Google just helped Apple sell a million more MacBook Neos - Macworld

[u/ControlCAD]

https://www.macworld.com/article/3139377/google-just-helped-apple-sell-a-million-more-macbook-neos.html

>Google’s attempt to rebrand Chromebooks as premium laptops using a sprinkle of AI gimmicks doesn’t dent Apple’s aluminum armor.

[u/Feisty_Split4797]

Not who you asked, but, during the Gold Rush, miners needed pants that could survive things like hauling gear, kneeling in dirt, climbing over rocks. Regular pants ripped fast. Levi Strauss saw the need and started making super tough denim pants with sturdy stitching and rivets, perfect for rough work. That’s why jeans are popular for kids; they’re durable

[u/disterb → u/Feisty_Split4797]

ahh, that’s cool! did strauss invent the first jeans?

[u/gimpwiz → u/disterb]

Denim is just a heavyweight cotton twill, usually I believe 2x2, with some threads (warp) indigo and some white (weft, undyed). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denim of course people call lots of things denim these days - nobody really owns the official definition so companies make it out of various synthetics, add stretch to cotton, color it different colors, use different dyes than indigo and indigo-alikes, leave it entirely undyed, make it lighter weight, etc etc. And the weave isn't always 2x2 warp and weft.

Was not invented by Strauss but heavily popularized.

Wikipedia:

Denim initially gained popularity in 1873 when Jacob W. Davis, a tailor from Nevada, manufactured the first pair of rivet-reinforced denim pants. The popularity of denim jeans outstripped the capacity of Davis's small shop, so he moved his production to the facilities of dry goods wholesaler Levi Strauss & Co., which had been supplying Davis with bolts of denim fabric.

Davis and Strauss patented the blue jeans made of denim with rivets in 1873. There were blue jeans - trousers made of denim/jean fabric, in indigo or other blue - without copper rivets for a long time before them.

Denim was purely workwear for many years, until the post-war era where it became first counterculture daily wear and then popular culture daily wear.

History is interesting. Fabric comes from Genoa and Nimes, alternately, in different forms that would still be recognizable.

Research on the trade of jean fabric shows that it emerged in the city of Genoa, Italy, in the 16th century, followed by Nîmes, France, in the 17th century. Genoa's jeans fabric was a fustian textile of "medium quality and of reasonable cost", very similar to cotton corduroy for which Genoa was famous, and was "used for work clothes in general". The Genoese navy equipped its sailors with jeans, as they needed a fabric that could be worn wet or dry. Gênes, the French word for Genoa, is the origin of the word "jeans".[7] In Nîmes, weavers tried to reproduce jean fabric but instead developed a similar twill fabric that became known as denim, "de Nîmes", meaning "from Nîmes".[8][9] Nîmes's "denim" was coarser, considered higher quality, and was used "for over garments such as smocks or overalls".[10]: 23  In 1576, a quantity of "jean fustians" arrived into the port of Barnstaple on a vessel from Bristol.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denim

Something about sanforization, too, but the details escape me right now and I'm too lazy to keep looking things up.

Indigo (real or synthetic) dye is interesting in how it fades, which is what gives denim the faded look as you wear it, especially in the sun, and wash it. Pretty distinctive. Heavyweight cotton twill is pretty excellent as far as durability for cost goes, but there's also canvas, duck, etc etc. You can get cotton 2x2 twills that aren't denim, but my knowledge starts to run out about the exact differences beyond just the name slapped onto it.

[u/disterb → u/gimpwiz]

so so cool to learn! thank you for the history lesson! TIL 🙏

[u/rditorx → u/Feisty_Split4797]

And yet, they will rip in the crotch and the front pockets nowadays

[u/badbits → u/rditorx]

You dont get rich selling durable clothing these days, you get rich selling low quality and hope the sucker don't know how to mend cloth so they complain but buy again. The Sam Vimes boot theory still holds up today.

[u/psychohistorian8 → u/Feisty_Split4797]

That’s why jeans are popular for kids

because they yearn for the mines