Back in the 60s you could buy a "Rough service" Bulb that lasted longer, but was dearer & dimmer. They didnt sell many. Hardly makes it a conspiracy that bulbs were a compromise between cost/light emission.
Well, I was trying to add some evidence to your earlier response to another FM, who had thought the practice only started in the 70s, that it started in the 20s.
As to the "global" aspect of it, I agree that there is little if any evidence in the public domain of that being widespread (but your link to the MMC report in the 50s only seems to say that "we asked the manufacturers if there is a global conspiracy and they said 'no'"!).
But, if it is true that, prior to the intervention of the cartel, the average light bulb was dimmer but longer lasting (IIRC 2500h was mentioned), why weren't those bulbs still available to the public after the cartel acted, as well as the new brighter, shorter-lived ones? (or is that what was referred to as an ELMA lamp?)
Back in the 60s you could buy a "Rough service" Bulb that lasted longer, but was dearer & dimmer. They didnt sell many. Hardly makes it a conspiracy that bulbs were a compromise between cost/light emission.
Rough service bulbs (or bulbs claiming to be rough service bulbs) have had a recent resurgence as a way of circumventing the ban on incandescent lamps. If they are genuine, this of course means they will be even less efficient.
Well, I was trying to add some evidence to your earlier response to another FM, who had thought the practice only started in the 70s, that it started in the 20s.
But the Phoebus cartel has been a staple of conspiracy theories for many years, despite it existing only between 1924 and 1939.
As to the "global" aspect of it, I agree that there is little if any evidence in the public domain of that being widespread (but your link to the MMC report in the 50s only seems to say that "we asked the manufacturers if there is a global conspiracy and they said 'no'"!).
Well, no. They said nobody had produced any evidence to support allegations that there was a conspiracy to artificially reduce the life span of lamps.
I'm quite keen on evidence, myself.
But, if it is true that, prior to the intervention of the cartel, the average light bulb was dimmer but longer lasting (IIRC 2500h was mentioned), why weren't those bulbs still available to the public after the cartel acted, as well as the new brighter, shorter-lived ones? (or is that what was referred to as an ELMA lamp?)
Have you managed to find any evidence that was the pre-cartel average life of a light bulb? The report I quoted says "As regards life standards, before the Phoebus Agreement and to this day the general service filament lamp was and is designed to have, on average, a minimum life of 1,000 hours."
But the Phoebus cartel has been a staple of conspiracy theories for many years, despite it existing only between 1924 and 1939.
Well, no. They said nobody had produced any evidence to support allegations that there was a conspiracy to artificially reduce the life span of lamps.
I'm quite keen on evidence, myself.
Have you managed to find any evidence that was the pre-cartel average life of a light bulb? The report I quoted says "As regards life standards, before the Phoebus Agreement and to this day the general service filament lamp was and is designed to have, on average, a minimum life of 1,000 hours."
I agree, it would be interesting to know what was in the BSI report BS 33 which was dated from 1909 but i don't have a spare £146 to find out!
That report is from 1906, and concerns specifications for carbon filament lamps (the earliest type commercially available). And since the first patent for the far superior tungsten filament was granted in 1904, I doubt it would cast much light on the situation (did you see what I did there?).
Even if it wasn't happening before (which is probably was even if not to the same extent) it's obvious that once the war was over and businesses got going again, obsolescence would be built into everything. If everything lasted forever, there'd be no sales, therefore no need to manufacturing, therefore no jobs, therefore no income, therefore .......
That report is from 1906, and concerns specifications for carbon filament lamps (the earliest type commercially available). And since the first patent for the far superior tungsten filament was granted in 1904, I doubt it would cast much light on the situation (did you see what I did there?).
Even if it wasn't happening before (which is probably was even if not to the same extent) it's obvious that once the war was over and businesses got going again, obsolescence would be built into everything. If everything lasted forever, there'd be no sales, therefore no need to manufacturing, therefore no jobs, therefore no income, therefore .......
And how would you make a light bulb "last forever"? Talk us through the technology.
And how would you make a light bulb "last forever"? Talk us through the technology.
Presumably, as with the Livermore bulb, it could get dimmer as time went on (IIUC that originally shone as per a 20W bulb but is now down to <4W, with a few hours "out" last year) and the user could decide when it was too dim to be practical? if the output level fell in the same way nuclear decay does, then could it have a "half life" meaning it would last effectively "forever"?
