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I will postulate an opposing view to TFA: Quality consumer goods are better in two key areas. First, they are replaceable. I don’t want a military grade mixer

I will postulate an opposing view to TFA: Quality consumer goods are better in two key areas. First, they are replaceable. I don’t want a military grade mixer in my kitchen if getting a broken whisk or motor on it is going to require me hunting all over eBay for the specific part hoping it’s available. I was very excited at one point about the idea of getting a commercial dishwasher that can run a load of dishes in like 90 seconds. Problem with those is that you can’t go to Lowe’s and get a replacement part when it acts up. You have to call a restaurant equipment servicing company and pay them what a restaurant with a broken dishwasher would pay. Or more because you aren’t a frequent customer. Sure, maybe it’ll break less but here’s the thing: my modern LG dishwasher will be more convenient to use and if I get 10 years out of it rather than 20 I still spent only $1000 on the top of the line one rather than the $4k on a 10 year old used commercial unit that I will struggle with the entire time. Second, consumer goods are replaceable. I am used to my Kershaw knife. I broke it yesterday. I can get it serviced by the manufacturer or get a brand new one, or both. If I buy some special forces surplus knife and chip the blade I am either done with that knife or I’m taking it to a specialist or I’m buying a new one. Knowing that I can replace an item I’m used to when a one-for-one replacement is a comfort. Obviously that doesn’t work for everything but it works for items that are made by high quality manufacturers. Bonus: a military grade mixer is going to suck to make high end pastries because it’s geared towards making mashed potatoes for the troops. I feel like the author is romanticizing ma class of products that in reality aren’t all that amazing except in a couple of key areas that to most consumers aren’t as big of a deal. So while it’s possible that, as the author states, the average consumer is an idiot, I don’t see much evidence that the author is much ahead of the pack here.

