I bought an old boat in Amsterdam (3000€), did some reparations (500€), replaced the engine (1500€), paid the local tax (600€ x 3years). I had fun with it. No regrets. Then I was moving back to my country, I couldn’t find a buyer… so I lowered the price to 1500€.
You were great, old boat. But not a great investment.
I once asked my dad if he’d ever buy a boat. He asked me why he would want to buy “a hole in the water to throw money into.”
I heard this 1000 times, together with “the two best moments in the life of a boat owner are the day you buy it, and the day you sell it”
Does a Hello Kitty bandsaw count?
No. That’s the coolest shit I’ve ever seen
I actually did the paint job myself. Bought an old saw that needed some new paint, so I decided to have some fun with it.
Are you actually a wood scientist, and, if so; can I pick your brain?
Nice saw, BTW!
I’m actually working on a PhD in the field. Whether that officially makes me a “scientist” I cannot say. But I have actually studied and done research in the field. Ask away!
Rock and Roll!
What cheap woods are the most impact resistant for splintering and splitting?
What is the best way to cure wood to prevent splitting without a kiln? Slap a heavy coat of latex paint on a log/burl/root and let it sit 6mo/year?
What are the most machinable hardwoods? (In particular as regards tearout, warping, and tolerance of thin sections)
In your opinion, what is an available underappreciated or interesting wood to work?
I’ve had a burl with the ends coated in truck box liner spray for almost a year. I’m cracking into it this winter to make a bathroom sink for my house. It hasn’t seemed to crack at all. It’s in a storage shed. Protected from the elements. It will be interesting to see what’s inside.
I bought a used rusty school bus. Six years later, at least I know how to weld now. Sort of. I also learned how to survive hitting my head on a large steel C-clamp nine times without suffering any brain damage. Additionally, I learned how to survive hitting my head on a large steel C-clamp nine times without suffering any brain damage.
RPG books I know I won’t ever play. I ran D&D for two years during the pandemic and now I’m here reading Pathfinder, The One Ring, Legend of the Five Rings, Fate, Savage Worlds, and so, so many Mausritter crowdfundings.
Would you play a game over the internet?
This subject is dear to my heart, because I realized that part of my conservative upbringing taught me money is the important thing and that emotions are worthless and dumb. If you spend money on something that makes you happy but does not provide commensurate utility or return on investment, it is by definition a dumb purchase. Treating yourself is a waste of resources and therefore makes you a bad person. Maybe unless you are debt free and fully funding every retirement and college account you got. (note the unspoken implication that it’s cool for the rich to do whatever they want)
As I have spent decades reverse engineering the instructions for my brain, I have recently concluded that not only do I thrive when building and creating things, but having the perfect high-quality tool that is great at what it does right down to the sensory feedback can really enhance the experience for me.
I’ve spent a bunch of money expanding and upgrading my collection this year, and I haven’t regretted it once. But I’ve spent even more on the materials just in the months since!
That’s not a conservative upbringing/mentality… That’s a capitalist mentality.
The only thing I can really say about capitalists is that they’re some of the worst people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a few of them.
Very religious people (usually conservatives) are generally quite kind and generous. If they follow their religious book, that tracks. Since most religions teach about tolerance, acceptance, and understanding. Like the legend Fred Rogers; May he rest in peace.
Usually very liberal people are about basic social services for everyone, and programmes that support DEI. They want everyone to be on an equal playing field and they want that playing field to be, at a minimum, allowing all people to independently be able to live, have reasonably good health, food to eat, and somewhere to live.
Meanwhile capitalists always focus on the money. Who is paying for all of this? They don’t want their money (via taxes) to go to people that are less than them. Anyone who makes less or has less is “losing”, and they’re “winning”. All capitalists want to be on top, and they don’t care who they have to trample to achieve that.
There are exceptions of course, on every one of these groups. For example, Bill Gates who donates a lot of money for good causes. He still has plenty of money, but honestly, he gives away a lot. By no means do I mean to imply that any billionaire is good; in this case Bill is just using the wealth he has to do good. He’s clearly someone that made a lot of money doing capitalism things, and yet he believes in helping others.
The capitalists I have met are some of the most argumentative, vocal, and toxic people I’ve ever met.
Good on you for getting away from that mentality and finding enjoyment.
Agreed, and your wording is excellent.
Adjustable dumbbells.
I work at a place with an onsite gym and am afforded an hour of PT everyday.
A collection of Commodore and compatible disk drives. Useless, expensive, heavy, fragile, mostly non-functional, unrepairable in some cases. But they look good piled up at the back of my closet.
