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Overkill objects for everyday life

neil.computer

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Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#671

Post by MonaroVXR »

aflag wrote: post #668
MonaroVXR wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are differences between Laptop lines from the same manufacturer. (0) I especially mentioned Latitude 7000 series. Anything else may be worse. (0) Same goes for ThinkPads, not every ThinkPad is equal, even if it's the same one.

My work laptop is a dell 7420, my personal one is a dell xps 13. I can't come up with one thing that's better in the latitude laptop. Maybe it has a usb port? But that's irrelevant while docking and on the go, everything is either bluetooth or usb-c these days.

> I can't come up with one thing that's better in the latitude laptop.

Which is totally fair, everything is fair. I'm not a negative person. (I think.)

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#672

Post by permo-w »

ThatMedicIsASpy wrote: post #631
zamalek wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm considering this very seriously: > 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."

as someone that has worked with tvs for a few years I disagree strongly. Speakers are a lifetime purchase. A TV is not. Professional displays are super expensive (and often dont come with speakers). The pricing will also change a lot depending on the size. They are made to run 24/7 on airports etc. Today there aren't many display manufacturers anyways. I would never spend 4k-20k on a professional display to use it as…

you didn’t explain why a tv shouldn’t be a lifetime purchase

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#673

Post by neonological »

kube-system wrote: post #169
Sebb767 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price” No. Of course, a part of potential lifetime loss is due to price. Manufacturing a case in plastic instead of carbon fiber is simply far cheaper and most consumer will go for that. However, we see cheaped out components even in high-priced or prosumer gear, while the existence of this market already pretty…

Yes, true planned obsolescence has happened. But it’s a lot less common than people think, and often prohibited by law. Even the “slowing down of old iPhones” is an example of that. This was a bug fix for crashing due to current demand that exceeded the battery’s capability.

Most people aren't even aware of planned obsolescence. There's also very little data on how much of this actually happening as no company will admit to this practice. So really no one can make a statement on whether it's common or uncommon without a big data gathering effort.

The statement we can make that is very realistic is that companies are incentivised to do do "planned obsolescence" and because of this "planned obsolescence" has happened, is happening and will continue to happen in the future.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#674

Post by neonological »

kube-system wrote: post #664
Grustaf wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but when is having lots of cheap stuff related to standard of living? I still maintain that access to healthy food, good education, healthcare and security are what determines standard of living, not the amount of stuff you have.

The human activities that enable someone to have access to healthy food, good education, healthcare and security make use of value-engineered products.

There's no doubt "value engineering" occurs. Your claim is that early obsolescence is not planned but rather a side effect of value engineering.

There's nothing in the universe that stops a feature that meets a design goal of lowering value from also meeting the design goal of planned obsolescence. So it's 100 percent possible that a company still has two design goals: making a cheaper product and obsolescescing that product.

So if you claim that it's basically not happening. Tell me in what way is a company not incentivised to plan the early obsolescence of a product and what evidence do you have that this is basically not happening as a deliberate design decision?

Your evidence is only an example that a company can both meet the goal of obsolescence and lower value with a singular feature of cheaper materials. I have stated that this is not evidence because a company can still have the design goal of obsolescence while meeting that goal with a singular design feature intended to make the product cheaper as well. You need to counter this reasoning because it invalidated your evidence.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#675

Post by neonological »

kube-system wrote: post #451
neonological wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you watch the video? It's not just about cheap materials. It's literal design decisions made for the express reason so that the product will fail. The iphone not having a replaceable battery is a design decision, it doesn't make the phone cheaper. You are taking two independent phenomenons and trying to group them together as if they are the same phenomenon. Yes making a product cheaper has the side effect of red…

I did watch it. (And I have watched it once before years ago.) Design is also an engineering constraint. All of these constraints are interconnected. None are wholly independent. The “fashion” argument is particularly silly. Fashion and style are concepts that have existed as a part of human nature longer than manufacturing, corporations, or even money itself have even existed. Having the latest flashy accessories to…

>I did watch it. (And I have watched it once before years ago.)

This is a total and deliberate lie. The video came out march 2021. There is no way you watched this years ago. You didn't watch it at all. I recommend you actually watch it.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#676

Post by ryanlol »

permo-w wrote: post #672
ThatMedicIsASpy wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as someone that has worked with tvs for a few years I disagree strongly. Speakers are a lifetime purchase. A TV is not. Professional displays are super expensive (and often dont come with speakers). The pricing will also change a lot depending on the size. They are made to run 24/7 on airports etc. Today there aren't many display manufacturers anyways. I would never spend 4k-20k on a professional display to use it as…

you didn’t explain why a tv shouldn’t be a lifetime purchase

You wouldn’t want to be using a 30 year old TV now, would you?

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#677

Post by ryanlol »

drewzero1 wrote: post #481
t0mas88 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would highly recommend a 787 cockpit seat instead. Much more comfortable and adjustable than an ejection seat and also kind of futuristic looking from behind. 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.

I have a couple of seats I pulled from a VW GTI that seemed very comfortable when they were in the car, but when I've sat in them outside of the car I feel like I need to be going faster. I imagine an ejector seat might have a similar effect in the absence of the G-forces it was designed to handle.

Passenger planes don’t have ejector seats.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#678

Post by Wistar »

exmadscientist wrote: post #575
tristor wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d really appreciate a site like that. Light switches in particular piss me off. Every single switch sold at Lowes or Home Depot are crap and I’ve yet to figure out where to buy something that’s actually decent with proper tactility. What light switches do you use?

For the specific case of light switches, ironically, sometimes all you have to do is not shop at big box stores. If you buy the exact same 5262 receptacle from Home Depot or from Zoro, you'll see they're completely different beasts! This is pretty brazen -- usually HD has the decency to add a suffix to the cheap-out version. Longer form: there are three major manufacturers of switches and receptacles: Hubbell (Bryant…

Wow! Great and useful insights. Good point that big box skus are often different than the dedicated sellers.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#679

Post by Grustaf »

kube-system wrote: post #664
Grustaf wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but when is having lots of cheap stuff related to standard of living? I still maintain that access to healthy food, good education, healthcare and security are what determines standard of living, not the amount of stuff you have.

The human activities that enable someone to have access to healthy food, good education, healthcare and security make use of value-engineered products.

Really? It’s definitely not true for education, good education is essentially completely independent of technology, and it seems to me that healthy food at reasonable prices is more a question of mechanized agriculture and supply chains.

Healthcare, maybe I can see it, but not really. The proliferation of single use stuff in hospitals for example seems like a different thing than cheap bicycles and shoddy clothes that last a single season.

Maybe I misunderstood what value engineering is, but I don’t really see how the philosophy behind cheap consumer goods is very related to those things.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#680

Post by [deleted] »

airhead969 wrote: post #621
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to get them used, if you watch for large color laser printers to come up on clearance when they are a generation or two old you can get a steal. I got my huge dell color laser for about $150 with free shipping. I have two kids who print stuff all day and in 3 years I have replaced the toner maybe one or two times (each color + black is a different cartridge). I haven't had to replace whatever you…

We're clearly not talking about the same class of printer. I was talking about flagship, departmental printers that typically do not sit on a table but have their own wheels and 3+ paper trays. I also avoid rebadged brands because they are less likely to have the breadth of repair parts that top-tier enterprise printers do (advice from the printer repair guy). Sure, you can get smaller enterprise laser printers of ma…

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