bayindirh 5y ago
Moreover, consumer items beyond a price point are both very well made and backed by long term warranties anyway. Paying a bit more for a better item which can be repaired or serviced for a very long time makes it cheaper in the long run in my experience, because you buy it once and for life. I love "overkill items for everyday life" point of view, but it comes with trade-offs for noise, ergonomics, size, replaceability and such. You can get a very good blade from Victorinox or Leatherman. If you fancy good steel, you can get a high end, forged German steel Victorinox chef knife and use something frighteningly sharp and handsome at the same time. If you want a good heater, you can pay twice the price and can get a Fakir Hobby premium space heater and can use for 30+ years (we have two). The list can go on.
- megameter 5y ago
  The best consumer goods are generally the ones where the design has persisted unmodified for decades. It works, everyone uses it, nobody's improved on it, serviceability is reasonable relative to the essential complexity, and it hasn't been cost-reduced into garbage. "New model" always comes with the worry: What did they fuck up this time? Anything "professional", "military", etc. comes with the potential downside of it being someone's job to maintain and service it. Qualitative differences usually come with trade-offs - and if it's not your job, it might not be better to try.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    I wish there was more of a culture of long lived product lines. IKEA is shockingly good at this. I had a draw from the Malm product line from 15 years ago, then 5 years ago I got the bed frame in the same set and just now I got another one of the draws and they all fit together and look uniform because their product lines have been mostly the same for decades. If I break something or need more bits, I can always go back years later and get a matching piece.
    - tharkun__ 5y ago
      I would've agreed with you on this until recently. Tried to get an extra piece for something but they no longer make that 'color'. Then had the same issue trying to buy another malm piece to match the rest of the bed room. No dice, no longer making that fake wood facing and replaced it with a slightly different one. Different enough to look out of place.
      - SilverRed 5y ago
        Yeah fair enough. I just have the white one which seems to have carried on.
- MereInterest 5y ago
  > Moreover, consumer items beyond a price point are both very well made and backed by long term warranties anyway. Except that there isn't a good way to distinguish between something that is expensive because it has quality construction and something that is expensive because it is a brand name. Searching for information online is nigh-useless due to aggressive SEO on the part of advertisers. Sometimes I can get lucky and find an enthusiast forum, but those are harder and harder to find. Online reviews in general are effectively anonymous. Amazon reviews might not even be the same manufacturer, let alone the same product. Newegg lists different firmware versions under the same product ID, so compatibility reviews are useless. The best thing I've found is to reach out to a group of friends and hope that one of them did the research previously, or can at least steer you towards/away a brand. This doesn't scale, and any approach that does scale is at risk of being overwhelmed by advertisers and other bad actors.
bartread 5y ago
I think one needs to be a bit selective here. About 8 years ago I bought the cheapest catering/professional microwave/combioven I could get my hands on. I did this because I got tired of consumer units with overcomplicated UIs designed (apparently) by unregenerate misanthropes, rotating dishes that are a pain in the ass to clean, overzealous bleeps that go off every 30 - 60 seconds after a cycle is finished, peeling enamel, corrosion issues, and that are too small on the inside. Consumer grade microwave ovens all, as far as I can tell, universally suck in one way or another that my commercial grade microwave doesn't. The thing is bomb proof. The only thing that's gone wrong in 8 years is the internal bulb. Everything else is rock solid. This is, however, a rather different proposition to buying a food mixer that was manufactured in 1948. I can get spares for my microwave or, at this point, buy a new one and recycle the old without feeling I haven't got my money's worth. I'm going to struggle with the 1948 mixer and, like you, I don't want that. Others have highlighted that commercial grade dishwashers and fans are also probably bad ideas. I've run into similar issues with UPSs: none of these things seem designed to run in an environment where fan noise is going to cause a serious problem (nobody seems to sell a completely silent UPS - it's really daft). Likewise, if you buy a rackmount server instead of a desktop computer you may be surprised to find that the fan noise is extraordinary. Honestly, the main thing is to do your research before making a purchase so that you buy something that's really going to suit your requirements, whether that's a consumer grade or "professional grade" piece of equipment.
- atoav 5y ago
  Film equipment is just like that. People ask where the autofocus is on that 50k$ Arri-Zeiss combination and you point at your focus puller loafing around with a coffee in her hand. Just made for a different kind of gig than your usual consumer grade camera
  - dusted 5y ago
    focus pullers are amazing and underappreciated
- megablast 5y ago
  > About 8 years ago I bought the cheapest catering/professional microwave/combioven I could get my hands on. I did this because I got tired of consumer units with overcomplicated UIs designed (apparently) by unregenerate misanthropes, rotating dishes that are a pain in the ass to clean, overzealous bleeps that go off every 30 - 60 seconds after a cycle is finished, peeling enamel, corrosion issues, and that are too small on the inside. See, this is weird. The cheapest microwaves you can get have two dials, one for temp, one for time. Why not buy one of those??
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
You're spot on. I've dated several chefs, and the reality is that "professional grade" in consumer kitchen devices is basically all a fantasy/farce. Real commercial equipment is generally a huge PITA. It's quite capable stuff, but you don't need those capabilities at home, and everything else about them makes them a net negative, in nearly every case. The other obnoxious thing is most of what's marketed as "professional grade" to consumers is junk that no commercial kitchen would use. It's just marketing. You can get some interesting specific stuff on say webrestaraunt store, but you gotta be mindful of the above aspects imo.
- jiofih 5y ago
  > "professional grade" in consumer kitchen devices is basically all a fantasy/farce That is not what the article is about though. He buys actual commercial / industrial stuff that is indeed more rugged.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
    I understand that, I was talking about a parallel aspect.
- bombcar 5y ago
  The one thing so far that I’ve found amazing is the restaurant-style sink. Huge like a beast and you can wash a small car in it.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
    The quirky thing I'll put in my future kitchen remodel is a pedal activated faucet on the sink.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  Many years ago, there used to be Sysco stores open to the general public. I was very fond of the commercial potholders from there, but didn't know where to get some of my own since they closed all the stores. Then one day through the magic of the Internet, I found a supplier of almost the same thing, albeit with their own logo on it. (I'm pretty sure I bought them from Wasserstrom, but I just checked and I can't find them)
