First batch of student’s washing machines shipped to Iraq | Hacker News Reader

First batch of student’s washing machines shipped to Iraq

bbc.co.uk

166 pointsetewiah175 comments

I read Wendell Berry quite a lot, and in one essay (I forget which) he posed a question, "where would our technology be if we had continued improving on simple things like the plow, without using combustion engines", or something like that. I think this washing machine is an answer to that question.

What if many of our machines used human power like they did 100 years ago, but were made far more efficient and effective than they were 100 years ago? One of the biggest health problems in America is lack of physical exercise. Biking for transportation, having a manual washing machine, etc would go a long way towards fixing that problem, while also reducing our use of electricity, gasoline, etc.

That's all well and good, but the revolution of motorized washing machines and dishwashers was to free western women of having to spend large parts of their days washing things. Making it hand powered may shorten the time vs a wash tub, but is still going to miss the positive social outcomes.

[EDIT] I don't mean to be dismissive of this pretty cool improvement on manual washing. It seems like it will be really helpful for a lot of people until their economic situation improves.

Indeed. And having women in the workforce is literally worth trillions of dollars, far exceeding the costs of “obese Americans”.

IIUC the angle here, it’s not that they don’t go to work. It’s that rather than going to the gym, they’ll work out as they do their laundry at home.

I'm not a fan of the gym, as I prefer to stay active other ways, but I often wonder if the effort and energy expended there could be put to better use? This is perhaps an example of that.

How many men do you need before you have one horsepower?

One horsepower is .7 kW. A horse working for an hour nonstop would be .7kW hrs.

Now, how many men do you need working constantly before you have comparable strength to a 20kW generator sipping a little bit of gasoline?

Here is an olympic cyclist barely managing to toast bread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ

Electricity is nice.

The idea that a singular man can output a horsepower (~700W) for enough time to toast bread is still very impressive to me!

Clearly an Olympic-level athlete. That being said, I can't help but imagine that with some optimization, it could make the electricity generation a bit easier (maybe more RPM but less torque needed?). Clearly, the video shows him straining and pushing.

Power == RPM * Torque, converting to less torque but more RPM with gears probably would be easier.

> A horse working for an hour nonstop would be .7kW hrs.

More like 8.4kWh.

> data from the horse pulling contest at the 1925 Iowa State Fair showing that peak mechanical power output of a horse is 12-14.9 HP.

https://doi.org/10.1038/364195a0

That's peak. Average is much lower. 1 HP is supposed to be a horse on a treadmill for a full day of work. A horse in acceleration is outputting far more than that for a few seconds.

On the other hand, manual laundry was one of only a few common means of self-support for 18th century working-class women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK9OyW4Jx_g

Crappy jobs shouldn't have to exist just for the sake of desperate people being able to have one. A justice issue demands a justice solution, not the scraps that fall from the table.

See also: the current argument raging around minimum wage in the US, and whether the the millions of grocery-bagging and burger-flipping gigs are supposed to be something you can actually survive on, or are they just meant to be short term jobs for middle class teenagers who have no dependents or living expenses to cover? Or maybe we don't love this reality but there's nothing anyone can do about it because The Market has declared that these jobs are worth less than a living wage so whatever (obligatory FDR meme: https://imgur.com/gallery/SvuwZrm).

Yes, washing clothes was a crappy job, just like coal mining was/is in certain parts of Appalchia. That said, it was an important and necessary job in its day, and it generated valuable income for workers with no other useful skills. Removing crappy jobs and the income they generate is rarely good for the laid-off workers, especially in the absence of any social safety net. I wonder how many laundresses became washing machine mechanics, or laundromat owner-proprietors. I'm guessing the answer is "not many."

I'd certainly agree that both coal miners and laundresses deserved better wages and working conditions.

Absolutely, but of course "better wages and working conditions" has a time and place element to it as well. Coal mining conditions were obviously terrible in hindsight, but my impression is that they were considered "good jobs" at the time, with union protection and so on (depictions in media like October Sky notwithstanding).

In any case, it appears that the purpose of this human-powered laundry machine is not to put anyone doing laundry for pay out of work, but rather to allow some combination of doing laundry at home cheaper, faster, or with less physical strain (a crank may be more ergonomic than being bent over a tub, and your hands don't have to be in wet soapy water the whole time).

But wasn't the counter-intuitive result that women spent more time washing since it was so "easy" now, they could wash things much more frequently.

I can't find the reference but I did read it recently.

If the time spent stays the same but more stuff gets washed that's still a win for living standards. If you reduce the cost of something then that labor gets spent elsewhere, maybe on more of the same but then you have more to show for it. Labor hours are fairly fungible at scale like that.

Your cuts are less likely to get infected when your clothes don't have the manure you put on the field last week on them.

No [1], that's not the case. Even while we own more clothing and wash it more often, it still takes less time. You can also do other tasks while a washing machine is running.

[1]https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mfr/4919087.0011.104/--deconstr...

I do not think that your source supports your claim, although I might have missed something. To the contrary, it states:

> Although the physical labor of laundry was lessened somewhat by the machines, the actual time housewives allocated to their family laundry increased.

(This is claimed to be the result of housewives being responsible for the entirety of laundry, instead of employing help, however.)

That's the Jevons Paradox, generally:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

It could be, but not in the way the parent thinks. Washing machines and dish washers are what allowed women to enter the work force, but they didn't cause them to spend more time washing. It probably increased demand for freshly washed clothes and clothing in general.

The Jevons Paradox is an economy-wide effect, not (just / only) an individual one.

Cheaper washing machines mean more clothes, more laundry, more people washing more often.

Individuals may spend less time doing laundry. But more laundry is being done, above and beyond simply meeting previous latent demand.

Right, I was clarifying that it didn't in this case mean more time spent washing at an individual level, the resource here is probably labor.

