[HN Gopher] Gear Acquisition Syndrome
___________________________________________________________________
Gear Acquisition Syndrome
Author : fhars
Score : 120 points
Date : 2024-08-07 14:32 UTC (8 hours ago)
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| rqtwteye wrote:
| It's a big problem for photographers too. Especially with the
| rapid progress of mirrorless cameras there is always the next
| camera or lens you need to get. I have bought lenses and never
| used them. I have also spent more time on looking for accessories
| for my 3D printer than actually using it.
|
| Not sure how to combat GAS. I feel for people with a full time
| job it somehow compensates for the lack of time working on one's
| hobbies
| frabert wrote:
| My explanation is quite simple: cool toys are cool, and they
| give us the illusion of being better at our hobbies than we
| actually are. I sometimes indulge in some Gear Acquisition too
| -- but I try to be cognizant of the fact that if not done
| carefully, it only leads to a short-term happiness kick which
| quickly leads to another episode of GAS.
| tlhunter wrote:
| On the bright side I sometimes sell used camera gear for more
| than I bought it. A combo body and lens can sell more than the
| items separately if marketed correctly and when including
| sample photos.
|
| That said, I still haven't bought a new camera body.
| ehmmmmmmmm wrote:
| I've been there as well.
|
| In reality 99% of the time you don't need new gear. However
| there is also a delicate balance where a new piece of gear
| makes you excited to go out and do your hobby more and it's
| that going out more than makes you get better at it.
| throwanem wrote:
| I avoid GAS pretty easily by the application of a simple method
| I've developed over years as a hobbyist photographer: Be Aware
| of Non-Optimality. That is, in bearing in mind there is no
| benefit to the expenditure of resources to obtain equipment
| that by itself will not meaningfully improve my practice - and
| too, that having gear I do not use will make me regret its
| purchase, further diverging from an optimal state - I find
| myself no longer with the urge to replace a perfectly
| serviceable DSLR with a mirrorless that may be newer, but is
| not really all that much better at capturing the exposures I
| care to make.
|
| I'm probably not explaining it as well as I might, but I am
| happy nonetheless to say I've found my GAS very reliably cured
| by BeAN-O.
| etrautmann wrote:
| the opposite is also true however. I've been attempting to
| combat GAS by avoiding a home data server. In reality, I've
| been needing a NAS for a number of years and have changed my
| photography practice due to limitations and challenges with
| dealing with extra data. I just solved this and it's been
| liberating.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I solve my photography storage needs by treating SD cards
| as write-once consumables. When a card fills up, I just buy
| another one.
| ta988 wrote:
| Digital Photograph Acquidition Syndrome
| rqtwteye wrote:
| That would get super expensive if you shoot things like
| airshows, birds in flight or sports where you can easily
| shoot 2000 images or more in one day. Or 4K video.
| Retr0id wrote:
| 2000 images fits on about $3 worth of SD card, depending
| on resolution.
|
| Less than the time cost of going through and deciding
| which to delete.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I guess it depends on your equipment. 2000*50MB gets you
| up to 100GB. A decent 128GB card costs you from $20 up. A
| card that's capable of fast bursts can cost around $100.
| porphyra wrote:
| Yeah lmao I spent tens of thousands of dollars on my medium
| format Fujifilm GFX system. It just needs a couple more lenses
| then it will be perfected and I won't have to buy another piece
| of gear ever again!
| hereonout2 wrote:
| > I feel for people with a full time job it somehow compensates
| for the lack of time working on one's hobbies
|
| I identify with this. Have full time job, some disposable
| income, a few hobbies but no real time for them.
|
| This has led to a lot of gear acquisition, buying tools or
| equipment that are beyond my level of expertise and I don't
| have time to make the most of.
|
| I guess there's worse things to burn money on but does feel
| like if I had more time to actually do hobbies I'd discover I
| can get by with far fewer gadgets.
| klodolph wrote:
| Amateur photographers often cover a lot more types of
| photography than pros, which makes GAS even worse.
|
| A pro might specialize in sports photography and buy some nice
| long lenses with fast autofocus. Or they might specialize in
| portraiture and get a nice wide-open 90mm equivalent. Or
| architectural photography, and get a tilt-shift lens.
|
| For some reason, a lot of amateur photographers will dabble in
| many different types of photography, each with their own
| demands on equipment.
| JoelMcCracken wrote:
| I feel this quite a bit. When I was young, I had a ton of time
| and no money to acquire the needed equipment. Now, I finally
| have the money to get basically whatever I need within reason,
| but no time to use it.
|
| I am typically able to resist the urge to succumb to GAS, but I
| don't always. I _still_ have an incomplete atreus
| (http://atreus.technomancy.us/) in my basement; I set it aside
| when I bought a house, and haven't had time to revisit it
| since.
| bborud wrote:
| The good thing about lenses is that if you buy good lenses,
| they usually retain a lot of value, so you can sell them. And
| it isn't like you have to use them all the time. For instance,
| I rarely use my macro lens. And that's okay. But having it
| means that the 1-2 times per year I need it, I have it.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I (partially) sidestep this by buying gear that's already well
| behind the curve.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Not sure how to combat GAS_
|
| What works decently well for me is to avoid advertising like
| the plague. Adblock everything: browser, DNS, anywhere I can do
| it. Disable targeted advertising wherever I can't outright
| block it, if that's an option.
|
| Avoid visiting websites where there's a lot of advertisement
| disguised as news or useful content; often enthusiast websites
| on whatever your hobby is will have a lot of that, so find
| better sites.
|
| Don't watch regular TV with commercials. Only use streaming
| services, and always pay for the ad-free versions. "That's so
| expensive," you say? Not when you consider how much crap you'll
| buy when you're bombarded with advertising all the time.
|
| You can never eliminate all advertising from your life, but the
| less you expose yourself to, the better. Adopt a mindset that
| ads are a form of psychological manipulation (because they
| are), and make yourself hate them. That alone will make you
| somewhat less susceptible to it (or at least I like to think
| so). Be deliberate about purchases. Seek out things that you
| know you want because _you_ want them; don 't buy stuff because
| you saw it featured somewhere.
| dimatura wrote:
| I haven't dabbled much in photography lately, but when I was
| active in it, budget was a strong constraint. These days my GAS
| is mostly for synths and budget is less of a constraint, thanks
| to the full time job you alluded to. I think this phenomenon of
| having money but no time leading to GAS is pretty common, from
| what I've seen. In my case, I often avoid it by challenging
| myself to use whatever I have at hand to try to recreate what
| I'd be getting with the new gear. Its often a fun exercise even
| if I don't succeed.
| NikkiA wrote:
| I'm still on my A7R2, it still works great, and while I
| sometimes wistfully think about the ultrasonic wiggly massive
| resolution mode (700Mpix or something) on the A7R4, I cannot in
| any way justify upgrading.
