I grew up with $20 walmart blenders, and hated anything that required a blender.
Recently bought a ninja and there is no going back. I’ll never use a crappy blender again.
Anything else like that?
For most things in life I generally follow Adam Savage’s advice: “Buy cheap tools until you know what you really need from that tool, then buy the best version you can afford.”
However, when it comes to things that are related to safety or protect you from harm the more expensive/high quality they get, that advice goes out the window. Case in point, PC PSUs. You probably don’t want your newly built PC to burst in flames because you skimped on it to buy a poorly rated PSU.
Also a decent brand PSU will last and/or have warranty. My kids PC has a Startech PSU from like 2001 in it. I’ve used the same EVGA PSU in like 5 computers. Cheap ones die after a few years.
I sometimes buy pretty new (1-2yr old) premade computers from foreign exchange students at the end of a school year. They often sell them for the cost of just the GPU, sometimes lower. The number of garbage PSUs I’ve had to swap out is ridiculous. People buy like $3k+ computers and are content with $80 PSUs it’s amazing. I’ve had them pop on me after only a couple months use. Meanwhile the PSU in my current machine was a major purchase for me back in 2010 and thing still runs every upgrade I throw at it.
A PSU isn’t a tool, so I think his advice actually holds even here. /pedantry
Boots.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
A cute little passage from Terry Pratchett, but it holds very true if you ever need boots.
Paying for quality boot work, especially the kind that can be re-soled, is worth it for anyone who has to wear boots with any regularity.
When I first got a job that needed boots I was using an old secondhand pair. It was hell. Eventually I saved up for a quality pair and was totally worth it. I’ve not underspent on boots since.
As for suggestions as to what brand to go with these days for that… I’m less sure on that because I’m researching new brands myself since Red Wings are a joke compared to what they used to be. Danner still seems pretty all right these days.
You don’t truly appreciate a good pair a boots till you park a 2 ton pallet jack on your toes and laugh it off.
Safety boots with steelcap? That’s another category though. Don’t want to use them for a walk.
That hasn’t stopped me. Just think of it as training weights.
I second boots. I went through 3 cheap pairs of hiking boots (between £40 - £70) all promising the world and dry feet. In the end, sacked it off and bought all leather boots with a vibram sole. Requires maintenance of waxing them but they’ve had many miles in them now and just as good as day 1.
Yes, second to boots is getting quality boot wax.
I believe in the adage of, “If it sits between you and the ground, don’t skimp”.
Shoes, socks, desk chairs, lounge chairs, sofas, car( seat)s, mattresses…
You spend too much time in or on all of these things to be uncomfortable.
I also see posted here the Adam Savage advice of buying cheap tools first, and then upgrade after you better understand your needs. I also think that’s great advice you can apply to most things. Just not the above things.
Not to be nitpicky but this advice is meant more for things like car tires and shoes than patio furniture.
I would add tires to your list. Car tires, bike tires…
Laptops. Cheap and midrange ones defined how people perceive laptops in general: slow, hot and awful to use. Expensive ones are usually amazing, but you still have to do your research before purchasing it.
Also, cigars. Nothing comes close to proper Cuban ones.
You can carefully buy a midrange laptop. Lenovo Legion has some pretty decent gear for a good price, 'specially if you’re getting a model that’s on it’s way out. Plus, at that point you have tons of reviews.
Just as long as you’re not searching for a “gaming laptop”. IMO those do not exist to any degree of satisfaction. They are all a “choose two” among performance, size/weight, battery life, and noise.
Unless you are so mobile that you are never ever at home, and the prosect of only scraping mid graphical settings at best while being permanently anchored to a wall outlet any time you play is worth it to you, I’d suggest taking that money and instead putting it toward a combo of a desktop rig and a cheap netbook. You won’t be gaming on the go, but you’ll have a better experience for the price. And if there’s a more mundane task that the little netbook can’t handle, you can, provided you have an Internet connection, always remote in to the desktop workstation at home and delegate expensive tasks to it.
If all you need though is something that runs well with a dozen browser tabs open, doesn’t struggle playing back high definition video, and can handle playing a less demanding game every now and again, you can definitely find laptops that can do that while still being relatively slim, quiet, and cool. Just temper your expectations on how far you can push it.
Kitchen knives, definitely. A good knife is a fucking godsend.
Quality underwear (once you’re an adult).
A good office chair (not necessarily one of those expensive as fuck mesh ones - I hate those… But something quality).
Also, I’d distinguish between pointlessly expensive and quality.
Idiots buy expensive gaming chairs. They feel like you’re sitting on plywood. I don’t care how many colors it has im going to be sitting on it for hours a day.
Put that into a good office chair, where they put research into making sure you’re comfortable for that entire time
You can get open box, unused steelcase chairs on eBay for cheaper than “gaming” chairs, BTW. There’s no reason to buy those abominations.