I don't think that's the case for washing machines, but it is the case for some inventions. Like the typewriter, which allows you to write four-five times faster than when using a pen, and communications networks that are however many million times faster than carrier pigeons and pony expresses and what have you... So we should be spending less time writing and sending letters, and more time frolicking in the sun, right?

> "where would our technology be if we had continued improving on simple things like the plow, without using combustion engines"

The bicycle, I guess.

Thank god for bicycles. We could use more inventions like that.

I can't find a citation for this, but a favorite quote of mine from Twain(?) is:

"The bicycle is unique in that it's engine is also it's cargo."

I always liked Steve Jobs's description of the Mac as "a bicycle for the mind." It's not like he was unaware of the Ferrari or whatever, he chose to use a human-powered vehicle for his analogy.

Until the invention of the pogo stick. Which the internet informs me was only a few years later...

Apparently the combustion engine was invented before the bicycle as bikes need ball bearings to function smoothly, which also requires advanced machinery.

https://www.ft.com/content/9084f6ad-6146-4b38-8e7c-faf850f90...

Indeed! Interesting. According to wikipedia it may have been a feedback loop primarily in the direction of the car.

> The bicycle's invention has had an enormous effect on society, both in terms of culture and of advancing modern industrial methods. Several components that eventually played a key role in the development of the automobile were initially invented for use in the bicycle, including ball bearings, pneumatic tires, chain-driven sprockets and tension-spoked wheels.

Freeing people from the tedium of ordinary housework (as can still be witnessed in parts of Mexico, Philippines, etc.) allows for innovation.

Half the population alive would likely not been born or survived to adulthood if we had followed a steampunkish model of industrialization and progress.

We'd probably have more pollution as well.

Even the dumbest among us are clever, particularly when it comes to reducing work loads. It's not gonna be long before somebody figures out an alternative way to power that washer.

> One of the biggest health problems in America is lack of physical exercise.

I disagree. The biggest health problem is the abundance of high calorie foods that are designed to taste so good that it confuses are dumb monkey brains into eat more than we should. Limiting or eliminating the amounts of sugars and simple carbohydrates in our foods would go a long way at improving our overall health.

That's the correct answer. You can't exercise your way out of a high calorie, high sugar diet, unless you're willing to dedicate several hours per day to intense exercise. Normal exercise is an atrocious approach to countering high calorie intake, it simply can't work. You can work out for an hour, and one soda wipes it out entirely, or a couple slices of pizza.

No, the problem is and will remain dietary in nature. Americans could stop all exercise across the board, change their diets, and lose massive amounts of weight trivially, just by cutting out a few common items that nearly all obese Americans over-consume. I've yet to meet an obese American whose diet I couldn't trivially radically alter by just removing a few particularly horrible things (eg sugary drinks, ice cream, pasta/pizza, high sugar snack goods). People think they have to change everything about what they eat and go to the gym five times per week to drop weight, and that's entirely false, all they have to do is eliminate or dramatically reduce the couple worst items in their diet and that's usually enough (it's rare that there are dozens of villains in their diet that matter, it's almost always just a few items that are doing 3/4+ of the damage).

>> You can work out for an hour, and one soda wipes it out entirely, or a couple slices of pizza.

Not exactly, just because you've replaced those calories doesn't mean that your body didn't gain muscle mass which itself requires calories just for your body to maintain. This leads to a higher basal metabolic rate, which ends up burning calories even while you rest.

That’s overstated, look at say elite marathon runners who do incredible amounts of daily exercise without bulking up.

A 500 calorie workout might only be 400 extra over spending that time sitting on that couch. Similarly extra muscle on it’s own takes energy but fat also burns energy so even modest weight loss balances that out.

Being overweight also raises your metabolism. Focus on the mass, not so much the rate.

Having lots of muscle mass isn't healthier than being slim. It's healthier than being fat, but being slim is going to be a lot easier on your heart, joints, and other organs.

(Have a look at people who are 80+ and fit. Most of them are slim. You don't see a lot of bulked up old people)

Your overall point might be correct, but your old people one is just wrong.

Old people aren't super muscular because you need high levels of testosterone to support musculature, and it naturally declines with age and particularly tanks when you are elderly.

The digestive system also gradually loses the ability to absorb protein with age. Elderly people actually need more protein just to maintain muscle mass, but most of them fail to adjust their diets accordingly.

Lean muscle at rest only burns about 8 kcal/day/kg more than fat. So the metabolic effect is pretty small.

At rest sure, but you gotta carry all that extra weight around when you do anything else.

Carrying around an extra kg of weight takes roughly the same energy regardless of tissue type.

This is correct. I do cardio 10-15 hours/week and have to count my calories so I don't gain weight.

I read some research recently that showed that when you exercise you tend to be less active through the rest of the day. You balance it out without thinking about it.

I've seen that myself, a long bike ride will often be followed by an evening on the sofa.

> Americans could stop all exercise across the board, change their diets, and lose massive amounts of weight trivially, just by cutting out a few common items that nearly all obese Americans over-consume

To be fair, the yanks don't even need to change their diets to loose weight .... they just need to eradicate those stupid portion sizes.

A steak doesn't mean half the cow on your plate, a sandwich doesn't mean putting everything you can find in the shop (including the kitchen sink, if you could !) in between two slices of bread ... etc..etc..etc

Its simply grotesque.

Labor and rent are more expensive than the food. The large portions are intended to distract the consumer with the illusion they are paying primarily for food rather than a massive markup.

Free refills on sodas with waiters waiting to pounce and refill your cup every time it's 1/3 down from full, can be added to the list.

Also, soda servings in excess of 20oz (already huge!) to begin with, regardless of refills.

I upvoted this comment, but people are not so dumb to only eat junk food. There are environmental/psychological factors why people overeat. Other research shows that people will overeat "healthy food" i.e. huge dollops of olive oil, or fruit juice, because it's "healthy."