Presumably, as with the Livermore bulb, it could get dimmer as time went on (IIUC that originally shone as per a 20W bulb but is now down to <4W, with a few hours "out" last year) and the user could decide when it was too dim to be practical? if the output level fell in the same way nuclear decay does, then could it have a "half life" meaning it would last effectively "forever"?
Ah, yes. The Livermore bulb. I mentioned that in the other thread I've already quoted:
Accordingly, I've just found a copy of the film, and sure enough, 4 minutes in and we're at the Livermore Centennial Light, the mere existence of which seems to be regarded as proof of the existence of a conspiracy to shorten the lifespan of all other light bulbs.
I've already explained why this lamp's longevity is not a great mystery, and you can see how dimly lit it is in the film. A little further investigation revealed that it is currently consuming 4 watts (having apparently been rated at 30 watts at manufacture). I can just imagine the whining of the CFL haters here if they had to put up with that!
As for the Phoebus internal documents, all we got were some brief glimpses of a few paragraphs of some unidentified document, and people telling us what it all meant. It did nothing to establish the existence of a grand conspiracy orchestrated by the non-Illuminati.
And how would you make a light bulb "last forever"? Talk us through the technology.
I didn't mention light bulbs - just that an economy can only work if people keep on spending. So naturally everything has to have built-in obsolescence. If we did as we used to do and only buy something that would last a lifetime, there'd be no jobs, etc.....
I didn't mention light bulbs - just that an economy can only work if people keep on spending. So naturally everything has to have built-in obsolescence. If we did as we used to do and only buy something that would last a lifetime, there'd be no jobs, etc.....
I'm struggling a bit with your use of "built-in obsolescence", because I think you've used it as a catch-all term without really thinking about what it means.
Things wear out or break. They always did. Things get superseded by better things. This always happened too - but the pace of technological innovation has got ever faster. Whether or not you regard innovation as synonymous with progress is a value judgement. In many areas, things have got a lot more reliable. What has changed is the ability of the average person (or sometimes, anybody at all!) to fix them when they do go wrong. So a traction engine was hopelessly unreliable, but could be got working again with a few crude tools. A modern car is much more reliable, but fixing it requires ever more sophisticated tools and specialist knowledge.
One thing I did read (and haven't followed up to see if its true) is that advances in mobile phone technology mean that the general trend in improved reliability in electronics is starting to reverse. Basically (the argument goes) the electronics are now so stressed to get the performance being demanded that the chips will fail much earlier than their predecessors. And as long as you can persuade most of the people who buy the product to "upgrade" it (the new word for replace) before it fails, you won't get many complaints... I suppose that is indeed "built-in obsolescence".
I'm struggling a bit with your use of "built-in obsolescence", because I think you've used it as a catch-all term without really thinking about what it means.
Things wear out or break. They always did. Things get superseded by better things. This always happened too - but the pace of technological innovation has got ever faster. Whether or not you regard innovation as synonymous with progress is a value judgement. In many areas, things have got a lot more reliable. What has changed is the ability of the average person (or sometimes, anybody at all!) to fix them when they do go wrong. So a traction engine was hopelessly unreliable, but could be got working again with a few crude tools. A modern car is much more reliable, but fixing it requires ever more sophisticated tools and specialist knowledge.
One thing I did read (and haven't followed up to see if its true) is that advances in mobile phone technology mean that the general trend in improved reliability in electronics is starting to reverse. Basically (the argument goes) the electronics are now so stressed to get the performance being demanded that the chips will fail much earlier than their predecessors. And as long as you can persuade most of the people who buy the product to "upgrade" it (the new word for replace) before it fails, you won't get many complaints... I suppose that is indeed "built-in obsolescence".
I'm referring to the time, during which I was alive, where I bought a washing machine and it lasted for 20 years. A three-piece suite lasted for the lifetime of the purchaser as did wooden furniture.
Not only has it become the norm to change household items with fashion, but also they're no longer built to last a lifetime as they used to be. There was no such thing as credit so you had to save up for what you wanted, or for very large items get it on hire purchase.
I'm not of an age of throwaway goods, throwaway fashion or having to keep up with the latest technology. Rechargeable batteries in electronics like iphones are designed to fail after about 18 months, and, not being replaceable, means buying a new iphone every 18 months or so - built in obsolescence.
If everyone was like me, the country would grind to a halt. Frequent replacement is necessary to keep modern economies functioning. I'd be happy living on a desert island.
