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Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

johnwhiles.com

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Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#971

Post by tekknik »

mgraczyk wrote: post #957
tekknik wrote: post #955

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just want to eat and I want to get that out of the way as quickly as possible. For a nice meal, I'll go to a restaurant. I'm not interested in learning how to prepare my own food better, and all of these comments and the OP seems to forget that. > You have cooking, I have coffee, programming, and looking at birds. I used to be like this, eat as quickly as I could and whatever was quick enough that filled the hole…

Nah, I'm extremely healthy. Very careful about what I eat and I exercise every day. It's super easy to eat both fast and healthy, it just costs more.

Sure just shrug it off. I wish I had someone telling me this stuff some 10 years ago. But you do you!

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#972

Post by tehwebguy »

kstenerud wrote: post #69
tehwebguy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > In many inner city shops it is now hard to buy an individual piece of fruit. > For some fruit maybe, but if the point is saving money, why are you buying individually? Because fruit rots.

It takes a week or more depending on the fruit. If that's happening, eat more or buy less. This is such a first-world problem.

I don’t know what you are trying to say, but for clarity: people want to buy the amount of fruit / vegetables they will actually use between the time they buy it and the next time they plan to shop. Not everything they plan to eat / make will necessarily call for the same produce.

Plenty of produce doesn’t last a week from when you buy it and this varies based on where and when you buy it.

As an example, a few apples might last for over a week. A package of raspberries might last 4 days. An avocado that is ripe may last 2 days.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#973

Post by dhimes »

radicalbyte wrote: post #853
dhimes wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, but usually with cheapo blades. Shark/Lord mostly (from Egypt). You can get cheap Gillette, but they're from Russia so you may wish to wait.

If you have thick hair then it's probably better to get cheap Derby/Shark/Lord blades and just use them for one shave. Gives a great shave every time & is still very cheap.

Exactly my strategy. I take some time pre-treating my face, so I get about 4 days/blade.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#974

Post by dhimes »

kcplate wrote: post #966
dhimes wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, but usually with cheapo blades. Shark/Lord mostly (from Egypt). You can get cheap Gillette, but they're from Russia so you may wish to wait.

I get around a dozen shaves or more from a single feather blade. Bought a box of a 100 for $35 after trying a variety pack of blades and fixing on the Feather brand, and at around 3 shaves a week and just trimming up around my goatee and neck, I think I am somewhere around 1-2 cents per shave and probably golden until the robot overlords take over. Much better than $15/mo I was spending for cartridge razors. I’ll nev…

Agree. But the good thing is, you don't have to entirely give up your awesome turbo cartridge shave. I still will use one when I'm in a hurry or something. But my day-to-day shaving is done for far less money. I may buy a pack of cartridges every other year or so.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#975

Post by andrewzah »

epistasis wrote: post #304
andrewzah wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is “we”? It’s not surprising or creepy that people focus on what they actually can control. None of us realistically can change the fact that America is built around roads. Not everyone can work from home. People drive not because they want to, but because they have to. Criticizing that is a highly privileged take.

"We" is our society and laws and common discussion topics and social mores, etc. Let's keep on using the "creepy" adjective here, because I think I applies especially to this comment, even more than the prior one. Who sets the laws for how buildings are built and whether we have to drive or not? Local communities (at least in the US). So people can get involved, change what is legal and not legal to build, and advoca…

The fact of the matter is that the US is laid out in a way that cars are necessary for most places. Even if you actually get people to vote and participate in their local politics, that does not change how things are already laid out. It's not going to magically fix neighborhoods being 10-20 mins driving away from grocery stores and businesses.

I -want- to reduce car usage, but I'm also realistic.

"If that is the case, then why don't they make their voices heard?"

Some people do. See strong towns for example. Yeah, there's also NIMBY-ism. Turns out people working minimum wage jobs (who have to commute because they can't afford to live downtown) don't have as much time or energy to participate in local politics as well-off folks. But let's keep on blaming people!!

Also, I'm not sure if you understand what creepy means. Even if your points may be correct, I'm disinclined to engage with someone who calls everyone who doesn't exactly agree with them "creepy".