|
| OTOH, I also bemoan the loss of my 70s OM1n 20 years ago.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Happens for pretty much every hobby with expensive equipment:
| telescopes, bikes, guns, etc.
| awelxtr wrote:
| Chinese retroconsoles aren't that expensive but some
| "collectors" have a serious case of GAS
|
| If you dont believe me check r/SBCgaming
| cwenham wrote:
| I do this for electronics; Parts, Materials and Kit. I don't buy
| PMK because I think it'll make me more skilled, I do it because I
| want to. I have noticed, however, that when I've got something
| physically, and can examine it and play with it, then it becomes
| like a new word in mental vocabulary that I can think with.
| leptons wrote:
| I look at my electronic parts collection like a chef looks at
| their spice rack.
|
| But I'm often a victim of laziness - I just bought some more
| transistors because I couldn't find the transistors of the same
| kind that I know I have somewhere. It's easier to just buy some
| more parts on Amazon and have them delivered tomorrow than it
| would be to search every single place the parts I know I have
| could be. As a result, I have too many electronic parts. I'll
| probably donate some of it to a local high school eventually.
| peppertree wrote:
| Is there a study on the guilt that comes with over acquiring
| gears.
| Swizec wrote:
| There are 3 hobbies:
|
| 1. Doing the thing
|
| 2. Talking about the thing
|
| 3. Nerding about the gear for the thing
|
| Every activity has a mix of all 3 types of folk. It's ok to be in
| it for the gear if that gets your juices flowing. Sellers love
| you.
| rcarmo wrote:
| 3D printing is a mix of 1. and 3., but recursive.
| dce wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEkhJoaUhFI
| pengaru wrote:
| aka consumerism
| kelnos wrote:
| At first glance your comment looks low-effort and flippant, but
| it's really the crux of the matter.
|
| Our economy only works if people buy things. Especially things
| they don't need. Advertising is only getting more and more
| pervasive and intrusive, and our purchasing habits are tracked,
| cataloged, and categorized in order to better market things to
| us.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Me being a guitarist, I probably spent a solid 10 years buying
| and selling guitars. Thousands, literally. Some weeks I'd get a
| guitar in the mail, check it out for an hour, then list it, and
| sell it the same day. I have a friend that goes through the same
| deal with pedals.
|
| Luckily I started experiencing some serious "burnout" - where I
| could no longer feel any dopamine rush from getting new gear. In
| the end I had two good guitars that I played on for 5 years, and
| nothing else - I had little desire to buy something else, but it
| might also have been due to me becoming more interested in other
| things.
|
| Now that I'm building a small home recording studio, I'm starting
| to feel the burn again. And I guess I've had some small relapse
| with the guitars, as I currently have 20 excellent guitars in my
| house...I could, and should, sell everything but a few.
|
| The worst thing is that you stop progressing as a musician,
| because all the buying and selling steals your time and focus.
| create-account wrote:
| Yeah that's the beauty of consumerism. No matter what your
| hobby is, there are hundreds of different leisure products for
| you to acquire and stockpile on top of those of your previous
| hobby (whose accessories you had acquired)
| rcarmo wrote:
| The GAS is real. I'm surrounded by music gadgets that I seldom
| have time (and these days, the proper state of mind) to enjoy,
| and I keep looking (and building) more.
| kimbernator wrote:
| I think every hobby that involves equipment has some version of
| this. I feel like we've been conditioned to believe that
| consumption of a product is equivalent to participation in that
| hobby, mostly because the biggest "reward" we get from it is
| often the appearance of having varied interests and appearing to
| the layman like you know what you're doing because you have the
| "nice" stuff.
|
| Broad strokes, if you don't enjoy doing something with shitty
| gear you probably won't enjoy it with nice gear, either. And if
| you do enjoy it with shitty gear, you should spend enough time
| with said shitty gear to understand why you would need something
| nicer and be thoughtful about your upgrades.
| qup wrote:
| I have a lot of hobbies, and I would say several of them are
| not fun with shitty gear.
|
| Sometimes quality gear makes the entry process far, far less
| painful.
| SonOfLilit wrote:
| One exception is rock climbing. I've been pressuring everyone
| around me to get off of rental shoes already, it makes the
| experience so much less painful and more pleasant...
| Filligree wrote:
| Rock-climbing with shitty gear sounds less like a matter of
| enjoyment, and more like one of survival.
| ip26 wrote:
| The difference between nice and average gear in rock
| climbing is pretty slim. A few grams, smooth action on
| the moving parts... it's also primarily a failsafe, so
| it's inherently obvious that it won't help you climb
| dramatically better, any more than a nicer parachute will
| help you fly a plane better.
|
| There's also a long tradition of the strongest climbers
| you know climbing on mank (i.e. safety gear so ragged it
| is terrifying to behold)
| tomxor wrote:
| > There's also a long tradition of the strongest climbers
| you know climbing on mank (i.e. safety gear so ragged it
| is terrifying to behold)
|
| It's not uncommon for trad climbers, or maybe it _was_.
| When I was younger I couldn 't afford much, and I climbed
| with others in basically the same situation. My rack
| consisted of mostly passive protection, some nuts, some
| rocks (not literal rocks, i'm not _that_ old). I
| eventually got a few micros and cheap cams (literally
| 3).. Some of the climbing I did back then was terrifying,
| not only because I was so new to it, and climbing
| relatively hard dangerous routes, but because they were
| made so much harder by having limited active protection,
| and a limited range of passive gear.
|
| I got very very good at creative nut placement, threading
| the gnarliest of threads, and was very sparing with cams,
| trying to save them for only where it was completely
| impossible to place passive gear. I also got good at
| hanging on in uncomfortable positions for stupid amounts
| of time while trying to engineer a safe piece of
| protection out of very little.
|
| In more recent years I added a couple totems (which are
| amazing, and amazingly expensive), and then got gifted a
| rack of cams the likes of which i've never seen. A lot of
| my trad climbs are feeling a hell of a lot easier now I
| can just chuck tons of cams with far less sparingly
| especially big crack climbs... It makes me wish I bought
| better gear earlier, maybe I would have been able to try
| a wider range of routes, but I'm also grateful for my
| hard earned skill of making the absolute best of poorly
| protected routes with passives, my opinion "well
| protected" is often very different from other peoples
| provided it's not literally blank run-out. And what
| others consider "unprotectable" I can often find
| perfectly safe protection on.
|
| A very decent trad rack can be had for under PS1000, and
| last a long time - In the scheme of things that's not a
| lot compared to most activities. I don't know why I'm
| still so frugal about it, I can afford it now. I feel
| like ropes are the most expensive part of climbing
| because you can go through them so quickly and have to
| buy new ones pretty much every year.
| SonOfLilit wrote:
| Nobody climbs actual rocks with rental shoes. There'd be
| nobody to rent them to you. Rental shoes are for gym
| climbing, which is quite a safe activity if you're not
| stupid or crazy.
