I'm a big fan of Boosted, but I wouldn't put them on a holiday gift buying guide. Shipments have been halted for a month due to a quality issue, and even if they fixed it today, the waitlist is so long there is no way you would receive a board this year.
YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
121–130 of 229 posts
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#122"A monthly subscription to The Flex Company will make a relieving gift for any ladies on your gift list who suffer from menstrual bloating, cramping, or leaking." I couldn't make this up.
Make sure to never tell them about it for maximum creepiness. Imagine how delighted your extant female friends will be to start receiving tampons in the mail.
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#123"A monthly subscription to The Flex Company will make a relieving gift for any ladies on your gift list who suffer from menstrual bloating, cramping, or leaking." I couldn't make this up.
I'll admit that summary was not my finest work.
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#124I see that Acre (a home construction company) is on there. Kind of odd for a gift giving site. "Merry Christmas! I bought you a house!"
And like all "modern prefab" houses, it is extremely overpriced.
$400k for 1200 sq. ft is nuts.
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#125I feel like I'm looking at a Sharper Image catalog. Lots of neat, expensive, completely useless things (for the everyday person) that I'm surprised anybody buys.
Wow what a fantastic analogy. I remember going into a Sharper Image back when they were more popular and you're right, that's the same feeling I get when I look through this.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but eerily spot on.
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Amazon and Netflix broke down even the movie industry and ended the $70 per tape movie sale price." Is that a typo? When were movies ever $70?
In the 80s and early-to-mid 90s, most movies weren't offered for sale to consumers. Big blockbuster movies sometimes were, but those were the exception. Places like Blockbuster or your corner video rental store bought VHS movies for around $70/ea and then rented them to consumers for $3 or so. That changed somewhere around the late 90s, when people began buying movies on VHS and DVD, and the price dropped significant…
>Places like Blockbuster or your corner video rental store bought VHS movies for around $70/ea //
Isn't that just rental prices vs consumer prices. It's a tort to by the consumer copy and rent it out so large companies could never get away with that instead they bought a more expensive copy that is basically the tape with license to rent it??
Turns out it's more complicated than that: https://entertainment-industry.knoji.com/the-history-of-the-... & http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=692441.
Would be interested in similar info with global comparison, eg how was the situation different in UK, Germany, etc..
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not surprising. People actually in the market for STEM play things will get their kids telescopes, microscopes, chemistry kits, soldering irons, computers, hobby robotics/electronics parts, ... The market for people who want STEM play things, don't know what to buy, and can't tell crap from gold, has to be incredibly small
Actually the second group you describe is the huge majority: Many parents have heard about STEM and programming and want their children to be exposed. However, being non-techies they don't know where to start. Also, a large number of Christmas toys are bought by grandparents,where the above problem is even more prevalent.
Sorry, I meant to say "and CAN tell crap from gold".
I was saying that there may be a huge market for STEM toys, but the savvy consumers aren't included in that market (already well-served by the normal STEM stuff) and unsavvy customers will just by the stupid crap that says "STEM" on the label.
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I seriously hope that happens with Acre. They could be amazing.
Went to check them out. Their houses are beautiful, but they truly are targeting the high end—double the price of a mid-tier-fixtures McMansion-build-quality house of similar size, at least around here. I'm also not sure how I'd get one of them built anywhere near the city here without buying a house in a no-HOA, low-home-value neighborhood and demolishing the house already on it, which'd be throwing away a ton of mo…
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Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#129I always wonder how people can say things like this: "They've created a wifi-enabled immersion circulator called the Nomiku so every home chef can prepare simple, Michelin-starred meals." I mean, I bet that literally zero Michelin-starred meals have been prepared with this device. And the phrase "Michelin" or "Michelin-starred" is trademarked and has a clear meaning. If I was a marketer for this company I would feel…
With regard to the comments after the aside: The former model has become a “fad” because of technological progress in e.g. logistics and predictive analytics. The wording “send some stuff to you every month you don’t get to pick the stuff but trust us” belies the fact that this is actually a very difficult problem with a very interesting solution. If some instance of this model succeeds it will be because it managed…
I think automatic rice cooking is a solved problem. There's a device called a "rice cooker", where you pour in the rice and water, press a button, and then later you get cooked rice. No wifi necessary!
Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
#130I always wonder how people can say things like this: "They've created a wifi-enabled immersion circulator called the Nomiku so every home chef can prepare simple, Michelin-starred meals." I mean, I bet that literally zero Michelin-starred meals have been prepared with this device. And the phrase "Michelin" or "Michelin-starred" is trademarked and has a clear meaning. If I was a marketer for this company I would feel…
> the phrase "Michelin" or "Michelin-starred" is trademarked and has a clear meaning. If I was a marketer for this company I would feel uncomfortable using a phrase like that.
The person who would feel really uncomfortable is (or should be, anyway) their lawyer. "Prepare Michelin-starred meals!" makes it sound like the product has been endorsed by Michelin, which puts a big fat target on them for a lawsuit from Michelin if it hasn't.