I've just bought a backpack from Frost River, the "Arrowhead Trail Eco." I know that you can't assume that something is BIFL until you've owned it for a while, but waxed canvas definitely fits that long-lasting category, and this one certainly feels solid at first glance.

This is the first waxed canvas backpack I've bought. I've owned a few backpacks in recent years, trying to find the perfect everyday + work + gym backpack, but I'm new to waxed canvas. So I'm wondering if anyone has anything that I should pay attention to as I use it for the next couple months and develop an opinion about it.

The product page for it is here: https://frostriver.com/products/arrowhead-trail-rolltop-eco

I can post pictures tomorrow if anyone wants them. I've just picked up the package and it's the middle of the night right now, so I can't even really see what it looks like yet, haha. I usually find "first impressions" reviews to not be very useful (especially for products that you intend to own for more than a decade), but there were surprisingly few reviews for this brand available, so I might just do that anyway.

IBM Thinkpads have a cult following in part due to not just a good design out of the gate, but the fact that the original designer refused to bend to pressure to change the design every year. The parts are interchangable to large extent between models spanning what, 3—5 years? The guy was under constant pressure; was told to give consumers something fresh by changing up the design. Luckily wisdom prevailed and he disregarded such reckless advice by responding with the mantra: ”if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

I’m happy to buy Thinkpads over 15 years old, often sold for ~$10 on the street, because if something is broken or breaks it can still be used for parts to fix other models of Thinkpads from roughly the same decade.

Lenovo acquired Thinkpad from IBM and gradually fucked it up around the T410 or T450 models as they gave in to the demand of consumers giving a shit about shaving off every gram of weight possible at the expense of ditching rugged rollcages and ditching features like optical drives. Watch some videos of people trying to simply remove a keyboard from a T450 to see what I mean.

Whirlpool also has a reputation for not radically changing the design of internal components. I called a repair shop over a washer or tumble dryer that was like 15 or 20 years old. They said at that age, if it’s not Whirlpool they won’t even show up because when the parts change every year then spare parts quickly become unavailable (of course before people start needing the spare parts). They said Whirlpool is an exception because the same parts will be used for a decade or more, which then justifies the business of making spare parts for a prolonged time (I imagine as well the aftermarket likely thrives too).

Grain of salt though because I heard Whirlpool doesn’t always put their label on their own products and Whirlpools also end up getting labeled as Sears Kenmore. If Whirlpool rebadges something else as Whirlpool, how could the design have consistency w/other Whirlpool machines? Anyway, it was just an example and possibly flawed based on one repair shop’s opinion.

The problem -- no metrics

This is all just tribal knowledge propagated ad hoc by word of mouth. The masses don’t generally know this shit and probably most of them don’t care. I think Whirlpool and Thinkpad were not even diligent enough to advertise it. Maybe they did not even know in advance they would have design consistency over the years. Perhaps if they advertise: ”uses the same motor as previous 6 models”, they would fear that it would chase away foolish consumers who would regard that as ”old”, unevolved, or non-innovative. Those same stupid consumers who are brainwashed to chase “latest and greatest” are why we face so much unrepairable garbage on the market.

Since no one tracks design stability/consistency over time (not even Consumer Reports or similar orgs), there is no incentive for manufacturers to try to satisfy the unknown & unmeasured demand that no one is looking at.

Don't buy those crappy plastic bag-clips to hold chip bags, flour bags, etc closed. They're unsatisfying, they wear out and bend, and they just add more plastic pollution to the world.

Instead buy more binder clips. They're made from spring steel, they're strong as hell, they almost never wear out, they can be used to close bags, as small clamps, as hangers for almost anything in a pinch, and they're amazing for building pillow / blanket forts.

I have some from my grandma that she bought 30 years ago and they work just as well as the ones I bought a year ago. The only risk with them ever is rust, and you can just scrub that off with vinegar, add a brush of paint and it's fixed.

Truly some of my favourite robust little items.

I'm leaning towards Amwater, but am not sure.

We can’t always find BifL products for everything. So it’s at least interesting to steer clear of the utter garbage known to be the opposite of BifL. I just created this community for that purpose:

!unsustainable_products@slrpnk.net

Recommendations for a color, full duplex, laser printer?

Another printer company (Brother) has fallen to the allure of "remote disable" if they object to you using your own device in a way they don't like: trying to self-service, use third party inks, whatever. It's at their discretion. Given printers are the sorts of devices to which you tend to want to have network access, preventing this is a lot of work.

I've been looking at color duplex laser printers, and Brother has been at the top of the list, until they recently announcement that they'd disable printers using third party inks.

BIFL to me implies that the company isn't going to actively sabotage self-service, or restrict your usage of the thing, so I think this is an appropriate question for this c/.

