Firstly Trading Places is a great and well loved movie so that brings some attention.

I think you might be underselling her role a little. She was probably the 3rd or 4th most featured character (her and the butler).

She played a prostitute who turned out to have more decency than any of the rich bastards or most of Billy Ray’s fickle friends and I think she did that well enough for a movie of this sort. So I think she did a great job of the role.

Now I’m not naive enough to think that the fact she got her tits out made no difference, but I do think it made less than half of the difference in how this movie helped her career.

Out of all the times an actress’s body has got her more attention and praise than her actual acting talent deserved, this would be really low on my list.

Oh yeah, I heard about that. I didn’t pass judgement because I figured Tom Cruise may well be completely in the right on the issue. Not following Covid regulations has screwed up a lot of things, flouting Covid rules put the biggest nail in the coffin of Boris Johnson. I bet it could kill a movie.

When the theme music is used as the new version of a country’s national anthem.

I saw this one about the guy who invented the piano-key necktie

Never heard of a mattress like this, but it sounds very absorbent and hard to clean.

Yeah for sure, it’s one movie ‘Master and Commander’ (2003)

I had to read your list twice to make sure Master and Commander wasn’t mentioned anywhere.

Just don’t lie it down in the bushes, you’ll never find it again!

Fjallraven jacket, 23yrs old and still fine.

Zamberlan. Buy the full grain leather with the proper stitched sole. It’s the heaviest (and most expensive) build-style but they last longest of all and suit re-soleing best of all. I’ve had 2 pairs of Zamberlans like this, the previous pair my Dad got me when I was 17 and they lasted a decade, then I got some cheap ones amd they lasted a year. Then I got my current ones and I still have them.

Man I always wondered about the maths behind this. I’m delighted to see your experiment and workings.

I have been aware that I’m a victim of these economies for some time, only dabbled in solutions. Never bothered to knuckle down and do the science!

However my ‘sock game’ is complex, our weather is crazy and I need a versatile range of sock options. For months I’ve been mostly wearing thin breathable liner socks and a wool-hybrid over sock.

I’ve been wondering how the oversock changes the wear and tear on the undersock (or not) but dammit I’m too damn lazy to do the science once again.

I suggest you do your experiment in small-scale before you go out and spend all that money on the same sock.

I buy a lot of my wool socks from a variety of brands based on the blend, weave style and whether they are on sale. So maybe the most cost efficient way isn’t to buy them all from one place?

Complicated business and worthy of further study.

Nope, I’ve worn em out on my leather boots twice now. Re-soled them twice. Took over 10 years of hard use to get to this point.

The future has a lot more heat pumps and a lot fewer gas and oil burners.

So you could just make the decision for the next 50 years and go heat pump in the most BIFL way you can. Maybe you have reason to expect the best heat pump options are a few years away and want to keep the oil going a bit longer.

But I expect your future is heat pump, seems like a good time to plan for that transition.

Yeah we can hope but I sure don’t predict that’ll be the case. In the last 4 years Apple have shown than an integrated chipset outpeforms a collection of CPU, RAM and graphics all hooked to a motherboard. So just for example, if the futute of laptops is integrated chips then this sucker is done for. Done. Redundant. And that’s just 1 thing that might change beyond their ability to keep up.

I’m not against the notion but I really don’t think it’s an effective idea in the real world.

You can say these are upgradable, but the best you can buy now isn’t very good. If I got one of these brand-new, I would want to immediately upgrade it to have a better display and then find they don’t sell one.

This is an average laptop at best. I don’t think you will want to spend money upgrading it as time goes by.

The only thing about it is not absolutely bog standard is the price.

Then, when one day this bog standard laptop becomes definitely shit, you will be able to spend 2 laptops worth of money to return it to bog standard again.

Nice idea, crap as a real choice for most computer users. You are buying an idea that won’t really work out.

We bought a big cast iron caserole pot and that’s been remarkably good, the enamel is great, always easier to clean than I think it’s gonna be. It’s all 100% in tact 5 years later. Not sure about their other products but it seems their big metal pots are still worth the price.

Can we kick them hard in the crotch first?

People can get institutionalised to jail. Nobody gets used to being kicked hard in the balls.

Check out Osprey Archeon they are built to last a lifetime come in a range of sizes and configurations. I have 3 and I probably won’t ever need to replace them.

He looks a tad like Richard ‘the hamster’ Hammond

I’ve got a bunch of Dyson battery vacuums had em for years. Bought replacement batteries and filters but don’t buy the official ones. Everything works and nothing has broken. I’m pretty happy with them.

Okay so there’s an annual inspection cost built in now and yet trust me, the plot thickens from there on out. Your problems are just starting.

What I’m saying is that an ongoing trust relationship on a large scale is very costly to manage and enforce.

So when you add that model to buying a toaster or something it seems impractical to me.

Cars seem really ideal because a regular official inspection is part of running a car (in most countries), wastage and inefficiency in the auto industry dwarfs tech items and domestic white goods by the mass of material and consumption involved, the costs are high and what’s at stake through unreliability is high.

So as an idea for cars, I like it I think. Maybe worth the hassle there.

I don’t think you quite get me. Problem 1 is they will claim it’s broke when it hasn’t.

How do you prove that it’s broke at all? Might be working just fine.

So they say it broke and then no more yearly fee?

So I was thinking of the scenario where customer buys an ‘X’ and then would be paying annually while it still works. Then they claim the ‘Y’ has broke on it and so don’t need to pay the annual fee.

So does the company take their word for that?

Or do they send someome out to inspect it? (V.Costly)

Does they try and have the product posted? (Can be problematic depending on the product)

I won’t go on and on but it would seem that there are questions that need answers or that yearly fee would be at risk of being undermined in any way it can be.

So warranty or not, after-care service or not, the customer will try and get out of the yearly fee.

Thanks and I do appreciate your idea. I was avoiding picking holes in it. But one thing I did notice is that you might have incentivised your customer to manufacture problems with the product, so they don’t have to pay the annual fee. Which may lead to the company, having quite some cost to verify who has a real problem, and who is trying to pull a fast one.

I actually have some experience in the furniture industry on the IT side of things, specifically around complaints about furniture relating to manufacture warranties.

Believe me customers will, in sadly large numbers try and game a system. If it will save the money, or get them a free sofa.

The cost of trying to manage that is very high.

I think your idea is good in essence, but I think like a lot of great ideas they sometimes end up in the long grass when you try to implement them practically.

Perhaps there is a better solution to this? Sometimes difficulties can be overcome, and an idea can work in the end with the correct implementation.

Yes but making something modular compromises a lot of other priorities. In general you can’t make something modular without making it worse at the job it has been designed to do right now. Heavier, less waterproof, more expensive, things like that.

I like modular things but I can see how an ipad pro would be worse if everything was designed to be modular.

So of all the things I think modular design works best for, tiny compact advanced tech items are the worst. Such a premium on weight, thinness etc and they advance so fast.

Modular car parts, washing machines, microwaves seems way better. They are big objects, less space/volume crucial, physcially bigger so represent more landfill waste and shipping/resoucres to replace.

So yeah I’d like to see more modular repairable things and I’m willing to pay the extra for it. But I don’t want a big chunky moderate performance phone that is modular. I do want to pay triple for my washing machine and then have it for life.

Also I’m not sure lower prices is the only thing going on here. In my iPad example, it’s the thinness, lightness and external elegance of the thing that would be compromised in making it more modular. They’re selling expensive stuff there based on performance and style and consumers clearly want it.

I agree that modular construction and increased repairability are vital and need improving, circular recycling too. Don’t think it can just be done and there we go problem solved.