SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Pickup line, circa 2030: "Do my pants think it's hot in here, or is it just you?"
Imagine a single-coloured piece of cloth that suddenly displays a colourful pattern when the ambient temperature changes. Upon further temperature change, a completely different pattern shows up.
[...] Marjan Kooroshnia began her research on already existing descriptions of leuco dye-based thermochromic inks; below their activation temperature they are coloured, and above their activation temperature they are clear or have a light hue. In addition, they are usually blended with static pigments, allowing them to change from one colour to another.
[...] After a lot of testing in the printing lab, she managed to mix the inks so that they looked similar when they were in a non-heated state and they change to different colours as result of increasing temperature.
Then, she explored thermochromic inks with different activation temperatures in order to create a wide spectrum of colours that would appear at different temperatures. She used thermochromic inks with activation temperatures of 27, 37 and 47°C to create a dynamic pattern that colour changing effects that appear in sequence due to increasing temperature; for example, the pattern has one colour at 27°C, another colour at 37°C and another colour at 47°C.
Or will it take off as a uniform that's white when it's cold, and camouflage pattern when it's hot?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:00PM (13 children)
We had fabrics like this back in the 1990s (or was it the 80s?). They made shirts that changed color when they got warm. It was a popular fad for a brief time, and died out quickly. Having a shirt that emphasizes your armpits isn't really attractive.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:08PM (11 children)
It was in the plot of an episode of an 80s sitcom named "Cheers" where in the last minute of the show someone gets even with one of the waitresses by giving her a really nice color changing sweater that had the word "horny" on her back when it got warm. Or something like that.
Anyway given that evidence I think we can assume 80s. I vaguely remember throwback temperature mood rings in the 80s.
Another thermochromic 80s reference is american science and surplus or edmunds optical or some pre-maker era supplier like that sold thermochromic film in the 80s that would change color and in this BBS pre-internet era there was a lot of debate perhaps on Fidonet about the possibility of an infrared camera using a pinhole and the film. Perhaps based on an amateur scientist column from scientific american.
All that stuff seemed to disappear by 90s, I assume the solvent was pure carcinogenic benzene or the pigment was an organometalic of the bad variety. There seems to be a new wave of the stuff.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:40PM (10 children)
Well the mood rings go back to the 70s or maybe even 60s; those are really old.
I disagree about the safety of the 80s shirts though. Things weren't that bad back then. More likely, it was a stupid fad, just like Coca-Cola shirts, "Big Johnson" t-shirts, parachute pants, shoulder pads, etc., and it died out. And you're seeing a "new wave" of the stuff because these things go in cycles: what's old is new again.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 14 2017, @04:18PM (9 children)
You know, the 80s didn't seem that tasteless back when I was in them, probably because we spent so much time being thankful we were no longer in the 60s or 70s. But, in retrospect, that stuff in your list was pretty WTF. Not as bad as the 70s, but bad indeed.
Another 80s thing was kids in the midwest 1000 miles from the sea dressing like their impression of surfer dude in Februrary. Kind of like the Johnson tee shirts but G rated and more hypothermic.
I always kinda thought of the 80s as the pinnacle of "jeans and a black tee shirt" culture, like it was the closest "computer guys" got to mainstream clothing styles. That was another very 80s thing, some kids wore nothing but heavy metal mostly black tee shirts. It was actually very funny because I listened to Metallica but my sister wore at least one Metallica tee shirt as a style thing and she was somewhat horrified when I played some Slayer (on a cassette tape of course) and told her that was Metallica.
Another 80s thing I remember is all my dad and grandpa's neckties from that era are about twice as wide to 50% wider than my menswear.
And in the 80s people wore watches instead of carrying phones and the watch was probably shiny chrome digital LCD.
Something I miss from the 80s is miniskirts, I suppose with translucent yoga pants we basically have near total lower body casual nudity but miniskirts were cool in their day. For our younger SN readers women's miniskirts were kind of like cheerleader uniforms without the uniform, perhaps made of denim or whatever and certainly not in the school colors. Its interesting to observe that as the bottom is bared, the top is covered up, you see less top half of women in the 10s than we saw in the 80s IIRC, even while at the same time the bottom half is casual nudity today. It seems to kinda flip flop every couple decades, I predict we'll have basically topless women in see thru skin tight shirts wearing giant covering everything up hoop skirts in 2040 most likely.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 14 2017, @05:11PM (8 children)
The 70s were a weird time. The styles were horrible: men's hairstyles made them look like apes, clothes were pretty ugly overall (remember patent leather jackets and disco-wear?), and American cars looked horrifically awful. But the music was amazing, at least the rock was (Led Zeppelin, etc.).
