[HN Gopher] My washing machine refreshed my thinking on software...
___________________________________________________________________
My washing machine refreshed my thinking on software estimation
Author : tashicorp
Score : 433 points
Date : 2025-02-18 03:45 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cosive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cosive.com)
| rpicard wrote:
| I really enjoyed this read. Great connections.
|
| I'm also impressed at how much suffering was saved by that E39
| error instead of a backed up laundry room full of waste water.
|
| Washing machines are cool.
|
| A couple of other good perspectives on software estimation:
|
| https://world.hey.com/dhh/software-estimates-have-never-work...
|
| https://softwareforgood.com/estimates-lies/
| MollyGodiva wrote:
| Let's note the absurdity of moving your washer and dryer to a new
| house. Those should stay with the house like refrigerators and
| dishwashers. In the US it is common in some regions and not in
| others.
| bagels wrote:
| I'm so glad I brought my washer and dryer with me through two
| moves. Modern ones have logic boards in them that eventually
| malfunction. These machines are 20 years old, simple to repair,
| and reliable.
| huang_chung wrote:
| I disagree; it's not absurd at all. Perhaps you don't care the
| clothes-destroyer the previous tenant left makes holes in your
| wife's silk pajamas. Washers and dryers are very personal items
| (some prefer top vs front loaders) and are exclusively
| freestanding, temporary appliances.
|
| Dishwashers OTOH are often plumbed in, sometimes hardwired, and
| fastened to the counter.
|
| Not to mention most people don't know how to properly care for
| them (when was the last time you cleaned the filter?). If I
| moved into a new place I'd probably replace the dishwasher
| straight away.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| No. It is absurd if his time and attention have ANY value.
|
| This just seems like nothing less than purposeful absurdity
| for blog fodder.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Starting with something that you know works can be a time
| saver, even if it requires a bit of hackery. The
| alternative is buying new, which for appliances often means
| buying into some kind of consumer-hostile scheme that the
| old models weren't subject to.
| margalabargala wrote:
| That's ridiculous. Washers and dryers are expensive
| appliances.
|
| Unless this guy is paid more than a half million per year,
| then the four hours spent on the install here are less than
| the cost of a new washer and dryer.
| eastabrooka wrote:
| And even if he paid for a new washer and dryer, he'd
| still have to fit them.
| kelnos wrote:
| I've never brought a washer/dryer from one house to the next
| when moving. In my experience, it's been fine. Sometimes I
| had a washer or dryer that I didn't like all that much (took
| longer than I'd like, confusing controls, etc.), but I've
| never ended up with one that damaged my clothes or was so bad
| that I needed to replace it.
|
| I'm sure there are many instances where there _are_
| replacement-worthy problems, and there certainly are people
| who have splurged on really nice appliances and will want to
| take them with them when they move, but I think those
| situations are uncommon enough that, overall, people save
| time and money by not lugging their washers and dryers with
| them every time they move. (In places where it 's common not
| to move them, at least.)
| bluGill wrote:
| Every time I have moved the contract stated all appliances
| stay. The legal default is you take them all - washer,
| dryer, stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, light bulbs, window
| shades. However realtors all know to put into the contract
| what stays because most most people want those things in
| the house and don't want to move them. However more than
| once I've bought a house without something (the old fridge
| broke a week before they listed the house so they didn't
| bother replacing it). If something isn't in the contract
| and you leave it behind they can charge you for disposal of
| their garbage!
| winrid wrote:
| People are hanging onto their older appliances longer since new
| ones are such a poor value for reliability.
| magnetowasright wrote:
| Where do you live that it's normal to leave the refrigerator?
| Is this for rentals and/or buying?
|
| If I have to move you bet my fridge, which I love, is coming
| with me. Same with my washing machine. I don't have a dryer
| because I'm in australia, which might explain the difference in
| fridge culture, too.
| 43920 wrote:
| In the US, most rentals (except for very cheap ones) include
| a fridge/washer/dryer/dishwasher, but if you're buying the
| property, typically only the dishwasher is included unless
| you negotiate with the seller.
| margalabargala wrote:
| This is regional. In much of the US, the refrigerator is
| included when purchasing a house.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| It varies on an individual sale level, _any_ appliances
| _can_ be included when selling a house, but other than
| built in ones (which refrigerators usually aren 't) its
| hit or miss for new houses that aren't models, and for
| existing houses it really depends on the seller (owner
| occupied, they may want to take it with them, depending
| on the circumstances where they are moving, as it
| previously an equipped rental, then they'll more likely
| offer to include all the major appliances, etc.)--and
| buyer (may prefer unwanted personal property be removed
| prior to move jn rather than included, if they want to
| buy something new that suits them or being their current
| unit.)
| kelnos wrote:
| I haven't lived in _that_ many places in the US, but
| everywhere I 've lived -- rental or bought -- the
| refrigerator came with the house.
|
| Ditto for the dishwasher, and clothes washer and dryer. The
| microwave, too, if it's a unit attached to the cabinetry,
| and not a freestanding on-counter model.
|
| I suspect -- and didn't know this! -- that this arrangement
| is regional, even inside the US.
| bluGill wrote:
| Odds are your realtor just negotiated those details for
| you. It is pretty standard everywhere. Very few people
| want to move those heavy things, so realtors just put
| them into the contract, if you don't pay attention (you
| should!) you may not even realize this happened.
| palmotea wrote:
| When I bought my home, I know that was mentioned
| explicitly.
|
| Though my understanding is the sale automatically
| includes all fixtures unless specifically excluded, and I
| suppose there's a little disconnect there: most major
| appliances are technically not fixed, but I think most
| people think of them like they are.
|
| When I sell my home, I was thinking I'd definitely need
| to put a note on my washer/dryer and smart thermostat,
| saying I was going to take them with me and they weren't
| included.
| bruce511 wrote:
| Wait, what...? You leave your refrigerator and dishwasher
| behind? :)
|
| I guess it depends a lot on your location and custom. Also if
| the appliance is "built in" (like an oven) or free-standing.
|
| I've personally never left a free-standing appliance behind,
| and you certainly aren't getting my industrial-quality, 25 year
| old, top-loading washing machine for free....
| margalabargala wrote:
| Yes, many people do.
|
| That said, these things are negotiated as part of the sale.
| Buyers are aware ahead of time what they are or are not
| getting, they don't show up at their newly purchased house
| and go inside to see what appliances they have vs have to
| buy.
| kelnos wrote:
| I've literally never bought a refrigerator, dishwasher,
| washer, or dryer in my life, and never moved one between
| houses. Certainly I've run into one of these that had been
| left behind by a previous owner that was just so-so, but
| never bad enough that I could justify the expense of
| replacing it.
|
| As an example, due to a design flaw, the built-in ice maker
| in my fridge doesn't go more than a week without getting
| clogged due to water flowing all over inside it and freezing.
| It's a bit annoying, to be sure, but it's a lot cheaper to
| just have a couple old-school ice cube trays in the freezer.
|
| > _you certainly aren 't getting my industrial-quality, 25
| year old, top-loading washing machine for free_
|
| I think most people wouldn't look at it that way. You'd be
| leaving behind your washing machine, and the next owners
| would get it "for free", but you'd be getting a different
| washing machine in your new house that the previous owners
| left behind "for free". But sure, if I was really attached to
| a particular appliance, I would probably want to bring it
| with me when I moved. I've never cared that much, though, and
| don't expect I will in the future.
|
| (Also, while top-loading washing machines tend to last longer
| without needing maintenance than side-loading, they use _so_
| much more water.)
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Why? They are free standing and just plug into the
| wall/drain/vent essentially.
|
| If I have a $300 washing machine, or a $3000 washing machine,
| the potential buyer will offer the same price to me.
|
| I took the $6k fridge out of my home I recently sold and
| replaced it with the $500 fridge that was in the new house I
| bought. In my mind I saved $5500 right there.
| ahoef wrote:
| 6k fridge?!
| eastabrooka wrote:
| What do you think he's sending this message from
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| made me chuckle
| xxs wrote:
| Why absurd, I did move a washer from an apartment to a house -
| few hundred kilometers away, along with some other furniture. I
| liked how it worked, and I could connect it.
|
| In that regard, home equipment and tools maintenance from LED
| lights (driver and individual diodes), laptops (PCB repairs,
| thermal paste replacement/cleaning) to garden equipment (carb
| cleaning, sharpening, gasket, manifold, whatever replacements)
| is sort of my responsibility, regardless that professionally
| I'd spend my days on software.
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| Meh, different people do different things.
|
| Some german areas, renting doesn't come with a kitchen - you
| bring one and take it with you when you move out. IE cupboards
| etc
|
| I find it odd that some american places don't have ceiling
| lights for every room. Instead the "light" switch powers some
| points around the room that you supply lamps to.
|
| Different strokes for different folks.
| palmotea wrote:
| > Let's note the absurdity of moving your washer and dryer to a
| new house. Those should stay with the house like refrigerators
| and dishwashers. In the US it is common in some regions and not
| in others.
|
| Yeah, if you buy typical consumer grade ones.
|
| I understand washers and dryers are on a downward trend:
| getting worse, harder to repair, and less durable. I paid quite
| a bit more to buy a commercial washer and drying that's
| supposed to last a long time. I'm definitely going to take it
| with me. I'm not going to leave it with someone who doesn't
| know what it is, just to downgrade to whatever was cheapest at
| Home Depot.
| MollyGodiva wrote:
| An important point that people are missing is that W/D units
| are commonly bought to fit a specific space and house. For
| example some dryers are gas, and some are not. That is house
| dependent.
| imp0cat wrote:
| If the picture is of a real one, his machine is a Bosch. I have
| no problem with moving that one, they are great.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Let's note the absurdity of moving your washer and dryer to a
| new house. Those should stay with the house like refrigerators
| and dishwashers.
|
| Oh hell no. You never know how the old renter treated the
| machines - for people with sensitive skin for example it can be
| a big no-no because the old renter used fabric softener by the
| truckload, never used dedicated washing machine cleaner (if you
| don't do this at least once every few months on maximum
| temperature, the insides of your machine will eventually stink
| horribly as bacteria develops an outright biofilm), or if the
| dryer vent has ever been cleaned.
|
| The latter one in particular is a very nasty source of fires.
| hinkley wrote:
| I just want to buy your house I don't want you pedestrian
| 1990's empty-the-hot-water-heater-twice washing machine. The
| fridge and dishwasher you left were bad enough.
| huang_chung wrote:
| An interesting consideration next time you balk at the price of a
| tradesman; or, why the plumber charges $300 to connect a washer
| in a few minutes when anyone can do it.
|
| $295 of that is knowing to drill the hole in the drain.
| normie3000 wrote:
| Having connected my own washer recently, I'm terrified to
| ask... what hole in the drain?!
| bfdm wrote:
| Same. Thankfully, the post explains it as needing to drill
| open the PVC drain pipe under a sink where the washer drain
| pipe connects, inside a pre-formed attachment point. See
| "Solution 5" through "Solution 6".
|
| If your washer is draining and working, there's no latent
| issue to worry about.
| yuliyp wrote:
| The one mentioned at the very end: the drain pipe the
| washer's drain connected to had a PVC cover that needed to be
| drilled/punched out (since if a washer wasn't connected it'd
| be a hole in that drain!). If you're replacing another
| washer, it was probably already punched out.
| stavros wrote:
| Why wasn't there just a connector with a cap?
| consp wrote:
| Pvc is welded/glued. I would have installed at least a
| hose clamp on this thing and would never rely on friction
| to keep it in place.
| dmurray wrote:
| Even without a cap, gravity "should" prevent the drain
| leaking - the connection to the hose is some height above
| where it joins the U-trap.
|
| If the drain backs up and the pressure is high enough to
| force water out, it might be enough to pop any screwed
| cap too.
| aargh_aargh wrote:
| It's cheaper to make it without a hole than add a
| separate component and screw threads on both components.
| After all, you will drill the hole zero or one time, as
| needed.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| Because Ikea.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Most PVC under sink siffons have a preformed connection point
| where most people connect the dishwasher's hose.
|
| The ones I encountered had a tapered pipe point for several
| diameter drains. You saw off to the matching diameter of your
| hose.
|
| Often you would also put on a flowback protection valve so
| dirty water from e.g. draining a full sink would not get into
| to hose of your appliance.
| kmoser wrote:
| Presumably a tradesman has knowledge and experience with these
| blockers, which for them should be largely "known unknowns" and
| easy to fix at that since they have all the right equipment.
|
| So why do they still charge so much? It's not just "knowing to
| drill the hole in the drain" but overhead like equipment (they
| need to buy all the expensive pro stuff, and keep it in working
| order; whereas you might just need the _one_ tool to get _your_
| job done, they need _all_ the tools to get _all_ the jobs
| done), vehicles, gas, etc. And of course the down time
| traveling between jobs, office space if they have an office,
| employees, etc.
|
| All these things bring their prices back up to much higher than
| it would cost you to do it yourself--if only you knew what to
| do and had the right equipment.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Let's assume a solo plumber has to spend 10k/year on all
| their equipment maintenance. If they only do 20 hours of paid
| work per week, that adds 10 dollars to their hourly rate.
| bluGill wrote:
| The solo plumber also needs to put a lot of time in the
| office doing book work, scheduling jobs, restocking their
| van with parts, driving from job to job. If you are
| thinking about going into business for yourself either
| charge what your competition does - don't undercut anyone.
| If you can't figure out what your competition charges
| figure out what you need to live on and double it for a
| starting price and then get an accountant to look over your
| books in a few months. (though if you have no competition
| that is generally a sign that you have a bad business)
| SftwrSvior81 wrote:
| I think it's interesting to also think about it from the
| other perspective. If this is someone who is supporting
| themselves through this work, then what they have to at least
| charge you is going to depend on how much they need to
| survive, i.e., buy housing, food, tools, etc. If they get
| only a few jobs per week, then they kinda have to try to pay
| their bills off of those jobs. They may also have a spouse,
| kids, and various others who depend on this income for
| survival.
| brabel wrote:
| Unfortunately, how much a person needs to have a decent
| living is not really what's driving prices: like all
| markets, what dictates prices is demand and supply. The job
| may be very easy for a tradesman to do, but if they're the
| only ones who know how to do the job, and many people need
| the job done and really can't just do it themselves, they
| can charge whatever people who need the job are willing to
| pay to not go without. For most tradesmen , normally there
| are many "competitors", so they need to keep prices
| reasonable otherwise people won't hire them. Some jobs
| which can be easily DIY'd may just disappear as it's not
| possible to make a living off them, even if a small
| percentage of people will never DIY anything and would be
| willing to pay a small amount for the job to be done. I am
| currently trying to hire builders for some larger projects
| at home (kitchen/bathroom renovations, custom car port) and
| I see wild differences in prices, and presumably quality.
| For these bigger jobs, it really becomes a bet unless you
| can actually verify the builder's previous jobs, which can
| be hard as people are not going to just let you into their
| houses to check how good/bad their bathrooms look. I've had
| bad experiences before, so I am being extra careful and
| trying to figure out the builder's level of expertise and
| capability by talking to them about lots of details (which
| I learned from previously building a garage).
| bluGill wrote:
| what a person needs to make a decent living is an input
| into the supply part of supply and demand. Thus it puts a
| floor on prices. Pay me $500/hour and I'm installing
| washing machines not writing software thus increasing the
| supply of labor to do that. (but of course nobody will
| pay that much)
| antisthenes wrote:
| > If they get only a few jobs per week, then they kinda
| have to try to pay their bills off of those jobs.
|
| I don't think this has been true anywhere for at least
| several decades. Every single tradesman I've used tells me
| they are overbooked/overworked and there's no shortage of
| jobs.
|
| I'm sure they have their less-busy seasons, but overall I
| doubt any tradesman can't find 40 hours worth of work/week.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I'd bet it's actually a knockout and could've been
| tapped/broken out with a screwdriver and a hammer
| Ekaros wrote:
| Those rates start to make lot more sense if you think how much
| would I charge to visit 30 minute meeting on other side of
| city. Or at least how many billable hours my employer would do.
| Time spend on traveling often ends up making up for the rest.
| Not to mention on overhead in admin if this would be just
| single time thing.
|
| Not to even think of materials, tools and such.
| m463 wrote:
| I remember (decades ago) buying a garage door opener at sears,
| and they offered to install it for $99.
|
| I sort of hemmed and hawed and said ok.
|
| When the guy came by to install it, it was kind of amazing. he
| opened the box quickly with a box cutter, and started
| unwrapping stuff. Stuff that was needed came out, extras were
| discarded into the lid of the box, all within about a minute.
|
| He had a special pole with a carpet covered T at the top to
| help get the old rail down safely and raise the new one. He ran
| all the lines quickly and efficiently. Lines that were too long
| were wrapped around a screwdriver to form a pigtail and
| efficiently run them with some tension the right length.
|
| I think it was done in ~ 20 minutes and worked right the first
| time.
|
| Simply amazing to see sometime who has done it before and
| really knows what they're doing. Made me question every install
| I would ever do after that.
|
| They did the same thing with a garbage disposal install a year
| or two later. ba-da-boom, done.
| brucehoult wrote:
| And that is why I don't build my own PCs even though I can. I
| build a new PC about once every three or four years on
| average I suppose [1]. In that time processor sockets have
| changed, RAM has changed, sometimes other things.
|
| I select the parts, but pay the vendor or someone local to
| assemble and test it. Not only do they do it every week (if
| not every day), if some part is DoA they have others on hand
| to swap in and out to find out which part is the problem, but
| I don't, see: everything changed since I built the last one 5
| years before.
|
| [1] 2009 i7-860, 2014 i7-4790K, 2016 i7-6700K (had moved
| countries, didn't take the old PC, just the SSD), 2019 TR
| 2990WX (again had moved countries, taking just the SSD), 2024
| i9-13900HX laptop (beats the TR in every way, plus sips power
| and is portable).
| automatic6131 wrote:
| Building a PC is just the right amount of challenge (for
| me). It's fun. I'd do it for my friends, if they let me.
| And wanted to spend one or two grand every other year. It's
| just challenging enough to be fun but not so challenging
| it's actually hard.
| snvzz wrote:
| I build them, because basically no one offers prebuilts
| with ECC memory.
| wccrawford wrote:
| If I was sure they were going to use good parts, I'd do the
| same.
|
| I bought my current PC from a company that seems pretty
| good, and targets gamers with medium-high budgets.
|
| The "liquid cooled" cpu cooler died after being bumped with
| a vacuum, and I had to replace it.
|
| With that one thing that I was forced to do myself, I had
| to learn a _lot_ about the system that I 'd already have
| known if I'd ordered the parts myself. _Worse_ , they no
| longer had a list of the exact parts in the system on their
| site. I had to pull things apart to find out what they
| were.