I won't be watching this- the subject matter looked interesting, but Peretti utterly lost any credibility in my eyes after I saw his documentary, "50 Years of Bad Sex".
To cut a long story short, it was meant to explore changing attitudes towards sex through artifacts of popular culture. The 1980s were represented by Baywatch.
"Er... hang on", you're thinking, "I'm pretty sure that was a 90s show?" Well... yeah.
Yes, the first series of Baywatch started in September 1989, a negligible four months before the decade ended. And even then- by Peretti's own acknowledgement- it flopped and wasn't a hit until the second- significantly reworked- series in 1991. Of course, it was this later 90s incarnation that was mainly shown... but still presented as a reflection of 80s television and society.
Peretti was correct that Baywatch was an "80s show", but only in a sense that was misleadingly pedantic to the point of dishonesty.
Let's be clear; it could be argued that Baywatch was a result of and an evolution of 80s culture... just like lots of other aspects of 90s culture. But that's not what he was saying.
Peretti discussed Baywatch as if it was a popular 80s show- period. As if it was what we were watching during the time when AIDS first surfaced, during the "last decade of the cold war".
He stood in front of a beach hut, while some "Scarface"-era analogue synths evoked the early-80s.
He tried to present David Hasselhoff's concert appearance on New Year's Eve 1989 (shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall) as a result and culmination of Baywatch's popularity. The show that had only started three months previously? Yeah, right, that's why he was there. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact Hasselhoff was already famous through Knight Rider and already enjoyed musical success in Germany and other countries.
In short, the whole thing was akin to using Nirvana (relatively unsuccessful debut album out in mid-1989, broke through in 1991) to reflect what the masses were listening to in mid-80s America. Utter bull****. >:(
You might say that I'm making too big a deal of this, that it's just another example of badly-researched five-minutes-looking-up-the-Internet lazy nostalgia fluff. But it wasn't- this was a substantial percentage of an in-depth 90 minute documentary featuring multiple interviews and analysis of the show- which IMHO makes it worse.
Peretti clearly isn't an idiot, which begs the question as to what all this was about? I don't know, but I do know that I can't take the guy at all seriously any more.
An interesting show. I think this (along with The Men Who Made Us Fat) could be called "How America ruined the world".
It's really disturbing how people saw the danger in advertising sugary foods to children and tried to put a stop to it when it started, but "liberty" won out. And now we are paying the price for it. At least a third of adults obese, very high childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, putting a strain on health services and productivity, high levels of personal debt and a very consumerist society.
Now governments are being forced to take action, like not allowing advertising of sweets during children's shows, maybe taxing sugar in the future, limiting credit availability. What a shame the right decisions hadn't been made when it would have counted, in the 70s and 80s.
For some reason I seem to be immune to all of this - the advertising and marketing, the urge to buy new things or have the latest model, the inability to stop eating delicious foods, the inability to control your spending or buying on credit instead of saving. I guess with enough intelligence and willpower it's possible to resist.
I'm enjoying this series so far but just to comment about the BIB -
We had junk food in the 1980's when I was growing up but most children weren't overweight and it was rare to see an obese child or even an obese adult. I think a lack of exercise since the 1990's - kids swapping bikes and sport for computer games and the internet - has had just as much impact on our health as fatty, sugary foods and also ready meals as well. I had cakes and chocolate as a child but I was also given homemade dinners, not the processed stuff many kids are fed today. Sugary drinks are another problem.
Peretti clearly isn't an idiot, which begs the question as to what all this was about? I don't know, but I do know that I can't take the guy at all seriously any more.
He seems to get an idea and then tries to push it through regardless of how weak the evidence is. In this series, he's been quite selective about which authorities he promotes.
I thought the first episode was better than the second. Neither really had enough content. That people fear old age doesn't need much explaining.
He seems to get an idea and then tries to push it through regardless of how weak the evidence is. In this series, he's been quite selective about which authorities he promotes.
"Piretti doesn't strike me as an idiot, so what his motives are for this intellectual dishonesty are unclear. My guess is that he wanted things to fit his narrative whether or not they actually did, regardless of how much hammering was needed to get that square peg into a round hole."
It's a shame, because Peretti's "The Men Who Made Us Fat" struck me as a worthwhile and informative documentary at the time- although I do vaguely remember some criticism- and I'd almost certainly have watched this one, had it not been for the above.
(*) Of which my original post was meant to be a summary, but ended up being almost as long as... sadly, I can't be concise to save my life!
