[HN Gopher] Everything must be paid for twice (2022)
___________________________________________________________________
Everything must be paid for twice (2022)
Author : ColinWright
Score : 306 points
Date : 2023-06-15 11:30 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.raptitude.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.raptitude.com)
| a_c wrote:
| Nice analogy. I see "prices" as money and time. To save time, pay
| more money, to save money, pay in time. Ikea is maybe low on
| money, but definitely high in terms of time. Any software with
| good UX should be high on money, because they are low cost in
| time.
|
| There is also a feel good factor, which the time component is 0.
| e.g. I have a bad habit of buying books not to be read, but to
| put on bookshelf because it looks good. Sorry Knuth, I am at
| maybe page 10 of the your 4 volumes of TAOCP. It looks good on my
| shelf.
| mantas wrote:
| After dealing with custom builders... Ikea is not high in terms
| of time either. You're likely to drive to Ikea in the morning
| and have a shelf/cabinet/couch/whatever ready same evening. Now
| dealing with custom builders is a wee more involved... Less
| sweating, but time-wise, it's not that different.
|
| And then there's delivery terms if you're on a rush to have
| something usable in your empty housing.
| lee wrote:
| I'm in a situation where my partner loves to acquire things
| whereas I have a minimalist mindset.
|
| I have felt like every item I own is a burden, and when I live in
| a house where the vast majority is "owned" by the both of us, it
| can be overwhelming.
|
| I've learned to cope though by simply internally "letting go" of
| ownership. They're just inanimate objects and they're not "mine".
| I simply possess them as a mental/legal construct.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I have so many tools that I feel this way about. I enjoy
| lending them to people because it makes owning them feel like
| less of a waste, but I don't have enough of a social network to
| lend them often enough to "break even" on the second cost.
| yboris wrote:
| I'm similar; I found a way to "compartmentalize" - I don't
| concern myself with what's in my wife's closet or in her boxes.
| I also have some spaces that are purely mine - so I can have
| the flavor of minimalism that brings me joy.
| david422 wrote:
| > I have felt like every item I own is a burden
|
| This is starting to get to me. Everything I buy I now have to
| store somewhere, and/or is then something that I need to throw
| out. And everything I throw out seems like such a waste to me.
|
| Something changed in my mindset over the last couple of years.
| userabchn wrote:
| I would ideally like to be able to fit my whole life into a
| suitcase and be sufficiently free of commitments that if
| someone asked me to move to the other side of the world next
| week I could. I achieve this in my own life, but I share the
| feeling of almost overwhelming burden you describe when I see
| my parents' possessions. Some day I am going to have to deal
| with them. It would be unbearably wasteful and disrespectful to
| just throw them out or give them away to people who don't value
| them, but disposing of them properly would be a major
| undertaking, and many of the items have great sentimental value
| to my parents so I can't imagine giving them to anyone else but
| at the same time I don't want them. I doubt that I could trick
| myself into overcoming this by "letting go" as you describe.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Take your partner to an estate sale, where the next-of-kin are
| trying to sell their departed parents' stuff. And just wander
| around contemplating. We're not taking any of our "stuff" with
| us when we go. An entire lifetime collecting all these
| knickknacks and tchotchkes and stuffing your house and storage
| units with them and at the end... It just becomes a burden to
| someone else.
|
| I think this activity can be good therapy to help people to
| stop and think about their "stuff accumulation".
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| I don't buy and keep things to take with me when I die. I get
| them to be useful to me and others. In fact, I've gone to
| many estate sales and picked up useful things at significant
| discount off new, sometimes even free. It would delight me if
| someone else benefited from my stuff after I am gone.
|
| The biggest thing I struggle with is keeping it organized in
| a useful way.
| trashface wrote:
| Yep. My parents moved into a retirement community and have a
| huge unfinished basement, probably 1500-2000 sqft of floor
| space. And they have filled it with crap. Its like a
| warehouse down there. Some of it has value but vast majority
| of it is just plain junk (mostly stuff from their old house
| which they should have gotten rid of when they moved, some
| literally in the same boxes). They are in their 80s and not
| dealing with it. It will be my problem eventually.
| ukuina wrote:
| I would argue there are four prices: acquisition, usage, storage,
| and disposal.
|
| The middle two are (ideally?) recurrent costs and storage costs
| in the age of consumerism grow linearly throughout life.
|
| At some point, people "see the light" and start aggressively
| downsizing. This usually happens when storage cost vastly exceeds
| usage cost.
| ColinWright wrote:
| This has been submitted and discussed before[0], but I'd suggest
| that before you go and check out that conversation, read the
| article and see if it resonates with you. Maybe you'll have a new
| insight.
|
| I (mostly) value (many of) the points of view provided by (some
| of) the HN community, and it would be nice to see more of them.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30013025
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Everything must be paid for twice_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30013025 - Jan 2022 (241
| comments)
| themagician wrote:
| You become keenly aware of this if you run a small business and
| run the IT. Once something is provisioned and in production you
| maintain it as long as physically possible. Buying a new one is
| not expensive. The time to get it set up can be 10x the cost of
| the item in terms of hours.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Interesting take. You can push it further and suggest that if you
| don't pay the second price you don't own it at all. It's lying
| around as an object or unused subscription, but you're getting no
| benefit from it.
|
| It's not a binary because sometimes you want things for the
| future, or just in case, or just because you like having them -
| and maybe showing them off.
|
| But sometimes none of those are true. So what did you buy? And
| why?
| retrocryptid wrote:
| The author does not appear to understand options.
|
| Purchasing a copy of Moby Dick at a garage sale for $1 means you
| have purchased the option of reading it for as long as you want
| to keep it on your bookshelf.
|
| There is a slight possibility you could sell it for $1 in the
| future, or $0.50 or $2. But that would probably take more effort
| than you want to put into the enterprise.
|
| But mostly what that $1 buys you is an option on use value. You
| are free to use the book after paying for it. But you are not
| obligated to use it.
|
| The author's point was, I believe, that there's a difference
| between exchange cost and use cost, which is certainly true. But
| if you're going to use this parable as an analogy for some
| business process, you may be better served by thinking about a
| larger scope: a scope that admits the possibility of value in
| options.
|
| When I was a kid we used to say: "You always pay for what you
| get. And if you're lucky, you only pay in cash."
| boredumb wrote:
| Options are closer to paying 1$ at a garage sale for the owner
| to sell it to you on a future date at 1$ and you have the right
| but not the obligation to do so (say the price is 20 cents next
| year - you don't have to buy the book at 1$ anymore and you
| hope that your option you purchased is less than 79.9 cents in
| order to profit.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| Not option on exchange, but option on use.
| munificent wrote:
| The value of _having the option_ to read Moby Dick is
| essentially zero: you can look it up online whenever you want.
|
| When someone chooses to spend a buck buying Moby Dick at a
| garage sale, the value they get is based on calculating that
| they will also read it. If they spend the cash but not the
| time, they've basically just thrown a dollar away.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| [flagged]
| munificent wrote:
| I didn't downvote you.
|
| I am asserting that you are claiming ignorance on the
| author's part when the better interpretation is that the
| author is speaking about general common occurrences and you
| are focused on edge cases that while true do not detract
| from the author's point.
|
| Presumably anyone about to embark on a voyage to Antarctica
| understands that their purchasing decisions have slightly
| different constraints than a random person sitting in their
| apartment mindlessly scrolling on Amazon and doing some
| "retail therapy".
| helloplanets wrote:
| > A new novel, for example, might require twenty dollars for its
| first price--and ten hours of dedicated reading time for its
| second. Only once the second price is being paid do you see any
| return on the first one. Paying only the first price is about the
| same as throwing money in the garbage.
|
| I think this is a bit too much of an absolutist take. One that
| turns too many people off from reading, and can add an
| unnecessary air of elitism around it. If you pay $14.99 for a
| book, you aren't seeing returns only after ten hours of dedicated
| reading. Even reading one chapter can yield returns that are
| equivalent to $14.99, if it's a good book. With non-fiction, you
| can also pick chapters that strike you as the most interesting
| and start directly from those, getting faster 'returns on
| investment'. Then going back and reading the whole thing if
| you're sucked in.
|
| It's very common for sites to publish curated segments of books,
| whether were talking science related things or not. And even
| getting double the amount of that text by purchasing the book
| (compared to the short excerpt) can be worth the price of
| admission.
| tomalpha wrote:
| I'd go further for the specific example of the book. For me the
| price of reading a good book isn't a price at all. It's a gain.
| I've paid the first up front price to be able to read the book
| and gain enjoyment from it.
|
| I get that there are different reasons for reading a book, but
| even then, it also seems overly simplistic and absolutist to
| me.
| hnick wrote:
| For a lot of people, they are just paying $20 to have the book.
| It makes them feel nice through the act of purchase or building
| a collection. Or maybe it provides a safety blanket if you
| might need it one day, but no need to read it right now. That's
| a good deal for them.
| silentsanctuary wrote:
| I think the article is less making a comment on "how many hours
| of time you need to put into reading before it's worth the
| monetary cost you laid down for it".
|
| I think it's trying to remind people that before you get the
| utility you wanted out of a (non-decorative) book, you need to
| pay not just ($14.99), but ($14.99 + 10 hours), or indeed
| ($14.99 + 1 hour).
|
| I understood the article to encourage more thoughtful budgeting
| of that second kind of cost, and that we are tuned to
| automatically mostly consider the first kind of cost.
| Tyr42 wrote:
| But sometimes you want to fill time, as it were. You might
| buy a paperback before getting on an airplane so that you
| have a boom to read, not because you care about the contents.
| freediver wrote:
| There is also the fourth price - regret price. When buying
| something you don't need, you pay the cost with emotional regret.
| trippsydrippsy wrote:
| [dead]
| Archelaos wrote:
| Some time ago, an article made me rethink my view on the speed
| differences between cars and bicycles. Here, too, you have to pay
| twice with your own lifetime, because ultimately the time it
| takes to get from A to B is not simply the driving time, but you
| have to add to it the (proportionate) working time to earn the
| money you need to acquire, operate and maintain the vehicle:
| speed = (working time + driving time) / distance. Of course, the
| outcome of this calculation varies depending on the specific
| situation. I recommend everyone to estimate this once for their
| personal situation. In any case, I was amazed at what came out
| for me.
| nayuki wrote:
| Btw by definition, speed = distance / time.
|
| I first learned about half a year ago the concept of adding
| work time to driving time in "Ivan's Car":
| https://www.deautovanivan.nl/eng.html
|
| > How fast is your car?
|
| > The effective speed is calculated on the basis of the price
| of the car (costs per kilometer) and income (net income). The
| amount of hours you have to work to drive your car (taxes,
| insurance, fuel, etcetera) is added to the average speed of a
| car driver in the Netherlands.
| muspimerol wrote:
| Don't forget the potential time (and quality of time) you add
| to your life by getting regular exercise!
