Respectfully disagree.

Since the 60's (and one could argue, even long before that), watches are 1) fashion, and 2) male wealth-signaling fashion. That's it. Nothing more. And for males who subscribe to this wealth-signaling cult, they know from a long way away what watch brand is on that guy's wrist.

Okay, today's brands signal maybe a little differently than just wealth. Casio G-Shock watches aren't substantially different than their non-G-Shock counterparts in any significant way, but they cost way more. The G-Shock brand signals... I dunno, sportsy-ness? Maybe it is closer to a pure fashion brand here.

I think we've been in "The Brand Age" since the advent of advertising. There are plenty of products that have virtually no differentiation besides brand, and there (almost) always has been.

My (admittedly old) gpu+CPU idles around 50-75w.

https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04

In many cases (Norman Doors are an example), there are two or more equally valid ways to do something. By "equally valid", I mean there is no clear standard for whether it should operate one way or the other, and if you ask 100 people which way it should work (which no one ever does), you get something approaching 50%.

So the product manager or perhaps developer simply says "make it a setting", and everyone agrees and declares the problem solved.

But the problem is, you have to choose a default. And 90% of the time, no one is going to change that default, or even discover how to. So you have to be very correct about assuming which value is the best default - and at that point, it probably doesn't matter that you make it an option.

Though I don't know any reports of profound conversations.

Apple seems to have forgotten its own innovations.

I only used a SendGrid account briefly, as a potential backup to my current outgoing transaction mail provider. Sent exactly 5 test emails I think.

The ICE one this morning gave me pause, but only about 2s before I deleted it and moved on with my busy day of reading HN posts.

But for $30, you can't beat this:

https://www.amazon.com/Cassette-Converter-Portable-Recorder-...

So much complexity, plenty of redundancy, but not enough adherence to important rules.

But tubes aren't current amplifiers, they're voltage amplifiers, like FETs.

You can look at the "characteristics curves" of tubes (plate curves and transconductance curves), which tell the story of current against plate-to-cathode voltages for fixed grid voltages.

Just his list of 5E3 mods (Fender Deluxe) is awesome:

https://robrobinette.com/5e3_Modifications.htm

There are probably broad categories that I might find myself using, but for my own core collection of music (deeper than it is wide, mostly), it barely matters.

Most parts could only come from Tesla, including the Bilstein struts (a part number Bilstein refuses to sell to anyone but Tesla). $900 per corner.

USB port between the console? $400. I found a used one on eBay, fortunately.

When the wheel rotation sensor receiver went bad, it cost $2500 for them to install and reprogram the replacement, because they "upgraded" to a different mfr. When that one started to go bad (water ingress, which wasn't cured by the new part), I sold the car and said good riddance.

I'm not trying to excuse Verizon for not including them in their overall pricing, but these two in particular:

- Fed Universal Service Charge

- Regulatory Charge

are both paid to the government, and variable based on usage.

Edit: I will also note that Verizon has a $3.50 per-line fixed line item called "Admin & Telco Recovery Charge" that is utter BS.