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Absolutely nothing! At some point I had this naive idea that we could use the brand name to help distinguish a high quality, trustworthy product made by people with a stake in the company from one which would break down immediately, completely lack support, or be made by quasi-slaves in some industrial hellhole. For example I would have thought a $30 Stanley tape measure would be higher quality than a $6 Save-T branded one because Stanley is a well known brand and Save-T is just the store brand junk. Then I had a friend working as a design engineer at a well regarded hand tool manufacturer, not to be named, who showed me how all of their products were just generic Chinese made tools with the company's "trusted" brand stamped on them. So I've been looking into the brands behind any product I'm thinking of buying and the results are pretty interesting and not a little depressing. Let's have a thread to discuss what goons have found or know about brands, be it positive, negative, or just weird. Here are some examples of brands that I've run across lately which I previously had a generally good impression of but which, after some research, turn out to no longer mean much. OXO - Famous for comfortable kitchen tools. Started as a name on a particularly ergonomic potato peeler (actually sort of an interesting story) but has now been applied to literally everything. From my coffee grinder to my rolling pin to my shower drain cover it seems like my whole house is branded as Oxo. So what is Oxo? Well it appears to be just a label for generic sourced junk which is now owned by a wig shop from Texas (I poo poo you not) that has metastasized into some kind of capitalist grey goo that roams the US absorbing brands. Said wig shop also makes PUR water filters, Hydroflask, Pert (the shampoo, no word about Pert+), and humidifiers under the Honeywell brand. It's hard to believe any of the random garbage under these brands is worth buying. Volvo Cars - Automobile brand famous for safety and awesome boxy wagons. Now applied to cars made by Geely, a Chinese auto manufacturer famous for cars that fold up like a box of saltine crackers in an accident. Might want to think twice about buying one of these if you care about safety or reliability. Jaguar Cars - Formerly a British luxury vehicle brand famous for nice looking and decently performing cars which might or might not burn down when you weren't looking at them. Now made by a company started for the purposes of trading opium which is most famous for producing golf carts that approximate cars. Said golf cart manufacturer also produces Land Rover branded automobiles so it's probably worth keeping back several yards if you see a Jaguar or Land Rover in traffic. Arc'teryx - Formerly a well regarded Candian producer of incredibly expensive but generally high quality winter clothing. Now made by Anta Sports, a Chinese company that started out as a minor manufacturer of badminton shoes but mysteriously found enough cash to buy not only Arc'teryx but also Wilson (the tennis equipment brand), Louisville Slugger (the home defense brand), and Fila (the Italian fashion shoe brand). Arc'teryx' incredibly expensive clothing is now manufactured in generic factories in third world countries. Is it really worth $700 for a light jacket manufactured in the third world with the proceeds going to what is likely an arm of the Chinese government? Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, IZOD, Arrow, Warner's, Olga, True & Co., Geoffrey Beene, BCBG Max Azria, Chaps, Sean John, Kenneth Cole New York, JOE Joseph Abboud, Speedo (North America), and Michael Kors - I again poo poo you not that all of these brands are owned by the same company (PVH), which also made the lovely Trump branded suits. Steer clear of this generic garbage sourced from sweatshops. Also interesting - and a fun activity for people who like to do research Every brand on Amazon - Have you ever searched for something on Amazon and the results are polluted with products sold by hundreds of generic brands with all caps names? Try to find out any information about one of these brands and you'll either find the same product for sale for $2 on Ali Express or you'll find the company in the defendants section of a California prop 65 filing with an address listed as a house somewhere. It's hard to imagine trusting any of this garbage. So goons, do you have any brands you know to suck despite their generally good image or brands which are actually awesome and employ decently paid workers to produce high quality products? Post them here!