| michaelt wrote:
| My rule is that I start off with lower-mid-range equipment,
| until I know whether I actually like a hobby.
|
| If you love cycling and you do it all the time? By all means
| spend $3000 on a high-end, premium-brand, ultra-light-weight
| bike, if you've got the disposable income and buying it would
| bring you joy.
|
| But if you're just considering getting into cycling? There
| are perfectly good $500 bikes out there, and you don't need
| to delay getting into a sport just because you don't have $3k
| to spare right now.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Are there really $500 bikes? New? What brand? I thought
| entry level was like 1k
| michaelt wrote:
| There are in my country, sure. Brands like Pinnacle and
| Trek.
|
| You're not going to be impressing anyone with an
| aluminium frame and Shimano's cheapest derailleur of
| course - but you also won't be scared to leave your bike
| chained up while you drop into a store.
|
| And you might want to pick up lights, a lock, a helmet,
| and maybe mudguards, so you'll end up spending a bit
| more. And of course if you don't have the tools, time or
| inclination to do your own maintenance bike shops can get
| expensive.
| SonOfLilit wrote:
| I don't tend to care about appearances and still suffer from
| GAS. I think it's about telling myself a story that it's not
| that I'm lazy, the reason I'm not producing amazing music is
| that my setup isn't perfect yet. Dreaming about gear is always
| easier than practicing.
|
| After seeing how my team at my first job all participated in
| the hobby of camera-purchasing, in every new hobby I take up I
| buy the cheapest gear possible, wait a while to see whether I'm
| actually using it, then allow myself to get the good stuff. Not
| because I care about the money, because I care about building
| the habit of doing the actual hobby, not the habit of shopping.
| ip26 wrote:
| The only joy I have found in riding an extremely shitty bicycle
| is cackling with disbelief at how _unbelievably_ shitty it is.
|
| Your maxim is probably more broadly applicable if you specify
| "serviceable gear".
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| Completely disagree. Just because shitty gear exists doesnt
| mean theres some virtue in breaking your neck with it. Quality
| is always better. Few examples: 3D printing. Reading up about
| all the possible printers, decided on P1P. Cant imagine dealing
| (and enjoying dealing) with all the problems of cheaper
| printers, I enjoy knowing that whatever I want printed will get
| printed correctly first try. Snowkiting: Cant imagine enjoying
| being thrown around by cheap kites, while watching people being
| smoothly and controlably pulled by more expensive ones. PC
| Gaming: Cant imagine enjoying playing at 30fps at FullHD when I
| know how 144Hz 4K gaming looks and feels like. And the list
| goes on and on and on.
|
| Sure, there are people who enjoy tinkering, and the process of
| "reaching for the top with gear that shouldnt get them there at
| all", but having quality gear straight from the beggining
| allows a broader set of people to enjoy a hobby they would
| otherwise be left out of.
| floren wrote:
| I agree with your first point, which is that by all appearances
| the acquisition of the product is the entirety of the hobby --
| look at any subreddit for musicians or ham radio operators or
| whatever, it's all photos of some newly-purchased toy with
| titles like "I couldn't resist!". I think this is in part
| because it's a lot more effort (and risk of criticism) to post
| a video of yourself e.g. playing that guitar... and in part
| because of the feedback loop that makes us think buying shit =
| participating.
|
| On the second point there is _some_ basic level of quality
| which is just unpleasant to go below. Sure, maybe a $500
| ukulele isn 't that much better than a $100 one, but that
| doesn't mean you should try to learn on a $10 plastic ukulele
| from Aliexpress.
| drblastoff wrote:
| I've fallen victim to this, though perhaps fortunately with
| digital synth plugins that take up no physical space.
|
| This is related to another problem of mine: ignoring things I'm
| naturally good at, and fixating on things I'm naturally bad at.
| In this case, I have no real musical talent, can't play
| instruments in rhythm, can't arrange a song, and I've
| nevertheless been pursuing this in my spare time for a decade
| with no results. Sometimes I buy new gear thinking it will help,
| but people with musical talent can do much more with much less.
|
| On the other hand, I showed promise for visual arts but never
| pursued it. My frustration with being bad at something seems to
| overpower my desire to be really good at something.
| qup wrote:
| I do a similar thing. I like learning new things so much, I
| spend most of my time on new skills that I perform poorly,
| instead of using & continuing to hone my expert-level skills.
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| Honestly most of the time the second I get good at something is
| when it stops being fun, I think this is pretty normal.
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| You don't need to be good at something to do it. What is good
| or bad anyway? It's comparison with others.
|
| If you enjoy it, it doesn't matter if you're good or bad at it,
| if joy itself is the aim.
|
| If your aim isn't joy, but success, then of course you'll lack
| joy.
|
| It is very liberating to do something, knowing you're "bad" at
| it, but doing it only for enjoyment.
| dingnuts wrote:
| I relate strongly to the comment you're replying to, and I
| can tell you that it's very frustrating to have a vision of
| something you want to create and be unable despite struggling
| towards that goal for a long time.
|
| It has nothing to do with other people. My art doesn't live
| up to my own standards. That's frustrating as hell! It's not
| a simple as comparison to others -- who cares about them if I
| just can't seem to create the sound I want to create?
| epiccoleman wrote:
| > All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we
| have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first
| couple years you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's
| trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not. But your
| taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still
| killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A
| lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most
| people I know who do interesting, creative work went
| through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this
| special thing that we want it to have. We all go through
| this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in
| this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most
| important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put
| yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish
| one story. It is only by going through a volume of work
| that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good
| as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to
| do this than anyone I've ever met. It's gonna take awhile.
| It's normal to take awhile. You've just gotta fight your
| way through.
|
| - Ira Glass
|
| I very much suffer from the same thing when it comes to
| music. I'm a pretty decent guitar player, all round - but I
| still struggle mightily to make music _I 'd want to listen
| to._ But such is life, I guess.
| insonable wrote:
| I wonder if you are getting more internal reward and
| stimulation from the challenge and novelty of something that is
| a struggle than from the steady success something you have
| natural talent for is offering. If so and that is troubling to
| you or puzzling, it may just be the way your brain is setup,
| but there are psychologists good at unraveling this sort of
| thing.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| I'm skeptical of the claim for musical talent. Especially the
| case that you lack any 'real' one. Rhythm, interval
| recognition, composing are all skills that require practice and
| dedication. The lack of results point to a bad method, not lack
| of talent. Have you considered getting instruction?
| khazhoux wrote:
| I can relate to this. I have 8TB of orchestral libraries and
| other virtual instruments (many, many, many thousands of
| dollars), but after a decade I still haven't been able to crank
| out 8 bars of convincing symphonic composition. On the other
| hand, I can crank out a convincing and interesting rock song on
| guitar in real time... but I don't invest in that because it's
| "easy."
|
| Sounds similar to what you describe: we shun the things we're
| naturally good at because they feel trivial and don't provide a
| sense of accomplishment, meanwhile we bash our head against a
| wall for years because the accomplishment of breaking through
| would be so amazing.