Grustaf 5y ago
Is this a joke or are you missing the point? The guy doesn't actually think that a fighter jet seat is better than a normal office chair in any practical sense. He just thinks these things are cool. Often, part of the charm is how incredibly impractical they are.
- yourapostasy 5y ago
  > The guy doesn't actually think that a fighter jet seat is better than a normal office chair in any practical sense. Now that people are discussing it, I do want to find out if there are former air force pilots reading this who can corroborate or refute my hypothesis: I suspect long-duration mission bombers like the US B-52 and B-2 have pilot seats especially tuned for extended operational comfort, even more so than commercial airliners (passenger or cargo), and it would be interesting to test my hypothesis that those would make excellent office chairs for coders. Someone makes these from old pilot seats [1], but I'm specifically interested in pilot seats from airframes that routinely perform round-trip trans-Pacific routes. I personally wouldn't routinely use such a seat for more than say 10-12 hours at a time, but if it is proven to still be comfortable after someone uses it for that long, naps for a couple hours in it, and uses it for another long session, then it is likely going to feel very comfortable to me. And maybe the safety harness will help me maintain my posture instead of having to remind myself every half hour to check it. [1] https://www.skyart.com/en/captain-office-chair https://www.skyart.com/en/captain-office-chair
  - zamfi 5y ago
    I like this line of speculation, though what to make of the fact that the average military pilot and average coder probably differ...substantially...in physique? Not to mention ongoing training active pilots likely engage in that may help with posture.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    I don't think you need to go to bombers to find good seats. Or even airplanes at all, though I've heard that airliners do tend to have pretty good seats for the pilots. Just start with buses and long haul trucks. Though honestly, I think it's actually a solved problem. I just buy aftermarket Recaro seats. They know what they're doing.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Often the hobbyist and professional tool is just as good, except that the pro tool will last 10x longer.
neilpanchal 5y ago
I kinda disagree. These aren’t very good examples. Also the dough mixer is for restaurants, not military use. :-) Although I want one now. Here is a kitchen scale I bought. Made in Switzerland, no less. It’s bloody beautiful: https://neil.computer/notes/mettler-toledo-ml3002e-teardown/ https://neil.computer/notes/mettler-toledo-ml3002e-teardown/ Does that mean all consumer grade stuff is bad? No. Leatherman tools and 3M consumer grade stuff is usually great. Nalgene bottles. Does that mean all pro quality stuff is great? No. I’ve bought restaurant quality containers, made in California, no less, but are not BPA-free. My philosophy is quite tangential to the points you’re making: - Search for stuff in auxiliary / parallel industries. - Used surplus stuff is usually below consumer grade prices even if it was slightly worse, you're still equal. 9/10 times it is actually the opposite - 10x the quality, performance and durability of consumer grade crap on Amazon. - Some cheap crap is actually good. Victorinox $30 knife is excellent value and used by professional chefs. The same cannot be said for an outdoors knife, you want it to be overbuilt. Cheap $30 outdoor knives would not stand a chance. Always buy generic drugs, they're exactly the same. There are atleast 100 more examples I can write about that were a net positive buys. Just last week I bought U-Line tape dispenser. Same price as consumer grade ones, so why not? - Orthogonal search usually yields frugal jackpots. No one would ever find any use for the life raft bag in the marine parts store. Average consumers want stuff that is objectively worse for them. Touchscreens were an excellent idea for a phone, now they want it everywhere in their cars. Overall, with the throw-away culture consumers are addicted to, it’s hard to not blame them. Have you ever dealt with customer service? You might be surprised. We are soooo addicted to wasteful culture. You’re just promoting this and doubling down on it. Let’s see in last 20 years: Quality went downhill, durability is an after thought, repairability is non existent and consumers want bigger box - literally larger than the item because they choose it based on how good the box looks. If it were any other reason, it’s a waste of packaging and businesses know this. Businesses are not looking to waste money on extra packaging unless it led to better sales. This is a direct evidence of the utter shitshow consumer culture embodies. Anyways, I fancy things that are engineered with deliberation and specification. Tested and qualified against requirements. Usually military, aviation, marine or medical grade goods are designed and engineered in such a way.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
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antisceptic 5y ago
I don't think the "military" grade stuff is meant to last considerably longer. It's mostly geared at extreme duty cycles. How often will you use a mixer if you're not a baker, once a week? An industrial piece of equipment is intended to be used nearly all the time, and there's impressive engineering that goes into handling that use case. Which I think was the point of TFA: he wants to show everyone he appreciates overengineered stuff.
- bombcar 5y ago
  This is the important distinction - and the key is finding heavy duty equipment that has maintenance schedules based on usage not on clock-hours. Having to oil and maintain something that is used once a week will quickly become annoying.
- vladTheInhaler 5y ago
  I think you have a good point. The trick is to consider the device or object not on its own, but in the context of the organization. Large organizations like the military would probably be happier with an item that needs intensive inspection, servicing, and repairs on a very consistent schedule, but is absolutely guaranteed to work within that operational window than they they would be with an item which is low-maintenance but has an unreliable service lifetime. A maintenance schedule can be planned around and budgeted around so that it doesn't affect operations. A random outage or failure is expensive, and can only be planned around in a probabilistic sense. As individuals, we don't have the time or knowledge to do all of the inspections and repairs to maintain an "industrial grade" system at a level that makes it worthwhile. We need stuff that "just works" for some unspecified amount of time, and we accept the cost of random failure and replacement as a tradeoff, since most failures in our lives don't involve the loss of human life or millions of dollars. The exceptions, like cars, tend to be engineered more like the former category, and can only really function reliably in the context of a larger organization (regular maintenance at a specialized repair shop). So it's not really a spectrum of quality from cheap and unreliable to expensive and indestructible. It's actually a spectrum of logistical overhead from individual use and low upkeep to multinational organization and high upkeep.
Noumenon72 5y ago
> I was very excited at one point about the idea of getting a commercial dishwasher that can run a load of dishes in like 90 seconds. The reason commercial dishwashers run so fast is that they sanitize dishes, but do not remove food from them. That is done by a restaurant employee. Home dishwashers include soaking and scrubbing to remove food, which takes longer. https://www.reddit.com/r/answers/comments/no3c9j/why_do_commercial_dishwashers_take_5_minutes_but/gzy2mn1/ https://www.reddit.com/r/answers/comments/no3c9j/why_do_comm...
