The Rise of the $8 Ice Cube | Hacker News Reader

The Rise of the $8 Ice Cube

priceonomics.com

As stupid as this sounds, there is actually a difference between these ice cubes and the standard variety. And that's the appearance.

Just look:

http://www.glaceice.net/uploads/3/9/6/9/3969825/3969289_orig...

Because there's no air bubbles, the ice is perfectly clear. That's not a trivial fact. Humans innately like clear stuff! Just think how unappealing cloudy water is in comparison to clear water. The only exceptions arise from cases where we've learnt from experience that cloudiness is good (e.g. cloudy looking cider has more flavour)

What this means, is that without considering price, almost any person would rather use one of these ice cubes over a normal ice cube. So the potential market is measured in billions of people. Even if (for example) only 0.01% of the population would ever consider spending $325 for 50 ice cubes, that 0.01% is guaranteed to want these ice cubes.

It seems stupid, but it's actually brilliant. The weakness with this sort of model is that it's very easy for competitors to dominate the market. Gläce has established the demand and made ice sexy, but they have no hold on their customers. Someone could come in and sell a perfect ice maker for $200 and crush the pre-made high end ice market completely.

This doesn't detract from your point, but it's worth noting that that's probably not an ice cube in the photograph -- more likely, its plastic (in the same vein that photographers use glue instead of milk for cereal).

One of my favorite blogs, Alcademics, has a great set of experiments on how to capture the glory of clear ice at home:

http://www.alcademics.com/2010/08/a-homemade-giant-crystal-c...

Can't you get the same thing out of a Kold-Draft machine? Isn't that what high-end bars already do? What reputable high-end cocktail bar --- Pegu, Booker & Dax, PDT, Aviary, &c --- uses this stuff?

The article indicates that this is an end-consumer product. If I were an amateur craft cocktail maker, I might consider buying a small amount versus a commercial machine.

-> tptacek This has all the hallmarks of a Veblen Good. Cutting the price of the ices could well backfire if the key attraction is in signalling to all how much you're willing to spend for quality pre-melted water.

So then couldn't any local ice company buy a Kold-Draft machine and undercut this?

> Someone could come in and sell a perfect ice maker for $200 and crush the pre-made high end ice market completely.

Doubtful. What customers are buying is a feeling, not a specification.

Such people would not buy an Acme watch just because it looks as good as and keeps better time than a Rolex, because the brand and its image is the product.

Surely nothing makes that more apparent than luxury ice.

A $200 ice machine isn't going after the people who would buy an $800 ice machine so much as the people that want to be people who can buy an $800 ice machine. It's the reason Seikos and Omega exist in the watch market. You get some of the reflected glory, but can say "I'm more financially prudent than the guy with the Rolex" or "I'm beating the hell out of the guy with the Timex"

...people that want to be people who can buy an $800 ice machine.

And that's a vastly bigger market than people who can buy an $800 ice machine.

I'm pretty sure you can get clear ice cubes by just freezing hot water. Bonus: they actually freeze faster than cold water.

Maybe? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect Apparently the science of water freezing is still not that well understood

It does for me. Pretty easy thing to try in your freezer.

Looks like you just have to use boiled water to make clean ice: http://www.instructables.com/id/make-crystal-clear-ice!/ And bars already have a "boiling machine" (cafe machine) :)

Clear ice is nice, but you don't need to pay $8 a cube to make clear ice.

There's a lot of stuff you can make at home more cheaply than you can buy it. There will still always be people who have the money and want the convenience.

You don't actually believe a product marketing photo matches reality? Any piece of ice will crack as it melts, so it won't look like this. Yes, you can avoid the bubbles, but you can hardly see the bubbles behind the cracks that will form anyway.

Look at a marketing photo of a cheap McDonalds burger, and compare it with the real thing.

Oh, I've had some long lasting, crack free, crystal clear ice cubes in my day. I didn't have to pay extra for them, though.

You can get really nice clear ice cubes at most grocery stores if you aren't hung up on what shape they are.