I do kinda miss the digital watches. And the computers. The computers were, in many ways, a lot more fun back then. They've gotten really tired these days, with so many stupid new programming languages (and new ones every week), Windows 10/Metro, the horror that is web development, I could go on and on. And computers back then actually had keyboards with real keys, with real travel.
(Score: 1) by leftover on Tuesday March 14 2017, @10:36PM (1 child)
The first time our daughter saw a photo of my wife and me at a college party in 1971, she burst into laughter and asked what our costumes were.
The 70's fashions thankfully disappeared but I am still listening to the music.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 15 2017, @03:30AM
Yeah, it's a strange dichotomy isn't it? Such horribly awful hair on men (though the women's hair looked great; this changed in the 80s though with the stupid "big hair" on women, but men's hair looked better except for the guys wearing mullets), such horrible cars (at least the American ones, the Japanese ones were sensible which is why they took over), such horribly ugly clothes, but such fantastic music. It took until the 90s for clothing and hair styles to look decent and not ridiculous in some way, and for cars to really look good again, but the music in the 90s took a gigantic turn for the worse, right down the shitter. Somewhere around the early/mid 90s music all just turned to shit, starting with the "grunge" trend (which wasn't so bad, but it was the beginning of the end), and has gotten steadily worse since then. It's almost like people forgot what good music was, and how to have fun with it, but they couldn't separate the sensibility of good, timeless styling from music with real character; it had to be one or the other.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday March 15 2017, @12:37AM
Man, you just reminded me with that trip down memory lane, that this year is my fortieth HS reunion.
It was an interesting time to grow up in, Tricky Dick, Vietnam, riots on campus, pay phones, newspapers, $0.60 premium gasoline, 'lids' of weed.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 15 2017, @01:56PM (3 children)
remember patent leather jackets
I was a dumb kid at the time and had one of those and thought it was real leather or real something anyway and it looked really cool for a couple months and then the fake leather wore thru in one spot and the entire layer of something like car upholstery vinyl leather peeled off the real fabric layer which it wasn't really attached to. I was like WTF kind of animal did this weird as hell leather come from? Is this like a lizard shedding its skin and this is just the top layer? I has quite familiar with the concept of leather from wallets and holsters but being a kid I though my jacket was just weirdly dyed and processed animal leather. That was my introduction to the concept of patent leather.
And computers back then actually had keyboards with real keys, with real travel.
I still use my model M from the 80s, best keyboard ever made by humanity. Plugs into a real converter (not plug adapter) that converts to USB.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 15 2017, @04:29PM (2 children)
These were reasonable modern keyboards: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2CP54M8367&cm_re=quickfire-_-9SIA2CP54M8367-_-Product [newegg.com]
I see prices are up and they are currently unavailable, too bad, I like the two I have had for the last 4 years and would probably buy another when I need one.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 15 2017, @05:20PM (1 child)
Yeah the number pad could use some work on that one. There are attempts at making something as good as the old M and reddit mechanicalkeyboards and all that, but its not quite there.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:09PM
At home, I'm space constrained (small desk with two notebooks, two extra monitors and a keyboard and mouse....) so the compact form factor is a plus for me, but it does take a little getting used to.
Since I got used to it at home, I got an identical one for work - much easier that way. I agree, it seems more optimized for gaming than work, but working with what you're trained to is usually more important than any specific layout details.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:16PM
70's hairstyles are what people are wearing today. Lots of hair on the top of a man's head. They're sporting beards though and not the manly Burt Reynolds/Ned Flanders hairy 'stache. Ah, the 70's, when men were manly and hairy. Remember all the gratuitous displays of manly chest hair (in some cases set off with shiny medallions and chains)? As a male kid in the 70s, it wasn't unusual to be teased if you got your hair cut. We weren't wearing the 60s freak flags, but the hair was long enough to cover your ears and forehead (like they're doing these days).
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Tuesday March 14 2017, @04:57PM
We had fabrics like this back in the 1990s (or was it the 80s?).
I loved my Hypercolor shirts! I'm remembering late 80s for this; by 1990 no one in my hometown was selling or wearing them.
In addition to the armpit emphasis, they also had longevity issues. It only took one run in the dryer at high temperature to lock it into the high-temp color phase permanently. I have to wonder if the developer has figured that problem out. Presumably yes, since the article summary lists temps as high as 47 oC, but time will tell. I don't think I want anything that hot touching my skin as clothing, though...
I personally wouldn't mind a new Hypercolor Mk2 shirt with three color modes, it's about time that trend came back into fashion :)
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin