$19K in watches. Now I have a kid, and I am straight salary. In hindsight, I would be perfectly happy with the least expensive one. I’m a mechanical engineer, and they really interest me. But they were not smart purchases.
I never liked Breitling too much. If you want a good cheap mechanical watch, just go with Seiko, you get a good amount of quality for your money. Everything more expensive is an asset just like buying gold.
I nice steal-able asset you flaunt on your wrist, to boot!
TIL about watch insurance. What a wacky world we live in.
Oh, let’s not add the Seikos to the list. I have plenty of those. SKX007, SRP775, and like 5 or 6 I’ve built with Seiko NH-35 movements. I have a watch with a Seagull ST19 movement. I have some vintage ones, like a Timex Viscount and an Elgin Sportsman. But all of those are $500 and under (mostly under 200) and I don’t look at them as dumb purchases.
As a watch and mechanical enthusiast and fellow engineer myself, I read your comment and well you are certainty right, you gotta live a little haha
You sure do! And I love them all. I love modding them, I love wearing them. Love learning about them. I’d say my Seagull chrono gets equal wrist time to the Breitling. I try to keep everything in rotation. Except the George Stockwell trench watch… I’m afraid it might be a touch radioactive due to the radium.
Oh yeah that one I probably wouldn’t wear haha. Would you care to share some of your mods?
Sure!
Here is my SKX and an Invicta Pro Diver.
SKX has new hands, dial, chapter ring, crystal, date wheel, bezel insert, and crown. And I ended up doing an NH-35 swap on the 7S26. So basically, just the case is original now.
The Pro Diver has new hands, dial, bezel, bezel insert, high domed acrylic crystal, and I ground the crown guards off.
Thank you very much. Its a shame that you are the only person posting into MechanicalWatches lol
me sitting here with five Casios, a Ball, a spring drive Seiko, a Bulova Precisionist, a Brew, and probably one or two I’m forgetting about: yepppppppppp
Hell yeah! Nice collection.
That’s a rabbit hole I managed to avoid. I lived in Shanghai in the 00’s when you could still get nice counterfeit mechanical watches there. Then I got a nice Seiko mechanical watch but no matter what I did, I just didn’t love the auto-winding function. Then came the solar watches from Seiko and Citizen which were relatively cheap. Now I’m here with a smart watch and never looking back.
Edit: also an engineer.
I admire the engineering of the solar, too. It’s really cool that the Eco-Drives don’t even look like they have a panel. Are the dials like, micro perforated or something? I’ve never taken one apart. And the fact that you can store them for like, 6 months and they’ll still have a charge is very nice.
My co-worker has something similar. I wonder when he will figure it out?
Probably around the time they need to get serviced and it costs as much as a Seiko dive watch and takes like 6 weeks.
I bought a used rusty school bus. Six years later, at least I know how to weld now. Sort of. I also learned how to survive hitting my head on a large steel C-clamp nine times without suffering any brain damage. Additionally, I learned how to survive hitting my head on a large steel C-clamp nine times without suffering any brain damage.
Six years later, at least I know how to weld now. Sort of.
The most important part of the Dunning Kruger curve! And welding is a fantastic example. You go from “this hot melty thing is scary” to “dang, I can make metal stick to itself!” to “that weld looks kinda professional” to “holy crap there’s a whole science and art to this I will never have the time to fully learn”.
Is your school bus now something usable? Would love to hear about a successful impulse buy!
My skoolie is semi-usable, basically just needs the utilities (electric, propane and water) hooked up. I bought a house two years ago and that has suspended work on the bus completely. Someday …
Despite the site screaming left and right that one should not count on a proper keyboard’s worth of keycaps at all, much LESS a matching set, and despite years of forum and reddit posts declaring their underwhelming nature, I still bought a 5-pound (2.27kg) sack of random keycaps from Signature Plastics in Washington state.
I just have to know, and I’m kind of unironically looking forward to sorting them like so many Lego bricks. I may even get a few that are useful for my projects.
Surely there’s enough for a macro pad in there? It’s like the makers version of a scratch off lotto ticket lmfao
Most likely, yes. I think most people do end up finding one or two smaller boards’ worth of “unicorn barf,” which is to say everything is the right shape and 95-99% have the right thing written on them, but the colors are totally random and visually jarring. I also have a few ideas that might benefit from some of the weirder caps, (like a big square that uses four keybaord switches… people seem to end up with some of those) and occasionally you’ll land on something that someone in the hobby actually does need and you can help them out. A lot of it is simply indulging a certain need to examine and categorize.
I mean if you’re into mechs I can see how that could come in handy for spares if anything, or just fucking around. Depends on the price though if you’re paying anywhere close to normal price then it’s probably not worth it, if it’s like 10% of the price then sure why not.
