I don’t even know how realistically it’s even possible to have something of one kind in a functioning family kitchen: over the years you’ll have to replace or supplement the items, and most brands don’t manufacture same kinds of plates or utensils continuously!

For silverware we don’t even try - random sets from IKEA and restaurant stores combined. For plates we use Macy’s colorful plates - which they seemed to sell forever, and they changed the design slightly few years ago, so now they don’t match anymore!

Most homes of people who are reasonably well-off - including most people on HN - go through three distinct stages.

The first stage is right after you spend an insane amount of money to buy the property. At that point, you want to validate the investment, so you spend money on making it look nice, but you're probably oblivious to many realities of homeownership. So yeah, this is when people splurge on matched kitchenware, beautiful cutting boards, "smart" kitchen appliances, sleek-looking but impractical veneer / plastic / glass furniture, etc.

The second stage is when you get kids or pets, and you start losing the battle. You eventually throw in the towel, accepting that there are going to be dings on the walls and on stainless steel appliances, holes in window screens, and veneer peeling off after the fifth juice spill accident.

The third stage is when the kids move out and you can actually make the space look nice. Except now, you know that there's some wisdom to old-fashioned solid wood furniture, that cutting boards are for cutting, and so on. So your home acquires more of an "old people" vibe.

Ha! Stainless steel appliances. The new (Bosch) dishwasher gets nasty crap spilled down the front. No problem, it's stainless steel so get out the scrubby sponge. Ha. The stainless steel has a relatively delicate clearcoat on top of it which is now messed up. Stainless steel for show only, not for actual utility.

Isn't the problem that you got out the scrubby sponge?

According to the manual (which I didn't read) of course it is. But something delicate masquerading as brushed stainless steel...

Isn't it the opposite? Stainless steal is for utility, not show. Hence why it's used in all professional kitchens I've worked.

I have 3 stages of flatware right now:

1. Relatively nice stuff I bought for myself when I moved into my apartment

2. Cheap stuff I bought after a friend used a yellow-green scrub sponge and scratched up all my nice stuff

3. Nice stuff I bought for myself after the divorce (Except that it's poorly designed, which makes me wish I'd bought something a little more standard. They all have round handles, which means the utensils try to spin in your hands.)

I can in no way shape or form stand "impostor utensils." I throw them away ruthlessly (we sometimes acquire them when guests bring over food or by accident from vacations). When we run low I throw away the whole lot and replace it. Same with plates, glasses, or socks. Seriously, who has time to match up socks? Just buy 40 identical pairs and throw away the rest.

This is exactly what I do with socks, and then I replace the whole set.

But then it runs into (un)surprising problem: most brands don’t maintain their designs, so if you find something you like, it’s not going to be available when it’s time to replace entire set couple years later.

In the end I standardized on Blacksocks, which seem to have same design forever, although they are more expensive than I would like.

You could buy a restaurant quality set of vitrified plates. They survive being dropped. They also weigh a ton.

I got mine second hand

If you buy IKEA then you can’t. But if you buy from independent specialists then you’ll often find their ranges will be available for decades.

But then you’re paying a minimum £120 for a set of cutlery rather than £12.

However the way I look at it is that good cutlery lasts a lifetime.

But they don’t - they get lost. Our original sets are diminished. So I see it as expenditure, and buy inexpensive steel quality sets not worrying about them being matched. It’s insane to pay 120 pounds for a set. Are these items to be used or to worry about them?

Why would you worry about a solid lump of metal?

I’m also a little confused how lose so much cutlery. I have a family too and I’ve never lost any. But Maybe it’s a bigger problem with teenagers and thus my kids are still a couple of years too young?

- "good cutlery lasts a lifetime"

I mean, modern ones are just solid chunks of Type 304 stainless steel; unless you are a family of Ridley Scott xenomorphs I can't imagine why they wouldn't.

I hosted a party one time at an Airbnb I was staying at. A friend invited his buddy who said he’d come and prepare something. His buddy brought a can that needed opening and when he found a can opener lacking, he took the rental provided chef’s knife and stabbed it into the can to cut through the top.

The knife did survive, but I spent a good amount of time bending the tip back to be mostly straight. I’m sure you could destroy a knife by repeating such a practice.

This is why every travel kit should include a Victorinox with a can opener. This savagery must be avoided.

It’s Airbnb, you are going to be charged a bunch of nickel-and-dime fees anyway. Might as well enjoy the expendable nature of everything, I guess.

That’s my point.

Cheap cutlery can often be thin or made from cheaper steal that is more prone to rust.

Though granted you can also buy good quality cheaper cutlery too (just last week I picked up a set of 16 pieces for £16. Bargain)

Maybe restaurant supply stores? Likely more durable than consumer stuff, and the manufacturer is likely to maintain a product line for years. Restaurants are not going to be ok with mismatched pieces.

