Overkill objects for everyday life
neil.computer
neil.computer
Quality consumer goods are better in two key areas. First, they are replaceable. I don’t want a military grade mixer in my kitchen if getting a broken whisk or motor on it is going to require me hunting all over eBay for the specific part hoping it’s available. I was very excited at one point about the idea of getting a commercial dishwasher that can run a load of dishes in like 90 seconds. Problem with those is that you can’t go to Lowe’s and get a replacement part when it acts up. You have to call a restaurant equipment servicing company and pay them what a restaurant with a broken dishwasher would pay. Or more because you aren’t a frequent customer. Sure, maybe it’ll break less but here’s the thing: my modern LG dishwasher will be more convenient to use and if I get 10 years out of it rather than 20 I still spent only $1000 on the top of the line one rather than the $4k on a 10 year old used commercial unit that I will struggle with the entire time.
Second, consumer goods are replaceable. I am used to my Kershaw knife. I broke it yesterday. I can get it serviced by the manufacturer or get a brand new one, or both. If I buy some special forces surplus knife and chip the blade I am either done with that knife or I’m taking it to a specialist or I’m buying a new one. Knowing that I can replace an item I’m used to when a one-for-one replacement is a comfort. Obviously that doesn’t work for everything but it works for items that are made by high quality manufacturers.
Bonus: a military grade mixer is going to suck to make high end pastries because it’s geared towards making mashed potatoes for the troops. I feel like the author is romanticizing ma class of products that in reality aren’t all that amazing except in a couple of key areas that to most consumers aren’t as big of a deal. So while it’s possible that, as the author states, the average consumer is an idiot, I don’t see much evidence that the author is much ahead of the pack here.
About 8 years ago I bought the cheapest catering/professional microwave/combioven I could get my hands on. I did this because I got tired of consumer units with overcomplicated UIs designed (apparently) by unregenerate misanthropes, rotating dishes that are a pain in the ass to clean, overzealous bleeps that go off every 30 - 60 seconds after a cycle is finished, peeling enamel, corrosion issues, and that are too small on the inside.
Consumer grade microwave ovens all, as far as I can tell, universally suck in one way or another that my commercial grade microwave doesn't. The thing is bomb proof. The only thing that's gone wrong in 8 years is the internal bulb. Everything else is rock solid.
This is, however, a rather different proposition to buying a food mixer that was manufactured in 1948. I can get spares for my microwave or, at this point, buy a new one and recycle the old without feeling I haven't got my money's worth. I'm going to struggle with the 1948 mixer and, like you, I don't want that.
Others have highlighted that commercial grade dishwashers and fans are also probably bad ideas. I've run into similar issues with UPSs: none of these things seem designed to run in an environment where fan noise is going to cause a serious problem (nobody seems to sell a completely silent UPS - it's really daft).
Likewise, if you buy a rackmount server instead of a desktop computer you may be surprised to find that the fan noise is extraordinary.
Honestly, the main thing is to do your research before making a purchase so that you buy something that's really going to suit your requirements, whether that's a consumer grade or "professional grade" piece of equipment.
Just made for a different kind of gig than your usual consumer grade camera
See, this is weird. The cheapest microwaves you can get have two dials, one for temp, one for time. Why not buy one of those??
haha! I try to keep myself to one complaint or less per day, and ten cuss-words or less per day. The days I break my cuss-word quota are the days I use the microwave.
It takes quite some research to find single-purpose devices, that are tailored for a specific use case - and are not overburdened with often unused features. There‘s not enough metadata out there on ecommerce sites to filter for that.
Take the microwave example: I‘m happy with the Samsung MWF300G microwave which does just one thing (heating stuff) really well in a very straightforward way:
One haptic dial for duration. One for Watt. And a simple display for time.
Just use the duration dial to set the time. That‘s it. You‘re done by turning your hand just once.
It starts automatically. No start button needed. No program selection. No stop button - just dial it back to zero if needed.
https://westwardsales.com/falcon-ssg1.5k-ups
I bought it because the late writer Jerry Pournelle told me to.
And if you’re draining the battery, then you should pay attention to all that noise and be in the process of shutting everything down safely, so that you can survive whatever caused the power outage in the first place.
The point of a UPS isn’t that you keep running for days regardless of the fact you’ve lost power, it’s that when the power does go out you don’t lose all your work, and you’ve got a few precious minutes to shut everything down safely.
If you don’t use a piece of equipment the way it was designed to be used, then that is all on you, and not the equipment that you are failing to use correctly.
Note that APC is owned by Schneider, a company that specializes in making the really big UPSes of the sort they go into data centers and are used to provide short term power for entire buildings. They know what they’re doing.
The other obnoxious thing is most of what's marketed as "professional grade" to consumers is junk that no commercial kitchen would use. It's just marketing.
You can get some interesting specific stuff on say webrestaraunt store, but you gotta be mindful of the above aspects imo.
I was very fond of the commercial potholders from there, but didn't know where to get some of my own since they closed all the stores.
Then one day through the magic of the Internet, I found a supplier of almost the same thing, albeit with their own logo on it.
(I'm pretty sure I bought them from Wasserstrom, but I just checked and I can't find them)
That is not what the article is about though. He buys actual commercial / industrial stuff that is indeed more rugged.
The reason commercial dishwashers run so fast is that they sanitize dishes, but do not remove food from them. That is done by a restaurant employee. Home dishwashers include soaking and scrubbing to remove food, which takes longer.
https://www.reddit.com/r/answers/comments/no3c9j/why_do_comm...
Paying a bit more for a better item which can be repaired or serviced for a very long time makes it cheaper in the long run in my experience, because you buy it once and for life.
I love "overkill items for everyday life" point of view, but it comes with trade-offs for noise, ergonomics, size, replaceability and such. You can get a very good blade from Victorinox or Leatherman. If you fancy good steel, you can get a high end, forged German steel Victorinox chef knife and use something frighteningly sharp and handsome at the same time.
If you want a good heater, you can pay twice the price and can get a Fakir Hobby premium space heater and can use for 30+ years (we have two).
The list can go on.