Ungodly ammounts of ultra high power flashlights with open source, customizable UI
A flashlight… User interface?
The diagram of the new (imho way better) Version is quite a bit more complex, but you should get the point.
How do you interact with the UI? Well, every flashlight has a button. This is your input. And you have the LEDs which you can use as an output/feedback. Yeah, it’s wild.
This subject is dear to my heart, because I realized that part of my conservative upbringing taught me money is the important thing and that emotions are worthless and dumb. If you spend money on something that makes you happy but does not provide commensurate utility or return on investment, it is by definition a dumb purchase. Treating yourself is a waste of resources and therefore makes you a bad person. Maybe unless you are debt free and fully funding every retirement and college account you got. (note the unspoken implication that it’s cool for the rich to do whatever they want)
As I have spent decades reverse engineering the instructions for my brain, I have recently concluded that not only do I thrive when building and creating things, but having the perfect high-quality tool that is great at what it does right down to the sensory feedback can really enhance the experience for me.
I’ve spent a bunch of money expanding and upgrading my collection this year, and I haven’t regretted it once. But I’ve spent even more on the materials just in the months since!
That’s not a conservative upbringing/mentality… That’s a capitalist mentality.
The only thing I can really say about capitalists is that they’re some of the worst people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a few of them.
Very religious people (usually conservatives) are generally quite kind and generous. If they follow their religious book, that tracks. Since most religions teach about tolerance, acceptance, and understanding. Like the legend Fred Rogers; May he rest in peace.
Usually very liberal people are about basic social services for everyone, and programmes that support DEI. They want everyone to be on an equal playing field and they want that playing field to be, at a minimum, allowing all people to independently be able to live, have reasonably good health, food to eat, and somewhere to live.
Meanwhile capitalists always focus on the money. Who is paying for all of this? They don’t want their money (via taxes) to go to people that are less than them. Anyone who makes less or has less is “losing”, and they’re “winning”. All capitalists want to be on top, and they don’t care who they have to trample to achieve that.
There are exceptions of course, on every one of these groups. For example, Bill Gates who donates a lot of money for good causes. He still has plenty of money, but honestly, he gives away a lot. By no means do I mean to imply that any billionaire is good; in this case Bill is just using the wealth he has to do good. He’s clearly someone that made a lot of money doing capitalism things, and yet he believes in helping others.
The capitalists I have met are some of the most argumentative, vocal, and toxic people I’ve ever met.
Good on you for getting away from that mentality and finding enjoyment.
I really enjoy Ramit Sethi’s take on this; he encourages what he calls living a rich life. Yeah you should look to your financial future but you have to balance it with your life now. It’s sad when you’re limiting yourself out of fear. He’s an advocate for spending where it brings you value (and only you can decide that), and aggressively cutting out the things that don’t.
My dumb shit is all homemade.
Some music gear that I haven’t really used at all, and don’t feel particularly inclined to lean in and really figure out how to use. like a drum machine (arturia drumbrute impact) and a sequencer thingy (arturia beatstep pro). I could sell both of those and not feel like I’ll ever miss them.
Watch collection is pretty dumb and I really only ever wear one of them anyways. But damnit, they’re neat, and I enjoy rebelling against smartwatches.
Arguably, purchasing a custom ordered Taycan wagon with nearly all the options. BUT, car depreciation only matters when selling, and no other cars out there tick all the boxes for me like the Taycan does, so I’m okay with it
I bought a pallet of computers at an auction at a local college for $250 a year or two ago. HP Elitedesk GenIIs specifically (4th Gen i5, 8GB of RAM, 256gb SSDs, and space for add in cards and more drives if needed) I did not expect my throwaway bid to win but it did. So now I have a bunch of computers. I have some projects in mind, but honestly I’ve mostly been tossing them to friends and family when they need a computer for something. Eventually they’ll all be allocated, sold and given away but it’s certainly taking a bit
You can’t like connect them together and make an AI server with them?
Does a Hello Kitty bandsaw count?
No. That’s the coolest shit I’ve ever seen
I actually did the paint job myself. Bought an old saw that needed some new paint, so I decided to have some fun with it.
Are you actually a wood scientist, and, if so; can I pick your brain?
Nice saw, BTW!
I’m actually working on a PhD in the field. Whether that officially makes me a “scientist” I cannot say. But I have actually studied and done research in the field. Ask away!
Rock and Roll!
What cheap woods are the most impact resistant for splintering and splitting?
What is the best way to cure wood to prevent splitting without a kiln? Slap a heavy coat of latex paint on a log/burl/root and let it sit 6mo/year?
What are the most machinable hardwoods? (In particular as regards tearout, warping, and tolerance of thin sections)
In your opinion, what is an available underappreciated or interesting wood to work?
I’ve had a burl with the ends coated in truck box liner spray for almost a year. I’m cracking into it this winter to make a bathroom sink for my house. It hasn’t seemed to crack at all. It’s in a storage shed. Protected from the elements. It will be interesting to see what’s inside.
Dumb? I just bought an IDE PCI card and a 3.5” floppy USB adapter. I have a bunch of old 52x dvd/Bluray drives, some are IDE. Thought about buying a new SATA writer, but the internal 5.25 are well over $100!? Shocking, they used to be $35. Nobody needs them anymore. I only bought the 2.5” adapter to avoid throwing away the drive, I don’t know where my 1.44mb floppies are. So now I have an old PC with IDE optical drives and a 3.5” floppy.
What’s a 2.5" floppy?
One number away from the correct one.
I keep buying more synthesizers while I already have more than enough. I buy more than I play with them.
Something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vjAeTh4DnY&list=RD1vjAeTh4DnY&start_radio=1 ?
No I don’t have money for the real ones. I mostly have Behringer clones.
Some of Behringers stuff is quite decent, especially for the price.
I wouldn’t know the difference. Yours still looks nice though.
Stop. If I start browsing modular synths I will be broke
I grew up obsessing over synths in the '70s and '80s (I listened to Yes, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis etc.). Now I’m a programmer who writes (more accurately wrote) software synthesizer apps, and I find it amusing that my cheap smartphone from ten years ago has orders of magnitude more sound generation power than those keyboard-based beasts from my childhood did.
That being said, I would probably be willing to kill somebody to get my hands on an original Moog to play around with.
Yeah those Moog’s are insane. But the Behringer clones are also super nice. And imo nothing beats the sound of an analog synth. With those new Behringer clones you also have a USB connection supporting midi, so you can mix them very well with any DAW.
Another synthesizer that I don’t even have a stand for.
I keep hearing about these synth hoarders but never meet them in real life.
Think of how many YouTube channels have walls of games or books behind them. Or people that have 400 games in their stream account they never even play. Synth cost of entry is higher, so proper hoarders are rarer.
If I had another digit on my income, I’d probably find an excuse to buy a used instrument at the pawn because it’s a wicked rush imagining what you can do with this new tool.
Myself, at least, nobody but my closest friends knows about my collection, and I don’t talk about it because it would bore them to tears.
Or they would just tell me to pirate soft synth in Ableton and use a cheap midi, which is financially rational, but it isn’t the same.
A 10 inch 300W powered amp/subwoofer… I already have a soul-destroying stereo with 8 inch sub and studio monitor speakers… and live in a 1 BR… I do NOT need a sub so powerful it will rattle the gypsum out of the walls, and yet…
My Revel F208 speakers don’t really need a subwoofer for music but having a 12 inch 500 watt subwoofer to support them for movies does add to the dramatic impact. My apartment neighbors haven’t complained so I assume they are enjoying the music and movies too.
I feel like subs are way overrated for music. A good 10 or 12 in a quality speaker kicks. I mostly use mine to round out the sound, because I listen to a shitload of 50’s-70’s jazz where the recordings are shite.
I would disagree since getting a speaker with a “good” 10 or 12 inch driver is difficult or very expensive and impractical since those large drivers don’t do well with mids and upper mids. The Tannoy, Klipsch heritage line, and similar old school designs with large drivers all measure like crap.
Difficulty obtaining a good speaker doesn’t detract from my point though.
Also yes every Klipsch I’ve heard is shitty.
e And I said “overrated” not purposeless
So I might have gotten into Airsoft before my paycheck has arrived… Sorry wallet, you’ll feel better in a few days time.
How expensive is it? Isn’t it just air compressed plastic beads?
It’s not an expensive hobby to get into, I did my first game in about 10 years, enjoyed it so much that I got hyperfixated and went all in because I know I love this hobby.
£110 for Airsoft rifle
£180 on starter clothing (undershirt, shirt, trousers, imitation plate carrier, ammo pouches, pistol holster, gloves, mesh eye mask, and large bag to shove it all in)
£40 spent so far on BBs
£40 for first site session (outdoor woodland)
£20 for second site session (indoor CQB)
£40 for third site session (outdoor abandoned base)
£50 on a piccatiny rail mounted torch with pressure pad
Petrol costs travelling to sites, food, drink not included, I’ve so far spent £480.
Having said that, I have nothing else to buy right now so that’ll last me a good while.
Whilst I’m not in the shit financially from this spending spree, DON’T DO WHAT I DID, that was a bit reckless of me.
Come on man, if you tell us not to the the same, then at least share a picture of the rifle so I don’t have to buy it to look at it
Espresso machine A nice double boiler one
I bought an entry level espresso machine and i thought that i want a really fancy one, if i keep using it and this one breaks. That was like 8 years ago and i use it almost daily and don’t really want another one.