- SilverRed 5y ago
  Dishwashers also save water by only drawing in enough to run half the jets at once. They then switch between which half is active which works just as well for washing but takes twice as long. I don't think many people sit there waiting on the dishwasher so it really doesn't matter that much if it takes 3 hours instead of 1.5h if it means less cost.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Technology Connections on Youtube has a rather good video on the subject: https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04 https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04
BostonEnginerd 5y ago
I think one good strategy is to buy the highest volume product -- the more of a widget someone makes, the better they are at it. For example, a Ford Focus or Chevy Malibu is a lot more reliable and cheaper to maintain than a fancier and more fun car. Loads of third party parts, etc. Regarding the mixer, I understand they changed the gears to plastic so they would strip without damaging the motor. Easier to replace a cheap set of seats than an expensive motor.
- ReptileMan 5y ago
  Actually Hobart and Kitchen aid always had a plastic gear with the purpose of being a fuse if some brainiac decided to make a rocky road icecream with real gravel. What kitchen aid did to decrease their quality was hosting the gear assembly in non metal housing - so you could fuck up your mixer body which makes it harder to repair.
  - alliao 5y ago
    I love those sacrificial designs. I found one in my whirpool washing machine too; a hard plastic gear.
toss1 5y ago
>>I don’t want a military grade mixer in my kitchen if getting a broken whisk or motor on it is going to require me hunting all over This is extremely unlikely - military/industrial-grade stuff is designed for heavy duty cycles and decades of use. It is extremely unlikely that you'd see it even hiccup in decades of consumer use. If you did need a part, the mfgr will have it, because, unlike consumer crap, these products have lifetimes measured in decades, not quarters. >> is going to suck to make high end pastries because it’s geared towards making mashed potatoes for the troops not unless you have some specialty unit. And if that is the case, get the industrial version designed for chefs to make industrial quantities of high-grade pastries
ReptileMan 5y ago
If you chip your knife you just put it to the stones to repair. And hobarts are industry standard mixers for the food industry that vary in size from 5L to volcanic caldera. But they are built like a tank and easy to repair with plenty of easy to find spare parts. A lot of bakeries that make really high end stuff probably have the exact same hobart inside. Probably not that ancient as the one on the pic, but those things barely changed from their inception. And with interest of cooking increasing a lot of restaurant gear is finding its way into home kitchens. Nothing sears a steak indoors better 3500W induction hob with big cast iron skillet on top. And if cooking on a wok - having 120k BTU burner makes it much more pleasant and smooth experience. Interestingly with gas burner efficiency - 120k BTU in gas are just a tad more powerful than the 3.5kw induction. There is good reason why Alton Brown always says to obtain things from hardware and restaurant supply store. And let's say in consumer ovens that are not built to gastronorm or hotel pan specs finding additional trays, sheets, grills etc that fit is PITA.
frankus 5y ago
Commercial-grade dishwashers (or at least the ones we foolishly installed at an office I worked at) are also more about sanitizing than removing caked on food or whatever. You can probably get away with putting unrinsed glasses but plates are pretty questionable if they'll get clean.
gostsamo 5y ago
I'll disagree. A right to repair law would make most products equally servicable and it will naturally displace the replace-when-broken type of products because this is an enormous waste of resources.
- Lio 5y ago
  Is that correct? To my knowledge most people campaigning for Right to Repair don’t want change the designs of the things we currently buy. They just want to stop companies banning their suppliers from selling spares to consumers. That is, most things are already reparable enough but certain firms are going out of their way to stop that happening.
  - gostsamo 5y ago
    If you can repair your stuff, then you start to buy stuff that is easier and cheaper to repair. Most commodity stuff is not all that differentiable and lower cost of ownership will be a factor.
  - ltbarcly3 5y ago
    It's a combination of not restricting parts and not encumbering replacement parts with chips that can only be 'unlocked' by an approved servicer. Things like tractors are now sold that you literally can't repair yourself unless you hack the DRM, which is absurd.
- powersnail 5y ago
  > A right to repair law would make most products equally servicable How is that possible to enforce? If a company comes up with a design that is less serviceable than its competitors, but has other advantages, is it forbidden from selling its new design? If a company comes up with a design that is more serviceable than its competitors, are all the competitors now forbidden from selling their old design?
  - gostsamo 5y ago
    They usually call it the "invisible hand". If servicibility is not a feature, then it is an implementation detail. The other positive sides of a design will be picked by competitors while servicibility will be an additional feature. The first generation of bad products will be displaced after a few years by a new generation of products that will be cheaper to own and will be as good as the unservicible ones.
airhead969 5y ago
I wouldn't spend a million dollars on a fancy-branded knife when you can get a good one for $20. Ka-bars are a dime a dozen. They're probably in every army surplus store in America. ProTip: Odds are there are 10k bars named ka-bar or k-bar founded or operated by current or former Marines.
Lio 5y ago
One specific area where that USMC blade falls down for me is travel. This won’t bother anyone in the US I guess but a fixed blade military knife like that could get you into legal hot water fast elsewhere. In the UK, you could take it camping or fishing but if you divert to the shops on your way and get caught with it you you could get a mandatory prison sentence. Even if you leave it in your car the whole time. Where as a simple Victorinox Swiss Army Knife with a friction folding blade can be taken almost anywhere without a reason. That makes them a much better bet for an international backpacker IMHO. This is the same for many other countries too.
Stratoscope 5y ago
For anyone curious about the Hobart mixer pictured in the article, that exact unit is for sale here: https://www.bakedeco.com/detail.asp?id=51771 https://www.bakedeco.com/detail.asp?id=51771 They don't list the weight or dimensions, but Hobart makes a modern version: https://www.hobartcorp.com/centerline-20-quart-mixer https://www.hobartcorp.com/centerline-20-quart-mixer This 20 quart mixer is 33.3" high and weighs 189 pounds (204 pounds in its shipping crate). A great unit for a commercial kitchen, maybe not such a good fit for typical home use!
sokoloff 5y ago
Have you tried going to Lowes to buy a part for your broken dishwasher? AFAICT, you can’t. I’ve done a dishwasher repair, 1 dryer repair and 2 fridge repairs here, and a washer repair at my in-laws. Every case was a consumer-brand unit and every case the local home center was not capable to supply the parts from stock, so it became and “order online and wait” anyway. (For the washer repair, a local appliance parts store had the parts on-hand at ~$215 vs $55 online, which I politely declined.)

