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Comment by toxodont | Hacker News Reader

How do they power their irons?

From the German Wiki (roughly translated):

> Commercially available irons are used for ironing. In places where no electrical power supply is available or cannot be used due to humidity, the heating plate is heated by auxiliary constructions (mostly gas cookers). For the World Cup, for example, a process was developed in which the iron is heated inside by an exothermic reaction, generated by mixing a hygroscopic chemical pressed into granules with water.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremb%C3%BCgeln

I found this:

"We took our own iron. It's not battery powered so it doesn't iron that well, but the quality of the ironing is not the point - it's where you do it."[1]

So it sounds like they just run a not-plugged-in regular iron over some fabric and call it ironing?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/25/everest.nepal

I mean if this is true it really just calls the validity of the whole sport into question. You obviously can’t iron without heat.

Conversely, I would question whether you can iron without a mountain backdrop. Really calls into question whether those crisp lines on your clothing are the result of true ironing or just pressing something hot against them.

It's true for every example I can find.

This photo, for example, shows a plain old plug-in iron: https://web.archive.org/web/20161017222702/http://teamsteam....

Same guy, up in a tree, with the same iron: https://web.archive.org/web/20161017223140/http://teamsteam....

From this page: https://web.archive.org/web/20160920083532/http://teamsteam....

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ofc you can, with pressure.

Putting your trousers under the mattress and sleeping on them so that in the morning, they'll be flattened and de-wrinkled... because the lack of an iron anywhere on the base does not cancel the army regulations, and those say that the sentry must be impeccably dressed.

Indeed. In a competitive sport there should be a way to evaluate result to determine standings.

If ironing is just about extra bulk of equipment not the actual product of ironing, then it's more like weight-added competition. Otherwise there needs to be some way of judging the ironing aspect, like quality, novelty, or artistic merit, in addition to the otherwise difficulty, like in figure skating, for example.

But just for fun - everything is sport. In the line of "everything and the kitchen sink", how about extreme dish-washing!

> In March 2008, a team of 72 divers simultaneously ironing underwater set a new world's record for number of people ironing underwater at once

Apparently the clothes don't need to be dry either!

You could do with hot coals. You can still get all your clothes ironed this way in many south asian countries by a street vendor.

Uh, do you think the point of the sport is to de wrinkle clothes?

Ironing clothes -- actually getting them flat -- on a mountain peak or underwater is interesting because of the difficulty. Finding out the person isn't really ironing, but just pretending, detracts from it and takes it from "that's quite an accomplishment" to "so what?". It goes from an interesting logistical challenge to "can you take an ironing board and an iron up the mountain / into the sea with you?"

Yes, of course. Non dewrinkling ironing on the peak of Mt. Everest is for casuals.

It's one of the things judged on the extreme ironing competitions: https://youtu.be/jZ6Yo0cVMP0?t=205

Looks like those guys are too lazy to rub it a bit.

That's not ironing. It's a fabric massage.

Pfft, not even a coal fired iron? Extreme my arse

A portable power station (eg [1]) should be an expected part of a working ironing setup..

[1] https://www.bluetti.com/products/bluetti-ac50s-500wh-300w-po...

Irons used to be heated up by a fire, so that’d be an option.

Good question, but at least they don't need to refill the steamer's reservoir.

Finally, an application for the conductive bungee cord...

Get an old coal one.

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