Comment by fidotron
20 hours ago
I'm somewhere in the middle, young enough that almost everything I've seen new is disposable crap (including the tools), old enough that I have had an interest in things from before and noticed that they really were built much better, or at least heavier, back then.
I've made the comment on here before that I believe it's short term energy optimisation, in that it used to be seen as reasonable to much heavier objects around. We've made everything so light we've lost the infrastructure for moving heavy stuff around when we might need to.
Kids today have no concept of how heavy workstations, TVs or monitors used to be, and they think it's exaggeration. Let alone tools, cars, appliances etc.
Yes.. try moving that 36 inch Sony Trinitron from the car inside the house.. weighs 200 pounds+ IIRC....you need at least 2 strong people
I remember the Sun monitors (21" I think) were about 80 lbs. I've read that part of that was a metal frame to hold all of the wires in front of the screen.
They were fun monitors - we had a lab full of them, they would degauss on startup, and the degausser would induct into the monitor next to it (and a little bit into the monitor after that).
The weight from a CRT is mostly about the amount of glass required to keep the atmosphere out, as it's essentially a vacuum bottle with better marketing. On that 21" display, you've got about 6000 pounds of force trying to push the face inward, not to mention the sides, neck, etc.
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Right. Bought two out of a University lab and lived in an apartment six stories high with only stairs. Moved out those monitors even and they were more difficult to get down than the couch...
Don't let me get started about fixed frequency, X11 modeline guessing (wrong of course) and needing a second monitor to even get back to the original config.
Cars haven't gotten any lighter. Rather the reverse. Battery packs are quite heavy.
Even non-EVs have gotten quite a bit heavier due to the inclusion of more structural safety features and creature comforts.
arguably the biggest driver is simply the cost of oil. crumple zones made of styrofoam and plastic bumpers arn't making things heavy.
e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2019/01/03/new-ve...
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It's also due to the size of the vehicles that are popular today. SUVs and pickup trucks(used as family vehicles).
However the increase has also been offset with weight savings in other places.
- The use of aluminum in suspension components and body panels
- Long ago the move to unibody over body on frame for small cars
- smaller engines, V8s weigh more than an inline 4 cylinder and require heavier suspension components.
For example a 1989 Lamborghini Countach 25th weighs around 3200lbs which is slightly heavier than a 2022 VW Golf GTI (3150~)
I see comments that blame safety technology (electronic components) for increasing the weight of a car but a blind spot monitoring system probably weighs less than 5lbs. A rear camera is also around that.
Structural safety and airbags do add to a cars weight but these changes have made cars extremely safe.
Almost like changing the energy source causes a step change in energy optimization priorities . . .