|
| I'll be making my own PC from scratch again next time.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| Believe it or not, it was this article that solved the same
| problem I was having with my new sink / washing machine. For
| the past week, I've been draining the machine into the bathtub,
| because it wouldn't pump the water into the sink's drain pipe.
| I assumed the extension was too long, or the pump motor was too
| weak - turns out, I never cut the hole in the drain pipe.
| Thanks Chris!
| rconti wrote:
| I laughed when I read it, because my father-in-law just
| finished telling me the same story about a dishwasher he
| installed in a new house he built in the 90s. Water
| everywhere the first time it went to drain. He was perplexed
| until a friend asked him if he drilled out the plug in the
| p-trap.
|
| Of COURSE you can't just have a hole in the side of a pipe
| under your sink, but the existence of the fitting gives you a
| false sense of security that it's plug-and-play.
| loxs wrote:
| It's not always that easy. In my case we were moving to a new
| country. It was very hard to find English speaking tradespeople
| and the ones we did find told us that they can do it in 3 weeks
| earliest. So I had to either work as a dishwasher for 3 weeks
| (we have 2 kids) or connect the dishwasher myself, which took
| me a whole day and many trips to the hardware store. I still
| think I did the right thing.
| Finnucane wrote:
| When we had our new w&d set installed (replacing a dead set),
| we paid a plumber. Part of that was needing the gas hookup for
| the dryer, and there was _no way_ I was going to DIY that. And
| yeah, given what it costs just to have them show up, having
| both done is about the same cost as just one. And it did save
| me a lot of hassle.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Shifting Spanner
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjustable_spanner
| smackeyacky wrote:
| You need two, one metric and one SAE
| brucehoult wrote:
| Ahahaha.
|
| Vicegrips are very useful. And a pipe wrench ... commonly
| still called "Stillson" in these parts ... is also useful for
| shifting anything (even regular nuts) you don't have the
| correct spanner for and don't mind marking up a little. Chain
| wrench similarly.
| magnetometer wrote:
| Is that a joke I am missing? If it's adjustable, it doesn't
| matter. My adjustable ones have both scales on it
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Yes. Now go out and get a can of tartan paint
| glitchc wrote:
| I mean a lot of these tools one collects as one does work around
| the house. If you can invest in a Bosch washing machine, surely
| you can invest in a Bosch drill, a plumbing wrench and a spanner.
| The spade bit to the drainage plug, I must admit, was unexpected.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Not sure I would use a spade for that. It's easier to take out
| the trap and drill it out on the bench with a big normal drill.
| With a spade you might ruin the trap by taking out the side of
| the spigot.
| nicolas_t wrote:
| I used to just buy whatever tool I needed to do hardware jobs
| and collected a hodge podge of poor quality tools like this.
| One day I decided to research, buy a bunch of high quality
| tools, sell all the old ones I had. I wish I had done that
| sooner, it makes hardware jobs so much easier when you have the
| most common tools needed and you know they just work.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Something I'm grateful my dad taught me is the importance of
| good tools. He had cheap knock off vise grips that couldn't
| hold very well, and also name brand ones which did great. He
| told me how he regretted buying the cheap ones because they
| cost more, in the end - he still had to get the more
| expensive ones anyway. Ever since then I have always tried to
| get good quality tools when I buy them, and it has served me
| well.
| analog31 wrote:
| At least you got the job done before you had to start a second
| project to install a stopgap measure, which is now late too.
| bitwize wrote:
| > I get home to use the hole saw, and find out that my consumer
| grade drill can't even fit the hole saw in the chuck - it's too
| big.
|
| Somebody hasn't read _In the Beginning Was the Command Line_ ,
| else they'd know you need a Hole Hawg for a job like that.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| > So what do we do about it when we don't even know what
| questions to ask before setting out on any software project,
| especially one that ostensibly seems routine?
|
| Well, taking the story as metaphor a bit further... there were
| several opportunities to learn more about which questions to ask,
| without so many trips to the hardware store. I'm surprised not to
| see any mention of that in this section about lessons learned.
|
| Coming back to the topic of software, I'm not opposed to
| exploratory work as a requirements-gathering exercise. But at a
| certain point it bears a lot more fruit to stop _doing_ and start
| finding out what you don't know as a dedicated effort. When you
| can take one figurative trip to the hardware store with a big
| shopping list and set of open questions, you're bound to spend
| more of your labor in an effective and relatively straightforward
| way.
| afro88 wrote:
| Yes, I was surprised that the learning wasn't along the lines
| of "measure twice, cut once".
|
| But also, he trusted his dependent team / vendor too much (the
| new home builder) and assumed that part was done correctly when
| he started. I feel like in the software world, if you're
| integrating an SDK into a new project for example, you'd look
| around a bit to confirm you can integrate it like you have in
| the past on older projects.
|
| There's nothing wrong with poking around the codebase a bit, or
| doing a proof of concept, to get a better handle on the
| estimate.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Honestly, I feel the real lesson here is that, if you want
| accurate estimates, the job needs to be done end-to-end by
| someone who's done the exact same thing before - and because
| things change, "before" really means "recently".
|
| If you're not going to be moving houses every couple months,
| this means _passing the buck to someone else_. That is, the job
| needs to be done by some professional installers, because they
| 're in a position to do the same thing day after day, and can
| gradually adapt to variance and evolution of products (and
| plumbing, and homes).
|
| Also, and that's a second step, from the POV of those
| installers, it would be ideal if they could also _pick the
| washing machine for you_ - they 'd just pick pick the minimum
| amount of machines[0] to cover common scenarios, and specialize
| in installing them. That would significantly improve accuracy
| of their estimates.
|
| But this is, unfortunately, how we get to turning everything in
| life into a service, and it doesn't sit well with me. I'm
| willing to accept bad estimates if it means I get to pick and
| own stuff. After all, this is the model ISPs operate on, and we
| all know what kind of hardware they install. My first criterion
| for picking ISPs has always been whether they let you put your
| own router in place of theirs.
| qwertox wrote:
| In Germany this wouldn't be possible due to shortage of
| skilled workers. You'd have to settle with one who at least
| might have a bigger toolbox, but they wouldn't to an end-to-
| end analysis beforehand and would prefer to get the job done
| fast even if sluggishly.
|
| Recently I asked for quotes on adding a power socket to a
| din-rail fuse box. Easy job: cut two cables to proper length,
| screw one of them to the neutral rail, use a splitter after
| the fuse to get phase.
|
| "We don't do that, ask your power company". "Don't have time,
| 80EUR before taxes, in 8 months".
|
| I would do it myself, but it's in the shared area of an
| apartment house and the slightest issue with it would void
| pretty much all my insurances.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| > "We don't do that, ask your power company"
|
| I've been getting a lot of the same, from reputable
| companies, and then if I want a single person to get it all
| done, I have to have a connection I can definitely trust
| and does quality?
| immibis wrote:
| The flip side is: change careers to electrical trade and
| you won't have a shortage of work for a while.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> the job needs to be done by some professional installers,
| because they 're in a position to do the same thing day after
| day,_
|
| Possibly - it depends on the situation. In my experience, the
| transaction costs of getting people in can be pretty high.
|
| After all, if a guy has to drive 40 minutes to me, perform a
| 10 minute job, then drive 40 minutes back - I gotta expect to
| pay for 90 minutes of his time.
|
| And if _some_ install jobs involve lifting a 160 lbs machine
| by hand, that 's a two-man job - now I'm paying for two guys
| for 90 minutes. Or they want to see the job to check if it
| needs two guys before they can quote accurately - meaning
| another round trip.
|
| Oh, and my job doesn't let me work from home, so I gotta take
| a day off work.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| 1. Cost of finding a professional that you can trust.
|
| 2. Cost of explaining your situation to them.
|
| 3. Cost of back and forth email and calls.
|
| 4. Cost of scheduling a time that fits you both (and having
| to wait possibly several days).
|
| 5. Cost of having to be at home at that specific time.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Plus even with all that, the incentives for them will
| likely be to timebox and accept certain quality as
| sufficient where you wouldn't need to.
|
| There's definitely tradeoffs and they're very context
| dependent on your location/circumstances.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| There's also tons of benefits for DYI if done in a
| correct balance. It allows you to later communicate with
| professionals more efficiently and figure out who is
| actually a quality professional, debug issues with the
| setup you have, make better decisions in the future. I
| think when owning a house, if something does not pose a
| significant long term risk health or damage wise, it's
| wise to at least try and spend few hours on figuring out
| the DYI. Unless you have serious FU money where you can
| hire a single, trusted person to just orchestrate
| everything for you.
| imoreno wrote:
| You forgot
|
| 6. Cost of "hey man I actually don't have time for your
| job today, I'll do it next week, sorry"
|
| 7. Cost of they just don't show up and you have no idea
| what happened
|
| 8. Cost of trying to call them after 7 to reschedule, it
| goes to voicemail, but the voicemail is full so you can't
| leave a message, so you text them, but they don't read
| texts, so you just have to keep calling all them and hope
| to get lucky and catch them between jobs
|
| 9. Cost of you get frustrated by 8 so you decide to hire
| someone more established who has a secretary, but the
| secretary is clueless and gives you misinformation mixed
| with "I'll ask him and get back to you" (of course never
| gets back)
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| As a reminder it took him only 4 hours. I also had a similar
| case recently. Except I have much less experience and I tried
| to involve professionals as much as possible.
|
| It took more than a week overall. I don't see a real world
| where you can involve professionals and get it done in just 4
| hours. I would have been ecstatic with just 4 hours.
|
| I first talked with customer support of an electronics store,
| I took bunch of pictures of my setup, I asked several
| questions before hand. I bought both bringing the washing
| machine and installation from an electronics shop with best
| reputation locally. It wasn't clear where the water extract
| hole should be, I did figure it out talking back and forth
| with another specialist though. But the shop said that they
| can't do installation there. So I said, okay, let's drop the
| installation, just deliver the washing machine to the room. I
| asked multiple times if that involves also bringing it to the
| 2nd floor. And the customer support said yes.
|
| Then when the delivery finally came, the guy said they only
| bring to the front door and the first room, not 2nd floor.
| Luckily he was still able to help me out, we together brought
| it to the 2nd floor, but he was alone so wasn't prepared, and
| it weighed quite a bit.
|
| In terms of installation he said he can't help with that.
|
| Then I was talking to a specialist who had helped us on some
| other things, and with back and forth I managed to understand
| what to buy, but I had to do multiple shop trips, since the
| things I needed weren't in the really large construction shop
| I went to (related to water extraction). I'm not English
| speaker so I don't know the correct terminology for all of
| this here.
|
| Then there were other issues, such as machine started
| vibrating after, etc, etc. Which I managed to solve
| eventually.
|
| But point being is that even finding, managing, scheduling
| and using specialists can take way more than 4h that it took
| him.
| jannes wrote:
| I'm very doubtful of his 4 hour data point.
|
| How on earth can he make 5 trips to the hardware store in
| only 4 hours? Something is not adding up...
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| > Honestly, I feel the real lesson here is that, if you want
| accurate estimates, the job needs to be done end-to-end by
| someone who's done the exact same thing before - and because
| things change, "before" really means "recently".
|
| I think I inadvertently addressed my attitude toward
| estimating software by forgetting estimation was even part of
| the topic. Heh... IMO the real lesson is that no one has ever
| done exactly the same thing before, otherwise you're almost
| certainly paying too much for someone to do it again. In
| which case estimating is futile, until you've done sufficient
| work to approximate already doing the task under estimation.
| You can estimate when you're reasonably close to completion,
| but the important skill is learning to recognize patterns...
| including the pattern that you're facing unknown unknowns,
| and an unknown scope of same... and then to make the path to
| resolution more efficient.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Estimates don't have to be exact; that's why they're called
| estimates.
| yetkin wrote:
| of course washing machine installation takes too long... I see
| you don't do scrum. We are a rapid growing agile consultancy
| firm... we'd love....
| jcalx wrote:
| Reminds me of "Reality has a surprising amount of detail" [0] --
| unknown unknowns often remain that way until you get up close and
| personal with something new.
|
| [0] http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-
| surprising-...
| Aloha wrote:
| Thanks for sharing that
| ListeningPie wrote:
| "When you talk to someone who is smart but just seems so wrong,
| figure out what details seem important to them and why."
|
| This is an important insight that I will try to use
| LoganDark wrote:
| as an autistic, I tend to always get caught up in the details
| because I just seem to see so many more than is considered
| "normal"
| senkora wrote:
| I'm impressed that they fit it within 4 hours, to be honest.
|
| Assuming 15 minutes each way to the hardware store, that's 150
| minutes or 2.5 hours total for just driving.
|
| So talking with salespeople, checking out, and the whole process
| of actually installing the dishwasher would have to fit within
| 1.5 hours, which seems tight to me.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| 15 minutes to the nearest hardware store feels like a very
| American-minded estimate.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Should it be less than that? More?
| ListeningPie wrote:
| I don't see how it's country dependent. In the same country
| I've lived 2 minutes and 30 minutes away from a hardware
| store.
| emilfihlman wrote:
| Are you saying it's closer? Or do you refer to using time
| instead of distance?
|
| Even if you live in a city, getting to a hardware store
| usually takes at least 15 minutes unless you really live like
| right next door. Usually takes longer. Distance is a bad
| measure of the time it takes.
|
| One can easily overestimate how fast walking and taking
| public transportation is and how close hardware stores are to
| people, and underestimate how fast cars are.
|
| As a real world example you can consider this:
|
| From a small village called Luvia, Finland, it takes 18
| minutes to drive 19 km to a general purpose hardware store
| (K-Rauta Pori), while it can take easily 30 min to an hour to
| traverse this on foot from Pori city center (ie carrying
| everything yourself), or at least 16 minutes if you
| conveniently live right next to a bus stop (and there's
| absolutely not just a few minutes between rides).
| tylerchr wrote:
| I grew up about 3 minutes away from a big hardware store, doing
| projects all the time. This contributed to a very wrongheaded
| idea about how long projects take.
|
| When I moved into my current house it was suddenly a 40 minute
| trip. For the first couple years I couldn't get anything done
| on Saturdays because I'd never needed to optimize away trips to
| the store before.
| xg15 wrote:
| I wonder if it was four consecutive hours or if it was four
| hours in total, spread over several days. This sounds like the
| kind of project where you spend half a hour after work each
| day, every day thinking you'd finally be done...
| PeterStuer wrote:
| I was also thinking he must live next to the store.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| Srsly dude, like why didn't you just hire people for...ALL of
| this?!
| bigiain wrote:
| Because "I've done this many times, it's only gonna take 10
| mins." (Followed by a large serve of sunk cost fallacy.)
| kelnos wrote:
| The thing is, though, the author learned some useful lessons
| about how new construction houses can be a bit unfinished.
| I'm sure when the next household task comes up, he'll sit
| down and look at every step of the task first to see if he
| can make any of those unknown unknowns, well, known, before
| he drives out to the hardware store.
|
| I can certainly see someone at this point deciding it isn't
| worth the effort, and hiring people from then on, but some
| people (myself included) often enjoy the process of learning
| these things.
| bigiain wrote:
| And this is the next step on the journey towards becoming a
| real senior developer...
|
| > some people (myself included) often enjoy the process of
| learning these things.
|
| A real senior developer knows when they're writing their
| own framework or library "for enjoyment", and when to just
| use the "boring technology" choice and work around any
| deficiencies it has for the task at hand.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| Obligatory "Malcolm in the Middle" clip: https://is.gd/ohuxaw
| walthamstow wrote:
| Baffled at what kind of garbage drill this guy has that won't
| take an arbor adaptor for a hole saw. I cut all kinds of holes in
| my current place with a brushless Dewalt combi that was <PS100 on
| sale.
| xxs wrote:
| Dewalt is prosumer (i.e. on the high end).
|
| The not taking part is likely 10mm chuck, even though the twist
| drill for hole saw tend to be 8mm. One the pictures has a 10mm
| plastic chuck. Lots of hole saw have even 6.3mm (the 1/4) hex
| drive for impact drivers.
|
| Other than that it's quite baffling the guy had rather poor
| tools, and likely kept buying low quality tools too. Yet, he
| was very determined.
| walthamstow wrote:
| > rather poor tools ... Yet, he was very determined.
|
| Accurate description of me as a programmer tbh
| int_19h wrote:
| That's how you get the JavaScript ecosystem.
| m463 wrote:
| plumber did an install for me and had a super-expensive
| dewalt tool...
|
| It could attach copper pipes to each other using pressure
| instead of getting out a torch and brazing. pretty amazing.
|
| EDIT: this one: ($3000!)