| twic wrote:
| > I have no real musical talent, can't play instruments in
| rhythm, can't arrange a song
|
| Have you heard of dubstep?
|
| Actually, acid house might be the genre for you, since "it's
| true that if you gave 100 monkeys a TR-808s and a TB-303 each,
| you'd probably get at least 70 decent acid tracks". [1]
|
| [1] https://www.factmag.com/2014/01/22/20-best-acid-house/
| dimatura wrote:
| I get its a joke, but dubstep is actually one of the harder
| EDM genres to make, in my opinion. As in, how much skill/work
| it takes to make a "mediocre" dubstep track, especially for
| the more commercially well known "brostep" variety. Minimal
| techno, ambient, noise or lo-fi beats are perhaps electronic
| genres that are (again IMO) easier to make mediocre tracks
| for. Great tracks are hard to make in any genre, of course.
| nlnn wrote:
| Whenever I've had this for a hobby, it's always been when I've
| had more time to think about the hobby than do the hobby.
|
| So this happened more when I had long commutes, so plenty of time
| to read about new gear, discuss gear on forums, think about gear,
| etc.
|
| When my commuting ended, I had more time to do things, and the
| lack of engagement with new things coming out mostly put a stop
| to it.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Haha. I called a friend and told him I'd been diagnosed with
| G.A.S. 20 years ago. He sounded really serious when he said he
| was sorry to hear that. I told him the acronym and said I'm
| headed to the music shop to buy a synthesizer and would he like
| to join.
|
| I'm glad computers have become so powerful because now I can
| emulate that same synth in software (Korg MS20) and much more.
| n3storm wrote:
| Same happens to me on so differentes areas like: arts, drawing,
| painting and sculpting. And reptile and insect raising: ants and
| geckos.
|
| I have more stuff and tools for future projects that will ever be
| able to use in 10 years.
|
| Realising this thanks to an HN post a year ago I stopped
| completely acquiring new gear and started finishing projects.
|
| Sometimes a get a cheap sketchbook though I had several ones
| unused :P
| munificent wrote:
| I'm into several hobbies and something people point out often
| in all of them is that collecting stuff for a hobby and using
| stuff for a hobby are actually separate hobbies.
|
| There are synthesizer collectors, and electronic musicians. You
| can be one or the other or both. I think the important part is
| having the self-awareness to know which you are and make sure
| your choices are in line with that. If you want to make
| electronic music but keeping buying new synths without
| mastering the ones you already have, then the gear acquisition
| is interfering with your own goals.
|
| But if you just like having a bunch of synths and you can
| afford it, by all means.
| blackkat wrote:
| Do you happen to recall the post in particular that helped you
| with this realization?
| vunderba wrote:
| Since I don't possess the necessary self discipline, the next
| best thing to minimizing GAS is to put your money in a place
| where it's not very liquid - for me that's immediately moving any
| disposable income into index funds.
|
| It's the fiscal equivalent of not stocking your larder with junk
| food.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| The corollary to that is to give yourself a guilt free
| allowance for spending within your overall budget. Especially
| for me and my partner with combined finances, having this
| strict separation with no visibility or judgement about it is
| key.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| This isn't limited to music. When I worked in NYC and didn't have
| time to rock climb much, I bought a ton of rock climbing gear--
| much of it niche equipment that I've never used.
|
| Eventually I realized that this was just a stand-in for actually
| climbing: I believed that my job was enabling me to rock climb by
| funding my trips and buying my gear, but the reality was that I
| was stagnating as a rock climber, because most of my climbing
| time was at the gym, and that was low-quality time because my job
| was sapping all my time and energy. On the rare times I could
| take a few days off, I wasn't in the shape I wanted to be and
| spent a lot of the trip figuring out how to climb on real rock
| again since I mostly climbed on plastic. Buying gear was a way to
| feel like I was making some progress as a climber, because I had
| the gear to do more things, but the reality was that I wasn't.
|
| I wish I could say I took some agency and started my freelance
| business, but the reality is that I sort of stumbled into
| freelance work, and my business started itself. But I did move to
| a rock climbing area, and eventually moved into a van, and I'm
| lucky to be able to climb outdoors >3 days a week now (not full
| days most of the time, but still). In a way, the GAS period of my
| life set me up for this well, because now I pretty much never
| need to make any big purchases--I occasionally have to replace an
| item that wears out but for the most part I have everything I
| need.
|
| I did also buy a lot of guitar-related gear when I was buying
| rock climbing gear. That I've mostly sold: all I have at this
| point is my acoustic guitar, a capo, and a few picks. Again this
| coincided with me actually playing a lot more guitar, and
| realizing that I'm really only doing it for myself and only want
| to do finger-picky acoustic stuff anyway.
| 42lux wrote:
| I am a photographer, drone pilot, and mountain bike rider, so it
| looks like hobbies with "gear acquisition syndrome" built-in are
| my opium.
|
| What's funny is that most of the expensive gear I bought before
| the inflation spiral I have now sold for quite a profit.
|
| There are also some pretty big youtube channels that talk up
| older digital camera models and I am 90% sure they are doing it
| to dump some excess inventory. You get cameras from around 2010
| that are selling close to new camera prices...
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| Site wasn't loading for me (front page of HN DDOS effect) so
| here's wayback machine snapshot from today:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20240807161556/https://library.oa...
|
| I lightly "suffer" from this in both music and non-music hobbies.
| I bought the Analogue Pocket with the base that connects to a TV
| but I've played one game on it and that's it. I've bought gameboy
| mod carts to make Chiptunes music but I've never performed or
| even regularly sit down and try and make music, I just like the
| potential of it. I bought that Pocket CHIP a while back thinking
| I was going to use it for something (PICO-8 games maybe?), but
| now it just gathers dust. My current gear obsession is travel
| gear, thanks to Reddit's OneBag community. I'm going on a 16 day
| trip soon and I wanted to only have carry-on so I've spent
| hundreds of dollars on quality merino wool clothing and new
| travel backpack. Granted, this is probably the most practical of
| all my purchases because I will use it more often than the video
| game devices gathering dust. But I also could have just sucked it
| up and taken the clothing I already own and figured it out.
|
| https://www.analogue.co/pocket
|
| https://shop.pocketchip.co/collections/frontpage/products/po...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/onebag/
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| Speaking of G.A.S., I just noticed that post about the new
| Teenage Engineering device: "Medieval". It's US$ 300 and very
| tempting. But I know I won't do anything with it so I won't buy
| it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41176831
|
| https://teenage.engineering/store/ep-1320/
| jdkee wrote:
| Thanks, that TE link just made me buy one.