My pregnant wife asked me to get her a fountain Coke Zero from Costco the other day… I paid for the thing and waited patiently for my empty cup. When I approached the dispenser, I found that all three Coke Zeros were out of order. I had no choice but to fill it with Diet Coke. It was the lowest Costco experience of our lives.
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I realise that it’s probably a highly technical question, but is there a difference?
Coke Zero is a newer diet option formulated to taste similar to original Coke, with the presence of a mild artificial sweetener flavor that is more recognizable to those who are sensitive to the taste. Diet Coke, on the other hand, was created decades before they had decent sweeteners. While it still has a sizable following of people who like it, Diet Coke tastes nothing like original Coke, and has a flavor more akin to the smell of hot plastic.
This is pretty consistent across all brands now, at least from those that I’ve tried so far. The new Zero versions are much, much closer to the original formulas.
Coke Zero is the formula marketed to males who do not want to be on a “diet”.
It’s got some extra flavor extracts as far as I can tell; a more robust and “spicy” taste v Diet Coke
I always dreamed of having a fast food pop machine in my house as a kid. It took me about a year of owning a SodaStream as an adult to realize that I do own a slower and smaller scale pop machine and I can make as much pop as I want.
I got this bad boy when we needed a new sink anyway. It’s definitely overpriced, I could probably diy a system for way less, but i use this every day and it is awesome having sparkling on tap.
Does it taste different than what you get in cans/bottles for home use?
Yeah, it tastes pretty different. It’s either the carbonation or the fact each SodaStream is haunted by the thousands of people killed and displaced for settlers to put a factory in the West Bank. 50/50 on which is a bigger factor
Is that a fact?
Everything can be a fact if you believe enough
Upon cursory glance at internet research yes sodastream is Israeli. Pass.
The company is from Israel but the concept is not. There’s plenty of alternatives from 30 to 1000 bucks.
I got a carbonation machine from “sodapop” (Austrian) for under 50 euros, including a CO2 bottle and 3 water bottles. I buy store-brand CO2 replacement bottles and either store-brand or TriTop (German) syrup.
It’s also just a stand for a nozzle and a valve with really really overpriced CO2 cans
A zionist stand for a nozzle and a valve !! screw that !!Check out this DIY fitting video to understand how it works
and why you NEVER have to have a stupid sodastream to carbonate drinksIt’s exponentially cheaper to buy a 5 or 10 pounds refillable cylinder
and just fill existing 2 litres bottle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLFvw4CVKgYYou can also generate your own CO2 insitu with Baking Soda + Citric Acid
I love you, internet person
Only thing I’ve been told to be mindful of is that sodastream CO2 cartridges are food safe and a lot of the cheaper alternatives aren’t.
If you want it to taste as close to identical as possible, you can usually find name brand bag in box syrups if you search around. So I guess in theory you should be able to get the same taste as real fountain soda. Idk how that compares to bottled though. I had a box of dr pepper syrup which made great tasting dr pepper.
A little bit. The carbonation and syrup amount changes each time you make it. But overall it’s the same idea.
$19K in watches. Now I have a kid, and I am straight salary. In hindsight, I would be perfectly happy with the least expensive one. I’m a mechanical engineer, and they really interest me. But they were not smart purchases.
That’s a rabbit hole I managed to avoid. I lived in Shanghai in the 00’s when you could still get nice counterfeit mechanical watches there. Then I got a nice Seiko mechanical watch but no matter what I did, I just didn’t love the auto-winding function. Then came the solar watches from Seiko and Citizen which were relatively cheap. Now I’m here with a smart watch and never looking back.
Edit: also an engineer.
I admire the engineering of the solar, too. It’s really cool that the Eco-Drives don’t even look like they have a panel. Are the dials like, micro perforated or something? I’ve never taken one apart. And the fact that you can store them for like, 6 months and they’ll still have a charge is very nice.
I never liked Breitling too much. If you want a good cheap mechanical watch, just go with Seiko, you get a good amount of quality for your money. Everything more expensive is an asset just like buying gold.
Oh, let’s not add the Seikos to the list. I have plenty of those. SKX007, SRP775, and like 5 or 6 I’ve built with Seiko NH-35 movements. I have a watch with a Seagull ST19 movement. I have some vintage ones, like a Timex Viscount and an Elgin Sportsman. But all of those are $500 and under (mostly under 200) and I don’t look at them as dumb purchases.
As a watch and mechanical enthusiast and fellow engineer myself, I read your comment and well you are certainty right, you gotta live a little haha
You sure do! And I love them all. I love modding them, I love wearing them. Love learning about them. I’d say my Seagull chrono gets equal wrist time to the Breitling. I try to keep everything in rotation. Except the George Stockwell trench watch… I’m afraid it might be a touch radioactive due to the radium.
