Cyanocrylate adhesives were accidently discovered in WW2 while trying to develop a clear plastic. Later Eastman-Kodak held the patent and then sold it to Loctite on the 1960s.
Loctite 404 is so much better than anything else available on the market. It bonds better, it's stronger, it lasts longer and the bottle applicator is more controlled and easier to use. If you want it to last years, you can actually store in in the refrigerator when not being used.
Ok, I know Lemmy doesn't have a spying algorithm like pretty much any other company's site, but it is a bit amazing that you brought that here just when I needed that product to glue a ceramic handle of a mug that I broke because of stupidity.
As you seem to know about the subject, may I ask if it is prudent to still use the mug in the microwave? (Usually I heat my coffee or water there), the handle looks very well attached and I have used it once to drink... With fear.
I don't know about the microwave. Heat actually breaks the bond for these kinds of adhesives, so if it isn't poisonous, it probably wouldn't work well for that anyway.
I much prefer super glue with the brush applicator, but I can't find it in the U.S. anymore. When I saw some on a trip to Portugal, I bought it and brought it home with me. I'll try refilling it when it's gone.
It's pretty weird to be basically shilling for brands in here but Nexcare bandages are superior to band-aids in pretty much every way; i agree that band-aids beat generic though
Can I make a plug for Curad bandaids? So much better than band aid brand and you can get all the available sizes in fun colors. I may be an adult, but I'd like a bright orange band-aid on my skinned elbow thank you
I'm both active and clumsy with DIY stuff. Nothing else sticks "right" like Band-Aid brand. Yes, the off-brand shit is cheaper, better than nothing, but it's shit. And you're not saving any money by using twice as many.
And serious y'all, let me preach the gospel of Hydro Seal Band Aids. Game changing. No clue how they work, but they stick, puff up around the wound (infected bit) and come off when, and only when, you want them to. And taking them off don't hurt a tiny bit. Got a few in every med kit.
Any more than a paper cut, Hydro Seal. And even then, if I want it healed fast? Hydro Seal. They're also great for capping torn fingernails when you fucked it up too far down.
Tried the generic Amazon version. Meh, they're OK for half the price, "healing" tech seems the same. Doesn't stick quite right so you'll use twice as many. Worth it if you want that painful finger wound done with in 24-48 hours.
Caveat: They work a little too well on puncture wounds, seals the infection in, only treats the top. If you got poked deep, and congrats if that's your thing, it seals off the wound and makes it worse. Surface wounds like slices and scratches, go for it. Punched a drill bit 1/4" deep? Nope. Clean that one up and let it breathe a bit.
tl;dr $.70 for a band aid sounds crazy. I know. Just try it for me. Try it for yourself.
I find the cloth generic band aids to be identical to brand name, the plastic one of any brand, well they're just crap and I don't know why the even exist.
What frozen pizza do you recommend? Every single time I have the misfortune of trying a frozen pizza, I regret my life choices because they taste like dogshit. Even the crappiest delivered pizza is way better than any frozen pizza I've tried. Granted, my experience is limited and I can never remember which ones I've tried.l
The problem with non-generic frozen pizza is they cost like a dollar less than a real pizza. Some of the fancier ones cost even more than a pizza from the place right next to the grocery store. Maybe I’m just blessed living in the pizza sphere but even the best frozen pizza is fucking disgusting next to even mediocre real pizza.
Choice Australia did a test of different washing liquid recently and found the Aldi stuff to be one of the best and a bunch of expensive brands to be no better than plain hot water.
Well Costco brand is absolutely shit. Smells horrrrrible. Bought it and did my best to convince myself it wasn’t that bad I’d just finish the bottle, ended up tossing the whole thing
Yeah you should let your stuff cool before washing it.. but how many of us do that?
I used to love putting hot pans in the sink with cool water. Loved the sizzle and steam it created, and it was faster than waiting for it to cool down.
Then I would complain about all my pans being cheap and warped. I couldn't cook evenly because there was one bulge that got direct contact with the oven and the rest of the pan rocked back and forth and either burned or undercooked all my food.
Until one day, my wife pointed out that putting a hot pan in cool/cold water causes them to warp. She got mad at me because some of the ruined pans were actually expensive quality brands. I've learned my lesson; no more hot pans in the sink for me. Let them cool a bit before you wash them.