Except that there isn't a good way to distinguish between something that is expensive because it has quality construction and something that is expensive because it is a brand name.
Searching for information online is nigh-useless due to aggressive SEO on the part of advertisers. Sometimes I can get lucky and find an enthusiast forum, but those are harder and harder to find.
Online reviews in general are effectively anonymous. Amazon reviews might not even be the same manufacturer, let alone the same product. Newegg lists different firmware versions under the same product ID, so compatibility reviews are useless.
The best thing I've found is to reach out to a group of friends and hope that one of them did the research previously, or can at least steer you towards/away a brand. This doesn't scale, and any approach that does scale is at risk of being overwhelmed by advertisers and other bad actors.
Anything "professional", "military", etc. comes with the potential downside of it being someone's job to maintain and service it. Qualitative differences usually come with trade-offs - and if it's not your job, it might not be better to try.
And hobarts are industry standard mixers for the food industry that vary in size from 5L to volcanic caldera. But they are built like a tank and easy to repair with plenty of easy to find spare parts. A lot of bakeries that make really high end stuff probably have the exact same hobart inside. Probably not that ancient as the one on the pic, but those things barely changed from their inception.
And with interest of cooking increasing a lot of restaurant gear is finding its way into home kitchens. Nothing sears a steak indoors better 3500W induction hob with big cast iron skillet on top.
And if cooking on a wok - having 120k BTU burner makes it much more pleasant and smooth experience.
Interestingly with gas burner efficiency - 120k BTU in gas are just a tad more powerful than the 3.5kw induction.
There is good reason why Alton Brown always says to obtain things from hardware and restaurant supply store.
And let's say in consumer ovens that are not built to gastronorm or hotel pan specs finding additional trays, sheets, grills etc that fit is PITA.
I’ve done a dishwasher repair, 1 dryer repair and 2 fridge repairs here, and a washer repair at my in-laws. Every case was a consumer-brand unit and every case the local home center was not capable to supply the parts from stock, so it became and “order online and wait” anyway. (For the washer repair, a local appliance parts store had the parts on-hand at ~$215 vs $55 online, which I politely declined.)
Which I think was the point of TFA: he wants to show everyone he appreciates overengineered stuff.
Large organizations like the military would probably be happier with an item that needs intensive inspection, servicing, and repairs on a very consistent schedule, but is absolutely guaranteed to work within that operational window than they they would be with an item which is low-maintenance but has an unreliable service lifetime. A maintenance schedule can be planned around and budgeted around so that it doesn't affect operations. A random outage or failure is expensive, and can only be planned around in a probabilistic sense.
As individuals, we don't have the time or knowledge to do all of the inspections and repairs to maintain an "industrial grade" system at a level that makes it worthwhile. We need stuff that "just works" for some unspecified amount of time, and we accept the cost of random failure and replacement as a tradeoff, since most failures in our lives don't involve the loss of human life or millions of dollars. The exceptions, like cars, tend to be engineered more like the former category, and can only really function reliably in the context of a larger organization (regular maintenance at a specialized repair shop).
So it's not really a spectrum of quality from cheap and unreliable to expensive and indestructible. It's actually a spectrum of logistical overhead from individual use and low upkeep to multinational organization and high upkeep.
For example, a Ford Focus or Chevy Malibu is a lot more reliable and cheaper to maintain than a fancier and more fun car. Loads of third party parts, etc.
Regarding the mixer, I understand they changed the gears to plastic so they would strip without damaging the motor. Easier to replace a cheap set of seats than an expensive motor.
I heard something interesting about ejection seats on tv.
The canopy cost up to a million dollars.
There are personnel who main job is making sure the ejection seat is working properly.
If a pilot needs to use the ejection seat, he, or she, has a 9 out if 10 chance of survival.
The spine will compress 1/2" after that emergency handle is pulled, and they said the shortening of the spine is permanent.
If I had the room, and was offered a small commercial Hobart mixer at a rock bottom price, I would buy it.
I worked at Marin Bagel factory in college, and that mixer was the only thing I liked about the job. The owner didn't like me, so when he was in a bad mood, my job was rotating the freezer. Imagine 5:30 am. Cold outside. A bakery where talking was discouraged. Climbing into a packed 10 x 20 foot packed to the door with frozen food. 1 foot of clearance on top of the food. Then rotating everything. Worst job ever. It wasn't the job, it was the owner.
Sorry about my ramble.
Now that people are discussing it, I do want to find out if there are former air force pilots reading this who can corroborate or refute my hypothesis: I suspect long-duration mission bombers like the US B-52 and B-2 have pilot seats especially tuned for extended operational comfort, even more so than commercial airliners (passenger or cargo), and it would be interesting to test my hypothesis that those would make excellent office chairs for coders. Someone makes these from old pilot seats [1], but I'm specifically interested in pilot seats from airframes that routinely perform round-trip trans-Pacific routes.
I personally wouldn't routinely use such a seat for more than say 10-12 hours at a time, but if it is proven to still be comfortable after someone uses it for that long, naps for a couple hours in it, and uses it for another long session, then it is likely going to feel very comfortable to me. And maybe the safety harness will help me maintain my posture instead of having to remind myself every half hour to check it.
This is extremely unlikely - military/industrial-grade stuff is designed for heavy duty cycles and decades of use. It is extremely unlikely that you'd see it even hiccup in decades of consumer use.
If you did need a part, the mfgr will have it, because, unlike consumer crap, these products have lifetimes measured in decades, not quarters.
>> is going to suck to make high end pastries because it’s geared towards making mashed potatoes for the troops
not unless you have some specialty unit. And if that is the case, get the industrial version designed for chefs to make industrial quantities of high-grade pastries
https://www.bakedeco.com/detail.asp?id=51771
They don't list the weight or dimensions, but Hobart makes a modern version:
https://www.hobartcorp.com/centerline-20-quart-mixer
This 20 quart mixer is 33.3" high and weighs 189 pounds (204 pounds in its shipping crate).
A great unit for a commercial kitchen, maybe not such a good fit for typical home use!
How is that possible to enforce?
If a company comes up with a design that is less serviceable than its competitors, but has other advantages, is it forbidden from selling its new design?
