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Overkill objects for everyday life

neil.computer

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Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#351

Post by lostlogin »

user3939382 wrote: post #110
dan-robertson wrote: post #53

Earlier 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.

Thanks.

I’ll add a pointer towards Mazzer grinders too.

The key is to buy them when they are described as broken, then they are very cheap. As far as I can tell they are almost never broken as such. Either something inside needs plugging back in, or the on/off switch needs replacing (it’s got spades on it, so just plug a new one in).

They are nearly entirely metal, with the few plastic components readily available.

The are quite easy to sand and repaint too, so you can match them to other bits of equipment or decor. The correct colour choice is a 1970s orange.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#352

Post by Avamander »

whoisburbansky wrote: post #37
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #14

"I don't think corporations/businesses are to blame... The average consumer is extremely ill-informed." 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 pr…

I was surprised that the App Store would take a cut of charity donations, so I looked it up and pretty much every forum post I found says that you’re actually forbidden from collecting donations using in app purchases, and have to do so through out of band methods to get through App Review? [1] Kind of difficult to take a cut of payments you explicitly don’t allow on your platform, isn’t it? https://apple.stackexchan…

The same applies to Google Play. Can't take donations without giving Google a cut.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#353

Post by bayindirh »

IgorPartola wrote: post #341

I will postulate an opposing view to TFA: 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 l…

Moreover, consumer items beyond a price point are both very well made and backed by long term warranties anyway.

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.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#354

Post by yojo »

Arch-TK wrote: post #279
yojo wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Vario, that has struggled with a fine espresso grind. The burrs are ceramic but the carriage is plastic and it affects the tolerance. I gave up repairing/troubleshooting it and bought a beat to hell SuperJolly off EBay for $170. Dropped in a new set of burrs and have an unstoppable overkill grinder with a huge motor and all metal parts

If you want espresso you probably want steel burrs mounted in steel with good bearings. If you are on a budget and don't want to spend £500 ($700 + tax and shipping) on a niche then you can usually find used smaller commercial machines. Research the burrs they use and see if you can find new burrs, this way you can spend probably somewhere around $200 on what would function like a brand new high quality burr grinder.

Yes, that’s what I did. The Super Jolly I bought is a commercial machine (by Mazzer) and I put new OEM steel burrs in it.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#355

Post by K7PJP »

hutrdvnj wrote: post #320
renewiltord wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repairability is a red herring. As a professional, I care about “time in service” and “maintenance cost”. A completely unrepairable tool that is in service a lot longer for way less maintenance? I take that any day of the week. And here’s the thing, I don’t really care that you can repair your Dell. I wouldn’t be able to do so without putting in a lot of time and it would be a little stressful. Reducing that time req…

I find it less stressful when I know that I could easily swap out a broken RAM module and continue to work, than to wait for the repair of my device.

How does RAM break? How often does it fail?

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#356

Post by ianmcgowan »

killjoywashere wrote: post #90
enchiridion wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's always the line. The left out part is how rigorous the spec is.

Problem with the spec is often that the military "needs a car". But the specification process forces them to design all the parameters, and they end up with a very rigorous spec for "Toyota Camry, no A/C, coyote brown, steel wheels" which adds up to 800 pages and a product that even Toyota can't produce for less than $250k/unit. Meanwhile, by the time they've written the spec, the CyberTruck has been designed, market…

That's a really interesting point that explains the $600 hammer urban myths - the military has a ton of constraints in their specs that are defendable, but result in much higher costs than equivalent consumer spec.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#357

Post by lostlogin »

Arch-TK wrote: post #271
dan-robertson wrote: post #53

Earlier 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…

You need to spend at least £600 to get a decent home espresso set up but it will get you something pretty close to good cafe grade coffee. 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 int…

I am a big fan of my first espresso machine - the Rancilio Silvia. It’s got many commercial components in a small form factor. It’s easily repairable too, but probably doesn’t need it.

Mine did approximately 15,000 coffees in the 20 years of use it had, and had one service for about $US75. It’s still around as an emergency backup.

It’s shown in the wiki. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancilio

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#358

Post by Avamander »

dale_glass wrote: post #243
bob1029 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been considering the economics around a startup company that exclusively produces home appliances & tools that are purely electro-mechanical in design. 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 explai…

The technological bullshit often makes the device much better. Let's take an object I'm quite familiar with: an espresso machine. Some like the classic Rancilio Silvia are 100% electromechanical. It's nice and simple, but there are downsides: * Temperature regulation is very coarse, because it's done with thermal relays. * There's no timing. All manual. * There's no water sensor. * There are potential failure modes.…

> The issue isn't with electronics but with electronics being applied in the wrong direction.

This is also an issue with IoT in general. The internet functionality replaces basic functionality instead of being built on top. No, I don't want to wash my clothes with an app! But I would not mind the fscking machine to shut the fuck up at night and remind me in the morning to empty it. Not a hard thing to do. Same with e.g. light switches, if there's no internet it should still work, some don't, awful.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#359

Post by lostlogin »

phamilton wrote: post #95
macNchz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re totally correct about the noise, however I actually use a commercial all-metal box fan to ventilate my apartment and it’s really awesome. 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…

I've got that in our attic with a nice little light switch in our bedroom to turn it on. Crack open the window, turn on the attic fan and the whole house cools down nicely. 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.

Smart plugs loaded into home assistant are good for this.

Then you can turn the fan off after a period of time, at a specific time, at a certain temp etc.

It risks over complicating things though.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#360

Post by bartread »

IgorPartola wrote: post #341

I will postulate an opposing view to TFA: 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 l…

I think one needs to be a bit selective 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.

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