bayindirh 5y ago

Moreover, consumer items beyond a price point are both very well made and backed by long term warranties anyway. Paying a bit more for a better item which can be repaired or serviced for a very long time makes it cheaper in the long run in my experience, because you buy it once and for life. I love "overkill items for everyday life" point of view, but it comes with trade-offs for noise, ergonomics, size, replaceability and such. You can get a very good blade from Victorinox or Leatherman. If you fancy good steel, you can get a high end, forged German steel Victorinox chef knife and use something frighteningly sharp and handsome at the same time. If you want a good heater, you can pay twice the price and can get a Fakir Hobby premium space heater and can use for 30+ years (we have two). The list can go on.

megameter 5y ago
The best consumer goods are generally the ones where the design has persisted unmodified for decades. It works, everyone uses it, nobody's improved on it, serviceability is reasonable relative to the essential complexity, and it hasn't been cost-reduced into garbage. "New model" always comes with the worry: What did they fuck up this time? Anything "professional", "military", etc. comes with the potential downside of it being someone's job to maintain and service it. Qualitative differences usually come with trade-offs - and if it's not your job, it might not be better to try.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  I wish there was more of a culture of long lived product lines. IKEA is shockingly good at this. I had a draw from the Malm product line from 15 years ago, then 5 years ago I got the bed frame in the same set and just now I got another one of the draws and they all fit together and look uniform because their product lines have been mostly the same for decades. If I break something or need more bits, I can always go back years later and get a matching piece.
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    I would've agreed with you on this until recently. Tried to get an extra piece for something but they no longer make that 'color'. Then had the same issue trying to buy another malm piece to match the rest of the bed room. No dice, no longer making that fake wood facing and replaced it with a slightly different one. Different enough to look out of place.
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      Yeah fair enough. I just have the white one which seems to have carried on.
MereInterest 5y ago
> Moreover, consumer items beyond a price point are both very well made and backed by long term warranties anyway. Except that there isn't a good way to distinguish between something that is expensive because it has quality construction and something that is expensive because it is a brand name. Searching for information online is nigh-useless due to aggressive SEO on the part of advertisers. Sometimes I can get lucky and find an enthusiast forum, but those are harder and harder to find. Online reviews in general are effectively anonymous. Amazon reviews might not even be the same manufacturer, let alone the same product. Newegg lists different firmware versions under the same product ID, so compatibility reviews are useless. The best thing I've found is to reach out to a group of friends and hope that one of them did the research previously, or can at least steer you towards/away a brand. This doesn't scale, and any approach that does scale is at risk of being overwhelmed by advertisers and other bad actors.

bartread 5y ago

I think one needs to be a bit selective here. About 8 years ago I bought the cheapest catering/professional microwave/combioven I could get my hands on. I did this because I got tired of consumer units with overcomplicated UIs designed (apparently) by unregenerate misanthropes, rotating dishes that are a pain in the ass to clean, overzealous bleeps that go off every 30 - 60 seconds after a cycle is finished, peeling enamel, corrosion issues, and that are too small on the inside. Consumer grade microwave ovens all, as far as I can tell, universally suck in one way or another that my commercial grade microwave doesn't. The thing is bomb proof. The only thing that's gone wrong in 8 years is the internal bulb. Everything else is rock solid. This is, however, a rather different proposition to buying a food mixer that was manufactured in 1948. I can get spares for my microwave or, at this point, buy a new one and recycle the old without feeling I haven't got my money's worth. I'm going to struggle with the 1948 mixer and, like you, I don't want that. Others have highlighted that commercial grade dishwashers and fans are also probably bad ideas. I've run into similar issues with UPSs: none of these things seem designed to run in an environment where fan noise is going to cause a serious problem (nobody seems to sell a completely silent UPS - it's really daft). Likewise, if you buy a rackmount server instead of a desktop computer you may be surprised to find that the fan noise is extraordinary. Honestly, the main thing is to do your research before making a purchase so that you buy something that's really going to suit your requirements, whether that's a consumer grade or "professional grade" piece of equipment.

atoav 5y ago
Film equipment is just like that. People ask where the autofocus is on that 50k$ Arri-Zeiss combination and you point at your focus puller loafing around with a coffee in her hand. Just made for a different kind of gig than your usual consumer grade camera
- dusted 5y ago
  focus pullers are amazing and underappreciated
megablast 5y ago
> About 8 years ago I bought the cheapest catering/professional microwave/combioven I could get my hands on. I did this because I got tired of consumer units with overcomplicated UIs designed (apparently) by unregenerate misanthropes, rotating dishes that are a pain in the ass to clean, overzealous bleeps that go off every 30 - 60 seconds after a cycle is finished, peeling enamel, corrosion issues, and that are too small on the inside. See, this is weird. The cheapest microwaves you can get have two dials, one for temp, one for time. Why not buy one of those??