Oh yeah that one I probably wouldn’t wear haha. Would you care to share some of your mods?
Sure!
Here is my SKX and an Invicta Pro Diver.
SKX has new hands, dial, chapter ring, crystal, date wheel, bezel insert, and crown. And I ended up doing an NH-35 swap on the 7S26. So basically, just the case is original now.
The Pro Diver has new hands, dial, bezel, bezel insert, high domed acrylic crystal, and I ground the crown guards off.
Thank you very much. Its a shame that you are the only person posting into MechanicalWatches lol
I nice steal-able asset you flaunt on your wrist, to boot!
TIL about watch insurance. What a wacky world we live in.
True, but they are all insured and you can always report the serial number to a database so it gets flagged if it pops up somewhere.
Yes what I meant by saying it’s an asset is that you should not wear it. The Seiko is already expensive enough to get stolen. Either way when you have watches in the price category shown above, you also have insurance for your watch. Especially when you wear it.
Dumb? I just bought an IDE PCI card and a 3.5” floppy USB adapter. I have a bunch of old 52x dvd/Bluray drives, some are IDE. Thought about buying a new SATA writer, but the internal 5.25 are well over $100!? Shocking, they used to be $35. Nobody needs them anymore. I only bought the 2.5” adapter to avoid throwing away the drive, I don’t know where my 1.44mb floppies are. So now I have an old PC with IDE optical drives and a 3.5” floppy.
What’s a 2.5" floppy?
One number away from the correct one.
The correct answer was “the reason you’re single”.
A 10 inch 300W powered amp/subwoofer… I already have a soul-destroying stereo with 8 inch sub and studio monitor speakers… and live in a 1 BR… I do NOT need a sub so powerful it will rattle the gypsum out of the walls, and yet…
My Revel F208 speakers don’t really need a subwoofer for music but having a 12 inch 500 watt subwoofer to support them for movies does add to the dramatic impact. My apartment neighbors haven’t complained so I assume they are enjoying the music and movies too.
I feel like subs are way overrated for music. A good 10 or 12 in a quality speaker kicks. I mostly use mine to round out the sound, because I listen to a shitload of 50’s-70’s jazz where the recordings are shite.
I would disagree since getting a speaker with a “good” 10 or 12 inch driver is difficult or very expensive and impractical since those large drivers don’t do well with mids and upper mids. The Tannoy, Klipsch heritage line, and similar old school designs with large drivers all measure like crap.
Difficulty obtaining a good speaker doesn’t detract from my point though.
Also yes every Klipsch I’ve heard is shitty.
e And I said “overrated” not purposeless
I keep buying more synthesizers while I already have more than enough. I buy more than I play with them.
I grew up obsessing over synths in the '70s and '80s (I listened to Yes, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis etc.). Now I’m a programmer who writes (more accurately wrote) software synthesizer apps, and I find it amusing that my cheap smartphone from ten years ago has orders of magnitude more sound generation power than those keyboard-based beasts from my childhood did.
That being said, I would probably be willing to kill somebody to get my hands on an original Moog to play around with.
Yeah those Moog’s are insane. But the Behringer clones are also super nice. And imo nothing beats the sound of an analog synth. With those new Behringer clones you also have a USB connection supporting midi, so you can mix them very well with any DAW.
Something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vjAeTh4DnY&list=RD1vjAeTh4DnY&start_radio=1 ?
No I don’t have money for the real ones. I mostly have Behringer clones.
Stop. If I start browsing modular synths I will be broke
I wouldn’t know the difference. Yours still looks nice though.
Thanks!
Original synths from the 80’s cost thousands. Behringer started to clone them, as the copyrights expired and those expensive old machines haven’t been made for a long time. Those copies cost 100 to 500 euro’s each. Only a few bigger ones cost a bit more. So the difference is either spend 5000 euros for a 40 year old device or 300 for a new clone, including community tweaks and a 3 year warranty.
Some of Behringers stuff is quite decent, especially for the price.
Another synthesizer that I don’t even have a stand for.
I keep hearing about these synth hoarders but never meet them in real life.
Think of how many YouTube channels have walls of games or books behind them. Or people that have 400 games in their stream account they never even play. Synth cost of entry is higher, so proper hoarders are rarer.
If I had another digit on my income, I’d probably find an excuse to buy a used instrument at the pawn because it’s a wicked rush imagining what you can do with this new tool.
Myself, at least, nobody but my closest friends knows about my collection, and I don’t talk about it because it would bore them to tears.
Or they would just tell me to pirate soft synth in Ableton and use a cheap midi, which is financially rational, but it isn’t the same.
