Wow, so the author basically suggested to use the auction to sell the keyboard at $1668 instead of $500 because it’s not market clearing price? That’s borderline evil
If this was medicine, or tampons, or something people really needed, then yes. But extremely high-end mechanical keyboards? Not really evil. It's a Veblen good.
Agreed. Milking conspicuous consumers for as much as you can is good for the economy in general because it gets people with a lot of parked money to spend more.
Why shouldn't you sell something at a greater premium, if the demand is there? This is basic capitalist economics. It also means that a competitor can come in and offer an equivalent or superior product for less money and still make money.
Tangentially related, but is Scientific American worth subscribing to? I really like reading paper magazines and am a subscriber to Science, but feel like I could use lighter reading if it’s not too sensationalist
No. It used to be great but then they went way downmarket about 20 years to increase readership. After several years of declining quality I quite when I noticed they had adjusted the font size and spacing to have about the same number of pages (and ads) in each issue while reducing the actual content by ~20%.
I mean, it's not terrible but it used to be solidly educational whereas Nature or Science is relatively hard work to read unless you really love getting into the weeds. Scientific American used to sit in the middle ground between Popular Mechanics or National Geographic and actual journals, but you'll probably find it disappointingly shallow.
More to the point then, is there anything that sits between the high quality generalist journals and generalist scientific magazines (Nat Geo. and the like)?
I can and do read Nature and Science, but outside of my PhD field I find it pretty slow going and often feel like I'm missing out on what could be interesting findings due to not having sufficient background to fully understand the problem space.
Not that I'm aware of, sadly. There's New Scientist from the UK but that's more of a weekly newspaper and thus a bit shallow. There's some great online magazines of course (Quanta is pretty good) but for longform writing I still like hard copy cause I'm old.
Unless you're actively consuming something like watching tv or reading a book while you do it.
When it comes to more passive consumption like listening to music while you exercise for background noise, I would still argue it's at least neutral. But if you're listening to an audiobook or podcast (something new to you), then it feels consumption again.
It depends. If you're trying to get to a particular shape, it could be seen as creation - getting creative with your body. But if it's just maintenance exercise, than this IMO belongs to the third category of things - it's a chore. A maintenance task. The work you have to do to stand still.
Something that I personally strive to minimize.
Just an anecdote of mine. I'm sure there was plenty of drug use in other provinces but my personal experience was in the Helmand. I try not to talk about other places and units I don't have experience in.
How do you find 67g switches? I built quefrency with 67g Zilents and while they are comfortable I wonder if they are a bit too stiff for fingers joints health
I like them, but I have a somewhat soft typing touch and don't bottom them out (they're harder to bottom out than most switches, too). I don't know if lighter switches (which are likely going to be easier to bottom out) might be better for joints.
Can you still learn new subjects / fields ?