my favorite feature is that it’s a smart device—you connect it with your phone via proprietary app and it tells you the temperature of your counter top. Also for a low monthly subscription fee it will also recite the screen play of a random episode of friends in 4 languages simultaneously, none of which are English, Spanish, Arabic, or Mandarin.
Man I really hope that app requires an active internet connection and a registered account. And it would be real nice if the app wasn’t optimized at all and support would end after 3 updates.
‘Bro, my steel cube is now just a useless brick’
If you dont pay the subsciption it immediately gets rusty
Look, just because Elon Musk can’t choose an alloy properly doesn’t mean nobody can do it. Hell, even DeLorean managed it, and he was dealing with both cocaine and the Troubles at the same time!
Love the proprietary app! I spent several months cobbling together a bunch of Docker containers that each apply a bundle of hacks I built through reverse engineering! Now I can control it via Home Assistant but I hope some guy that built one of the Docker images doesn’t disappear in six months when the manufacturer completely wrecks all our work with an API update!
You could try the redneck thing. That’s where you gut all the circuitry, make it so there’s exposed wires everywhere and every time you want to use it, touch whichever wires together. If you get it wrong it catches on fire but at least there’s no longer a username and password.
I love the live location feature, so that I never lose track of my kitchen cube. You can see where it is and how it’s doing even from remote. Always have an eye on my cube when at work.
Obviously the languages are Estonian, Finnish, Latvian and Lithuanian.
Except for the Finnish + Baltic region, where the languages are actually Tagalog, Swahili, Navajo and the most popular option, x86 assembly for outputting the text of the episode in Haitian Creole. The latter is the most popular because of how insanely fast they have to speak.
Oh, I know this one, Estonia is that country next to Italy, right?
I just know that their military has the best MREs.
Personally, I’m a fan of the rumble notification feature. Pair it with your phone and it’ll rumble in response to a random notification on your phone at least once a day. Best part is: it kinda shakes the whole house and will sometimes shuffle itself into the floor so you can’t ignore it! Yeah, I’ve had to replace some tile, but it’s totally worth it.
Being able to report the temperature is way too useful for a useless steel block. I’d pay $10/month for a block that truly does nothing.
Please tell me it scrobbles…
Apple industrial designers would totally buy it
Elon would manufacture it.
And it would rust, fall apart, and explode.
And it’d require you to solve 20 captchas in order to use it.
Source: me, I tried to create a Twitter account.
Well, there’s your problem.
Honest question: why would you even try to do that nowadays?
I wanted to check out accounts of some journalists and organizations I used to follow, and that is a bit pain in the ass with restrictions that Twitter imposes for guests. But of course I didn’t solve 20 captchas just for that. I probably got this treatment because my browser was LibreWolf. It triggers extra anti-bot protections on some websites.
I tried to make a microsoft account on goddamn google chrome on android and got this treatment.
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Maybe? Honestly, I didn’t want to be there that much to think about workarounds. I still find this crazy.
So would my wife if they came in colors.
Assuming that the 80-pound (36.3 kg) stainless steel block is a solid cube, its side length would only be 16.6 cm (6.5 inches). (The density of the most common stainless steel (304) is 7930 kg/m^3.) Not nearly as big as the picture suggests. Still, it seems like it would be an awesome addition to my kitchen.
Considering the downward trend of quality in home appliances, it makes even more sense that it’s not even solid metal.
Nor stainless just a thin film
Well it does make more sense for it to be filled with something else, but then I wouldn’t want to buy it. One can dream…
Maybe it’s filled with the same stuff as Happy Fun Ball?
That ball seems dangerous af
It’s a polymer shell filled with sand and stainless steel cover on 5 sides.
It’s just not solid metal. These things are overpriced pieces of shit. I know because I used to have one. Anytime there’s a “chip shortage” these things are always marked up to be 2x as expensive too.
I think in this day and age the best way to waste counter space is to use newspaper and dirty dishes like our great grandparents used to do.
Didn’t say that it’s solid
Modern appliances just aren’t as good. Check with Goodwill, or yard/estate sales. You can pick up a vintage kitchen cube that works just as well for pennies on the dollar, and it will outlast you.
I still have my great grandma’s cast iron kitchen cube that she brought over from the old country.
I can’t even describe what that thing can do with pork chops.