Hi everyone, not sure if BIFL, as textiles are generally prone to wear out. I'm looking for good rainproof trousers. A little background: I'm commuting by bike, 7 km back and forth plus train commute, all year. Due to the geographical region (Germany) there is a good chance of unforseen rain.

Now I'm looking for a well built, stable set of rainproof trousers. I'm not a fan of those standard trousers where you need to put your feet or shoes through, as I'd like to put them on spontaneously and without too much hassle. I recently found out about full zipper trousers which kind of have a side entry rather than a top entry. They seem interesting, but I'm unsure about the practicability.

I'd be glad to hear your experiences with rainproof trousers for commuting, and ideally a buy it for ~~life~~ very long recommendation.

I am own my own business and it is closed Mondays but I do a lot of ordering and paperwork from home on Mondays. I currently use TV trays as desk, one for my laptop and a second for my iPad and mouse/trackball. They are wobbly, and our cats like to jump onto them and I am always worried they will knock down my laptop.

I am looking for something more substantial, preferably adjustable height so I can sit on the couch or my office chair, and on wheels so I can move it out if the when way not in use.

It does not need drawers or storage, but I am not opposed to them.

Location: US

When I'm logged in, I can only see four threads in this community. If I go to the community in a private window without being logged in, I can read all the threads. My user is on the same instance, so I should be able to see all threads - this can't be a federation issue. What's going wrong?

My current digital kitchen scales (Brabantia) go through batteries faster than I would like. I use rechargeable batteries, but still.

I was looking for long-lasting mechanical kitchen scales or at least one of those kinetic energy scales (turn the knob to power it) to use in the kitchen. Any model that can measure in the ~1g to 5kg range with a tare function is more than enough.

Does anyone have any recommendations or experience with these types of scales (knob or mechanical)? E.g., does the knob thing break easily?

Underwear is one of the things that I struggle to use second-hand, and I'm not sure if I intend to change that (lest some nowaste people teach me mystical ways and methods :P) But the fact is that I can only use what I've got currently for so long, and so I turn to you.

I am not looking for specific reccomendations exclusively, and the type of underwear (underpants, brasseries, undershirts) are all welcome for discussion! But I'm hoping to find advice which will help me find something that will last, and to a decent standard (i.e, don't use polyester socks, due to smell).

So please lend your advice for finding Bras, Briefs, Bobbysocks, and Bundershirts!

EDIT: Also advice on what materials are better suited to different climates is also well appreciated! (I tend to leave my posts personal detail agnostic so they can serve as resources for others :))

Hi there, I came here to the BIFL Lemmy out of suspicion that the reddit posts are just unlabelled marketing, and I was wondering the possibility of sourcing goods that are more to a BIFL standard? In my area, second hand goods tend to be really quite poor in quality (reselling fast fashion) or otherwise not present, and I have not inherited anything that does last. So I would apprecite advice or reccomendations for finding goods at a BIFL standard. I was also wondering if maybe there would be anyone with good advice for finding sustainable, local textile production so that I may be able to tailor what I need without having to buy from the poor selection aforementioned, does anyone know of any of this?

TL:DR I am suspicious that a lot of what is claimed as 'BIFL' has been enshittified, and would like advice on being able to search for sustainable goods for a local area (not specified because I'm hoping for advice with searching, not exactly for specific reccs)

Well it's not an overly inspiring photo, but then what white good is?

Purchased some time before 2000 this fridge survived a move from the outback to the city on the back of a cattle truck, along with cattle, a Simpson top loader and many other household effects.

In March 2022 it decided to stop cooling. I was away so the missus bought an Inalto fridge - quite similar to that red one that drove Technology Connections mental.

When I got back I took the old fridge apart to see if it was the thermostat that was sick. The tip had rusted off, letting out the gas that operates the bellows in the thermostat, so ordered and fitted a new one. Success. Kept it in the shed just in case.

Now the Inalto struggles to get below 11°C, so have dragged the Kelvinator out of storage and it's back to full time duty again.

As for the Inalto, it's freezing up at the top corner of the unit and only drawing 30 watts. Will do some research, but suspect it's not fixable. At under three years old, that's an exceptionally short life.

where could someone find a pair of sturdy, comfortable goggles that an optometrist can put a prescription into?

Hello there!

Any recommendations for a sous vide thermoplongeur, like this one? It should be available in Europe, temperature from 30 - 60°C (90 - 140°F) and have a cooking time of up to 36h. Its main purpose will be yogurt making.

My big winter boots I have used for the last few years got a split in them today. I use them a lot as I walk about 1km a day to and from work. I have to walk up hills and on ice at times. Which boots should I buy that will be good quality, keep my feet warm and dry, and last repeated daily use?