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Jan 24, 2020 05:16
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7H-_8UkmFUquote:Over the past 5 years, Luxottica, the world’s largest corporate player in the eyeglasses industry, steadily bought up other companies. Today, the company owns 30 different brands of frames, including Anne Klein, Burberry, DKNY, Oakley, Polo, Ralph Lauren, Ray-Ban, Versace and Vogue. It also controls retail shops, including LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical and Target Optical. And it owns the EyeMed Vision Care group, a vision insurance company. It makes its frames in company-owned plants in China and Italy and sells them in about 130 countries, so it’s no surprise that Luxottica also owns China’s Modern Sight Optics, a leading Chinese optical retailer. 7of7 posted:OXO - Famous for comfortable kitchen tools. Started as a name on a particularly ergonomic potato peeler (actually sort of an interesting story) but has now been applied to literally everything. From my coffee grinder to my rolling pin to my shower drain cover it seems like my whole house is branded as Oxo. So what is Oxo? Well it appears to be just a label for generic sourced junk which is now owned by a wig shop from Texas (I poo poo you not) that has metastasized into some kind of capitalist grey goo that roams the US absorbing brands. Said wig shop also makes PUR water filters, Hydroflask, Pert (the shampoo, no word about Pert+), and humidifiers under the Honeywell brand. It's hard to believe any of the random garbage under these brands is worth buying.  quote:The logo is kinda fun. OXO. It’s kind of an abstraction of a face, with the eyes and nose. Sam liked that name. He came up with that name because he liked O, X, and O. Copco had a lot of Os. The reason he liked Cs, Os, and Xs is you could read them upside down, backwards, whatever. Of course no one knows how to pronounce it. They call it “oh ex oh,” not “ox-oh.” What an original logo he created in 1990.....  quote:In 1840 a German chemist named Baron Justus von Liebig invented meat extract. Shortly after, OXO was born. Shut up Meg has a new favorite as of 13:13 on Jan 24, 2020 |
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Jan 24, 2020 13:04
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New thread sticky! 7of7, you might also enjoy the Companies circling the drain thread 
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Jan 25, 2020 04:58
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Walgreens rubbing alcohol sent me to the hospital when I mixed it with orange juice. Radio Shack isopropyl alcohol got me where I was going in no time when I mixed it with alcohol. Brands matter, they are a sign of quality and respect. Respect yourself. Respect your body.
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Jan 25, 2020 06:53
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Every brand of 100% Silicone, you know the stuff you use to seal in bathrooms, is all made in the same plant complex in China. Brands dont matter on stuff that is chemically required to be identical.
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Jan 26, 2020 15:56
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:New thread sticky! 7of7, you might also enjoy the Companies circling the drain thread Seems a shame that something with such a good effort post for the OP isn't generating more interest.
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Jan 27, 2020 01:39
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:New thread sticky! 7of7, you might also enjoy the Companies circling the drain thread That thread is great! And it's at least partially an inspiration for this one. That thread's favorite subject Sears is related to lots of great brand stories like Craftsman, Whirlpool, and of course Sears itself. Craftsman - Hand and other tool brand name originally purchased by Sears in the late 1920s. You'd think this would be a similar story to the others where its tools were made in the US until Sears was destroyed by a particular virulent financier, as thoroughly documented in the companies circling the drain thread. However, ironically the brand never made its own tools. They have been made by all sorts of other manufacturers both in the US and abroad. In fact where the tools were made could even depend on where you purchased them. The brand meant less than nothing in the past. Stanley Black & Decker purchased the Craftsman name from Sears in 2017 and is actually building a plant in Ft Worth Texas to produce tools. Of course Sears's zombie carcass is still shambling along and was sued by SBD for launching a new line of Craftsman branded tools with an ad campaign implying Sears is the only place to buy "real" Craftsman tools. 7of7 has a new favorite as of 03:29 on Jan 27, 2020 |
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Jan 27, 2020 03:20
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Literally almost every single power tool brand. A lot of them started as seriously quality, incredibly durable stuff for reasonable prices but in the 80s with the rise of outsourcing, the beginning of the era of the generic chinese plant, advances in material science, and the suits realizing theres mega bucks to be made on name brand premiums and lowered durability (so people buy more ya see) nearly every single tool brand went to poo poo. Parts that were forged are now sintered, gears are now nylon, sometimes not even reinforced nylon, the only major difference is in battery and electric motor tech where you can now find a cordless rattle gun with a three phase brushless DC motor that could right well twist your arm right the gently caress off where before cordless tools could barely drill into a 2x4 without the battery dying and weighed two metric tons because of the NiMH batteries. Theres still good stuff being put out but thats become incredibly pricey, and the good stuff is all being sold to companies who require things to be certified and guaranteed for a certain lifetime so they can beancount more accurately. Industrial and project tool runoff are a great place to find some deals on some very good tools (and some niche stuff youd never find in a store), just make sure you get there before the refurbishers/resellers. Or you could go to yard sale/thrift shop/flea market and nose around for some old snap-ons. Rigged Death Trap has a new favorite as of 08:13 on Jan 27, 2020 |
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Jan 27, 2020 07:51
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Seriously Black & Decker is the Krusty the Klown of power tools, the brand only survived because of cheap rear end boomers with brand loyalty, when I worked for Sears in the mid 2000s drat near everything B&D sold came back as a return in 3 days because it broke. Dusting the displays for the expensive stuff that no one bought was how I'd kill time in between napping in the bathroom and napping on the shelf behind the paint inventory when the store hadn't had a paint department since Clinton's first term.