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I do cycle regularly, but my feeling is, in most places,
| health benefits don't offset danger coming from other
| motorists and road users.
| eric-hu wrote:
| It really depends on where you live. I lived in Taipei and
| cycled around everywhere in that city. There were sometimes
| bike lanes on the street, and sometimes wide sidewalks with
| bike lanes, and sometimes neither. Drivers were pretty
| reasonable most of the time. I felt I could manage the
| risks by cycling conservatively and assuming drivers didn't
| see me.
|
| I'm in Los Angeles now. While I miss biking dearly, I look
| at drivers around here and just think it's a matter of
| when, not if, I'd get into a cycling accident if I tried to
| ride within a few miles of my home.
| dsego wrote:
| > But then, in order to make use of the thing, you must also pay
| a second price. This is the effort and initiative required to
| gain its benefits, and it can be much higher than the first
| price.
|
| I think this is the thing people miss when saying open source
| software is given free and people shouldn't complain. Yes, but it
| requires effort to adopt and it's a liability. So when a free
| piece of code is published, even marketed and touted, it can
| create some expectation of commitment, even though the author is
| not obligated to provide it.
| [deleted]
| Hippocrates wrote:
| This hit home for me :-(
|
| I'm gonna go sell or donate some of my 2nd price debt items now.
| They're now a good reminder that time is finite and you need to
| curate your hobbies and attention carefully.
| dzogchen wrote:
| What if I just buy a novel for the feeling it gives me to buy it,
| and how pretty it looks on my shelf?
| psychphysic wrote:
| > In our search for fulfillment, we keep paying first prices,
| creating a correspondingly enormous debt of unpaid second prices.
|
| Wow, at first I was about to stop reading and thought this
| article was drivel.
|
| Then that line came up and it was like the breaking bad news
| scene in breaking bad. Tunnel vision and static as my mind was
| blown.
| jtode wrote:
| I love this piece. I had a moment of lifted delusion about a
| decade ago, I didn't put these particular words on it, but I
| vividly recall looking around at all the second-price debts I had
| racked up, books, instruments, pedals, even just software I
| downloaded intending to learn to use it, and I guess I got so
| pissed off or something that I skipped right past my usual anger
| at myself and the accompanying session of self-loathing and I
| went straight to hating the debts and attacking them. In some
| cases I passed on the acquired thing, in others I started to just
| use them, one by one. I still have shelves and shelves of second-
| price debt unfortunately, but I'm better off these days.
| JackFr wrote:
| Seems like a weird way to look at books. I pay for the novel, and
| then I get to read it. The benefit is in the reading not simply
| the completing.
|
| Do I pay for Netflix, and then I pay again by spending time
| watching movies?
| [deleted]
| majkinetor wrote:
| Yes you do, as time is a resource.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I don't think it's that weird. Reading is still work. It's a
| kind of work that often gives you more reward than you feel it
| takes away while doing it but I still think it makes sense to
| talk about a kind of cost here. Because it affects how we
| relate to the activities we chose.
|
| Some books are immediately rewarding, like fiction, some are
| rewarding at multiple moments later in time, like fact books.
| (Not saying face books can't be rewarding in the moment as well
| though.)
|
| In game design this doesn't seem like a far fetched concept.
| You often talk about grindy games for example.
|
| Also, how else do you explain why we tend to buy books and then
| not read them? Maybe for books the cost is often the initial
| cost before you get into it enough to enjoy it?
| cortesoft wrote:
| I think the wording is a bit confusing, because the reading
| isn't the second payment, the time it takes is the second
| payment. You are paying the time it takes to do the thing in
| order to get the enjoyment of reading.
|
| However, I still find this a strange analogy... time is not
| like money, you can't save it... that time spent reading the
| book was going to go away whether you read the book or not. You
| can't save up that time to spend it on something better later.
| munificent wrote:
| _> time is not like money, you can 't save it... that time
| spent reading the book was going to go away whether you read
| the book or not. You can't save up that time to spend it on
| something better later._
|
| Time is not money, but it is opportunity cost.
|
| Time allocated to X is time you have lost the ability to
| allocate to Y.
| npteljes wrote:
| Indeed you do! Time is a strange resource, as it's very finite,
| and also non-fungible (your time today is not the same as a day
| in the future, or in the past).
|
| It's of course not transactional in the real life, but I think
| it's valuable to think things through this lens. So you have
| some time, how you spend it, what you gain from it, etc. For
| the same time investment, some shows are better than others,
| and sometimes, reflecting on the person's needs, another show
| is just a diminishing return compared to other ways of spending
| time.
| HPsquared wrote:
| The decision is more clear if you already own the book (or have
| access to it). You spend time and get the reward of reading it.
| adam-a wrote:
| Yeah it seems like such a strange mindset to me too. I feel
| like some people find it hard to think of things outside of a
| monetary system. We live in such a financialised world. You
| can't just read a book and enjoy it, you have to add it to your
| balance sheet, ammortise the costs, fill out a psychological
| tax return at the end of the year.
| Simulacra wrote:
| Some years back, the RIAA floated a proposal that would make
| you pay every time you listened to a song. You would never
| actually own music, you would just pay for it every time you
| listen to it like you were a radio station. It's just greed.
| JackFr wrote:
| When you 'own' music, what is it you think you own?
|
| Intellectual property with respect to recorded media is
| weird.
| piperswe wrote:
| When I "own" music, I interpret that as being able to
| listen to it whenever I want, forever, with no restriction.
| My digital music library (225GB of mostly FLAC files ripped
| from CDs and bought from Qobuz/Bandcamp) is close enough to
| ownership for me, even though I can't use most of it for
| commercial purposes or redistribute it or anything.
| stkdump wrote:
| I actually like the idea. Many things pay-per-use are
| actually cheaper unless you use it basically constantly,
| because if it isn't cheap enough, many people would stop
| using it, thinking: is listening to it right now really worth
| X amount? People have a strange attachment to the concept of
| ownership, so that they are willing to pay extra for it. Pay-
| per-use is actually a more profitable concept only when
| people are hesitant to buy something fully, because they are
| not sure if they would use it enough.
| qup wrote:
| Would they send me a bill after a night out at the pub?
| stkdump wrote:
| I would assume the pub would pay for playing it, same as
| radio is paying for playing it.
| Simulacra wrote:
| Well we already have this, it's called Spotify and Apple
| Music. I collect vinyl and I rather like having the whole
| album to listen to without paying anything more. If I had
| to pay _per song_ which is IIRC the RIAA proposal, I
| would be less likely to explore music. I would stick to
| only music I can be reasonably certain is going to be
| good.
|
| Wouldn't a pay-per-song scheme destroy independent bands
| so that only the biggest and most shared get listened to?
| constantcrying wrote:
| >Only once the second price is being paid do you see any return
| on the first one.
|
| Only if you didn't buy it for the psychological effect. There the
| point is _not_ paying the secondary price.
|
| This is also something which is usually unheard of in a
| consumerist society, where most things are bought because of
| utilitarian consideration and not "because ownership makes you
| feel better".
| psychoslave wrote:
| Well, if we feel better because we own it for the simple "fact"
| that we own it, _that_ is the utility we have from it.
|
| That said, we rarely get such a thing in anything we can
| acquire with only money as a price. For example it's well known
| and documented that taking time into meditation sessions will
| give us many benefits, but no amount of book or titles like
| "special contributor of the temple" that we can acquire by
| throwing money at it will give us these same benefits.
|
| Money can buy us the prestige and some kind of social
| obedience, but it won't auto-magically cultivate our mental
| flow into sane dynamics.
|
| Also let's remember that there is no ownership outside of a
| society that recognizes us some form of prioritised policy
| implementation over some limited matter. So we can't own
| anything without paying some price to remain included in this
| society. That's the 0th price of any ownership, could we say.
| mehdix wrote:
| I find "paying twice for things" a nice analogy. Over the years I
| have been unconciously paying more attention to the second price,
| and often ignore the first one (obviously I'm getting older and
| have less time to waste). "will this thing last long enough?",
| "will it break when I most need it?", and "is it worth my time?"
| are some questions I ask myself when purchasing or choosing
| something new. It has had a net positive outcome for me.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Me too.
|
| My friends find it weird when I buy a used car and I've already
| budgeted for the repairs, they find it a downer.
|
| I'm happy because then when it happens I've already mentally
| spent the money!
|
| The same is true of the time investment.
| mehdix wrote:
| > The same is true of the time investment.
|
| One person once told me "urgency has no price." i.e. time is
| priceless, as cliche as it looks like. For me in the long
| run, the cost of time I invest in the "consequence" of my
| decisions dwarfs all other costs.
| gleenn wrote:
| Electric is the way to gobif you care about longevity
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| Elon, is that you? :)
|
| What, electric don't ever break?