I've been looking for a good Bluetooth speaker for a while now. My old one, a 1st gen Anker SoundCore that I bought in late in 2018 decided to quit working on me 2020 when the battery failed. I decided that I didn't want another one that would only last me a year or two before it failed. The ones that have actually decent sound just cost too much for me to be able to justify that. That one requirement turned out to be a big problem as almost nobody makes a decent Bluetooth speaker with a replaceable battery. Except, the power tool makers.

About 15 years ago (give or take) I had owned a Ryobi Bluetooth radio. The sound was crap and it wasn't exactly what you would call compact but it was loud and it took a good 5 years of actual, honest to god, abuse until it finally died. It fell into a pan of used motor oil. I cried. Not so much over the radio but rather over the 4ah 18v battery that had been powering it. Those things were damned expensive at the time.

So when I noticed that Ryobi had produced a new Bluetooth speaker, I figured that it would probably take a beating. Question was, how was the sound and more importantly for me, how loud could it get. Unfortunately, everybody seemed to be sleeping on it and hadn't done more than a cursory review on it.

Price wise, it's a bit eye watering with a $100USD MSRP with a 2ah battery included but it does seem to be on discount frequently. Which is good because I recommend getting a 3ah battery for it.

The speaker is a triangular rod a little taller than a 20oz coke bottle. Call it 8 inches long and 2 across. Feels well built, though not as solid as the Anker Soundcore. Ryobi claims that it has a IP67 rating and there are rubber bumpers on every surface the thing could possibly rest on. Feels like it weighs about a pound and a half.

On one end there are it's controls, a power button, play/pause, volume, and the Verse Link pairing button (which is not for pairing Bluetooth). On the other end is the battery door held closed by a toggle clasp and sealed with a rubber gasket. And finally on the side, opposite the speaker, is a USB-C port for charging only. I did check, and no, he charge port will not power the unit without a battery installed.

Sadly, no 3.5mm audio jack nor can the USB-C port handle audio in. This is a Bluetooth only speaker.

Bluetooth pairing is pretty simple, just press and hold the play/pause button while it is on and it will drop its current connection and enter pairing mode. I'm not sure what Bluetooth standards it is using, but the only device I have that I couldn't get to pair with it was my 9 year old Dell Latitude. It could see the speaker but I was never able to get the laptop to pair with it. My desktop did not have the same problem so it's probably just the ancient bluetooth chip on my laptop.

The sound quality is excellent within the limits of my damaged hearing. An audiophile coworker of mine (whose hearing is even worse due to spinning lug nuts off heavy trucks with air impacts all day) says the bass is a bit muddy but otherwise good. As for how loud, at max volume, playing Crab Rave on YouTube, my Apple Watch was showing 90dB 3 feet from the speaker. So more than loud enough for my needs and loud enough to continue damaging my hearing.

Ryobi claims that the 2ah battery it comes with will last "up to" 6 hours and that seems about right. The one time I actually used the battery it came with, it died about an hour before my 8 hour shift ended. I put the 3ah battery in it and it lasts longer than my attention span for testing it. In practice, the 3ah battery lasts me about a shift and a half, playing audio about 60% - 70% of the time.

The batteries this uses has a pair of party tricks, the first of which is actually pretty useful. While you can certainly charge the battery using an external charging dock or via the speaker's own USB-C port, the batteries themselves have a USB-C port on them which can be used for charging the battery. It can charge via any USB charger.

The second party trick is that the battery can also be used as a very small, very slow, 10W USB-C PD power bank to charge a phone or something. I get the feeling that the engineer in charge of designing the battery said "It's got the port, why not!" and nobody in accounting thought to stop them. And no, that ability does not pass through the speaker, and yes, I tried. Though I did find out that my iPhone 16 and iPad Air can themselves act as powerbanks, which I did not know.

About the Verse Link. It's not something I have a use for and haven't tested, but Ryobi crows about this feature more that anything else about this speaker so I figure I'll mention it. The Verse Link is a way to link up several Verse Link speakers up to a single audio source with a range of up to 125'. Again, not something I have a use for, but might be handy at a pool party or something.

All in all, I really like this speaker. Is it "buy it for life"? Probably not, but it does have the makings to be a piece of kit that will last a good long time. How long, I suspect, will depend more on whether Ryobi kills off the USB Lithium line like they did the Tek4 line. I don't think they will, but time will tell.

I'm looking for a BIFL (or at least last me for a while) music player that can play .wav files, has a lot of storage, is portable, and the parts are able to be replaced/upgraded. I've heard about using iPod classics but it seems like they're unable to play .wav files. Any reccomendations?