After years of having cheap, shitty can openers that made it a pain to do the task, I spent 20 minutes looking it up and bought the best that I could find on Amazon. While I may never figure out how to service it if something happens to it (the thought!), it has worked pretty well so far. Cans are opened with little to no effort. It stays out of the way, it does exactly the task it was designed for, and it does it well.
The Worst
11–20 of 217 posts
Re: The Worst
#12The author of this linked article has made an error: he assumes dcurtis' flatware is inordinately expensive. It is not; traditional flatware really is absurdly expensive. Much of the author's article is based on this assumption. I'd suggest he familiarize himself with "wedding gift"-style flatware. Then do a rewrite because I think there is a good argument still to be had.
for example: Wallace Silversmiths Five-Piece "Grande Baroque" Flatware Place Setting Original:$1,240.00 NOW:$992.00 - http://www.neimanmarcus.com/p/Wallace-Silversmiths-Grande-Ba... I agree, if the best Jacket, piece of flatware, flash light, etc is more expensive, that doesn't correlate: the overly expensive products are the "best". Which I think the writer is suggesting. Sometimes the cheaper product is the "best".…
Did you even read this article?
Re: The Worst
#13The author of this linked article has made an error: he assumes dcurtis' flatware is inordinately expensive. It is not; traditional flatware really is absurdly expensive. Much of the author's article is based on this assumption. I'd suggest he familiarize himself with "wedding gift"-style flatware. Then do a rewrite because I think there is a good argument still to be had.
I don't know where you shop, but the "traditional flatware" of my people is whatever was cheap enough at the department store. Our rich native customs dictate that we spend $15 on a set, and then use it until there are not enough non-bent spoons, and then to spend another $15.
Re: The Worst
#14I hope Moxie starts posting more frequently, especially if they're these these HN-popular posts, though I'd be interested in his security stuff too.
Re: The Worst
#15The author of this linked article has made an error: he assumes dcurtis' flatware is inordinately expensive. It is not; traditional flatware really is absurdly expensive. Much of the author's article is based on this assumption. I'd suggest he familiarize himself with "wedding gift"-style flatware. Then do a rewrite because I think there is a good argument still to be had.
If you include the time he spent researching flatware in the bill it would be probably hard to find anything more expensive south of diamond-encrusted things for oligarchs without taste.
And he spends an hour or so every day eating stuff with those. Every single day (presumably). If you divide the $500 those flatwares have cost him over that time period (a few thousand days, an hour each day), it turns out it's cost him about 10 cents per hour. And yet, he (again, presumably) has been enjoying it immensely. If you can be happier by spending 10 cents (per hour), why not?
I'm not a fan of expensive clothes, but buying an expensive utility that you use everyday (chair, mouse, keyboard, shoe, fork) makes a lot of sense to me.
Re: The Worst
#16The author of this linked article has made an error: he assumes dcurtis' flatware is inordinately expensive. It is not; traditional flatware really is absurdly expensive. Much of the author's article is based on this assumption. I'd suggest he familiarize himself with "wedding gift"-style flatware. Then do a rewrite because I think there is a good argument still to be had.
for example: Wallace Silversmiths Five-Piece "Grande Baroque" Flatware Place Setting Original:$1,240.00 NOW:$992.00 - http://www.neimanmarcus.com/p/Wallace-Silversmiths-Grande-Ba... I agree, if the best Jacket, piece of flatware, flash light, etc is more expensive, that doesn't correlate: the overly expensive products are the "best". Which I think the writer is suggesting. Sometimes the cheaper product is the "best".…
What you linked to would be referred to as "formal flatware". It's a totally different market than regular flatware. You're buying it because it has some intricate design or is made from some sort of expensive material. The pricing of it is not based on functionality.
This happens in the lower end, too, but there are lots of reasonable options that are cheaper than the stuff from "The Best" article, probably hold up the same, and the marginal loss in functionality is less than the marginal change in price.
Re: The Worst
#17The author of this linked article has made an error: he assumes dcurtis' flatware is inordinately expensive. It is not; traditional flatware really is absurdly expensive. Much of the author's article is based on this assumption. I'd suggest he familiarize himself with "wedding gift"-style flatware. Then do a rewrite because I think there is a good argument still to be had.
I thought the author was suggesting that maybe flatware isn't worth that much. There being a bunch of expensive flatware in existence is just a straw man's rebuttal to the point that affordable flatware works just fine.
I think cutlery is probably the worst possible example to illustrate the argument. The cheapest cutlery you can buy is still works 90% as well as the best, and they last approximately forever. I've never in my life been eating something and noticed the quality of the cutlery.
I think a better example would be dress shoes. The cheap versions are uncomfortable and wear out all the time, where as a good pair of leather shoes should last so much longer they probably end up being cheaper in the long run.
Re: The Worst
#18Thank you. That article about "The Best" bothered me in a way I couldn't completely verbalize. Beyond a certain threshold, the quality of objects just simply doesn't matter. The example of flatware was particularly annoying, because, really, in what way does a fork ever actually "fail"? Have you ever had food halfway to your mouth when the fork just suddenly collapses or something? As a tool, flatware is completely s…
> Have you ever had food halfway to your mouth when the fork just suddenly collapses or something?
-- shaking fist -- One of these days, Uri Geller, you'll get yours!
Re: The Worst
#19After years of having cheap, shitty can openers that made it a pain to do the task, I spent 20 minutes looking it up and bought the best that I could find on Amazon. While I may never figure out how to service it if something happens to it (the thought!), it has worked pretty well so far. Cans are opened with little to no effort. It stays out of the way, it does exactly the task it was designed for, and it does it we…
I think you're just hitting on a case where cheaper stuff is substantially less useful than more expensive stuff. One of the issues with "The Best" was how poor of an example flatware is at doing that.
Also, cost and utility are a sliding scale. There isn't "the best" and "the worst" and nothing in between. In fact, it's usually the stuff in the middle that makes the best trade offs between cost and functionality.
Re: The Worst
#20The dichotomy between Moxie and Dustin's posts illustrates an interesting split in the 'hacker' world.
Wheras Hacker and Startup seemed to represent the use of unconventional tools to achieve a unexpected results (often) in unpleasant or tedious circumstances, those connotations have become mixed with the sense glamor usually reserved for celebrities.
Now, the ostensibly boring (or at least detail-ridden, interesting only to those directly involved) practice of starting a business has taken a sort of crazy sheen, with list stories [1] written by starry eyed marketers praising the romance of the fast paced, powerful, and interesting startup industry shaping the public's view.
And Hackers, once conceptualized as loners fiddling with inscrutable technicalities, are now expected to attain material success and internet celebrity. After all, if you're a real hacker you should be pulling in at least $150k. (Though you'll have to spend some of that on a load balancer to handle your blog traffic.)
Dustin and Moxie seem to represent the two sides of this spectrum. Dustin, maybe hot off the aquihire of a desirable web property, looking for how to best direct his affluence. Moxie, pondering the important parts of the system he operates in, chooses to forgo what he considers symbolic representations of success with undeserved merit. It's as easy to imagine the dreadlocked Marlinspike talking to stallman (who is eating from his foot) as it is to imagine Curtis speaking to a crowd of socialites in a bell-aire hotel lobby.
At least for me.
A weird example I ran across, it struck me for its resemblance to a Cosmo article. [1] http://tech.co/the-top-10-tech-cocktail-stories-of-the-week-...