If you're willing to tolerate not owning things when they're new, survivorship bias can be your friend. I especially recommend saying yes whenever an elderly relative / friend offers you a hand-me-down. You'll get things that are no good, to be sure; sometimes trash survives because people have inexplicably taken delicate care of it for decades. But often, you get things of great utility. Wool army blankets from the 1940s. Brace-and-bit drills. Old sets of Encyclopedia Britannica. A flour sifter. A nightstand. A handmade rug. A shearling coat. A sharp machete. Furthermore, accepting these gifts is an act of love; it tells the giver, "it was not in vain that you cared for this thing you can no longer use."
O Holy Crap
91–100 of 323 posts
Re: O Holy Crap
#92My house came with a large high quality washing machine from the 80s I’m pretty sure, or maybe even earlier. It crapped out at some point last year, and we were about to buy a brand new appliance, but I did some research, got out the multimeter, and was able to diagnose a blown fuse caused by a faulty part (replacing the fuse just blew it out immediately). I ordered the part online and installed it and now the washer…
I did this with my washer for years and kept it running until it was 20 years old. One day it broke again and I knew from experience the part that broke would take hours to fix. At the same time Lowes was having a sale where the fancy new units were on sale and included 5 years of 100% paid for labor and parts maintenance.
The new washer / dryer wash more clothes at once using less detergent and far less electricity. They're also quieter. Like, a LOT quieter. And they text us when they finish which I thought was silly at first but in practice it means we get more loads done per day.
It's been 3 years and we've had to use the Lowes warranty once for a leak. Watching the repairman it seemed like a huge hassle to work on these new machines so I don't see these being fun to own once the 5 year maintenance plan expires.
We donated the old washer / dryer to a pet rescue group so hopefully they're still going.
Re: O Holy Crap
#93I don't quite know what to say to what I found near the end in this article: > Recently, my wife needed a carrot peeler. She needed one rather quickly. Off to Target. The one she bought (the only one on sale)... I stopped at the phrase "the only one on sale". Inevitably the next part reads: > looked handsome enough, and the brand was one she recognized, but it failed in the useful department, miserably. It wasn’t sha…
I noticed the "only one on sale" thing too. I suspect the author meant it was the only one for sale at the store, period, not that it was the only one with a sale/discounted price.
Re: O Holy Crap
#94I just don't see it. My pens and my matchsticks work fine. My gloves are still gloves five winters later. Potato peeler, peels potatoes.
I think the author doesn't understand that there's a tier of disposable goods for just about everything and if you don't shop wisely you'll take some of it home.
Appliances for example: don't buy them from web pages and don't listen to Wirecutter. This is just letting marketers tell you what to buy. Instead go to a showroom that also repairs appliances. They'll know exactly which contemporary brands are crummy because they'll have been fixing them.
Specialty stores will also have the entire price range for the product so you can see what quality costs for that good. Marketers prey on us during times of inflation, making their cheap goods look high end before we adjust to inflated prices. If you've only ever shopped appliances at places like Target, Best Buy, or Home Depot, you may have never seen a high quality appliance in your life. And if a brand you like starts showing up in these stores, run. (Famously, Levi in Walmart.)
Re: O Holy Crap
#95Carrot peeler? What nonsense. Back of a knife does a fine job.
Still, lots of crappy 'appliances' out there. If the labels aren't peeling or fading, then the knobs come off or there's too many parts to keep track of, and one falls behind something and, well, throw it away now.
Our fancy dishwasher had a soap flappy thing in the door. Convenient location! Fill and fold shut and... the manufacturer didn't think beyond that. When in operation it would jam against the wire rack and open about a quarter inch. After each load, a wad of saturated soap paste still inside.
Easy to wonder how such comprehensive failure to deliver (any) value can get all the way to a consumer. Is no one in the product process ever trying these things? Even once?
Well, off to make coffee in a gadget that has too many buttons, generally just flashes lights when I press one instead of actually doing anything, steams milk listlessly if at all, and is very hard to clean.
Marry Christmas!
Re: O Holy Crap
#96I just don't see it. My pens and my matchsticks work fine. My gloves are still gloves five winters later. Potato peeler, peels potatoes. I think the author doesn't understand that there's a tier of disposable goods for just about everything and if you don't shop wisely you'll take some of it home. Appliances for example: don't buy them from web pages and don't listen to Wirecutter. This is just letting marketers tell…
If only. My three-generation appliance store sold me a fancy dishwasher that wouldn't release soap - the little door jammed against the wire rack in operation, opened a quarter inch and finished with a wad of gummy soap still inside. No way it could ever work.
The store claimed it was 'supposed to work that way'. Lame.
Re: O Holy Crap
#97I have Philips vacuum cleaner, I guess it's 30 years old. Some ducttape on the hose but still going strong. I bought a cordless one 2 years ago (also Philips, 8000 series), really love it, but it's starting to fail. I go back to the shop and the thing just works like normal, come back home... brush and leds fails periodically. So annoying. I also own a lot of supossed 25.000 hours-of-life Leds, that failed after 1-2…
I had this issue in my house that was built six years ago. Lights going out all over the place that are supposed to have really long lives. When I finally replaced a few of them, it didn't seem to be the lights. The lazy ass subcontractors hired by the worthless builder installed a bunch of the wiring incorrectly. Every light I have replaced so far wasn't even grounded. Ground wire just flapping in the wind.
A missing ground connection would have no effect on the light bulbs.
Re: O Holy Crap
#98I don't quite know what to say to what I found near the end in this article: > Recently, my wife needed a carrot peeler. She needed one rather quickly. Off to Target. The one she bought (the only one on sale)... I stopped at the phrase "the only one on sale". Inevitably the next part reads: > looked handsome enough, and the brand was one she recognized, but it failed in the useful department, miserably. It wasn’t sha…
I noticed the "only one on sale" thing too. I suspect the author meant it was the only one for sale at the store, period, not that it was the only one with a sale/discounted price.
Ah, true, I hadn't considered that.
Now I'm just looking forward to see how more and more ubiquitous AI deals with real world language.
When I look up "on sale" I get
> 1. offered for purchase.
> 2. NORTH AMERICAN - offered for purchase at a reduced price.
so I guess I associated a US centric idea with the term, since that is what I'm used to.
Re: O Holy Crap
#99Be aware that survivorship bias may fool you when comparing the quality of new and old items. The single juicer that lasts 70 years may be the only one of its kind to last that long, the others from the same production year being left to rot and rust in a landfill. That being said, I definitely believe that planned obsolesence and unintentional bad quality is a plague on modern consumer items. I am lucky enough to ha…
> My jeans are from a Swedish jeans company that offer in-store repairs as long as it's practical.
Nudie jeans by any chance?
Re: O Holy Crap
#100My $4000 GE refrigerator has broken twice now in the five years we have owned it, both times in the exact same way. The way the fridge works seems simple: the cold freezer is on the bottom, and then a fan blows air up through a shaft to the relatively warmer refrigerator as needed to keep it just above freezing. Instead, the failure state is that the fan that handles this broke with no warning. I lost a bunch of groc…
In contrast the $120 freezers in my garage have given improbably years of service without a single issue. New from big box store; reviews warned of possible failure and loss of content. But mine must be the good ones. Somebody has to get the good one I guess.