You can often find replacements for whatever has broken via the aptly named Replacements, Ltd:

https://www.replacements.com/

The way to avoid this is to do a tiny bit of research and find a product line that is unlikely to change over time. Fiestaware for example is basically unchanged in look and feel and inexpensive so you can just buy their stuff and replace your broken plates without introducing a mismatched item.

Airstream is an amazing example of this in a premium product: their trailers get new features but built around existing designs. Parts from different decades just fit together. I wish cars worked like this.

Furniture is tougher as both styles change and there isn’t a lot of manufacturers that make the same thing over and over.

My personal favorite: socks. I standardized on exactly one style of socks that work for me for everything from fitness to everyday wear. I have two dozen of them, replace the oldest with a new six pack every year. I spend no time matching socks. Yes I have one pair of dress socks for when I wear a tux + two pairs of thick wool socks for when I am doing winter things. Outside of that it’s the same Under Armor Resistors every day.

Fiestaware from Macy’s is exactly what I’m referring to in the original post - they changed the design slightly on all items few years ago and now plates don’t match! We still use them, of course, but it’s funny that this was the core proposition why we used this brand and they compromised it.

Ah that’s disappointing. The other way to go: get into pottery and make it all yourself!

If you start with lots of spares, it works for a pretty good amount of time.

Let's say your family has 5 full time members and is timely at doing dishes. 15 sets of flatware would probably be plenty, but sometimes you have extra guests, so start with 20-25.

If you lose or break items and get down to 15, and the set is no longer available, get rid of what you have and get a new set of 20-25.

Don't care also works fine.

For the people interested with the link. The blog post "The Best" is talking about a silverware set which is good for a museum, and only for a museum, it is impossible to eat with it.

I've actually taken myself thinking along those lines today. Our induction hob broke and no one will service it, so need to buy a new one. The one that broke came with the apartment, and I've been perfectly happy with it.

But now I have a choice. I can choose the hob myself! But it's such a pressure! I'll probably not buy a new one for 5+ (hopefully 10) years, so it should be good! And not have annoying little quirks I'll notice much more when it was me making the decision. And what's the best bang for buck? Which features do I need? So many choices, and I'd probably be happy with whatever. But I've spent the last two evenings becoming an expert in induction hobs..

My advice, prepare to be disappointed whatever you buy. The state of modern appliances is a dismal landscape of bare minimum functionality and corner cutting.

We tried to avoid the garbage tide by thinking "you get what you pay for" and paid a lot expecting a better outcome. Ha! The Miele dishwasher we got didn't last 5 years. Turns out the fancy German engineering does not help with reliability but with creating overcomplicated designs with more moving parts.

The d/w that the Miele replaced was a damaged floor model we got for $100 from the orange store. It was so bare the bottom had no cover (by design) and all the parts were exposed, buttressed by some styrofoam and glued to a unibody plastic tub. It literally looked like something out of an injection molding machine with a bunch of parts randomly stuck to it. And yet it lasted longer than the replacement. We're going back to absolute cheapest and expecting to just replace every few years and still come out ahead.

I'm sure there's middle ground. I have my favorite cheapish Ikea line of cutlery and scorn any other.

a snoble without a cause

My takeaway from that post is: What happened to svbtle?

It was hot shit here for a little while, but why couldn't it really break out like medium and substack did?

It's still chugging along. I suspect, but do not know, that it went the middle road of solid growth with reasonable return on investment as opposed to the pop-up monetization shit hole that is Medium.

There is some research suggesting that maximizers, people who insist on only the best, are less happy than satisficers, people who stop when they've found something that's good enough.[1] Perhaps it has something to do with how maximizers, due to their exhaustive research, know all the shortcomings of the thing they eventually choose. Anyway, this research is pre-replication crisis, so who knows if it has stood up, but I've found maximizer/satisficer to be a useful distinction.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing#In_personality_and...

On the other hand, sometimes doing said research is half the fun.

I've found that to be a liberating philosophy. But I also have a few areas where I'm quite the opposite: but I'm very deliberate in which things I choose to obsess over. I try to remind myself to be conscious of the diminishing returns there too - and try not to go _full audiophile_.

I hear you... through the daisy-chained coat hangers I wired up my speakers with.

I'm a fan of Moxie Marlinspike's response to that post, "The Worst"[0].

[0] https://moxie.org/2012/11/27/the-worst.html

Well, middle way, I guess. Or "We're not rich enough to buy crappy things", as the saying goes.

is Moxie actually sailing derelict sailboats "as far as he can take them"? While I'm admiring this, I'm also worried he's going to be marooned somewhere...

It's not so bad if he stays in sight of the main coast.

Northern Australia has a culture of running old cars and boats into the ground, kicking them over and making them go again, walking home if all fails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rXVD-qU_VM

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4838109 ("The Worst (thoughtcrime.org)", 209 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31402797 ("The Worst (moxie.org)", 65 comments)