I'm referring to the time, during which I was alive, where I bought a washing machine and it lasted for 20 years. A three-piece suite lasted for the lifetime of the purchaser as did wooden furniture.
Not only has it become the norm to change household items with fashion, but also they're no longer built to last a lifetime as they used to be. There was no such thing as credit so you had to save up for what you wanted, or for very large items get it on hire purchase.
I'm not of an age of throwaway goods, throwaway fashion or having to keep up with the latest technology. Rechargeable batteries in electronics like iphones are designed to fail after about 18 months, and, not being replaceable, means buying a new iphone every 18 months or so - built in obsolescence.
If everyone was like me, the country would grind to a halt. Frequent replacement is necessary to keep modern economies functioning. I'd be happy living on a desert island.
The washing machine is a good example of "built-in obsolescence".
One of the commonest components to fail is the bearing that allows the drum to rotate. In the past that bearing was made of steel, hence the reason why washing machines used to last 20+ years as my old machine did.
Now those bearings are made of nylon, a material suitable for the purpose but nylon is much softer than steel and for that reason a nylon bearing will have a shorter working life than a steel bearing, and if the manufacturer then encloses the bearing in a housing that cannot be replaced the consumer has no choice but to replace the washing machine.
If you then add in the domestic consumer's desire to pay as low a price as possible, that plays in to the manufacturer's hands perfectly.
Wouldn't a nylon bearing be quieter than a steel one? Noise levels from white goods are a big selling point now, especially with the modern trend toward having the kitchen/diner as the main living room in the house. Perhaps the manufacturers see quietness a bigger seller than longevity?
Wouldn't a nylon bearing be quieter than a steel one? Noise levels from white goods are a big selling point now, especially with the modern trend toward having the kitchen/diner as the main living room in the house. Perhaps the manufacturers see quietness a bigger seller than longevity?
That wasn't the primary reason for moving to nylon bearings, though. Nylon bearings are cheaper and have a shorter average life, that is the reason why they were used.
Just starting to watch this, and while the subject matter is very interesting indeed the presenter is a charisma-free zone. If they could have got Mark Williams, the presenter of Industrial Revelations, to do it it would have been a whole lot more entertaining.
Comments
As to the "global" aspect of it, I agree that there is little if any evidence in the public domain of that being widespread (but your link to the MMC report in the 50s only seems to say that "we asked the manufacturers if there is a global conspiracy and they said 'no'"!).
But, if it is true that, prior to the intervention of the cartel, the average light bulb was dimmer but longer lasting (IIRC 2500h was mentioned), why weren't those bulbs still available to the public after the cartel acted, as well as the new brighter, shorter-lived ones? (or is that what was referred to as an ELMA lamp?)
K
Well, no. They said nobody had produced any evidence to support allegations that there was a conspiracy to artificially reduce the life span of lamps.
I'm quite keen on evidence, myself.
Have you managed to find any evidence that was the pre-cartel average life of a light bulb? The report I quoted says "As regards life standards, before the Phoebus Agreement and to this day the general service filament lamp was and is designed to have, on average, a minimum life of 1,000 hours."
http://shop.bsigroup.com/SearchResults/?d=N%294294966781&q=&f=&ps=10&pg=6&no=50&c=10&t=p
K
how about BS 60-2 from 1913?
http://shop.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030304974
K
K
Things wear out or break. They always did. Things get superseded by better things. This always happened too - but the pace of technological innovation has got ever faster. Whether or not you regard innovation as synonymous with progress is a value judgement. In many areas, things have got a lot more reliable. What has changed is the ability of the average person (or sometimes, anybody at all!) to fix them when they do go wrong. So a traction engine was hopelessly unreliable, but could be got working again with a few crude tools. A modern car is much more reliable, but fixing it requires ever more sophisticated tools and specialist knowledge.
One thing I did read (and haven't followed up to see if its true) is that advances in mobile phone technology mean that the general trend in improved reliability in electronics is starting to reverse. Basically (the argument goes) the electronics are now so stressed to get the performance being demanded that the chips will fail much earlier than their predecessors. And as long as you can persuade most of the people who buy the product to "upgrade" it (the new word for replace) before it fails, you won't get many complaints... I suppose that is indeed "built-in obsolescence".
K
Not only has it become the norm to change household items with fashion, but also they're no longer built to last a lifetime as they used to be. There was no such thing as credit so you had to save up for what you wanted, or for very large items get it on hire purchase.