If a company comes up with a design that is more serviceable than its competitors, are all the competitors now forbidden from selling their old design?
To my knowledge most people campaigning for Right to Repair don’t want change the designs of the things we currently buy.
They just want to stop companies banning their suppliers from selling spares to consumers.
That is, most things are already reparable enough but certain firms are going out of their way to stop that happening.
Here is a kitchen scale I bought. Made in Switzerland, no less. It’s bloody beautiful: https://neil.computer/notes/mettler-toledo-ml3002e-teardown/
Does that mean all consumer grade stuff is bad? No. Leatherman tools and 3M consumer grade stuff is usually great. Nalgene bottles. Does that mean all pro quality stuff is great? No. I’ve bought restaurant quality containers, made in California, no less, but are not BPA-free.
My philosophy is quite tangential to the points you’re making:
- Search for stuff in auxiliary / parallel industries.
- Used surplus stuff is usually below consumer grade prices even if it was slightly worse, you're still equal. 9/10 times it is actually the opposite - 10x the quality, performance and durability of consumer grade crap on Amazon.
- Some cheap crap is actually good. Victorinox $30 knife is excellent value and used by professional chefs. The same cannot be said for an outdoors knife, you want it to be overbuilt. Cheap $30 outdoor knives would not stand a chance. Always buy generic drugs, they're exactly the same.
There are atleast 100 more examples I can write about that were a net positive buys. Just last week I bought U-Line tape dispenser. Same price as consumer grade ones, so why not?
- Orthogonal search usually yields frugal jackpots. No one would ever find any use for the life raft bag in the marine parts store.
Average consumers want stuff that is objectively worse for them. Touchscreens were an excellent idea for a phone, now they want it everywhere in their cars. Overall, with the throw-away culture consumers are addicted to, it’s hard to not blame them. Have you ever dealt with customer service? You might be surprised. We are soooo addicted to wasteful culture. You’re just promoting this and doubling down on it.
Let’s see in last 20 years: Quality went downhill, durability is an after thought, repairability is non existent and consumers want bigger box - literally larger than the item because they choose it based on how good the box looks. If it were any other reason, it’s a waste of packaging and businesses know this. Businesses are not looking to waste money on extra packaging unless it led to better sales. This is a direct evidence of the utter shitshow consumer culture embodies.
Anyways, I fancy things that are engineered with deliberation and specification. Tested and qualified against requirements. Usually military, aviation, marine or medical grade goods are designed and engineered in such a way.
I remember looking at ToughBooks because their shells are amazing. But what does that do for me if inside it has a 10 year old computer?
Lots of comments are talking about the extremes but most reasonable people can figure it out. Obviously don't use an industrial appliance that operates at 90db, requires high voltage electrical, and needs 2 hours of daily maintenance to make your coffee; but that liferaft bag is brilliant. Also nice industrial design on the site!
The commercial version of the electric Ford F-150 has a reasonably sized touchscreen in the center of the dashboard. The consumer version has a huge 18 inch touchscreen which sticks up above the top of the dashboard, and looks silly. This replaces the large number of single-purpose knobs and buttons in the commercial version.
...were originally lab equipment. The company pivoted to consumer goods after their products had already become popular as such.
I'm sorry to say. This is false.
This will be a bit technical but often, generic drugs are a racemic mix (both L and D conformations in some mixture) where as a branded drug may be a specific conformation or specific racemic mix (e.g. 75% L, 25% D.)
The issue comes from the fact that L-conformations may have different (better, worse, otherwise) effects than the D-conformations.
TL;DR Not all generics are the same as their branded counterparts and they might effect you differently. Caveat emptor.
ProTip: Odds are there are 10k bars named ka-bar or k-bar founded or operated by current or former Marines.
This won’t bother anyone in the US I guess but a fixed blade military knife like that could get you into legal hot water fast elsewhere.
In the UK, you could take it camping or fishing but if you divert to the shops on your way and get caught with it you you could get a mandatory prison sentence.
Even if you leave it in your car the whole time.
Where as a simple Victorinox Swiss Army Knife with a friction folding blade can be taken almost anywhere without a reason. That makes them a much better bet for an international backpacker IMHO.
This is the same for many other countries too.
Other items tend to be designed for people who can put more work in regular cleaning and maintenance. You could buy a commercial espresso machine and coffee grinder to make yourself coffee every morning but the machine is designed to warm up at the start of the day, pull a lot of shots, and get thoroughly cleaned later. You will still need to warm it up and make sure it is behaving well before your coffee and you’ll still need to properly clean it afterwards.
A lot of products even in the supposedly "disposable" everyday category people buy for lower prices have maintenance instructions that would significantly increase their lifespan if actually followed. Misuse resistance means consumer products generally still work if you skip maintenance the manufacturer told you was necessary (which industrial products might not), but it may shorten the product's lifespan, increase operating costs or reduce performance.
My friend owns a dishwasher. Recently little specks of dirt were left on plates sometimes after the wash completed. Guess what, there's no salt in the softener re-charge. So that dishwasher is soldiering on with hard water instead of soft, and it no longer gets things clean. Fill the salt back up, and sure enough the machine's performance quickly improves. I'm sure lots of people are shouting "That's not maintenance". Well, it probably depends how you look at the problem. From his point of view he purchased "all in one" dishwasher tablets which said he didn't need salt. If he'd examined them very carefully they admit that actually you might still need to add salt periodically, but that wouldn't be very "all in one" so it's not emphasised.
Commercial dishwashers, esp. the fast cycle ones beat the living light of any mugs/plates/etc. unless they're plain white.
They use way more pressure and heat, and resulting clean is much more aggressive, shortening life of everything inside them. Only plain glass and plain porcelain came out relatively unaffected. All decorations doesn't stand a chance.
This is why some mugs denote "Safe for normal dishwasher use".
> and it’s designed for an environment with lots of ventilation
Speaking of, you know what the #1 thing I would design into a residential kitchen if I were building one from the ground up? A fume hood. Just a literal chemistry-lab fume hood box, but where the shroud folds away and the base of it is an induction cooktop. (In other words, it's just a really fancy above-the-range ventilation system.)