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Public chargers in the UK cost 75p/kWh and up, which means
| even an efficient EV costs far more to run than my petrol
| car, unfortunately.
|
| In the past it's never really been the ICE parts that fail
| on my cars anyway. Rusted suspensions and frames, tyres,
| etc are the main service items.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Public charging is a bit of a rip-off.
|
| Some new apartment blocks have charging in the car park
| that is at-cost. And ofcourse if you own a house with a
| driveway, that allows you to access cheaper rates.
|
| Additionally, the current energy crisis should be
| temporary, normally electricity is 1/3 the price of
| petrol. At least if the tory government, that constantly
| harps on about growth, stops blocking construction of
| every windfarm and solar panel they can.
|
| In personal experience, in iur famioy BMW it was the
| engine that failed.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Sure. By mileage my car is most often used for long
| distance trips across the country, for stuff under 10-20
| miles I usually use public transport or cycle.
|
| I had an EV for a period and used on-street charging 90%
| of the time for that reason. It was a tremendous pain.
| hef19898 wrote:
| One of the main, negative, reliability drivers in modern
| cars is electronics anyway, mechanically new cars hardly
| ever fail outside of normal wear (e.g. brakes,
| suspession, gaskets) that is simply unavoidable.
|
| Now, the thing with EVs is, they have tons of
| electronics...
|
| Regardless, as soon as EVs hit a price range, accounting
| for size and so, that is within budget we are going to
| switch.
| systemtest wrote:
| The most recent maintenance on my car would have been the
| same on an EV. Tires, brakes, wheel bearing, blower, window
| motors, shocks, boot struts. And I repaired a couple of
| broken trim bits in the interior and replaced the speakers.
|
| Outside of around 30 euro per year of maintenance bits, the
| engine and gearbox don't need a lot of work. Simple
| combustion engines that are not put under stress can last a
| long time.
| ivanche wrote:
| 30 EUR per _year_? You can 't even buy 2-3 liters of
| engine oil for that money, let alone brake oil, new tires
| (you change them every 50000km, right?), tire pressure
| sensors etc.
| systemtest wrote:
| That 30 euro was for engine specific maintenance.
|
| I spend 20 euro on the yearly oil change, including the
| crush washer. And about 10 euro on miscellaneous parts. A
| set of spark plugs were EUR9,28 last time.
|
| Gear box doesn't need much. Oil gets changed when I do
| clutch, which isn't often. Just like how you don't need
| to change the differential or motor fluid on an EV motor
| often.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| They are referring to 30 euros of engine maintenance
| only, so from your list only the oil (and filter) are
| relevant.
| ivanche wrote:
| They mentioned engine and gearbox, so still you'd need at
| least gearbox oil change once in a while. Not to mention
| that they elegantly forgot clutch + flywheel which EVs
| don't have but are expensive as hell to change on ICEs
| (and you have to change them sooner or later).
| systemtest wrote:
| Clutchplate is a 25 to 40 euro part and a day of my time.
| Needs to be replaced once every 200k kilometers. I have
| transverse engine, I guess it means engine out but that
| is a 45 minute job.
| TheCapn wrote:
| Can I ask what you drive?
|
| There's a 3rd cost that you're sorta glossing over. The
| work you're doing (and the speed you're capable of doing
| it in) means you've had a non-negligible amount of
| experience. Depending on how fickle we're going to get,
| there's 4th costs of the tools you own allowing you to do
| that work. Perhaps other costs for your living situation
| allowing you to have a place to do such tasks.
|
| I do my own maintenance work too. But I think it's
| foolish to gloss over those aspects of the work. They
| don't come for free.
| jlengrand wrote:
| Mostly agree, though one thing I strongly disagree with
| (especially for books :)).
|
| Paying 1$ at a yard sale for Moby Dick would be it for me. No
| need to read, I will simply enjoy having the book around me, just
| like having a new friend at home
| illegalmemory wrote:
| You will have to spend time with someone , understand each
| other well to be called a friend. Till then, just stranger.
| mejutoco wrote:
| More like a friend of a friend, then :) From whom you have
| heard many anecdotes, have common friends, and you feel like
| you know them. You are curious to meet them.
| qup wrote:
| Call me Ishmael.
| chrisBob wrote:
| Storage costs can also be significant. I have a friend who pays
| $200/month for his storage unit to keep all of the extra seasonal
| junk and decorations, and then must swap it out twice per year.
| Many people pay a less transparent version of the same fee by
| getting a larger house or apartment for the same reason.
| H8crilA wrote:
| That's why organized tourism is so attractive. You pay the first
| price, and the second price is actually negative (it relaxes
| you).
|
| Drugs also only have the first price, once you use them it is
| just fun.
|
| (yes there are some positive third prices down the line).
| adammarples wrote:
| Drugs are a classic example where you pay the price the next
| day
| jonsen wrote:
| I have bought a considerable number of books that I have only
| read partly, skimmed, or not at all. It really took off after
| reading about Umberto Eco's anti library philosophy; the most
| important books in your personal library are the books you have
| not read.
| personjerry wrote:
| [flagged]
| MandieD wrote:
| Careful with that - a somewhat earlier version of ChatGPT,
| when asked who George Wickham was, confidently asserted that
| he was the hero of Pride and Prejudice.
| personjerry wrote:
| Ah to clarify these are all self-help / methodology books,
| so if it was explaining lean startup methodology and made
| stuff up then it mostly wouldn't make sense.
| phnofive wrote:
| > if it was explaining lean startup methodology and made
| stuff up then it mostly wouldn't make sense.
|
| The joke practically writes itself, though I suppose
| ChatGPT could take the last bit of work out of it.
| mehdix wrote:
| It was a good reminder.
|
| > People don't walk around with anti-resumes telling you what
| they have not studied or experienced (it's the job of their
| competitors to do that), but it would be nice if they did.
|
| I can resonate with this one. Over the years I have learned
| that things a person NOT do, is more important compared to what
| they do.
|
| Thanks for sharing.
| blippitybleep wrote:
| I find myself acquiring lots of books lately, books I won't read
| for at least 6 months. It feels like you can't investigate topics
| online anymore without some machine somewhere watching you. If I
| look something up about my house plants in a reference book, sure
| it might take longer, but there's something quite liberating
| about knowing I'm not being watched by some Ferengi-esque bot
| that wants my money. Same applies to fiction, maybe I want to be
| able to read or reference Moby Dick in peace.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Every decision has personal costs and benefits, as well as a
| range of costs and benefits to other people (specific and
| abstract).
| plewd wrote:
| I don't think this comment could be any vaguer, it's honestly
| impressive.
| HPsquared wrote:
| That's the point. People tend to oversimplify their
| decisions, "how much money does this one cost" etc.
| frogpelt wrote:
| I tell myself this every time I buy food.
|
| If I paid $20 for a plate of food at a restaurant, eating it is
| the second half of the price. If I eat too much (don't take a
| box) I pay the second price. If I only eat just enough, the
| second price is much lower.
|
| I also take issue with the statement early in the article that
| only paying the first price is the same as putting money in the
| garbage. It's not wrong but that mindset will lead you to
| becoming a victim of the sunk cost fallacy. If you've already
| paid for the thing but you no longer want it, get rid of it.
| nuclearwast wrote:
| One random comment: The book on the photo, Trois fois par jour #2
| (Three times a day #2)
|
| Is a great cookbook for mere mortal with cooking skill juste
| above beginner. A few recipes became once a week classic and
| helped me improve my cooking skill and taste. Highly recommanded!
| #1 is good too.
| gumby wrote:
| When I was a kid we repaired everything: darned our clothes,
| fixed the car, radio, etc. My parents taught us these then
| essential life skills. In addition, since cash was tight, we used
| things until they wore out, or if we got something new and
| additional (like new clothes) we basically didn't use them until
| the old ones wore out (difficult when you're a growing kid).
|
| 50 years later I can't unlearn this even though it makes little
| sense in most cases in an age when things have no repair
| affordances or are so cheap (socks) that the "cost" of repair is
| greater than the effort to replace it.
|
| The consequence is that I really dread buying things and have no
| ability to make an impulse purchase. Every purchase feels like a
| burden: did I really get the best one that will last the longest?
| How will I look after it? I can't understand people who go
| shopping for fun. A gift also feels like a burden has been handed
| to me (I have to look after this and use it appropriately).
|
| It also shocks me that so many people don't know how to repair
| _anything_ -- though the rational part of my mind wonders if they
| might be making the right call.
| [deleted]
| rcktmrtn wrote:
| > It also shocks me that so many people don't know how to
| repair anything -- though the rational part of my mind wonders
| if they might be making the right call.
|
| It's a hard line to draw. Consumerism/throw-away culture isn't
| (and can't and shouldn't be) a historic norm so participating
| in it will ultimately alienate people from most people who have
| and will exist across time. On the other hand, not
| participating at all will alienate you from a lot of people
| now.
| miahwilde wrote:
| Disagree. "Throw-away" culture has been a historic norm and
| can actually become a moral "should". Cultures that produce
| "toxic" waste products (such as the current dominant one) do
| indeed have a moral imperative to do what they can to reduce
| waste. However, cultures that produce "beneficial" waste have
| a moral imperative to produce more. "Throw-away" culture has
| its roots in the long history of humans where "throwing
| things away" was just returning resources into the larger
| ecological systems. In this model, who gets alienated over
| the long arc of time?
| gumby wrote:
| This is a great point: 'long history of humans where
| "throwing things away" was just returning resources into
| the larger ecological systems'.
|
| One of our team is an anthropologist. She once mentioned
| that there's a lot of trash around in many agricultural
| communities in "developing countries". And indeed, earlier
| the culture was that when you ate a piece of fruit you just
| tossed the rind into the bushes or on the field and went on
| your way. There aren't public rubbish bins in these small
| villages, so what happens is plastic bottles and chips bags
| fly around.
| rcktmrtn wrote:
| > Disagree. "Throw-away" culture has been a historic norm
| and can actually become a moral "should"
|
| > However, cultures that produce "beneficial" waste have a
| moral imperative to produce more
|
| To me "throw-away" culture very much implies with it that
| what you're throwing away something toxic without
| considering the about consequences -- maybe you could say
| "composting" culture as an alternative. And in that
| context, there isn't really "waste" at a system level, only
| on an individual one. It's a good point that there is all
| the difference between just managing waste (repair) and
| recycling it. Both are independent skills and good in their
| own way.
| reginaldo wrote:
| Both the article and your "gift as a burden" remark reminded me
| of Walden:
|
| "I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was
| terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when
| the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw
| them out the window in disgust."
| gumby wrote:
| I liked a lot of things he had to say but I could never get
| out of my mind that his mother sent the housemaid over every
| week to tidy up.
| stickfigure wrote:
| A housemaid every other week is a great life hack,
| especially if you're married.
| yboris wrote:
| "A gift is a burden" - I feel the same way about it.
|
| I'm almost 40 years old and have barely bought any items of
| clothing in a decade -- my parents keep gifting me things (some
| I've finally started giving to Goodwill), but much of my
| clothes I care for well so it takes many years before they are
| bad enough to throw out. It's an unpleasant feeling - I feel
| pain buying more when I have so much, so I haven't been able to
| buy things I like (or clothing that I feel expresses my style)
| in years.
| fredley wrote:
| This articulates a feeling that I've had for a long time. I
| struggle to buy gifts, which probably does me no favours
| socially, for this reason. I can't help but feel the burden
| I'm giving to someone else. Christmas is hell.
| colecut wrote:
| I agree with this sentiment.
|
| It feels so nice when I think of something that I know
| someone needs or will use.
