Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

danluu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 542 posts

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#511

Post by youdontknowjack »

analog31 wrote: post #119
yrral wrote: post #16

I think it's that you don't notice things that work well. House foundations, light switches, filesystems, silicon manufacturing, water delivery, grocery store logistics, etc etc etc. These are all things that most people never notice because they just work. It doesn't even occur to people day-to-day that these things can fail.

House foundations, light switches, and water delivery, along with the professions that install them, are all regulated and licensed. There is somewhat of a trend for the quality of those things to have regional variation, e.g., lower quality in places that have historically had weak code enforcement and weak unions. And yes, the regulation probably did make those things more expensive.

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I live in Alabama where there is virtually NO CODE, and NO ENFORCEMENT, and there definitely aren't any God damned unions, either. My house foundation, light switches, and water delivery are perfectly fine, thanks. Matter of fact, I did the wiring and installed the well pump and a fair bit of plumbing myself. Didn't have to ask anyone's permission to do it, either.

Wow, imagine that radical concept--a society that functions well without government goons breathing down everyone's neck! Maybe we could even come up with a word to describe this amazing new idea. "Freedom" maybe? "Liberty"?

Enjoy your slavery, serf.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#512

Post by metalliqaz »

munificent wrote: post #466
solveit wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, sure, you can encode difficult computational problems into markets in convoluted ways, but this is uninteresting unless you're into that kind of thing. When people usually say that markets aren't efficient, they don't mean that optimal resource allocation is a computationally intractable problem. They're saying that they see, clear as day, obvious inefficiencies that aren't being corrected. They're saying that…

> A better version of the efficient market hypothesis would be that markets are inexploitable. No, that's absolutely not true and relies on what I think is the most perniciously false assumption behind market economics: that all market participants only make moves within the market itself . If you're trying to win at chess then learning to master the rules and strategy of chess is where you focus your attention. But…

Then couldn't you reframe things to include the entirety of human civilization as a kind of market, and still show that there are unexploitable inefficiencies?

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#513

Post by munificent »

metalliqaz wrote: post #512
munificent wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A better version of the efficient market hypothesis would be that markets are inexploitable. No, that's absolutely not true and relies on what I think is the most perniciously false assumption behind market economics: that all market participants only make moves within the market itself . If you're trying to win at chess then learning to master the rules and strategy of chess is where you focus your attention. But…

Then couldn't you reframe things to include the entirety of human civilization as a kind of market, and still show that there are unexploitable inefficiencies?

Sure, but then your definition of "market" has no meaning.

A book on "chess strategy" would be very different if it's definition of "chess" included the whole of human conflict and warfare. It probably wouldn't spend much time talking about rooks and pawns at all.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#514

Post by ncmncm »

QuercusMax wrote: post #494
ncmncm wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, the $95 cooker lasts no longer, and works no better, than the $25 unit. (There is no $14 one.) You might be able to do better with a Japanese brand, but it is vanishingly unlikely you will get the same one as they would have sold in Japan, unless you actually get it shipped from there. I make rice in a saucepan on the range top. I have to come back and turn it off when it's done. Otherwise, it is the same.…

I've had a Zojirushi for 20 years, and my mom has had hers for 30. Probably paid $250 when new. We use it nearly every day. My kids know how to make rice with it, and it comes out perfect every time. I wouldn't trust a ten year old to make rice on the stove, but they can do it with a rice cooker no problem.

They can do it with your exact rice cooker, no problem.

I grew up with Zojirushi rice cookers. They always worked. The last one I bought sputtered starch water all over the counter. Stuff you can buy in the US today is not the same as what we could buy even 20 years ago.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#515

Post by metalliqaz »

munificent wrote: post #513
metalliqaz wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then couldn't you reframe things to include the entirety of human civilization as a kind of market, and still show that there are unexploitable inefficiencies?

Sure, but then your definition of "market" has no meaning. A book on "chess strategy" would be very different if it's definition of "chess" included the whole of human conflict and warfare. It probably wouldn't spend much time talking about rooks and pawns at all.

That's not what I meant. I mean there's no rule that you have to include only what we call "the market". I mean the "real" global market includes politics, crime, etc. Basically anything humans do to get their hands on money.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#516

Post by Siira »

analog31 wrote: post #119
yrral wrote: post #16

I think it's that you don't notice things that work well. House foundations, light switches, filesystems, silicon manufacturing, water delivery, grocery store logistics, etc etc etc. These are all things that most people never notice because they just work. It doesn't even occur to people day-to-day that these things can fail.

House foundations, light switches, and water delivery, along with the professions that install them, are all regulated and licensed. There is somewhat of a trend for the quality of those things to have regional variation, e.g., lower quality in places that have historically had weak code enforcement and weak unions. And yes, the regulation probably did make those things more expensive.

Considering the regulations aren’t universal, but they seem to work fine everywhere, your hypothesis sounds preposterous.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#517

Post by Siira »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #413
4gotunameagain wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shhh men and women are exactly the same, have the same desires and strong points, men that decided at 25 that they are not men can magically become women, there should be a 50/50 split in prestigious jobs (but not construction or underwater welding), and if you disagree with any of the above you don't believe in equality and are practically a Nazi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

By the tone, more of a caricature.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#518

Post by xyzzy21 »

analog31 wrote: post #119
yrral wrote: post #16

I think it's that you don't notice things that work well. House foundations, light switches, filesystems, silicon manufacturing, water delivery, grocery store logistics, etc etc etc. These are all things that most people never notice because they just work. It doesn't even occur to people day-to-day that these things can fail.

House foundations, light switches, and water delivery, along with the professions that install them, are all regulated and licensed. There is somewhat of a trend for the quality of those things to have regional variation, e.g., lower quality in places that have historically had weak code enforcement and weak unions. And yes, the regulation probably did make those things more expensive.

Semiconductors are not regulated except in terms of large scale externalities - e.g. water quality, air emissions, etc. Otherwise they pretty much use any methods, processes or means that they want. They do have economic incentives based on the constraints of physics - you can't boost defect densities of wafers by screaming at Mother Nature so to assure a market for your products, there are constraints on quality and process that all things equal you'd skip since they are "cost centers".

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#519

Post by NavinF »

derefr wrote: post #451
pclmulqdq wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of outsourcing decisions seem to be made on the premise of "what if it breaks?" It's a terrible fallacy. Your wafer saw (or server) that is utilized 1% of the time is going to need a lot less maintenance than a shared wafer saw that is used 16 hours a day. You will actually experience a lot less downtime by investing in your own wafer saw (or your own servers) rather than outsourcing (to a foundry or a cloud pr…

> You will actually experience a lot less downtime by investing in your own wafer saw (or your own servers) rather than outsourcing (to a foundry or a cloud provider). Analogy doesn't work; "in-sourcing" of previously-IaaS resources as a cost-cutting measure, is used almost exclusively for "base load" (vs. elastic load, which is the comparative advantage of IaaSes); and so your in-house servers are usually running pi…

> 17+-copies Dynamo-ish system

Are you implying that having more than 3 copies is somehow more reliable? Cause that sounds pretty insane.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#520

Post by dreeple15 »

ncmncm wrote: post #221
dreeple15 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

This would be more meaningful if we knew what you think makes a rockstar engineer. Some people value extreme speed. Others are impressed by somebody who will dive down a rabbit hole and follow however deep it leads, discovering the linker bug or kernel driver interaction that causes a failure, and patching it. Or maybe you are impressed that they go away for a month, talking to nobody, and come back with a complete s…

[dead]
Post reply on HN