I agree that reducing bad food and portion control is the answer, but it's very hard to drive behavioral change in people. And the health industry has done a "good" job of creating medication to enable bad lifestyles i.e. metformin for Type2 Diabetes, other drugs to manage cholesterol, etc.

There's no evidence that a diet high in olive oil increases obesity or all-cause mortality.

There's plenty of evidence that eating too many calories increases obesity.

GP's point is that calories coming from a "healthy" source doesn't mean they don't count. Drenching one's salad in olive oil rather than canola oil won't help someone lose weight, nor will switching from soda to a fruit juice with the same amount of sugar in it (ancillary benefits of e.g. vitamins notwithstanding)

Lack of exercise is also a problem, regardless of overall weight. There are heart, lung, and joint health improvements.

Lots of skinny people in terrible shape out there.

I think for general health/longevity its preferable to be out of shape but slim rather than heavier but fit.

Mark Rippletoe of Starting Strength has some counterarguments to this. E.g. being fit and heavy is better for bone density than out of shape and slim so in older age one is less likely to break something.

Built is not the same as fat, though. I’m guessing Mark is arguing for building strength not for being overweight.

  BUT, you say, look at his gut. A fat slob, obviously. Can’t be healthy. Healthy is slim. I am 5’8” and weigh 225. At 5’8”, “normal” is considered to be – incredibly enough – 125-163 pounds. Overweight is 164-196, and I am “obese” at 225. In reality, my bodyfat percentage is about 24%, and a 60-year-old guy who deadlifts 500 is an anomaly in terms of muscle mass anyway.  So I’m not worried about my body composition. [1]

Mark Rippetoe argues you should build strength to be healthy, not obsess about bodyfat% for health. If you want to look good, then by all means you should try to reduce your body fat. If you want to feel good, focus on strength.

[1] https://startingstrength.com/article/your-gut-your-health-an...

Why not do both?

His philosophy is that Strength is Everything, so cutting weight or limiting calorie intake for "lean gains" limits the muscle mass (and strength) you could be gaining.

It all depends on your goals.

It's certainly valid for him to value strength above everthing else. But most of us don't, most are more interested in longevity and quality of life during those years. And so it raises the question if his lifestyle is good in those aspects or not.

This guy is certainly strong, but he is definitely overweight. He may feel fit, but his weight will make him high risk for heart attack, stroke, or diabetes.

There's no amount of training that can fix a bad diet.

That's not really true for older people. Muscle weakness is a critical risk for falls. Once a person falls and breaks a hip or something the lack of mobility typically kills them within a couple years.

American kids don't have a chance. Example: High School in Arkansas with a Sonic drive-in across the street and nothing else around it. A SLIM chance of success for a kid born into an environment like that I'd venture to guess.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.3798403,-92.2227848,3a,75y,8...

Also, I am a huge fan of Wendell Berry and this topic has so many implications that are worth exploring IMO.

They don't have food at home?

As a kid, eating at McDonald's was like a once-every-other-month treat.

McDonald’s has had the $1 menu for how many years? Even the brokest of the broke can manage to splurge on a $1 cheeseburger, $1 small fry, $1 Coke. Compared to $2.50 for a USDA subsidized school lunch which has none of the chemicals that make McDonald’s addictive.

Access to fast food, even for children, has never been easier.

What addictive chemicals are you referencing here? Sugar? Salt?

I still can’t believe they limited salt for school lunches. If you want kids to eat the meals they need to taste good, and for 99.9% of kids and teenagers the amount of salt they eat has basically no effect on their health.

I wish I could get USDA Dominos at home.

Never had it, maybe it does taste terrible.

> One of the biggest health problems in America is...

> I disagree. The biggest health problem is...

You aren't disagreeing, you're making a claim about _the biggest health problem_, while I'm making a claim about _one of the biggest health problems_.

Perhaps they are asserting that America only has one health problem?

To be fair saying "One of... is..." is a tautology and doesn't make sense to disagree with.

> To be fair saying "One of... is..." is a tautology and doesn't make sense to disagree with.

I disagree pretty strongly and can provide as many examples as you would like:

- One of the biggest health problems in America is too much bicycling

- One of the biggest health problems in America is too little automobile travel

- One of the biggest health problems in America is too much space travel

- One of the most nutritious foods is rocks.

I think instead what you mean can be best explained by reading the wikipedia article on weasel words. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word

I was being facetious :)

> Even the dumbest among us are clever, particularly when it comes to reducing work loads. It's not gonna be long before somebody figures out an alternative way to power that washer.

The dean of the EE faculty when I got my MSc liked to quip that the best engineers were the lazy ones - lazy, yet bright enough to realise that if they expended some effort today, they'd be able to slack off tomorrow...

> I read Wendell Berry quite a lot, and in one essay (I forget which) he posed a question, "where would our technology be if we had continued improving on simple things like the plow, without using combustion engines"

We'd still have slaves. That's where we'd be.

The development of steam, IC, and electric machinery is what actually put an end to slavery, by making it uneconomic.

Slavery (or near-equivalents, such as serfdom) was a constant of virtually all human societies above the hunter-gatherer band level, until the development of powered equipment.

Emancipation happened over 100 years ago, so no that is not what would have happened when imagining an alternative future starting 100 years in the past.

> Emancipation happened over 100 years ago,

So did the introduction of steam, IC, and electric machinery. Your quibble is with the OP.

Emancipation happened right around the time of the introduction of large-scale steam power.

This was not a coincidence.

That also doesn't apply to the conversation, which was about a branch of history that could have started 100 years ago, not 160 years ago.

The "conversation", such as it is, had its origin in the OP (or the person he's citing) incorrectly stating that the power revolution happened 100 years ago. It didn't.

Now, some might try to argue that the process of eliminating slavery/serfdom just happened to coincide with the development of non-human-powered machinery (like maybe humans just somehow became more moral and less-prone to exploiting their fellow-humans).

But you know what? That's basically just a load of crap.