Dawn Powerwash is pretty great for general cleaning too, not just dishes. It’s great at removing soap scum. You can technically DIY it with dish soap, isopropyl alcohol, water, and a spray bottle, but the bottles they sell last a while and are cheap.
That's not enough to do what powerwash does. Normal dishsoap has to maintain a consistency so certain additives are just not feasible. This allows powerwash to have a higher ph, stuff that goes after calcium deposits and stuff that hydrates stuck on food.
Personally I really really like powerwash but the amount of plastic it needs is too much for me. They did to come out with bulk refills.
SD cards, SSD, USB drives, any form of computer memory really and replacement batteries too eg for cameras.
I suck up the cost and buy directly from a reputable manufacturer.
There's nothing quite as frustrating as loosing photos and footage before it's been ingested. Always use name brand media and always duplicate it asap. Ask me how I know.
Agree for the expensive stuff, but started buying cheap usb sticks a few years back and yet to have one go bad. They aren't as quality as fidget toys, no moving parts, but they do the job they were made for, unless you drive over them with a car or something.
You shouldn't put cotton buds in your ears at all, honestly I don't know how an industry managed to trick so many people into doing something so potentially hazardous.
Huy Fong Sriracha. As the shortage has made painfully clear. When I dream at night, I'm eating food covered in sriracha and tinkering with my roomful of Raspberry Pi projects.
And don't talk to me about disgruntled pepper farmer rivalries or whatever bullshit. Just please give me back my sriracha. :(
Fuck Huy Fong Foods. Chinese-American businessman appropriates a traditional Thai sauce and uses marketing to brainwash the world into thinking they're the only ones that can make it. They tried to use their size to squeeze their longterm supplier and lost a $28 million judgement because they were objectively wrong as proven in a court of law.
They started their own shortage trying to fuck over farmers when they already had over $150 mil/year in sales and they deserve to die off.
The only meaningful impact we have against these predatory businesses is by voting with our dollars and if you cant give up a fuckin sauce that has hundreds of excellent options available from other companies then you are part of the problem.
I haven't seen a bottle in a grocery store in maybe two years? Your comment made me think maybe I just haven't looked hard enough, but I just checked my local Walmart delivery and Instacart and neither has Huy Fong Sriracha available anywhere nearby. I'm in Utah, U.S.
The owner of the company and the the farmer that exclusively sold to them began to feud. Then came a drought and the variety of pepper they use went off the market. They are recovering now and product is coming out in smaller batches but not at previous volume. It’s still really hard to find.
Their also (or at least used to) honor their warranty. I had problems with one of their knives several years after I bought it. It got replaced without a major hassle. Haven't had to use the warranty again in decades though, so it could be different now.
Had mine for over 20 years until it disappeared. Years later still no idea what happened to it. Only issue I had with it was the clock it had, broke halfway through owning it.
I can't agree with you more on this. I have used them for years, most recently got one with a scalloped side that fits in your hand so nicely. My son is a cub scout and just got one too, his first pocketknife.
Pretty much every signature soda drink. Pepsi, Coke, Mountain Dew... none of the knock-offs taste right and some are just nasty. Oddly, root beer seems to be the one flavor everyone can do well, maybe because it's a more common flavor with no patents on the general idea? I dunno but I don't think I've ever had a 'bad' root beer.
I actually prefer the heat of ginger beer, but since nobody makes an affordable version, I'll often settle for ginger ale. Between Verners and CD, I generally prefer Canada Dry. Verners has always seemed a bit too syrupy for my taste.
I actually prefer Royal Crown over Coke and Pepsi. It's not a generic, but it's not top-shelf either. It works out well with the sales at the Supermarket, too. Often they'll do a 12-pack mix-and-match with RC, Canada Dry, Squirt, etc. all very tasty sodas.
While I agree with this, the one except I've found is Sprite. Different genetics have different tastes but I've found I like my Kroger generic Sprite more than the name brand.
My dad always bought the no-name cookies for us, according to him every major brand had a deal with discount supermarkets to sell their brand name product under a cheaper no-name alias.
That might be true in some cases but the stuff he bought was mostly just cheap knock-offs that didn't even come close to the original.
This is true for household appliances, rather than letting the factories go idle during slow sales they pump out the same machine under "generic" brand names. QC isn't as stringent I suppose.
