Thursday, May 26, 2011
Weight is our friend
For a long time now, Raymond Loewy's main rule has been applied in all sorts of places and ways. In the '40s and '50s, Loewy had signs all over his industrial and auto studios reading:
Weight is the enemy.
In the same period, German spy Wallis Simpson famously said,
No woman can be too rich or too thin.
Loewy's slogan was a good corrective at the time, given the extremes of totally unnecessary weight on most cars. Example: In designing the '58 Buick, arguably the epitome of excess, Harley Earl ordered his stylists to add 100 pounds of chrome, and threw a hissy fit when they only added 80 pounds of chrome.
Now we've taken weightlessness too far.
Three completely unrelated observations:
(1) Why do trailers 'attract' tornados? Because they're light. Stick-built wooden houses are hard to lift, generally 'overengineered'. The older the better. Trailers are built to minimize weight, which means they can be lifted and overturned easily.
(2) Why are minicars dangerous? Because they're light. Even with similar crash-proofing, the car with more inertia will always win in a collision.
(3) A recent bit of research (can't find it online, think it was done by a Spokane hospital) countered the idea that hefty people are couch potatoes, finding that many of them were doing active jobs like construction. Fits my own observations and experience. In construction work, a 300-pounder doesn't use nearly as much effort as a 180-pounder, because the big dude has inertia as well as weight. When wrestling pipes off a truck or maneuvering 4x8 plywood, the big guy can just plant his feet and move the object. The smaller guy has to do fancy footwork and fancy torso moves to fight static friction, wind, and angular momentum.
= = = = =
Update 9/28: I think the commentators are seriously missing the point when they say NJ gov Christie has to lose weight before running for pres. They're stuck in the modern Repooflican love of amorphoditic wispy fairyboys, and that's exactly why the Repooflicans are fucking everything up.
Inertia works psychologically as well as physically.
Physical inertia lets the big dude plant his feet and move a physical object without effort. Psychological inertia lets the big dude plant his feet and move a crowd without effort.
Or think of a canine metaphor: Most Repoofs are Chihuahuas. Yappy, squeaky, bitey, ineffective. Christie is a St Bernard. Calmly gets the job done. ¶ 6:02 AM
Weight is the enemy.
In the same period, German spy Wallis Simpson famously said,
No woman can be too rich or too thin.
Loewy's slogan was a good corrective at the time, given the extremes of totally unnecessary weight on most cars. Example: In designing the '58 Buick, arguably the epitome of excess, Harley Earl ordered his stylists to add 100 pounds of chrome, and threw a hissy fit when they only added 80 pounds of chrome.
Now we've taken weightlessness too far.
Three completely unrelated observations:
(1) Why do trailers 'attract' tornados? Because they're light. Stick-built wooden houses are hard to lift, generally 'overengineered'. The older the better. Trailers are built to minimize weight, which means they can be lifted and overturned easily.
(2) Why are minicars dangerous? Because they're light. Even with similar crash-proofing, the car with more inertia will always win in a collision.
(3) A recent bit of research (can't find it online, think it was done by a Spokane hospital) countered the idea that hefty people are couch potatoes, finding that many of them were doing active jobs like construction. Fits my own observations and experience. In construction work, a 300-pounder doesn't use nearly as much effort as a 180-pounder, because the big dude has inertia as well as weight. When wrestling pipes off a truck or maneuvering 4x8 plywood, the big guy can just plant his feet and move the object. The smaller guy has to do fancy footwork and fancy torso moves to fight static friction, wind, and angular momentum.
= = = = =
Update 9/28: I think the commentators are seriously missing the point when they say NJ gov Christie has to lose weight before running for pres. They're stuck in the modern Repooflican love of amorphoditic wispy fairyboys, and that's exactly why the Repooflicans are fucking everything up.
Inertia works psychologically as well as physically.
Physical inertia lets the big dude plant his feet and move a physical object without effort. Psychological inertia lets the big dude plant his feet and move a crowd without effort.
Or think of a canine metaphor: Most Repoofs are Chihuahuas. Yappy, squeaky, bitey, ineffective. Christie is a St Bernard. Calmly gets the job done. ¶ 6:02 AM
