Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical • Hacker News Board

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#71

Post by varispeed » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 12:07 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #46

zmmmmm wrote: post #25

It's been an interesting evolution as I have aged to observe myself going from one end of the spectrum to the other (mainly, as I've accumulated more wealth). I'm now at the point where I crave quality at just about any cost because it's abundantly clear to me that buying crap is bad value. Many of the few high quality things I bought early on in life are still with me and I love them. But so is a huge amount of the…

Honestly I've gone in the other direction. Quality for its own sake is not a virtue; all that matters is whether the item meets the needs you have. An item that breaks and needs replacement is waste, but an item that is overbuilt and never used to its potential is a different kind of waste. I don't need the best tools in the world for my home toolbox. I use each tool maybe a couple of times a year and even the cheap…

There is nothing worse than a weekend and sudden urgent repair to be done. Then you take out your tools and it breaks... It's so frustrating. On the other hand if you pull out a good quality tool, not only you'll fix the problem, but you'll feel good from even looking at it (or at least me).

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#72

Post by orwin » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 12:10 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #46

zmmmmm wrote: post #25

It's been an interesting evolution as I have aged to observe myself going from one end of the spectrum to the other (mainly, as I've accumulated more wealth). I'm now at the point where I crave quality at just about any cost because it's abundantly clear to me that buying crap is bad value. Many of the few high quality things I bought early on in life are still with me and I love them. But so is a huge amount of the…

Honestly I've gone in the other direction. Quality for its own sake is not a virtue; all that matters is whether the item meets the needs you have. An item that breaks and needs replacement is waste, but an item that is overbuilt and never used to its potential is a different kind of waste. I don't need the best tools in the world for my home toolbox. I use each tool maybe a couple of times a year and even the cheap…

I disagree so much with this. I don't pay 250 to 1000 euros for each of my tools because i use them a lot (even though during the lockdowns i did). I got them because professional tools are:

- easier to store - easier to use - pack more power (thus less time spend) - more precise (i'm annoyed if my angles are one millimeter off) - less brittle (its not that cheap ones are breaking, its that even a small, almost invisble chip of metal off your torx head will make your life harder) - less dusty - safer - easier to clean - Combine themselves (transformers for woordworking smh) - Have complete accessories (angle transmission being the most usefull, also the protractor going directly on the radial saw gives you perfect results)

If you want to replace a door with cheap tools, be my guest, i did it once with a friend, i'm not doing it ever again. I'm now bringing my tools every single time.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#73

Post by wyager » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 12:25 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #30

wyager wrote: post #7

One really nice thing about safety-critical activities is that the equipment tends to be made to extremely high standards and usually lasts a very long time. If you buy equipment for climbing, shooting, scuba diving, etc. you can reasonably expect that it's made to a very exacting standard (almost certainly in the US, Japan, or Europe) and will last many years (with well-defined consumable components and maintenance…

You probably just have a decent budget for guns and haven't seen the dodgy ones. The market is flooded with garbage that I would not even consider firing.

Even a $200 R700 from wal-mart is perfectly safe and reliable. It’s very hard to find unsafely shoddy guns in the US.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#74

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 12:36 AM UTC

soneil wrote: post #37

tracer4201 wrote: post #4

Some of the product listings are not great. I see non stick skillets that I know won’t last than a year or two with moderate use. Otherwise I like the concept.

I was surprised to spot apple's "magic mouse" there too. I'm fairly close to an apple fanboy, but even I'd admit non-replaceable batteries isn't compatible with "buy it for life"

[deleted]

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#75

Post by treetoppin » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 12:44 AM UTC

I love quality tools and products, especially when you have taken the time to find what works for your specific use case or body type. That being said, I started slowly shifting to an attitude that, to paraphrase an over quoted movie, "on a long enough timeline, everything is a consumable". The biggest factor isn't so much buying something for life, but buying a product that 1) matches the lifespan of my usage 2) won't frustrate me with its quality 3) will last a length of time somewhat in line with the improvement cycle of that type of product.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#76

Post by gxnxcxcx » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 12:54 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #33

lupinglade wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They cook the best too - a good carbon steel pan is worth its weight in gold. Non-stick is utter garbage in comparison - and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the coating. Food cooked on carbon steel or iron tastes so much better.

> and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the coating. And with cast iron, you are cooking in random organic polymers and eating them. The patina of cast iron pans is random organic chemicals.

I too see a lot of sensible awareness towards PFAS, but often wonder how many (if any) good ol' PAHs get thrown into your food from the fat seasoning of non-coated pans.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#77

Post by auslegung » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 12:55 AM UTC

fnord77 wrote: post #51

no electronics products on that site offer a lifetime warranty. I'd argue there are almost no "buy it for life" electronics. Same with clothing except maybe outerwear.

I’ve found a wonderful exception for clothing: https://www.woolx.com/pages/about-woolx. You aren’t replacing your entire wardrobe with them, but I wear their shirts 50% of the time and their boxers 100% of the time.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#78

Post by edoceo » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 1:08 AM UTC

varenc wrote: post #69

chakerb wrote: post #22

I genuinely dont understand the reason behind hijacking right-click (long press on phone). I'm using a slow internet, and I'm used to open multiple tabs so I can only wait for one and then go through all of them. So I'm eager to understand if this is done to stop people from copying from the site or there's another reason behind it.

I don't think right click is disabled? It's just that a bunch of the "links" aren't semantic tags so you can't open them in a new window. (they're just tags with onclick handlers) I think this happens often in single-page-apps just because developer don't care or don't think about this use case. It's frustratingly common. For example, Apple's online store does it too: https://www.apple.com/shop/accessories/all/cases-…

not using semantic HTML for links is a bigger sin than hijacking the right-click IMO. Maybe even worse than scroll-jacking

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#79

Post by bombcar » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 1:13 AM UTC

jonwest wrote: post #68

fnord77 wrote: post #54

Some cheapo Harbor Freight tools last a lifetime if you only use them a couple times a year. No sense in buying something very heavy duty when it won't see much duty. I feel like "buy it for life" is just a different kind of (hipster?) snobbery.

And the tools they’re listing, Milwaukee Hammer Drill, for example, offers no warranty at all and wouldn’t be what I would consider to be “high end” either. Just seems like a purposely placed product rather than a legitimate BIFL item.

Milwaukee does offer a warranty and will repair out of warranty but any battery tool is by definition not a buy-it-for-life as the battery will wear out (and better tools will come).

My rule is buy so that when it dies I’m not sad. That varies for different pieces of equipment.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#80

Post by steverb » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #46

zmmmmm wrote: post #25

It's been an interesting evolution as I have aged to observe myself going from one end of the spectrum to the other (mainly, as I've accumulated more wealth). I'm now at the point where I crave quality at just about any cost because it's abundantly clear to me that buying crap is bad value. Many of the few high quality things I bought early on in life are still with me and I love them. But so is a huge amount of the…

Honestly I've gone in the other direction. Quality for its own sake is not a virtue; all that matters is whether the item meets the needs you have. An item that breaks and needs replacement is waste, but an item that is overbuilt and never used to its potential is a different kind of waste. I don't need the best tools in the world for my home toolbox. I use each tool maybe a couple of times a year and even the cheap…

I have a rule for buying tools. The first one I buy, I buy the cheaper version (Harbor Freight house brand for instance). If I use it enough to break it within3 years, or become frustrated with its shortcomings, then I go buy a "pro" version.

Yes, it does mean I have spent more money than absolutely necessary, but on the other hand I have a lot of cheap tools that are perfectly serviceable for the two times a year I actually need to use them.

It works for me, you go do what works for you.