I honestly can't think of anything. I own many "name brand" products but it's usually a pay-once-cry-once situation. It's not like I keep buying more of the same product after I already have one.
For consumables pretty much every product I use is the generic version of some well known one. I'm not paying double the price for something that's 20% better. For example the generic version of my favourite cookies is 95 cents and the name brand is 3.4€. It's not that much better.
I've never heard this phrase, and I'm struggling to figure it out from context. Does it mean that you regret the purchase after finding out it's not as good as you thought, but then don't replace it with something better because you don't want to spend more?
I've only ever heard buy-once-cry-once and it's usually in the context of eating the bullet and paying more out of the gate for a good product that you know will last you years and years. Like a Miele vacuum or a kitchen aid dishwasher or something. Premium prices, but hopefully the only one you'll ever need for decades if you take care of it.
For consumables, I agree that generic almost always tastes nearly the same.
However, there are some snacks that the generic brands can't seem to get right for some reason. Generic Oreos? They taste great and almost exactly the same. Generic sour cream and cheddar potato chips? They taste like shit for some reason and I'm not sure why.
It actually has very little chocolate in it, that's why. It was made (i think) during WW2 when chocolate was in short supply, so they came up with a way to stretch it, by mixing a bunch of hazelnuts (and w/e else is in there) with it.
The Kirklands one is good, but doesn’t hold an emulsion. And trying to stir a 3000 litre tub of “hazelnut spread” to re-emulsify it isn’t on my list of desirable morning activities.
The liquid gels are so profoundly better than the other types of pills that I've stopped purchasing any other brands or kinds of ibuprofen forever. Liquigels are the GOAT
I take Advil Cold and Sinus to help me breathe. LOL, the brand name certainly has a sweet coating vs. the generic! No difference in effect, and it's not like I'm chewing it up first.
Coffee. I found a coffee shop I loved 20 years ago and have been buying beans from them ever since. Sure, it's 2x-3x times more expensive, but it's worth it to me.
Toothpaste. I have sensitive teeth and the off brands just don't cut it. Heck, some of the name brands don't.
3d printing filament. Printed Solid named their line after their dog, so I have to. I will still branch out for stuff on sale, but the majority of my stock is Printed Solid.
Any tips for the toothpaste? For me I have to get the sensitive ones because they put a shit ton of menthol in the non sensitive ones and it knocks the feel of my mouth out of balanace (read: too damn minty)
I have found the natural mineral toothpaste tends to work best but unsure if the lack of flouride can be an issue. Had some lovely lemony ones though. Bicarb can go suck it.
Fluoridex. Prescription-only and pricey (~$17 per tube) but worth it. My dentist prescribes it and also sells it from his office for a bit less than what drug stores charge. Health or dental insurance may cover it but probably not.
Growing up I always saw kids in American shows/movies enj it so I assumed it was delicious. I was 10 when the finally began selling it here, my parents were also curious so they bought enough for 5 people. IT TASTES LIKE VOMIT. My parents never bought it again. 12 years later my sister bought it again because she didn't remember the taste and I gave a try again because I thought maybe just maybe I would like it better since my tastes hace changed, AND IT STILL TASTES LIKE VOMIT. so we ended up making our own with real cheese and pasta and it was actually cheaper than the boxed crap
I had the exact same experience when they first started selling pop tarts here. I guess american nostalgia food only tastes good when you actually grow up with it. Even grilled cheese tasted only ok to me
Epicurious put out a fun video last week having a few chefs compare boxed mac and cheese products. You might find it interesting https://youtu.be/uambW2W6zmQ
I prefer Velveeta shells and cheese to all the other boxed Mac and cheese dinners. That said, if I have someone to act as a dishwasher, I will make a banging baked Mac and cheese that blows any box out of the water. I don't mind the cooking, or prep. Cleanup is always a chore.
Well I mean it's hard to compare. Homemade is clearly on another level. The boxed stuff is a very quick meal to put together out of the box. Homemade takes a while to do properly. I almost see them as like different foods.
Most foods. Store brands are (nearly) always lacking in something. Be it tiny sized canned beans, or jam whose only flavour is ‘sweet’. That shit is cheap for a reason.
Doesn’t apply to everything (depending on where you live), some things you can’t cut corners on without advertising it. 2% Milk is 2% milk.