I prefer carbon steel cubes myself but cast iron is nice too.
Because you are not accounting for inflation. A modern kitchen cube made in the same quality as a vintage cube would cost one cubic meter of pennies.
I bought one of these when they first came out and they’re a piece of shit. It stopped working just a little bit after the warranty expired.
this is fucking hilarious. it’s exactly as functional as the gigantic kitchenaid mixer that my housemate INSISTS that it stay on the kitchen counter even though it hasn’t been used in 5+ years. apparently for some people it’s absolutely imperative that anyone who happens to come to the house MUST be made aware that we have a fucking kitchenaid mixer
Could be worse. You can get a cozy for these things which makes it even more pointless.
No shit. My mom got a kitchen aid from my aunt and it has day unused under a hideous floral pattern dust cover because it was white and not pink like she wanted.
Next to the unused bread machine which is next to the George Foreman grill which is next to the panini press…
LOL no way… there really is a sucker born every minute
I had an ex who insisted on this setup. Apparently Kitchenaid has somehow been able to convince people this is an decorative status symbol. As an appliance I’ve never seen one in action and I’ve seen many of them.
decorative status symbol
Of course it is. That’s why it comes in so many color options. Including “limited edition” ones which I find equal parts hilarious and infuriating.
Anyway, Smeg probably holds the crown for that sort of thing currently. Check this out. Notice that they won’t even show you the price at first. That’s because it’s got a UMRP of $2000.
it does the same thing you would normally do with your hands, except it takes 50 times longer
Have you tried plugging it in first? Machine kneading is usually faster than hand kneading.
My 50 year old Kenwood mixer stays on the counter for one reason only and that’s because it’s too goddamn heavy to be lifting back and forth. Also I sometimes get inspired to bake just from seeing it on the counter, which is a nice plus.
Must assert dumbinance
Reminds me of the reployer from Prey. Every office has one of these machines but seemingly no one knows what they actually do - not even engineers.
such a great underrated game. the true successor to system shock 2 that bioshock attempted
wtf. My last office job had 2 of these, I never thought about it before. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone use them but some corporate maintenence guy would come inspect them twice a year.
IKEA version takes up same amount o counterf space, but the core is made of cardboard, so lightweight!
10/10 for functionality, it does exactly what it’s supposed to, and it does it well.
Highly recommended.does it come in red?
No, only slate and graphite
Oh my god do they make it in that 60s sage color?
They do but it’s always sold out
No
moans in machinist
1551 stainless
Like… Maybe a 17cm side cube… I would cast it and just finished it on my old manual milling machine
The exact dimensions of an 80-pound stainless steel block would depend on its specific shape. However, we can estimate its size based on the density of stainless steel, which is around 490 lbs per cubic foot (lb/ft³). To find the volume of the block, we can divide its weight (80 lbs) by its density (490 lb/ft³):
Volume = Weight / Density. Volume = 80 lbs / 490 lb/ft³. Volume ≈ 0.16 cubic feet (ft³).
Since we don’t have a specific shape for the block, let’s assume it’s a cube for simplicity. To calculate the side length of a cube with a volume of 0.16 ft³, we can take the cube root of the volume:
Side length = ³√Volume.
Side length = ³√0.16 ft³.
Side length ≈ 0.54 ft (or about 6.5 inches).Therefore, an 80-pound stainless steel block shaped like a cube would have sides measuring around 6.5 inches each.
I just assumed it was hollow
Well fuck you.
Edit: Sorry. That makes sense, I just was thinking about that tiny heavy cube you can buy that’s like the densest cube of metal and I wanted to get the math done because it was ENTIRELY too big in the photo in my estimation, and why would it be hollow? To take up more space sure but it would dent and be so much harder to produce but I GUESS I get it. UGH
Didn’t feel like doing the math for a hollow one myself so I asked bing to do it for me assuming it was about 10 inches in diameter (that’s what I guessed from the photo because it looked to be approximately as wide as one burner(?) it’d be 72% hollow
Why are you not the only person who did the math? Also, it’s not solid.
What’s wrong with the math? Looks pretty solid to me.
“Capitalism breeds innovation”. An economic system where “form” comes first than “function”
This is why too convenient. You can still place stuff on top of it
Look at me the millionaire with tons of space between the countertop and cabinets