|
| That's very difficult to do for everyone I know closely all
| on the same date.
| ghaff wrote:
| The right consumables make a lot more sense past a certain
| point. For me, if I want/need something, I'll just buy it.
| Other things _can_ be nice especially if I 've talked about
| them but have been procrastinating about taking the plunge
| --though then that probably means they're a lot for a
| casual gift. I could probably get rid of half the stuff in
| my house and not miss it.
| xamuel wrote:
| You might be short-changing yourself more than you realize. I
| was similar for most my life, but this year I decided to
| learn about fashion and actually dress nice. Not only do I
| look a million times better, but---surprisingly---it actually
| physically feels better when your clothes fit just right.
| It's like they're hugging you throughout your day as you wear
| them. Can't believe I went so many years without ever
| realizing this. Probably a lot here on HN who grew up poor
| and became "new money" through software dev are short-
| changing themselves like this.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| I was recently in the same position. Did a full wardrobe
| replacement (majority secondhand, so not as insane as it
| sounds). It's amazing how much better I feel! I've never
| been one to care much about clothes/fashion, but now I feel
| like I've spent decades missing out on something good.
| gowld wrote:
| > A gift also feels like a burden has been handed to me
|
| Donate it immediately, unopened. It can be resold.
|
| With any luck, it will be obtained by someone who wants it, or
| be passed around as a currency totem forever, and never become
| waste.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| My partner and I recently watched an old episode of the
| Simpsons where a plot point is Homer attempting to repair the
| toaster and creating a time machine.
|
| It was taken as completely normal that you'd assume anyone
| would repair their toaster if it stopped working. Made me
| realize it's been a long time since it would seem reasonable to
| self repair any home appliance.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Nowadays we play The Sims to get that experience.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| With Sims 5+ you may have to wait for the home improvement
| expansion, or the kitchen appliances DLC, or both sadly.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| Do you have any advice on making the repairing process less
| painful?
|
| I've learned to repair things here and there: home, auto,
| woodwork, sewing, etc. and so I'll make a repair purely out of
| the sense of obligation not to create waste.
|
| But I haaaaaate it. Every minute that I'm performing a repair,
| I'm bored to death. My brain is screaming at me to find _any_
| alternative occupation. I wind up spending the whole repair
| time drinking and /or distracting myself with podcasts to make
| the experience suck less, but then my results take a hit.
|
| You would think that the gradual accumulation of skills is
| something I would find satisfying, but I can't see the process
| as anything but a chore. Does anybody have advice on how to
| cope with this in a healthier manner?
| sokoloff wrote:
| I love doing DIY work (more precisely, I love saving money on
| it and being more in control over the repairs; I don't find
| the repair work terrible).
|
| If you really hate it and can afford not to, just don't do
| it. If you have to justify it somehow, find something else
| productive to do and use the money or savings from _that_ to
| offset that you aren 't fixing your car or whatever.
| jxramos wrote:
| a friend who moved from the city to the country shared with me
| that folks with knowhow are more valuable in the country where
| there's more burden finding repair folks and coordinating
| logistics out in sparsely populated rural regions. In that
| context these skills buy you independence and some form of
| popularity I've heard.
|
| Reminds me of some Smarter Every Day videos where he covers
| farm life and the varied skill sets that benefit people in that
| domain.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I grew up in a DIY house too. We worked on everything, every
| thing.
|
| I had given up doing my own auto maintenance for a number of
| years. I picked it up again this year. Auto Shop hourly rates
| are more than mine and I can do it myself, already have the
| tools.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| This behaviour can end up being pathological and
| counterproductive.
|
| It drives my wife INSANE that... I have nice brand new pair of
| shoes from 5 years ago I never ever wear, because I refuse to
| put wear on them and instead use the cheap shoes from 8 years
| ago. Same with shirts and sweaters - the nice ones she bought
| me over last few years are waiting in the closet until my old
| shirts and sweaters die - and some are getting close to 20yo.
|
| Nothing _wrong_ with it, as such. But it 's not always rational
| behaviour either - more of a left-over compulsion from leaner
| time (I come from eastern europe and then 2 years of civil
| war).
|
| As for people repairing anything - much as I love his writing,
| I disagree with Heinlein's "specialization is for insects". I
| can help a friend with computer or fix our network. There's
| weird things I can do like watches and whatnots. There's any
| number of things I can do well. But I'm _probably_ better off
| doing the thing I do well, getting paid for it, and then in
| turn paying plumber or electrician or mechanic for things
| _they_ do well.
|
| If fixing a car or your washing machine makes sense or is your
| hobby / pasttime, brilliant. But sometimes it doesn't, and it's
| OK to keep the circle of life/economy going :).
| tlarkworthy wrote:
| I fix lots of things and there is no experience like doing
| something, there is also this weird cross-pollination thing
| going where knowledge acquired in one domain helps you in
| another. So while I am well aware that most of my repair jobs
| are net negative in terms of actual material value generation
| for me, the gradual increase in my capabilities in many
| different domains ends up helping me even in my chosen
| specialisation. By this point I am just generally at an
| advanced beginner stage of anything after some basic research
| (which I have naturally becomes quite good at).
|
| There is also a skin in the game effect that even a paid
| random plumber is not actually that invested in doing a good
| job and, while you cannot compete in terms of speed of
| executing a fix, or possession of special tools, you can
| compete - and exceed - on final quality simply because _you_
| really care about the final outcome.
| eric-hu wrote:
| One thing to add is that if you value the learning from
| trying a repair job, doing it on a problem in front of you
| is close to free. Taking a class would cost money.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > The consequence is that I really dread buying things and have
| no ability to make an impulse purchase.
|
| Having also grown up with limited means, I am deliberate about
| purchases. Unlike you however the lesson I learned growing up
| was that I don't need to buy "the best" of flashiest item,
| because that often was out of our reach.
|
| > It also shocks me that so many people don't know how to
| repair anything
|
| I hate wasting money on new "toys" (things I don't _need_ but
| enjoy), and I also enjoy repairing stuff. My solution to both
| is buying Thrift store or garage sale electronics, perform
| repairs if necessary, put them to use and sell them off when I
| acquire a better replacement.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > It also shocks me that so many people don't know how to
| repair anything -- though the rational part of my mind wonders
| if they might be making the right call.
|
| I can see knowing how to repair things but choosing not to:
| Maybe your high income means the time you might use to repair
| it could be better spent making money. Maybe you're busy with
| something today, and are willing to pay for the convenience of
| having someone else do it. Maybe you're getting old and just
| can't get on your back and do complex auto wrenching anymore.
|
| But, I see people (mostly younger than myself) who never even
| learned to do even basic, basic home/auto repairs. I'm not
| talking brake jobs and kitchen remodels, I'm talking they can't
| change a flat tire, replace a leaking sink supply hose, or hell
| even vacuum their own apartment. They pay people to do
| everything. That's shocking to me. I kind of just naively
| thought everyone just gets taught this stuff when they're
| teenagers.
| devilbunny wrote:
| I'm not God by any means, but if you don't know how to change
| a tire (even if you physically can't), you have no business
| driving a car.
| eric-hu wrote:
| AAA will change a tire for you, and I've driven past plenty
| of service calls where I saw exactly this happening. Also,
| run-flat tires are a thing.
|
| I get where you're coming from. People in the US mostly
| don't put in time to learn the ins and outs of vehicle
| maintenance. They want turnkey personalized transit and
| turnkey maintenance. I've just accepted that as the state
| of how things are.
| greiskul wrote:
| Welcome to the Brazilianization of the world
| (https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/05/the-
| brazilianizat...).
|
| As social inequality increases, people with more money start
| being able to afford services much more easily. Do you think
| British nobility used to vaccuum their own homes? Ask someone
| with money how the Brazilian upper middle class used to live.
| Or ask people in India.
|
| Doctors can afford to have people to clean up their houses,
| to cook their food, everything.
| devilbunny wrote:
| I'm a doctor. I'm married to a doctor. We have no children.
| We have a once a week housekeeper who does some laundry and
| puts up the dishes and vacuums the place. We do not have a
| cook, unless you mean ordering takeout.
|
| Medicine pays well, but it's all W2 or 1099, not something
| like getting stock and long term capital gains.
| greiskul wrote:
| Sorry, I did not mean doctors in North America. But if
| you go to rural Brazil, or to India, that's the living
| style that many doctors can and do afford.
| iamthirsty wrote:
| The interesting thing is, I've seen a pervasive view on HN
| of high-income people doing this, and being proud of it.
| Trading their money for time (sounds backwards, I know),
| but by having the most mundane aspects of life done by
| others, they get to do more meaningful things with their
| time.
|
| I personally am of the low-income, do-as-much-myself-as-
| possible and pinch every penny crowd. But HN has always
| seemed to me to be the opposite, given it's well over
| average income skew.
| ambicapter wrote:
| > Trading their money for time (sounds backwards, I know)
|
| How does this sound backwards for you?
| lordfrito wrote:
| Part of this is reprioritization as you get older. The
| old saying:
|
| _When I was young I had time but no money._
|
| _Now that I am old I have money but no time._
|
| Like you, I did a lot myself when I was young/poor,
| pinched pennies etc.
|
| It got me to the point where I was successful. Now that I
| am older I value the things I am running out of time to
| do. So the money is well spent on maximizing my time
| left.
| convolvatron wrote:
| I question whether the time 'saved' is really put to
| better use than learning how to interact more deeply with
| the world around you, and giving yourself more direct
| agency.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > I'm not talking brake jobs
|
| A disk brake job is an almost ideal first DIY repair IMO. It
| _seems_ daunting and risky, but there 's fairly little chance
| that someone who is trying to do a good job will end up with
| a brake job that, undetected, leaves the car unsafe. (There
| is a higher chance you'll somewhere get stuck unable to
| complete it or need to ask for help, but that's not a safety
| issue.)
| robocat wrote:
| > A gift also feels like a burden has been handed to me
|
| Many people selfishly give obligations as gifts - often small
| things where the purpose is to be a placeholder for remembering
| them. also see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tchotchke
|
| Personally I try to give consumable items or give experiences
| (that are high quality or rare or have other specialness) I
| recently bought 27kg of good bush honey, and have been giving
| it to friends - but aiming for zero social obligation: so far
| everyone has been very happy to get some - but it is really
| good honey and there are colds going around at the moment
| (winter in New Zealand)
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Does honey actually help with illness? Except perhaps for
| moderate anti-bacterial effects of certain strains of honey.