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Jan 28, 2020 03:52
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7of7 posted:OXO - Famous for comfortable kitchen tools. Started as a name on a particularly ergonomic potato peeler (actually sort of an interesting story) but has now been applied to literally everything. From my coffee grinder to my rolling pin to my shower drain cover it seems like my whole house is branded as Oxo. So what is Oxo? Well it appears to be just a label for generic sourced junk which is now owned by a wig shop from Texas (I poo poo you not) that has metastasized into some kind of capitalist grey goo that roams the US absorbing brands. Said wig shop also makes PUR water filters, Hydroflask, Pert (the shampoo, no word about Pert+), and humidifiers under the Honeywell brand. It's hard to believe any of the random garbage under these brands is worth buying. 
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Jan 29, 2020 16:18
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My wife and I are usually not ones for fast food but go to Chipotle if we are traveling and need to eat in a hurry. I love tacos and thought they had good options and sourcing and generally were pretty fair. I found myself getting excited to eat there. Why not? I like feeling good about the food I eat. Then I read poo poo like this! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/business/chipotle-child-labor-laws-massachusetts.html
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Jan 29, 2020 16:20
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The Wikipedia page on Grundig says it was sold to a Turkish company in 2007, but I think something happened after that still. You can now find the name on the cheapest garbage trinkets like dollar store flashlights and batteries of abominable quality. The name still had some lingering standing here in Europe at least, but someone has been milking that for all is worth in the worst possible way.
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Jan 29, 2020 16:34
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Twobirds posted:My wife and I are usually not ones for fast food but go to Chipotle if we are traveling and need to eat in a hurry. I love tacos and thought they had good options and sourcing and generally were pretty fair. I found myself getting excited to eat there. Why not? I like feeling good about the food I eat. Chipotle has also poisoned almost a thousand people across multiple states, including Ohio, Delaware, California, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and yes, even Massachusetts. The child labor is pretty much the least bad thing the company has done over the last five years.
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Jan 30, 2020 14:41
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Sounds like corpoations are using brands correctly. Make a good product, sell it at a fair price, build up the brand through satisfied word-of-mouth, then cash out for a bundle of cash that ensures your grandchildren will never have to work. That's what it's all about.
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Jan 30, 2020 15:05
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7of7 posted:Volvo Cars - Automobile brand famous for safety and awesome boxy wagons. Now applied to cars made by Geely, a Chinese auto manufacturer famous for cars that fold up like a box of saltine crackers in an accident. Might want to think twice about buying one of these if you care about safety or reliability. Tiny Tubesteak Tom posted:Chipotle has also poisoned almost a thousand people across multiple states, including Ohio, Delaware, California, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and yes, even Massachusetts. The child labor is pretty much the least bad thing the company has done over the last five years.
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Jan 30, 2020 23:04
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Oh, also, gently caress WalMart. Instead of acting like people with basic human decency after the 2012 factory fire in Bangladesh that burned 112 people to death and injured many more, they sent They could also raise their minimum pay rate to the mid $20/hr range and come out on top because increased employee spending on things they would otherwise buy elsewhere
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Jan 30, 2020 23:17
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GWBBQ posted:raise their minimum pay rate to the mid $20/hr range When the cashiers can't even do simple mental math to make change why would you pay them 50k a year.
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Jan 31, 2020 00:20
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Really makes you think. Should people really be able to survive on their salary? I think only bullshit management jobs should be paid well, anything actually useful to society needs to be at poverty wages.
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Jan 31, 2020 02:21
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GWBBQ posted:They still have to pass safety tests in the US, so watch those NHTSA ratings. As of 2016 (I know off the top of my head because my brother bought an s60 last year) they were 5 star safety ratings all around. As for Volvo/Jaguar/Land-Range rover Their new owners have little to gently caress all to their actual process except demanding they perform well. There havent been any el cheapo shitbox branded as any of those brands yet. The major difference with car brands is you need the brand name to remain 'respected', and since cars are big purchases (often an emotional one) you have to keep that brand name strong. There is no quick cash out as with tools, kitchenware and lesser valued commodities, because the margins are lower and its very VERY hard to shift an overstock of cars. Volvo built its reputation on making safe cars, you better drat sure keep making safe cars if you want to continue making money.