The joke is that for very nice liquor (whiskey especially) you should definitely not be adding ice, no matter how "deserving" the ice is. If you want the drink cold, chill the liquor itself or even the glass.

In hindsight, fuck it. There is no point in dissecting this, it is what it is. It's ice for people who want to spend money just to spend it.

Adding a bit of water brings out flavors you don't experience neat. It's a personal preference.

http://youtu.be/ajqd62fE73E?t=6m23s

I've heard this, but I don't really buy it. The whisky is already diluted at bottling time, unless it's "cask strength".

Try it! The first whiskey I've tried it with was Glenfiddich 12, and I was amazed at how it sweetened/changed the flavor profile with just a tiny splash.

I suggest doing a blind test. I did several times, and definitely noticed a difference from adding a few drops of water in most high-end whiskys.

Indeed, it's quite likely that rather than bringing out flavour through some sort of chemical or physical change, the dilution just reduces the alcoholic bite, allowing you to enjoy the other flavours more.

But still, you can certainly taste the difference and decide which you like best.

I've definitely seen serious whiskey drinkers add a little water to break the oils at the surface and release flavors like you said. I was more commenting on putting a giant spherical ice cube in your whiskey. But again, to each his own and there is no "right" way to do anything.

I'm told that, ideally, you should use the same water that the whisky was made from in the first place. But that may be apocryphal.

Seconded! Always fire back at people who try to look down at having a drink on the rocks!

No true Scotsman drinks his whisky without a little water.

I saw what you did there.

It is true you should probably enjoy a nice whiskey at room temperature with no ice/water (especially if someone offers it to you), though sometimes it's nice to throw in a splash of water to cut down on the bite a little and let the flavor shine through.

I put a single cube of ice in my scotch / bourbon simply because the dram "opens up" over time and the taste evolves with each sip, so to speak.

On the other hand, Chilled glasses are a pet peeve of mine.

There's absolutely no right or wrong when it comes to sipping whiskey. Ice, dilution, neat, chilled; whatever YOU prefer is the right way to do it.

That said, on a snowboard trip one of our amateurs took some of my Macallan 12 year and mixed it with coke. That is definitely the WRONG way.

Looks like I'm branding and pricing my services wrong.

"For just $50k per hour, you get painstakingly crafted, premium server code. Every character is hand-typed on a perfectly resonant keyboard, entering the world with a pleasing 'plink'..."

Need a technical co-founder?

Sounds like he needs an MBA-type.

So now we have aisles full of water in bottles, you can buy air in cans in China, and gourmet ice. I'm waiting for bottles of vacuum, but I am sure they will suck.

Here ya go: http://www.thermos.com/products/vacuum-insulated-14-oz-stain...

The price per ounce of vacuum makes cocaine look like water.

Kind of funny. It is impossible to make perfect vacuum (a few particles per cubic inch) down on earth. One has to lunch stuff into space.

As a resident of Saigon, and having visited China, I can actually attest to the idea that having air cans in some of these smoggy cities is become less of a luxury and more of a necessity every day.

So the answer to pollution is to put clean air in disposable containers ?

I think I see where the problem is here.

hiyo!

Only when they're opened!

This is, of course, ridiculous. Still, there's logic to it: find some mass-market component that is used in a luxury service, and provide a high-end alternative. The kind of idio^H^H^H^Hcustomers who want luxury certainly don't want it contaminiated by something from Walmart, regardless of the actual quality. It's the same reason as for those gold-plated cables for audiophiles.

Gold plated cables actually serve a purpose, although the average consumer does not have a need for them. In a studio environment, where cables are frequently plugged and unplugged, the gold plating protects the contacting surfaces, extending their lives.

There are no gold plated connectors in a typical studio (exceptions for amateur home studios purchased from Guitar Center).

Most cabling in a studio is bulk copper wire from a giant spool, permanently soldered in place for reliability.

The only plugging happens at dedicated patch panels, which in my experience are old repurposed analog telephone patch bays that look as old and corroded as they are.

Gold connectors are for home enthusiasts with money to burn. The practical effect of the platings are so far below the noise floor (vs ground loops, EMF, amp noise) that it's irrelevant for audio work.

