Got the lansing. At the time there was a sale that brought it down to $850 so it was cheaper than just the base! I do plan to commission a custom top, but I haven't gotten around to it, so I'm still using the powder coat eco top.

I got a DeskHaus Apex Pro. It's a small, new company so the 20 year warranty doesn't mean that much, but the construction is bonkers. Haven't used an Uplift to compare but my desk is much sturdier than the Autonomous standing desks my company has at work.

Which Darn Tough socks have cotton? I only saw wool/nylon/elastine (aka spandex) blends, plus whatever synthetic Coolmax™ is.

+1 for Farm to Feet. I found them the most comfortable of the 3 brands I tried (other two are Darn Tough and Cloudline). All brands had a fair amount of variability between different lines of sock (less for cloudline), I bought a couple different pairs to decide on my favorites.

Great for washing your kitchen floor afterwards though!

My revelation was that you can buy bar shampoo and even conditioner too. No need to worry about bottle explosions or TSA assholes.

Added bonus: it's possible for these to be sold without any plastic packaging (although sometimes they still are)

When I was researching Kitchenaid stand mixers recently, I came to the same conclusion.. kind of. The commercial version looks like it has a significantly upgraded motor (horsepower is listed as 1.3, vs home version where horsepower isn't listed). Thing is, it also only comes in an 8 quart bowl size. That's.. kind of huge. Takes up a lot more space in the kitchen. Harder to move around and store. So there's definitely a trade-off here.

I'm not sure if I would consider them an air mattress, but this is probably the best option durability-wise. When I was growing up my family had some that lasted 10+ years (but not of daily use!). I think they were Thermos brand but I'm not sure. The especially nice thing about them is that if they do spring a leak, you take them to your bathtub and stick them underwater until you find the leak, then patch it up.

I haven't used many, but my impression is that there are no durable air mattresses.

Just be careful using those (especially steel wool) too often / too hard, as they can take off some of the material. Not that much material, so it doesn't matter for cast iron since it's so thick, but for a copper bottom pan it's often a pretty thin coat of copper.

Following this line of logic, I think small shops are the only ones with aligned incentives. A single person or small team is never going to run out of people to sell to, provided they can ship far enough. Of course just being a small shop isn't a guarantee of quality. Probably the opposite— there's a lot more variability between good and bad between small shops, or even between different batches from the same shop. But at least the possibility is there. So I guess that points to… something like etsy? Or local, if it exists in your area.

I don't see any pans on the Mauviel site that have 2.5mm of copper, although I do see some on other sites. Are they discontinued?

They do have a set specifically for induction though. Very expensive!

Read down the chain! But since nobody does that, I'll quote it too:

> Regarding Li-Ion cells, you must be cautious. You should buy from trusted sources (e.g. brands) even if they are more expensive or "recycle" old Li-ons by carefully prying open old battery packs from brands that contain these (for laptops etc). > > You need to know another important distinction: There are cells with a protection circuit (against deep discharge, overcharge, short circuit etc) and those without. Read more here: https://www.fenix-store.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-protected-and-unprotected-18650-batteries/ Usually cells in battery packs do not have a protection circuit because there is already a protection circuit in the pack itself. > > The tomo powerbanks/chargers have reverse-polarity, deep-discharge etc protection also built in, so protected cells are not necessary by the way. They come without the cells, so there shouldn't be a problem importing these. You can buy new 18650 cells at e.g. e-cigarette store and also stores that sell high-end flashlights.

A power bank that uses standard Li-Ion 18650 cells. See this comment chain for more info: https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/discussions/3251#discussioncomment-1478460

The standard answer is a chef's kinfe, but I'll also put out there that these people, who live on a small sailboat, recommend a chinese cleaver. https://grimgrains.com/site/tools.html#cleaver

This, as long as your chef's knife is a "German" style rather than "Japanese" style. Japanese style uses a harder steel and a finer angle of the blade, which means that it holds its edge longer and is easier to make thin cuts with. However, it also makes the blade more brittle, so it's not suitable for cutting bones (the blade can chip). A German style chef's knife is the best single knife you could own, imo. If you want to expand your collection a bit you might get the Japanese style and add a cleaver for heavy meats and bones.