But largely, low cost food has been made low cost via haircuts and shortcuts.
Knew a fellow that worked for a food company - juices, nectars, preserved fruits, jams and compotes, baked goods with fruit, etc - that has a name brand. Most of the production is exported for so called "premium markets".
The largest supermarket chain here aproaches the company to have a few products made under their label. Not waterdowned versions of their recipes but completely new recipes or variations on the producers recipes.
Final product is as expensive or more to produce than name brand, which implies lower margins but still good money.
Supermarket product is not a waterdowned version but a completely separate product. If the end product is garbage, the supermarket gets the bad record.
I was comparing frozen diced veggies a couple of years back (in Australia) and noticed that the store-brand version was approximately 1/3 broccoli stems by volume, which certainly explained the cost difference.
There was a big scandal in canada a few years ago in cananda where heinz moved its ketchup manufacturing from Canada to the US. Many people switched to french's, a lot of people seemed to prefer french's. I'm not sure if it was the boycott but heinz eventually returned to Canada.
Honestly most of the products I buy are perfectly fine store brand
I'll never cut corners on toilet paper though, I buy a specific brand and specific kind. I was homeless for nearly a decade and the only toilet paper I could use in that time was what was available in public restrooms. I like the brand I get now and you'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands before I part with it.
I hear you. I buy good toilet paper that's 2 ply and sturdy. Not only that, I buy it by the case in bulk on Amazon. My wife makes fun of me for having so much, but it's something that will always get used, and it's not going to spoil or go stale before it does.
(I'd also like to mention how much I love my bidet. If you haven't, you should try one. It'll change your life!)
Bahlsen Schoko-leibniz. The store brand ones don't have nearly as nice chocolate.
Conversely, after eights are garbage and the supermarket version comes with nicely tempered chocolate that does a very satisfying crackle when you bite.
This has become a rarity for me but I don't like any french onion dip other than Dean's French onion dip.
I don't eat it very often because my tastes have changed but if I had to go to the store and buy some right now if they didn't have deans I wouldn't get it.
DeWalt and Milwaukee. Milwaukee doesn't last long but with their lifetime warranty I basically start every other project with a new set of tools so w/e
doesn't really need to be brand specific... We just don't go for the generic versions of any of these items. Like energizer or duracell, doesn't matter, but cheap ones included with a remote absolutely not. same for tampons. the generic versions all use cardboard, not plastic, so they're painful. toilet paper and paper towels, once again, the generic versions are all bad, none of the name brand ones are bad.
I use ikea rechargeable batteries for my Xbox controller and Panasonic or Samsung 18650 batteries for my flashlights. Most stuff I use rechargeables for, but when you’re camping you often want backups that aren’t rechargeable.
Interesting. In the USA, it’s nearly impossible to get a brand name drug approved by insurance unless you have a serious reaction to the generic version
Huh? Lol most birth control I've ever used or seen my friends use has been generic? Name brand is much more expensive and sometimes not entirely covered by insurance. Excepting IUDS.
Oh I get both. Sometimes I want fine salt and sometimes I want kosher salt. I even have a third one, french sea salt which comes in big irregular chunks. Good stuff. Don't ever trust someone who says salt is all the same. 🧂🌈
oh I'm sure it does but in my experience tea and coffee are the only products where you can cut corners by reducing costs of production and it's actually tangible, and not merely abstract like removing brand name logo from the box
Milk. Great Value’s brand just tastes so darned awful for some reason I can’t place. I live in the midwest, and Prairie Farms is pretty common as a brand here.
There are some others, many dairy products now that I think about it, but there’s also some medicines like Mucinex which I prefer to use over generic brands. I’m otherwise not very picky.
Here in the South the store brands are coming from the same processor as the ones that cost 3x. Check the codes by the date that are used for traceability.
I've tried a lot of generic ibuprofen meds (E: including gel ones) but nothing acts both as fast and effectively as advil gel pills. It very well may be a placebo, but I don't really care so long as it works.
Can agree with the gel pills. I still do go for the normal compacted powder pills if I'm not doing much, but for a faster set-in the advil gel works the fastest.
I've never seen it. I struggle to believe it's better than DIY with a container of sour cream + one of the Hidden Valley Ranch packets. That's the true ranch dip of the gods.
Interestingly, I learned how to make ranch dressing from scratch a few years ago. I always have the ingredients on hand, so I can make ranch dressing whenever I want.