I've never seen a gold-plated XLR cable, which is usually the first link in every studio recording chain.

Gold plated XLR. By Neutrik which is a reasonable brand. Your point still stands though - no one actually uses these.

http://www.neutrik.com/en/xlr/xx-14-series/nc3mxx-14-b-d

I'm not an expert, and absolutely willing to be proven incorrect here. But I thought that gold was a better conductor, and that's why they're better for audio cables (less resistance). Surely the fact that gold is a soft metal would be a reason to not use it for reasons of 'extending lives'?

Copper and silver are better conductors. Golds main advantage is that it does not corrode. Zinc has that advantage too and is much cheaper, conduction is a non-issue because the surface is fairly large and the amount of material to traverse microscopically thin.

Copper is 1.68×10−8 Ω·m [1], while gold is 2.44×10−8 Ω·m [2].

[1] - Douglas Giancoli (2009) [1984]. "25. Electric Currents and Resistance". In Jocelyn Phillips. Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. p. 658. ISBN 0-13-149508-9.

[2] - Raymond A. Serway (1998). Principles of Physics (2nd ed.). Fort Worth, Texas; London: Saunders College Pub. p. 602. ISBN 0-03-020457-7.

Gold isn't the best conductor. Silver is better, followed by copper, but they oxidize, and gold does not. It's the oxide that forms the insulator. There are both hard and soft gold platings is electronics. Hard gold is for wearing contact surfaces such as connectors and relays. Soft gold for solderable and wire bondable surfaces.

I assume that 'hard gold' is some sort of alloy, as gold itself is known for being soft (hence the idea of someone biting down on a gold coin to test if it's really gold).

I believe "bright hard gold" (as it's referred to) contains about 0.2% cobalt and/or nickel.

Silver > Copper > Gold > Aluminum for conductivity. Gold is used as plating for anti-corrosion/tarnishing and wear, as the other user pointed out. It can be pressed extremely thin and still act as a good coating, so it's not really all that expensive.

At warm temperatures. Aluminum is a superconductor below 1.2 Kelvin.

Not likely to encounter those temps in the studio.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistivity#Resistivity_of_var..., copper has a lower resistance per meter than gold.

Gold, however, is much more resistant to oxidation.

I always thought it was because gold does not oxidize or corrode very easily.

Gold has more resistance than metals like copper. Its usefulness in electronics comes from the fact that it doesn't corrode or oxidize.

Are you sure? Gold is one of the most soft/malleable metals used to plate connectors? (I know it's one the best best conductors).

And we all know, there's no difference between the $150 hdmi cable and the $5 hdmi cable except cosmetics and perhaps some better shielding. They're all digital connections, so the signal/bits are either there or are not.

> They're all digital connections, so the signal/bits are either there or are not.

Absolutely not true. There is quite a lot of engineering behind making an HDMI or Ethernet cable work:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_line

And, there are plenty of ways to mess it up and make a cable that only sort of works.

TMDS, the signaling mechanism that HDMI uses, does not have error correction codes. It does do some error detection by using 10 bits to transmit each 8 bit message and declaring some of the binary representations "invalid", but if the cable does not work well, you will get visual artifacts. (I was surprised when I saw this; little specks of green among blacks while I was running an HDMI cable very close to its maximum bandwidth. One video card I tested refused to output anything, but another was happy to send a signal that was corrupted by the cable.)

Further reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_code

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_signaling

Again, the bits are either there or they are not (corruption).

I don't see your point, because it seems to back my earlier point.

"Digital" is a fiction made possible by the heroic efforts of hardware designers. In the real world, every interconnect is an analog system. In "digital" interconnects like HDMI that don't have error correction, you can get artifacts before you lose the picture entirely.

Bits are there, but the bits that come out of the video card may not be the bits that the TV sees. Like another comment says, it's all analog once you're outside of the computer, and the conversion between the two is not perfect.