It doesn't explain the near-perfect correlation between the development of powered equipment and the disappearance of slavery/serfdom, world-wide, carried out over the course of centuries, appearing first (again, apparently just by coincidence) in the more technologically-advanced countries (such as Western Europe), and later in the less-technologically-advanced countries (such as Russia, Asia, and (at that time) the United States)

Water, steam, internal combustion, and electricity is what ended slavery/serfdom. Get rid of those and slavery/serfdom will be back before you know it.

Note that even within the United States, slavery disappeared first in the industrialized North, and last in the rural South.

> The "conversation", such as it is, had its origin in the OP (or the person he's citing) incorrectly stating that the power revolution happened 100 years ago. It didn't.

You are kind of inventing something that wasn't written. The OP wrote, "What if many of our machines used human power like they did 100 years ago, but were made far more efficient and effective than they were 100 years ago?"

Emancipation (at least as is taught in south american schools) was a direct result of the industrial revolution

But yet the industrial revolution, e.g. cotton gin and better ways to make textiles, made slavery more profitable for the owners.

There's a story about the introduction of a scythe to a remote village in - I want to say - 90s or early 2000s, and the mayor thanking the charity for showing them this new invention, that really helped them during harvest. It's not like the place didn't have sticks or blades, but the combination isn't obvious.

I saw it on a TIL on reddit, so take it with a grain of salt. Trying to google it now, but all results for queries containing the word "scythe" seems to be related to a board game.

There's Scythe Works Without Borders:

https://scytheworks.ca/scythe-works-without-borders/

They seem to be active in Nepal. There are other similar groups elsewhere.

This DDG search turns up several: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=introducing+scythe+village+-game&i...

Including a Reddit thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/i14bak/oddly_mesmer...

It's not even that the combination isn't obvious; it's also that the orientation of the parts is touchy and makes the difference between "I could do this all day!" and "Can I please just hold the knife in my hands?"

For some reason I have a scythe in my shed. I've used it a couple of times when my lawn mower was dead after I came back from holiday and the grass and weeds were waist high. It's surprisingly efficient and easy to use as soon as you get the hang of it.

You should take a look at the Low-tech Magazine[1]: there are several articles where the possibility of brinding back some outdated but still intersting technology is explored. For example DC transmission lines, wooden wind turbines, sailing ships for transporting goods, compressed air energy storage, etc. There's also an analysis on basing a society on human power[2].

[1]: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com

[2]: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/05/could-we-run-modern-...

100 years ago was 1921. We had many very advanced electric, internal combustion, and external combustion (e.g. steam) machines.

> In the 1920s, mass production led to falling prices for washing machines (Cowan, 1983, p. 94). As of 1926, 80% of affluent households studied by market researchers in 36 American cities had washing machines. Only 28% of homes in small town Zanesville, Ohio had electric washers. Most of those with washing machines were among the affluent homes (Cowan, 1983, p. 173). During the single year of 1936, over 1.4 million washing machines were sold in the U.S., and the average price had dropped by more than half. However, many could not afford washing machines during the Great Depression (Cohen, 1982, p. 95).

https://evolutionhomeappliances.weebly.com/washing-machines-...

Tractors on farms were already pretty common and became more so over that decade.

> In August, 1917, a small tent city was erected in Fremont, Nebraska. Under the canvas, 48 tractor companies exhibited their wares. There were over 300 tractor models on display worth over $1.5 million. But that was only a fraction of the tractors being offered to farmers in the 1920s. The number of tractor manufacturer peaked in 1921 when there were 186 different firms trying to entice farmers to buy their tractors. The next decade saw amazing changes in the technology, and more and more farmers moving from farming with horses to farming with tractors.

https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe20s/machines_08.ht...

While air travel wasn't something the common person would do, planes weren't rare and commercial air travel was in its infancy.

https://www.century-of-flight.net/commercial-aviation-indust...

The in-home electric refrigerator wouldn't appear until 1927, but in 1921 the technology was known and used in industry.

https://evolutionhomeappliances.weebly.com/refrigerators-190...

https://bigchill.com/us/blog/refrigerators-through-the-decad...

While I understand your sentiment, it's wrong to portray the early 20th century (or even the 19th century) as a technological backwater. We have certainly made advancements in material sciences and electronics (e.g. computers) in the past 100 years that have arguably changed many, many things; I don't think an engineer from 1921 would be lost in understanding the mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and non-computer electrical technology we have today.

For what it's worth, I do wish we, as a society, had chosen or will choose to move to less energy-intensive means of living. I try to do my part, for instance I live somewhere where I can walk to 80% of the places I want to go or could take public transit to about 90% and I use a reel mower when the grass isn't too high. Even as, maybe especially as, a software engineer I hate that more and more devices are becoming computerized, or worse "smart" or "connected". Computers are wonderful, but my toaster oven and refrigerator doesn't need one, thank you very much. I also try to avoid single-use plastics when possible an purchase better quality items to last longer when possible.

Don't get me wrong, there are many conveniences that I personally wouldn't give up (clothes washing machine), but in general I think we could stand to reëvaluate much of our culture and civilization in terms of energy and material usage.

One example where both are fairly common is coffee equipment. Obviously you've got big automatic grinders & espresso machines in most cafes, but it's quite common for coffee enthusiasts to use a hand grinder and AeroPress or V60 at home or for travel.

I read a series of novels called “The World Made by Hand,” which take more of a slow collapse approach to post-apocalyptic fiction. One part of the books that stood out was how important it is, both in terms of overall health and hygiene as well as morale, to have clean clothes. Some members of the town opened a town laundry where they would boil clean the clothes of their customers. Great series overall.

We don't have much, no dish washer, no dryer, only one car in the extended family but I wouldn't want to let go of the washing machine. The reality would be a lot of drudgery traded off against wearing clothes long after they became dirty.

