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.
I really enjoy Ramit Sethi’s take on this; he encourages what he calls living a rich life. Yeah you should look to your financial future but you have to balance it with your life now. It’s sad when you’re limiting yourself out of fear. He’s an advocate for spending where it brings you value (and only you can decide that), and aggressively cutting out the things that don’t.
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?
A little bit. The carbonation and syrup amount changes each time you make it. But overall it’s the same idea.
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.
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
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.
I love you, internet person
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.
So does the displacement make it taste better or nah?
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.
Despite the site screaming left and right that one should not count on a proper keyboard’s worth of keycaps at all, much LESS a matching set, and despite years of forum and reddit posts declaring their underwhelming nature, I still bought a 5-pound (2.27kg) sack of random keycaps from Signature Plastics in Washington state.
I just have to know, and I’m kind of unironically looking forward to sorting them like so many Lego bricks. I may even get a few that are useful for my projects.
Surely there’s enough for a macro pad in there? It’s like the makers version of a scratch off lotto ticket lmfao
Most likely, yes. I think most people do end up finding one or two smaller boards’ worth of “unicorn barf,” which is to say everything is the right shape and 95-99% have the right thing written on them, but the colors are totally random and visually jarring. I also have a few ideas that might benefit from some of the weirder caps, (like a big square that uses four keybaord switches… people seem to end up with some of those) and occasionally you’ll land on something that someone in the hobby actually does need and you can help them out. A lot of it is simply indulging a certain need to examine and categorize.
I mean if you’re into mechs I can see how that could come in handy for spares if anything, or just fucking around. Depends on the price though if you’re paying anywhere close to normal price then it’s probably not worth it, if it’s like 10% of the price then sure why not.
I bought an old pachislo machine from a garage sale because … I’m not real sure, but I have one of those now.
Damn I’ve always wanted something like this! Jelly
If you manage to find one, there’s a modification you can do to it so that it will also take US quarters. Mine seems to have already had that modification before I got it, so I can’t say how involved it is, but I don’t think it’s too hard.
Looks fun. How much was it?
$75, and it works. Well … worked, it’s being weird now, but I’m sure it’s mechanical, I just haven’t gotten to looking at it.
A switch 2. No regrets on that fat PP tho love that thing.
Self-balancing electric vehicle gang! I have a VESC onewheel build and it’s the best waste of money ever.
those are so much money, I’m so jealous lol
I just got mine for 350 off Facebook marketplaceYou can do a vesc conversion on the cheap, there are kits out there. I spent two years amassing parts for my build and it made me feel like Tony Stark putting it together (and it worked).
salty licorice😈
Espresso machine A nice double boiler one
I bought an entry level espresso machine and i thought that i want a really fancy one, if i keep using it and this one breaks. That was like 8 years ago and i use it almost daily and don’t really want another one.
Wayyyyyyy too much tea
what kinds :D
Thanks for asking :) WARNING: I got excited to respond. I’ve gotten into a Puerh kick lately. For those that don’t know, Puerh is a very dark fermented tea. My current one taste predominantly like leather with a hint of wood and dirt. High quality dirt. I adore this tea.
I’ve got a huge white2tea.com sampler order that hasn’t been shipped yet. I’m trying like 21 different teas spread across the following categories: white, ripe puerh, raw puerh, haungpain.
FYI haungpain is known as “Farms Tea”. It uses broken leaves and leaves lower on the tea plant that were/are considered lower quality. But I hear the lower leaves have a nice robust flavor, and most tea I buy tends to avoid the lower leaves. I’m excited to try it.
I’m thinking of reviewing all the tea I get posting them all on the tea community or something.
youre gonna make me get into tea again man lol
last time i bought some i wanted to try puerh too >:)
those all sound cool asf :D
Hell yeah lol. I hope you get some!
Since we are a few comments in, and can be sure few others are reading: have you heard of fuzhuan? Its another fermented tea category and I’ve only see great reviews online. Near every review has a comment being like “shhhhh, if this gets as popular as puerh then prices will rise”.
Its on my radar and I’m so curious about it. And tbh one of my favorite things is a big brick of tea. Fuzhuan often comes in 1kg bricks.
ive never heard of that, im curious now too >:)
have you heard anything else about it? like the taste or anything?
It is fermented using a fungus that can leave gold spots on it. Often called “golden flowers”. I hear it taste a lot like puerh, but has its own uniqueness. Honesty I’m a little scared of it lol.
But I’ve not seen a bad review for it. Though its good to consider that this tea category is obscure, so maybe only big tea nerds ever stumble upon it.
Get on my level lol
I tell my kids “if I’m not tea-ing I’m peeing”. It’s truly my only vice.
Lol let’s go.
Tea is easy to pretend it isn’t a vice. Just keep telling yourself its healthy. Even if it may be a bit more borderline at our levels lol.
No such thing.
That fat PP looks a little on the short side.
A blank 10cm by 10cm square piece of aluminium. About 2 cm thick
I think I wanted to know how it felt. Like, the vibe of aluminium
Add a tungsten cube to begin a collection.
That sounds completely logical to me. Did having a hunk of aluminum answer the question for you? Or did it only drive a more insatiable desire to hold elemental materials?
I did a coop at IBM many many years ago. My project used a 1" thick slab of aluminum that was about 3’ x 4’ and it was so much fun to just touch that thing. We also had CADCAM which was not at all widespread in the '80s. It was so much fun to design parts and send them to the machine shop electronically and have them show up on a cart outside the lab the next day. Quite a shame how far IBM has fallen since those days.
Not enough room here to show all my impulse purchases.
Onewheels are so much fun.
A convertible that I had have tuned to the max and foiled and re-seated to my liking in my favorite colors. It looked awesome in my head.
Then my pimp-mobile came. And I always was the center of attention. Which I, a very private person, highly disliked but gloriously failed to predict.
Also it was horrible to drive for >30mins because you basically had your nuts on the ground and felt every Lil pebble on the road.
Few months later I sold the car and bought one which basically made me invisible. One that only >70yrs olds drive here 😁
I drive a roadster myself. Recently I’ve noticed that to get out of it, I have to lift my left leg up with my arms and set my foot on the ground, otherwise I get a sartorius muscle strain. I now understand why used roadsters are so cheap: there is only a tiny window where you’re old enough to afford one but young enough to actually get in and out of it.
Lol yes. That too. It was no fun to get in or out. On top of that enjoyment I’m 2m and ripped two jeans while getting out. Up to that point I never saw the appeal of SUVs 😁
I am currently surrounded by empty cardboard boxes from all the jars I bought because I wanted to make a bunch of preserves because I have a supply of free apples. Slow cooker is currently on warming up 5L of pureed apples that I will make into chutney.
If this was a dumb purchase or not depends on who you ask.
I would trade sourdough starter for homemade chutney.
That counts as a great purchase in my book!
I don’t think you’ll make a profit, but maybe you’ll make some friends.