| thrashh wrote:
| I don't think there is a right call. You just have to live the
| life that you've been handed and the adapt accordingly.
|
| It'd suck if no one knew how to repair anything, but it'd also
| suck if everyone repaired everything all the time. But we have
| both and it makes society a little more vibrant.
|
| That said, I repair some things and don't others. "Is it worth
| my time?" is what I ask, and not purely from a financial
| dimension -- also from an enjoyment aspect.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| Is AI solving this already?
| j245 wrote:
| On the subject of paying twice, it's always irked me that we have
| income tax and then sales tax on the taxed income.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Look at it from the viewpoint of someone with sufficient
| wealth: income taxes are wonderful, because they only apply to
| _realised_ income. (and there is a whole cottage industry
| devoted to ways to cumulate gains without realising income)
| reverius42 wrote:
| In the U.S., it is at least possible to avoid such double
| taxation (but only in some situations -- i.e. you were
| itemizing anyway instead of taking the standard deduction, and
| you live in a state with no income tax).
| https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/...
| mcv wrote:
| I'm (Dutch) self-employed, which means I have my own one-man
| company, and as such, I can get my VAT back for stuff I buy
| for my business. Of course I also have to charge VAT for my
| services again, so that's expected to include the VAT for the
| stuff I bought.
|
| But it does create a massive tax loophole: because I'm a
| software developer, I can deduct the costs of any computer I
| buy, but nobody is checking whether I actually use it for
| work or for gaming. I can deduct work lunches, but employees
| can't. I know someone who deducted his motorbike because he
| also used it for work. I can deduct phone and internet costs
| because I also use them for work.
|
| I find the way I can avoid some taxes that others can't,
| rather questionable. Frankly, everybody should have their own
| company to avoid this inequality. And the stuff I can deduct
| is small potatoes compared to the stuff I'm sure some other
| people are deducting. I'm no tax expert, but I'm sure this is
| a big part of why billionaires pay so little tax.
|
| Also, companies on the edge of the health care system have a
| problem, because health care is VAT free, so health care
| companies cannot get the VAT back they have to pay to their
| suppliers, which makes suppliers of services to the
| healthcare industry effectively more expensive than they
| should be. I think this whole system is in dire need of an
| overhaul.
| gizmo wrote:
| You'll find you're not the first person who has discovered
| that you can cheat on your taxes by expensing personal
| purchases and by deducting things you are explicitly not
| allowed to deduct. The government's inability to cheaply
| audit people like you means you won't get in trouble. Your
| gut feeling that "it's questionable" is right. Accountants
| lie about what deductions are allowed because they know the
| way to get happy customers is by producing tax savings,
| even where none exist. Just look up the tax laws for
| yourself and you'll find that the "massive loophole"
| doesn't exist.
| mcv wrote:
| But this isn't even cheating; this is stuff I am allowed
| to deduct. My accountant keeps bringing them up, and he's
| not the kind to cheat on this stuff. Other clients of his
| have been audited and received compliments for how well
| their stuff was in order. There are apparently very good
| reasons why this can be deducted. If the massive loophole
| doesn't exist, it's because it works as intended and is
| not a loophole at all, but to me it feels like a very
| grey area, because I don't think employees can't deduct
| all of this stuff.
|
| And I'm certainly not going to look up tax laws; that's
| exactly what I'm paying my accountant for.
| gizmo wrote:
| Your accountant is 100% wrong. If you buy a computer and
| use it 20% for work and 80% for hobby stuff or gaming
| then you can deduct it for 20%. That's the law. This
| takes 30 seconds to google and your refusal to do so is
| mystifying because your accountant isn't liable for
| filing your taxes wrong, you are.
|
| Your accountant keeps bringing deductions up because he
| wants you to feel he's worth his fees. That's why
| literally every accountant I've ever worked with has told
| me that "a good accountant pays for himself". Accountants
| compete with each other based on how much they can lower
| your tax bill. So yes, of course they'll help you make
| unlawful tax deductions. Tax audits are really expensive
| so the government only punishes those people who are the
| most shameless tax cheats. Everybody else only gets a
| warning or a small fine. The accountant knows this. But
| that doesn't mean lesser tax fraud is OK.
| MrPatan wrote:
| Yes, and I'll do you one better: everybody should have
| their own company and there should be no "employee" option.
| Everything should be contracts. Makes it clearer it's not a
| family relationship, it's business.
| mcv wrote:
| I would really like to see sales tax replaced by a tax on the
| resources used for the product. It would be more complicated,
| but also a lot more just.
| sergioisidoro wrote:
| I think it's thrice: Acquiring price, usage price, and disposal
| price.
|
| I've recently discovered how large the price of getting rid of
| something can be. Usually these costs are hidden because you just
| throw something into the trash and it's gone. But not always the
| case.
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| > and disposal price
|
| Case in point, Adobe Creative Cloud. Never have I encountered
| more anti-consumer behavior. For yearly subscriptions they only
| allow you to "not continue subscribing for another year" during
| a brief window of time right before your renewal date.
|
| Mind you, I'm not talking about cancelling the service and
| backing out of obligations that you've agreed to, I'm talking
| about Adobe engineering a situation in which they implicitly
| assume that you want to continue being a customer, while
| removing the ability for you to tell them that you no longer
| wish to be a customer.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Yes. Enlightened capability lifecycles include 'disposal' at
| the end. There may be fairly obvious costs such as disposal of
| e-waste, but other activities such as thinking about how to
| reuse infrastructure, resources and people who are associated
| with the thing being disposed of.
| firebirdn99 wrote:
| Yes, there is a cost of ownership attached to physical objects.
| As a person who's moved around a bit in the last year, I can
| attest to that.
| q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote:
| Toss in a fourth: maintenance price.
|
| Maybe even a fifth: storage price.
|
| Funny enough, I actually have noticed this with my books. More
| books require more bookshelves. More bookshelves require more
| real estate. It's a straight-line arrow of causation from
| picking up a copy of _Moby Dick_ to house-shopping for a place
| large enough where I can have my own private library.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| In capitalist America, stuff owns you.
| lisper wrote:
| Yeah, this.
|
| A few years ago we bought a generator. A few months after the
| warranty expired, it broke. There are no small-engine repair
| shops in my area, and it's too big to fit in my car anyway.
| Having someone come to our house to repair it would cost more
| than buying a new one. But... how do you get rid of a broken
| generator? It weighs 45 kg and it has four gallons of gasoline
| in the tank. You can't just chuck it in the trash.
|
| (FYI, I decided to take it apart and was actually able to get
| it running again. It turned out to be an easy fix -- broken
| fuel valve. But success was far from guaranteed, and it also
| took several hours of my time, which probably cost me more than
| a new generator. On the other hand, I also learned a lot so
| maybe it was a net win. How do you reckon time vs money vs
| knowledge?)
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| > On the other hand, I also learned a lot so maybe it was a
| net win. How do you reckon time vs money vs knowledge?
|
| You need to decide for yourself what is more valuable to you.
| jventura wrote:
| > (...) and it also took several hours of my time, which
| probably cost me more than a new generator.
|
| I do a lot of repairs and maintenance at my own house. Last
| year I built a terrace and an extra room, and only had to pay
| someone to help me, and this week I painted the all house
| exterior with the help of my dad. Total costs of painting and
| entire house: 240EUR. It would cost north of 2000EUR if I had
| to pay someone to do it.
|
| Yes, my "hourly rate" for that kind of work is sometimes much
| less than my "regular" work. But I can fix many things, don't
| need to go find "credible" people to do things for me, I fell
| an immense pleasure to be self-sustainable (for that kind of
| things), learn a lot; and my house, cars, electronics, are
| mostly in top shape.
| bombcar wrote:
| The "hourly rate" argument is a bit slippery; you didn't
| _stop working (and being paid)_ to fix your generator, and
| unless you could have spent those hours _being paid_ (hard
| for many people to do) you only "lost" the hourly rate you
| _could have gotten_ , which is often much lower than your
| current work hourly rate.
| thworp wrote:
| While I appreciate and share the DIY spirit, some doubts
| have been creeping in recently.
|
| Firstly, in most cases we are just DIY'ing the final
| "craftsman" step of the work, we still depend on the
| materials being available.
|
| Second, if more and more people that actually care about
| work quality go DIY it leaves people who can't or won't be
| as involved. Over time unscrupulous tradespeople will take
| over the market.
| mantas wrote:
| On top of that, would you earn your usual rate for that
| time?
|
| I wouldn't work saturday afternoon anyway because my head
| is already useless for programming. So I do need to change
| line-of-work somehow. I can either go for a walk and learn
| something about nature. Or I can self-repair something and
| learn something about construction.
|
| Of course spending all free time on self-repairs would be
| exhausting. But I don't feel like lying on a couch entire
| weekend either.
| Tyr42 wrote:
| I got a young little one, so I've actually needed to take
| some Mondays off to finish some of the home repair tasks.
| It's not like I can go around with a hammer while he is
| trying to nap.
|
| So it is more comparable with the work rates, since I do
| not have a lot time time to tinker
| jventura wrote:
| > On top of that, would you earn your usual rate for that
| time?
|
| This is the key! I do these kind of things on my spare
| time!
|
| On my spare time I could (1) do nothing; (2) try to cram
| more screen time into my life, and give the money earned
| to someone to do my repairs for me or; (3) do some things
| by myself, learn while doing it, and feel like a super-
| human that can control is own life (well, some of it). I
| prefer number 3!
| madsbuch wrote:
| It is quite interesting to calculate the true cost of doing
| things itself.
|
| In Denmark the tax system is such that if you subcontract
| out of personal money they need to be 5 times fast than
| you.
|
| If we say that you can make your deck in half the time a
| professional would have don it, the factor is still 2.5x.
|
| Ig. assuming a contractor would do it for 50 USD/h, this
| would translate to "making" 125 USD on hour by doing it
| yourself, 250 USD/h if you know what you are doing.
|
| Obviously these things change with tax regimes.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This is a clever observation thats poorly phrased.
| mithras wrote:
| I have the same thing, I feel these high income taxes
| force me to do repairs and home improvement myself
| because the converted hourly is higher than my own
| generous contracting rate.
| imtringued wrote:
| That is what taxes on trade do, they make trade more
| expensive. This is why income taxes are counterproductive
| but they are easy to calculate and enforce so governments
| rely on them.