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi is an excellent novel set in a future in which "carbon fuel sources have become depleted, and manually wound springs are used as energy storage devices [0]." There are also genetically-engineered animals that are particularly strong and good at converting food calories into kinetic energy (for winding storage springs or other uses) and treadle-powered desktop computers [1], like sewing machines before electricity.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treadle

>"where would our technology be if we had continued improving on simple things like the plow, without using combustion engines"

I really enjoy questions like this! One area you can see this in practice is in the field of valve amplifiers, they're hideously inefficient and unreliable when compared to modern transistor amplifiers but there's huge numbers of guitarists and HiFi enthusiasts (myself included) who love the subjective qualities of the sound they make, so an effectively obsolete technology has been kept around and developed far longer than its "natural" lifespan and looks likely to be for a long while yet.

Radio is another example of subcultures further developing "obsolete" tech, things like Morse code have been kept in modern use and further developed by amateur radio enthusiasts long after its commercial demise as a tool for communication, and even after AM radio's heavy decline in Europe you can still hear hobbyist pirates on Sunday mornings (especially from the Netherlands) keeping the ionosophere warm on those frequencies.

You might like this manual cement mixer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpxl5JizNc4

"Improving on ... the plow". If I remember my history, there's a perplexing story around the asian (chinese?) plow and the highly inefficient (but necessary?) european plow that didnt improved for hundreds of years.

People 100-150 years ago washed their clothes one a month (victorian England). Rich families had more clothes and extra help; they could afford to have clean clothes.

By using more efficient mechanical washing machines the effect wouldn't be more people with bulging biceps, they would just smell more. But slightly less than the victorians.

"where would our technology be if we had continued improving on simple things like the plow, without using combustion engines"

As tractors started to become common, the Horse and Mule Association, in conjunction with, I think, Iowa State University, did considerable work on optimizing plowing with horses. The optimal angle between horse and plow (17° below horizontal) was worked out experimentally. A clever set of standard harness parts was worked out, with equalizers so none of the horses in the hitch could slack off.

Didn't help much. Improved things maybe 20%, after which they'd hit an optimum. Those who farm with horses today do use those optimized techniques; they're in draft horse books. But tractors are just better.

>"where would our technology be if we had continued improving on simple things like the plow, without using combustion engines"

I think that is relatively straightforward. We would have sharper, lighter plows - and they would be FAR LESS effective than modern farm equipment and food wold be more expensive.

This would be a bad thing and I'm glad we don't live in that world.

See also this TED talk by the late Hans Rosling:

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_magic_washing_mac...

Traditional washing, by beating cloth on stones beside a river, can take 10-20 person-hours a week for a family's worth of linens (and that's assuming the same clothing is worn day-in, day-out, between weekly washes): it's a horribly inefficient chore than amounts to manual labour, and because it's usually left to women it's one that policy-makers and development economists overlook or discount. Automating it could potentially free up enough time to provide extra years of education, or to increase available worker-hours in an economy by 10%. But if you can't provide everyone with automatic washer/driers, something like this is still a huge improvement.

Freeing people from this chore probably would help families to grow more food.

His death was a real loss to the world, I think.

And that method wears out the fabric pretty rapidly compared to a washer.

It's worth looking into the history of textile production prior to the invention of the spinning jenny and the industrial revolution (the first impact of which was to trigger an exponential drop in the cost of cloth). From a modern perspective it was just jaw-droppingly labour-intensive -- and so was the process of turning it into garments. (Which is still primarily manual, albeit using machines that can sew seams in minutes that formerly took days of hand-stitching.)

A good rule of thumb is that prior to the 19th century, a suit of clothes (mens or womens) was the equivalent of an automobile today in terms of status and ownership/maintenance costs as a proportion of income. Used garments were handed down, then dismantled and recycled as fabric for simpler/smaller clothing, and ultimately ended up as rags (which could be used for cleaning, paper-making, menstrual pads), still valuable in their own right ...

This is a great initiative. Interestingly, manual washing machines like this were briefly an incredibly hot commodity in even wealthy suburbs in my home city Cape Town, SA during the extreme drought and water shortages we had in 2017/2018 [1].

They used substantially less water than a traditional Samsung or LG washer and actually worked pretty well. Considering the draconian water rations that had to be put in place people were very keen to speed up washing while still very strictly controlling water use. The local brand that people used was called Sputnik [2]. Now that the drought has broken people often talk about how crazy in retrospect our water usage was before and I even know a few who actually still use these washers because of the efficiency. That said - most folks have gone back to machines now that the water situation is stabilised...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town_water_crisis

[2] https://www.sputnikwashingmachine.co.za

Those washing machines are also popular among cruising sailors for whom water efficiency is particularly important. While you can use seawater for washing clothes, it's not very nice and if you don't rinse the salt out, it will eventually damage the clothes.

I have read of some folks who just use a big bucket with a lid. They poke a toilet plunger through a hole in the lid and pump away like churning butter.

This is a very inspiring story. I was struck by the following:

"Mr Sawhney...said up to 70% of the world's population do not have access to electric washing machines."

As someone who belongs to the 30% (as I suspect are the vast majority of HN), it's a humble reminder how much we take for granted - even with common appliances.

The latest video from the Washing Machine Project channel on YouTube shows the machine in operation. The drum is angled during washing. It then moves to a vertical position and the drum spins faster to rinse the washing while water collects below the drum:

https://youtu.be/Pmh4Uwjo-GE?t=62

On Dutch tv, there was a show some time ago about people designing and building specific tools for people with disabilities; like there was a special floatation vest for a girl with a muscle disease for whom regular flotation jackets didn't fit; and a guy in a wheelchair also with a muscle disease who liked photography and needed some way to mount his camera on his wheelchair and operate it; and other guy whose Playstation controller didn't fit in his hands etc.

It was right up HN's alley, they should throw some subtitles on it and put it on Youtube. So many engineers who love to build stuff for causes like this.