The proportions are NOT super important. At least 1 teaspoon of each of the main dry ingredients but you can use more if you want.
Shave gel. Some soaps. Some said Old Baby Bay seasoning and I am 100% behind them on that. Toilet paper. Menstrual pads. Ritz crackers (the consistency, the flavour, the texture/mouth feel). Certain electronics. Definitely tools (I've broken so many pairs of diagonal side cutters and the ones that have held up the best and had the best warranty are knipex). And yeah. I buy Advil (the candy coating makes it easier for me to swallow dry and I'm pretty prone to need it for lots of pains because I'm basically a walking talking broken vessel).
All the generics are awful in taste or consistency (for instance not being as finely ground it seems). And weirdly in Kirkland Signature's case, foamy.
Stupid expensive for what it is. But the effect is worth it.
Ivan is clearly joking, but for those that don't know, condoms DO expire, and will be more likely to break the more times passes. Similarly, doubling condoms makes them more likely to break.
Legit 3M command hooks are the shit. 3M products seem to be like that. Yeah, more expensive, but always worth it. Nice to see a company stay focused on quality vs. last quarter's spreadsheets.
I think it's more likely that the consistent quality is a side bonus from most of 3M's customers being other corporations, not individual consumers
If 3M only sold painter's tape to the public, most of the public will buy it whether it's crap or not because most of the public only needs to put up with painter's tape occasionally
However if a large commercial real estate company who goes through palettes of painters tape suddenly has to start ordering 1.5x as many palettes because some of the tape is defective, they'll threaten 3M with cancelling a multi-million-dollar contract that will hurt 3M's quarterly spreadsheets.
That is until inevitably someone at 3M gets the idea to start producing a cheaper "consumer grade" painters tape and then everyone who doesn't have a relative in building maintenance who can swipe a pro grade roll for you is SOL
Dude, 3M Extreme Mounting Tape is the stuff. I bought a portable CarPlay unit for my work vehicle, and I mounted it on the dash with the included mounting tape. It didn't stay up there a day before it was falling off anytime I hit a bump. I went to Lowe's and got some Extreme Mounting Tape and put it on, and it doesn't move. AT ALL. The one time I had to take it off, I thought I was gonna pull parts of the dash off with the tape! I live in the south, and not even the summer heat affects it.
I always preferred Seagate spinning steel over Western Digital. I've had some WD drives fail horribly, unexpectedly and very prematurely on me. My PC today still has some Seagate HDDs in it that are approaching 15 years of age.
I had the opposite experience. Though 15 years ago was around the time I worked at a computer shop and I recall quality between the two comps flip flopping. On a side note, that was also the era of Asus capacitors failing at a surprisingly high rate.
The problem I keep running into with cottage cheese is finding large curd. I went to the supermarket today and only managed to swipe one off of the restocking cart. There wasn't a single container on the shelf. I'm just not a fan of the smooth texture of the small curd, might as well eat ricotta.
I've never had trouble with off-brand SOS pads. But damn, shitty off-brand scotch tape? Yeah that stuff sucks. You have to watch cheap masking tape too. Some of them leave horrible residue behind.
That's interesting because Hanes is a "cheap" brand to me. I've never had socks that properly fit my feet my entire life and recently I treated myself to some Feetures and holy shit I'll never wear another brand of socks again.
Yeah, I don't pretend that they're premium socks or anything, they're just not the generic socks that're like, "value premium" or whatever store brand sock. Or even just the unlabeled.
VH soy sauce over store brand. Has to be. VH is king, store brand is so bad it doesn't even count as soy sauce, and I'm a broke dude who buys store brand everything possible. Also mini-wheats, store brand mini wheats are terrible. Other store brand cereals are good but with mini-wheats they dropped the ball.
Hair and skincare, especially since it's not even more expensive if I buy from a local store that sells those products in bulk.
I usually actually prefer the local knockoffs, it's usually better and uses locally sourced ingredients. Like soft drinks from the US taste sickeningly sweet and I really don't like them but there are plenty of locally made soft drinks that are great.
White Rain and V05 shampoo/conditioner products can go to hell. I end up buying Suave because it's at least a step above them. Everytime I used White Rain or V05, my hair is 'clean' but it feels greasy just using them, like I hadn't showered.