burned?

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. Apparently hydrogen burns at around 2,000C. Thankfully lighter than air, so retreating and dropping to the ground should be effective.

Also the case with methanol. If you google Methanol Car Fire you'll see some videos of drivers from old racing cars that used methanol, with their pit crews struggling to put them out, because they can't see the flames.

[danieldwilliam]

Apparently one of the things people who are analysing the Hindenburg fire were looking at was where the flames were - hydrogen being very light would burn above the balloon, and the chemicals on the canvas of the balloon would burn closer to the bag.

[mountainkiss]

Every day a school day.

There are a lot of reasons I like my work, but at least one is that I’m vanishingly unlikely to run into any substance that is invisibly burning at 2,000C.

[andrewducker]

Mine too!

Indoor work, no heavy lifting, chances of ignition are small.

[mellowtigger]

What's utterly fascinating about the universe is "chance". The odds of all the air molecules in my room randomly migrating to the top north corner (leaving me occupying an explosively decompressed gas vacuum) are vanishingly small... but that's not the same as zero.

1.

[channelpenguin]

Comments somewhere mention steam - very nasty too. Invisible (see §), and capable of near-instantly slicing bits off you whilst cauterising at the same time. My dad used to *listen* for steam leaks - he did lose a fraction of skin off the top of one ear as I recall. All old steam turbine engineers (ship's engineers) have horrible tales of people getting limbs chopped off. How true? I dunno, but the several I have known have told me tales.

§"Steam is invisible, that stuff from the kettle is WATER VAPOUR" - My Dad, approx 1,000,000 times in my childhood.

Re: 1.

[danieldwilliam]

I've heard of some nasty cutting injuries from high pressure water cleaners. I can believe that high pressure steam would be worse.

I used to work for a power company who ran CCGT's and we had a steam pressure blow out in the low pressure system which blew some chunks of metal through two metal walls.

3.

[channelpenguin]

Are there bacteria for motivation to do other things too? Sign me up for all the fecal transplants!

(Because for too many years, life feels like a to-do list of chores - just because I got handed a body and mind to look after more than half a century ago...)

Re: 3.

[andrewducker]

Oh yeah, me too!