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Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

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Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#101
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're beautiful and impressive, but I find the amount of money that flows into "high horology" to be an sum with an egregious opportunity cost to society, made even worse by the fact that all that complexity goes towards a movement that is worse at keeping time than a rudimentary quartz. If people want Tamagotchis, they can get a Tamagotchi. I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities instead an…

The solution of giving away your money over buying something is some broken logic. Plenty of corrupt charity officials line their pockets and live it up on donations. The rich don’t owe society, exactly the opposite, hence the money. It represents an unpaid debt so you can’t turn around and ask for it back.

"The rich don’t owe society, exactly the opposite"

This is precisely wrong. The rich do indeed owe society. They owe their wealth to the workers working for them. To the education system that educated their workers and made them productive, the roads that brought them to work and the health system that keeps them at work.

This is obvious from the number of millionaires produced by healthy, educated, stable societies vs others. Other countries produce fewer and then only natural resource millionaires in the favour of the ruling elites. But they can't do so without labour and the resources owned by those societies. The rich owe almost everything not produced by their own hands.

And comparing the figures of corruption in those countries to that of charities generally is so absurd it's laughable.

Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#102
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're beautiful and impressive, but I find the amount of money that flows into "high horology" to be an sum with an egregious opportunity cost to society, made even worse by the fact that all that complexity goes towards a movement that is worse at keeping time than a rudimentary quartz. If people want Tamagotchis, they can get a Tamagotchi. I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities instead an…

The solution of giving away your money over buying something is some broken logic. Plenty of corrupt charity officials line their pockets and live it up on donations. The rich don’t owe society, exactly the opposite, hence the money. It represents an unpaid debt so you can’t turn around and ask for it back.

Don't go to the dentist. Some of them live lavishly pushing unneeded and overpriced care.

Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#103
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're beautiful and impressive, but I find the amount of money that flows into "high horology" to be an sum with an egregious opportunity cost to society, made even worse by the fact that all that complexity goes towards a movement that is worse at keeping time than a rudimentary quartz. If people want Tamagotchis, they can get a Tamagotchi. I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities instead an…

Same with "ultra" and "hyper" cars

Those cars are way worse. It’s not just flashing money around, it’s actively making your wealth other people’s problem. From the noise they make, the extra gas they burn, to having to drive careful around them because you’re going to get sued into oblivion if you fuck them up

Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#104
post #81

William Gibson wrote a piece for Wired back in the day about his obsession with mechanical watches.[1] He puts it thus: ``` Mechanical watches are so brilliantly unnecessary. Any Swatch or Casio keeps better time, and high-end contemporary Swiss watches are priced like small cars. But mechanical watches partake of what my friend John Clute calls the Tamagotchi Gesture. They're pointless in a peculiarly needful way; t…

They're beautiful and impressive, but I find the amount of money that flows into "high horology" to be an sum with an egregious opportunity cost to society, made even worse by the fact that all that complexity goes towards a movement that is worse at keeping time than a rudimentary quartz. If people want Tamagotchis, they can get a Tamagotchi. I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities instead an…

Watches are about movement/storage of wealth and tax evasion. Like art, very high timepiece value is its ability to move money. They're Old Money Cryptocurrency.

Bring $50,000 in cash on a plane to another country and you're a drug dealer/criminal, or at the very least, the tax inspectors want to talk to you.

Bring a $50,000 watch on holiday or a business trip, and nobody blinks an eye. Your average customs/border/security person probably no idea what a $1,000 watch looks like compared to a $50,000 or $100,000 watch...or they're

The Chinese in particular are using luxury watches to get around money export controls (you can't export more than a fairly small amount of money out of China.)

Further reading:

Tax evasion: https://thetruthaboutwatches.com/2020/09/uk-kills-new-watch-...

Chinese wealth export mechanism: https://www.ft.com/content/a9a34f94-9a49-4938-ae9e-ec4e6d2f4...

Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#105

William Gibson wrote a piece for Wired back in the day about his obsession with mechanical watches.[1] He puts it thus: ``` Mechanical watches are so brilliantly unnecessary. Any Swatch or Casio keeps better time, and high-end contemporary Swiss watches are priced like small cars. But mechanical watches partake of what my friend John Clute calls the Tamagotchi Gesture. They're pointless in a peculiarly needful way; t…

> Any Swatch or Casio keeps better time ... and that's my cue to pimp one of the most practical watch of all time - Casio Oceanus, the 100 series. * Analog watch face. * Quartz, radio auto-sync, solar-powered. * Sapphire glass, titanium body and bracelet. Waterproof. * Clean design. Under $500. https://www.google.com/search?q=OCW-S100-1AJF&tbm=isch

Practical watches are ones where it's clear at a glance which way up it goes and what the time is; they have numbers on them, preferably in a digital readout like 00:40. Watches without numbers are fashion watches. Watches with analogue faces are relics from when technology only let you decypher the time from rotating pointers. Rotating pointers where the numbers they point at have been removed are form over function.

Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#106
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're beautiful and impressive, but I find the amount of money that flows into "high horology" to be an sum with an egregious opportunity cost to society, made even worse by the fact that all that complexity goes towards a movement that is worse at keeping time than a rudimentary quartz. If people want Tamagotchis, they can get a Tamagotchi. I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities instead an…

Same with "ultra" and "hyper" cars

I would actually disagree with this one even though I agree with the overall sentiment.

Hypercars are much better than regular/sports cars, and should be considered the atomic clock equivalent to the quartz watch - far more accuracy/performance albeit at a significant literal cost.

I do not know the real world implications of hyper cars on fuel consumption (I can't expect it to be very good, but I don't expect too many such vehicles either). For better or for worse there are many more mundane things that can have a much larger improvement for human life (eg reducing food waste).

Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#107
post #71

All this marketing and I don't see the most important pieces of information. How well does it keep time? How accurate it is over a year?

Also, am I reading this right, you can only adjust it by hours? Do you just gently tap your special screwdriver and hope to try and adjust it in minutes at a time? And you have to wind it every single day, so have fun doing it all again if you have a busy week

Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#108

Price: $1,888,000 US dollars.

This strikes me as a product that the Chinese could copy and mass-produce for -- I dunno -- $500? And it would work 75% as well. I don't see a huge barrier to entry here except for IP, which never stops the Chinese.

Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#109
post #91

I have a 1960s Omega that's honestly one of my favourite possessions. Nothing fancy, steel, handsome face. It's comfortable to wear, because it's a fraction of the size and weight of a modern status watches; and it keeps good time. So I wear it most days. It's not just an affectation: glancing at a watch when I want to know the time is a better experience than pulling out my phone. And it turned out not to be a gatew…

My dad loves his Omega; I'm too much of a klutz to buy something that will last more than 10 years if I'm going to wear it every day though, so I just buy a new Seiko every 5-10 years when I accidentally smash my current one.

Re: Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

#110
I have this really thin digital watch in my pocket that lasts multiple days and is more accurate than any mechanical watch. Also it does loads of other stuff.

But it doesn't cost $1.8 million so it's not great for money laundering purposes.

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