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#976

Post by darkwizard42 »

charrondev wrote: post #609
darkwizard42 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our of curiosity, do you know why that is? What makes TVs different from monitors? (Genuinely don’t know much about the space)

For a long time I found the single biggest difference between them to be: Even the best TVs had atrocious latency compared to cheap monitors. I don’t really know why this is, but it likely has something to expensive transformations to the video signal to “improve” quality. I have very pricy 1080p Samsung TV from 2013. Even in “Game Mode” I has latency of over 100ms. This enough to be noticeable in just moving a mouse…

Are there any TVs / monitors that hit the 55" level where the price isn't astoundingly different?

I have found this issue of latency to be a real challenge when connecting to a TV via HDMI so I'm curious if it gets better with larger TVs

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#977

Post by Bud »

autoexec wrote: post #715
Bud wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bad-faith narratives about Al Gore's personal life were hilariously wrong and offensive and irrelevant 25-30 years ago. I guess some people still haven't caught on. Al Gore was right about, well, basically everything he said on major policy issues. BTW, that supposed "megamansion"? It's a 5-bedroom home, really quite modest by the standards of today's billionaires. It's basically what you'd assume a former Senato…

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that everything he said on major policy issues was correct... seems like that'd a lot of room to be wrong there, but he was sure as hell right that global warming was real and needed to be addressed. The attacks on him for his house were just to distract from his message. He also paid extra cash to his utility company to get blocks of "green power" produced using renewable sour…

He was right about the Internet, too, very very early, and gets zero credit for it.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#978

Post by aksss »

theroncross wrote: post #925
aksss wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loose leaf for real is just dumping tea in a cup and pouring water over. All but a few leaves will settle, signifying it's ready to drink. You develop skill to not let the few floaters get in the way of drinking it. Whack and rinse cup to get leaves out, don't let it sit long. Easily done on the trail when weight and trash are important to minimize. I prefer tea bags because it's still easier to clean up, even though…

Thank you for pointing this out. I don't get why you'd do anything more than add a pinch to your cup and pour hot water on it. Not to mention then you can read your tea leaves and know if you're going to die or not.

Thursday, 3pm.

https://youtu.be/ON8cTi5NSMc?t=116

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#979

Post by beloch »

refurb wrote: post #939
beloch wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern trackball,flexing, etc. multi-blade razors are expensive, but idiot proof. You can copy one of the Gillette commercials and just mash the thing to your face and make one long stroke through the chemical foam. Bam. Done. If you're happy with this, be happy. Read no further. What this article isn't telling you is that DE razors can be almost as fast, but there's a learning curve. They don't flex, bend, or rotate…

This is just the audiophile’s “tube amplifiers have a warmer sound” of the shaving world. I mean, no one is telling you to stop, but I wouldn’t chalk up your recommendations to anything more just preferences. It’s just another hobby. Some people love scotch, others coffee and some people getting the best shave experience. If I loved scotch and someone said “yuck, I don’t like it” I wouldn’t somehow assume they were l…

There's a difference. Tube amplifiers are objectively less accurate at reproduction and can be hideously expensive. DE razors take more skill/effort, but produce indistinguishable results (i.e. a smooth face) for a fraction of the price. Cartridge razors are a convenience, but you pay for that convenience.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#980

Post by krallja »

dawnerd wrote: post #407
krallja wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched this video and was very excited to try out the powder, since I’ve just been using the pods they sell at Costco for my entire adult life. But there are Problems. 1. You can’t find powder anywhere. Not a single grocery store near me sells it. Gel, sure. Pods, sure. Powder, not even Wal-mart had it, and they have everything. I finally found a faded and dented box at an Ace Hardware, where I wasn’t even looking…

Not sure how hard you looked but: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Automatic-Dishwasher-... https://www.target.com/p/lemon-scented-dish-detergent-powder... Maybe you were looking during peak shortages?

Yep, that seems like what happened. I went down the detergent aisle at my local grocery store today, and they had a brand-name and two different scents of store-brand powdered detergent.
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