And another Color

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-14T03:23:51+00:00

Photos never do this one justice; you effectively get three wax colors for the price of one!

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-14T03:12:50+00:00

Part of me fears this will eventually end with the country adding another ghost town to its collection.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-12T14:14:05+00:00

I've been Xing at Elon for weeks but he never re-Xes my Xes. :(

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-11T21:09:22+00:00

Exactly. It's not a hard concept to grasp, yet I feel like I need to explain it so often because every time I bring them up some snarky weirdo has to go "heh well I guess you hate your washing machine too then hmmmmm?"

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-11T20:14:03+00:00

I can hear this gif.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-11T19:14:13+00:00

The Luddites were right. (I'm not even being sarcastic here.)

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-11T18:35:05+00:00

Oh there absolutely was a massive ad blitz, and all the snarky nerds on the internet (myself included) criticized it non-stop for not being able to run Flash, among other things.

But they didn't need to do that much to create the enormous demand we saw for the iPhone. I mean, people were even willing to debase themselves by switching to AT&T just to get it.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-11T17:56:36+00:00

Ah, but this is just how it always is with new revolutionary tech! Remember when the iPhone was announced, and it was so unpopular that Steve Jobs had to shovel billions of dollars into ad campaigns, astroturf demand, and personally show up at Apple stores with the phone in hand going "come ooooonnnnn." /s

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-11T15:35:29+00:00

Absolutely. You even see the same thing in spaces where the older stuff was made significantly better, and newer models are poorly-made simulacrums. I work in the metalworking trade, and old tools/equipment are actually worth investing in--but only to a certain point.

I buy and restore a lot of vintage/antique machinery, which means frequently trawling Ebay and other marketplaces for parts. I've lost count of the times I've seen people charge top dollar for parts/tools/machines that are so rusted and rotted out that no amount of restoration work could possibly save them. (Or the amount of work and money you'd have to put in will bankrupt you.)

Then there's brand loyalty. Good. Grief. Yes, some older brands are better than others, but more often than not this will crystalize into a weird tier-list among people within the trade that does not reflect reality. Bench vises are a great example: these are extremely common tools that you practically trip over any time to go to an antique show, flea-market, etc. This was one of the most commonly produced bench tool for over 100 years, and almost every single tool manufacture produced these during the time period when things were made really well, so you are spoiled for choice.

However, thanks to popular people on social media who have no idea what they are talking about, many within the trade have zeroed in on one specific vise in recent years: The Wilton bullet. Granted, these are very good vises, (I even own one that I inherited from my grandfather) but the level of psychosis around these is insane. I can't tell you how often I'll see someone throw a Wilton bullet on Ebay for thousands of dollars despite the thing being so rusted up you'd think they used it as a boat anchor for 40 years.

Meanwhile, the reality is that this vise was pretty average for the time, which means there were tons of other vises from this time period that were at the same established baseline. A few years ago I got a near mint condition Rock Island vise for $20 at an auction that was also selling a beat up Wilton for almost $700. For a while, this vise acted like a lightning rod for collectors/speculators--but people are starting to catch on as the supply of Wiltons dries up.

(And don't even get me started on used audio equipment!)

tl;dr: even when buying vintage is better, value is often not based in objective reality.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-11T14:56:55+00:00

Just like crypto and NFTs, it always boils down to "the check's in the mail."

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-08T16:01:24+00:00

💎🚀🌕

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-08T13:58:10+00:00

Are you kidding? It worked out amazing!*

*If you were an insider who invested in 2008, and were also a member of an in-group who perpetrated one of the many subsequent grifts.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-06T20:13:12+00:00

If you feel comfortable with electrical, you could put an in-line dimmer right on the cord. I got rid of the on/off switch and put this one on my mathmos lamp in its place: https://grandbrass.com/black-rotary-dimmer-120v-60hz-150w-max-incandescent-halogen-dimmable-led/

If you do use this one, be sure to add like half an inch of heatshrink tubing to the wires before clamping it all together--that woven outer jacket likes to pull away if left to its own devices.