| Shaanie wrote:
| I'd like to see the math for your calculations here, I
| suspect something is a bit iffy. As an example I'll use
| Swedish taxes which should be comparable to Danish ones.
|
| If we assume I'm a contractor charging $100 per hour and
| take the cash as salary:
|
| (100/1.3142) * 0.5 = $38 left after payroll tax and the
| top income tax rate (50%).
|
| So if I'm just as fast and good as a professional, the
| professional needs to charge $38 per hour or less for it
| to be worth it. But in reality, a professional is
| probably _at least_ 2x as fast as me, making it $76. That
| 's probably less than they charge, so it's worth paying
| for a professional.
| madsbuch wrote:
| The person you contract _also_ pays income tax on the
| amount. So you need to doubly add the tax.
|
| Then you also need to add some cost of doing business.
|
| Said in another way: The 100SEK you earn becomes 25SEK
| the contract can use (assuming 50% tax rate) - that's the
| first factor of 4. The last factor can be found in the
| details.
| Shaanie wrote:
| I think that's a logical error; I don't care about how
| much the contractor makes after tax, I only care what the
| cost to me is.
|
| After all, if the contractor had some strange anomaly
| where he pays 100% of his income in tax, why would that
| matter to you?
| madsbuch wrote:
| On the contrary: My initial statement had nothing to do
| with price negotiation. All I was trying to assert was
| how the tax implications are when you do something
| yourself vs. when you subcontract.
|
| Do it yourself: Miss out on that hours worth of salary
|
| Subcontract: 2 times tax is paid.
|
| Obviously this has implications on negotiation. This is
| exactly the reason why services are considered very
| expensive in the Nordics (as in 80USD to get your hair
| cut).
|
| Note that this needs to be compared with a company
| getting their stuff fixed. Their contractor costs are
| fully deducted from their income.
| Shaanie wrote:
| The contractors tax situation is irrelevant to you. The
| only thing that matters is income vs expenditure. Or in
| this situation, "how many hours do I have to work to pay
| the contractor's hourly fee?" and "how much faster is the
| contractor?". The tax stuff are just details around this.
|
| In my example, a contractor who's twice as fast needs to
| cost $76 or less per hour . Thrice as fast is $114 or
| less.
|
| You're right in principle though, just not on that
| calculation. In Sweden we have tax deductions for private
| citizens exactly to combat this issue: up to a certain
| amount per year can be deducted from your income, just
| like a company can, for certain services (such as
| cleaning or house repairs).
| flushit wrote:
| Relevant:
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZpDnRCeef2CLEFeKM/money-
| the-...
|
| (Also discussed recently on HN.)
| detourdog wrote:
| Are there tax implications to doing the work? I don't
| understand the need to do the caculation.
| madsbuch wrote:
| No, but you pay an average of 40% income tax, 25% VAT,
| 150% on cars (+ 25% VAT) and the European gasoline tax.
| The result is that the tax system disincentivizes these
| types of transactions when you can not deduct the costs
| in your personal tax bill.
|
| Said in another way: you don't pay income tax when you
| paint your own house.
| detourdog wrote:
| Got it the formula is to figure out the tax reduction for
| doing one's own labor at an established rate.
| madsbuch wrote:
| This is interesting, do you have some resources on this?
| (Sorry, I am just a computer scientist with an interest
| in economics, so I don't know the established theories)
| detourdog wrote:
| My outsider view is the desire to account for all labor
| output. If the labor of painting one's own house goes un-
| accounted for it distorts the view of the current state
| of the economy.
| bartvk wrote:
| What I found out, is that it takes a painter team two days,
| and it takes an untrained single person two weeks.
|
| I once wasted my whole holiday on painting the house. And
| it wasn't well done, because it was my first time. I'll
| probably not do it again, unless I don't have other work.
| bloak wrote:
| What I've found is that it's very often worth doing your
| own painting, but if you need carpets laying or walls
| tiled, then get a professional, because the professionals
| are awe-inspiringly fast and do a better job.
| ghaff wrote:
| The thing with painting--at least interior/trim/etc.--is
| that it'd 1.) Not that hard; 2.) You do it repeatedly so
| it's not the usual: Do it once poorly and never do it
| again; and 3.) If you're touching up something already
| painted, you can probably take some shortcuts a
| professional won't.
| jventura wrote:
| > I once wasted my whole holiday on painting the house.
| And it wasn't well done, because it was my first time.
| I'll probably not do it again, unless I don't have other
| work.
|
| If you would have to do it again, would you do the same
| errors, and the paint job would turn out equal? Or would
| you do better second time?
|
| That is why I never painted an entire house before having
| painted a bedroom at least one time. And I've never
| painted a bedroom before I painted a small piece of
| furniture at least one time. One needs to learn
| gradually, hopefully with someone who knows how to do
| things. Last year I built a terrace and room with the
| (paid) help of a contractor. I started just carrying the
| trash, then breaking things, then putting cement of the
| walls, etc. etc. Now I can quite complex things by
| myself..
|
| The key is to do things gradually..
| burnished wrote:
| When considering your own wages per hour it can be helpful to
| consider whether you could have converted those hours into
| those wages or if that avenue is already saturated.
|
| For example if you are an employee and establish your rate
| that way, you probably can't work more to get more anyway.
|
| So repairing things for yourself is just cream on top in that
| case.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I dunno about there, but here you can just put it at the curb
| in front of your house and someone is bound to come along and
| pick it up, even if only to scrap it for the metal.
| lisper wrote:
| I surely could have done that. The reason I didn't is that
| I live in a place where some people leave old cars out in
| their yards for years, and so I had no assurances that
| whoever picked the generator up would do something
| reasonable with it.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I add an additional component: the embedded energy that was
| saved by not purchasing a new generator. To me it better
| reflects the real effort put into making something.
|
| Labour in the west is much more expensive than energy, so
| it's only natural that your time was worth more than a new
| unit.
|
| But that's an accident of geography and politics. Someone in
| a poor country, in the same line of work that you're in,
| might actually break even on this.
|
| I believe there's value in this sort of self-sufficiency.
| Especially considering that, as recent years have shown,
| we're one global supply chain breakdown or war away from
| plain unavailability of some goods.
| titzer wrote:
| I'm glad you took time to fix it. Owning things is almost a
| debt to keep them running. Stack this experience many times
| over and behold how valuable simple, robust machines (like a
| metal pair of scissors!) are so much better than complex
| software things or plastic throwaway crap. (That metal pair
| of scissors could literally last until the end of your life!)
| hnick wrote:
| The first few plumbing jobs I did myself were a net loss from
| time, tools, materials. But I've made it up since then. Also,
| I think it's not always direct - tinkering with the car has
| made me more confident in plumbing and vice versa. A few
| years of that and I was happy to install my own dishwasher.
|
| So for me, I'll always spend time on this sort of stuff if
| it's within my reach to do a decent job.
|
| As far as disposal goes... yeah, most stuff I sell on
| Marketplace or Gumtree would be a net loss after wasting time
| dealing with people (and scammers, who belong in their own
| category). But I hate to have things I used and enjoyed just
| die alone in landfill.
| etrautmann wrote:
| Yep - there's a very real benefit for me of the
| satisfaction of having something reused. It's a deep seated
| sense that this is the way. It's worth the time for me to
| find a new home for many things.
| bombcar wrote:
| The other nice thing about doing it yourself is you can do
| it _better than right_ - a plumber will fix your pipes up
| to code and it 'll work just well, but unless you
| explicitly ask, he won't do things like add new access
| doors, make it accessible in the future, etc.
| midoridensha wrote:
| >it also took several hours of my time, which probably cost
| me more than a new generator.
|
| Not necessarily. It depends on the job and other factors. How
| much time does it take to find a competent person to hire?
| And what if you fail, and they do a bad job; how much time
| does it take you to deal with the situation and fix it (or do
| you end up paying twice, once for the bad job and again for
| someone else to redo it)? Do you need to be on-site to
| supervise them (so they don't steal stuff)? That's more of
| your time. If it's something portable or that needs to be
| transported to the professional, how much time and money does
| that cost?
| Shaanie wrote:
| I suspect it's _way_ more likely that you 'd do a bad job
| yourself and need to hire a professional to fix it.
| jtode wrote:
| I used to read all the time, see videos, "you should learn to
| deal with small engines," but for decades I just leaned on my
| farm-raised friend when I couldn't get a thing started. Then
| I moved out of the city and came to a morning when I needed
| to blow my driveway, the blower wouldn't start, and basically
| I had no choice but to figure it out.
|
| Solution: find a very thin pin and ream out the buildup in
| the carburetor, and all the steps leading up to being able to
| do that. The sense of personal (horse)power I felt after
| reviving that engine was palpable.
|
| It's funny cause now, just based on that experience, I'm not
| saying I'm an expert, but I am saying if I encounter any
| small engine that won't start I will eagerly start trying to
| figure it out. It looks fun now. The brain is weird.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just this weekend, I ran into a different situation. I've
| owned battery powered equipment for 5 or 6 years now using
| the original batteries. They are interchangeable, and have
| served me well...until this weekend. The battery will no
| longer hold a charge and the charger light blinking pattern
| indicates there are problems with the battery. How do you
| self-repair that?
|
| Funny thing, the replacement batteries are much larger in
| capacity now, but the price of a single replacement battery
| is the same cost of a new powered tool. So, I wound up
| getting a new tool that I didn't have with a new battery. I
| have a few LiPo batteries for my cinema camera gear that
| have died as well. I'm going to try to find someone that
| can just replace the batteries packs inside the custom
| housing.
| ramses0 wrote:
| Corded tools, my friend. Corded tools, a few good
| extension cords (and a pluggable reel), good hand tools,
| small/dumb tools with AA/AAA rechargeable batteries.
|
| Very few exceptions to this rule for me, and I generally
| avoid anything with a Micro-USB charger like the plague
| if I can, as I can't help but see it becoming e-Waste in
| 3-5 years.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Take the battery case apart and see which cell is
| tripping the protection circuit?
| dylan604 wrote:
| working with LiPo battery packs just isn't my thing
| though. I've taken apart the camera battery and can
| clearly see the type of batteries in it, but they are all
| glued together in the shape to fit the case. Maybe I'm a
| just a wuss, but trying to disassemble the pack without
| piercing a cell is a bit more than I am willing to risk
| at this time. I'm hoping paying someone with that skill
| to make the replacement will still be cheaper than buying
| new. ~$400 for a 14.8V 98Wh 12A max battery.