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011HX3HI0
| lnsru wrote:
| These tools cost here ~1200EUR and are not expensive at
| all. Nobody in a trade job wants to mess with a torch, gas
| cans, dirty paste and soldering chemicals all day anymore.
| It takes seconds instead of minutes for one pressed
| connection. Ok, pressed connections are thicker than
| soldered, but doesn't matter for most cases. Obviously as a
| hobby builder I can toy half day with torch and solder
| paste for 40 connections in my house.
| xxs wrote:
| copper pipes are not popular in this part of the pond (not
| any longer at least, outside gas). The most common domestic
| pipes are "pex/aluminum/pex" type which are designed for
| crimping and bending (by hand).
|
| Other than that it makes a lot sense to go w/ crimping if
| possible - quite surprised it's rated up to 2".
| chefandy wrote:
| You use copper pipes for gas? Interesting. In the US we
| use iron.
| walthamstow wrote:
| I have steel pipes for my central heating flow (UK)
| because my house was built during a copper shortage in
| the late 1960s. Every plumber has said they're a
| nightmare to work with compared to soft copper.
| chefandy wrote:
| I imagine they're much more difficult to work with but I
| don't think copper meets code for gas in the US for some
| reason.
| xxs wrote:
| The story I know is that US gas (used to) cause corrosion
| of the Cu pipes. I don't have a gas line (in the house),
| so no recent installation - and of course I won't be
| installing a gas line on my silly-own (while I can go by
| and do some plumbing for the water). Yet, if i see a tiny
| (8mm) copper tube I'm quite confident, it's for the gas.
| chefandy wrote:
| Perhaps a relic of the days of manufactured coal-based
| gas that they kept because there was already so much
| infrastructure. Out of curiosity I've been trying to see
| if the local steam utility offers new supply connections
| but I don't see anything.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Yeah, they absolutely make large hole saws with 1/4" chucks,
| which is the standard for basically any cordless drill bought
| in the US.
|
| Sounds like the hardware store guy maybe sold him the wrong
| thing.
| xg15 wrote:
| I know those kind of drills since I bought one at IKEA. It
| looked more like a slightly beefed-up electric screwdriver and
| I was surprised you can actually drill into walls it it.
|
| But what I'm baffled is that this kind of stuff is now the
| standard for "consumer-grade" drills, while the normal ones
| with power cords are "professional-grade"? When did that
| happen?
| seb1204 wrote:
| The market signalled it is ok to sell the more crappy
| version.
| xg15 wrote:
| "It's what the customers want"
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Same. Even the cheapest drill I have for dirty jobs does this
| with no problem whatsoever.
| mattlondon wrote:
| +1
|
| I have a "toy" 12v cordless Bosch drill (small ~cylindrical
| battery in the handle and not the square ones hanging
| underneath that you see in non-toy drills) that was approx the
| same price and I did pretty much exactly this same thing of
| drilling a 60mm hole through the side of a kitchen cabinet and
| it didn't even blink. The drill is a bit of a beast through for
| such a toy - I have drilled 16mm bits directly though double
| skin brick walls using it (installing external socket + fused
| spur) so not sure what level of crapness it takes to be below
| the toy drill I have.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Blimey, 12V battery in the handle and you're getting that
| kind of mileage out of it, fair play!
| chefandy wrote:
| Yeah same. I've got an extra drill that was free with any
| purchase from harbor freight (but normally sells for like $15)
| that I've used with a 2" hole saw several times for cord
| management. Maybe the poster had a drill-shaped electric
| screwdriver rather than a drill-driver?
| landgenoot wrote:
| By reading the title, I assumed this article would be about the
| remaining time indication, which is a lie on some washing
| machines.
| manosyja wrote:
| Same, I am constantly amazed how the estimate changes during
| runtime, especially at the Ende of the cycle...
| Doxin wrote:
| Biggest cause of the estimate being wrong is the machine
| trying to balance the load for the spin cycle. It's basically
| brute forcing it by tossing the clothes over and over again
| until it's all balanced enough for the spin cycle.
|
| This can take hours, or even fail altogether and then you're
| left with sopping wet laundry.
| perlgeek wrote:
| Some washing machines actually measure how dirty the drain
| water is to decide whether to do another pass with fresh water.
| Since this is a dynamic decision, the remaining time cannot be
| accurately predicted in advance.
|
| (Not saying this is true for all, some might just lie
| outright).
| consp wrote:
| The expensive ones do. The cheap ones or lower models of the
| expensive ones fake it to look more expensive. Sensors cost
| money.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| A big factor of uncertainty at the end of the cycle is the
| weight distribution for spinning.
|
| Newer washing machines rotate the drum slowly until the
| clothes separate, bringing the centre of mass closer to the
| axis of rotation, leading to much less vibration during the
| spin cycle. If the weight does not distribute after n cycles
| (e.g. if you put a single large and heavy duvet cover
| inside), some lower the spin RPM to a level that is deemed
| acceptable.
|
| I've always assumed that they perform this measurement via
| the current curve of the motor during a rotation. Flattened
| curve -> distributed load, CG close to spin axis. Huge spike
| -> offset load, CG far away from spin axis -> bang bang bang
| walking washing machine.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mqy5uWXvzM
| xg15 wrote:
| Same here. And yeah, I know its a shifting estimate, but it
| still always reminds me of the old "Windows minutes".
| fragmede wrote:
| The most amazing of which is that it used to install faster
| if you jiggled the mouse.
| mvanbaak wrote:
| jiggling the mouse generates random data. The installer
| uses this for all kinds of things. Some older versions of
| gnupg also stated 'please move the mouse' while generating
| your key pair just to have access to more random data :)
| 11mariom wrote:
| Even if the estimate is correct - end of time and chime does
| not mean you can open door as it's still locked ;D
| zyberzero wrote:
| Same. My (fairly modern, ~3 yo?) Husqvarna only show lies; it
| can show seven minutes left for ~30 minutes and then go
| straight to 0.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Similarly and I extended to think about a dryer with a humidity
| sensor; it doesn't measure time well, it measures complexity,
| it gets more accurate the longer it works on the task, but the
| last progress meter can still take significant time with
| significant clothes.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Time estimation which continually gets updated and doesn't
| inform you about the drift of the original estimation and
| actual time, nor when it was actually used vs finish time.
|
| There's some humor in the parallels with software development.
| abanana wrote:
| Yes, so did I. My washing machine that died a few weeks ago
| lied about it all the time. The replacement doesn't display the
| time at all, which made me think at first I should have paid
| more for one that does... which just goes to show why the
| manufacturers do it!
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Yeah same, Having watched my machine give interesting time
| estimates while it was broken. I was hoping it was more about
| how it added up each task it was trying to do until it had to
| re do a task.
| manosyja wrote:
| Don't remember where I read it, but someone expressed estimates
| are either ,,couple hours", ,,couple days" or ,,longer".
| ListeningPie wrote:
| 1, 5, 10 in story points?
| 6510 wrote:
| The washing machine example is great, here in NL (from what I've
| seen) the tap drain and power points are (required to be) always
| exactly the same. The only exception is that it use to be
| required to wire it directly into a pull cord and now you may use
| a normal water resistant wall socket.
|
| The same thing needs to happen in software, the freedom to do
| whatever you like has to be limited by reasonable standards. That
| way we can reduce much of the bullshit you run into. We do have
| all kinds of standards of course but they aren't usually required
| by law.
|
| It's a bit like turning a lawless society into a one with laws,
| it has to happen gradually one [sensible] thing at a time. It
| might be fun to (for a change) keep the number of laws under
| control from the start :P
| floren wrote:
| When the author needed to make a hole for the power cable, he
| drilled it nicely and fitting a plastic insert.
|
| When the builders cut holes for the water hoses, they just spent
| 10 seconds hogging out a rough rectangle with a Sawz-All and then
| wandered off for a smoke break.
|
| This lines up with basically all my past experiences so the
| pictures were entirely unsurprising
| tstrimple wrote:
| This is why I DIY pretty much everything which doesn't require
| me to climb onto our roof. It often takes me longer overall,
| because of general lack of energy after work combined with kids
| activities all throughout the week and kids competitions on
| weekends. But once I get started, I find the process goes quite
| quickly and that often includes YouTube research time and
| finding videos that solve my exact problem with the exact model
| of appliance I'm working on. Even building my own cabinets and
| epoxying my garage floor was all quite easy and has led to
| higher quality results than I've seen in the past from
| contractors that we've hired as well as work done for friends
| and neighbors. Hopefully this weekend I'll be pouring a
| concrete countertop for my daughter's bathroom so we can get
| that room wrapped up.
|
| It's just time consuming and life has a lot of demands. I'd
| happily pay for this work if I had any trust in the results.
| But good contractors are hard to find and already very busy.
| maccard wrote:
| > I'd happily pay for this work if I had any trust in the
| results. But good contractors are hard to find and already
| very busy.
|
| Even the "good" contractors are unlikely to take as much care
| as you want them to for these sorts of things. Previous
| owners had a bathroom fitted, and did a really good job
| except for the tiles behind the toilet where they clearly
| didn't bother spending 45 seconds installing tile spacers
| between like 4 tiles.The rest of the job is flawless, but it
| annoys me every time I see it.
| any1 wrote:
| > I'd happily pay for this work if I had any trust in the
| results.
|
| This is exactly how I feel.
|
| What's even worse is that when I hire contractors, I
| invariably have to clean up their mess and fix things myself
| so that they're up to my standards.
|
| I've had a contractor do a job so poorly that it was more
| trouble to fix their mess than it would have been for me to
| do the thing myself from the start.
| any1 wrote:
| For the curious, this is the saga of when I had to fix my
| washing machine because a repair man used the wrong type of
| terminals when fixing it previously:
| https://andri.yngvason.is/repairing-the-washing-
| machine.html
| ryandrake wrote:
| Plus, contractors don't want to do your small, easily-DIY-
| able job. They want to do big, profitable projects. The
| contractors around where I live won't even get out of bed
| for less than $1,000. And, as others have mentioned,
| there's no craftsmanship anymore. They show up, do
| everything exactly to code as fast as they can, and leave.
| You're the one who has to live with the quality of work.
| floren wrote:
| > They show up,
|
| if you're lucky
|
| > do everything exactly to code
|
| if you're lucky
|
| > as fast as they can
|
| if you're lucky
| any1 wrote:
| Haha, yeah, you have to hound them on the phone to get
| them to show up and even then they're not going to show
| up on time or even at all.
| specialist wrote:
| Yup.
|
| After multiple bad experiences with contractors [1], I
| decided I could fail all by myself, for free.
|
| So I bought all the tools, all the books (now youtube
| videos), do some mockups (eg practice tiling in the garage)
| before each project, and still (mostly) hate the results.
|
| But it's cheaper, I learn a helluva lot, and my third attempt
| is usually good enough.
|
| [1] Just 4 weeks ago, after a storm, I finally figured out my
| very expensive backyard fence doesn't have footings. That
| contractor just stuffed the posts in the ground and filled in
| with dirt. Stupid me wouldn't have even thought to ask, much
| less verify that work. So now I'll be learning how to make a
| fence. So it goes...
| abanana wrote:
| Yeah, that rough cutout jumped out at me.
|
| This reminds me of a conversation I had with the BT engineer
| who came to connect the phone line, when I was in the latter
| stages of renovating before moving in. He happened to be
| renovating a similar house. We were in full agreement, from our
| experiences, that most of the time, you can do a better job
| than the professionals - _because you care more_. It shouldn 't
| be like that, but it is.
|
| (Unfortunately he then fitted a cheap-and-nasty master socket,
| which I had to replace with a decent quality one myself when it
| turned out to be causing a problem. Partly proving his own
| point.)
| mmmlinux wrote:
| left for the smoke break then forgot about the second hole they
| were supposed to drill for the power.
| jumploops wrote:
| A great example of yak shaving[0].
|
| [0]https://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-
| archive/g...
| userbinator wrote:
| I've experienced similar with corroded fasteners -- the stubborn
| nut or bolt that breaks off in its hole and turns what could've
| been a 5-minute job into one exceeding an hour.
| timvdalen wrote:
| Multiple trips to the hardware store for what you thought was a
| quick job is entirely too relatable
| paulmooreparks wrote:
| I just had a similar experience moving into my new flat this year
| (including the builder forgetting to drill the hole for the power
| plug). With absolutely no disrespect to the author, because I
| also learned this the hard way, I'll say that a little bit of
| BDUF would maybe have saved some time. It was my third iteration
| or so (sprint?) before I decided to just walk through the entire
| job step by step and see what other tools I would need and what
| else might go wrong. I can't just pop down to Lowe's or Home
| Depot in Singapore, after all.
|
| This especially hits home because my current feature ticket ("Oh,
| yeah, it looks easy, a couple of days") was under-specified, and
| what specification there was had flaws. Two weeks later....
| loxs wrote:
| For this you have to know upfront that it will be a "big
| job"... In my case, after the second trip to the hardware
| store, I still thought that it's just a bad luck, instead of a
| "serious job". Ended up going several more times of course.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Mmm ok so basically you're saying programmers have no experience,
| and don't have enough knowledge about tools and probable set
| backs.
|
| Sounds about right!
| xg15 wrote:
| With all due respect, I agree that the blocked spigot was
| surprising, but the block is not hard to see if you just peek
| inside the spigot before connecting it. I struggle a bit to
| imagine how someone figures out they have to connect the hose
| there and even does all the connecting but never views the spigot
| from an angle where they can see the block.
| aargh_aargh wrote:
| I have no trouble imagining that since the spigot is already
| connected and sits in a cabinet (visible on the photo), you
| can't peek inside and it won't occur to you to poke it. Unknown
| unknown.
|
| I also hate cleaning my spigot for that reason - there just
| isn't enough wiggle room in the cabinet to put it back leak-
| free after I unscrew it.
| xg15 wrote:
| Good point. If he wasn't around when the sink was installed
| or at that point never knew that the spigot was important,
| there's be no reason to have noticed the block.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| The spigot is too thin to fit a finger inside it, except for
| maybe the pinky finger, which is too short to reach the
| blocking part. Shining a light inside is also deceiving,
| because the blocking part is so far back, it might as well be
| the wall of the main pipe. The only way to realize there's a
| wall there, is to stick a screwdriver inside.
| bhandziuk wrote:
| Pretty much all the pinch points encountered were things
| visible and could have been through about at the start of the
| project. They've done this 9 times before, you need a
| wrench/pliers to put the hoses on. It needs to drain (also that
| drain cover likely needed a only a flathead screw driver to
| remove. Drilling it out leaved burrs and usually they are
| designed to be popped out with a little force.) They lived in 9
| places and don't have a drill that can chuck in a small hole
| saw. Seems surprising. But I guess the point is you don't know
| what you don't know.
| emilfihlman wrote:
| This was just painful to read.
|
| >For my washing machine, they were unknown unknowns - I didn't
| even expect there'd be a hole to drill, new hoses to buy, a cold
| water tap cap to remove, and a spigot PVC wall to drill out.
|
| No, most of this was something that could have easily been known
| if checked after the first trip to the store but before going
| there again, or at minimum before the third trip. It was just so
| painful to read how there was absolutely zero planning and
| checking before execution.
|
| While you can also do many checks and plans in software
| development and deployment (like calculating if the thing you
| want to calculate given your resources is even remotely possible,
| back of the envelope calculations, you know), there's still many
| more things that are much harder to know about and check in
| advance, and there's not usually a huge cost (going to the store)
| associated with problem solving each time.
| mylastattempt wrote:
| Agreed on this being a painful read. Starting with this being a
| 10 minute job. Based on what? Assumptions are the.. etc. You
| assumed everthing was plug&play ready. Who told you that?
|
| Anyway, after the second trip, before going on a third, he
| still didn't think to actually check the complete
| 'requirements' for his trip to the hardware store. You buy a
| part for your drill, but don't check if it will fit your drill?
| Why not bring the drill and then take a picture of the job
| site, if you are going to ask the people at the store for help
| anyway.
|
| It's like downloading a compiler, write lot's of code in Python
| and then being annoyed it's a C++ compiler or whatever. Same
| for the "not actually extendable hose". Maybe call the wife, or
| just buy the hose and return it if you don't need it on another
| trip to the hardware store later that day or week when you pass
| there. Just painful, no planning or thinking.
|
| The only thing I can imagine just being domain knowledge, is
| that the spigot needed a hole to be drilled eventhough it has
| an inlet which I would also assume was open.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think it was somewhat reasonable for the author to assume
| it would be a 10-minute job when it had been that way in the
| previous places he lived. Realizing that a brand-new house
| might be "unfinished" in some ways is something you might not
| know if you've only lived in places where there was a
| previous owner that took care of all the unfinished bits.
|
| But I agree that once the author realized he needed to go to
| the hardware store a second time, he should have gone through
| the motions of pre-checking every step he'd need to perform
| so he could see what else wasn't right.
| DannyBee wrote:
| "I think it was somewhat reasonable for the author to
| assume it would be a 10-minute job when it had been that
| way in the previous places he lived."
|
| I don't - in all of those, the author _knew_ someone else
| had done the work for them.
|
| It's like always having had scaffolding built for you, and
| then when you have to do it from scratch, assuming the
| scaffolding required zero time and zero knowledge to build,
| and being surprised when it doesn't.
|
| Here's a fun thing that most software developers never do
| that works, and would have also worked here: He could have
| asked.
|
| "Hey random internet people, i'm about to install a washer
| in my new home. All of my previous homes i was not the
| first owner, but here I am. What do i need to think about
| here?"
|
| A quick search shows lots of people have asked on reddit
| and get correct answers for their situations. I don't see
| one where they got bad advice.
|
| Heck, even chatgpt gets this right: https://chatgpt.com/sha
| re/67b482dd-25c0-8008-b0be-6b1f97648a...
|
| The fact that software developers assume it's reasonable to
| not bother to seek knowledge when you know the situation
| has changed says more about software development than it
| does about reasonability :)
| randallsquared wrote:
| > _You assumed everthing was plug &play ready. Who told you
| that?_
|
| Eight previous iterations of experience told them that.
| DannyBee wrote:
| Because someone else had done the work for them.
|
| They knew nobody else had done it for them here the second
| they hit a single issue.
|
| Why not step back at that point and try to understand the
| entire problem you may be facing?
|
| This like people who build software by just fixing one bug
| they see at a time by trying to make the compiler happy or
| whatever, instead of stepping back and thinking about the
| system as a whole - what other assumptions are likely wrong
| if you had this bug?
|
| Worse, here there was a very easy solution: Ask questions
| before you start.
|
| Just because it's common for software developers to not
| bother to ask people for knowledge they don't have doesn't
| mean it's a good answer.
| DannyBee wrote:
| 100% agree
|
| This was painful, because like software development, he didn't
| bother to read the manual at all first before estimating how
| long it would take :)
|
| It's like saying
|
| "i'm going to use the following pieces of software in my
| app:x,y,z. All previous times someone else has built all
| scaffolding for me, so i've never had to start from scratch.
| Here i'm going to start from scratch, but i'm not going to read
| any of the getting started guides or look for examples before
| estimating how long it will take me to make this scaffolding or
| app. I'm also not going to ask anyone who might have greater
| knowledge than me. Instead, i'm going to assume it took them
| zero time and zero knowledge to build the scaffolding i used to
| use and proceed apace."
|
| I would be totally and completely shocked if the washer did not
| have complete instructions on connections. I just looked, and
| every bosch manual i can find includes directions on how to do
| the hookups. If he spent 1 minute looking at which hookup he
| had, it would have been obvious that:
|
| A. there was a cap on the hookup B. the hoses could not reach
|
| etc
|
| The only one that is probably not as documented is the pvc
| inside cap - but these exist on everything and are required by
| code. Any good DIY book will tell you about them.
|
| They've also got the reason wrong there. Or at least one of
| them. It's also done so they can test the system for leaks
| effectively.
|
| You can't really test for leaks if you have a holes that go to
| nowhere :)
| hoseja wrote:
| How do you live in a house without knowing what a hole saw is?
| davethedevguy wrote:
| At some point, everybody had to learn what a hole saw is for
| the first time.
| kelnos wrote:
| I would guess that most people who live in houses don't know
| what hole saws are. Your assumption that everyone does -- or
| even needs to -- comes off a bit arrogant and out of touch.
| hoseja wrote:
| Does homeownership not imply major participation in house
| maintenance in America?
|
| Do you just have "handymen" do everything for you? Do you
| only interact with your physical environment in superficial
| ways?
| pjc50 wrote:
| Maybe you can talk to the guy who thinks that's exactly the
| solution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43086440
|
| But "living in a home" and "homeownership" are not the same
| thing. Everyone has to learn something at some point,
| people aren't born holding hole saws.