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Jan 31, 2020 10:45
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GWBBQ posted:I just completely avoid anything where organic is a selling point. Willfully rejecting hundreds of years of science is not a good thing. There are reasons to follow “organic” that aren’t a fear of science, but rather a reaction to GMOs role in patent law and “unpatented”/“open-source” isn’t a selling point I often see on food. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto-sues-farmers-seed-patents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co.
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Jan 31, 2020 11:01
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Not sure if this belongs here? Anyhow here is my low effort post So, tattoo artist Kat von D had a branded makeup line with Sephora for over a decade, and recently, she stepped away to “focus on her shoe line.” However, this is the cosmetics industry. KVD didn’t step away from her decently regarded makeup line for…a shoe line. There’s just a liiiiiitle bit more to this shake up. Well, before the KVD Makeup line, KVD has had some run ins with a little thing called neo-Nazism. For starters, there was her dating Jesse James, Sandra Bullock’s ex, who has been pictured in Nazi garb, the “Burn in hell Jewbag” incident, her Facebook video promoting her veganism by….comparing factory farming to the Holocaust (which had a Holocaust survivor in the video, so it’s kind of a weird situation), and, oh, her current husband, who has an interesting tattoo! quote:I always loved the symbolism behind history and religions, always looked for their real meanings: for example, I have a Star of David tattooed on me but I’m not Jewish and a swastika on my throat, but it’s not a political one. If you are not going deep into their meanings you could be misunderstood…the Star of David is the union of one pyramid going up and one going down, and it represents the union of male and female. What happens when they come together? They create life, so this is also the OHM, a symbol for life, and together there's also a pentagram, that stands for mind and empowerment. I just put them all together and without even thinking I was creating my own sigils already. I give them an identity; together they became something that makes sense to me.” Another key quote from her husband quote:Even the music is sometimes hard to sing. It’s a lot of hurt, every time I got to sing those loving songs like “Love Is the Enemy,” “Friends Are Poison,” even “Young Gods” [where I say,] “Deceived by my own so they could gently caress my daughter.” I’m talking about the guys that were supposed to be my friends. We were supposed to be having each other’s back, and they were loving my daughter. I just finally saw my daughter a couple of days ago; I hadn’t seen her in four years because of what she did to me and how she hurt me and betrayed me. Weirdly missing: his daughter was fourteen at the time. Strange bedfellows KVD keeps. Back to KVD, and more importantly, that makeup brand of hers. She’s had a few choice uh, names for her products like a collection named Lolita, or a lipstick named…Selektion Oh, and she didn’t really have the best marketing team either And the cherry on top of this disaster sundae: KVD had a kid recently. And was drat set on not vaccinating him. She later recanted, in a loving youtube video, but the damage was done, and it wasn’t the loving measles. Delegated to an eternal shelf on TJ Maxx, people stopped buying her poo poo. And what the real shame is that her makeup line was highly regarded for being pretty top notch and at an accessible price point, especially for Sephora (or TJ Maxx six months later). But your regular degular consumer had enough…and now, its onto shoes for KVD. But as for the brand, it lives on. Now, as KVD Beauty, which she earns no profit from, and merely bears her initials...sort of. What does it stand for now, if not for Kat von D? Why, according to brand owner, Kendo, it stands for…  Since this just happened like, a week or so ago, I guess us cake faced beauty lovers will have to wait for the future of KV(B?)D (and DG). Any other stories of a brand’s public “face” kind of destroying the brand itself? The cosmetics and beauty industry has maaaaaaany examples (Brandon Trueaxe, Jeffree Star, Jerrod Blandino kind of, arguably Norovina).
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Jan 31, 2020 15:12
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teen witch posted:Any other stories of a brand’s public “face” kind of destroying the brand itself? The cosmetics and beauty industry has maaaaaaany examples (Brandon Trueaxe, Jeffree Star, Jerrod Blandino kind of, arguably Norovina). I think Papa Johns is pretty much the definition of this.
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Jan 31, 2020 15:28
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teen witch posted:And what the real shame is that her makeup line was highly regarded for being pretty top notch and at an accessible price point, especially for Sephora (or TJ Maxx six months later). But your regular degular consumer had enough…and now, its onto shoes for KVD. I have a few cosplayer friends and this is what they've all said too. It's great stuff for the price point but they feel terrible recommending it because of her. I guess this is good news for them though.
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Jan 31, 2020 15:46
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teen witch posted:Any other stories of a brand’s public “face” kind of destroying the brand itself? The cosmetics and beauty industry has maaaaaaany examples (Brandon Trueaxe, Jeffree Star, Jerrod Blandino kind of, arguably Norovina). Ivanka Trump, and really the general Trump brand. Not that people thought it was a quality product or whatever, but now it's actively repellent. Unreleated: Planters killed off Mr. Peanut on twitter as a marketing stunt to set up their Super Bowl ad and then Kobe died and so they had to cancel it. Millions of dollars down the drain, so basically like every big Super Bowl ad I guess.
