You know that guy in movies who weirdly knows waaay too much about the history of every random piece of military screwdriver and seatbelt buckle, and you're always like "that guy doesn't actually exist"? Well, you were wrong. This is that guy.
Overkill objects for everyday life
291–300 of 732 posts
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#292Consumer grade products are deliberately designed to fail. 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…
“Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price” 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 o…
> “Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price”
Yes, and prioritizing price is short term and stupid. Prioritize total cost instead and buy high quality items, it's much cheaper in the long run.
Also, high standard of living is not about having your kitchen "full of appliances", it's about health, education and security.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dishwashers are another example. You could buy a commercial one but it will come with no roll-out trays (you load up different plastic racks for different things and you can load a rack while the dishwasher is running) and it’s designed for an environment with lots of ventilation (you just open it when it is done and let the steam get ventilated away) which people are unlikely to have in their own kitchens. Other ite…
> Dishwashers are another example. 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…
I stayed at an art school that was housed in an old military barracks. They had a massive steel dishwasher that used hot water and pressurized air to just blast the dirt off. It was extremely loud, and only needed about 10 seconds.
I want one.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#294I am a huge fan of highly durable equipment, but one thing to watch out for is that comfort/ergonimics are often sacrificed for the sake of simplicity and duribility. Ask anyone who has spent time in a military vehicle. Those things can take a beating and are made to be repaired quickly and sent back out for more. But a quite comfortable ride they are not.... Sometimes that no-compromise toughness is exactly what you…
For me that's one of the selling points. Modern life is so ridiculously over engineered to be comfortable, we can all use some rough edges.
That's one of those things that sounds super fun when you're opting into it on a weekend.
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!"
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#295I appreciate the link and summary for McMaster-Carr[1]. 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 sadd…
And you can find stuff like "Nuclear Grade Duct Tape": https://www.mcmaster.com/fastening-tape/nuclear-grade-duct-t...
I bought some socks from McMaster and they are pretty nice.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#296I see this all the time. Friend of mine bought a $200 Milwaukee drill to put up a couple picture frames.
My rule of thumb for tools is to always first buy the cheapo Harbor Freight special (I'll get something a little better for precision tools) and if that tool breaks then that means I use the tool enough to justify getting something better. Spoiler alert: most of my tools are the cheapest I could find.
That's a good one and this is what I mostly do.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#297Everyone should shop at restaurant supply stores. You can get identical metal mixing bowls for a fraction of the price of the heavy bowls most people have. Plus they clean easily and stack, so you can have a dozen at the ready easily.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dishwashers are another example. You could buy a commercial one but it will come with no roll-out trays (you load up different plastic racks for different things and you can load a rack while the dishwasher is running) and it’s designed for an environment with lots of ventilation (you just open it when it is done and let the steam get ventilated away) which people are unlikely to have in their own kitchens. Other ite…
Tangentially related: if you do want an amazing electric coffee grinder, feel free to piggy back on my countless hours of research and go with this: Baratza Virtuoso+ It is excellent.
This is oversimplifying it a little.
Yes Baratzas are great grinders but they are not one-size-fits-all depending on what kind of coffee you make. For example Baratza Encore is everyone’s darling with good reason (I have one and I use it for espresso every day!) but it’s not a great espresso grinder because fundamentally speaking its tiny motor just doesn’t have enough torque to drive big burrs, so it has small ones. Which means when you grind at espresso sizes it’s going to lose its tight spread and it’ll output some grains that are too big for espresso, some are too small and some are just right. Since espresso is very dense coffee, this is something that is very clearly tastable even to a skeptical non-expert like me.
This spread of grain sizes is something to some degree any grinder does, but grinders designed for espresso have tighter spreads, so they provide much more of the size you want (so your water can actually pass through) and much less of what you don’t want.
Incidentally this is something I like about specialty coffee industry compared to other connoisseur stuff like wine. Wine experts walk around talking about the earthy aromas, if some coffee ‘expert’ tries to do the same, someone in the audience busts out a refractometer and says ‘aight, let’s see’.
It’s still a money pit, but it’s at least on a much more scientifically solid ground.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#299Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The industrial/commercial cookware he lists is definitely durable 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 i…
The beaker example is the worst one, because the shape of the beaker is meant for controlled pouring out one point and no spills anywhere else around the perimeter. A drinking glass is designed for sipping which is completely different. If you tried drinking out of a beaker the flanged opening would tend to make the beverage pour down either side of your mouth.
It's also sort of a bad idea to normalize drinking out of laboratory glassware. Granted your home is different from a real lab, but lab workers have died drinking something they thought was water.
In my dad's lab in the 1970s, they used to make coffee in a large Erlenmeyer flask and filter it under vaccuum with a Buchner funnel. The safety director eventually banned it and made them buy a Mr. Coffee.