And, let me tell you, those chairs are worth it. I paid about $1200 for my Leap (I needed an extra tank one for a drafting table desk) and have had it 15 years now. 8-10 hours a day my job is to ensure that my chair does not float away using only my 200lb body mass. Not only is it still in good shape* I never have a sore back even after a long day of ballasting. Prior to owning the Leap I’d go through a $100 office store chair in a couple of years.
*the seat cushion was a little worn at the edges and the cushion not quite as supple so I replaced that this year.
I bought a boring looking office chair from an ergonomic furniture store about 10 years ago. I spent about $600 and it’s still just as good as it was when I bought it.
That’s a sharp contrast from the shitty $150 chairs I would keep buying from Costco and having to replace because the foam or seat started to collapse after a couple years.
Allow me to sell you on my gaming chair that cured my back pain. I got a secret labs chair in 2020 because it was the only chair under a grand that could arrive in less than 3 days. It replaced a Herman Miller I used at work.
The Herman Miller can only be sat in one way. It’s very light so climbing around it is just going to tip. You pretty much have to use it in the hr approved ergonomic position. Doing that for 8 hours a day just hurts. My gaming chair however is heavy enough that I can press my legs against the wall, or kneel on it without wobbling, or crosslegged. I can also sit with my neck on one handiest and my feet across another. Sometimes I lie with my legs at the head resting my head at the seat cushion.
The best sitting position is the one you don’t stay in long, my gaming chair lets me do that and my back just stopped hurting. When the chair starts to age out I do plan on looking at ergo chairs as well, there seems to be a market for “weird chairs” that enable uncinventionak sitting but they seem to go a little too far as well, I do want to sit normally as well sometimes too. Gaming chairs really seem to hit my requirements of heavy, tall, wide and large armrests.
A good office chair (not necessarily one of those expensive as fuck mesh ones - I hate those… But something quality).
Man, I get they’re not for everyone, but after having a mesh chair, I will never go back. Currently on my second one in about 8 years, so it’s not exactly BIFL material but the first one lasted longer than a ‘normal’ chair ever did, and neither were particularly expensive, as quality chairs go (I paid ~$150 for the first and ~$225 for the second, got both during sales, so I’m not sure what the regular price would have been but I’d guess $300 or so).
Instead of an office chair, I opted for a loveseat, on risers, that I can pull fit inside of my desk.
Risers end up being necessary for a standing desk, if you have a loveseat, apparently, because a loveseat sits much lower than most good computer desks that I’ve found, so to get comfortable typing position, you need good risers. You’re also gonna need a couch that stands up higher than your loveseat’s feet, so you can clear the feet and pull the desk in far enough (it might still not be enough, frankly). You might wanna opt for castors, though, since then you can make use of a standing desk, if you have one, which is probably a good idea instead of sitting on the couch for too long.
And, you know, after all that, I get a seat that’s kind of frankly not that comfortable to sit on for extended periods of time, because nobody has engineered their couch for you to sit on for multiple hours. I would wager that’s probably a bad thing anyways. I’ve been looking into standing-to-sitting desks, in order to overcorrect from this problem of sitting in one position, and get a desk that I can sit on the floor with, and basically whatever position I want. But that also kind of sucks, because there are only two and they are both like 1000 bucks.
On the other hand, a loveseat is much better for spooning, than having two office chairs. So that’s a bonus, if you wanted to spoon at your computer. Or you could just cast your screen to the smart TV you probably already have and buy a bluetooth computer controller for like 20 dollars or less.z
I hope someone reading this gains some insight because of this. You should buy a regular chair. It’s expensive but just buy it please I’m begging you, don’t make my mistakes again.
What’s special about quality underwear? I bought a bunch of fruits of loom ones which is pretty cheap but I never noticed it being and issue.
More comfortable and better able to wick away moisture… Even after a fair amount of exercise your underwear shouldn’t feel damp.
Any brand recommendations to look in to?
For men’s, blue sky and step one are both good options.
Quality knives do not have to be super expensive. The trick is to maintain them. Honing of course, and unless you are a super enthusiastic home cook, a proper sharpening by a pro on Japanese wet stone twice a year is all it takes. That’s like at most USD 20 in most places, probably less. Even mid range knives are fine, so long as you keep them sharp.
And you don’t need a lot. In theory a good chefs knife and a good paring knife will do. In practice, you also want a bread knife and filleting knife, but you can start small.
I bought of pair of real, honest to goodness birkenstock sandals. They were stupid expensive compared to the shoes I normally buy.
…now I almost never wear any other shoe. They fit, they’re comfortable, the straps dont cut into my feet now that they’re broken in, and I can take them to the store to get resoled for way cheaper than if I had continued my pattern of buying cheap sandals and running them into the ground every few months.