| bombcar wrote:
| Reminds me of all the computer manuals from the 80s that
| would say something like "YOU CANNOT HURT THE COMPUTER BY
| USING IT - if you get confused, turn it off and back on".
| titzer wrote:
| Omg, I am reminded about daily that there are buttons all
| over every UI that you absolutely do not want to push.
| We're constantly three wrong clicks from completely
| ruining an app/your data/the entire OS/your entire disk.
| And it seems like UIs are constantly violating this:
|
| https://www.nngroup.com/articles/proximity-consequential-
| opt...
| lisper wrote:
| Except with a gasoline-powered generator you can do some
| serious damage if you're not careful. Gasoline is no
| joke.
| jtode wrote:
| Could take a finger off with a snowblower too, I get
| nervous when I change out shear pins even with the
| starter key in my hand. You gotta have a sense of
| yourself obviously.
| BizarreByte wrote:
| Disconnect the spark plug, it should be easy to access.
|
| That way you can be 100% sure it's fine if you're
| concerned.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| To paraphrase my father-in-law: paper is flammable, gas
| is combustible; most people don't figure out that
| difference until too late...
| BizarreByte wrote:
| It's no joke, but it's also not a big risk if you have
| some common sense and work in a well ventilated space.
|
| We really shouldn't discourage people from trying to fix
| thins because of fear.
| lisper wrote:
| I don't disagree with your overall sentiment, but working
| safely with gasoline requires a lot more than just
| ventilation. In my case, I was fixing a fuel valve, which
| turns out to be fraught with all manner of peril. I was
| very lucky in that I had a neighbor who has experience
| working with ICEs looking over my shoulder. Without that
| it would have been very dicey.
| BizarreByte wrote:
| I mean generally in that case I would simply drain the
| tank into a gas can, pinching off the line if I had to
| while disconnecting it from the carburetor. After that it
| would be pretty trivial.
|
| If you need to try a repair again checkout YouTube, the
| small engine guys on there are really, really good.
| They've got tricks even I'd never heard of before.
| lisper wrote:
| Yes, of course. But that's because you know what you're
| doing. Someone who didn't know what they were doing could
| end up with a puddle of gas on the floor, which could
| then turn into a cloud of gasoline vapor, which could
| then turn into a bomb if they dropped a wrench the wrong
| way.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| You are really determined to make the point that caution
| is warranted, but shouldn't all adults know that?
| pseg134 wrote:
| Haha get over yourself, your time is worthless.
| lisper wrote:
| Not to me it isn't.
| mongol wrote:
| Knowledge is valuable. Just knowing you could fix this gives
| you confidence next time when something else breaks. But I
| also think it has an intrinsic value. It just feels good to
| learn. Compared with just, for example, entertainment, I
| usually prefer to learn. One could ask, what is the marginal
| cost of viewing Netflix. The monthly cost is one thing. But
| what could you have done with your time instead?
| lisper wrote:
| > what could you have done with your time instead?
|
| Improve my HN karma.
|
| ;-)
| geomark wrote:
| Another benefit of knowing how to do it yourself is that if
| opt to hire someone to do it you can better assess their
| work.
|
| Also, if you have kids who learn along with you the value is
| multiplied.
| intelVISA wrote:
| > it also took several hours of my time, which probably cost
| me more than a new generator
|
| Don't forget to also factor in the hidden cost of depriving
| the CS field of many great works during said hours which is
| incalculable imo.
| lisper wrote:
| :-)
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| My friend has been making some rather major purchases lately,
| such as a portable air conditioner and a portable generator.
| She is elderly, retired, and lives with a younger fellow
| who's technically inclined. She's trying to hedge her bets
| around an inept landlord, bad house wiring and an unstable
| grid, and air conditioning that constantly breaks at
| inopportune times during the summer.
|
| But I kept telling her that she doesn't want these complex
| mechanical things hanging around. I tried to impress on her (
| _pace_ Technology Connections) how abysmal that air
| conditioner is going to be. I also tried to explain to her
| that if she gets a generator, she 'll have to maintain it and
| fire it up once in a while, and that will not be easy. I
| explained that I have at least one other friend who decided
| that owning a truck and an inverter was way easier, because
| the truck has wheels that you can use to drive it around, the
| truck is easily maintained by the auto shop on the corner,
| and the truck will provide plenty of power just the same as
| the generator.
|
| She really has a prepper streak, though, and I couldn't talk
| her out of it, especially after the sales lady got talking to
| her. She doesn't have a car and her roommate doesn't drive
| either, so I don't know how they'll transport/maintain these
| machines, but oh well.
| Our_Benefactors wrote:
| I like my standing air conditioner dammit. I can just roll
| it in the corner on the off season and don't need to
| carefully clear a path to the storage closet and practice
| proper lifting form just to avoid injury using it. And it
| doesn't have a chance to drip water everywhere when I take
| it out once a year.
| nradov wrote:
| Come on, what you were suggesting was ridiculous and not a
| serious alternative. Buying and maintaining a truck is way
| more expensive than even multiple portable air conditioners
| and generators.
|
| Furthermore, only expensive late model trucks even have
| high capacity inverters built in that are capable of
| running a separate air conditioner. The little portable
| inverters that plug into a 12V vehicle outlet can only do
| about 150W.
| int0x2e wrote:
| You're right that a generator must be taken care of, but a
| truck with an inverter is very different from a generator
| if you plan to power something significant. The
| truck+inverter will probably keep your fridge and lights
| running, but can't power your whole house unless you get an
| oversized aftermarket alternator, which will cost more than
| the generator probably will (aftermarket car parts aren't
| cheap).
| lisper wrote:
| I am constantly dismayed that there aren't more electric
| and PHEVs that are set up to serve as backup power
| supplies. It seems like such a simple and obvious thing to
| do. With a big enough network of these we could solve a big
| part of the storage problem for sustainable energy
| technologies.
| Etrnl_President wrote:
| [dead]
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The hard part is that car batteries have limited cycles
| before they must be replaced at HUGE cost. For personal
| backup during power outages it would work, but I have a
| hard time believing that many car owners would be willing
| to put the wear and tear on their battery.
| xanderstrike wrote:
| EVs use more than an average home's entire daily
| electricity budget to go 50 miles. In an emergency you
| could run your lights, fridge, and water heater for weeks
| on an EV battery. It's really not much wear and tear.
|
| Cars are an immensely inefficient platform.
| qup wrote:
| It would have been incredibly easy to get rid of this by
| listing it on any online marketplace "free for pickup". There
| are hundreds of guys who know that many of these will have a
| simple fix and they get a free generator for a few hours'
| time. And many other guys who might pull parts or get various
| other uses out of it.
|
| I still think it was the right call to give it a shot. Save
| my uncle and myself, nobody I know will try to repair
| anything themselves.
| bombcar wrote:
| My preferred disposal method of anything that I think has
| some value is to post it "free for pickup" or if it's a
| real hot thing (like cut up logs from a tree felling) just
| put them on the grass strip between the sidewalk and the
| street - the universal "free" location.
| positr0n wrote:
| I usually list it for $5. Free seems to attract too many
| high maintenance or scary customers.
| bombcar wrote:
| I don't even put a phone number or anything resembling an
| address, just "drive down this street and if you see it,
| take it".
| [deleted]
| BizarreByte wrote:
| > How do you reckon time vs money vs knowledge?
|
| You don't, constantly comparing time to money is a bad way to
| live.
|
| If you learned something, tried something new, and maybe even
| enjoyed it? That's good enough.
| cramjabsyn wrote:
| > How do you reckon time vs money vs knowledge?
|
| Well in an emergency scenario (what generators are for
| generally) the troubleshooting/repair knowledge you gained
| will be invaluable
| rypskar wrote:
| >>How do you reckon time vs money vs knowledge?
|
| Don't forget the value of the satisfaction from having fixed
| something yourself and how good fixing stuff helps with
| recovering after spending hours in front of a computer
| doubled112 wrote:
| This is so true.
|
| My wife doesn't understand how I spend my whole day
| complaining about fixing things (sys admin) for work then
| seem genuinely happy to work on a car, bike, random
| electronic thing, etc.
|
| Completely different.
|
| On the selfish side, I might actually get to enjoy what I
| fix at home.
|
| On the brains are funny side, anything physical hits
| different. Turning a wrench, busting knuckles, burning
| myself triggers a satisfaction a screen does not.
|
| I'm not a masochist either. Why is a soldering iron so hard
| to hold? Probably a me problem.
|
| All those skills transfer around too.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| > _it also took several hours of my time, which probably cost
| me more than a new generator._
|
| I started rebelling against the idea of "I might as well buy
| a new one". The way I see it, if (say) my phone screen breaks
| I have two choices: I spend $150 fixing it, or I spend $150
| buying a new phone. In either case I end up with a working
| phone, but the second case has generated one phone worth of
| electronic garbage.
| gowld wrote:
| Your old phone is closer to wearing out, though.
| [deleted]
| shostack wrote:
| Others have added additional prices that must be paid after the
| fact for maintenance, and storage.
|
| I'd offer another that has to be paid before the price in
| money:
|
| Research cost.
|
| Increasingly I don't need "things." I need the best/right
| "thing" for the job. And for hobbies or high cost/risk
| purchases (think car, house, big dollar contracts) I find I
| need to invest substantial time into researching my problem and
| then my options for solutions, which takes lots of my time.
| Because the cost of getting it wrong often means even more
| time, money, and headaches that I don't want to deal with, I
| sometimes find myself over indexing on the up front part to
| avoid the pain of getting it wrong.
|
| In many cases the cost of time invested eclipses the cost of
| the object because the cost of the time to remedy it is more
| than the cost of replacing it.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| This makes me think of how much time it can take me to find
| clothes that fit the way I really want them to fit. I thought
| about it when I almost lost my luggage the other day, that
| yes it would annoy me to lose that much money in the first
| price of the clothes, but how much time/energy did I put into
| the finding of those clothes?
| npteljes wrote:
| This can be nuanced into infinity though. For example, the
| "first price" is not the first either. I usually spend good
| time looking for a good deal, a trusty device, or something to
| consume, before paying the "first price".
|
| So for the sake of simplicity, and to invoke thought, I think
| the two prices are good enough.
| imtringued wrote:
| Please don't bring transaction costs into play, you might
| ruin the beautiful neoclassical models.