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| The timing of this post is great. As I sit here considering
| buying the latest teenage engineering offering.
| recursive wrote:
| And after acquiring a specific piece of music gear to produce
| every conceivable sound, I'm actually less productive than I was
| before, because of the paradox of choice. Constraints breed
| creativity.
|
| I think I've basically cured my musical GAS.
| atoav wrote:
| I am a musician. Among most musicians I know know I am also one
| of those with the least obsession with gear.
|
| Gear is just that. Gear. Much of the sound in musical gear
| doesn't correlate with price. Sure when it comes to recording
| gear and studio equipment price tends to correlate with
| reliability, but we are living in truly magical times.
|
| I gifted my brother a 160 Euro Harley Benton (Thomann's budget
| brand for guitars etc) Telecaster clone. That guitar in sound and
| playability _easily_ could be the last guitar I would have
| bought. Amplifiers are similar.
|
| Now I am playing the electrical guitar for 20 years and I online
| _one_ electrial guitar. A heavily modded US strat that I bought
| 15 years ago.
|
| Now the main difference between me and my peers is that I am a
| sound nerd and electronics afficionado -- that means if I want to
| get towards a sound I know how to get there. And this is the
| crux. Many people (especially guitar players) chase some sort of
| sound that they never achieve, because they can't tell which part
| of the physical world maps to which part of the sound they get.
|
| Depending on the style of music a _lot_ of it in the end is in
| the fingers. But you can 't buy enter fingers, you can just
| train. But that doesn't give you a dopamine boost.
|
| For all people with GAS I recommend that less is more. Get to
| know ow your shit. It is capable of great sounds. You just need
| to put in the work.
| WWLink wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnvYSKshvwc
|
| There's at least a few guitar youtubers who played that "which
| electric guitar am I playing?" game. I think you can pretty
| easily make almost any sound from any electric guitar lol.
| hannibalekta wrote:
| I reached out to someone to buy a second hand saxophone
| mouthpiece today that one of my favourite players uses. I already
| own 4, 2 of them masterfully refaced. I play for 26 years and
| know that only practicing makes me better, not gear. I'm on
| vacation and don't even have an instrument. It's pure GAS for no
| good reason. Shame on me.
| jerlam wrote:
| I think of myself as resistant to the pull of advertising and
| gear acquisition, but I've developed a related problem.
|
| When I find something that I like, I want to buy multiples of it,
| even if there is a very low chance that I'll wear the item out or
| lose it, and it may become unusable in that time. I've had many
| objects in my life that I thought were great, and then they
| become unavailable and I spend an inordinate amount of time
| searching for them, even though what I have still works fine.
| Because my brain says "What happens when it breaks?" and then I
| have to settle for something new and inferior.
|
| I bought a travel backpack ten years ago. It was an unusual
| design, but I understood its benefits and liked it immensely.
| Most people did not, so after the first year it was redesigned
| and then discontinued. I do not know if I can get anything
| similar to it again, and I doubt the company will repair it. When
| I now see other bags that are similar but still not as good, they
| are significantly more expensive (because of inflation) and I
| regret not buying several at the time. Even though mine still
| works great.
| myself248 wrote:
| Same, but I don't consider it a problem.
|
| If I find that I love a product, I'll buy a spare. If it turns
| out that I think the successor product is better, I'll buy that
| and simply sell my spare to someone with the opposite opinion.
| twic wrote:
| This only seems like a problem if you struggle to afford these
| purchases, or lack space for the spares. Otherwise, it's mildly
| eccentric but sensible.
| bborud wrote:
| The problem is that it usually takes me a while to realize that
| something is good. Not least because I like durable things and
| ... well, it takes time to determine if something is durable.
|
| I bought my favorite jacket 12 years ago in Tokyo. A very
| neutral/timeless thing. After 3 years the jacket still looked
| like new. Although I had worn it almost every day for 3 years.
| I searched for it online and found one for sale. On eBay. Used.
| And the wrong size. If I had known the jacket was that good I
| would have bought 2-3 more.
|
| I still use it. It still looks almost new. Fantastic garment.
| dheera wrote:
| I use a lot of 30-50 year old camera lenses. Stuff was just
| built better back then. None of all this plastic jiggly crap.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Funny because 30 years ago (1994) we used to say the same
| thing about stuff built in the 50s :)
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Really? Photography changed a lot from 1950 to 2000. I'd
| be very surprised if anyone would've preferred the 1950
| grayscale and gigantic photography equipment over the
| 90s-2000 variants
| dheera wrote:
| There were a lot of amazing advancements from 1950 to
| 1980. After 1990 and autofocus the build quality of
| lenses started going downhill. The plastic focusing
| mechanisms negated a lot of the otherwise good optics.
|
| The affordable category of lenses today also don't gave
| good optics. While there are good modern optics used in
| higher-end lenses, it's easier to get better used old
| optics that outperforms shitty modern optics at the same
| price point.
|
| There are some nice lenses made today but they are
| extremely costly. A Sony GM 300/2.8 costs $6000. I got my
| late 70s Canon SSC Fluorite 300/2.8 for $400 and it's
| tack sharp corner to corner, and considering I paid only
| $400 for it, I'm not too worried about taking it
| everyhwere.
|
| A Sony GM 50/1.2 costs $1900. I paid $300 for my Nikkor
| early 80's 50/1.2. For f/1.2 portraits sharpness isn't
| the thing you're usually after, and mine gives absolutely
| spectacular results.
|
| Back in the 50s-80s almost every lens was built like a
| tank and they are now available used at a fraction of the
| price of modern equivalents. If you don't give a crap
| about autofocus (studio portrait, macro, landscape,
| product photographers all don't need autofocus), it's a
| very good deal. Plastic started to show up in the 90s and
| killed everything.
|
| (If you're shooting sports and wildlife, yeah, prioritize
| autofocus, but that's not what I do.)
| bborud wrote:
| You said it better than me.
|
| As for lack of autofocus, I've actually done action shots
| with a Petzval and various vintage manual focus lenses.
| Yes, it is tricky and you will miss a lot, but when you
| nail focus the result is glorious.
| NikkiA wrote:
| You should see the garbage FD-mount stuff I had when I
| was a starving teenager. Hell, the camera's aperture arm
| only worked about 30% of the time.
|
| The stuff from then that has survived til today is the
| survivorship bias.
| dheera wrote:
| Compared to other stuff of its time (Contax-Zeiss, Nikkor
| Ai-S, MD, even some M42 lenses), FD was indeed poor build
| quality, but it is still far, far superior to any of the
| trash in the more "modern" Canon EF line. Have you ever
| held a EF 50/1.4? It feels like a disposable toy. Back
| when I had one, it didn't even survive being tossed in a
| backpack for a city walk. Even a bunch of the EF "L"
| lenses are made of plastic.
|
| Also, apertures in FD lenses are far easier to repair
| than EF lenses. They're just usually a lever or something
| that has slipped off its channel. In EF lenses it's often
| a fractured plastic part.