What digital signaling does is fix some common failure modes of analog. The signal is balanced, so it's more immune to picking up and emitting noise. The electrical signal only has two defined states, so if you degrade the signal in some way (attenuation, noise), you'll probably be able to pick the right state. But, you don't get infinite ability to do that, only more. Eventually, the two states become indistinguishable, and then you can't tell which bit was transmitted to you. (But you can't tell that you can't tell, so you start picking bits at random.)

If we take this to the logical extreme, your argument implies that you can build an infinitely long cable with an infinitely tiny amount of material.

The 8b10b encoding mostly helps with clock recovery and preventing a DC bias (+/- charge) build up in the cable, which helps with error detection (I think it can detect only single bit) and recovery from, but can't correct.

I really hope the $150 cable has much better manufacturing and inspection. Obviously that doesn't mean they're worth that much, but still.

You'd be surprised. The $150 hdmi cable is likely manufactured alongside the $5 cables in the same factory, then just sold to different brands (Monster vs. Store-brand).

It's fairly common... Samsung makes almost all the parts of the Best Buy store-brand TV's... they're essentially a slightly lower-grade samsung tv with the store-brand slapped on and sold cheaper.

Also why the Dynex TVs usually get pretty good reviews. I used to work for a Grocery Distributor.. Most of the time store brands really are just the name brand repackaged.

I too often encounter cheap Ethernet cable which only works at 10Mbps because maker saved money on wires.

lol, where are you buying cables? You can lose half the wires (2 pairs) and still pass 100Mbps easily.

University IT, local cheap supplier, about 10 years ago.

It's also extremely stable and won't corrode, rust, or tarnish over time.

I don't think that's true. The connector's plating isn't going to make it more durable, that has a lot more to do with the materials and design of the connector. Gold plating's biggest benefit is that it won't corrode like other cheaper materials. Conductivity is good too, so you get both.

I'm mildly surprised that I can't find any audiophile cables with actual gold-plated or gold wires.

Pear Anjou: http://www.pearcable.com/sub_products_anjou.htm

> ANJOU interconnects employ ultra high purity (99.99%) solid gold conductors. It is extremely important for interconnects to maintain a smooth, impurity free conductor surface to maintain signal integrity. Both copper and silver conductors corrode in air over time creating a thin layer of either copper oxide or silver sulfide. Both of these contaminants have vastly different electrical properties from their metallic counterparts, which will cause signal distortion in interconnects. All dielectric materials, including Teflon, are permeable to oxygen, which means that over time, the copper or silver conductors will become damaged. This is especially problematic at the termination ends where heat is frequently applied from resistance welding or soldering.

Etc etc.

Excellent. I was careful to phrase my comment to only be about my ability to find them, since I was sure they must exist somewhere. $1,600 for a meter-long gold cable is actually not bad, aside from the fact that it's pointless.

You can probably find silver clad copper though, that combination is fairly popular because it is used in HF gear due to the skin-effect.

Zinc plating is just as effective, and much cheaper!

I don't think that is true. Consider that IC manufacturers use gold plating on pins and connectors. If Zinc was just as effective, I think they would use it instead. I know zinc protects steel as a sacrificial anode, I am not sure if it does as much for copper.

As the size if the pin decreases and the frequencies go up the advantages of gold plating relative to the increase in price look better. Quite possibly there is a point where this balance tips over in the favour of gold. Zinc is not used in a sacrificial sense here, just as the main contact surface.

There is gold in a few more places in a CPU, typically the bonding pads surface and the wires connecting them to the pins.

It is quite possible the skin effect is at play here and that gold's superior resistance against oxidation is what gives it an edge. (we're talking GHz after all!).

This is, of course, brilliant: find some mass-market component that is used in a luxury service, and provide a high-end alternative.

Many of those things should be considered entertainment, they're conversation pieces. People with a few bucks to burn buy them to have something (very neutral) to talk about for fifteen minutes.

But the high end drink chiller exists, and it is called "whisky stones" or similar.

Those are bunk.

The cooling power of ice comes from the phase change from solid to liquid, which absorbs a ton of heat. The temperature change from 25 to 32 degrees Fahrenheit is minor in comparison.

