The red Solo Cup is a marvel of modern engineering | Hacker News Reader

The red Solo Cup is a marvel of modern engineering

washingtonpost.com

120 pointsSmkyMt29 comments

I've purchased generic red plastic cups before, and the experience was terrible. They were hard to pull apart, weren't stable laterally (i.e. the force when you grip it with your hand), and sagged after an hour of being full of liquid. The experience made me appreciate how well designed solo cups are, especially for how simple they look.

I added it to my short list of items I never buy generic (paper towels, paint, and car tires).

I've had zero problems with the BJ's brand red plastic cups

http://www.bjs.com/berkley-jensen-18-oz--plastic-cups--24--c...

Do those cups also act as measurement cups for ounces? Doesn't from the looks of it.

No, I don't think so.

Marvel of modern engineering and cultural talisman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Solo_Cup

The music video for the song Toby Keith did a few years ago is very entertaining if you haven't seen it. Talisman indeed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKZqGJONH68

Since a couple of years red plastic cups are now being sold in stores in The Netherlands alongside the more common plain white cups. Not because the Solo company started selling them here, but (ostensibly) because a red cup carries the connotation of college students partying and alcoholic drinks, and apparently that image sells cups.

The colour of these cups is a cultural import from the US; if your frame of reference is the cup's portrayal in media, then the red Solo cup appears to be exclusively used for partying and drinking with abandon (e.g., consider the image of college students playing beer pong), so you get red cups if you're a teenager organizing a party.

When I was in high school, the foreign exchange students took home Solo cups as souvenirs (they were fascinated especially by the blue ones). It seemed strange to me at the time, like, "what's so special about plastic cups?" And that's how I discovered the true nature of American party culture.

Terrific. #1 American cultural export is National Lampoon's Animal House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWjtI6n5xWM

Yep. I'm a dual American-Dutch citizen and I've noticed that as well. You can find "American party cups" in practically every store that sells the plain white ones (I've only seen one store that breaks that rule.)

Funny enough, the Dutch ones are completely inferior, and way more expensive. They crush easily, don't separate well, and are weirdly small, not to mention several euros for a tiny package. This has annoyed me to the point where I now bring a little stack of Solo cups each time I fly to the Netherlands.

The latter has to do with the fact that those cups have a very different purpose, which is why the solo cups are marketed as "American party cups". The "American" refers to the format of the party as much as the cups.

At normal parties in the Netherlands we just drink beer from bottles because we have an entirely different beer and alcohol culture, without the whole age limit BS (despite recent legal changes raising the purchase age to 18).

With the exception of the transparant hard plastic cups used is stadiums and at festivals, we tend to not drink our alcohol from plastic cups.

the stereotype is accurate. We really do use red solo cups in college parties.

Well, yes. Foamy keg beer of dubious provenance deserves no less than a cheap plastic cup.

For what it's worth, up until now I'd never heard of them; the entire phenomenon seems to have passed me by.

Now I know. Thanks, internet.

When I was in school, we called the blue Solo Cups, "Blue Red Cups".

While the diagrams in this post were extremely cool, the fact that there wasn't at least one prominent shot of a single cup highlighting these features was a missed opportunity. Describing all the design details is one thing, but I don't have a Solo Cup next to me to see what the article is trying so hard to describe.

Apparently the inventor's favorite Solo Cup color was blue.

You can mention this factoid next time you're at a party with red Solo Cups.

https://apnews.com/be9f84bd35ab402bafc45f142dc86920

This reminded to me (even before reading the article) of the marvellous piece of text: I, pencil, by L. E. Read: http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

It's also a marvel of plastic pollution. That people don't see that, as much as whatever benefits it offers, is surprising.

Everything is a marvel of modern engineering now.

This would read less like an advert if it mentioned any other plastic cup engineering details other than the product in question.

That's a fair critique, but I think it's worth noting that news of the inventor passing away came out the day before the article was published. It seems reasonable to me to focus on one brand with that as the framing.

Yes, it's more of an homage rather than an advert. People don't need to be told to buy Solos, they're already a staple for when they're needed.

Pretty much. The history of technology/human-built objects is fascinating and a lot more nuanced and involved than most people realize. The tiniest details in design and production processes can have a huge impact. We are at a point in history where any manmade object will have an involved history of technological development, some of which has only been recently investigated, other which is now lost to organizational/trade memory (for example I recently learned that no one knows who came up with the idea of venting indoor sewer plumbing, one of the most important developments in indoor plumbing).

For a look at what it is like to ignore any of this, there was an interesting experiment by Thomas Thwaites to build an electric toaster from first principles: http://www.thetoasterproject.org/

You know, I get that it's a holiday and all, but what's with all the bike shedding threads?

What's next? A discussion of knot theory, as pertaining to balloon animals?

...that's not what bike shedding is.

Okay, there are two types of threads on HN (cue false dichotomy):

  1. Threads that everybody tries to
     sound smart in.

  2. Threads that you can't actually 
     post a constructive comment in 
     unless you're a subject matter
     expert, with substantial experience
     within the given problem domain.

Bike shedding posits a similar premise. Ask for an opinion about a difficult problem, say the plumbing in a nuclear cooling tower, and very few people will have much to say.

Contrast this with opinions on the color of the bike shed next to the cooling tower, et cetera, et cetera...

So, care to clarify specifically how this is not a bike shedding thread?

Because bike shedding is when there's something to discuss and people debate the trivial detail because it's what they understand. The act of debating the trivial facet is bike shedding. The presence of a spectrum of topics on HN, with this post falling where lots of folks have relevant knowledge, is not.

Well, I hate to belabour such a boring point, but the solo cup is the result of an invention by a single person. At least, there's only one person's name on the patent.

From the article:

"some of the most underappreciated aspects of the cup can be traced to a simple design aimed at solving a rather sticky problem."

So, a tricky problem solved by the ingenuity of an individual.

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