| bborud wrote:
| Well, when it comes to lenses there is actually some old
| equipment that is still desirable. You can get lenses
| that are optically decent for very little money if you
| can live with manual focus or lack of modern coatings
| etc. I have several lenses from the 70s and 80s that I
| like a lot - though they're a bit more work to use.
|
| Then there's lenses that provide interesting distortions
| or have interesting faults. Like old Soviet-era Helios
| lenses. In fact some old lens designs have been revived
| for modern cameras. Like the Petzval lenses (which I also
| own).
|
| Good modern lenses are great. Optically fantastic,
| robust, easy to use etc. But that can be a bit ... well,
| sterile and boring.
|
| Which is why several of the vintage lenses I own have
| been used in movies. They make for a unique look. (There
| are companies that re-house lenses for use with modern
| movie cameras).
|
| Note the scene with the emperor in the garden in the
| second Dune movie for instance.
|
| There are lots of vintage lenses to lust after. And some
| of them can be quite expensive.
|
| (Then there's the whole medium format world. Where you
| can get digital backs and build cameras that cost more
| than your car)
| herpdyderp wrote:
| I do this with shoes. I won't need a new pair for decades!
| dmd wrote:
| I _did_ this with shoes. Bought 4 pairs of the shoes I liked.
| Right on schedule, they discontinued them, and I was so happy
| I 'd done so!
|
| And then when after about 5 years I said "hey, these shoes
| are getting pretty worn, time to move on to the next pair", I
| was 43 years old, and lo and behold ... my feet had widened
| and I couldn't even get my feet into the brand-new shoes. I
| had to put them in an expanding last for almost two MONTHS
| before they would fit.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Next time don't store the old shoes - rotate wearing them
| so at the end of (shoe_lifetime * number_of_pairs) years
| you'll have a number of pairs of evenly-worn shoes :)
| efsavage wrote:
| I actually did this not too long ago and observed an
| interesting phenomenon that I had kind of noticed over
| the years, but never really tested.
|
| I found a pair of shoes that I liked, but they wore out
| quickly with daily use (3-4 months). I bought 3 more
| pairs and rotated them and those three lasted for like 2
| years.
|
| As silly as it sounds, I wonder if there is something
| about giving shoes a "rest" that makes them last longer.
| layer8 wrote:
| They might contain materials like rubber that degrade anyway
| with time.
|
| Unfortunately, some items are inherently ephemeral.
| thevillagechief wrote:
| I still regret not stockpiling a pair of shoes I got 14 years
| ago. My favorite pair of shoes ever. I went looking for them
| a year later, and of course they had been discontinued. So
| yeah, I've started doing this.
| elevation wrote:
| Stockpiling is a valuable technique to limit/defer the risk of
| being deprived of (whatever you're stockpiling,) while
| incurring a different set of costs (the time, energy, storage
| space, and inevitable degradation of the good you've
| stockpiled.) Set limits on these costs, e.g, "I'll stockpile no
| more than I can fit in my spare closet" and you can rationally
| stockpile within those limits to your heart's content.
| onewheeltom wrote:
| See if there is a Repair Cafe in your area and maybe they can
| fix it for free. If in NC go to http://repaircafenc.org
| Karellen wrote:
| I seem to have anti-GAS.
|
| I've got a 5-year old phone (thanks Apple for maintaining OS
| security support for my model for so long!), a 3-year old laptop
| I'm not planning on replacing any time soon, and the non-computer
| based hobbies I've managed to stick with for any length of time
| are running and bouldering, where the only gear you really need
| for both are appropriate shoes. And I only have one pair of shoes
| for each.
|
| Yeah, I've got some light, breathable, non-chafing clothing that
| makes both less unpleasant to do, but I couldn't tell you with
| 100% certainty what brand they are, or exactly what they're made
| of. And I have a bottle of liquid chalk, whatever they were
| selling in the gym the last time I needed to get some more. But
| I'm not on Strava or whatever, and I don't track my per-km splits
| or my heart rate/zone or elevation gained or cadence. I'll time a
| whole run with a $20 Casio wrist/stopwatch, and sometimes
| calculate an average pace, but that's about it.
|
| Not that I'm particularly good at running or bouldering, but I'm
| enjoying doing both at the level I'm currently at, so that's
| fine.
|
| Anyway, any hobby that requires a bunch of gear is just a turn-
| off for me. The more gear I'd need, the more I want to give it a
| wide berth.
|
| Computer software I love to nerd out on. But everything else?
| Hardware? That's a break from the nerdery for me.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Some of my hobbies I'm like this. I actually think it's been a
| detriment in one case where I hit a skill wall without
| realizing until years later. I just convinced my self I suck
| for to long, and the problem actually was the equipment for to
| long.
| hawthorned7 wrote:
| I'm always seeking out new gear because I love finding new
| sounds. I also went to school for classical piano and can play
| pretty well. Does a chef that likes finding new spices have GAS?
| Def a joke in there but for real. There are certain sounds that
| can only be found in vintage analog synths for instance. Of
| course there are always samples but there are also samples of
| cellos and violins. But they will never compare to actually
| playing the real instrument so therefore I must buy them alllll.
| nottorp wrote:
| I know someone who does this with mountain gear.
| bobjordan wrote:
| I expect this can be abstracted and include other fields, too. My
| particular affliction has included electronic lab equipment.
| Like, did I really need that specialized tool to measure and
| verify the performance of my oscilloscope? Did I really need the
| second oscilloscope on my bench? I'm rarely involved in RF, but I
| have a spectrum analyzer collecting dust now. Etc...
| myself248 wrote:
| No, but if you join a makerspace and help fortify their
| electronics lab, you get to help other people make use of those
| instruments.
|
| This means you get to share in the satisfaction when they
| succeed, because you were the nudge that got them past some
| block, for a lot less actual work on your part! ;)
| davidw wrote:
| I think a lot of businesses kind of thrive on selling the dream.
|
| Like how much gear bought at REI is really pushed to the limit
| for outdoor pursuits vs worn around town?
|
| I love shopping there and looking around and daydreaming about
| being out in the woods.
|
| It's not really an indictment of the businesses, it's just sort
| of human nature.
| katbyte wrote:
| It sucks for us who do push gear. I'm constantly breaking
| things because I'm well, using them. Anytime u have to buy
| something it involves hours of research to determine "is this a
| real quality product or a shitty one marketed as quality", or
| "has it changed owners and now rubbish"
|
| I don't mind paying for quality gear at all. It just needed to
| be quality
| WalterSear wrote:
| I shop there because the obesity epidemic has made it too hard
| to find pants in my size at other stores.
| woolion wrote:
| I just discovered GAS therapy [0], as there was some controversy
| about the OP-1 pricing (also from Teenage Engineering). To
| summarize both sides, software is pretty cheap and limitless.
| Device are limited which can spark creativity by constraints,
| their tactile form factor feel great, and their portable nature
| can be a great advantage.
|
| However, there are other arguments that typically revolve around
| how "software cannot replicate vintage sounds" where the holy
| wars really begin. Nobody has ever proven that, but the myth
| endures. Recently enough [1] showed all that basically with an
| eq, a compressor and a distortion you can reproduce any vintage
| amp sound, you just need to know how it deviates from a flat
| sound response.
|
| How expensive the vintage or high-end hardware is might be a
| deterrent for some but a very attractive proposition for others.
|
| [0]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU8alMWUmDI&pp=ygULZ2FzIHRoZ...