Whiskey stones do not change phase, and so they have a much smaller amount of heat they can absorb, and I haven't found them to be very effective for chilling a drink to 32 degrees and keeping it there. There's no dilution, but that doesn't matter to me as much as the temperature.

So, I didn't know what they were so looked them up. According to some of the reviewers on Amazon, the purpose of Whiskey stones is not to chill your drink, but rather to only very slightly chill whiskey below room temperature. That is, as one of the reviewers says, they are great for their very specific purpose and useless for everything else and they are not an ice replacement.

So, they're not bunk - they just weren't designed for your use case.

Of course, as another reviewer suggests, a cheaper way to chill your whiskey by a degree or two would be to put the glass in a fridge for a minute ;-) (Then again, someone else comments saying that "You don't want to chill your glass, because the moisture will effect your whiskey. You're still exposing your whiskey to the moisture (water) as the glass warms.")

This brand is ridiculous, but…

Crystal clear ice cubes look great in a drink, and are far more difficult to make than “filling a 50-cent plastic tray with tap water and throwing it in the freezer”. The author of the article seems to avoid pointing this out.

See https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danprovost/neat-ice-kit and https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wintersmiths/the-ice-ba...

I make clear ice cubes two ways.

1. Boil water twice beforehand

2. Strap a vibrating "toy" to the tray and put it on a solid flat surface in the freezer.

Neither of these solutions ended up costing me more than $20 to make as many ice cubes as I can fit. The hardest part is finding ice cube trays that don't suck.

You can even use a silicone molded ice tray to make crystal clear ice in interesting shapes. I recall seeing Death Star shaped ice somewhere out there on the Internet.

Did you read? The author of the article details the process involved, the cost for crystal-clear ice blocks, etc.

I don't think this is ridiculous. I remember watching this one scene in Star Trek Into Darkness where Kirk was sitting in a bar enjoying a drink. The drink that he was enjoying had this perfect spherical ice in it. I remember talking to myself at that moment that this is a very nice business idea.

Retail price aside, I do believe premium ice is a viable business.

You can buy presses to turn ice into a sphere.

Is this an affiliate link? How do I turn it back into a regular link?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00A1TMFSU?pc_redir=1401253883...

Or just buy a $9 mold: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007ACTN54

Thanks for the link!

Now I know I can DIY these.

That's funny because reading this article I thought of that exact same scene. The way that sphere of ice falls into the glass is so satisfying.

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

I actually thought about this when a read an article a couple of years ago about a company that sells "designer" bottles of water for $80 EACH. There are many wealthy people on the planet who don't have a clue on how to spend their money. They are a brilliant target audience to sell overpriced everyday products to.

It's not just the ultra-wealthy that fall for this crap. Consider SF's $4 toast. Cheap enough that anyone can buy it but still way overpriced.

I dunno, those toasts look pretty big. Compare to something like ice cream or latte, which retails for about the same price. (Or maybe a little less.)

I believe it typically won't be the ultra-wealthy, but people who are just barely wealthy enough to afford it. (Which isn't all that high of a bar. An $80 bottle of water could be afforded as an occasional purchase by your average software engineer.)

As Bill Gates fictionally said on The Simpsons, "I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!" Someone who has accumulated that much money probably has more sense about what they spend it on.

Well, yeah; obviously the dude getting rich on this isn't spending that much on ice. I'd guess he gets a pretty good employee discount on it.

My guess before reading the article was that the ice cubes were made with heavy water.

I'd pay $8 an ice cube that sinks[1].

1. http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2006-07/ice-capades

I'd hesitate to drink heavy water. Probably won't do much to you, but why find out.

There's 2 (stable) kinds of heavy water : deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is perfectly safe, and it's heavier. Nobody's ever drunk it in even tiny quantities though, so there could be surprises.

Tritium is only arguably stable though, and you definitely should not drink it. It's perfectly safe to swim in it though, just keep it outside your skin.

Drinking deuterium is going to be very expensive though, given the effort necessary to separate it. Poisoning someone with tritium is going to be more expensive than pouring molten platina over them though.

