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Comment by ck2 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe we can mimic some of the effects found in nature without chemicals and make hydrophobic surfaces based on their nano-level properties?

Or like ducks use preen oil, something closer to that.

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There is already an XVIII century technology and WWII popularized option called millerain. But it requires some maintenance and isn’t “light” as preferred by cyclists and runners.

Yeah wax was used to make tents waterproof as well. But it’s quite a bit heavier than plastic thread

Yep. People will have to put more work into things. But it’s that or these toxic options as of now.

Odd choice. Writing “18th” is faster for the writer and the reader.

I'm guessing it played well with the WWII lettering.

Perhaps it's my age but I don't find Roman numerals noticeably slower to read than Arabic for the usual use case of recent centuries.

> is faster for the writer

For the whole letter?

> reader

Only if the reader completely unfamiliar with Roman numbering system. I didn't even thought about it until I saw your comment. Get off my lawn, son?

Yeah, but XVIII has a certain appeal to it that your way just can’t match.

Using Roman numerals for centuries is conventional in Romance languages.

Mushrooms have a protein that can do so on their outer layers (hydrophobin). Worked in a biotech company that was researching it, not sure what came out of it.

They… kept their employees in the dark?

It certainly seems likely we’ll find some good alternatives with biology.

...more likely this employee left before the project was finished ;)

For most regular activities, old fashioned things like wool coats, oiled leather, or waxed cotton work remarkably well. Waterproofing imo is only a major issue if you're having to save on weight/space (and cost, I guess). It's hard to run 10k in a wool greatcoat in the rain.

Wicking base layers work pretty damned well. Cyclists did that for ages. When we could finally afford polypropylene is was a godsend. Way cheaper than goretex.

> regular activities

The last time I wore a heavy wool greatcoat in solid rain while walking, it stayed dry for a while, but got much heavier as it took up water, then started soaking through on the shoulders after about an hour. Admittedly it is antique and I'm guessing it has lost its original waterproofing (lanolin?).

Oiled fabrics like a traditional stockman's jacket can last a working day, but they weight a lot relatively, they need occasional re-waterproofing if used, and are not particularly cheap: https://drizabone.com.au/search?q=Oilskin

Yep - the original waterproof fabrics were oilskin, waxed cotton, and leather. They've mostly been replaced by PU coatings, though you might still go for the old school stuff for abrasion-resistance.

Isn't nature made of chemicals?

It is, and you’re totally correct to point that out. Also “you know what he meant” is not a good reason to downvote you, because no, nobody knows what is meant by “chemical” if it isn’t literally “chemical”.

One could guess that they meant “synthetic chemical”, as if that was somehow meaningfully different than a “natural chemical”, but it’s not and it’s just as wrong.

In most casual English conversation, “chemical” is implied as “[man made] chemical”, though I will admit that may not be obvious to people for whom English is not a first language. It’s obvious to (almost) any native speaker what is being said, and to willfully ignore that is to be pedantic for the sake of arguing.

Is the fact that something is man made a problem?

For many people, yes. It's also a very common belief that one and the same state of the environment is bad if traceable to human actions, but good otherwise.

The working premise in many environmental discussions is that humans carry an inherent moral taint and whatever they do creates a problem that needs to be corrected, because it came from an evil source, regardless of whether the resulting state of the world is good or bad.

I don’t think this is a good explanation. Look for a sibling comment from acdha for a better explanation.

I don’t think that is what people are suggesting. Rather, man made is unknown. At least the long term affects are. We can confidently say that natural chemicals, even if they’re bad for you, likely won’t have a giant, unexpected impact on the world. Whereas there are a lot of man-made chemicals that are likely harmless. But less is know about the long term affects of injecting it in to all of earth’s various natural systems.

Often, yes: novel compounds can have side effects which take years to understand (e.g. DDT‘a impact on bird populations lasted past the point where its effectiveness was rapidly tapering) and depending on what characteristics something was picked for you can end up with something which doesn’t biodegrade and is thus a long-term problem if it doesn’t turn out to be harmless.

The fact that these are man-made is irrelevant to their harmful effects and framing it as if it was contributes to the persistence of the natural fallacy.

The natural fallacy application doesn’t seem appropriate: the problem isn’t where they were produced but rather that they’ve never before been part of the ecosystem. We’d have the same concerns if these novel chemicals were introduced by meteors or something but that’s extremely rare whereas chemists produce a wide range of compounds every year.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. But the context is that most people operate with heuristics of the natural fallacy type. Hence this is not mere pedantry for pedantry’s sake, the intention is to provide an actually-helpful clarification/correction.

It’s a good question and in my opinion, it depends entirely on the compound.

But that wasn’t the point of my comment. I am calling out people being pedantic and nitpicky just to argue, instead of recognizing the very obvious intent of the great-grand parent’s comment and debating something with merits, like whether man made chemicals are inherently bad.

So which of the following count as "man made" chemicals?

Alcohol or vinegar from humans intentionally fermenting things?

A metallic aluminum alloy?

Sulfuric acid (which sometimes occurs naturally)?

Turpentine?

Soda-lime glass?

I get that it generally refers to substances that are more on the very artificial side, requiring advanced knowledge of chemistry to produce, and to have a connotation of harmfulness / toxicity. But it's not at all obvious what the speaker would consider to be a "chemical" because that varies from speaker to speaker.

The fact that it’s man-made is irrelevant. It’s not so much about the English language as it is about basic science literacy.

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