| mtc010170 wrote:
| America is a very big place, and homeownership looks very
| different depending on the type of home. Maintaining an
| old, free-standing house with well water in a rural area is
| a completely different experience from living in a newly
| built condo. People take on different responsibilities when
| they become homeowners, and their knowledge varies
| accordingly.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Now wait until his does the dryer and finds out (in the USA) that
| there are several different types of plugs and sockets and plug
| on your dryer might not match the socket on the wall. (source:
| recent experience)
| rascul wrote:
| For some more information:
|
| There are two plugs that are in common usage for electric
| dryers (in the USA): a 3-wire (typically gray, with a "flat"
| cord) or the 4-wire (typically black, with a round cord). Older
| installs will probably have the 3-wire, while anything somewhat
| recent will likely have the 4-wire. They connect to the dryer
| slightly differently, but there should be a diagram to show
| how.
|
| This is the same situation with electric ranges, except the
| plugs are slightly different from the dryer plugs so you can't
| just use a dryer plug on a range.
| wjnc wrote:
| Great story. I am a bit further along on the learning curve. Know
| and can do all those steps. And still, I have both an "appliance
| man" (actually a repair guy who also delivers and installs) and a
| plumber in my phone. The appliance man is the one most people
| fail to send money to. Why is the appliance man great? He knows,
| being the repair guy, which brands and models are sh*t and which
| are not. And that for less than a 10% premium on the online price
| of appliances. That's just so much value for money.
|
| (Point in case to the story, estimation is important. Knowing
| what jobs to buy externally can be even more worthwhile.)
| seb1204 wrote:
| We bought a second had fridge from an appliance guy and besides
| the scratch in the door this fridge just does its job for
| several years.
| sneak wrote:
| I don't think this is as much a story about complexity as it is
| the benefit of specialist experience and tools.
|
| This would have been a very short project if a specialist with
| all of the right tools and parts were summoned versus the five-
| trips-to-the-hardware-store-for-what-must-surely-be-the-last-
| thing-this-time story it turned out to be.
|
| We've all been there. If you're a specialist (such as a software
| developer), there's little reason not to hire specialists for
| things like appliance installation. Just because you _can_ do it
| yourself, doesn 't mean you should.
|
| By all means, design and screenprint your own t-shirts and label
| art and photocopy your zine or whatever. But if you know the job
| might need 3 different kinds of wrenches, just roll a truck that
| has 20 wrenches on it already.
|
| None of the "unknown unknowns" to him are actually unknown to a
| specialist. Of course someone with no experience is going to take
| 20x longer, they're learning on the job.
|
| Life is short, we're all going to be dead soon. Don't waste it on
| repeated trips to a retail store to buy meaningless hardware and
| tools.
|
| Just because I _can_ write frontend software doesn 't mean I
| _should_ ; I'd hire a frontend dev who knows all of the tools and
| libraries and stuff, because the last time I did it was 8 years
| ago and everything is different now. It'd take me days just to
| become useful.
| kelnos wrote:
| Sure, and the author explicitly acknowledges that a
| professional who'd done this a ton of times wouldn't have these
| problems, and would complete the job quickly. The point of the
| article is not to marvel about complexity, it's to remind
| people that whenever you're doing something new, your estimates
| can't be trusted.
|
| The author also suggests that many software development tasks
| will be new, or be new _enough_ to make your estimates
| unreliable. That is, even if it 's a task you've done before,
| if any amount of time has passed, it's likely that quite a few
| of the details have changed, and your estimates will still be
| off.
|
| > _Just because you can do it yourself, doesn 't mean you
| should._
|
| The flip side of this is that sometimes it's fun. I've been
| doing a bunch of home improvement tasks lately that in the past
| I would probably call a professional to do. They take me longer
| to complete, and I have to buy some specialized tools, but I
| find the process enjoyable, and I learn things every time. (And
| even after buying the tools, it still ends up being cheaper
| than hiring someone.)
|
| I'm currently thinking about adding recessed lighting to the
| walls along the base of the staircase in my house. The lighting
| in the staircase is too dim, but I don't want to replace the
| existing fixtures (for reasons I don't want to get into). I'll
| have to cut holes for new electrical boxes, and run new romex
| along the entire thing. This will probably be my most ambitious
| project to date, and I may screw up the drywall repair and need
| to hire someone to make it look nice. But I'm probably going to
| give it a go, and I'll learn things and have fun along the way.
| DennisL123 wrote:
| Shitty tools lead to wasted time. True for programming, and
| apparently also for appliance installations.
|
| Good job on pulling through, though.
| fedeb95 wrote:
| so what do I tell my manager?
| dcow wrote:
| The story is good. My experience, however, has been almost the
| exact opposite. It's not that 90% is a no-brainer and 10% is
| fumbling around. It's that 90% is fumbling around and 10% is no-
| brainer. In other words, how many people have worked on the same
| product across companies writing the same code stanzas over and
| over? Or how many people are solving the same problems project to
| project? Or if you are, then using the same tech stack/framework
| you did previously? I find it incredibly hard to estimate
| something when 90% of the time my honest answer is, "I've never
| built that before".
| somat wrote:
| Sort of like the saying.
|
| 90% of the job takes 90% of the time. The remaining 10% takes
| the other 90% of the time.
| danhau wrote:
| Your reaction is similar to mine. I was scratching my head when
| I read
|
| > So often we're asked to build something we've built before,
| so we estimate with confidence that it might take a week.
|
| I've never built the same thing / received the same
| requirements twice, making estimation pointless.
| whstl wrote:
| The worst part is that the initial requirements are often way
| closer to something you build before, but "small adjustments"
| make it into a completely different thing.
| dkarl wrote:
| I agree 100%. The requirements might sound the same, but only
| until you dig in.
|
| I've often received the same requirements for a system that
| already existed, and had to ask, why do you need a new one
| instead of the one you already have that does exactly what
| you're asking for? And oh boy does the answer to that get
| interesting.
| bluGill wrote:
| I've built the same project many times - when I was in
| construction building houses. Even when we got a new blueprint
| it was mostly similar to existing houses and so we could
| estimate it well - but we always added a little padding to the
| new print because there were things we would find on the job
| that we didn't expect. When the print was one we had never
| built but someone else had we had more confidence in our
| estimates.
|
| Software though - why would you start over from scratch? That
| is maybe once every 30 years.
| lloeki wrote:
| There are a ton of small (software) projects I've started
| from scratch even though they "look like" the same from afar.
| The small differences matter. An ex coworker of mine had a
| saying: If it "looks like an alligator,
| except..." then it's not an alligator.
|
| I can't count how many times I got burned, tried to beat
| previous code into submission to fit the new thing, only to
| realise I'd have an easier time just doing it bespoke from
| scratch so that it has 100% fitness for purpose.
|
| That, or you start writing reusable frameworks, which you
| have to somehow design and maintain, and "the project"
| becomes the framework itself instead of what you set out to
| originally do. How many have developed game engines instead
| of the game they set out to write? or blog generators instead
| of doing actual blogging they set out to do?
|
| Reusability can be a beautiful trap. I'm done with that, now
| I just _do the damn thing_.
| monkpit wrote:
| This is part of why I don't understand the argument for
| vim/emacs.
|
| If you _like_ those then keep using them by all means.
|
| But when people tell me "it's so much more efficient if you
| never have to take your hands off the keyboard", I don't buy
| that.
|
| Sure, it is more efficient to know shortcuts for things you do
| commonly in your IDE. And yeah, editing text is a common task
| in the IDE.
|
| But (for me) 90% of an engineering task is gathering
| requirements, testing, waiting for Jenkins or something,
| chatting with a colleague about the context of the task.
| Fumbling around.
|
| Writing new code or editing existing code is really a small
| part of completing the task, and being able to do it as quickly
| as possible isn't that big of a benefit (again, for me
| specifically).
|
| So, again I'll reiterate, these editors work great for some (I
| know enough in vi/vim to get stuff done), but don't try to sell
| me on the efficiency argument. Just use it because you like it!
| Hasu wrote:
| The efficiency argument isn't really about macro-efficiency,
| it's about micro-efficiency. It's not, "with my lightning
| fast editing speed, I will drop 10k lines today", it's about
| writing _this method_ faster so I can run tests and see if
| anything changes, getting me to the next thinking step that
| much quicker while the problem is still fully loaded into my
| head. It 's about keeping flow state flowing. It's about
| reducing the iteration time between working code states, so
| your cycle time gets tightened.
| devsda wrote:
| It's the same with touch typing too.
|
| IME, without good muscle memory (touch or hybrid typing) of
| keys, consciously searching for each key is going to
| seriously disrupt the flow and thought process behind the
| code being written.
|
| It may not make you a rockstar programmer, but it will
| definitely make coding more enjoyable.
|
| I think there was a recent HN discussion on this topic.
| kjs3 wrote:
| 10% of my time is 4-8 hours a week. And I'm writing up those
| requirements, tests, etc. someplace, so I've got hands on
| keyboard far more than 10% of my time (usually in a vi).
| Seems like a good opportunity to optimize. I made my
| choice...not because I 'like it', but because I've been doing
| it both ways since the 80s and this works.
|
| In the end, tho, you don't understand the argument, don't
| know the tools (know enough to get stuff done doesn't count),
| haven't walked in the shoes, but you're _absolutely certain_
| all us vi /emacs users are wrong. I mean, I've heard this
| pissing contest since the Win3 days, so I don't expect much
| intellectual rigor, but most people who feel the need to
| "well ackshually" keyboard jockeys at lest take the time to
| google up something like AskTogs infamous "I spent $50m to
| prove mice are faster" (for Apple, trying to push the
| Macintosh, with none of the research ever published AFAIK) to
| 'prove' how deluded we are. There is actual published
| research out there covering not just speed but ergonomics and
| accuracy; it's pretty inconclusive all things considered, and
| very dependent on the use case the researchers decide to
| examine, so really easy to cherry pick so you get to win
| arguments on the internet.
| analog31 wrote:
| The only reason to start a project is because you need
| something new, otherwise you'd copy an old project. Like
| teaching school, your students are always the same age even as
| you get older, it's always new to them, and they make the same
| mistakes. Engineering projects are eternal September.
| bschne wrote:
| reminded of my favorite bit from Malcolm in The Middle
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0
| yason wrote:
| This is still better than programming in general. He had done it
| before but bumped into a few fatal unknowns. In programming, this
| would be like doing another integration of the company product,
| but for another customer with some custom changes. But most real
| jobs I've been paid money for would be analogous to "Install a
| washing machine in the house. Here's a concrete footing to start
| with; you might have to design and build some kind of a house on
| the go. And we don't have a washing machine either, we need to
| hash out at least thing for that, too." So, a lot of known
| unknown-unknowns and that's effectively what the whole profession
| is about. Writing stuff that hasn't been written before.
| sgt wrote:
| I've wasted so much time on washing machines over the years. If
| you run them enough, they do break, especially if you buy the
| "newish" Samsung type of front loader washing machine. They're
| made in China and poorly built.
|
| One day my wife was doing the laundry and the "spider" (metal arm
| holding the drum) broke clean off. Then I dismantled the whole
| machine, cleaned it up (never been cleaner), and replaced the
| spider the following day. Then while I was at it, I figured I
| should probably replace the bearings as a preventative measure.
| One of them was seriously stuck. Also requires a few trips back
| and forth because I don't know which bearing it is until it's
| out.
|
| You wouldn't believe how clean this machine is now, it's a beauty
| - some internal parts had corroded so I sanded it nicely, and did
| an internal paint job. Nobody will appreciate this.
|
| Eventually I fixed it up completely but by then my wife had
| already bought a new washing machine. Another SAMSUNG! FFS.
| cesaref wrote:
| Here in europe we have Miele who make various white goods, and
| their washing machines are designed to actually last, rather
| than fail once the guarantee has run out.
|
| I think they plan for 20+ years lifetime. Our one is getting on
| for 18 years old now, and has had no issues, or for that
| matter, any indication of problems.
|
| https://www.mieleusa.com/e/washing-machines-1015696-c
| blitzar wrote:
| Just about to throw out my 2nd Miele washing machine in 10
| years.
|
| Tempted to go for something cheap and throw it out every 2
| years and save a lot of money.
| sgt wrote:
| We actually ended up buying a Miele. It's extremely heavy.
| aa-jv wrote:
| This is one of my pet frustrations, and I've solved it over the
| years with a very specific software development workflow, which
| all issues in my project go through.
|
| The states, which many of you may recognize: ANALYSIS,
| REQUIREMENTS, SPECIFICATIONS, DESIGN, INTAKE, IMPLEMENTATION,
| REVIEW, VERIFICATION, RELEASE.
|
| Every issue in my projects is assigned one of these states. If it
| cannot be pushed forward (the workflow goes from left to right),
| the reason is that one of the prior states was not done
| thoroughly enough.
|
| More often than not, an issue will get to INTAKE (where the
| developer reviews the prior states and makes sure they are
| complete), and .. gets immediately kicked back to ANALYSIS.
|
| ANALYSIS, when not done properly (identifying the similarities,
| identities, and differences of the aspects of the issue),
| _always_ screws with the time estimate problem. When done
| properly, it solves the estimation problem.
|
| And, more to the point, when an issue has been left->right but
| then gets bounced back to ANALYSIS, it _shows the project manager
| which issues have not been properly analysed, and therefore are a
| source of time over-budget_.
|
| So many times I have solved the ire of managers by just showing
| them the kanban, and pointing out the specific progress/delay of
| their 'pet issues' from left->right, not getting past the two
| quality control steps ("INTAKE" and "VERIFICATION" are quality
| stages), and getting bounced to ANALYSIS.
|
| Seriously, don't overlook the importance of systematic analysis.
| It helps immensely with reducing time budgets. I note with great
| interest that this washing machine project frequently bounced the
| issue back to ANALYSIS, multiple times, because it wasn't done
| properly ..
| pjc50 wrote:
| Interesting that this is the classic waterfall model, in
| miniature.
|
| Helps that it's possible to kick things back to someone.
| Everywhere I've ever worked has been undercooked on the
| analysis.
| genezeta wrote:
| Fairly unrelated but... before starting it, my washing machine
| estimates it will take say 1:16, or 2:45 or whatever depending on
| the cycle I choose. I push the button and the cycle starts.
|
| And while it's running it will just change the estimate.
| Sometimes it just jumps down -sometimes up- say 10 or 15 minutes.
| It just fills with water, turns a couple of times, pauses, and
| pof! 20 minutes less. Then at the end when it's almost done it
| will just add a few minutes. It's about to end 0:01, it empties,
| turns a bit... pof! 0:03. It then turns a bit more and maybe half
| a minute later decides that 3 minutes was too much; it's done
| 0:00 Beep beep.
|
| The thing that amuses me is that those few minutes at the end are
| _always_ added at the last minute and they are _always_ too much.
| Like it kind of panics at the end "wait, not done, not done
| yet!" and then again "oh, yes, yes, I'm done, just fine".
| have_faith wrote:
| It turns out the question "how long will it take for a unknown
| mix of fibers in an unknown configuration to release most of
| the water I knowingly put in" is difficult to answer. We'll
| have AGI before accurate washing machine estimates it seems.
| Vinnl wrote:
| Unrelated, but I'd already get stuck at this step:
|
| > I don't have a tool to make a big enough hole, but with a
| little research I find out a hole saw is the way to do it. It's
| an open-ended drum with serrated saw teeth that you mount on a
| drill to do the cutting. I go to my local hardware store, get
| some advice on what to get, and buy a 60mm hole saw.
|
| Just the idea of buying a whole new machine for a single use, and
| not even knowing for sure whether it'll do the job, is already so
| demoralising that I'll usually just stop and hope that an
| alternative approach magically presents itself to my mind's eye.
|
| Interestingly I don't usually have this problem when programming,
| but I really don't like DIY.
| defrost wrote:
| There are _many_ work arounds.
|
| Cutting a hole isn't an issue for me here, we have a multi-
| slotted circle that takes a variety of round serrated cutting
| blades for making holes .. and it fits in all the drills we
| have. It dates from the 1960s.
|
| _However_ .. if forced to cut a hole away from the chock full
| of everything tool shed I 'd probably scribe a circle, drill a
| large hole with a drill bit just inside the circle, and put a
| hacksaw blade through to hand cut it.
|
| Or drill a lot of holes close together just inside the circle,
| punch out the inner donut and clean up the edges.
|
| Usually there's a plastic insert (in picture of article IIRC)
| that fits in the hole and has a lip that covers up any ugly
| rough hole cuts.
|
| DIY is remarkably like programming in the sense of there often
| being many ways to skin a cat, search for text, or create a
| hole.
| juntoalaluna wrote:
| It's not a machine, it's just a new drill bit that cuts a hole.
| theoreticalmal wrote:
| Physical/hardware DIY is significantly easier with the more
| (and more-specific) tools you have.
| brabel wrote:
| I have nearly filled my shed with tools. Still, almost every
| new job I do requires me to go buy a new one (even if
| sometimes it's just a washer that needs to be just 2mm bigger
| than my biggest one, which is so frustrating). It does get
| easier with time, but right now, I am still on the stage
| where I only have everything I need already for the really
| minor jobs around the house, and I am not sure it will ever
| get much better.
| bluGill wrote:
| Remember if you would hire someone to do the job they would
| have that tool. So you can use the money you save on tools
| and then have the tool. The first time you DIY a job you
| shouldn't plan on saving money.
|
| Friends are also good. No need for you to own a weird tool
| if you can borrow if from someone else who also has done
| the job. (so long as you return the favor)
| drawkward wrote:
| I now own a ton of tools I have used only once.
| op00to wrote:
| Do you ever line 'em all up and look at them in awe? I do.
| acomjean wrote:
| I learned from a friend, if you are going to need a specific
| tool and don't expect to use it a lot (for a single job), buy
| a cheap one that can do the job at your friendly cheap
| importer ( harbor freight etc). Renting is ok too. You can
| skip the cordless too..
|
| Going for use the tool a lot (drills, pliers etc) buy
| something better.
| luma wrote:
| I've often heard this advice, and while I acknowledge the
| financial sense it makes, it also puts the new user into a
| hard place.
|
| Here's the problem: the advantages of "good" tools
| disproportionately impact the new user. A crusty machinist
| with decades of experience can make high tolerance parts on
| a clapped out Bridgeport, because she knows all the subtle
| ways things can go wrong and doesn't need to rely on the
| tool handling those things for her.
|
| The new user? No idea what he's doing, and if you throw
| cheap/poor quality tooling into the mix, now it's just that
| much harder to figure out if what's going wrong is the user
| or the tool.
|
| None of this is to suggest that everyone should toss out
| their home gamer woodworking tools and replace it all with
| Festool, but there are some pretty serious advantages to
| having trustworthy tools to help you learn.
| DannyBee wrote:
| It is hard to believe how true this is until you start to get
| to really esoteric stuff.