Any preference for the oxygen in the cubes ? O16, O17, or O18 ? O16 would be the "common man" oxygen. All three are safe. None of the other isotopes are stable enough to be produced in significant quantities.

Making heavy ice cubes out of H2O with the O17 is probably the cheapest "nuclear" way to produce heavy ice.

Order here: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/151882

Cheaper than I would have thought.

Unknown Internet Source: "Despite the fact the light water and heavy water are chemically identical, heavy water is mildly toxic. How can this be? Since heavy water is heavier than normal water, the speed of chemical reactions involving it is altered somewhat, as is the strength of some types of bonds it forms. This affects certain cellular processes, notably mitosis, or cell division, due to the difference in binding energy in the hydrogen bonds needed to make certain proteins. Mouse studies have shown that drinking only heavy water along with normal feed eventually causes degeneration of tissues that need to replenish themselves frequently, and leads to cumulative damage from injuries that don't heal as quickly. One study likens the effects to those suffered by chemotherapy patients. Heavy water toxicity manifests itself when about 50% of the water in the body has been replaced by D2O. Prolonged heavy water consumption can cause death."

I don't think it's possible to say that "deuterium is perfectly safe" and also that "nobody's ever drunk it in even tiny quantities." You mention yourself, there can always be surprises. I'd rather someone else discover those before I try it :)

who knew "heavy water" was a thing? Unfortunately it looks like consumption is not recommended.

Reminded me of the Priceonomics article on diamonds, some business guy literally created a market for something found in nature

"Okay, okay, you figured us out. I'll give you a free bag of diamonds if you'll go away and keep quiet."

"Great...now I'm a party to this ugly little secret."

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-07-12/

The pretty much describes everything... See that wooden chair, something found in nature... see that car made out of metal ores... found in nature! Diamonds found in nature are ugly. Diamonds found in jewelry are very pretty.

Gah, why doesn't Priceonomics have an RSS feed? :(

Edit: Oh, they do! Thanks! I'll amend my comment to "why doesn't Priceonomics advertise their RSS feed in their site's header for easy discovery?" ;)

Is this a sarcastic comment on all Priceonomics posts being semi-automatically posted on HN? :-)

In case this is not a joke: http://priceonomics.com/latest.rss

They do http://priceonomics.com/latest.rss

I'm just amazed anyone is willing to pay that much for an ice cube.

They're not. They're actually paying for the del... illusion it brings.

Just further proof that marketing doesn't actually need a product to succeed.

Maybe I should start selling Läce Oxygen, the better breathing experience certified to be fresh as it was extracted directly from a sealed room filled with plants.

Don't breathe secondhand air from the mouths of peasants! Get Läce Oxygen!

EDIT: I was kidding, folks. ^^;

You know that Oxygen bars are a thing, right?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_bar

A fact that continues to depress and disturb me. However, they don't use plants. They use machines. So I was trying not to directly reference something real.

You could totally make high class oxygen by using plants. It's a business. You just need to be brave / shameless enough to charge a ridiculous amount for plant generated oxygen.

I think this element of "I cannot bring myself to do this, even though some people are so rich they will not miss the money" stops some people from starting businesses.

Oh, you could. I'm sure you could.

Could it be profitable and have me sell it with a straight face?

No way in hell :P

Ha! Bundle that with a fan that "mists" the pure air and you've got yourself a product!

I know you were kidding, but that doesn't mean you couldn't make a lot of money with that idea.

Ridiculous products can make tons of money.

I think I'll try to stick with trying to come up with a SaaS product :P

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

Please breathe responsibly.

What kind of plants? I can see that idea working.

He'll use my line of high-end oxygen-producers. I can start him off with some Bambü, which produces a very nice texture, or we can skip directly to Alø, which has some very nice medicinal properties as well.

You need to tweak the phrasing to avoid regulatory scrutiny by FDA but beneficial properties of oxygen of different plants would sell.

I don't know how depressed I am by this.