Imagine what you could do with that:
• No fear of burning your food setting off your smoke alarm — just drop/shut the shroud around the cooktop, and all the smoke would definitely be going out the vent, not into your house.
* You can grill indoors (with e.g. a Hibachi) with no fear of CO / CO2 poisoning. (Just shut the shroud while the food cooks, and only open it at the end. As a bonus, the extra airflow will make the grill into a convection grill!)
* You can vent your kitchen (and through it, the rest of your house) really quickly, if you're e.g. clearing something rotten out of your fridge.
* You can do real chemistry to make stuff, if you like. For example, given a fume hood, it'd be safe to make a CO2 generator to refill your soda-carbonator gas canister.
* Landlords would no longer have to worry about their tenants turning a house into a meth lab, because even if they did, the house would in some sense be safe to use as a meth lab, with much lower risk of volatile chemical explosions.
It is. But with home use you don’t pull 300+ shots, it can be cleaned less. I have a 20 something year old Cimbali and it’s just great. It’s on a smart plug to turn on early and warm up.
It had a load of leaks and I decided to upgrade, but first talked to the local agent. He gave 4 washers and said try them.
20 mins later it’s completely fixed at a cost of $0. That’s the only repair it’s had in the years I have owned it. I thoroughly clean it every few weeks.
It is excellent.
Other examples of overkill objects I like are some commercial vacuums for clean room environments with spectacularly good filtration and seals, therefore no itching if you are allergic to dust (e.g. some Nilfisk made in Denmark). Or industrial fanless PCs which are sealed and have fantastic copper coolers (e.g. Compulab, Tranquil and many others).
Time is important in cleaning, and home dishwashers take advantage of that by running for several hours at low power, it is not like you are going to need these plates immediately after you have finished eating.
About commercial espresso machines, another thing to consider is that these machines usually require plumbing. There are high end home espresso machines that are also built like tanks and will serve you better unless you are planning to pull hundreds of shots a day. Commercial machines have an advantage when it comes to temperature stability because they are so big and heavy but smaller machines are still able to do an impressive job.
The reason those big £3000+ machines are impractical for the home is not the cleaning or even the warm-up time (as both of those factors are the same for any espresso machine even the home ones) but rather with the fact that the bar grade espresso machines expect to be plumbed into a reverse osmosis filter and take up a shitload of space.
Commercial machines may need a little bit more time to warm up but I still let my gaggia warm up for around 15 minutes before I use it otherwise I find consistency falls and I just get frustration.
Regarding cleaning, the process is the same for home machines and just needs to be performed less often (I do this around once every week depending on use. I pour 1-4 shots a day every day). There are powdered detergents which are used to backflush the group head and solenoid valve to clear out coffee oils, this process takes about 5 minutes to perform and doesn't require much manual effort except for clearing out the drip tray and wiping things down a bit.
When it comes to cleaning the boiler, this isn't done by disassembling the machine or anything crazy like that. An acidic solution of usually some combination of primarily citric acid and/or potassium bitartrate is added to the water reservoir, the boiler is then flushed to get the solution in the boiler, I will then usually leave it in for 15 minutes with the boiler turned off to prevent water from boiling (to make sure all areas of the boiler are in contact with water at all times). Then this gets flushed with clean filtered water to get rid of the acid.
This process takes longer but also doesn't require much work.
Anything under £600 will give you mediocre espresso (due to grind inconsistency and temperature stability problems) or fauxpresso (any pod machine or bean to cup machine basically maxes fauxpresso, there are very expensive commercial grade true-espresso bean to cup machines but these, even when dialled in correctly, still usually make a mediocre espresso).
Any machine (even the fauxpresso ones) will likely require almost as much cleaning effort. Any manufacturer which claims otherwise (especially for bean-to-cup machines) is just trying to reduce the lifetime of your machine so it fails out of warranty and you buy another one.
I only run it at night, and I put it in a window in another room, facing out with some material around it to make a snug fit. The result is a steady breeze coming in the bedroom windows at night and a muted hum from the other room. It makes regular plastic box fans look like a joke. It easily moves 10x the air on low as a plastic one on high.
This approach greatly reduces the number of nights we need to use the AC in early summer/early fall in NYC, when it’s warm but not so humid as in July and August. I’ve tried the same thing with a plastic fan and it’s way less effective...we can come home to a hot stuffy apartment on a Sunday night after a weekend away and have it totally comfortable inside in a matter of minutes.
it's almost always a good idea to buy the professional-grade items you've used at work and know are awesome, it's almost never a good idea to buy a professional-grade item sight-unseen unless you know there's a local used market for it.
The only problem is that I forget to turn it off in the morning. Out if sight out of mind. Switching it to a timer is on my list.
No, it is plain wrong. He recommends borosilicate beakers for beer. I think he never worked in a lab: borosilicate beakers break. Their thermal expansion tolerance is a non feature for cold beer: when did one of your beer mug broke because you served yourself boiling beer?
> Does your glassware meet ASTM Specification E960, Type II requirements? Is it manufactured from 33 expansion, low extractable borosilicate glass conforming to USP Type I and ASTM E438, Type I, Class A requirements? I didn't think so.
I call that hacker syndrome, when the typical hacker thinks a long line of impressive specs and numbers matter, because he has no idea of the customer requirements.
> Used to contain a life raft. Now, my groceries.
How easy it is to clean when there is a spill? How easy it is to replace? I have carried BRICKS inside the nylon woven bags some supermarket sell for $1.99. Rinced with water, ready in 5 minutes.
> For less than $100, I can buy a short USMC Short KA-BAR or a real M9 from Ontario for $150. This is the real thing, used by the US military.
Show off!!
If you want something to bring in a fight, get a Mark 1 trench knife: has brass knuckles for punching (and limit the risk of dropping your knife), a long thin blade for more lethality (easier puncture wound regardless of angle than with a wider blade). And in the kitchen it is ideal to break walnuts :)
Of course it does not look "nice" - like carrying bricks in a nylon supermarket bag. It is about knowing the needs you optimize for.