It would certainly get me out of my comfy chair. The problem is usually funding, and ensuring that you don't end up with a lot of grifters that are trying to steer the project into a direction where they can make money of it.

The loners that do these jobs usually do an incredible job of combining both their skills and actually listening to the needs of their 'market of one'.

Video of one of the first versions in use: https://youtu.be/WDzGeGcQQYs

skip to 1:26 to see the machine, the rest is an interview with the creator.

I know that I'm not the target for this product but if I had one I would love to hook it up to a stationary bicycle. I feel like my arms would get tired much faster than my legs would.

Especially given that a typical washing machine has a <50W motor.

I think you could easily rinse the clothes through spinning using such a setup.

You can buy something similar on Alibaba.[1]

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Handy-Portable-Cranke...

Shhh can’t you see they’re collecting donations?

> He said up to 70% of the world's population do not have access to electric washing machines.

Is this accurate? Seems remarkably higher than I would have guessed, especially given ~90% of the world has access to electricity and roughly half the world is now middle class or better (depending on your definition)

Edit: Number seems way too high based on this - https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-the-world-does-laundry-...

apartmenttherapy fails to cite the actual study they are working off of. I'm guessing it is this one: https://www.nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/04/N...

Their methodology states:

> ABOUT THE SURVEY METHODOLOGY The findings in this survey are based on respondents with online access in 61 countries (unless otherwise noted). While an online survey methodology allows for tremendous scale and global reach, it provides a perspective only on the habits of existing Internet users, not total populations. In developing markets where online penetration is still growing, respondents may be younger and more affluent than the general population of that country. In addition, survey responses are based on claimed behavior rather than actual metered data. Cultural differences in reporting sentiment are likely factors in the outlook across countries. The reported results do not attempt to control or correct for these differences; therefore, caution should be exercised when comparing across countries and regions, particularly across regional boundaries. Where noted, the survey research is supplemented with purchasing behavior using Nielsen’s Retail Measurement Services data, which is adjusted for inflation.

In 2016 it looks like 46% of the population had access to the internet.

https://ourworldindata.org/internet

Assuming that people that don't have internet access don't have access to electric washing machines would give 0.69 * 0.46 = 0.31 have access to electric washing machines. 1 - 0.31 gives 69%, remarkably close to the figure given in the article.

I'm going to save this thread as an example on how the tech world is structurally incapable of relating to the problems that people in the non-tech world have.

Incredible.

Many comments identify the fact this technology already exists.

Many comments identify the importance of reducing clothing washing time.

Many comment identify the article is missing an important part of the cycle, wringing clothing.

Many comments identify this is currently an unsolved problem.

What more do you want?

This manual washing machine has a unique design that addresses a particular use case: helping refugees in humanitarian camps or those in most need.

The machine needs to be simple, robust and easy to repair. The capacity needs to be large enough for a whole family. This is different to the compact, flimsy plastic manual washing machines for small loads or for camping which are designed for occasional use.

The inventor, Navjot Sawhney, studied engineering at university i.e. a real engineer, not a 'software engineer'. I'm sure he's well aware of the physical constraints and engineering challenges in designing the machine. He actually spoke to the people who might use the washing machine to refine and update the design based on their feedback.

And the machine does address rinsing (wringing). The drum mimics a front-loading washing machine: a gentle speed for tumbling clothes as they as washed. Then a switch in gear (or crank) to mimic the spin cycle.

This whole thread is an odd mix of negative presumptions, nit-picks and tangents.

We've all seen an inventor of a 'new' hand washing machine before, it's fair to ask, why this time?

> helping refugees in humanitarian camps or those in most need.

There is no fundamental difference between humanitarian camps and the 4 billion people without a washing machine. Maybe the other billion without because of apartment size or being in a RV there is.

There is nothing about this design that couldn't have existed 100 years ago.

There are many different commercial models on Amazon or Aliexpress. Some are flimsy, some not.

Mam Rashan also has electricity, it makes no sense. A documentary on Mam Rashan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guEOS_Z-Kfk

If you truly want to help the poor, you need to ask hard questions. Like, why didn't this work the past 100 times it was tried.

I think the first time I saw something like this was in the 90s, and I'm sure it was around before that. Not sure what is so unique about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_machine#/media/File:Py...

After watching it work, I want to add a flywheel and a treadle.

The clothes are sort of a flywheel.

You can buy plenty of cheap hand or foot cranked ones from China on Amazon for camping or for supposed environmental friendliness. This one has a nice story, donated labour and possibly adaptations unique to the situation of refugee camps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmh4Uwjo-GE&t=1m

Also, it exists. The people who will go from having to slap clothes on rocks to this wouldn't be as quick to shout "meh, it's been done before"

It made me think of a contraption I saw once. It was exactly the opposite of a washing machine, for covering big cloth tubes with some tar-like goop.

Someone took a bush hog, turned it upside down, welded a steel drum to it with some drain holes and a collar that slipped up or down to block them. Hooked up to a tractor it spun the drum around; they used the higher PTO speed and lifted the collar for the drain cycle.

I'm sure rednecks have been making washing machines on similar principles since steam engines.

Ships as in the verb, not the plural noun!

Yes, that title is a bit of a garden path.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

Yeah I was also interested in these ships made of washing machines, and which used hand-cranks for propulsion!

Slightly disappointed to hear that they are actually hand-cranked washing machines. Sigh - maybe next year!

Is there a better link to the organisation, its goals, the use-case, and design objectives here?

There are numerous small/portable washing machines already available, whether electrically-driven or human-powered.

The crank and coupling look terribly inefficient and prone to breakage. A fixed handle would be more robust, a foot-treadle far more efficient.

I have ... doubts and questions.

Adding a couple of gears and a chain to make it like an exercise bike would have made it so much better.

I don't think the developing world who cannot afford to eat well are really that bothered about formal exercise. Mostly just surviving.