I have a bamboo floor in my home office, and generally like things made out of bamboo. Not even knowing the actual oxygen-producing properties of bamboo, I can imagine myself trying some bamboo oxygen. And I usually don't like seemingly overpriced stunts like this. I seriously think it could sell big. Oxygen made by your favorite plants! Amazing idea.

Why not buy a bamboo plant and put it in the corner?

It is the same effect. :)

There are articles online about the useful effect of certain plants on the atmosphere of offices.

That's for regular punters. Now we need a bit of price discrimination to get the high value customers. No mere "place a bamboo plant in the corner". You need to specify the obscure region of China that the original plant comes from (leave out the fact that you took a million cutting from that plant in an industrial unit somewhere) and describe the quality of the oxygen and other harmonious gases produced by these plants.

http://www.mnn.com/health/healthy-spaces/photos/15-houseplan...

Feel free to steal it if you are serious. :)

I'm not brave enough to sell overpriced goods.

Consider the air pollution in some countries, such as China, your idea is brilliant.

Well [2] ... I don't think they're kidding.

Please note that oxygen, even if mildly purified from what's in the athmosphere is one of the most destructive substances there is. If you're standing in 72% or more oxygen, a cough will burn you to a crisp. Much of the age related damage in human bodies is ultimately the effect of too much oxygen in one place at the same time.

I know how it sounds, but please do keep in mind : oxygen is toxic, makes anything corrode, burn or explode (literally, you can coax half the noble gases into burning in sufficiently pure oxygen). Keep in mind the human body consists of water, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen. Everyone of those will react violently with oxygen, and while athmospheric concentrations are obviously safe, concentrated oxygen is NOT[1]. For the love of God, DO NOT aim a can of pure oxygen at a flame.

And yes, concentrated oxygen can keep you alive with a damaged lung system (e.g. done to newborn infants, post-operational care, etc). Please do not confuse that with the idea that it's good for you. Please remember that 2-3% of people that that is done to end up with severe burns on their body (due to something unexpectedly catching fire with pure oxygen aimed at it). This is with professionals handling it.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1#Pure_oxygen_atmosphere [2] http://www.oxygenplus.com/

My wife's cousin is a chef and knows his guy: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2013.... He bartends by day, and sells artisan ice to restaurants by night. It looks pretty and melts slower than regular ice cubes.

BTW: If you're in D.C., check out Range (mentioned in the above article; serves artisan ice in drinks).

after day of hard public service our public servants need their artisan ice. $400 space toilet seat starts to look like a bargain.

While perhaps there is some form of utility here for those more familiar with high end cocktails (I'm more of a dollar beer kind of guy, sometimes I'll splurge on a 22oz), this reminds me a lot of that "wealth badge [1]" or whatever it was -

"Yeah, I've got money, I spend $8 on ice cubes"

[1]http://www.vocativ.com/money/business/size-quarter-made-meta...

True ,it could be a wealth badge. But how many such badges does a person needs ? is there any additional value to the new ones?

There is value to society in providing additional noncoercive ways to transfer money from rich people who don't need it to non-rich people who do, which is what this company is doing.

Except the owners and/or shareholders are likely already wealthy (or will be from the obscene profit margin on this).

The employees probably aren't, though.

This is the über demonstråtion that marketing is everything and product is... maybe not nothing, but in any case vastly overrated.

Marketing rules because the only thing that matters is perception. While we mere mortals find this story ridiculous, if we had all the money in the world and some guy convinced us that he had made the perfect ice cube, why would we settle for less?

It's arguably irrationnal to buy an inferior product if you can afford a better one.

That said, Tovolo trays are great :-)

One supposed virtue of this ice is that it's clear, if you want to make perfectly clear ice yourself, this instructable has instructions on how you can build an insulated ice maker that will do that for a few bucks (in addition to the instructions on making a good iceball maker):

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-an-ice-ball-make...

*I am not the author and am no way affiliated ... just read it a while back and found it relevant/interesting.

At what point do we reach maximum decadence? How far can we go I wonder? But you won't ever see me complaining about this. It's not my place to question other's choices that don't hurt me. But it sure is funny to sit back and watch sometimes.