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcBEOcPtlYk
| doe_eyes wrote:
| It's funny to see it framed in the context of music when it's a
| pretty universal behavior, essentially limited only by how many
| cool upgrades exist for a particular hobby.
|
| It's a particularly common affliction for photographers (better
| cameras, better lens, studio lighting, etc), but the same happens
| in lo-tech fields - say, woodworking (check out my premium
| chisels!) or even lawn care.
|
| In most hobbies, it's just a money sink. It is uniquely
| destructive in photography because if you have too much gear, you
| can't carry it around and you end up missing out on shots.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Rock climbers, man. Total gearheads.
| jajko wrote:
| Maybe if they do alpinism too, or trad climbing. But it can
| also be just a neat little pile worth less than 500$
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| You might be able to squeeze in a nut set and a couple
| quickdraws after you spend $400 of that on the rope, shoes,
| and harness.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| If you're into bouldering, you can just get a crashpad
| and shoes.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I've been getting into photography lately, and early on I was
| able to carry around my whole gear collection at once. It was
| an interesting new dimension when I started having to make
| decisions about what to take and what to leave behind.
| dimatura wrote:
| Yes, as someone who is into synths and photography (apparently
| not an uncommon intersection), it's definitely common to both,
| even with the same term. And I'm sure they're not the only
| ones. As someone who likes bikes there's also this old joke of
| "what is the minimum number of bikes to have", the answer being
| "current number of bikes + 1".
| javier123454321 wrote:
| From the research:
|
| > The last fact worth mentioning is that the phenomenon is not
| limited to music. GAS occurs in many areas of everyday life. In
| music, it can be observed in hi-fi audio culture (Schroter &
| Volmar 2016), record collecting (Shuker 2010), home re- cording
| (Strong 2012) and jingle composition (Fisher 1997). Outside
| music, GAS occurs amongst photographers (Arias 2013; Kim 2012;
| Sarinana 2013), aquarium hobbyists (Wolfenden 2016), amateur
| astronomists (Chen & Chen 2017), cyclists (Peters 2013) and
| eBayers (Zalot 2013). Despite its high prevalence in
| contemporary culture, the phenomenon has hardly been
| researched.
| kirth_gersen wrote:
| This sounds like another guise of fear of missing out. You can't
| do X without gear Y. However, your brain doesn't realize there
| are other constraints on realistically doing X; free time,
| energy, creative spark, etc. But at least buying Y feels like a
| concrete step towards doing X and modern society has made it VERY
| easy to buy things. So, you buy Y and promise yourself you'll do
| X...someday.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| Yeah it's a way to feel like making progress without doing the
| hard work of practicing and developing your skills. Easy trap
| to fall into.
|
| With most hobbies, a beginner will benefit far more from just
| doing projects / practicing than buying expensive high-end
| gear. It's also the only way to find if you actually want to
| pursue the new interest. Which is very good to do _before_
| spending lots of cash.
| johnohara wrote:
| Seems to me GAS is nuanced by the type of musical instrument
| acquired. The syndrome may be less severe with piano and harp
| players than it is with guitar, and electric bass players.
| Although, it may extend to excessive acquisitions of sheet music
| and books on musical theory.
|
| Single kit exceptions may include drummers and xylophone players.
|
| This syndrome is very evident in high-performance vehicle markets
| where there seems to be no end to the modifications one can make
| to go faster, sound louder, or look cooler.
| bborud wrote:
| You forgot synthesizers.
|
| And I'm not even a good player :-)
| giobox wrote:
| My experience with guitar collectors is that is often easier to
| collector guitars than practice and get good at the instrument,
| and I include myself in this statement.
|
| The guitar is so accessible and available at retail so widely,
| its not surprising to me it attracts collectors perhaps more so
| than a harp or a piano. Plus the guitar has a very strong
| connection to modern pop music, which surely helps drive its
| appeal.
| WWLink wrote:
| > The syndrome may be less severe with piano and harp players
| than it is with guitar, and electric bass players.
|
| Have you ever seen Liberace's collection? Hehe. If you have
| enough money and space you can collect pianos as well.
| jrsdav wrote:
| "I'm really not that fussy -- I think it's more important to make
| the best use of what you have. I don't like to walk into a
| studio, lay down the law, and say, 'I must have this, otherwise I
| cannot continue with the session.' I'm not like that. I prefer to
| be more, 'What have you got? Let's see what we can do with that.'
| I hate spending inordinate amounts of time just playing with a
| sound, trying different pieces of equipment, and different mics
| and that stuff. Let's get the job done. Let's make a record. The
| whole process of recording is one big experiment in itself." -
| Alan Parsons
| twic wrote:
| A flip side of GAS is that the market optimises for gear
| acquirers. A decent square taper bottom bracket is perfectly good
| for 99% of cyclists, and maintenance free for a decade or more.
| But gear acquirers are only interested in the latest and greatest
| ultra-stiff super-light external bearing BBs, so now square taper
| is dead except at the cheapest, shittiest grades. Which means
| that i, as someone who just wants my cranks to go round, am
| forced to enter their world.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I agree with you regarding press fit BBs, but aren't externally
| threaded BBs also better for casual cyclists and more reliable?
|
| I don't care in the slightest about BB stiffness and weight,
| but I would much rather have a BSA threaded external BB. That
| way if something happens and I need to change my cranks (or god
| forbid, bearings) I don't have to worry about needing a
| specialized crank puller or anything like that, an Allen key is
| enough, and I never have to worry about stripping my cranks,
| and I never have to worry about my cranks falling out and
| marring from the bolt getting loose. Something like an ISIS
| spline two/three piece crank that's either self extracting or
| bolted like Shimano MTB cranks is perfect. Simple, cheap, no
| specialized tools needed, and no risk of catastrophic failure.
| And I'll never need to repack the bearings ever again. Plus, as
| someone who lives in a place where they salt the roads, I'd
| much rather deal with a rusty threaded external bearing BB than
| a square taper that might never come out of the frame.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I only learned of this phrase recently but now I see it mentioned
| everywhere. Isn't there a word for this phenomenon? Or is it
| actually a new concept that is spreading virally or something?
| aspenmayer wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
|
| > The frequency illusion (also known as the Baader-Meinhof
| phenomenon) is a cognitive bias in which a person notices a
| specific concept, word, or product more frequently after
| recently becoming aware of it.
| Fomite wrote:
| This is all over my hobby, miniature wargaming. "If I just get
| this brush, or this new line of paints, I'll be good at
| painting..."