Birkenstocks with socks is industry standard at the faculty of mathematics where I studied. Should be so everywhere.
Maybe not the expensive expensive versions but good headphones and earphones make a massive difference.
It’s almost always better to not buy a cheap sex toy. There’s no regulation of the industry and many materials in cheaper toys are just straight up dangerous. Here’s an article (it’s NSFW, there are pictures) that goes over what materials are and aren’t safe.
Like thinking you’re wearing a 100% silicon butt plus to an MRI….
For most things, imo, there’s a middle ground. I don’t think that getting the super-high end version of anything is worth it unless you truly use it enough to justify it, like for work or a serious hobby. But the cheapest option is usually junk that will do a poor job and won’t last; if anything you’d save money by spending a little more for something decent, even if it’s not world-class.
That’s why I went ahead and got one of those 49" Samsung displays. I use it probably 300 days a year and I’ll likely keep it for 10 years like my old ones. I could have saved money but this was a luxury that I can easily justify by how often I use it.
I have to say, the Odyssey line deserves some huge respect for the kind of response times Samsung has achieved with a VA panel, of all things.
I had one of those, but sold it after a couple of years. Turns out that a good majority of the games I played either didn’t work in ultra-widescreen mode, or when it did, it didn’t really make that much of an improvement. Last year I bought a 4K projector and found myself using it way more than my monitor, as gaming on a 100+" screen felt so much more immersive. So I ended up selling my Odyssey and bought a 16:10 monitor instead. I found the 16:10 ratio better for productivity, and also felt it also more suitable for the games I play (mostly RPGs/RTS).
As in monitor, not tv, yea?
Mattress and shoes.
Both of which you use multiple hours each day, and can really break your body if they aren’t ergonomic.
The cheap ones also break often, costing you more money in the long run.
I understand the importance of getting a good mattress, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out whether a mattress actually is any good, expensive or not, without sleeping on it for a while. The whole industry feels like a giant scam.
some mattress brands offer a 30-day trial, precisely for the reason you stated.
I kind of doubt good shoes last longer. I buy the cheapest possible shoes, which is around $25 pre skate board shoe, and they typically last a year.
If more expensive skateboard shoes can last me more than two or three years (wearing every day), I would happy to get them for more.
Do any one have experience with these shoes? I mainly need them to be weather resistant (don’t absorb water in a rain is enough) and reasonably breathable (so no hiking boots).
It really depends on the style of shoe. Something like a standard running shoe is going to have to be replaced fairly soon no matter how much money you spend on it. The uppers might hold together, but the foam itself is a consumable item. It can only bounce back for so long before it won’t anymore. It doesn’t really look obvious, but you might start to feel weird soreness or something that lets you know it’s time to replace them.
“Barefoot” running shoes with no foam, or traditional boots/shoes with leather midsoles don’t have that problem, so spending more can actually let them last longer.
Skate shoes, from what I know, are basically just standard sneakers for the most part, so they will have the same problem with the foam. If you are actually using them to skate, though, you might be wearing through the sole, or the upper, and in that case, a higher quality shoe might last longer.
TL;DR, it depends how you wear through them.
I have never found a skateboard shoe that’s lasted more than a year regardless of price. A solid pair of walking shoes however is very different.
I’ve always had a pair of these laying around for decades. I use them for walking my husky and they last about two years. They don’t look great but honestly I don’t care how my shoes look when I’m walking my dog.
I invested in a pair of San Antonio Shoemaker sneakers a few years ago when I started having foot problems. They are still going fairly strong. Only change was a custom insole a podiatrist made for me. No foot problems since. Highly recommended getting quality shoes.
Parachutes.
I guess this gets filed under “Anything that separates you from the ground for long periods of time.”
A square cooking skillet pan. So many of these will bend if it’s not made of cast iron, but found the scanpan one to work wonderfully.
Regarding cooking I just bought my first decent knife (from Fein in Solingen, which is a traditional knife-making company)
Not the absolute high end, but just one step better as most of the normal industrial stuff - ai couldn’t be happier.
Motorcycle helmets, and lawyers.
Most other things, I cheap out on – for example for my professional tools, I buy a lot of good midrange Chinese brands. Usually quality is high and price is affordable. Same goes for phones, laptops, gadgets, and so on. I live near China though.
I disagree to an extent on motorcycle helmets. Yes, never ever buy a used helmet. (“Open box” might be okay.) Never buy a helmet off Wish, Ali Express, or similar; buy helmets from reputable motorcycle apparel dealers, like SportBikeTrackGear, ChapMoto, or RevZilla. But beyond that, you need to look at safety ratings. Don’t get anything other than full face if you actually plan on riding, and that includes modular helmets (the chin bars tend to collapse in a crash). DOT approved (in the US) is bare-bones, and a helmet that’s only DOT approved is not worth getting. Snell is… Okay. It’s a North America-only standard. ECE is the global standard for helmets. The UK’s SHARP - Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme - probably gives the overall best idea of how effective a helmet will be in real-world situations. (SHARP ratings can be frustrating at times, because they don’t let you sort readily by date; that means that you can end up seeing a lot of helmets that are no longer produced, and newer helmets may not be listed at all.)