That mixer likely won't handle a small load (as in, a single family sized loaf).
Spot on though about some of the stuff. That knife is nice, although being edged on both sides is a liability.
A simple example would be gloves. What would be the pro version of a glove? The ones used in steel mills? If you want a glove for riding a bike, you’re better of with regular biker gloves. If it’s a glove for winter, maybe skier gloves and so on.
For example, Ansell HyFlex gloves are standard issue in Amazon warehouses and they’re awesome for chores around the house too. They fit really well (and come in more sizes), they’re durable, and they are comfortable to wear for extended periods of time.
[1] https://www.deltaplus.eu/en/article-details/-/article-detail...
Right now, I have a silent 4U rackmount GPU server running 24/7 in my living room, cooled just fine by a 120mm Noctua fan (plus a silent consumer ATX PSU fan).
I also have a commercial 1U Atom server that I've adapted for living room. The Atom and mirrored HDDs are passively-cooled (though you can also get Xeons in the same chassis). The Flex-ATX PSU was loud, but I opened it up and soldered in an effectively silent Noctua.
The noise-no-object jet engine servers are a problem, especially full-depth 1U ones with a phalanx of jet engine fans. But people have had some luck removing fans and replacing some of them with quieter fans, or liquid cooling.
Commercial gym equipment, on the other hand is more expensive, much heavier, and doesn't bring many advantages over a high quality consumer product. If you're running a gym where thousands of people use it every year the extra weight and cost makes sense but for a single person it's just a pain.
The fans were about 1 inch on a side but between them they sounded like a fully loaded 747 spinning up.
I've had my fair share of actual 12.9 steel screws from Amazon that are actually 12.9 steel, and my fair share of 12.9 steel screws that were actually made of cheese.
Plus... this is something maybe only a CAD user can understand - McMaster Carr provides an outright sex bible of importable 3D CAD objects.
Like, I really thought my CAD instructor in University was joking when they said McMaster would be your Bible if you're ever designing in CAD for hobby/industry. Then I got a job, and holy shit were they right. So I like to think whenever I pay slightly more on McMaster for what I could get on Amazon or eBay, I'm supporting the bible for all of the goodness it's given me for my hobby designing and in making actual work less stressful as well.
The Dyson fans tend to have a particularly quiet sounding noise profile compared to their volume of air displaced at low to mid power in particular, and also are far quieter and low powers than traditional fans.
They're not worth the money they cost, but there's a lot more nuance than this presents.
It's not even That loud though
Every knife was dull and identically serrated like a budget steak knife, despite presenting as a comprehensive set of chef knives. The whole set was almost completely useless.
Sunbeam is not the reasonable quality brand it once was back in the Sears days, stay away.
This sounds like a cool hobby and conversation starter. But it's hard to take the author seriously when he proselytizes on the practical virtues of buying ejector seats over retail chairs. Industrial goods are often built for very specific use-cases. If those use-cases don't align with your own needs, you're just paying a lot of money for something you don't need. And often, something that fails to deliver on your actual needs.
> The entire consumer market is rotten. TV? It's going to come with smart apps. Get one from NEC that's meant for commercial use.
A TV has the potential to be a lifetime purchase, but the software on it can render it obsolete. I can always plug my streaming device of choice into the back of a "dumb TV."
If you mind the gap between your knees for the controls too much, look for an Airbus seat. They also have nice armrests because the stick is on the side.
He pointed out that virtually every single element in the $60+ million aircraft is engineered for flight and occupant safety, and to be as light as possible.
For example, I have an old '97 F250 that is as basic of a model as you can possibly get. Regular cab, bench seat, manual everything from the windows to the transmission. It is a beast and will take whatever you give it. It is simple and easy to fix when something breaks, but it is also crazy loud, rough, and uncomfortable to be in. Perfect for getting work done, but for a cross-country trip with my wife and kids I would opt for the minivan any day.
Much less so on a Tuesday night after a stressful day and your goddamn window won't close even though it's raining and you can't play music because the stereo only takes cassettes and you're not gonna listen to that one fucking Hall and Oates tape again and there's no heat and your neck is sore because the headrest is made of plastic and....
Creature comforts are most important when you're not thinking about them. I don't ever want to get in my car and think, "ah, this is what it means to be human! this is REAL!"
It is just that from personal experience, a road trip with small children has enough rough edges that road/engine noise so loud that the kids can't sleep does not have to be one of them...
This is very unfair - the average cobsumer is purposefully mislead on a daily basis, for example applle forbids apps from informing consumer that 30% of their donation to a charity is taken.
With industrial goods, there is a whole department who's job is proqurement and to know what they are buying. And lets not pretent no funny business ever happens there either.
But lastly, some consumer good are better - DSLR's beat any industrial cameras, and commercial dishwashers are a toally different beast, unsuitable and dangerous to a naive user.
Kind of difficult to take a cut of payments you explicitly don’t allow on your platform, isn’t it?
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/136983/would-apple...
I don't use Facebook so I don't know if that page is misleading, but it certainly looks like you can donate money (in the legal meaning!) through Facebook's iOS app.
I think most of the recent takes were about Twitter's tip jar that would potentially let you send money to nonprofits. But, Twitter so far has avoided using the word "donate" and its legal implications.
For me the biggest concern is that people want this to happen and even would go as far as say that people get a perverse sense of satisfaction from Apple's unfair behavior. Because it validates the widespread pessimism and 'everything is broken' mentality that is normalized nowadays
They products might be good, but their methods are ruthless - they are wanna-be like mexican cartels.
I like that.
But then it goes south from there, the author seems to believe that anything that isn't from the USA military must be crap:
> Made in the USA from military grade [...] preferably a military supplier [...] This is the real thing, used by the US military. [...]
> Consumer goods suck. You keep buying them. [emphasis theirs]
> The average consumer is an idiot, so the bean counters keep milking them.
So we're idiots for buying a regular knife instead of some military variant that makes you look like, well, someone who would carry a gun as well? Or regular napkins rather than some special cleanroom rated upgrade? I think I'm good, thanks.
