Pull out my phone to turn on the heat on my stove ? A simple and satisfying mechanical motion that’s in my muscle memory since forever ? Hard to express how much I would hate that !
Hobs built into the countertop are usually like that (and I hate them vigorously for the reasons you state), but freestanding furnaces (oven plus hobs) exist with big physical buttons. Since the buttons are on the front of your unit, the heating surface is still flat and easy to clean. Smeg makes nice ones, and I’m sure others exist.
It’s perfectly possible to enjoy hobbies deeply without getting “serious” in the way you describe.
I’ve taken my 10 euro dance classes for years without feeling the necessity of pricey exchanges and camps.
My neighbour goes to the park many evenings to play petanque, doesn’t cost him anything.
A couple I’m friends with goes on day hikes where they do bird watching—maybe they bought a nice pair of binoculars once? Another couple likes to lay jigsaw puzzles together, not exactly breaking the bank!
My sister is learning Finnish because she never learned a non indo-european language. She bought a book.
I would wager most people’s hobbies are low key like this because either they don’t have disposable income to spend on them, or they don’t want too!
Absolutely yeah, and regardless of whether it ends up eventually being expensive, I think part of what I’m saying is that it is important to know how to at least start something cheaply.
I get very frustrated with the kind of people who see one tiktok about a thing and suddenly feel like they need to spend $3k to pursue whatever their new passion is.
Knitting / crocheting / quilting / embroidering? Drawing / painting / calligraphy? Singing in a choir? Creative writing / journaling / blogging? Solving crossword puzzles? Bird watching? Day hikes? Reading? Visiting museums? Learning about history / philosophy / art / whatever? Learning a language? Taking dance classes? Playing chess or petanque or any other game that doesn’t require expensive gear? Or most sports?
What do you think ‘super’ means ? It is latin for ‘over’, wich in German is über. In English it has come to take on a broader meaning, but Nietzsche’s übermensch is called ‘superman’ in most English translations, even if ‘superhuman’ would be more accurate.
GP doesn’t imply Nazis used ‘Supermensch’, just that the ‘superhuman’ translates to übermensch and that the branding might evoke this concept for European ears.
I don’t think there’s any single way to be sure, but it sure reads like ChatGPT to me. Which I’m not sure is such a bad thing—I presume the author used an AI to help them write the story, but the story is real. Or maybe they edited it themselves to make it sound more generic. Whatever the reason, the style takes away from my reading experience. It’s a blog post, I expect some personality!
Mirrors are great, but most bikers don’t have them. And even then it might still be your ears that alert you that there’s a car behind you (electric or not — I still hear them), after which you can keep tabs with your mirror.
I don’t understand why everybody’s so happy to discount ears in this thread. Haven’t they been vital to our survival since forever? Yes eyes are more important in this case, but I’ll take whatever sensory aid I can get on my morning commute..
> I really wish there was a simple solution for streaming audio in a stereo like box
You can turn any normal hi-fi setup into streaming speakers in various ways.
I’m using a fifteen year old Airport express right now. Works well, lossless, although only for Apple devices.
If you mainly listen to Spotify, connecting an old laptop or phone works great too (through Spotify Connect — it’s resilient because it doesn’t need to stream the actual audio).
Finally a bluetooth dongle that you connect to your amp is platform agnostic, the only downside being that bluetooth always uses lossy compression.
These are the cheapish ways, hi-fi companies also make streaming boxes to add to a setup but I never tried those. I’ve also tried amp/receivers with Airplay on them and that seems to work just fine.
> My Alexa Echo Dot 4 sounds better than my home audio setup from the 90s
I have a hard time believing this… yes today’s small devices sound better than small devices ever did. A lot of work went into that because people appreciate the reduced footprint. Also, those speakers are super cheap in comparison to the budget people would allocate to their stereo setups in the day.
But I’ve never heard a small speaker sound better than a 1970ies or later hifi amp + speakers from a decent brand. With big speakers you can reproduce all these frequencies without physics tricks. The sound is more laid back and the soundstage fills the room.
All the recent engineering has gone into making speakers small, cheap and wireless, like in the 90ies it went into creating multi-channel audio, but I would say stereo sound quality, as used for popular music, already peaked in the 70ies / 80ies.
Of course you can still get those quality hifi components today, or even better than that, but the median household is not listening on that and I’d wager has worse sound today than was the norm in the physical media era.
In the 80s and 90s the world moved to 6.5-or-less bookshelves which generally struggle with bass compared to a lot of modern smaller stuff. Meanwhile a lot of music started using low bass a lot more.
In addition to this, front baffle width correlates with efficiency, i.e. modern narrow front baffle speakers need a more powerful amp, combine that with the necessary smaller bass drivers and you see why most modern speakers have crap bass
1. In the modern family, everyone wants to listen to something different. In the family of the 1960's to this was not possible, because too many kids, not room for so many big speakers, etc, etc.
2. Now, the speakers are there to carry the audio, status is derived from the size of the video screen. The screens crowded out the speakers. And you need 5 or more speakers now, which makes a set of big speakers exceptionally unfashionable.
3. Speaker size is inversely related to potential big box store volume because of the huge warehouses and sequesterd listening rooms that large speaker retailing would require. Buying without listening first makes does not fit with the idea of spending big on something that you need because your are elite afficianado.
4. The middle class is dead. In the 1960's, 1970's, or early 1980's, a 'good' stereo would cost about a month's net income for a median income worker. Today the good stereo still costs about a month's net income for a median income wroker, but the median median income worker is two weeks net pay away from homelessness or moving back in with his parents. And in that supposed golden age of stereo, the 'good' stereo was expected to last about 10 years and many of them did. Some are still working, many have been in the repair shop several times and keep going. Today, no one expects anything to outlast its warranty by much (except maybe a car), and competent repairs for anything more complicated than shoes are a not easy to come by.
That's a very pessimistic take. I recently sold a Sonos connect - about 15 years old if not older and working as well as when it was new. I have a Google home max speaker, 8 years old, works flawlessly. We have a pair of B&W speakers from 2001 or so - got the speaker insulation replaced, otherwise everything great. And a 5.1 set from Logitech from 2005 also works without issues - the difficult part is to only make sure the PC has the right outputs, but even that is moot with USB sound cards.
We also have some cheap monitor speakers, they work fine after 7 years.
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