An AGV K1 is going to be as safe as an AGV Pista GP RR, and will be about $200 v. >$1400. My $150 AGV K1 is a better helmet in every respect than my Shoei Neotec, despite the Neotec being about 4x the price.
At the upper end, you’re paying for fiberglass or carbon fiber shells (less weight), better aerodynamics, better airflow, and better sound isolation. You notably aren’t paying for better safety.
There are new helmet safety standards that started to be rolled out about 3, 4 years ago; not many helmets meet the new standard yet, and it’s not clear whether it’s a serious improvement on old standards or not. IIRC the new standard is mostly affecting helmets that are used solely or primarily on the track at the moment.
Haha, we’re talking about very different things, my friend! Let me give you a little slice of life here:
In my country, the situation is very different. 100% of cheap motorcycle helmets do not provide any real protection and are just there to help you avoid tickets from the police. Many are just baseball caps designed to look like a helmet at a distance. They are like 5 USD, and are universally bad.
A decent (good visor, OK head protection, no chin guard) helmet might start around 20 USD. Full face helmets would be a special order until fairly recently. You can forget about things like “safety standards”. I would suspect it to be a sticker applied to the helmet without the standard even being followed.
Even now, a full-face helmet with chin guard costs at least a comparable amount to a used motorbike (~135$). The number of people that would spend 150$ on a helmet rounds down to zero, despite road accidents being frequent and severe.
There are many great things about my country, but compliance with safety standards is a… work in progress. One good thing at least is that the speed limit is 50km/hr on all roads, and is mostly followed. This plus traffic leads to fewer high-velocity collisions at least.
costs at least a comparable amount to a used motorbike (~135$)
Wat.
My motorcycle cost about 5500$ US, and that was an amazing deal; '12 Honda CBR600RR with 18,000mi/30,000km on the odometer (I’ve maintained the motor well, even if the body doesn’t look great). I’ve never seen a working motorcycle cost less than 1000$ US, and tires alone are a minimum of about 100$ US/ea. Given that I’m usually riding on mountain roads at, um, about 80mph/125kmph, I would never consider riding with less than a full-face helmet, jacket, gloves, and boots. And 95% of the time, riding pants as well.
I’m from Vietnam. We have the highest per-capita motorbike ownership in the world (last I checked), and have the 4th largest market for motorbikes! This creates some… interesting situations.
Our motorcycles are typically for commuting so have lower engine capacity than most American ones. My Honda Air Blade 2022 is 125cc and cost a bit under USD 2000 brand new. A Honda Wave 50cc (technically 49.9cc) can be had around USD 700 new. A lot of students drive those, because anything under 50cc generally does not require a license here.
Then we’ve got used bikes. An OK used Wave is probably 300$. Most people don’t update the registration on sale though and this creates a mess for the police.
Then… we have “ghost bikes” made from a mess of parts, these are the ones around 100-200$. These are technically illegal, as the motor serial generally won’t match the chassis serial – which means stolen parts. They are the least safe vehicles I’ve ever seen, and typically driven as a ‘disposable vehicle’ by people who won’t or can’t obey the law. So, you’ll see them outright driving the wrong way down highways, while text messaging, and carrying steel bars like they’re jousting. (No helmet of course). The police know that they can’t auction the bike for much, and they have no money on them to pay fines, so it’s a net loss for the department to deal with it.
A growing problem is tourists on the roads. No license, no insurance, driving like it’s a video game. If they hit you, they run home to avoid consequences. Hope you have money for medical bills!
My daily commute looks like something out of a Mad Max film. I see maybe a few people die per year. This is pretty much why our speed limits are generally 50km/hr (31 miles), even on highways. During peak hours, I’ll probably average about 10km/hr.
On the bright side, it’s very affordable and convenient! My petrol costs are like 3-4$ a week, and parking is way easier than if everyone had cars.
Anyway, that’s a slice of life here! Hope you found it interesting!
Escorts
It’s pronounced E-sports
It’s pronounced escrow
It’s pronounced ex-spouse . . . Wait, what was the question again?
Pretty sure that it’s exposure. The question is “to be or not to be”
Now that more devices are on USB-C, but the standard isn’t labeled well, it’s worth getting a good cable/charge block that will regulate power appropriately.
Adam Savage had the team that does CT Scans of various products and you really can start justify why some good charging cables cost $100.
I probably wouldn’t spend that kind of money but I’m willing to spend more on one really good one that I can use in many devices.
This is no joke. I had a cheap usb-c cable catch fire when plugged into my laptop.