I didn’t get the sense that the parent comment to yours was talking about formal exercise, but as a way to use different, stronger muscles to achieve the same result as using ones arms, and with the added benefits of mechanical advantage the gears would provide. I tend to agree, putting this on something that is pedal powered seems like a really cool next step or future modular add on for efficiency.

It’s just that simply looking at the guy operate it makes my back hurt. You need to rotate the handle hundreds of times per load.

The most labor-intensive step of handwashing clothes is not the washing itself, but the wringing: http://www.handlaundry.com/clothes-wringer/

It's possible to line-dry clothes without wringing water out first, but it takes much longer for soggy clothes to dry and the potential for water stains is greater.

I don't see a wringer pictured or mentioned in the article. Perhaps there's also a market for hand- or pedal-powered wringers, as well as the manual washers.

It's listed as a washer and dryer. The crank spins the drum which would have the effect of drawing water out of the clothes just like a front loader.

Ah, missed that part- thanks for pointing it out! Given the absence of a heater element, I'd guess the idea is to spin-dry the clothes before hanging them on a drying line.

It centrifuges the clothes with a geared crank (similar to a salad spinner). So the clothes come out ready to line-dry.

I remember similar noise/promise/talk when the 'Drumi' won a James Dyson Award years ago:

https://www.jamesdysonaward.org/en-GB/2015/project/the-drumi...

Drumi has since come to market. These machines are great but I think drying clothes (I live in a tiny apartment with no outdoor space) might be the more difficult challenge.

A wringer is the basic option for that. A spinner works remarkably well, after which line-drying is fast.

I lived in an apartment some years back and tired of using the (often filthy) public laundromat.

So I got a breather washer, a small spin dryer and a heat dryer.

https://www.lehmans.com/product/breathing-hand-washer/

https://www.amazon.com/Panda-PANSP23B-Swimsuits-Laundry-Extr...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265264876599?var=565132371636&hash=...

(They weren't these exact models but hopefully you catch the idea.)

The breather washer and spin dryer both worked wonderfully. Clothes came out cleaner with the breather washer then a washing machine. I don't know why those aren't in more common use in non-industrialized societies.

For larger stuff I'd still have to go to the laundromat.

The heated dryer was kind of meh, it worked but produced a lot of humid air and I'd have to have windows opened to use it. But much of the time I could just spin dry the clothes then hang in bathroom overnight.

Wow, I really want to try one. My dream would be a manual dish washing machine. I think there are some. Maybe a bigger one with a bicycle crankset would also be pretty cool.

I think those are going to be really popular in the future due to climate change. The first level of comfort brought by a good supply of electricity is a washing machine.

Why would climate change impact dishwashers broadly? They're particularly highly effecient in terms of water usage and energy usage.

Not really for people living alone.

People who want to keep a low water/energy footprint might like buying those.

How does number of people impact dishwasher efficiency? If you're living alone, you can just "batch" the dishes.

This solution is targeted towards a very specific situation, concentrated communities for people fleeing disasters and war. Refugee camps happen unexpectedly, there is practically no infrastructure and there is a race against time to keep people fed, safe and healthy.

In that specific environment, yes, a lightweight composite box that is easy to use and ship, requires little water and no infrastructure and accelerates manual washing by a factor of 5-10 is a practical solution.

But as a general solution for the "developing world", sorry, no, dumbed down versions of western household items that don't require electricity aren't the solution.

The developing world is poor precisely because it lacks investments, such as in the infrastructure that makes appliances work, the electric, clean water, sewer, gas, road networks. A single KWh of energy is the equivalent of cranking by hand for many hours, people in developed counties can get it by flipping a switch and paying 15 cents. That's where the wealth lays, in investment that drastically enhances productivity.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

This is a solution to a problem. It may not be the perfect solution to the root cause, it may just be treating the symptom, but it's still better than nothing.

Video report on BBC (demo at 1:35): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRAGzPtLS2M

Hardly an invention, used in India in barrels with spindles for years

He's not claiming he invented the first manual washing machine, just mass producing them with modern techniques at a low cost for the developing world.

>The first batch of 30 hand-cranked washing machines

>Mass production

Okay

> Working with humanitarian charity Care International he is now aiming to deliver 7,500 of his manual washer and dryers to those most in need in 10 countries including Lebanon, Kenya and India over the next three years.

"Mass production" can look different for different things. If I had a complicated widget that normally took a month to produce, and I found a way to crank out 10, then that'd be a massive increase in production by comparison.

Now hook it up to a bike and get the kids to do the work.

This is an old technology. Often seen late at night on "As Seen On TV".

They have become very refined over time. Rugged, injection moulded (mass produced), years of iterations to fix problems. Designed for remote or unit living. Some higher tech components have been reversed like pressurising them I assume because the complexity has not matched in field experience.

ie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUVR2vjRJRo

What problem does this solve?

I have never seen one used by the poor compared to normal hand washing or electric, perhaps it would be done inside compared to hand washing so it might be bias.

The evidence to me is hand washers like these are more for the rich getting third level education or living in downtown apartments or travelling the country or people into low tech solutions.

I worked with appliance makers a lot, in Turkey, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

The cost of an automatic washing machine is closing on below $100 with mass manufacturing taken to its extremes.

Think of it, a PVC tank with a handle for $20-$30, or a normal washing machine made by a profit making business for $100?

I would imagine the manual powered machine is intended for areas where electricity or water hookups aren't necessarily reliable or even available.

What about those billion dollar NGOs not funding Bill Gates'es space toilet, or these expensive PVC tanks with handles, but actually trying to do just something on the ground like building a power station?

Before posting a question like this, why not take a few seconds to see if any NGOs are working on expanding access to electricity? I think you'll find there are quite a few.

And why work so hard to find a negative angle on this story? There's plenty of actual bad stuff happening in the world for you to criticize.