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago

You're spot on. I've dated several chefs, and the reality is that "professional grade" in consumer kitchen devices is basically all a fantasy/farce. Real commercial equipment is generally a huge PITA. It's quite capable stuff, but you don't need those capabilities at home, and everything else about them makes them a net negative, in nearly every case. The other obnoxious thing is most of what's marketed as "professional grade" to consumers is junk that no commercial kitchen would use. It's just marketing. You can get some interesting specific stuff on say webrestaraunt store, but you gotta be mindful of the above aspects imo.

jiofih 5y ago
> "professional grade" in consumer kitchen devices is basically all a fantasy/farce That is not what the article is about though. He buys actual commercial / industrial stuff that is indeed more rugged.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  I understand that, I was talking about a parallel aspect.
bombcar 5y ago
The one thing so far that I’ve found amazing is the restaurant-style sink. Huge like a beast and you can wash a small car in it.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  The quirky thing I'll put in my future kitchen remodel is a pedal activated faucet on the sink.
perl4ever 5y ago
Many years ago, there used to be Sysco stores open to the general public. I was very fond of the commercial potholders from there, but didn't know where to get some of my own since they closed all the stores. Then one day through the magic of the Internet, I found a supplier of almost the same thing, albeit with their own logo on it. (I'm pretty sure I bought them from Wasserstrom, but I just checked and I can't find them)

Grustaf 5y ago

Is this a joke or are you missing the point? The guy doesn't actually think that a fighter jet seat is better than a normal office chair in any practical sense. He just thinks these things are cool. Often, part of the charm is how incredibly impractical they are.

yourapostasy 5y ago
> The guy doesn't actually think that a fighter jet seat is better than a normal office chair in any practical sense. Now that people are discussing it, I do want to find out if there are former air force pilots reading this who can corroborate or refute my hypothesis: I suspect long-duration mission bombers like the US B-52 and B-2 have pilot seats especially tuned for extended operational comfort, even more so than commercial airliners (passenger or cargo), and it would be interesting to test my hypothesis that those would make excellent office chairs for coders. Someone makes these from old pilot seats [1], but I'm specifically interested in pilot seats from airframes that routinely perform round-trip trans-Pacific routes. I personally wouldn't routinely use such a seat for more than say 10-12 hours at a time, but if it is proven to still be comfortable after someone uses it for that long, naps for a couple hours in it, and uses it for another long session, then it is likely going to feel very comfortable to me. And maybe the safety harness will help me maintain my posture instead of having to remind myself every half hour to check it. [1] https://www.skyart.com/en/captain-office-chair https://www.skyart.com/en/captain-office-chair
- zamfi 5y ago
  I like this line of speculation, though what to make of the fact that the average military pilot and average coder probably differ...substantially...in physique? Not to mention ongoing training active pilots likely engage in that may help with posture.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  I don't think you need to go to bombers to find good seats. Or even airplanes at all, though I've heard that airliners do tend to have pretty good seats for the pilots. Just start with buses and long haul trucks. Though honestly, I think it's actually a solved problem. I just buy aftermarket Recaro seats. They know what they're doing.

BurningFrog 5y ago

Often the hobbyist and professional tool is just as good, except that the pro tool will last 10x longer.

