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Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

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Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#581

Post by hoseja »

criley2 wrote: post #438
fartcannon wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that it's silly. I think that's unfairly dismissive of a valid point when he is paid money to advertise for those companies and we are discussing the validity of his reviews of that equipment.

LTT makes almost all of it's money from floatplane, youtube premium, and youtube advertisements. The "deals" they work with companies are almost entirely outside of the product space they review. This mud-slinging idea you continue to push (with zero evidence) is contrary to their financials and directly contrary to their business model. Why on earth would Linus leverage his entire business in debt to buy a huge faci…

>LTT makes almost all of it's money from floatplane, youtube premium, and youtube advertisements

In the recent video they did on their most profitable videos Linus explicitly said money from YouTube is only a small fraction of their revenue. I don't imagine Floatplane is much of a profit centre either...

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#582

Post by hoseja »

Germanika wrote: post #530
fartcannon wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that would mean you support each woman who wants to have one and you probably shouldn't tell them it offends you if they do. Especially if they depend on you financially and you can break up with them without consequence.

I interpret it closer to being pro-choice while hoping to not personally need an abortion. Unions form when workers feel they aren't being heard and aren't being properly represented. Having a union form at your own company is an indication that you failed your employees in one way or another. You can be pro-union while hoping to personally never need one or have to sit across the table from one.

That's a wrong way to view unions though, a propagandized American way. Unions should really be default and not imply some sort of moral failing about the employer. Sadly they are viewed as such.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#583

Post by hoseja »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #524
mrkwse wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be interesting if LMG can pull off what Linus is aiming for with the massive investment in a laboratory environment. There are huge parts of the tech market where the most critical reviewing you can find is anecdotal accounts of if the reviewer liked a product or not (or the more clinical reviews are drowned out by the anecdotal noise).

The big problem with most YouTube review channels is that they're reliant on the vendors to provide them with free test units and other forms of access in order to grow their channels, and Linus is no exception. I actually came across a "why I'm shutting down my channel" video a while back in which the host showed emails from the company whose product she was reviewing (it was a drawing tablet or something like that)…

LTT is certainly NOT dependent on free review units any more.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#584

Post by ornornor »

hypersoar wrote: post #51

The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's a real one. There are vanishingly few left for general consumer products. There's WC, Consumer Reports, and what else? They've seem to have all been killed off. When I'm researching some category of product, I feel lucky if I find any professional reviews written by people who have actually touched the thing they're reviewing. I know we've all had the e…

I have no faith whatsoever in WC‘s reviews or advice anymore. I’ve bought several of their recommendations post NYT acquisition and they’ve all turned out to be flawed in a way that I’d aimed to avoid by following their recommendations.

I find „site:Reddit.com“ a much much much better source of actual information that isn’t SEO spam.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#585

Post by rcoveson »

etchalon wrote: post #574
amluto wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, you’re still missing the point. If you are taking air, running it once through a filter, and using the air that comes out for an application that needs very few particles, then a 99.99% filter is “10x” as efficient as a 99.9% filter in the sense that the air coming out will have 1/10 as many particles. For example, a 99% efficient face mask is “10x” as efficient as a 90% efficient mask (assuming both fit perfe…

I understand the point. The point doesn't matter. Air purifiers operate on a fraction of available air. That air supply is continually being cycled, refreshed and mixed. Particulate matter within that air is not evenly dispersed. That, for a single minute, as a percentage of total air, a 99.5% and a 99.95% purifier produce a minor difference in total air quality is deeply irrelevant to the overall performance of the…

You started this subthread with the comment:

> The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is "small" is … weird.

When you use the author's numbers, 0.9005 and 0.90005, the implication is that you're taking the parameters of they hypothetical as given. You then go on to say that the difference between those numbers is significant. Remember that in this abstract, idealized scenario, the air filters are only able to process 1/10th of the air in the room (hence the shared 0.9, the dominant portion of the magnitude). Perhaps the room reciculates with its environment at the rate of one room volume per day, and the filters can only process 1/10th of the room per day. Given that, do you still think the difference is significant? Or are you just outright refusing to participate in the thought experiment at all? Because that's what it seems like now that you're trying to broaden the scope of your contention to the other sections of the article.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#586

Post by [deleted] »

hirvi74 wrote: post #505
kitsunesoba wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hopeful for LMG's lab too. It's still a bit of a gamble, but from the sound of it the company is set up such that they can review products in an objective, data-backed way and tank any blowback from manufacturers that occurs as a result. It's much more focused on enthusiast computer hardware, but Gamers Nexus[0] is doing good things in this space too. Their style is much more dry and data-dense than LMG's though,…

There is no denying that "Linus (Torvalds) Tech Tips" would not be extremely entertaining though. I would love to see him just go off on everything. :)

[deleted]

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#587

Post by bmn__ »

hirvi74 wrote: post #505
kitsunesoba wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hopeful for LMG's lab too. It's still a bit of a gamble, but from the sound of it the company is set up such that they can review products in an objective, data-backed way and tank any blowback from manufacturers that occurs as a result. It's much more focused on enthusiast computer hardware, but Gamers Nexus[0] is doing good things in this space too. Their style is much more dry and data-dense than LMG's though,…

There is no denying that "Linus (Torvalds) Tech Tips" would not be extremely entertaining though. I would love to see him just go off on everything. :)

Linus S on Linus T: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kua9cY8q_EI

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#588

Post by snvzz »

ethbr0 wrote: post #232
jorvi wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For headphones I just use Crinacle. It’s served me well so far. For other stuff, I usually check Wirecutter and cross-reference it with Reddit reviews. I also have noticed that Wirecutter seems.. less qualitative (?) since they got bought by The NY Times.

Also on headphones, head-fi ( https://www.head-fi.org/ ).

Hell no. They are audiophool degenerates. They literally reject any semblance of objective measurements, to focus on non-rigorous (i.e. not done with ABX) subjective evaluations.

I cannot recommend audio science review[0] enough. They're the opposite. All about objective measurements and rigor. None of the bullshit.

[0]: http://audiosciencereview.com/

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#589

Post by aiisjustanif »

wgjordan wrote: post #269
tobylane wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems justified. (IMO I’d want a review of the ingredients, then it’s up to my kid to prefer flavours.) That choice isn’t related to the choices for products for adults, which is what we care about.

The only point was to confirm that Wirecutter doesn't always actually test all of the products they review, regardless of whether it's (arguably) justified in each individual case.

It was postured to whether is is justified or not because the commenter said if true then..

> It was very strange and very disappointing.

To which I replied that Wirecutter delivers on many occasions and is still a good review site that does do research on most staple consumer products.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#590

Post by vl »

breput wrote: post #472
steamer25 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matthias Wandel recently did some experiments over several options. A decent furnace filter, when duct-taped to a box-fan, did surprisingly well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDZ9yUdM2wA It turned out that my local hardware store had a similar pre-manufactured offering with a slightly less Jerry-rigged aesthetic. We bought one for my son's allergies but I also noticed an improvement on the whole upper floor of our…

There seems to be two main use cases for a room-sized air purifier: If you live in a polluted city or are affected by wildfires, having a box fan-sized model is almost a necessity. It is going to be noisy and unsightly but undeniably more effective. Having a few furnace filters laying around for air quality emergencies is probably not a bad idea. For day to day use in a low pollution area, where dust or pollen is the…

Surprisingly, there are ultra-quite full-size fans as well. I bough Vornado fan from Amazon, and this is one of the best devices I ever had. On first two speeds it’s basically silent, I use it 24/7 to ventilate room with bad air flow in my house. It’s also Alexa integrated, but I never can remember the commands.
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