|
| Example:
|
| I have electronic mortise locks (historic house with very
| custom doors that used mortise locks, replacing doors would
| be ... remarkably expensive. There are two doors i replaced
| with non-mortise locks by filling the cavities with marine
| epoxy, but wife really like the look of mortise locks on the
| others).
|
| There are a _very_ small number of wireless mortise locks,
| all of which are garbage and look ugly to boot.
|
| The way these are electrified is either:
|
| 1. Wireless power transfer from the strike side - this is
| complicated and only works sometimes.
|
| or
|
| 2. Drilling a hole all the way sideways through the door and
| running a wire inside the door, using special hinges with
| embedded wires to transfer power through the hinge, and then
| connecting that all to a 24v supply somewhere.
|
| I have the tool necessary to do #2, which will properly drill
| a straight hole 36 inches deep horizontally into a door with
| perfect alignment.
|
| In part because the tool is as expensive as paying someone
| with a tool to do it for you, so i might as well own the
| tool.
|
| Doing this without the tool, I imagine even with the right
| set of bits, you would screw it up probably 99% of the time.
| creesch wrote:
| I don't go as far as stopping entirely. But it is part of why
| it takes me significantly longer to do physical DIY projects as
| I tend to overanalyze before I get started and the same when I
| do encounter an issue.
|
| > Interestingly I don't usually have this problem when
| programming, but I really don't like DIY.
|
| The cost both in equipment, wasted materials and potential
| irreversible (or at least difficult to restore) damage are
| factors for me. With programming the cost of exploratory
| problem-solving is mostly time.
|
| It is however a reason why I opt against self hosting critical,
| to me, stuff where the impact of things done wrong are again
| higher (think data loss of personal files).
| Vinnl wrote:
| Yeah that is absolutely true, I have the same issue again if
| my software projects require special/new hardware.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| I think my approach there if I didn't have the correct tool
| (not sure if international plugs allow for the same, and
| sometimes manufacturers can be fussy about warranties), would
| be to lop the plug off, pass the cable through a smaller hole,
| then refit a plug.
|
| This however requires having a plug to refit, and I believe
| there can be weird regs around having plugged goods passing
| through "walls"
| op00to wrote:
| You would need wire strippers, and maybe screw drivers for
| attaching the new plug, if not a soldering iron. :D
| bluGill wrote:
| Generally you would not solder mains power. Often code
| doesn't allow it.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Definitely not a soldering iron (at least on UK plugs).
| Kitchen scissors in a pinch (or teeth in a real pinch) and
| presumably a couple of screwdrivers is in everyone's
| toolkit if you own a house.
| op00to wrote:
| Right! I just looked at replacement plugs for the US, and
| they're all either compression fit or screw terminals!
| So, teeth plus a screwdriver (or maybe a butter knife) is
| all you need.
| Peanuts99 wrote:
| In the UK at least this used to be pretty common up until
| recently. It was usually recommended to wire your washing
| machines into a fixed wall spur instead of using a plug.
| Incidentally my mums house almost burnt down due to a washing
| machine plug which had a wiring fault and started melting
| through the wall socket.
| bluGill wrote:
| The more I learn about UK wiring, the more I'm convinced it
| is the worst in the world. Untrained people in third world
| countries regularly do better. Of course the UK has been
| getting better, but they are the ones who came up with the
| ring wiring and then have to put a fuse in each plug to try
| to overcome some of the problems from that idiot system.
| maccard wrote:
| > Just the idea of buying a whole new machine for a single use,
| and not even knowing for sure whether it'll do the job, is
| already so demoralising that I'll usually just stop and hope
| that an alternative approach magically presents itself to my
| mind's eye.
|
| It's actually not a machine, it's a thing that attaches to a
| drill [0]
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bi-Metal-Cutting-Plastic-Drywall-
| Pl...
| Vinnl wrote:
| Oh yeah fair enough, haha. I know little enough about DIY,
| then add in the fact that I get even _less_ practice talking
| about it in English (not my native language), and mistakes
| like these are just waiting to happen.
| op00to wrote:
| I love tools. Especially well-built, "buy-it-for-life" type
| tools. Love love love 'em. If I had a big enough house, I'd buy
| every tool under the sun. I have two festool stacks of cabinets
| filled with each and every screw driver, drill bit, wrench,
| saw, ruler, etc. I've got a little drill, a big drill, and an
| insanely huge SDS-max drill that I've used maybe three times,
| but lent to friends probably 15.
|
| The feeling when I have the exact tool for the job is
| exhilarating. Realizing I have spent so much money and space on
| this stuff that is useless 99% of the time is a little
| embarrassing, so I focus on the positives.
|
| It's an illness.
| bhandziuk wrote:
| I was surprised they got stuck here and need to use a totally
| different drill. Several of my smaller hole saw fit in a 1/4"
| chuck.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Never wrote a program to do some helping task for while your
| programming the bigger task that only gets run once? maybe to
| generate a bunch of boiler plate code or something? same deal.
| loxs wrote:
| This sums quite well my experience of fitting our dishwasher to
| the new place we moved to last summer. Mine was even worse, as
| eventually I had to even change the electrical switch as the old
| one burned down, it was too weak to withstand our modern, power
| hungry BOSCH dishwasher. In total maybe 10 trips to the hardware
| store and a full day of work.
| aqme28 wrote:
| Reminds me of an article I read once about modeling software
| engineering estimation.
|
| The best model they found was to think of software engineering as
| a Russian nesting doll. You are opening a box, which takes time.
| Inside that box might be your goal or it might be another box.
| Every box takes some amount of time, but you don't know how many
| boxes you have to go through before you finish.
| itissid wrote:
| I call this " why the cost of hiring a guy to do anything is
| either 250$ or 10000$ ". And when the switch from low to high
| happens your jaw drops.
|
| Most routine maintenance work is the latter coat point(your
| toilet flus repair, electrical short repair, Hole in the wall AC
| replacement), but anything else more complex and the cost
| explodes and if you get multiple times estimates you will find
| out there is no escaping the bare truth. This stuff is hard and
| you have to do lots of estimation before hand if you have to get
| into anything.
|
| Fortunately all my tooling for my little condo fits in three tool
| containers a bit smaller than full-size suitcases. Once you build
| enough of a toolbox and experience small repairs become a no
| brainer.
|
| But every now and then you gotta call a guy.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| I guess the programming equivalent to this would be having an
| experienced network around you, but having a Road WhatsApp in a
| suburban area, with lots of people interested in DIY, leads for a
| fantastic tool collective. Surround yourself with people who've
| all done it!
| itissid wrote:
| Woodworking projects are the hardest of these. I've installed my
| own under the sink RO and it's relatively self contained 2 hour
| work whenever I move. Yet there are unforseen like tighter
| spaces, old plumbing that needs replacement of valves etc.
|
| But woodworking is a different and more rewarding beast.
|
| I usually spend 6-8 hours and spread that over a week, doodling
| in my notebook with rough drawings and cutouts before I touch a
| tool for any project.
|
| A few very important/clever thing I also learnt from woodworking
| experience was never finishing the whole thing at once if you can
| break it into pieces. Get 2-3 estimates from professionals to see
| how much they charge vs your time estimates. Make smaller
| projects that you can use to transfer experience to larger ones:
| working with wood fixtures on drywalls or built into sections of
| them are great practical examples of this.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| It was a good story. But I'm not convinced it really works.
|
| An experienced washing machine fitter who does this as their job
| would have the right drill and circular bit in his van and would
| have a selection of hoses ready to go.
|
| For them it would have been a ten minute job...
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| How are you going to find an experienced washing machine
| fitter? How long do you have to wait to book them?
|
| I ordered my washing machine from a local shop with highest
| reputation in terms of customer support.
|
| They provide installation and delivery (for significant extra
| cost). I initially purchased both. Then talked to customer
| support just to be certain. I sent them pictures of my setup.
| They said that they can't provide installation there, it's not
| clear where the water extract should be, etc.
|
| We decided to drop installation. Then I asked multiple times
| whether it was fine to deliver it for them to 2nd floor. They
| said yeah.
|
| When the delivery day came, the guy bringing the washing
| machine came alone, and so wasn't prepared to deliver the 70kg
| washing machine to the 2nd floor, and said they only bring it
| to the first room. Luckily he was kind enough to together with
| me bring it up to 2nd floor, but he definitely wasn't prepared.
|
| Then I asked tips about installation, but he didn't say too
| much.
|
| After which I did back and forth e-mail with another specialist
| sending pictures back and forth and I managed to solve it DYI,
| but I also had to do several roundtrips, talking to customer
| support at large shops, who couldn't find the items I was
| looking for, and guess they weren't there.
|
| It took much more than 4 hours for me in total.
|
| > For them it would have been a ten minute job...
|
| Don't forget to include time spent on finding the right person,
| communication, then travelling for that person, etc. Also all
| the experts that I have hired water pipes related always came
| to look at the situation first, then decided what they needed,
| then went to the shops to get those things.
| 05 wrote:
| > They said that they can't provide installation there, it's
| not clear where the water extract should be, etc.
|
| Maybe only doing cookie cutter installations is how they got
| their reputation to be that high (or review farming). Same as
| in software - don't do anything too custom and you'll be fine
| :)
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| They are quite corporate and probably very cautious for
| that reason, but they do invest a lot in customer service.
| Their products usually cost more than elsewhere though, but
| I'm pretty sure it's because of extra investments in the
| service. I would've thought they had some contractors that
| they could suggest or use along with their service though
| at least.
| eek2121 wrote:
| Haven't read the art yet (about too), but I found the title
| humorous considering how inaccurate my washer/dryer are. The
| other my dryer said 1 minute for 5 minutes and 51 seconds. I
| timed it!
| eek2121 wrote:
| (oh and i know the article isn't about that, I was just
| reminded by the title)
| aswanson wrote:
| I'm so perverted by software development I thought this was going
| to be a meditation on the complexity of washing machine firmware
| triggered by looking at the dials on one.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| DIY projects are always like that.
|
| But on a tangent, it is common to see comments here and elsewhere
| about how you don't need much possessions, hoarding, Kondo Marie,
| etc... But tools and supplies like screws, gaskets, electrical
| connectors, spare parts, etc... take a lot of space, and you will
| need them at some point. You don't know which one and when, but
| you will need it.
|
| Here the author already had a bunch of tools, and yet was missing
| a hole saw, a good drill, a large spanner, longer hoses, and a
| spade drill bit. He bought 3/5, but I guess he will keep them, it
| solved a real problem and he may need them for later, in case he
| moves again and have a similar problem, and maybe not with an
| available hardware store close by next time. And cumulatively,
| these things are not cheap, and hard to sell without a steep
| discount. Personally I would have bought the good drill BTW, it
| is expensive, but it is one of the most used tool, and it is a
| bit stupid to have a hole saw but no drill to fit it in.
|
| In the end, you find yourself needing to go to the hardware store
| less and less, but you end up with a workshop full of stuff. The
| alternatives are to pay tradesmen, which will cost you, and you
| may not have one available right now. Or, which in my experience
| is the most common, invite the friend with the tools to dinner ;)
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| > And cumulatively, these things are not cheap, and hard to
| sell without a steep discount
|
| The smart thing to do is to buy them second-hand already.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It is smart and it isn't, there is a reason second-hand tools
| can be cheap.
|
| The problem is that when you are on a project, you need the
| thing right now, I am sure the author could have found what
| he needed for a fraction of the price second-hand, be he also
| wanted a working washing machine. Not spend a couple of weeks
| with dirty laundry waiting for the right tools to arrive. The
| local hardware store is expensive, but here, it is worth it.
|
| You can avoid this problem by planning ahead, but it requires
| knowing in advance what tools you will need, and the answer
| is essentially "everything". That's how you find yourself
| with a home workshop. If you want a home workshop, that's
| certainly the right thing to do, but it takes space and a bit
| of investment, even with good deals. And you may find
| yourself with tools you will never use.
|
| I know, my father left me with a bunch of quality tools he
| got for cheap. I am grateful for it, even though I didn't use
| most of them (he didn't either), some of them turned out to
| be useful, and the unused ones may find some use later. But
| it is also a good thing that I have a place for them, because
| that's a lot of stuff.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| When you need them right now for half a day, like the
| author you rent them, and eventually plan to buy them.
|
| Obviously I am talking about the expensive gear.
| bluGill wrote:
| All too often second hand tools are worn out. There are some
| great deals out there, but tool restoration needs to be your
| hobby to make it worthwhile. My hobby is building things, not
| restoring tools and building the perfect shop. Nothing wrong
| with any of the above hobbies (I've restored a fair number of
| tools myself and spent a lot of time making my shop better),
| but you only live so long. Sometimes it is worth spending a
| few grand on a tool that will just work so you can get on
| with your 'real' projects.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Don't dumpster dive, go to a pawn shop or buy the tool your
| mechanic wants to sell off cheap. My mechanic friends go to
| 'estate sales'/garage sales in upscale neighborhoods and
| consistently picks up the set of SnapOns or decent DeWalt
| power tool for pennies on the dollar because some rich bro
| wanted to tell his friends about how he only buys 'the
| best' and only used it once. One pal grabbed a ~15 year old
| Milwaukee reciprocating saw for us$20 a while back...it
| looked like the prev owner never even opened the case.
|
| OTOH...I guess that's really just trading the tool
| restoration hobby with the cruising yard sales for deals
| hobby.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Estate sales take a lot of time. Occasionally you'll find
| a treasure trove, but more often than not, they're just
| selling a dead person's junk. The best source of tools
| I've recently found was a local machine shop going out of
| business. I chatted briefly with the owner, who was
| retiring, and he could not find anyone else willing to
| learn the business/invest/take over. So he sold
| everything in his shop. Lots of good stuff.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Congrats on the score (why don't I ever stumble on
| those), but I suspect the ratio of 'yard sales with good
| stuff' to 'retiring from machine shop and everything must
| go cheap' is pretty skewed.
| rnewme wrote:
| Don't forget that for certain jobs cost of repair might be more
| than buying new one, that for a lot of jobs you'll get horrible
| service and will spend double time and money to get things done
| again properly etc.
| any1 wrote:
| > Personally I would have bought the good drill BTW, it is
| expensive, but it is one of the most used tool
|
| Yes, a good drill is a must-have for any home-owner.
| Anecdotally, I've owned a "prosumer grade" power drill ever
| since I bought my first apartment and I've used it a lot more
| than I originally anticipated. It's held up remarkably against
| a lot of use and abuse over a decade. Well, I've replaced the
| chuck and applied some epoxy to the plastic housing, but it
| still works. :)
|
| Is it a _good_ drill? I 'd say that it's not great, but it's
| been good enough.
|
| I've also bought some "consumer grade" tools and I would not
| recommend buying those even if you can buy it for cheaper than
| it costs to rent a proper tool. Sometimes, you get lucky with
| those tools, but most of the time, they are not worth the price
| of the box they come in. Often, the problem is that even though
| the tool doesn't exactly fall apart in your hands (this has
| happened to me), the precision of the result is just unworkable
| and you waste a bunch of time dealing with issues you otherwise
| wouldn't have.
|
| Buy once, cry once. ;)
| toss1 wrote:
| Absolutely! The one thing I've been taught by one of my
| mentors, and consistently found true, whether working on
| home, automobile, bicycles, or in shop, is:
|
| Get the best tool that you can for the job.
|
| E.g.: In powered tools, always go for the brushless motor
| version (lighter, better power, smoother, more durable).
| Better to buy 2nd hand Matco/Snap-On than consumer wrenches
| etc. than cheap hand tools (Sure the mid-price ones might
| also have a lifetime warranty, but the turnaround time won't
| help you in the field; get ones that will break more rarely
| in the first place). Whatever the situation, do a bit of
| research and find what is best.
|
| The good tools will be a joy to use every time and save a
| myriad of frustrated swear-fests over your lifetime. And
| they'll last longer.
|
| Buy once, cry once, indeed!
| bluGill wrote:
| He had a good drill - just not one powerful enough for a whole
| saw which takes a lot more power. I have a drill that powerful,
| and I reach for my much less powerful drill anyway most of the
| time because when you don't need the power the lighter drill is
| better.
| kjs3 wrote:
| That's the thing I've learned about drills...you
| unfortunately need 2. One is the probably battery powered for
| doing random light drilling conveniently for relatively short
| periods of time around the house. Two is a probably corded,
| high power drill for everything else.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| And in addition to that, there is a good chance for you to
| need a rotary hammer at some point. A regular drill in
| percussion mode can drill in stone or concrete in theory,
| but it will be 10 times the effort, if you can make it at
| all.
|
| Rotary hammers are not interchangeable with regular "high
| power" drills because the bits are mounted differently,
| though you can make do with a chuck adapter.
| ryandrake wrote:
| If you're regularly drilling metal, you might want an air
| drill, too. Which gives you an excuse to buy a quality
| air compressor, which justifies even more pneumatic
| tools...
| kjs3 wrote:
| _which justifies even more pneumatic tools_
|
| There lies the path to madness...
| abanana wrote:
| Agreed. My 24V DeWalt cordless drill is the best tool I've
| ever bought, but tough masonry requires the pro-grade Bosch
| corded, although its price annoyed me when its chuck turned
| out to be crap.
|
| A friend, who worked at the place I bought that Bosch
| drill, chose to spend PS14.99 on the cheapest corded drill
| he could find, then was surprised to find it didn't have
| enough power to actually drill a hole. It's the one type of
| tool I'd treat as an exception to the idea of buying cheap
| first, especially if you're young and moving into your
| first home - a good one will do its job well and last
| decades.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Hey...I have about the same. I've got a 20v DeWalt
| brushless compact for day to day (light and good battery
| life) and a pro grade Makita corded that does everything
| up to drilling masonry and such.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> And cumulatively, these things are not cheap,_
|
| A few decades ago you'd be completely right - but these days,
| tools are cheaper than ever.
|
| Washing machine hose, PS7 [1] Hole saws, PS8 [2] Wrench PS8 [3]
| Spade drill bits PS6 [4] Adequate drill PS35 [5]
|
| So PS64 for the lot - about US$ 80. If you're in tech, the
| value of the time you spend driving to the store will probably
| be higher than all the tools you'll buy while you're there.
|
| And if you're thinking "Oh at those prices the tools will be
| low quality" I can assure you, they'll be good enough for this
| job.
|
| [1] https://www.toolstation.com/washing-machine-hose/p17946 [2]
| https://www.toolstation.com/holesaw-kit/p23014 [3]
| https://www.toolstation.com/minotaur-water-pump-pliers/p8325...
| [4] https://www.toolstation.com/flat-wood-drill-bit-set/p44945
| [5] https://www.toolstation.com/black-decker-500w-hammer-
| drill/p...
| subhro wrote:
| > So PS64 for the lot - about US$ 80. If you're in tech, the
| value of the time you spend driving to the store will
| probably be higher than all the tools you'll buy while you're
| there.