neilpanchal 5y ago

I kinda disagree. These aren’t very good examples. Also the dough mixer is for restaurants, not military use. :-) Although I want one now. Here is a kitchen scale I bought. Made in Switzerland, no less. It’s bloody beautiful: https://neil.computer/notes/mettler-toledo-ml3002e-teardown/ https://neil.computer/notes/mettler-toledo-ml3002e-teardown/ Does that mean all consumer grade stuff is bad? No. Leatherman tools and 3M consumer grade stuff is usually great. Nalgene bottles. Does that mean all pro quality stuff is great? No. I’ve bought restaurant quality containers, made in California, no less, but are not BPA-free. My philosophy is quite tangential to the points you’re making: - Search for stuff in auxiliary / parallel industries. - Used surplus stuff is usually below consumer grade prices even if it was slightly worse, you're still equal. 9/10 times it is actually the opposite - 10x the quality, performance and durability of consumer grade crap on Amazon. - Some cheap crap is actually good. Victorinox $30 knife is excellent value and used by professional chefs. The same cannot be said for an outdoors knife, you want it to be overbuilt. Cheap $30 outdoor knives would not stand a chance. Always buy generic drugs, they're exactly the same. There are atleast 100 more examples I can write about that were a net positive buys. Just last week I bought U-Line tape dispenser. Same price as consumer grade ones, so why not? - Orthogonal search usually yields frugal jackpots. No one would ever find any use for the life raft bag in the marine parts store. Average consumers want stuff that is objectively worse for them. Touchscreens were an excellent idea for a phone, now they want it everywhere in their cars. Overall, with the throw-away culture consumers are addicted to, it’s hard to not blame them. Have you ever dealt with customer service? You might be surprised. We are soooo addicted to wasteful culture. You’re just promoting this and doubling down on it. Let’s see in last 20 years: Quality went downhill, durability is an after thought, repairability is non existent and consumers want bigger box - literally larger than the item because they choose it based on how good the box looks. If it were any other reason, it’s a waste of packaging and businesses know this. Businesses are not looking to waste money on extra packaging unless it led to better sales. This is a direct evidence of the utter shitshow consumer culture embodies. Anyways, I fancy things that are engineered with deliberation and specification. Tested and qualified against requirements. Usually military, aviation, marine or medical grade goods are designed and engineered in such a way.

IgorPartola 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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antisceptic 5y ago

I don't think the "military" grade stuff is meant to last considerably longer. It's mostly geared at extreme duty cycles. How often will you use a mixer if you're not a baker, once a week? An industrial piece of equipment is intended to be used nearly all the time, and there's impressive engineering that goes into handling that use case. Which I think was the point of TFA: he wants to show everyone he appreciates overengineered stuff.

bombcar 5y ago
This is the important distinction - and the key is finding heavy duty equipment that has maintenance schedules based on usage not on clock-hours. Having to oil and maintain something that is used once a week will quickly become annoying.
vladTheInhaler 5y ago
I think you have a good point. The trick is to consider the device or object not on its own, but in the context of the organization. Large organizations like the military would probably be happier with an item that needs intensive inspection, servicing, and repairs on a very consistent schedule, but is absolutely guaranteed to work within that operational window than they they would be with an item which is low-maintenance but has an unreliable service lifetime. A maintenance schedule can be planned around and budgeted around so that it doesn't affect operations. A random outage or failure is expensive, and can only be planned around in a probabilistic sense. As individuals, we don't have the time or knowledge to do all of the inspections and repairs to maintain an "industrial grade" system at a level that makes it worthwhile. We need stuff that "just works" for some unspecified amount of time, and we accept the cost of random failure and replacement as a tradeoff, since most failures in our lives don't involve the loss of human life or millions of dollars. The exceptions, like cars, tend to be engineered more like the former category, and can only really function reliably in the context of a larger organization (regular maintenance at a specialized repair shop). So it's not really a spectrum of quality from cheap and unreliable to expensive and indestructible. It's actually a spectrum of logistical overhead from individual use and low upkeep to multinational organization and high upkeep.

Noumenon72 5y ago

> I was very excited at one point about the idea of getting a commercial dishwasher that can run a load of dishes in like 90 seconds. The reason commercial dishwashers run so fast is that they sanitize dishes, but do not remove food from them. That is done by a restaurant employee. Home dishwashers include soaking and scrubbing to remove food, which takes longer. https://www.reddit.com/r/answers/comments/no3c9j/why_do_commercial_dishwashers_take_5_minutes_but/gzy2mn1/ https://www.reddit.com/r/answers/comments/no3c9j/why_do_comm...

SilverRed 5y ago
Dishwashers also save water by only drawing in enough to run half the jets at once. They then switch between which half is active which works just as well for washing but takes twice as long. I don't think many people sit there waiting on the dishwasher so it really doesn't matter that much if it takes 3 hours instead of 1.5h if it means less cost.
crooked-v 5y ago
Technology Connections on Youtube has a rather good video on the subject: https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04 https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04

BostonEnginerd 5y ago

I think one good strategy is to buy the highest volume product -- the more of a widget someone makes, the better they are at it. For example, a Ford Focus or Chevy Malibu is a lot more reliable and cheaper to maintain than a fancier and more fun car. Loads of third party parts, etc. Regarding the mixer, I understand they changed the gears to plastic so they would strip without damaging the motor. Easier to replace a cheap set of seats than an expensive motor.

