My brush with the good life: Wearing a $77,000 watch • Hacker News Board

Re: My brush with the good life: Wearing a $77,000 watch

#11

Post by Groxx » Sat, Jul 03, 2010, 9:00 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #8

phn1x wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, Having a watch like that is not the good life, it's a fast track to being really broke and being deeply in debt. Granted, there are some people who can afford to buy a watch like this, Warren buffet being one... But he lives in an old modest home in the middle of no where, drives something like a 1994 Volkswagen and doesn't blow money on crap like this. Hell even the founder of Walmart drove a 1970 something…

That guy is no more an idiot than anyone who's ever looked longingly at a Ferrari, or a super highend stereo system, or a supercomputer, i.e. most men. Note that he did not, in fact, buy the $77,000 watch (which is, btw, not the most expensive watch you can buy by far). Yeah, it's mainly a status symbol, with added collector and engineering angles to appeal to the inner geek. And it keeps time less accurately than a…

That guy is no more an idiot than anyone who's ever looked longingly at a Ferrari, or a super highend stereo system, or a supercomputer, i.e. most men.

or a Gucci purse, or those 50k shoes, or that massive engagement ring. Or that yacht, or that swimming suit which gives 0.05% less drag than your current, or that $500-per-plate restaurant. i.e., most PEOPLE. Why the separation of sex?

It's just middle-class trying to imitate rich-class. It happens in every culture, to every kind of person, except those intentionally keeping themselves separate from it.

Re: My brush with the good life: Wearing a $77,000 watch

#12

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jul 03, 2010, 9:15 PM UTC

sjs wrote: post #10

brazzy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That guy is no more an idiot than anyone who's ever looked longingly at a Ferrari, or a super highend stereo system, or a supercomputer, i.e. most men. Note that he did not, in fact, buy the $77,000 watch (which is, btw, not the most expensive watch you can buy by far). Yeah, it's mainly a status symbol, with added collector and engineering angles to appeal to the inner geek. And it keeps time less accurately than a…

Here's a system I'm sure most of us would like to have: http://i.imgur.com/AEt79.png I didn't just go for the most expensive parts either, it would have easily been > $20k if I had. I'm sure we all can imagine a certain bank balance at which we wouldn't think much before buying such a system.

There is nothing sadder than remembering two years later how much you paid for that 'hotrod' under your desk that is now slower than entry level systems...

When I add up what I paid for computer hardware over the year it's scary, good thing it made me more than I spent on it, I think of them as tools. But if it were for consumption only then I'd spend considerably less.

If you're a software developer you can justify such a rig as a tool and book it to expenses, for ordinary people, even the most avid of gamers it would most likely be overkill.

On another note, you tend to write much better software on a system several years old, and then to run it on modern hardware for production.

Slow machines tend to make programmers perform better :)

Re: My brush with the good life: Wearing a $77,000 watch

#13

Post by runningskull » Sat, Jul 03, 2010, 10:36 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #2

The good life means being healthy, having no debt, a roof over your head that you own and enough money not to have to worry about the (near) future. Spending it on watches like this is not 'the good life' it is ridiculous. If you need a watch to chat up people you have other problems besides.

"The good life" means different things to different people.