sxan

sxan, 1 year ago

Quality-wise, Makita > DeWALT ≥ Milwaukee > Ryobi, at least, if you watch teardowns by guys like AvE.

Power tools are like cars; companies hold several brands and target them to different market segments, like Porsche and VW.

Ryobi is owned by the same company as Milwauki; it’s the budget line, Milwauki being their premium line.

DeWALT and Black & Decker are owned by the same company; DeWALT is their premium line.

The exception in this list is Makita, which is its own company. They’re also objectively more well-built than the others (here), and correspondingly usually more expensive.

The premium lines are better quality (not just more expensive) but also tend to have smaller battery-tool options. Despite being a budget line, I mostly own B&D because most of my tools these days are 24V and there are more tool options there. The few, select, DeWALT tools I have are noticably better quality.

I don’t use power tools enough to justify Makita, but also, their battery-powered line is comparatively tiny. As someone else said, there’s a lot of motivation to pick a (compatible) lane, whichever it is. For most home-gamers, the quality difference will probably not matter much. If I were made of money, though, I’d have everything Makita except for the things they don’t make.

sxan, 1 year ago

A decade ago (almost!) I had one of those HP swivel-screen jobs - a Compaq TC4200. Replaceable battery, dock, external attachable battery, resistive touch screen, fully user-serviceable… it was the best laptop I’ve ever had, in terms of feature set.

People often claim they don’t make 'em like they used to, but it’s true. Framework is a step in the right direction with servicability, but they still have a way to go to get to everything laptops of a decade ago.

sxan, 1 year ago

Amen.

You can make pasta with flour, water, and salt. Add yeast, and you can make country loaf bread. Add a little sugar, butter, & milk, and you can make white sandwhich bread, or dumplings for soup. These are absurdly easy recipes, almost impossible to mess up. Change the portions, and you have sugar cookies, like you said! Splurge on chocolate chips and you can have chocolate chip cookies. Get some baking soda, and you can make crackers.

Flour’s about 80¢/lb. Salt is $10 for 26 oz, which will last many, many recipes. Yeast is $1.50/oz. For $25, you can make about 25 loaves of bread, and still have a bunch of salt left over.

Flour is the single best, and most versitile, calorie-to-dollar value food.

sxan, 1 year ago

Good catch!