ReptileMan 5y ago
Actually Hobart and Kitchen aid always had a plastic gear with the purpose of being a fuse if some brainiac decided to make a rocky road icecream with real gravel. What kitchen aid did to decrease their quality was hosting the gear assembly in non metal housing - so you could fuck up your mixer body which makes it harder to repair.
- alliao 5y ago
  I love those sacrificial designs. I found one in my whirpool washing machine too; a hard plastic gear.

toss1 5y ago

>>I don’t want a military grade mixer in my kitchen if getting a broken whisk or motor on it is going to require me hunting all over This is extremely unlikely - military/industrial-grade stuff is designed for heavy duty cycles and decades of use. It is extremely unlikely that you'd see it even hiccup in decades of consumer use. If you did need a part, the mfgr will have it, because, unlike consumer crap, these products have lifetimes measured in decades, not quarters. >> is going to suck to make high end pastries because it’s geared towards making mashed potatoes for the troops not unless you have some specialty unit. And if that is the case, get the industrial version designed for chefs to make industrial quantities of high-grade pastries

ReptileMan 5y ago

If you chip your knife you just put it to the stones to repair. And hobarts are industry standard mixers for the food industry that vary in size from 5L to volcanic caldera. But they are built like a tank and easy to repair with plenty of easy to find spare parts. A lot of bakeries that make really high end stuff probably have the exact same hobart inside. Probably not that ancient as the one on the pic, but those things barely changed from their inception. And with interest of cooking increasing a lot of restaurant gear is finding its way into home kitchens. Nothing sears a steak indoors better 3500W induction hob with big cast iron skillet on top. And if cooking on a wok - having 120k BTU burner makes it much more pleasant and smooth experience. Interestingly with gas burner efficiency - 120k BTU in gas are just a tad more powerful than the 3.5kw induction. There is good reason why Alton Brown always says to obtain things from hardware and restaurant supply store. And let's say in consumer ovens that are not built to gastronorm or hotel pan specs finding additional trays, sheets, grills etc that fit is PITA.

frankus 5y ago

Commercial-grade dishwashers (or at least the ones we foolishly installed at an office I worked at) are also more about sanitizing than removing caked on food or whatever. You can probably get away with putting unrinsed glasses but plates are pretty questionable if they'll get clean.

gostsamo 5y ago

I'll disagree. A right to repair law would make most products equally servicable and it will naturally displace the replace-when-broken type of products because this is an enormous waste of resources.

Lio 5y ago
Is that correct? To my knowledge most people campaigning for Right to Repair don’t want change the designs of the things we currently buy. They just want to stop companies banning their suppliers from selling spares to consumers. That is, most things are already reparable enough but certain firms are going out of their way to stop that happening.
- gostsamo 5y ago
  If you can repair your stuff, then you start to buy stuff that is easier and cheaper to repair. Most commodity stuff is not all that differentiable and lower cost of ownership will be a factor.
- ltbarcly3 5y ago
  It's a combination of not restricting parts and not encumbering replacement parts with chips that can only be 'unlocked' by an approved servicer. Things like tractors are now sold that you literally can't repair yourself unless you hack the DRM, which is absurd.
powersnail 5y ago
> A right to repair law would make most products equally servicable How is that possible to enforce? If a company comes up with a design that is less serviceable than its competitors, but has other advantages, is it forbidden from selling its new design? If a company comes up with a design that is more serviceable than its competitors, are all the competitors now forbidden from selling their old design?
- gostsamo 5y ago
  They usually call it the "invisible hand". If servicibility is not a feature, then it is an implementation detail. The other positive sides of a design will be picked by competitors while servicibility will be an additional feature. The first generation of bad products will be displaced after a few years by a new generation of products that will be cheaper to own and will be as good as the unservicible ones.

airhead969 5y ago

I wouldn't spend a million dollars on a fancy-branded knife when you can get a good one for $20. Ka-bars are a dime a dozen. They're probably in every army surplus store in America. ProTip: Odds are there are 10k bars named ka-bar or k-bar founded or operated by current or former Marines.

Lio 5y ago

One specific area where that USMC blade falls down for me is travel. This won’t bother anyone in the US I guess but a fixed blade military knife like that could get you into legal hot water fast elsewhere. In the UK, you could take it camping or fishing but if you divert to the shops on your way and get caught with it you you could get a mandatory prison sentence. Even if you leave it in your car the whole time. Where as a simple Victorinox Swiss Army Knife with a friction folding blade can be taken almost anywhere without a reason. That makes them a much better bet for an international backpacker IMHO. This is the same for many other countries too.

Stratoscope 5y ago

For anyone curious about the Hobart mixer pictured in the article, that exact unit is for sale here: https://www.bakedeco.com/detail.asp?id=51771 https://www.bakedeco.com/detail.asp?id=51771 They don't list the weight or dimensions, but Hobart makes a modern version: https://www.hobartcorp.com/centerline-20-quart-mixer https://www.hobartcorp.com/centerline-20-quart-mixer This 20 quart mixer is 33.3" high and weighs 189 pounds (204 pounds in its shipping crate). A great unit for a commercial kitchen, maybe not such a good fit for typical home use!

sokoloff 5y ago

Have you tried going to Lowes to buy a part for your broken dishwasher? AFAICT, you can’t. I’ve done a dishwasher repair, 1 dryer repair and 2 fridge repairs here, and a washer repair at my in-laws. Every case was a consumer-brand unit and every case the local home center was not capable to supply the parts from stock, so it became and “order online and wait” anyway. (For the washer repair, a local appliance parts store had the parts on-hand at ~$215 vs $55 online, which I politely declined.)