I'm not of an age of throwaway goods, throwaway fashion or having to keep up with the latest technology. Rechargeable batteries in electronics like iphones are designed to fail after about 18 months, and, not being replaceable, means buying a new iphone every 18 months or so - built in obsolescence.
If everyone was like me, the country would grind to a halt. Frequent replacement is necessary to keep modern economies functioning. I'd be happy living on a desert island.
To cut a long story short, it was meant to explore changing attitudes towards sex through artifacts of popular culture. The 1980s were represented by Baywatch.
"Er... hang on", you're thinking, "I'm pretty sure that was a 90s show?" Well... yeah.
Yes, the first series of Baywatch started in September 1989, a negligible four months before the decade ended. And even then- by Peretti's own acknowledgement- it flopped and wasn't a hit until the second- significantly reworked- series in 1991. Of course, it was this later 90s incarnation that was mainly shown... but still presented as a reflection of 80s television and society.
Peretti was correct that Baywatch was an "80s show", but only in a sense that was misleadingly pedantic to the point of dishonesty.
Let's be clear; it could be argued that Baywatch was a result of and an evolution of 80s culture... just like lots of other aspects of 90s culture. But that's not what he was saying.
Peretti discussed Baywatch as if it was a popular 80s show- period. As if it was what we were watching during the time when AIDS first surfaced, during the "last decade of the cold war".
He stood in front of a beach hut, while some "Scarface"-era analogue synths evoked the early-80s.
He tried to present David Hasselhoff's concert appearance on New Year's Eve 1989 (shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall) as a result and culmination of Baywatch's popularity. The show that had only started three months previously? Yeah, right, that's why he was there. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact Hasselhoff was already famous through Knight Rider and already enjoyed musical success in Germany and other countries.
In short, the whole thing was akin to using Nirvana (relatively unsuccessful debut album out in mid-1989, broke through in 1991) to reflect what the masses were listening to in mid-80s America. Utter bull****. >:(
You might say that I'm making too big a deal of this, that it's just another example of badly-researched five-minutes-looking-up-the-Internet lazy nostalgia fluff. But it wasn't- this was a substantial percentage of an in-depth 90 minute documentary featuring multiple interviews and analysis of the show- which IMHO makes it worse.
Peretti clearly isn't an idiot, which begs the question as to what all this was about? I don't know, but I do know that I can't take the guy at all seriously any more.
I'm enjoying this series so far but just to comment about the BIB -
We had junk food in the 1980's when I was growing up but most children weren't overweight and it was rare to see an obese child or even an obese adult. I think a lack of exercise since the 1990's - kids swapping bikes and sport for computer games and the internet - has had just as much impact on our health as fatty, sugary foods and also ready meals as well. I had cakes and chocolate as a child but I was also given homemade dinners, not the processed stuff many kids are fed today. Sugary drinks are another problem.
I thought the first episode was better than the second. Neither really had enough content. That people fear old age doesn't need much explaining.
Interesting you should say that. In the original version of my rant (linked above) (*), I commented:-
"Piretti doesn't strike me as an idiot, so what his motives are for this intellectual dishonesty are unclear. My guess is that he wanted things to fit his narrative whether or not they actually did, regardless of how much hammering was needed to get that square peg into a round hole."
It's a shame, because Peretti's "The Men Who Made Us Fat" struck me as a worthwhile and informative documentary at the time- although I do vaguely remember some criticism- and I'd almost certainly have watched this one, had it not been for the above.
(*) Of which my original post was meant to be a summary, but ended up being almost as long as... sadly, I can't be concise to save my life!
The washing machine is a good example of "built-in obsolescence".
One of the commonest components to fail is the bearing that allows the drum to rotate. In the past that bearing was made of steel, hence the reason why washing machines used to last 20+ years as my old machine did.
Now those bearings are made of nylon, a material suitable for the purpose but nylon is much softer than steel and for that reason a nylon bearing will have a shorter working life than a steel bearing, and if the manufacturer then encloses the bearing in a housing that cannot be replaced the consumer has no choice but to replace the washing machine.
If you then add in the domestic consumer's desire to pay as low a price as possible, that plays in to the manufacturer's hands perfectly.
That wasn't the primary reason for moving to nylon bearings, though. Nylon bearings are cheaper and have a shorter average life, that is the reason why they were used.
Anything else would be a bonus.