For what it’s worth - I’ve also bought overkill items and they’ve turned out to be a disaster. For instance, for the TPI fan in the example - I had to get an industrial fan controller because it was too damn loud and restaurant grade containers that are not BPA-free.
In the market, competition is strong. In the military market, your connections are way more valuable.
Perhaps a happy medium? Maybe not $1500 Damascus knife, but maybe a nice Wüsthof so you're not throwing so much out, and damaging the environment.
If you’ve ever looked into military procurement, there are a number of MIL standards and a specific list of requirements. If the product meets specifications and testing results, picking anyone but the lowest bidder accounting for other “soft” commercial aspects such as company stability, leadership, and book health; would be foolish and irresponsible.
I’ve seen several comments here that “military” grade means lowest bidder. That’s optimal.
Look at it this way - consumer market is completely unregulated, no specifications and lots misleading terminology. Any Military would crucify you for fraud.
Is it perfect? No. Is it close to perfection? Yes. Also look into medical grade things such as scissors.
It is so pleasing to use this site and it is simultaneously full of utility as they stock a wide array of fixtures and hardware that are difficult to search for elsewhere.
If you place an order before noon (typically) the box of goods will be in your hands the next day.
The user interface is a wonder. It's too good to be true. In fact, using the UI actually saddens me because you know some kid who thinks they are a design genius is going to get hired there and "improve things". It's almost a physical law.
Apparently it is an ASP.NET app, served by IIS, cached on Akamai's CDN. Not quite what you're going to see on your average HN blog post.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/shutupandtakemymoney/comments/15jwv...
Will I ever find the rs-232 transceiver that I need on Amazon? Unlikely.
The clarity of information presentation is unparalleled.
I just fear one day some new intern, engineer, designer or manager is going to join and ruin it. It will be a sad day.
I'm into old school espresso machines, and there is a robust market (and some fascinating refurb videos) for older, lever espresso machines - the quality and design is just much better than any consumer-grade equipment that is sold today.
I know I am not alone in saying that I would happily pay a 2-3x premium for any appliance if it were engineered properly and actually left out all the ridiculous technological bullshit it never needed in the first place. To this day, no one at Best Buy can explain to me how WiFi helps me clean my clothes better or faster.
Also consider the current economics around the chip shortage... Relays, A/C induction motors, electromagnets, switches and all other essential macro-scale components required for building a washing machine or clothes dryer can still be built by human hands in any factory on earth. Not only are all of these things available now, they are arguably the superior engineering choice when making something intended to deliver value to the end user.
Here is a link to NEC's commercial displays https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays#2
An example from Samsung: https://www.cdw.com/product/samsung-678u-series-55-4k-uhd-le...
Things like contrast ratio, how well it does dark colors in a dark room or fast intesity refreshing (like 60Hz "fast") may be questionable. It probably also expects super consistent and clean power...some houses dont have that.
Sure you could make it a giant Dakboard with a giant static image and not really worry about burn in for years.
Ultimately. I went with a cheap panel from say costco and a roku on a separate vlan (so my overkill is a network that can do vlan segmentation). Ultimately the roku TV's can scan themselves to death and report that they are on a network with other roku TV's all they want. Or you could just get a cheap-o smart TV and hook up the appleTV (cost came into play for me). I do have some LG smart TV's, one died within 3 years already...Meanwhile my Samsung 55" Plasma from 2008 had taking a direct lightning strike that took out the others and keeps on ticking. (and resulted in the TCL roku and LG tvs being installed).
So all of that is to say. I just go cheap panel that i dont mind replacing. And just keep them isolated entirely.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-55-4k-conference-r...
The down ide is that they are up 25% in cost over 2019 but
https://frame.work/blog/in-defense-of-dumb-tvs was posted here recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26273169) and concluded that Sceptre, an inexpensive brand sold at Wal-Mart, was worth a shot.
So why go to the trouble of not having the smart menu stuff rather than just not using it?
Ultralight hiking adds an interesting forcing function to gear - correctly “built” (as in not overbuilt or under built). Bring the gear which matches the need. In essence, the complete opposite sentiment of this post.
Your point still stands, though. I had a military pack and couldn’t believe how heavy it was even when empty. Ultralight hiking gear is pretty amazing and optimized for an entirely different goal. That said, I still feel like specialty gear like this is a different class than the average consumer stuff.. closer to industrial or military in design than Amazon junk.
A lot depends on the wildlife you could expect to encounter - a pair of micro scissors weighing less than a ounce won't be useful against even a smallish dog went feral. (Lots of stray dogs around the places I live, not all of them good boys)
Having a rugged piece of metal that you could use for defense, prying stuff apart, lever, axe is a must for me. Especially one that is easy to re-sharpen with a simple rough whetstone.
I go hiking with esee 6 - it is comforting to know it is there if the going gets rough since it is nigh indestructible
With the hiking I like to do, I hike all day, boil water for food with a canister stove, and pass out. So I optimize for weight - less weight = more miles (and is much more comfortable).
Still like to carry a knife, though!
I'd prefer if commodity things, like computer mice, were made to last, and not $5 pieces of cheap plastic that end up in landfills. But I'm the person who complains about the tons of cheap plastic trash sold in 0.99 stores while able to afford $500 mixers.
I wish there was a happy medium, where society didn't demand China produce plastic stuff that turns into trash within a month, destroying the environment exponentially.
I did the same with our microwave when the door close sensors failed. The internet has made fixing things infinitely easier, as spec sheets and part suppliers are available to everyone.
I immediately recognised the design from the pictured mixer. Turns out they are the same company, different branding. Now owned by Whirlpool.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KitchenAid
TIL, FWIW.
https://www.electrolux.dk/kitchen/small-kitchen-appliances/k...
If you really want to rewire your house to mix 20 gallons of dough at a time...go for it I suppose. But do the homework first.
You could get a 3 phase commercial standby genset installed and have the remote annunciator for it mounted next to whatever monster 3 phase stand mixer in your kitchen. All in all this would run you ~50K USD.
Every day people spend far more money on way stupider bullshit than what I just proposed.