|
| Unless you are billing by the hour (ie in consulting), you
| are driving to the store during the time you would be parking
| your butt in the couch and viewing, reading or thinking about
| something that does not generate cash. At least that is what
| it is for me. If you literally lose money by driving to the
| store, your argument holds.
|
| > And if you're thinking "Oh at those prices the tools will
| be low quality" I can assure you, they'll be good enough for
| this job.
|
| Maybe they are, maybe they are not. I tinker with cars and
| motorcycles. Every single piece of my tools is Snap-On or
| something really comparable. If I use a cheap Chinese brand
| and round off a nut, that is really going to hurt. It will
| hurt more than what it hurt to buy a socket set for close to
| $200.
|
| Also, if you are approaching something the first time, low
| quality tools will get you bad experience that will resist,
| maybe prevent you from trying it again. I might be one of
| those weird ones, but for me, Buy once, cry once.
| andiareso wrote:
| I agree that some high quality tools are required to not
| escalate your problem, but I like the incremental purchase
| methodology for most tools.
|
| Buying cheap (good enough) allows you to figure out what
| tools you actually need to upgrade on. I had a lot of pain
| in my high school days fixing a beater car which required
| me to purchase some higher end socket sets. You learn from
| some of those stripped bolts which tools to upgrade, but
| you don't want a whole garage full of high quality tools
| you don't really use.
|
| If you have a stable hobby, buy quality first, and maybe
| build up inventory when you can so you don't have to make
| frequent trips.
|
| If you don't and you just want to do some odd things
| spanning multiple trades, buy cheap and upgrade if you rely
| on them frequently.
| vlachen wrote:
| I've turned a few wrenches as a life-long DIY mechanic, a
| former aircraft mechanic, and a mechanical engineer. I use
| the Hazard Fraught method of tool purchases: I will buy a
| tool from Harbor Freight once. If it fulfills my needs
| great. Job done and it goes into the toolbox. If I use it
| so hard it gives up the ghost, then it gets chucked into
| the fuckit-bucket and I go buy it at higher quality.
|
| To be honest, Harbor Freight and other store brands (Husky,
| Kobalt, etc) have always been reliable enough. As a home-
| gamer, I certainly couldn't see being able to have a
| toolbox full of Snap-On, especially before completing my
| engineering degree.
|
| If I were a pro and feeding my family depended on what
| those tools did, then I could certainly see Snap-On as an
| investment, as my father did when he ran his own shop. But,
| to the point about rounding off a nut, something like that
| is rarely a function of tool quality and more about
| technique. Yes, a cheap 12 point socket or wrench can round
| off a hex pretty badly, but if it happens, the whole setup
| has probably been giving warning signs the entire time. My
| experience is that cheap tools are more likely to snap,
| break, or shatter during heavy loading, but that's not
| often the default use case.
| subhro wrote:
| > I've turned a few wrenches as a life-long DIY mechanic,
| a former aircraft mechanic, and a mechanical engineer. I
| use the Hazard Fraught method of tool purchases: I will
| buy a tool from Harbor Freight once. If it fulfills my
| needs great. Job done and it goes into the toolbox. If I
| use it so hard it gives up the ghost, then it gets
| chucked into the fuckit-bucket and I go buy it at higher
| quality.
|
| Now you either have a tool that might be unreliable and
| can cause you trouble for the next job. Or, you spent
| money that you didn't have to spend by buying the lower
| grade tool when you needed to buy something better
| anyway.
|
| > To be honest, Harbor Freight and other store brands
| (Husky, Kobalt, etc) have always been reliable enough. As
| a home-gamer, I certainly couldn't see being able to have
| a toolbox full of Snap-On, especially before completing
| my engineering degree.
|
| Here you have a solid point. I am thankful that I am able
| to afford good tools. But if someone in unable to
| justify, I would say either work to be able to justify
| it, rent, or buy the best you can afford if you need the
| tool right now.
|
| > But, to the point about rounding off a nut, something
| like that is rarely a function of tool quality and more
| about technique.
|
| Maybe you are right. But here is an exaggerated example.
| You have a socket that has more clearance than ideal. You
| loosen one nut, and that was okay, you loosen the second
| one, that was a little tighter and that whole setup
| flexed a bit, but turned out okay. The third one is where
| things slip. Now, you have a problem. At least that is
| more or less how I land into trouble.
| hansvm wrote:
| > Now you either have a tool that might be unreliable and
| can cause you trouble for the next job. Or, you spent
| money that you didn't have to spend by buying the lower
| grade tool when you needed to buy something better
| anyway.
|
| The "unknowns" point is valid, but the advice to buy
| something cheap to start with still comes from a good
| place.
|
| Even from a cost perspective, I've snapped a few wrenches
| and upgraded my box saw (,and will splurge on a solder
| iron the next time I do anything serious), but the money
| wasted in those mis-purchases is vastly less than the
| money I would have spent on getting the "right" tools at
| the outset.
|
| You also have the problem of unknown unknowns. Plenty of
| people are willing to sell you a $25 tool for $250, and
| we all know how reviews work, so the presence of good
| reviews and a high price tag isn't sufficient to
| guarantee quality. Even going with a "good" brand doesn't
| suffice if the brand is willing to increase profits on a
| few duds here and there (or, more charitably, just
| doesn't always hit them out of the park) or goes the way
| of Lenovo after an acquisition. Buying a good tool is
| often a nontrivial effort, and (when directing that
| advice to your average homeowner rather than a
| professional with that particular tool) the experience
| you have with the bad tool gives you a starting point for
| figuring out which aspects you do or don't care about.
|
| For a few small examples, I own the cheapest immersion
| blender, 16oz claw hammer, precision screwdriver set, ...
| that I could get my grubby little hands on. I'd make
| those purchases again in a heartbeat.
|
| For a counter-example, I did the same thing with a
| diamond stone. It turns out I don't care about the
| surface area or most characteristics (and now I know),
| but I care quite a lot about the depth and longevity.
| I'll save more money getting a longer-lasting stone
| that's a size I need, despite having "wasted" money on
| the cheaper stone, since I won't be inadvertently getting
| something bigger than I need or want. Since those things
| last ages I'm not sure the point really holds, but it
| also lasted for years and was purchased at a time when
| money was tighter, and spending more money then would
| have been much more expensive than spending it now.
|
| For an actual counter-example, now I know that any wrench
| where I'm applying more than a few hundred foot-pounds of
| torque absolutely needs to be forged, and I'm willing to
| splurge to avoid low-quality steel. The cheaper wrenches
| were properly wasted money. Compared to all the time and
| money I've saved only purchasing nice tools when
| something failed though, I still think it was a good
| strategy.
| vlachen wrote:
| >> I've turned a few wrenches as a life-long DIY
| mechanic, a former aircraft mechanic, and a mechanical
| engineer. I use the Hazard Fraught method of tool
| purchases: I will buy a tool from Harbor Freight once. If
| it fulfills my needs great. Job done and it goes into the
| toolbox. If I use it so hard it gives up the ghost, then
| it gets chucked into the fuckit-bucket and I go buy it at
| higher quality.
|
| >Now you either have a tool that might be unreliable and
| can cause you trouble for the next job. Or, you spent
| money that you didn't have to spend by buying the lower
| grade tool when you needed to buy something better
| anyway.
|
| An important note is that this is a conscious decision. I
| know that I cheaped out on something, and I'm often
| pleasantly surprised that it _didn 't_ break. But I'm not
| depending on it for food, and we have backup
| transportation methods, so I'm not completely hosed if it
| gives up. For example: I once spent $20 on a Harbor
| Freight corded angle grinder, with the understanding that
| it'll _probably_ work for the one job I really needed it
| for at that moment. 15 years and half a dozen smoke
| checks later, the damned thing still runs hard.
|
| >> To be honest, Harbor Freight and other store brands
| (Husky, Kobalt, etc) have always been reliable enough. As
| a home-gamer, I certainly couldn't see being able to have
| a toolbox full of Snap-On, especially before completing
| my engineering degree.
|
| > Here you have a solid point. I am thankful that I am
| able to afford good tools. But if someone in unable to
| justify, I would say either work to be able to justify
| it, rent, or buy the best you can afford if you need the
| tool right now.
|
| If you can, that's great. Most of my wrenching life,
| including working on multi-million dollar automation
| equipment, has been well serviced by budget tools.
| Anything pro-grade was handed down from my father after
| he closed his shop. I'm to the point now where I could
| reasonably afford to upgrade, but the handtools still
| work well, and my money/time is honestly spent better
| right now paying a reputable shop to do what I need.
| Starting out in the world, I never thought I'd be able to
| say that, but I'm happy to be here now.
|
| I'll have a project car again some day, and then I'll
| look hard at what is needed to accomplish my goals.
| vlachen wrote:
| The other thing that I'll add here is that if the tool
| has a battery, then I'm going to a well established and
| supported brand. I know they love to change the
| technology (Lookin' at _you_ DeWalt) but there are often
| workarounds. I 'll buy into the tool ecosystem because
| the last thing I want to do is stop my flow to figure out
| which tool/battery is ready for the task at hand.
| sophacles wrote:
| I think a lot of your thinking here is assuming somewhat
| frequent use - and I agree when you are going to be using
| the tools often, just get a decent or good one. For a lot
| of tools though - well lets just say my tool chest has an
| awful lot of things I need that one time 20 years ago,
| and haven't needed since. Often I don't know which tools
| are going to be in that one-use category, so the
| algorithm "buy the cheap one, upgrade when needed" has
| overall saved me more than enough money to upgrade to the
| really good version even for tools I use relatively
| rarely.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > But, to the point about rounding off a nut, something
| like that is rarely a function of tool quality and more
| about technique. Yes, a cheap 12 point socket or wrench
| can round off a hex pretty badly, but if it happens, the
| whole setup has probably been giving warning signs the
| entire time.
|
| In the rust belt, about every bolt has lots of warning
| signs and each job is a gamble. I really need to get a
| torch.
| vlachen wrote:
| Knowing the tricks that come with your location are a big
| deal. I'm in a minor salt part of the US, so I don't
| often have to worry about pre-treating a fastener on our
| daily drivers. If it gets to the point that I'm breaking
| out the torch, I'm working on an outlier.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> Every single piece of my tools is Snap-On or something
| really comparable._
|
| A Snap-On drill, battery and charger costs $980 [1]
|
| The article is about a homeowner who needs to make _one_
| 60mm hole through _wood_
|
| For such a simple task, the $45 drill I linked will do just
| as well as the $980 one
|
| [1] https://sep.snapon.com/product/CDR9050K2
| subhro wrote:
| That's the retail. You never ever buy Snap-On retail.
| Note: I didn't say buy used.
|
| Also, electric tools from Snap-On are pretty meh. Dewalt,
| Makita and mayyybbee Milwaukee all the way.
| julik wrote:
| Did I just officially see an 18v battery drill that is
| not much special and is more expensive than the most
| expensive Festool 18v drill?
|
| I am impressed. What is this brand, if I may inquire?
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| On the flip side, it gets harder and harder every year to
| find speciality tools and parts the moment you need them.
| Nothing's worse than setting aside a weekend for some big
| project and then finding out you have to order something
| online and pick the project back up some other day. God
| forbid you recall you had the part/tool in question at one
| time lol. Even when I plan in advance often something comes
| up I don't catch until the moment I need it.
|
| I keep a LOT of computer/video game console parts but luckily
| with some planning and decent geometry skills (and a lot of
| straps) they're easier to store. Camera and audio equipment
| on the other hand...time for a purge if I'm being honest!
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| my strategy: when you're young and especially if you happen
| to be buying your first home, buy the cheap version of almost
| everything as you need it. Minor exceptions for things you
| KNOW you will use a lot (but they still don't need to be the
| most expensive). If you like certain jobs, selectively
| upgrade over the years. If you move a lot or age out of
| certain things, cull aggressively. Good tools have decent
| resale value if they're not consumer grade. All consumer
| grade tools have the same low (but non-zero) resale value
| IME. YMMV.
|
| P.S. Anyone looking for a quality router with a selection of
| bits?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Yep. That's how I ended up with a $79 Harbor Freight drill
| press that's seen more than 30 years of regular use.
| kccqzy wrote:
| > If you're in tech, the value of the time you spend driving
| to the store will probably be higher than all the tools
| you'll buy while you're there.
|
| This is the wrong way to think about things. You cannot
| usefully compare the value of time spent on work vs on hobby.
|
| If I'm doing a project like installing the washing machine
| myself over the weekend, I value my time at exactly $0/hour.
| Let's look at the opportunity cost. What are the
| alternatives? On a weekend I could read a book, go out for a
| walk, play some games, etc; all those alternatives cause my
| income to increase by $0/hour. There is no difference in
| income amongst all these activities; there is only a
| difference in satisfaction.
|
| You might say, what if you do this washing machine
| installation during regular work hours? Again the value of
| your time is zero, because in tech you are not an hourly
| employee: you get paid a fixed salary. Taking one hour off
| from work doesn't decrease your salary. Working overtime for
| one hour also doesn't increase your salary.
|
| Therefore when I'm doing hobby projects I value my time at
| $0/hour. I think more about the kind of non-monetary
| satisfaction instead.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| >If I'm doing a project like installing the washing machine
| myself over the weekend, I value my time at exactly $0/hour
|
| If I'm doing a project I want to do because it's a fun
| challenge (like the time I replaced the main pump in my
| dishwasher), I value my time at $0/hour.
|
| But if it's a project I don't really want to do (like
| pulling ethernet cables through my cramped and dirty crawl
| space so I can put in an ethernet jack next to the TV),
| then I value my time at twice my hourly wage and if I can
| hire someone to do it cheaper, I hire them.
|
| It's true that I get paid the same $0 on a weekend whether
| I'm crawling under my house or going on a hike, I'm willing
| to pay money to get out of an unpleasant task so I can do
| something pleasant instead.
| Phlebsy wrote:
| > This is the wrong way to think about things. You cannot
| usefully compare the value of time spent on work vs on
| hobby.
|
| I'd consider this sort of move of house maintenance to be
| more of a chore than a hobby project, though maybe that's
| just because I've already done it before and it's not
| interesting or satisfying to do it again.
|
| In any case - I do agree that attempting to apply the same
| thinking to the hours spent in day to day tasks as work
| needs to be done very mindfully, or even carefully. One of
| the worst practices I had early in my career when I was
| freelancing and had a few clients that were happy to give
| me as many hours as I wanted to take was to use that as an
| excuse to replace other tasks with work. Paying someone
| else to do 30 minutes of grocery shopping so that I can
| work an extra half hour and end up with a profit, ordering
| lunch multiple times per week because the time it'd take me
| to cook and clean up would end up 'costing' me more than
| just continuing to work on something I enjoyed.
|
| Before you know it you start thinking of chores as complete
| wastes of time rather than normal things that are good for
| your character to be able to do consistently. Ended up with
| a significantly better financial outlook than I'd have had
| otherwise since I had the work ethic/life balance to take
| advantage of that situation and not completely tank other
| aspects of my life, but looking back I'd rather have kept
| the more mundane discipline.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| If you don't regularly do house fixing/improving or
| household chores, and you just pay someone, you easily
| fall into the trap of believing it is all very simple and
| of low value. You soon will wonder why you 'pay so much'
| and it is still 'poorly executed' and taking 'too much
| time'. Having experienced the problems mentioned in the
| article puts one down to earth.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Replacing the wax rings and the closet flange on a toilet
| really makes you appreciate it when your plumber charges
| $300 and does the job in about 20 minutes versus the few
| hours it takes you.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The way I've always heard it stated was: "Your time is only
| worth money if you'd otherwise be working." If I had to
| decide between fixing my washing machine and doing a
| freelancing job that pays $200/hr + paying a repairman to
| fix it, then I have an economic decision to make. If
| instead, I would otherwise be wasting time playing video
| games or watching TV, then it always makes sense to do the
| job yourself.
| desas wrote:
| > If instead, I would otherwise be wasting time playing
| video games or watching TV, then it always makes sense to
| do the job yourself.
|
| It depends on how much you value your free time and how
| much you enjoy fixing your washing machine. I spend five
| days working, I get two days for the weekend. The weekend
| days are scarcer and more valuable to me - I'm not going
| to give them up at the same price I give up a weekday.
|
| Given a choice between fixing my washing machine myself
| and paying a repairman to fix it while I enjoy some hobby
| time, well up to a certain cost, I'd rather relax with a
| hobby.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Right, but that has nothing to do with your compensation
| during work hours. I was specifically objecting to OP's:
|
| > If you're in tech, the value of the time you spend
| driving to the store will probably be higher than all the
| tools you'll buy while you're there.
|
| Implying that if you're not in tech (read: don't have a
| high salary) then your free time is not worth as much. I
| think most people value their free time like you
| described, not measured in terms of dollars, and
| certainly not proportional to how much they make in their
| day jobs.
| fnord77 wrote:
| Many public libraries have tools to lend. At least in
| California.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > The alternatives are to pay tradesmen, which will cost you,
| and you may not have one available right now.
|
| The flipside is that they will probably already have the tools
| they need, or know exactly where to get them, and typically be
| able to solve the problem in 0-1 trips to stores. And then,
| when you're done, you don't need to store a bunch of tools and
| parts.
|
| DIY makes sense if you either 1) enjoy it or 2) are in a
| position to need to spend your time to save money (and
| carefully evaluate tradeoffs about when it would cost you more
| money to DIY because a professional will have everything they
| need and you don't and won't need it again).
| subhro wrote:
| > DIY makes sense if you either 1) enjoy it or 2) are in a
| position to need to spend your time to save money (and
| carefully evaluate tradeoffs about when it would cost you
| more money to DIY because a professional will have everything
| they need and you don't and won't need it again).
|
| First hand experience. I have a 2 story house. I was going
| crazy with people walking upstairs while I was trying to work
| in my office downstairs. Got hold of a flooring guy who has
| hundreds of glowing positive reviews, and offered multiple
| references. He wanted to rip out the carpet and screw the
| floorboard to the joists, more. Got his work contract and
| added the clause that he will not get paid unless the sounds
| stay gone for 3 months after the job. Paid a premium for the
| clause. The creaking came back in 2 months and the impact
| noise never went away.
|
| Got hold of another guy and he said, sorry can't do anything
| about the noise beyond what is already done. The third one
| said the same as well.
|
| Finally got frustrated enough to do my own research and came
| up with materials and techniques that I had to "import" from
| California to Washington. Bought a bunch of tools. Now I have
| no noise, and as a bonus, ran conduit in the floor to have
| OS2 fiber everywhere in the house.
|
| DIY is not always about saving money. It is also about
| getting the job done so it stays done and not doing the bare
| minimum to make it legal and to get paid.
| mschild wrote:
| Unfortunately, I have made the same experience.