But like others, I really need to emphasize that knives are a really personal thing. At the very least, hold one in the store before buying. Even better, find a friend who owns one and try it before buying. If that's not possible, you might consider buying a cheap version (ideally at a thrift store) of the style knife you are interested in (chef's, carving, cleaver, paring, etc) to see how much you end up reaching for it and whether it's worth it to invest in a more expensive one.

I hate to be the downer about the whole trust thing, but… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cu6EbELZ6I

Long warranties are a great forcing function on companies to improve the reliability of their product. Same for customer support and usability.

I have a recommendation for a certain type of construction, and an example of that type that I wish I could recommend.

I have 3 of these: https://www.kilnerjar.co.uk/products/0025829-fresh-storage-060-litre/

I have only owned them for around a year. However, based on the construction, I can vouch that the way the top snaps on seems much more likely to be BIFL than a snapware style top. The metal clip rotates in the hole, so you're not flexing a piece of plastic every time you clip-unclip. If I were looking for new glasswares, I would look for a latching mechanism like this.

Unfortunately, I can't really recommend this specific model for three reasons:

1. They don't stack well. Seriously they take up SOO much room in the cabinet. Almost no overlap when you put the bottoms one inside the other. Also, no indentation on the top so when you stack them closed, nothing stops the top one from sliding off.
2. They don't sell individual replacement parts. The tops and bottoms seem likely to be BIFL to me, but I expect the seals to wear out (one of mine has a small tear in it already). When the seal breaks or if I drop a top, I want to order spare parts, but right now I can't.
3. As far as I can tell, they are only sold in the UK any more. You can find people re-selling them on Amazon for a mark-up on top of the already high prices.

It's a real shame, because those 3 things are all totally fixable, and if they were they'd be an amazing product that I'd instantly drop $500 on. But as it stands I can't justify buying them at all.

Mason jars are a good option for things that fit in them.

They cheaped out on the tops some time between 2015 and 2021. The new ones are a clearer, less rigid plastic which are MUCH less durable. The old ones are stiff and a little bit white/cloudy looking plastic. You can also tell some of them apart by color (e.g. the larger of the two square sizes used to be green, now teal).

I've tried Darn Tough, Farm to Feet, and Cloudline. I found Farm to Feet the most comfortable, although my Cloudline order came with a nice handwritten note, and they were really nice and easy to work with when I had to return a wool base layer I bought from them (a gift, it didn't fit the recipient well).

Yes, though if you set a phone in airplane mode, the battery lasts a lot longer. Wireless connectivity is probably the biggest power drain next to screen brightness and gps.

Ok, maybe their site is just weird. When I looked at the page for sheet sets there's nothing there under 1k, but when I searched for "Percale" then I found some sets in the price range you're describing, which is still expensive but much more reasonable. Although I still wonder why anyone would pay over a thousand dollars for a sheet set, unless it was truly BIFL.

Frette is crazy expensive to me. $1k for a cotton sheet set or $3.5k for linen? That's 3x more expensive than anything else I've come across, actually. What (if anything) justifies the price?

Agreed. This also means you need to put a lot more care and intention into your purchases. I have put way too much time into thinking about what combination of pots and pans I'd like to own, so that I end up with enough to cover all the things I'd like to do with them, but not too much. Would be easier if cast iron worked better as a pan for infrequent use.

I'm in a similar situation with kitchen knives. I have a very nice 5 year old 8" german chef's knife, which is amazing as a single knife for everything. I've gotten a little more into cooking now, and would like to get more specialized knifes: a slightly larger japanese chef's knife and a cleaver… but that would render the one I have redundant.

I've found no-longer-wanted bifl items make great gifts to friends or family who share the same values (i.e. who wouldn't be offended by getting a secondhand item as a gift).