If you’re lucky enough to live near one that lets consumers buy food, too, that’s great. 20 pounds of very high quality pasta for like $8 or $10.
Also caught some lovely cheap "disposable" paring knives that have served in our kitchen for several years and still going strong.
The overkill options...well, they're not made for home, which actually makes them worse for home use cases. Sure, a La Marzocco Linea can pull a thousand shots a day with extreme consistency and temperature stability.
My Lelit Bianca can't keep up on volume, but it is smaller, reaches operating temperature more quickly, and is temp stable for the number of shots I pull even with a dozen people over for a party. It uses a standard electrical plug, it has a consumer-grade warranty, and it's relatively easy to maintain for a regular Joe like me.
So sure, a commercial version of a thing might be more robust, longer-lasting, etc., but what tradeoffs are you making to achieve those characteristics?
I see what you did there...
I replaced it with a smaller Vornado [2]. Powerful, nearly silent (can't hear the motor, only the blades), with a durable sealed-bearing motor. Much better.
[1]:https://king-electric.com/products/high-velocity-air-circula...
[2]:https://www.vornado.com/shop/circulators-fans/293-heavy-duty...
If it's cold my HVAC would cycle and would get temperature swings. I installed a vornado space heater and it worked wonderfully. It had a continuous air flow and would keep the temperature in the room very stable.
And then it wore out and I got a new model with electronic controls, which didn't work so well. The original had mechanical controls and were set and forget. I believe the electronic model would reset after a power failure, and would have a timer that would turn it off after using it for a while, both non-features.
For anyone needing to churn out flat dead trees more than once a week: I recommend getting a used flagship color laser printer with a low page count and in good condition instead of an inkjet printer. No more running ink, no more calibration pages, no more dried-out ink cartridges, and no more overpriced supplies.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it feels fine even if you sit in it long periods of time. However, I'm sure that it only comes in one size, that size being the right size to pilot a plane with an ejector seat. Anyone too big or small wasn't considered in its design because they'd never make it into the relevant flight program to begin with.
My point is, consumer objects have to be designed a bit more inclusively than that, to be able to sell to a wider range of buyers. That big Hobart mixer is in the same boat: It's designed for people who wouldn't have gotten that bakery job if they couldn't work with a large, heavy piece of kitchen equipment.
Some ejection seats are supposed to be sat in, continuously, for over 10 hours. While letting you still function.
That said, the cockpits tend to enforce certain posture.
What is functionality though? What is pizzaz? When are they the same and when are they different?
E.g. the famous Emeco 1006 chair, which won a contract to supply the US Navy by being thrown out a window and not breaking. It became a design classic, and now sells for $600 each. It gained a kind of following, which is in part based on this history. But is that durability especially functional for your home or restaurant environment which isn't on a warship? Do you think you're going to use your chair as a hammer some days? Or is fetishizing something used by the military and extreme durability its own form of pizzaz?
https://www.dwr.com/kitchen-dining-chairs-benches/1006-navy-... https://www.emeco.net/variants/emeco-1006-navy-chair-brushed... https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/77-steps/
If I knew it would be handed down for generations of my descendants, then I absolutely want that durability. A tremendous amount of economic and environmental harm comes from unnecessary product acquisition churn over generations at the scales of populations we're currently dealing with. If I can equip my descendants (who are likely to at best propagate at barely replacement rate with current socioeconomic trends that seem resource and energy-bound and unlikely to change until fusion or similar energy breakthrough is made) with 50-80% of their material goods throughout the stages of their lives and eliminate their capex, that is a hell of an advantage of confer compared to previous generations' patterns.
I get the draw, but comfort in these seats is mixed. You should be able to sit in them for a few hours, but remember that the foam is dense enough to handle 7Gs.
Being able to instantly & remotely measure the temperature of anything (with reasonable emissivity characteristics) is like a super power. There is nothing in my kitchen or grill area that can exceed the range of the IR sensor on this unit. There are only a few things that have problems with direct sampling. I cook almost exclusively with cast iron, so IR readings are always dead accurate.
The unit runs on a single AA battery, has a backlight, and somehow still hasn't needed a new battery since I bought it 4 years ago (used almost every day).
I had to cook in someone else's kitchen not too long ago, and found myself going insane at not being able to tell exactly how hot the oil was in a pot used for frying.
Laser pointers marketed as cat toys are often tiny little things that require annoying & expensive button-cell batteries.
My infrared thermometer / cat toy has a pistol grip so it's easier to hold, and runs off a 9V battery that lasts much longer.
You screw it to a piece of plywood and get a car battery to power it, and you've got a 26 way adjustable seat with lumbar support, seat heaters and seat coolers, and all the other fancy features of a car seat. And it's usually made of super durable easy to clean materials. You get a swingarm to hold your keyboard and monitor and you're all set with the ultimate chair.
But it takes a ton of space.
at least in 2012 or so, digikey still had call centers in minnesota and the upper peninsula, and still taught all their call center reps the nato alphabet. There is nothing more crisply charming than a call operator who sounds like Bobby’s mom from Bobby’s World reading you back your resistor SKUs in flawless and rapid phonetic alphabet.
https://shop.libbey.com/collections/beverageware/products/ba...
Flea markets are also another great source for well built items. Have had great luck buying industrial grade tooling and electrical test/measurement equipment there.
https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/12/02/more-dakka/
All things considered, I would love to see more people put together their own lists of ways you can do better than the consumer default. I'm sure there's plenty of opportunities of this kind.
The consumer approach would dismiss getting a professional fitting as overkill and unnecessary but they really limit their enjoyment.
That said, smaller binos are fine in most circumstances. I often carry pocket 8x23s around, or even a small monocular, just in case.
Now, that's the countertop model, so it only weights 189 pounds, and it's a steal at $6000. Sounds expensive, but it'll last forever, unlike my shitty Kitchenaid mixer that's only worked flawlessly for 30 years, and that I can store in a cupboard and put on the counter without a forklift.
My advice: save a few bucks by learning small appliance repair and buying a banged up mixer from a defunct restaurant a couple towns over! Bring a couple friends and some tie-down straps.
> For fun, sort by highest price first.
