>>BTW, the cause of the accident turned out to be the Chinese knockoff beaker ... The "Pyrex" logo on another one bought at the same time, on closer inspection,

>>BTW, the cause of the accident turned out to be the Chinese knockoff beaker ... The "Pyrex" logo on another one bought at the same time, on closer inspection, read "Pyrox", with a tiny "made in China" text at the bottom. Instead of being made with Pyrex borosilicate glass, it was cheap soda-lime glass that couldn't stand up to heating. I never noticed the difference. I can tell tales of very expensive prototype drones getting a hard landing due to a cheap Chinese solder joint breaking, people being injured on cheap Chinese carbon fiber bikes, and on and on and on, without going into the home-grown Chinese product scandals that killed children with bad infant formula, etc. Yet, the idea persists that "you can get the same thing cheaper" and from production mills in a country where quality is literally a foreign concept. The longer I live, the more I find that it really is true that "Quality is it's own reason.". Good tools and equipment pay for themselves in durability, usability, safety, efficiency, higher quality output, just plain pleasure to use, and perhaps most importantly, stupid down-time events that never happen. Better to buy second-hand high-quality equipment than new lower-grade junk. And yes, we should be decoupling from China - all engagement does is empower the CCP.