A Bed for Fifty People? | Hacker News Reader

A Bed for Fifty People?

theparisreview.org

95 pointsbenbreen45 comments

The discussion thread here strikes me as confused because people are looking at an era several centuries back and using current norms (both economic and cultural) to analyze it.

Beds used to be luxuries and having just 1 person per bed was very rare.

As late as Colonial America inns would put multiple people per bed. Heck, this persisted into the 19th century! Lincoln, as I recall, shared a bed. Much hay is made of this buy revisionists who want to use this fact to argue that Lincoln may have been gay. (FWIW, I don't know and don't care). But the mistake they're making is obvious.

Imagine if in 2150 people look at old pictures of people driving in the same car and whisper to each other "ooh, kinky! ...and there's a dog in there too!"

Growing up, our family of 4 slept on a single bed in a tiny one bedroom apt. I got my own bed when I moved out at age of 18. I know I shouldn't be embarrassed about it but I almost never mention this to anyone, esp in America.

Point well-made.

That conjures a novel image for 2150.

Thanks for reading! I think 50-person orgy beds were also considered a luxury.

Is this where the name for the "Log Cabin Republicans" came from? I always wondered why it was named that...

Some people use the same logic to argue that homosexuality is implied by the biblical verse Luke 17:34 (also incorrectly interpreted as "rupture").

The character of Scrooge McDuck sleeps in a giant bed.[1] Not to share it with anyone, but because he slept in a drawer as a child.

I think this 50-person bed is much more likely to be a status furniture than a bed for multiple guests.

[1] https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0zLC0vqKlhw/U-j3euxqRuI/AAAAAAAAM...

Yes! The donald duck comics are the best. I remember checking anthologies of them out from the library as a kid.

I don't get why he didn't consider orgies ... this is definitely for orgies, right? The drunk thing is a cover.

came here to say exactly that... storing passed out people in 1 massive bed is ineffective and annoying compared to more smaller ones (but still big by any standards).

nice excuse for conservative visitors and whatnot, but not buying that for a second. now for the big orgy, this would have been perfect... :)

And storing drunks in a common bed is disgusting. White sheets and vomit everywhere.

I can only imagine the hungover scramble to the bathroom (in this era? I don't know) over 30+ passed out revelers.

This would be in the chamber pot era so having the guests do their thing in parallel if you bring in enough pots. For bathing at this social class tubs would be brought in to the bedroom for actual bathing.

Thanks for reading! I agree but thought the sources spoke for themselves.

Thats why I have a King bed downstairs.

Only a king? Everyone knows that only the best orgies can be had in a super-king. You should upgrade.

As far as my research indicates there is no bed bigger than a standard king. A California king is longer but narrower.

It's rare, but I know at least one person who has a San Francisco King (7x7, just like the city).

http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/hotstuff/article/S-F-7-b...

That's really just a custom with a clever name. Try searching for "san francisco king" sized sheets anywhere.

I know :) But it seemed like a fun place to bring it up.

I sleep in a super king. 6'x6'6". It's a standard size in the UK.

The European King is 2.0 meters wide by 2.0 meters long.

Do the math.

We had a Euro King until we recently had to replace it. Buying sheets in Europe was no problem.

As do I, hence my joke comment, which by the downvotes, didn't go down so well, bah.

Assuming a group of people needs as much space as a single to sleep is a mistake. Feet to feet you can overlap. Further the average guest would probably have been shorter and thinner than we are used to.

I have seen six kids in a double with pillows at either end.

A bed for fifty falling-down drunk people? If you are not asphyxiated by the morning (crushed by your neighbor or in the normal way), you can make a game of trying to identify the different varieties of puke that coat you like a varnish.

Having shared a twin bed before, I can believe the accuracy of the 50 number.

Also, the uncomfortable part is falling off the side or being smushed into a wall. Being smushed into another person is more comfortable because people are soft and you have no danger of falling off.

Honestly, I was hoping the article was about a new trend for cooperative/group sleeping arrangements: people are soft/comfortable, sides/edges are not, so if you put more people on a bed, fewer need to deal with being on a side/edge.

Even better if you have a circular bed, no edges so long as it is at capacity.

College, amirite?

BTW, "Da Vinci" was not Leonardo's surname. You may refer to him as either "Leonardo da Vinci", "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci" if there's a reason for the longer form or simply "Leonardo" when it is clear from context which Leonardo the author is referring to.

Thanks for reading! I thought it would be overly pedantic to diverge from the common usage of "da Vinci". However, I was overly pedantic in calling the Mona Lisa by its proper name, so I think it all evens out.

Or simply "Da Vinci" when using the nearly ubiquitous colloquial reference to the same individual.

I think de Beatis means the bed was about twenty-six feet by twenty feet, which is 503 square feet. A twin bed is about twenty square feet, so the bed could probably only fit twenty-five people comfortably. Durer was wrong!

Oh, please. They said nothing about the fifty people being comfortable. Besides, you can absolutely fit 2 people into a twin bed. Plus, people were generally smaller a few hundred years ago than they are now. As I understand it, this is part of why older buildings so often have ceilings that are too low -- because we are generally taller than our ancestors were.

(And this is without even getting into how hand-wavy old measures were).

> which is 503 square feet. A twin bed is about twenty square feet, so the bed could probably only fit twenty-five people comfortably. Durer was wrong!

How so? Twin bed is for 2 people, so that makes about 50 people. Am I missing something?

The calculation of 25 people uses a twin mattress as a comfortable fit for one person, not two.

In the US, a twin mattress is the smallest adult size available, and is almost always seen as a one-person bed. I usually see queen-sized mattresses marketed as the average-size bed for two people, and full (one size up from twin) recommended as the comfortable choice for single sleepers.

http://bettersleep.org/mattresses-and-more/mattress-sizes has a good overview of mattress size standards (at least for the US).

Twin bets aren't adult-sized, they're for kids. And full-size beds are basically obsolete, or just for short people. They're simply too short, given that people are taller now than they were 50 years ago. Queen size is now the minimum normal adult size bed in the US; that's why you see them marketed as the "average-size bed for two people".

If you're single and really want to save space, you can get "long twin" mattresses, which is exactly half the size of a king mattress, and also the size of the foundation used under a king mattress (x2). But most single people these days just get a queen size, because it's long enough for most people while providing plenty of space to spread out, but also gives you sufficient space in case someone spends the night with you... Limiting yourself to a (long) twin size makes it rather difficult to have a guest for the evening unless you're really thin, which Americans generally aren't these days.

Thanks for reading. I assumed the twin bed can only comfortably fit one person. I was also being glib.

"Twin" is the smallest common bed size in the US and is typically used by one person.

However, European units of measurement before the metric system were a complete mess, the Italian units of measurement in particular.

Ironic how the author then gives the measurements in feet, after converting palmo to cm.

Thanks for reading! It is ironic, I agree.

I clicked into this expecting an invention for refugees.

Not too late to make your dream a reality.

or a new Apple release with an exclusivity-inducing price.

Don't lie down in that bed, people. Everyone knows that if you don't sleep in a sitting positions, your humours get shifted all out of whack. Don't these rich young Quincenntenials read their Galen anymore?

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