To the general point, I once had a long conversation with an ex-engineer who was selling select European furniture in the US. He was adamant that most American consumers pay no attention to build qualities, and are sold shoddy "night-shift" versions of pieces that have e.g. metal channel reinforcements in Europe, with the shoddy versions certain to show sag etc in a few years.
One specific option is to buy a sofa in a showroom in the US, then immediately go in and reinforce it with metal brackets and/or channels. A higher-end version of Ikea-hacking.
A good example of being locked into a bogus design is old Humvee turn signals. I have never once had a turn signal on a car fill up with water like a little fishtank, but when PMCSing Humvees I would run into this from time to time. IIRC you had to drill a hole in the bottom to let the water out.
Another case is SINCGARS radios. I don't know if they still use them, but god help them if they do. You had to load crypto on them using arcane magic that almost nobody knew how to do, including me, and I took the 2 week class. If you didn't have the crypto set up properly you couldn't talk to people except on the emergency channel in the clear. I can't count how many times we weren't able to talk to each other because the radios were all screwed up, there was a lot of resorting to cell phones when they were available. You would think something as fundamental as radios would be figured out and fool proof, but in my experience off the shelf walkee talkees would have been far more effective, although not as secure in theory. In practice the mujahideen aren't intercepting and exploiting US communications, but they certainly benefited from the radios being dicked up half the time.
Whenever I see a chance to buy old industrial grade stuff I use it. Nearly everything they used to do lasts forever. If you want to find the same quality now it either not available or you pay through the nose. Granted for many things we probably do not care all that much if they last 3 years or 30.
My recipes requires adjusting, but once I fixed them up, they were great.
Though -- I'd argue that using a bandsaw for blisterpacks isn't overkill; it's the safest way to get them open.
Does the USMC still use 'bayonets'? Yes, in certain circumstances they're issued--but it's not common, and it's not the Ka-Bar, it's another brand (I forget which one).
TL;DR: Ka-Bar 'USMC knives' are a marketing gimmick.
Also, a used Oshkosh M983 as a soccer mom grocery getter. Whenever anyone cuts her off and gives her the finger, she simply shifts into 8x8 mode and drives over them. crunch crunch-crunch /s
The mixer is hipster ridiculous but hilarious. In practice, you can get a Kitchen Aid for $200.
I have my grandparent's Kirby G3 and found the older real HEPA replacement bags (not the new crap ones that dropped the certifications and may not perform as well). It's not an industrial movie theater vacuum or an ice rink zamboni, but it's more of a tank than a Bose, I mean, Dyson or a Samsung piece of plastic.
Speaking of which: if you live in a climate where it snows and freezes, a Zamboni in the garage is essential to making the local kids street ice hockey tournaments happen.
I think they're a no brainer for riders, be it motorcycle, bicycle, or horses. If it's not a bad spill, you can cancel, but opt-out is far superior to opt-in for this scenario.
Spoiler alert: most of my tools are the cheapest I could find.
It's biggest problem is that sometimes I forget I have it, then fix what I was doing in few minutes. Also I sometimes forget to charge it, as it holds a charge for years in my practice.
I've bought for example some Swiss army surplus towels for a bike trip. They were really good (small, durable, functional, beautiful) but a bit too small so you couldn't wrap one around yourself.
They probably get the surplus stuff almost for free, from all around the world. I think it's great, making something desirable out of waste.
Having served, I think a lot of military equipment is really bad, especially clothing. It's bought not by the users but by the organization.
But the bags are bigger.
These days they're notorious for shipping backlogs (my lab ordered things 5 months ago and still hasn't got them).
For me, a hammock beats an office chair any day.
I also had a brief recall of the generally med to low quality of home goods my great grandparents would buy from Sears or Montgomery Wards for the kitchen. 1950s 60s 70s. Compared to what my parents bought in the 80s, 90s— over the top quality you would get at Macy’s or, if you had one nearby, a restaurant supply store.
Nobody "needs" a solid aluminium billet NMC ground down to high tolerance shape mac). The ThinkPad experience, is defined as a sell-job on "you need this"
But, anyway, the punchline isn't why I'm writing this: I'd just ignore that if there would be nothing interesting here. What actually strikes me is "I don't think corporations/businesses are to blame" part. I mean, I don't care whom to blame, this is counter-productive. But I've been thinking about that lately, and I cannot let go of the idea that customers being that horribly misinformed is a real problem. This isn't something given. Customer disinformation is an active pursuit of corporations. And, you know what, if I spend a few weeks on the problem, I think I can get an idea of what do I need from a microwave. But everyday I am "choosing" countless stuff just by selecting the "most trustworthy" package. I have no idea what toilet cleaning products should contain, what actually makes them effective and if there is any difference besides the price. I know that 80% of everything written on toothpaste or shampoo package is a lie, but I have no idea what isn't. And this really shouldn't be that hard, people should have at least somewhat clear idea of what is essential, and what is just their preference. Whole markets exist simply by virtue making it a customers' habit to buy their stuff, without knowing why they do so.
This isn't anything new, of course, even though every generation tends to think that nowadays ads are especially horrible and misleading. But given how much some jurisdictions appear to care about fair treatment of customers, I think more money could be spent by governments on countering corporate activity in this area, not helping them. Not necessarily by forbidding stuff, just by sponsoring studies and keeping folks informed.
Excuse me?
This is why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE&t=833s
If you're older, like really old, you can actually remember a time where products were of a much much higher durability before the industry figured out that low durability products were more profitable.
So in actuality some of the suggestions on that site aren't necessarily overkill as industrial products aren't deliberately engineered to fail.
Engineering is an exercise in prioritization. If 90% of consumers buy the cheapest blender on the shelf, the blender made with the cheapest materials wins. Hobart still exists, and still makes good blenders. Consumers just started buying new designs that were more cost efficient.
If you look at the prices of mid twentieth century appliances in some old periodicals, and adjust for inflation, they’re about the price of commercial appliances today.
Before value-engineering, people didn’t have a kitchen full of appliances, they went without.
Value engineering is often criticized, but the plain truth is that it is primarily responsible for the high standards of living we enjoy today.