|
| We bought an old (1930s) 2 story single-family home last
| year which needed to be gutted almost entirely.
|
| Except the plumber, all trade folks we had tried to cut
| corners and delivered subpar quality. Even the ones that
| came recommended.
|
| We did a lot of the destruction work ourselves as that was
| not complicated or dangerous (under the guidance of a
| structural engineer and proper protective equipment).
|
| Our walls are entirely out of brick and not 100% straight.
| Our plasterer somehow managed to make them curvy. He is
| licensed in my country and not some general handyman. We
| had to sand down the walls ourselves to get them straight.
| He tried to charge us for that.
|
| Electrician started the job but now never shows up. We
| still have some of his tools he left here, but won't answer
| texts or calls. Family member thankfully is an electrician
| but doesn't live close to us. We paid them to plan
| everything for us, we'd install it, they'd come check and
| do the mains connection.
|
| Drywallers put drywall on walls that shouldn't have any. We
| provided them plans that clearly detailed instructions.
| They admitted they were wrong but still wanted to charge us
| for the work.
|
| We ended up doing most the work ourselves. Not necessarily
| because we wanted to, but calling, organizing, and
| ultimately arguing and running after the trades folks was
| such a pain in the ass. At some point I decided to keep
| track of much time I spent on quality checks and running
| after them and I figured out it wouldve taken me less time
| (and money) to just do it myself from the get go.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Did you have a general contractor wrangling everything,
| or did you hire all the specific contractors
| individually?
| mschild wrote:
| Individually.
|
| In Germany for private residences you often only have a
| general contractor if you're building a new house.
|
| Alternatively, an architect often takes over
| coordinatation for renovations like this as well. They
| usually work on % basis though so they can add
| significantly to the expenses.
| pkteison wrote:
| What was the solution you went with?
| subhro wrote:
| https://www.soundaway.com/R19-16-UltraTouch-Denim-
| Insulation... https://www.tmsoundproofing.com/RSIC-1-Low-
| Profile-Clip.html https://www.amazon.com/Resilient-Metal-
| Hat-Channel-long/dp/B... https://www.amazon.com/Green-
| Glue-Noiseproofing-Compound-Tub...
| https://www.amazon.com/Green-Glue-RGG400200U-Acoustical-
| Caul... https://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Soundproofing-
| junction-switc...
|
| These are the ones specifically for soundproofing. Do you
| also want a list of stuff for the fiber?
| pyrale wrote:
| The main issue with tradespeople is quality risk. Most do
| decent job, but some things I've seen give me nightmares at
| night.
|
| My electric network took me time, but at least it won't burn
| my house like the existing one promised.
| xattt wrote:
| I've had similar experiences as the author, so I've started to
| "overbuy/overprovision" at the store for my projects.
|
| If I end up not needing a part, I can return it. If I do, I
| saved myself a trip.
|
| I don't know if there are any analogies to software
| development.
| Pxtl wrote:
| There is, but it's awful: The "just use the giant
| library/framework to solve the small problem" approach.
|
| Like, I need to store a value or two for this local
| filesystem-oriented application. Not a lot, just like a "time
| since last check".
|
| YAGNI solution: just dump json to a file.
|
| Frameworky solution: Sqlite. You'll eventually need more, and
| Sqlite is not significantly harder than dumping json to a
| file, although it feels heavier.
|
| Like starting up a small web-project by pulling in webpack
| and react. If you don't pull in the frameworks ASAP,
| eventually you'll accidentally find yourself NIHing yourself
| into Greenspun's Rule.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule
| recursive wrote:
| > If I end up not needing a part, I can return it. If I do, I
| saved myself a trip.
|
| Returning it also cost you a trip.
| naet wrote:
| I'm lucky enough to live about 5 minutes from multiple
| different tool libraries. They've always had any tools I need
| in surprisingly good condition.
|
| Makes a lot of sense for people like me that wouldn't need a
| hole saw more than once or twice a year at most to share one
| with the community instead of buying it myself.
|
| If I was using something all the time though I would definitely
| buy my own. I have always been a little envious of friends with
| a great workshop of tools and supplies in their garage. I don't
| have the space for it or do enough tool related work to
| personally justify it for myself though.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Those workshop tools, much like automotive equipment, yard
| tools, or kitchen supplies, do not fit neatly in a Marie Kondo
| de-cluttering "Get rid of it if you haven't used it in 6
| months" model. You may not have used a 60mm hole saw, ball
| joint press spacer, trenching spade, or the coarse insert for
| your cheese grater in 6 months, but that doesn't mean you
| should get rid of that item. Instead, I think of it more as the
| capacity to do arbitrary tasks with those tool sets. Each task
| will require a random assortment of sub-components, and getting
| any single task done efficiently is likely to require a pretty
| well-stocked workshop.
|
| One way to solve this problem is by delegating it to tradesmen,
| but I personally think that cooking, home repair, gardening,
| and (to an increasingly smaller extent) automotive maintenance
| are things that well-rounded homeowners should be able to do
| the basics (which requires having the tools) by themselves.
|
| I do wish that our society did a better job of sharing these
| supplies - we've got what I consider to be a good relationship
| with our neighbors, and yet everyone on my street has their own
| cordless drill, their own lawnmower, their own Kitchenaid,
| their own wrenches, and so on, even though the vast majority of
| these objects are only used for at most a few hours per month.
| All of them are taking up space, all of them are slowly
| deteriorating due to entropy/rust/general obsolesence, all of
| them cost money...and yet each household must to have their
| own.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| The tragedy of the commons... If you keep tools for several
| families to use... when you need one of them, it either
| cannot be found or is broken. This is often because lack of
| maintenance, administration, knowledge and willingness to
| read the manual.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Might be a tool library by you if you live in the right city:
| https://www.neptl.org
| userbinator wrote:
| _comments here and elsewhere about how you don 't need much
| possessions_
|
| From the advocates of "you will own nothing and be happy".
| larusso wrote:
| I assembled a large collection of tools over the years. And I'm
| always happy when a project has a surprise moment like
| described in the article and I have just the right tool for
| that. In the other case I tend to make sure it won't happen
| again.
|
| And on that note. I tend to buy professional grade tools. Not
| just because there mainly better, have more features or are
| more accurate it's also that they come with a higher Garantie
| and being able to buy spare parts if needed is an added bonus.
| bityard wrote:
| The primary reason I do most of my DIY home repair is because 9
| times out of 10, I have been severely underwhelmed with the
| quality and workmanship of the "professionals" I have hired.
| Even armed with a written scope of work and diagrams, and
| assurances that they will do the work exactly how I'm asking,
| they still just do whatever they want and then hand me the
| bill.
|
| Over the years, I have accumulated the tools (and importantly:
| knowledge!) to do almost any home repair or remodeling. The
| main things I won't touch are those that require extensive
| experience to get right (drywall mudding a whole room), those
| that require a whole team (replacing a roof), or those that
| require big expensive machines (a clogged sewer line with the
| clog halfway out to the road).
| op00to wrote:
| I'm very impressed with the writer's willingness to head out more
| than once. I have a decently-equipped hardware store a 15 minute
| walk away, and I would not make more than two trips!
| darkerside wrote:
| If the author used the spade bit to drill out the initial hole,
| this seems like it would have gone a lot faster. A pipe wrench is
| a good thing to have.
|
| This is the difference between a junior dev taking 3 days to get
| that new button on the page versus the senior who can knock it
| out by lunch time.
| thewilliamist wrote:
| Alternate take: Your builder is a fool who needed a better punch
| list. I'd additionally really get whatever passes for a home
| inspector in your neck of the woods over for a quick top to
| bottom.
| MortyWaves wrote:
| It's also a good analogy for the right people doing the right
| thing at the right time. The builders, had they done their job
| properly, could have it done and dusted in a matter of minutes.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Most of my (new) colleagues are always very amazed and baffled
| when i tell them that investigations, intakes and inventory
| before starting projects take me huge amounts of time.
|
| Most of my colleagues finish their intakes very quickly, finish
| projects early and most (not all) have a huge amount of time of
| aftersales and aftercare. They usually call this aftercare 'out
| of scope'.
|
| My finished projects usually do not have any aftercare. They
| work, because i invested a lot of time in the beginning. I call
| this 'the actual scope'.
|
| I've been fixing some of my colleagues projects recently. Some of
| these projects should have ended 18 months ago... Most take be
| about two weeks to fix.
|
| They eventually will learn :)
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Will they if you just fix their projects long after they've
| taken credit for the success and moved on? They passed the buck
| to you.
| j1elo wrote:
| Yeah, that reminds me of the concept of externalized costs...
| they are not "paying" for the whole price (in terms of time
| of work) that the feature costs. An external force is paying
| it for them, so life is beautiful and they can afford to keep
| doing half the work.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Our company is not that big and has a very limited finite
| amount of people who have the right resources to fix these
| sort of things.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Most of the things i had to fix came by order of the CEO
| directly. If the new colleagues will not learn within a due
| time frame, i am guessing their carreer might take a bump.
|
| Personally i don't really mind at the moment. I get to do
| various work and it's been less stressful.
| guappa wrote:
| I'm sure they are soon going to be your managers.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Worse, soon he will be their manager and then those
| failures and missed golives will be his fault.
| tempoponet wrote:
| Only if the Peter Principal is in effect. As a manager
| they would be uniquely positioned to scope and assess the
| prep work. With a bit of mentoring they might "get it"
| sooner, rather than "eventually".
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Not for this paycheck :)
|
| I've been a manager in earlier times and got shit from
| all sides. Nearly drove me to a burnout. Paycheck was
| still horrible. So i quit that.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| That would make a fun conversation with the CEO :)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Sounds like they already are.
| MonaroVXR wrote:
| What kind of work?
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Various IT stuff like bringing companies to the cloud, Azure
| Virtual Environments, RDS collections, migrating small
| applications, etc.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > They eventually will learn
|
| I've been waiting 30 years. They haven't learned yet.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| I'm sorry for that. 30 years is way too much to expect. I
| usually get shit done, but demand the time for it. I usually
| get it, because shit gets done without much fuss.
| incorrecthorse wrote:
| Do they have an incentive to learn? If the reward process in
| the company also consider it "out of scope" (meaning the
| remaining work is scheduled as such), there is nothing to
| really learn.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Some of the new guys have great incentives to learn, but some
| indeed don't.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| After all that effort, his washing machine waste is now sharing a
| single waste trap with his sink. That means that when his washing
| machine waste starts to get stale and smelly (they can get
| surprisingly bad) that gas will come straight back out of the
| sink plug hole.
|
| Source: I have the same setup in my house and it sucks (and I'm
| not practical or motivated enough to fix it).
| yowzadave wrote:
| This story is a good opportunity to post one of my favorite clips
| from Malcolm in the Middle (42 seconds):
| https://youtu.be/AbSehcT19u0?si=qqULHxzhi_IaNfDp
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Does blog posting count as documentation or has the developer
| stereotype not changed? :)
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| My washing machine (Indesit) just has a couple of dials and a few
| buttons - no touchscreen - but it still has a UI bug which means
| that its usually impossible to do a wash after a prior wash
| without cycling the power in-between. Its like there is a dead-
| end in the state diagram, somewhere.
|
| And my microwave (Russell Hobbs) has a dial for selecting the
| cook-time, but you have to turn it anti-clockwise to 90 minutes
| before you can turn it clockwise to one minute or whatever. Its
| inexplicable to me.
|
| Why did they do this? What happened to the testing? Why didn't
| they fix the code before they shipped the hardware?
|
| So yeah, appliances and software estimation...
| movpasd wrote:
| What I find especially interesting is that if you go back to the
| description of the work that was expected, it is a correct high-
| level description of what ended up needing to be done: "hauling
| the washing machine into position and connecting it to water and
| power".
|
| When we perform tasks like time estimation we're forced to use
| high-level mental models. But just as abstractions in code leak,
| so too do low-level details sometimes influence high-level
| considerations in unexpected ways. The "hauling" high-level
| description ended up being quite adequate, but the "connecting"
| part hid details that were relevant for the task of time
| estimation.
| mhb wrote:
| #3 on the hit parade for a rant about how everything takes longer
| than you think? Slow news day, I guess.
|
| What's next? The full text of _If You Give a Moose a Muffin_?
|
| https://www.amazon.com/If-You-Give-Moose-Muffin/dp/006024405...
| poisonwomb wrote:
| Men will write a blog post about software development rather than
| hire a skilled plumber lmao.
|
| I think the moral of the story here is make sure you hire a
| software developer to code your application rather than rely on
| the guy who's read some blog posts about excel formulas
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| Should have seen my last sink install..
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Great article, but one key difference missing from the software
| experience is that the person for whom you are installing the
| washing machine doesn't like it there, and wants it moved over to
| the others side of the utility closet so that when you open the
| door it is easier to put clothes from there into the dryer. Also,
| it's too noisy, we need utility closet doors that absorb more of
| the sound.
|
| One primary driver of the unknowability of software estimation,
| is that the customer doesn't actually know, and perhaps CANNOT
| actually know, what they really want or need until they see
| something that isn't it. No amount of asking beforehand will
| bring out this information, and complaining afterwards that they
| didn't say that doesn't accomplish anything except souring the
| relationship.
|
| Bill by the hour, and absolutely refuse to bill by the project.
| It's the only way.
| Sharlin wrote:
| This is why bespoke software development is _never ever_
| primarily about the software, and thinking that it is is
| probably the biggest and most common misconception in the
| field. What it is, is helping the client figure out their
| processes /product/business model precisely enough to codify it
| on a computer. The rest is the easy part.
| f1shy wrote:
| >> This is why bespoke software development is never ever
| primarily about the software
|
| Let me rephrase: This is why bespoke software development is
| never ever primarily about the _code_
|
| It has all to do with SW. The big problem is thinking SW=Code
|
| But you are essentially 100% right
| codingclaws wrote:
| Doesn't billing my the hour go against all of the contractor
| compensation advice given here on HN?
| joseda-hg wrote:
| Not necessarily, that advice usually assumes that you either
| are the subject expert or that your job is scoped and
| therefore benefits from being able to rush a job to maximize
| compensation
|
| If you can bill by the hour, you benefit from the customer
| figuring it out on the go, which _will_ take longer, but also
| be better fitted (If you can make it work)
|
| If your job fits in "I'll make your X twice as good" or "I'll
| implement this standard" bill by the project, so you don't
| get punished for being more efficient; if it fits in "we'll
| solve your software problems", bill by the hour and you'll be
| rich, because they won't run out of problems to throw at you
| bityard wrote:
| I feel like it depends highly upon the nature of the project.
|
| I've worked with (and for) consultants and we typically
| billed by the project for things with well-defined scope,
| work, and outputs. (Maybe a small business website, or PBX
| system.) But we billed by the hour for things that were
| unfamiliar territory for us and forced us to learn as we go.
| Like migrating a bunch of data from an ancient proprietary
| database to Postgres.
| jackcarter wrote:
| > wants it moved over to the others side of the utility closet
| so that when you open the door it is easier to put clothes from
| there into the dryer
|
| That's when you swap the hinges so the door opens the other
| way, and you thank the manufacturer for providing such an easy
| solution to a common problem. It's good to keep things flexible
| and user-configurable.
|
| Now quick, someone reply with a counterexample of how user
| configuration complicates the product and increases cost. It's
| design tradeoffs all the way down...
| jedberg wrote:
| > Bill by the hour, and absolutely refuse to bill by the
| project. It's the only way.
|
| Or, bill by the project, but have an actual scope of work with
| details. Which will help you estimate the project cost and give
| you cover when something new comes up to increase the project
| cost.
|
| Customers hate by-the-hour because they don't know what it will
| cost. Providers should hate by-the-hour because it ripe for
| abuse by the customer, who assumes you can do anything they
| want because "it's just another few hours".
| deadbabe wrote:
| Do NOT bill by the hour. Bill the project as a fixed cost to
| get your foot in the door, but with a clause to switch to
| hourly for changes requested that stray from the original
| requirements, with a two hour minimum per change.
|
| The pain of being billed hourly will discourage clients from
| requesting too many trivial changes.
| stevetron wrote:
| Growing up, both of my grandfathers were pretty handy, fixed
| almost everything themselves, and had the tools to do things. My
| dad was pretty handy himself, and had tools. Exposed to all that,
| I've always been a tinkerer. My woodworking generally leaves
| something to be desired, I'm much better at metal-working, but
| most of my tools are bought for electronics work. Never-the-less,
| on my 12th birthday, my maternal grandfather gave me an electric
| drill with a 1/4-inch chuck. That was in 1968. I had attempted to
| use my dad's larger drill for the odd hole, but it was too
| powerful for my grip at that age (his was a 3/8-inch chuck).
|
| Some projects always have a few unknown factors. One thing I
| never work on are automobiles: most of my attempts at even the
| simplest task start out with needing the odd tool, eventually I
| injure myself and still don't have the task done, and still have
| to get a mechanic to do the job. So I don't do cars.
|
| I remember my grandfather watching with fascination as I
| assembled my Heathkit Frequency Counter back in 1978 as he had
| never seen anyone do such fine soldering as I was doing on the
| circuit board.
| hu3 wrote:
| Had similar experience setting up new office table.
|
| Surely rearranging work stuff will take 10 minutes at best right?
|
| Well it took me 2 hours to reorganize it to an acceptable state.
|
| Tried different layouts and did some rethinking on ergonomics.
| mannyv wrote:
| Anticipation comes from experience. This is how you get it.
| btbuildem wrote:
| You knew approximately nothing about the task you're about to
| undertake, but you proceed anyway? This is hubris at best, and
| while it may fly in the software world (oh no, I bricked the
| computer!) with little consequence, in the real world you can do
| some real damage or seriously hurt yourself.
|
| It's wild to me someone would do zero research and just blunder
| onwards like that. Holesaw through a bathroom wall without
| checking what's in there? Lucky not to have hit electrical, or
| better yet, a water line. Best part is, all you needed was a
| keyhole saw to manually cut each layer of drywall on either side,
| having first traced the outline.
|
| What did you learn? Not the key lesson apparently -- research and
| learn about the task and its context before taking it on.
| goda90 wrote:
| "This is the ninth house move of my life so I figured this
| installation would be like all the others."
|
| It doesn't sound like they knew nothing.
| lukeinator42 wrote:
| They also just drilled a hole through a shelf based on their
| description and the photos, so they could see what was on the
| other side of the shelf.
| balderdash wrote:
| I had generally the same thought, but it was more the lack of
| Recognition that "oh this actually isn't like all the other
| projects I've done, maybe I'll ask someone for help..."
| immibis wrote:
| The article says the hole was drilled in a "shelf" between two
| "compartments". Shelves don't tend to have wires or pipes
| inside or be made of drywall.