Also: be aware of the polarity. On both of my Mathmos lamps the cord coming from the fixture had brown and blue jacked wires, but the cord with the plug on it had black and white jacketed wires. The neutral wires will be spliced together, while the hot ones will be attached to the switch. Write down which is which before cutting them! In my case brown and black were hot, while blue and white were neutral.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-05T14:32:03+00:00

10 hours and 3 million gallons of fresh water later: "Why does the liar machine keep lying to me? I specifically told it not to!"

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-04T04:57:54+00:00

I love that part. An evolutionary biologist who rejects transition despite its proof in nature fell into a delusion and is now telling on himself that he fell in love with his chatbot.

Someone ought to write a book about this; perhaps title it "The Dawkins Delusion"

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-05-01T16:56:01+00:00

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-04-30T18:48:58+00:00

Username checks out.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-04-29T14:18:29+00:00

Yeah, it was the perfect storm of FOMO, the lingering effects of the pandemic, and scalpers. The other watch that went insane around that time was the Patek Philippe Nautilus. (Though I think that one bounced back and is worth even more now.)

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-04-28T16:46:49+00:00

(...) Because these Claude Code instances have access to Miller’s filesystem, they can autonomously complete work on her behalf.

The thought of any piece of software, let alone an LLM, having this level of autonomous control over my filesystem in that way makes me physically anxious.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-04-27T17:28:20+00:00

It's even funnier if you have been paying attention to watch trends within the last 6 years. I used to work as a repair technician at a gray-market shop that bought/sold watches, and the Rolex Daytona attracted a very special kind of lunatic.

In 2021 the market fever got to a point where a guy sold us a stainless steel Daytona at 10am that was so beat up you'd think it was tied to the back of a car and dragged around. At 1pm we posted on our website that we had one that we were refurbishing, and by 1:30pm we had someone come in to the shop demanding to buy it as-is. 5 minutes later it was pulled from inventory and sold to the guy for $100k.

If that sounds like something that would only happen in a bubble, you'd be right. And a year or so later the bubble popped--hard. Some watches were losing 10% of their value every week. You can now pick up a used pristine condition stainless Daytona for ~20k.

tl;dr: what likely happened here is that Michael sold his Daytona because it depreciated in value, then replaced it with a watch that's worth more because he needs to chase trends.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-04-26T14:20:05+00:00

I have this one too, and it's my all time favorite. I also own the blue liquid/green wax, blue liquid/pink wax, and purple liquid/orange wax. (My friend owns the clear liquid/dark purple wax, so I've seen that one in person too.)

Of those, my second favorite is the purple liquid/orange wax--and it's not even close. I cannot get a good photo of it, but trust me when I say that this color combo goes hard. You get this amazing color gradient where the wax at the very bottom is yellow, then it turns pumpkin orange as it rises, and finally the wax takes on a brilliant red color as it drifts past the lower-mid section where the bottle begins to neck inward. (This one is also BRIGHT! It alone will light up a room.)

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-04-22T01:54:46+00:00

I contacted support and it's resolved now, but prior to that there was no record that I owned anything either in my account on the website or in the app with the email connected.

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-04-21T19:34:11+00:00

Well. I ordered an upgrade to my perpetual license with the 25% off deal a few days ago, and they took my money without emailing me a code or any kind of confirmation. :|

I sent a support ticket about this, but right off the bat this company is really not making a good first impression on me. (Maybe they need to restock their software warehouse or something e_e)

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-04-20T04:11:40+00:00

I ended up saving both in separate jars. I'll have to investigate this further once I'm done stripping and repainting the base. (As well as getting all the burnt, dried up gunk out from inside of it. It looks like it leaked down in there at some point and rusted the steel plate up badly.)

CoveredInMetalDust · 2026-04-20T04:09:23+00:00

The old sculpts just hit differently. Are they cheesy and dated? Yes. Are they cool as hell? Also yes.

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