|
| If money saves transaction costs, then it can't be neutral.
| The introduction of money becomes an essential part of the
| economy. It's not like there are good alternatives to money.
|
| Don't think this further and wonder if interest is just a
| monetization of the transaction cost savings. Then it would
| turn out that interest payments negate the benefits of the
| division of labor entirely.
| charlysisto wrote:
| And maybe we should mention the elephant in the room : the
| environmental price
| larrysalibra wrote:
| Hong Konger here:
|
| Or four times: Acquisition price, usage price, storage price,
| and disposal price
|
| Hong Konger who rents here:
|
| Or five times: Acquisition price, usage price, storage price,
| moving price and disposal price
| mbg721 wrote:
| My dad used to tell me a hierarchy of satisfaction in the
| context of home-ownership: buying > replacing > repairing >
| painting > cleaning. I think disposal is probably just after
| buying.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| For me that would be:
|
| repairing >> replacing > buying ...
|
| I'm not sure where maintenance fits, I guess that's what
| "painting" is.
| flushit wrote:
| And that's why buying cheap is often really not the best
| choice.
|
| If I have the option to choose between two gadgets, the
| acquiring prince of one may be far less (assuming lower quality
| and everything else equal) and even usage is kinda the same,
| modulo a bit of frustration if the lower-quality thing is not
| as smooth to use, but if it breaks, then cheap stuff tends to
| be harder if not impossible to repair, and if you can't fix it
| then you need to dispose of it _and_ possibly get a
| replacement.
|
| Too much hassle. If I have the money, I optimize for quality
| above everything else.
|
| (Sadly, since manufacturers know this, the premium quality
| version usually costs disproportionally more cause market --
| I'm ok with paying more. Not just a bit more, but much more.)
| dsego wrote:
| Often times the problem is figuring out the price-quality
| ratio from the signals, eg. brand, design, materials,
| advertising, price. Sometimes, it's deceptive, and an
| expensive gadget that feels premium isn't necessarily the one
| that will best serve its purpose or that is most durable.
| SpacePortKnight wrote:
| Cheap does not always mean lower quality. It's more expensive
| to repair an iPhone 14 pro than to buy a mid-range android
| for example.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| tapland wrote:
| That also goes for software (like notetaking apps or using a
| certain build system).
|
| How easy is exporting the data you care about if you want or
| have to change platform? Not seldom it's so labor intensive
| you'll never migrate to something better.
| paradox242 wrote:
| This is why I cannot use things like Evernote, OneNote, or
| the MacOS Notes app. I have first-hand experience of the
| latter two encountering corruption which was unrecoverable
| due to their proprietary data format. All three have pretty
| poor export choices (PDF? Really? What am I supposed to do
| with that?). I am at the point where I will never again use
| something that is not plain text files as they are and will
| likely remain the most portable format.
|
| This is how I ended up discovering Obsidian and I have not
| looked back since.
| yboris wrote:
| re: _disposal price_
|
| I think you're right! I wish our society did recycling better.
| In Japan, to get rid of a computer (for example), you don't
| throw it in trash - you must pay a recycler to handle it
| correctly.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I often think about recycling nirvana (mostly for use in sci-
| fi scenarios).
|
| Got a broken doodad? Throw it in the recycler and print a new
| one. 99% of the necessary feedstock ought to come from the
| broken one, so the only costs should be energy and the part
| that failed its tests and had to be replaced. Hopefully it's
| something small like a single capacitor.
|
| There's probably some fundamental limit on how good such a
| system can get. Like, even if you recover 100% of the solder,
| you're going to need new flux every time. Or maybe you fill
| the chamber with argon so you don't need flux, but then how
| much of _that_ can you recover. Or maybe you just leave it
| full of argon, but then how lossy is your doodad-in-out
| mechanism...
| ghaff wrote:
| Some items I've had luck just leaving at the end of my driveway
| with a free sign on. (I'm set back from a busy road.) But,
| yeah, I have a bunch of stuff around my house that I'm
| basically holding onto because getting rid of it would be a
| pain. I actually have a small dumpster which helps some but one
| of these days I'll probably need to get a junk disposal
| service.
| bluetomcat wrote:
| There's also an opportunity cost. The usage of that item takes
| up finite time which could be utilised in alternative ways. The
| acquiring/usage/disposal price of a TV or a gaming console, for
| example, is negligent, compared to the lost opportunities
| during your time with them.
|
| The same argument can be made with regard to finite space. Say
| you are a collector of diecast model cars, but have limited
| space in your house to store them. Acquiring a new model limits
| you from acquiring a potentially more desirable model in the
| future.
| flushit wrote:
| Isn't that part of the "usage" cost? The time I spend reading
| that book I can't spend going surfing. But that's already the
| cost of "using" the book.
| dsego wrote:
| Something that can sadly still been seen widely in ex-yu
| countries is illegal dumping of old furniture and appliances.
| It's common to leave smaller appliances next to garbage
| containers. There are recycling centers being built in cities,
| but a lot of people are unaware and don't know it's their duty
| to properly dispose of items. I believe it's the consumerist
| culture, people are being sold shiny products on shelves, but
| the whole dirty lifecycle is hidden from them. In addition,
| companies producing electronics and appliances should somehow
| participate in disposal, even just by making things easier to
| disassemble and recycle.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > people are unaware and don't know it's their duty to
| properly dispose of items. I believe it's the consumerist
| culture
|
| > companies producing electronics and appliances should
| somehow participate in disposal
|
| The curent approach is fraudulent offloading of
| responsibility.
|
| The only solution is to charge manufacturers and importers
| complete cost of disposal / recycling for a given item. They
| can be asked to provide evidence of recycleability, they can
| be fined for lying. Manufacturers have incentive then, to
| improve recycleavility - costs willvbe lower. This issue
| should be solved between manufacturers and government.
|
| Three reasons why current approach will never work:
|
| 1 - A consumer cannot evaluate suitability of a given item
| for recycling or disposability, that information is only
| avaliable to the manufacturer. A consumer cannot evaluate
| government's ability to recycle - UK has over 100 different
| local authorities and each has different rules for which kind
| of plastic goes where.
|
| 2 - Manufacturers routinely commit fraud - and there is no
| way for consumer to get compensation if they were told
| something is recycleable but 5 years later it turns out it's
| not. Recyclers themselves regularly commits fraud - people
| are told their item was recycled but actually it gets dumped
| in africa. There is currently a system in UK where recyclers
| get paid by government for recycling plastic, they claim they
| recycle 2x as much plastic as exists / gets produced/ is
| imported into UK. A significant portion ends up illegally
| exported to philipines, not recycled.
|
| 3 - Individual disposal is unpoliceable - you can't police
| millions of idividual people. You have to move to policeable
| entities - manufacturers.
| psychoslave wrote:
| Excellent remark, and as you suggest, it's often a hidden cost.
| That might be a cost paid at society level, but the trash
| system does not work without some attention, energy and time.
|
| But there is a deeper topic behind these: what value
| foundations do we use to estimate what comes to our awareness.
| Without valuation judgment, there is no cost and no gain.
|
| For someone putting above all immediate serotonin peaks, an
| endless disposal of affordable first price might be enough.
|
| For someone that is striving to realize some daunting task that
| will catch most of other people in awe, it's obviously mostly
| the second price that will matter: the more expensive the
| better.
|
| For someone driven by a sense of sustainable community of life
| forms, the emphasis will be all on recycling through virtuous
| loops.
|
| Of course I do have my own tropes that one might be guess from
| the way this points where formulated, but I recognize there is
| no absolute true accessible to human beings that will prescribe
| some categorical imperative between them.
| tlb wrote:
| And storage price. Housing in the city is like $40/sqft/year,
| so that plastic playhouse for your kids occupying a 3'x3' patch
| of living room floor gets pretty expensive.
| nradov wrote:
| The worst part is when kindly relatives give your kids huge
| toys, like a doll house or rocking horse. I know they mean
| well but the gift ends up being a burden just due to the
| space it takes up and you can't get rid of it without
| offending the giver.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| > I think it's thrice: Acquiring price, usage price, and
| disposal price.
|
| I'd add a 4th: storage price. Having lived in the city, space
| is at a premium. We have found ourselves unable to go into
| specific (smaller) apartments in the past just because we had
| too much stuff. This goes especially for kitchen items.
| alexalx666 wrote:
| Still using my 30 inch Apple Cinema HD everyday, the design is
| timeless, despite of its size, it blends with the interior like
| no other monitor
| mejutoco wrote:
| Similarly to carbon costs and derivatives, we can go as far back
| as we want (carbon cost since big bang, since factory, or from
| the store) or examine the consequences into the future or
| alternative timelines (opportunity cost).
|
| It is an interesting idea, and a good thought experiment.
|
| If we are going to quantify everything, we could also quantify
| the enjoyment of the item as a negative cost, saving us from
| stress or health or other expenses through its enjoyment. We do
| it with opportunity cost, so why not in the other direction.
|
| In this case, from the top of my head. Buying a book and not
| reading it yet:
|
| - Can provide value by showing that book on my shelf (despicable,
| but true for some)
|
| - Can make me feel good by knowing I am contributing to the
| author income, or by knowing when I am bored I can reach for the
| book without intermediate steps. This benefit is immediate.
|
| - Can be one step in a chain of steps bringing one closer to a
| set goal: preparing to find a new job by learning something
| explained in the book.
|
| - Can help build long lasting beneficial habits like focus or
| language mastery.
|
| - If buying the book in a shop, it can bring opportunities for
| social interaction, that are difficult to quantify.
|
| So the value of buying a book is not necessarily the one
| explained by this model. We can choose other models where the
| book provides "some" value immediately.
|
| IMO what we quantify is not objective, but a reflection of a
| perspective in itself.
| munificent wrote:
| I think this article is a brilliant insight into so much
| unsconscious consumption patterns I see in my own and everyone
| else's lives these days.
|
| Because of plummeting manufacturing costs, we're essentially cash
| rich and time poor. But our habits around purchasing haven't
| caught up with that fact and it's very easy to find yourself only
| calculating the money cost of something when determining if you
| can afford it, without incorporating the time cost too.
|
| I make music and this problem is _endemic_ there where you see
| people with walls of guitars they can barely play and racks of
| synthesizers whose functions they don 't know.
|
| It's _really hard_ to fight against this because marketing is
| constantly trying to downplay the time commitment for stuff to
| get you to buy it.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-06-16 23:02 UTC)