|
| Have you heard of analysis paralysis?
| tacitusarc wrote:
| I would strongly recommend attaching the drainage hose to the top
| of the sink to ensure it is higher than the rest of the drain
| pipe.
| rbongers wrote:
| I have had a lot of opportunity to estimate a lot of projects,
| but one thing I still can't figure out is estimate education.
|
| If a client wants to know "why is this going to take so long?" I
| can list the unknowns and third-party touch points, which are
| always things that make tasks take longer, but then they'll
| wonder why those are going to make it take longer. From there
| it's a challenge to communicate how unknowns are part of every
| project, how they are a good indicator of the risk of a task, and
| how there are some things you just won't know until you start
| work on a task in earnest.
|
| Doesn't seem to matter how much detail I go into, it always comes
| back to "but I thought this would be easy."
|
| The best I can come up with is to educate clients on what _bad_
| estimation looks like (Did they come right back with a fixed
| estimate for your type of project? Are they even asking
| questions?), hope they come back after getting different
| estimates with the exact red flags I warned them about, and then
| maintaining client trust by any means necessary so that when I
| say something is going to take a certain amount of time they know
| I 'm not exaggerating.
| balderdash wrote:
| I'm always reminded of the quote at my mechanic's "the reason it
| only took half an hour is that I spent 10 years learning to do it
| that fast" [paraphrase]
|
| If you're actually an expert in something you will be able to
| assess (ask the right questions) the scope to 95% probability
| (yes there are always edge cases)
|
| I suspect if a professional installer had surveyed the situation
| he would have immediately looked for hose length, holes, have the
| tools etc.
|
| It seems like this is more a case of dunning-Kruger than anything
| else (and trust me I've been there "I mean how hard can it be to
| X")
| goda90 wrote:
| I had a DIY project last night that took double the time I
| estimated. I wanted to replace the charging port on my
| smartphone. I've replaced parts in previous smartphones, but that
| was the era of quick replaceable batteries and limited water
| resistance. I had the charging ribbon assembly replacement part,
| I had tools, and I had watched some videos. But something I
| didn't take into account from some of the videos is how they
| glossed over removing and replacing the glued on, glass back of
| the phone.
|
| I spent at least an hour just trying to get the back off without
| cracking it.
|
| Then on to the battery, which was glued in. Some videos
| manhandled the battery to the point I could see some bending,
| which I definitely wanted to avoid(I planned to reuse the same
| battery). Some used heat to loosen up the glue, but once the
| phone was open I noticed the temperature warning on the battery,
| 104F, which was probably pretty close to what it would take to
| get the glue under the battery to soften. One video dripped IPA
| around the sides of the battery. I realized I didn't have an eye
| dropper for precise placement, and I didn't want to just douse my
| whole phone in alcohol, so I ended up using a plastic chopstick
| to get droplets in.
|
| At least 30 minutes went towards that and finally feeling safe
| enough to pry out the battery.
|
| Then removing boards and ribbon cables, and trying not to break
| any connectors took about 30 minutes. Putting them back in took
| another 30 minute because keeping the connectors from folding
| under things and getting crimped was really annoying. The bend of
| the ribbon cable was off, so aligning things was extra funky too.
|
| After finally getting things back in place and screwed in, I
| tested the phone before gluing the back on. What I didn't do is
| test the fit of the back before applying the glue. Turns out one
| little plastic piece wasn't clipped in underneath a metal frame
| in the middle of the phone, so the back couldn't fit flush.
| Another 30 minutes spent just cleaning out the glue so I could
| start over. And then I finally got the back glued on and sat with
| it wrapped in rubber bands for another 30 minutes.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Software effort estimation is hard in the same way building
| anything is hard, but it's harder because: - the
| tools can vary wildly - there are few standard components
| - the few standard components have a wide amount of variance in
| their use and results - "there is no single development, in
| either technology or management technique, which by itself
| promises even one order of magnitude improvement within a decade
| in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity" - an in-
| house product is easier to write than a developer product others
| will use - developers have a tendency to use up all
| available resources (software is a gas) which then makes it
| harder when the software needs more resources to function
| (scalability) - most people who write software do not do
| design; thus the software is not designed before they start
| writing it, which (obviously) leads to an undeterminable amount
| of time until it is done - again because of a lack of
| design knowledge, developers fall into common traps like the
| second-system effect and other design flaws - the Agile
| Manifesto emphasizes a lack of planning, rigor, standardization,
| and documentation, all of which creates uncertainty - most
| projects don't include staff to properly track progress and
| reorganize efforts to get back on track - most people who
| write software were never properly trained (in methodologies, in
| software design, in system architecture, etc) and thus their work
| will be inefficient and unreliable, which adds time and expense
| - most of the tools needed to develop software quickly and with
| high quality are not available at the beginning of a project, and
| are built by either the same team building the software, or a
| different team, which is a bit like trying to build your own
| scaffolding and power tools while building a building. this adds
| delay and cost
|
| Things that make estimating building anything hard:
| - the group of people doing the building vary in skill and
| experience - the ability of the group of people to work
| together well varies - the inavailability of materials when
| needed causes delays - coordination of work is difficult
| - humans make mistakes which creates delay and cost overrun, more
| when the mistakes aren't seen immediately
|
| These things are all extremely well known and understood in our
| industry, since even 50 years ago. But because there is no
| standardization in the way our work is done, nor proper training
| nor roles to handle the difficult work of managing the work, it
| continues to be a crap-shoot whether you're working with somebody
| who knows what they're doing.
| ramonverse wrote:
| I thought this was gonna be about how washing machines always
| fail to accurately estimate how long it will take to wash
| adammarples wrote:
| I'm not sure the author learned anything. There is nothing here
| from the first discovery that the hole did not exist all the way
| until the end that could not have been pre-empted by just
| thinking through the steps you're about to take. There's nothing
| stopping you from measuring your hoses, measuring your drill
| chuck, visually checking the flow through the drainage pipe, and
| even investigating the taps BEFORE you make your first trip to
| the hardware store. But the second trip I'm already wondering why
| the author doesn't try to think one step ahead instead of
| immediately getting in his car to fix the immediate problem.
| arealaccount wrote:
| If we're comparing to software estimation, I'd say the author's
| estimates were successful.
|
| The job was done in a short amount of time, it likely didn't put
| the entire moving in project at risk.
|
| Same with software estimation, nobody fills their day with back
| to back 10 minute tasks, or at least they shouldn't be. Rather
| you budget a day or a week to get a few tasks completed based on
| their rough size. And you're generally pretty safe for high level
| planning.
| wave-function wrote:
| The blog is inaccessible in my region, gives "406 Not
| Acceptable". I used to get around these geographic blocks by
| using a European server, but now I just close the tab - more and
| more it feels like begging.
| groos wrote:
| In my younger days, we had a new walkway bridge open up near our
| building at work. The opening was announced months in advance and
| the bridge opened on the exact day they had said it would. I
| remarked to my wiser boss (also a software dev), how come they
| can predict their bridge completion so accurately while we
| continually run over and have to cut stuff to make our dates? Ah,
| he said, we never build the same bridge twice.
| dekhn wrote:
| I read this article as "junior dev who doesn't know what they are
| doing follows greedy path to solving problem but is actually
| creating a legacy problem".
|
| In particular, if you reach a point in a project that involves
| cutting a hole through a wall and you aren't familiar with the
| tools to do this as well as the implications of making a hole in
| a wall, you should back off and either research it completely
| before touching anything, or hire somebody who already learned
| the rules.
|
| This is basic Chesterton's fence, along with several other rules
| you learn in software engineering over time and through
| experience.
| Animats wrote:
| Software estimation is a joke because there's no penalty for
| underestimating.
|
| Compare movie production estimation. There are companies which
| will sell a film production a completion bond. The bonding
| company guarantees that a releasable film will come out, or your
| money back.
|
| Here's an overview of completion bonds.[1] A completion bond
| costs about 2% of production cost. It's typically used for indie
| films with budgets between US$3 million and US$70 million. The
| completion bond company will cover some overrun, but if it's too
| big, they will _fire the director_ and take over the production.
| That 's what gives this real teeth. Movies where this happens
| tend not to be great, but tend to break even, so everybody gets
| paid.
|
| So how do completion bond companies do estimates? History. They
| have the actual expenses from many completed films. This info is
| at a highly detailed level, with costs for each shot. So, when
| they get a script with a car chase scene, they go to their
| database, look up "car chase", and pull out how much the last
| hundred movie car chases cost. They also have info about
| directors, producers, and actors, and how much they tend to cost
| to shoot a scene relative to their peers.
|
| It's not rocket science. It's insurance underwriting.
|
| [1] https://www.mediaservices.com/blog/how-to-bond-a-film-a-
| defi...
| zanellato19 wrote:
| >Software estimation is a joke because there's no penalty for
| underestimating.
|
| Yeah, the other problem is that the company is constantly
| pressuring the developer to underestimate, and all the costs
| are on the developer if they can't deliver on that absurd date.
| stuartjohnson12 wrote:
| Also same company: terminate every software engineer they
| hire for lack of attention to detail
| mk89 wrote:
| > Software estimation is a joke because there's no penalty for
| underestimating.
|
| In my experience, while this might be true in some companies, I
| noticed that most of the time the issue with estimations is the
| lack of clarity (=what do I really want?) and enough context
| (what's the impact in terms of scope to reach what I want?).
|
| Most of commercial software, for whatever weird reason, keeps
| on being compared to other industries and repeatedly this
| fails.
|
| It's not like building a car, it's not like building a house,
| it's not like shooting a movie, etc.
| nomel wrote:
| > I noticed that most of the time the issue with estimations
| is the lack of clarity (=what do I really want?) and enough
| context (what's the impact in terms of scope to reach what I
| want?).
|
| From what I've seen, this _up front design_ ends up being a
| good portion of the _design time_. The cheat is that people
| don 't include this upfront _design_ in the time estimate.
| They say "the specs are still being set, we can't start yet"
| rather than "we're delayed in setting these new specs", even
| though the end date moves similarly.
| copypasterepeat wrote:
| This is interesting. I've never heard of this service, but it
| totally makes sense. It makes me muse: what would it take to
| have a completion bond service in the software development
| market? If you were running one of these insurance companies,
| what would you require in order to be comfortable to put your
| own money on the line? Presumably it would be similar to what
| you listed for the movies: 1. everything that will be delivered
| down to every single detail. No room to change the scope
| midstream. 2. some historical table listing how long typical
| features take to develop. 3. personnel involved and their past
| performance.
|
| I am guessing the first requirement would be the deal breaker,
| but probably not in every case.
| Animats wrote:
| It's the historical data that makes it work. Collect all that
| data, compute median and standard deviation, and estimate as
| median plus one sigma or so as a safety margin.
|
| There's outside monitoring. The completion bonding company
| will usually have someone on set watching every day, checking
| expenditures and progress.. "The completion bonder usually
| has a right of approval of the producer, director, and lead
| cast. These are not creative approvals. Rather, such
| approvals relate to reliability, tendency to cause over-
| budget results, history of substance abuse or other personal
| habits that have raised other issues as to reliability. ...
| Completion guarantors keep track of the on-budget track
| record of producers and directors and, it seems, cross-check
| with each other as to substance abuse or other extreme
| conduct relating to actors".
|
| It's not that they need every single detail. Changes can be
| made during production. It's expensive changes that are a
| concern. Directors who tend to make expensive changes during
| production are known to completion bond companies, and that
| gets priced into the estimate. Not necessarily rejected, but
| priced in.
| agustechbro wrote:
| Not good comparision between artistic products vs hard
| requirement software product.
|
| - If your movie is running out of time, you slash scenes,
| production etc.
|
| - If your bussines software dev is running out of time and does
| not meet the minimun requirement, you can NOT slash it.
| Specially if it mission critical.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| In _How Big Things Get Done_ the author Bent is an advocate
| of reference class forecasting, which is basically what OP
| describes.
|
| Bent, who studies megaprojects, who goes on to say that the
| big mistake everyone makes when coming up with estimates is
| to think that their project is "special". People come up with
| a million reasons why their project is unique, and then they
| produce an incorrect estimate because they try to consider
| each facet of the project and add or subtract time based on
| it.
|
| In contrast, reference class forcasting "bakes in" all the
| various factors and averages them. If you're trying to build
| a house and want to estimate how long it will take, take the
| average time it takes to build a house of similar square
| footage in your state. This will factor in things like risk
| of a storm causing delays or cost overruns, and you don't
| have to consider that or other unknown unknowns.
|
| If you think some aspect is important, find a reference class
| that can index on that aspect. The estimate you produce will
| be more empirical and data driven that way.
| nomel wrote:
| > Software estimation is a joke because there's no penalty for
| underestimating.
|
| Comparing something as cookie cutter as movie production, to
| "sofware" doesn't seem fair. It's comparing the problems of
| tool users to tool makers.
|
| Movies are mostly cookie cutter. You can go rent a full crew,
| with equipment and catering, for a weekend with a 30 minute
| phone call. Try hiring a crew of software developers, for your
| specific problem, in 30 minutes.
|
| Software isn't cookie cutter, because software isn't
| fundamentally "software", it's _a means_ to implement a
| solution for a specific problem. The difference in problem
| space a software developer can run into is _massive_. Unless
| you 've already done it before, or are doing something
| incredibly cookie cutter, time estimates are based on gut
| feeling and past, probably incorrect, assumptions.
|
| If you're doing something cookie cutter in software, then you
| _can_ get great time estimates.
|
| If you're doing something _unusual_ with movies, then you can
| go WAY over time (see anything James Cameron touches).
| imbnwa wrote:
| And like James Cameron innovating underwater shooting with
| "The Abyss", software developers may innovate a domain on the
| way to solving a business problem
| Herring wrote:
| > So how do completion bond companies do estimates? History.
|
| That's not always possible. The real world is changing all the
| time. The article has a nice section at the end about "unknown
| unknowns".
| simpaticoder wrote:
| An interesting analogy. But note that movie output is a fixed
| blob with NO degrees of freedom, makers have fewer
| combinatorial problems, and staffing according to a well-
| defined set of fixed roles with little or no pressure to change
| that. In contrast, the output of a software project is an
| interactive machine with enormous degrees of freedom, makers
| deal with 3 OOM more combinatorial problems (by dint of logical
| dependencies changing 1000x faster than physical ones), and
| staffing roles are ALWAYS subject to change with enormous
| pressure to "innovate" those roles, particularly by smushing
| them together (e.g. full-stack, devops roles, the end of
| sysadmins and db admins). What you suggest may be possible
| within a large and static consultancy that fixes the roles and
| dependencies for 5-10 years at a time, but such a firm might
| have a tough sell. Even success stories like 37signals who've
| been using the same language consistently over its 25 years
| probably could not do what you suggest.
| Amekedl wrote:
| Kinda funny how it's beimg labelled at 4 hours, but it really
| reads like it took 8.
| seemaze wrote:
| My takeaway is not that estimating is hard, it's that intelligent
| people can easily over-value past performance and under-value
| domain specific knowledge for a given task.
|
| Accurate estimating gets done everyday outside of software, and
| there exist experienced estimators and tested contractural
| frameworks used to mitigate unknowns, while optimizing for
| whichever combination of time, cost, and quality is agreed upon
| by all parties.
| hinkley wrote:
| > I don't have a spade bit with the perfect width to open the
| hole,
|
| Good luck using a spade bit on a 20deg angle into plastic.
| Lammy wrote:
| > I get to drilling and after 25 minutes of learning how to keep
| it straight and the wonders of noise cancelling earphones, I have
| a neat 60mm hole with a plastic insert.
|
| Pardon my nitpick but in case it helps save anybody else's
| hearing: noise-canceling headphones are _not_ hearing protection!
| Hearing protection devices create a physical barrier between the
| noise source and your ears. Noise-canceling headphones use a
| microphone to listen to your surroundings and create an inverse
| sound wave. Due to their imperfect nature (latency, inability to
| reproduce certain sounds, etc) they are not adequately protecting
| your ears, especially for higher-frequency sounds like a drill
| motor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control
|
| If you want hearing protection and music, you want something like
| these: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/cbgnawus1754/
|
| edit: also should have used some teflon tape on the threads of
| the washer hoses to prevent leaks:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_seal_tape
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Some noise cancelling headphones/earpods can absolutely provide
| hearing protection, but it does depend.
|
| Here are the specs for Apple airpod pro 2:
| https://www.apple.com/airpods-pro/pdf/Hearing_Protection_dat...
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Yeah the 3M over-ear hearing protection is great. Also you
| don't necessarily need thread sealing tape. Thread sealing tape
| is for threaded fittings like FIP/MIP where the threads provide
| the seal directly. Washer hoses use compression fittings and so
| you're better off putting a little plumbing grease on the
| gasket but otherwise you don't need thread seal for that type
| of fitting.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > that consumer grade drills can't fit or drive hole saws
|
| I've been happily using my _compact_ very much consumer-grade
| drill for that all this time, with hole saws that came in a
| consumer grade drill bit kit.
| otikik wrote:
| Your penalty for driving to the store was too small. The nearest
| one I have is 1h away.
|
| Before the first trip, I would have spent _a lot of time_ looking
| at the thing and making sure there was no second trip. Which
| there might be anyway; as you say, "unknown unknowns" are like
| that.
| holtkam2 wrote:
| One thought I've had many times (open to feedback on this
| philosophy)
|
| Estimates for completion dates in software should be given as a
| probability distribution instead of a date.
|
| Instead of: I estimate the release will be shipped by 03/01/2025
|
| I tell my manager: I estimate the release will be shipped by
| 03/01/2025 +- 10 days at one standard distribution confidence
| level. Plan accordingly based upon your risk tolerance for
| missing the deadline.
| nrclark wrote:
| I've had mixed results with this approach. What happens when I
| try it is: 1. I communicate DATE and
| CONFIDENCE_INTERVAL 2. My manager hears DATE and
| CONFIDENCE_INTERVAL. 3. My manager tells project-manager
| "probably somewhere around DATE" 4. Project-manager
| hears "DATE" 5. DATE becomes what people thought I said.
| steeeeeve wrote:
| Who buys a drill not strong enough for a hole saw? What does that
| even look like anyways? An electric screwdriver?
| indus wrote:
| op exhibited a point where if we do not know what we do not know
| --the estimates are always off by many order of several
| magnitudes.
|
| if op consulted an experienced plumber--the estimates would be
| off probably by an addition hour.
|
| if a junior dev estimates, yup, I can change the API endpoint in
| 10 minutes, he'll be wronged by the nuances of several
| intermediate steps:
|
| - code
|
| - review / merge
|
| - deploy to qa
|
| - qa testing
|
| - deploy to staging
|
| - deploy to prod
|
| likewise for plumbing: "mom, i plugged the leak with a band-aid."
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