211–220 of 499 posts
All my appliances are mid-century or older. Parts are simple and easily fabricated if necessary. Having a restored 85-year-old refrigerator (compressor and refrigerant still original) in active use, it's amazing how efficient it actually is. It's manual defrost, but doesn't need defrosting all that often either. Reading about the failing condenser fan and compressor reminded me of these items, worth watching again: h…
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Lower population density and bad zoning means the trip to the grocery store is farther, so you only want to go once every week or two. So, you get a bigger car, to fit more groceries and a bigger fridge for the same reason. Then, some stupid person fills their car completely with groceries, can’t see out the back window, and backs into you. So, you get a still bigger car, so they can’t possibly help but see you, and…
> you only want to go once every week or two How are y'all getting decent bread and milk?
Now Australia’s food quality is pretty damn good compared to most other countries, but it’s just as much if not more of an indication that the average quality of food in the US is abysmal. From the week or so I’ve spent in the US, in a major coastal city, as a ‘rich’ person seeking good food, I’ve gotta say that this is my belief.
So in short I don’t think that many Americans are getting decent bread.
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> Everyone are already walking around with smart phones that are perfectly able to do all of that. Being able to do it is not the same as actually doing it. The rest of your argument, sorry but I can not respond without feeling angry. It just feels like the rationalizations of a selfish, too-clever-by-half neomaniac.
> Being able to do it is not the same as actually doing it. You could have smart devices similarly only react or go to active mode when you press a button on your watch etc. > The rest of your argument, sorry but I can not respond without feeling angry. It just feels like the rationalizations of a selfish, too-clever-by-half neomaniac. Okay, I agree that your words can describe me well, but what do you think the end…
"Tech" is a means, not an end. What problems are we solving with this tech, and what problems are we creating with the introduction of new technology? These are the only questions that I have when talking about technology, and I really don't see much sense in trying to turn into an existential question.
> aren't you curious what will happen in the future?
Not really, no. When facing a moral dilemma, I look to the past to see what mistakes can be avoided. I try to live in the present and take things as they are. I might look at the "current instant" to see where things are headed and if there are new opportunities being presented, but "the future" is something so out of reach and so out of control that I really give as little thought as possible.
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1000x this. I’ve started to learn how to do everything myself via YouTube. Am I an expert? Heck no. Can I do a dang reasonable job for easily 1/10th the cost? Sure seems to be true.
It's not just the cost, but the hassle of booking someone else to fix your stuff. The same is true with all self-repairs.
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Probably a tiny handful of times? And would it have been useful? Yes of course it's useful to get a warning when you're not at home or upstairs in bed. I didn't say it was a life changing critical feature, I said "handy". We had a freezer door pop open overnight once... it was because one of the drawers wasn't quite shut properly, all was good for hours after closing it and then suddenly it popped open when we were i…
I'm not saying it is not useful, nor am I making a point about "survival" (also because people have survived long before fridges were even a thing). I'm saying it can be useful, but only very rarely.
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Fridge/freezer one is handy for temperature and door open alarms
Yes, but how often do you experience power outages or other things that lead to weird temperature changes? I think in the last 15 years it only happened to me once. And how often does a fridge door open on its own? Most people don't need other people (or things) to remind them that they should tie their shoes before getting out. If you don't need that, I assume you know you should close the fridge door.
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We do have a thing in the US called a micro fridge. College students will often get one for their dorm rooms. For the biggest fridge you describe, the extra space is usually a freezer. If you are going to have a freezer anyway, it seems like an overall savings to include it in the fridge. If you don’t have a freezer, you won’t have any icecream, and then is life really worth living?
European fridges also have a freezer, while remaining single door. Top half fridge, bottom half freezer.
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Exactly. This would turn a fridge into yet another thing serving ads. No thanks.
There would be alternative market for ads free for sure or open source alternatives where you could connect with your own selected LLMs.
When we upgraded our appliances, the "smart" or "wifi-enabled" ones were specifically avoided like the plague. "Dumb" appliances - especially fridges, for some reason - are becoming hard to come by, but they do exist. Electrolux, KitchenAid, even LG all make some no-frills models that can save both money and frustration. Hopefully those companies continue serving the "luddite techie" market.