I have an even better idea... I'll sell luxury air for $995 a bottle. I'll call it æïr!

This is one blog that always comes up with a variety of stories on different topics, and makes them interesting. Some are serious, some are ridiculous (like this article), but all of them always interesting.

Sometimes dilution & cooling liquor is appropriate. For those learning to refine their taste buds, a shot approaching 100 proof is too concentrated to appreciate - but adding a little water and chilling make it much easier to savor. I have to pipe up about this because a few months back I had the delightful experience of savoring 1911 apple vodka poured over rare fresh Georgia snow (something a tap water ice cube just doesn't replicate properly).

Yeah, an $8 ice cube is rather nuts, but if you are going to chill & thin an otherwise fine expensive liquor, taking effort to use good water and careful freezing (avoiding "freezer burn") is worthwhile. Or wait for a good snowfall.

Just Wow. So I once had an idea that I could sell mineral water by selling packets of trace minerals. Just add water and voila... mineral water

Thanks for the article, maybe I will pursue this idea after all

Great example of creating a market for your product...

I can't wait to buy premium hydrogen when fuel cell cars become more popular

I should start a company selling $9 ice spheres.

If you put ice in Macallan 18, you suck. Sorry for the light epithet, but it deserves worse.

and as I read more: "Gläce states that the cubes are ideal for high-end cocktails -- those that employ splashes of $38,000-per-bottle liquors, and must not be diluted or contaminated by mere tap ice." ... ICE NUMBS YOUR TASTE BUDS. Fancy water or not.

edit: Downvoted to -1? I'll double down. If you are going to drink a nice scotch on the rocks, do yourself a favor and buy cheap scotch instead. Go enjoy a Johnnie Walker Red or Cutty Sark. There are aldehydes and esters from the peating of the grain and the oak cask aging that you are not appreciating when it's chilled. If it's cask strength (around 125 proof) then by all means dilute with spring water so you don't burn out your palate. But if you drink it on the rocks, try not doing that and see if you enjoy it differently.

Heaven forbid someone enjoy a product in the manner of their choosing.

To each their own. I'll still call them a Philistine as if they'd ordered Kobe filet well-done. There's a perfectly serviceable Macallan 12 if someone wants to ice it. I can have a polite discussion about spring water for cask strength bottles, but the 12 & 18 are both diluted to just over 80 proof already.

Look, you are just not going to fully appreciate a fine whisky that way. This is chemistry & biology, not only me being an ass.

edit: and as an olive branch, I probably wouldn't have been as strident if we were talking standard (ie, free) ice instead of some $8 monstrosity.

i went to a steak house a month or so ago, and they chilled their "high end" liquor by surrounding the base in a block of ice. it had a cool visual effect and also didn't dilute the drink.

Agreed. I do have some cheap trays ($15) from Amazon that make pretty sweet ice spheres. They melt slow and are good for drinking cheaper whiskey when I do want it on the rocks.

I'm fine with people putting ice in Macallan; it's when they want to add ice to a truly great single malt like Springbank or (good heavens) Port Ellen that I want to cringe.

Some years back I went to a whisky tasting event hosted by Macallan, and their "brand ambassador" was quite nonchalantly splashing Macallans from 10-18 years old over big spherical ice balls that mostly filled the glass they were placed in.

I think the price inflation even at the mass-produced 15 year single malt is bad enough. If the picture in the article were a Port Ellen instead of the Macallan I would have been hellbanned for my response.

How can ice in your drink numb your taste buds any more than chilling your drink to the same temperature in another way?

Whisky isn't usually chilled.

Fair point. In calling out ice specifically, I just assumed he was only talking about that one.

Nope, chilling in general. Sorry I wasn't specific about that.

Love it if whoever did it could explain why they saw fit to downvote this comment. It's too bad HN doesn't implement metamoderation, the responsible party would not have their privilege much longer.

Not at all, entirely my fault for assuming too much.

I put Macallan 18 in my ice. That's right. ;-P

I'm pretty sure that was a joke. :)

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