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Rock Climbing. Trad/aid climbing. Hundreds of pounds of gear. All
| manner of little twists of metal on loops of string or webbing.
| Ropes. Harnesses. Shoes. Bespoke ascender rigs. Bags of various
| belay devices. Some of it is expensive, costing hundred of
| dollars a piece. Other stuff is dirt cheap. Once you buy that
| second rurp, then you are an addict.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| It isn't limited to musicians. Go onto any bicycle-related forum
| and you will always find the N+1 crowd who are constantly buying
| new bikes.
| kawera wrote:
| Amateur photographers too.
| vincnetas wrote:
| i call this "gadget feever". Phones, computers, accesories etc.
| With age i recognise it within me better and better, but have
| spent lots of time and money for this.
| sandspar wrote:
| The recent meme of the unequipped Turkish Olympic shooter comes
| to mind. The other competitors in the shooting event had
| expensive specialized gear. The Turkish guy had no gear and he
| got silver.
|
| >Reflecting on his viral moment, [the shooter guy] said, "People
| sometimes say, 'It's so easy, you won a medal with your hands in
| your pockets.' But there's 24 years of work and effort behind
| that medal. I train six days a week for 4-5 hours a day. I wish
| it was gold, but we still achieved a lot."
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Was doing this with food storage containers.
|
| I looked above my fridge one day and saw about 40 tupperware lids
| that I had never used and would likely never use. I went through
| them, saving the large containers for large meals (think
| Thanksgiving leftovers) and some moderate sized containers for
| eating for the week. Everything else got tossed and I instead
| purchased two sets of food service containers. They accomplish
| the same goal, they're all the same size, and they don't take up
| nearly as much space.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| There is also left end of the bell curve where one enjoys and
| tries to squeeze single big out of a product that they love and
| resisting upgrades.
| solid_fuel wrote:
| From another angle, I think it's understandable that people like
| to have premium "signifiers" of their skill. A carpenter with a
| full set of well maintained chisels seems on first glance more
| likely to be a good carpenter than one who carves uses with a box
| cutter.
|
| So there may be a natural drive to collect and display things
| that indicate skill in our chosen areas of interest.
|
| Now, to twist this around a bit: is this "gear acquisition
| syndrome" a contributor to the constant churn of tools and
| frameworks in our field? Especially in programming, collecting
| and using new "gear" (libraries, frameworks, administrative
| tools) is essentially free - often the only cost is time.
| neilv wrote:
| For photography (Canon DSLR, photojournalism and studio), there
| was a pursuit of the right gear, but I was usually as much as I
| was buying.
|
| For example, the ordinary reasonable thought, _I could make such
| great images with that 50mm f /0.9 prime, I might use it for
| everything_, is usually a fantasy. Try it, then sell it before
| its resale value drops, then find a better use for the money and
| the space and weight in your backpack.)
|
| A bit similar for homelab servers&networking gear. I've sold many
| times more rack units' worth of stuff than I currently own. (And
| currently there's a silent K3s server that's nearing the chopping
| block, since I haven't been using it.)
| layer8 wrote:
| This is not too different from book/movies/music acquisition
| syndrome. In particular for books, you continue even if you know
| you'll never read them all, or even a significant fraction.
| fudged71 wrote:
| As someone who's battled Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS), I've
| learned that fixating on the latest tech often hinders progress.
| Instead, I've found success by embracing effectuation principles:
|
| 1. Use what you have: Start with your existing tools and
| resources.
|
| 2. Take action: Begin immediately, rather than waiting for the
| "perfect" setup.
|
| 3. Adapt and learn: Iterate based on real-world feedback.
|
| This mindset shift can lead to more meaningful progress and
| innovation. When you catch yourself obsessing over new gear, try
| this:
|
| 1. Pause and reflect: Is this acquisition essential for immediate
| progress?
|
| 2. Reevaluate: Can you achieve your current goals with what you
| already have?
|
| 3. Focus on action: Use your existing means to take concrete
| steps today.
| moth-fuzz wrote:
| Honestly my GAS subsided when I realized most of my favorite
| records were made with affordable or off the shelf gear. So many
| guitarists on the 80s used JCM800s because that was what Marshall
| was putting out. Eric Clapton's Stratocaster wasn't vintage when
| he bought it, it was just an off the shelf guitar! Same with most
| amps, instruments, keyboards, synths, drum machines, even
| samplers which are hailed as legendary because they have higher
| bass and a lower bitrate (an effect you can get with a one-knob
| EQ and a bit crusher, respectively). The artists were just using
| the tools available to them because... they were available.
|
| I have simplified my recording and production setup to mainly
| just a computer, 10 channel audio interface, a 90s mackie mixer
| because it's big and fun and sums neatly to the 10 channels (8
| busses + master 2 buss), and whatever bits of quirky and _fun_
| gear I can find.
|
| My GAS left when I realized I don't _need_ any of it. I could
| make music on just a laptop if I wanted to, I could just play my
| guitar and resample it for synth sounds if I wanted to. Plenty of
| iPhone producers out there who just make weird sounds with their
| mouth. It's all relative. People will say you've Got to have at
| LEAST one analog mono, one poly, a digi, a sampler, and an
| endless supply of grooveboxes, but computers are truly more than
| capable. "Analog sound" is just an EQ away. Just focus on the
| creative aspect and the gear aspect diminishes and becomes yet
| another source of creativity - find quirky pawn shop stuff that
| makes you smile when you play it. Even if you don't record it,
| you don't feel like it's GAS because it brings joy.
| mrexroad wrote:
| Hobbies I geek out on gear: fountain pens, coffee, backpacking,
| tools (especially fine woodworking or cabinet making).
|
| Hobbies where my skills have reached a point of equilibrium with
| my gear: bikes, photography, electronics, knives, auto detailing,
| cars.
|
| For me it has a lot to do with disparity between my current
| ability level and being able to recognize whatever a realistic
| upper end is to my potential (80th percentile). Basically, if
| there's a skill-gap, I'm more likely to fall prey to "better
| gear" rather than gear that solves a specific problem.
|
| When I recognize my skills have reached ~80% of my potential, I
| lose interest in new gear and either work around specific gear
| limitations or understand what is possible within the limitations
| and embrace the constraint. Beyond that, I only acquire new gear
| to solve hyper-specific problems w/o reasonable workarounds, or
| if there's some super-specific niche/quirky/vintage thing that I
| have an emotional attachment to or otherwise identify with.
|
| Conversely, if I have an unrealistic perception of my potential,
| then, well... there's probably lists of shiny things to show for
| it.
| siva7 wrote:
| If you have the money and the gear makes you happy then by all
| means go for it. I'm not buying a Rolex to read the time either.
| For that i have my phone. Sometimes it's just nice to enjoy the
| expensive gear you have and play it occasionally and there is no
| ambition to master the instrument on a competitive level.
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