I am abhorred at an enormous spend on many vanity projects by the "development community," and hipster NGOs. That's why.

I keep repeating a line about Bill Gates'es space toilet exactly because of it being the most glaring example of that.

For the money spent, Bill could've easily built like 200-300 sewage treatment plants.

I understand you're upset about that, but it's not productive to take out your frustration on unrelated stories like this, and ultimately it probably won't make you feel better.

Sometimes the blockers are not purely money-based, and greasing palms can do more harm than good. And sometimes you run out of palms to grease.

These are being sent to refugee camps, where people don't have regular access to electricity or water (or $100).

A generator + second hand industrial washing machine will cost less than $1000 together, and will probably be enough to wash clothes of hundreds of people in a day.

That's more usefulness than any of these space toilets NGOs splurge millions of bucks on.

If you have a plan for a generator that can power washing machines for an entire refugee camp, plus the machines themselves, plus a supply chain to deliver fuel for the generator, plus a stable supply of water for the machines, plus plumbing to distribute water throughout the camp, plus electrical infrastructure for the camp, plus education and materials for residents to maintain and repair all of that, all for under $1000, I'm sure Oxfam would be very interested to hear it.

I see it very simple, and my firsts ache to reach the face of a first person to shout "lets do SWOT analysis!"

First, water must be coming to the camp some way, or another, or people would've been dead.

Whether it's in tankers, or anything else.

Second, just go, and buy a 2nd hand 1kva generator from eBay for $150-$200, and a cheapest owned 10-15kg washing machine.

Spend the rest on few months of water in tankers, and fuel.

> First, water must be coming to the camp some way, or another, or people would've been dead.

The water (and fwiw, also food, medicine, literally everything) coming into refugee camps is extremely, extremely rationed to a point where even in summer months, people have to get by with sometimes half a liter per day and person. Forget about showering, forget about washing clothes.

The biggest single cause of the 2015 mass migration was that Germany withdrew its UNHCR funding from 301 million $ to 143 million $ (per https://www.heise.de/tp/features/EU-Staaten-hatten-2015-fast...). The result of that loss of a small amount of money was that suddenly hundreds of thousands of people lost access to food.

With the current financing situations, the last thing refugee camps need is more to take account for in the supply chain.

I don't swallow this.

Even in the most water starved countries, 10000 litre tanker delivery costs $10 at most. That's 1 million tons of water for 1 million bucks a year.

It will be an insult to my intelligence to believe this.

If you don't need drinking water the cost will go down further.

> 10000 litre tanker delivery costs $10 at most.

Source? Because I highly doubt that the entire supply chain, from getting the water to the tanker, to getting the tanker to the refugee camp, to unloading and making it available for use, costs $10 at most for a single tanker.

Hell, even without the last step. Even without the first step. The fuel alone to get a tanker to the camp from wherever is itself more than $10.

That's the cost in Karachi with its completely depleted water table, where water comes from tens of kms from outside of the city.

Once again, source?

You're making pretty wild claims, you really need numbers to back it up.

A quick google for "karachi water cost" brought up this: https://www.samaa.tv/news/pakistan/2021/01/karachi-water-tan...

Given 2340 pakistani rupees for a 3000 gal tanker, it's about 12€ or 14$ by today's exchange rate. A tiny bit more expensive than GP claimed, but acceptably close enough.

A centralised service seems far more likely to be an efficient use of capital, labour, and scarce resources than distributing hundreds or thousands of hand-cranked tubs to individuals.

Though as a make-work scheme, the latter might have benefits.

I agree, but this is a human system so efficiency is never the only concern. Would people feel comfortable handing their possessions over to a central service? Would they trust the people running it? Should they? Would people appreciate the overall time savings of a centralized service, or would they prefer the flexibility of being able to wash whenever they need? Which solution is more efficient for people who live in very remote places and can't easily travel? Is it really feasible to ask overburdened and underfunded administrators to set up another centralized system on top of food, water, medicine, shelter, education, etc.? If they have no capacity to take on more work, a distributed system might be better.

There are different models of centralisation, and yes, trust is a factor in several ways.

"Centralised" needn't be "a single centre serving an entire camp", though that's clearly one model. It could also be nodes distributed amongst every-so-many refugees, based on a full-utilisation estimate. Say: every family does laundry 1x weekly, for 2 hours, within a 12-hour day, 6 days a week, giving one washing machine per 36 families. Hypothetical though plausible numbers, modify assumptions to arrive at different values. If a family has 4 members, this would be about 7 machines per 1,000 camp inhabitants. Are we comparing 250 x $30 hand laundry systems (1 per family) vs. 7 x $100 laundry systems (plus power and water)? The electrically-powered machines would be 1/10th the total cost, though requiring greater coordination and infrastructure.

The service might be fully staffed, or a family member would operate the washer. The risks for a full-service laundry are of loss of clothes to the refugees. The risks of a self-service laundry is abuse or damage to the equipment to the providing and/or managing agency or operators.

One problem facing refugee camps is that they're organised on the explicit assumption that they are temporary, and that there isn't an economy --- people not only don't work and produce goods and services, they often cannot by camp and government regulations. A resident-operated laundry might be sensible, but prohibited.

I re-read the article to make sure I had not missed any mention of some sort of DRM on the washing machine soap, or perhaps Terms & Conditions that prevent you from repairing the washing machine....

I'm not sure how these do-gooders expect to make their next round of funding.

(Man, I need to get off HN. :-))

WaaS - Washing as a Service is going to be HUGE in 2023! Better get in now!

You're laughing but "appliances as a service" exists. Someone legit is using a coffee maker and a washing machine on subscription.

I'm working in the printing industry, printing machines are becoming more and more like that, too.

Our packaging department just got a new machine for producing filling material, it works like that, too. The machine is free, but you'll have to buy the raw material from the guy who provided you with the machine and so on.

It's a thing for sure.

Martinizr

Reply on news.ycombinator.com