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Jan 31, 2020 16:38
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McDonnell Douglas fell on hard times in the 90s after the failures of the MD-11 and MD-12. Boeing took them over in 1997 and largely replaced Boeing's own management team with McDonnell Douglas's. Boeing's executives have been trying to sabotage the company ever since by moving the headquarters to Chicago and picking fights with the machinists and engineers. It's really not a surprise that the Dreamliner and 737-MAX launches were both debacles. You're now far more likely to fly on an Airbus plane than you were 20 years ago and it's mostly Boeing's fault.
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Jan 31, 2020 23:46
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zoux posted:Planters killed off Mr. Peanut on twitter as a marketing stunt to set up their Super Bowl ad and then Kobe died and so they had to cancel it. This is one of those sentences where you read it and just sort of nod along, but then afterwards you pause and marvel briefly at reality.
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Feb 1, 2020 07:41
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lavaca posted:McDonnell Douglas fell on hard times in the 90s after the failures of the MD-11 and MD-12. Boeing took them over in 1997 and largely replaced Boeing's own management team with McDonnell Douglas's. Boeing's executives have been trying to sabotage the company ever since by moving the headquarters to Chicago and picking fights with the machinists and engineers. It's really not a surprise that the Dreamliner and 737-MAX launches were both debacles. You're now far more likely to fly on an Airbus plane than you were 20 years ago and it's mostly Boeing's fault. Ehhh, the MD merger was terrible for Boeing, but the Dreamliner launch was fine, and Boeing was laying off employees long before they acquired MD.
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Feb 1, 2020 08:23
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Eddie Bauer retains their lifetime guarantee (setting them apart from e.g. L.L. Bean). If you have an Eddie Bauer thing that is broken or worn-out or you want replaced they will do so, if they still sell it. If they don't, they'll ask you for the original receipt and if you have it you'll get full retail price in store credit. If you don't have the receipt you get half of the original retail price. Why yes, I do look for used Eddie Bauer gear on eBay, why do you ask?
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Feb 2, 2020 04:41
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Pyrex is another brand where their old stuff is as good as ever, but they sold out and their modern stuff is just junk. Sad result to a legendary and iconic brand.
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Feb 2, 2020 14:22
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In Europe, Pyrex is licensed by a different company - those still have a pretty solid reputation, as far as I know.
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Feb 2, 2020 14:49
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Original_Z posted:Pyrex is another brand where their old stuff is as good as ever, but they sold out and their modern stuff is just junk. Sad result to a legendary and iconic brand. Corningware was another one of these. They got out of the pyroceram game for a while, but for the last few years it's been grudgingly available on their website. Pyroceram being the reason you might ever have heard of Corningware in the first place, it's the glassy stuff that can go on the stovetop or under the broiler and lasts long enough you might have your grandma's hand-me-downs. They don't make it easy to find, though - best way is to type "pyroceram" into the site's search bar, so you kind of have to know what you're looking for already. They ask 3-4 times as much for it as the equivalent ceramic item. And I don't think they supply it to other retailers. Walmart, Amazon and Bed Bath and Beyond all only sell their cheap regular ceramic line.
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Feb 2, 2020 16:28
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Twobirds posted:My wife and I are usually not ones for fast food but go to Chipotle if we are traveling and need to eat in a hurry. I love tacos and thought they had good options and sourcing and generally were pretty fair. I found myself getting excited to eat there. Why not? I like feeling good about the food I eat. I remember when Chipotle was just a local chain in Denver that made really good burritos. It's hard to imagine how in only a few decades it's grown so large and had so many run ins with the law. Before the child labor issues they also had issues with employing undocumented immigrants, although probably the worst part of that is that the issues magically went away when they hired the former director of ICE under GWB. Here's a nice tidbit about Chipotle. Their board features the son of a (white) South African family that owned an emerald mine during apartheid. If you wonder where the unethical management decisions come from it's hard not to think they're starting all the way at the top. Thanks for the great post. I've always wondered about these celebrity (quasi celebrity?) brands. Sometimes they are little more than cynical attempts to cash in on a celebrity name but then Rihanna seems pretty serious about and involved with her various ventures. Although looking into it I see her brand is owned by LVMH which seems to be another of these capitalist grey goo stories that owns everything from liquor brands (Hennessy) to .....drumroll....Kat Von D beauty! 7of7 has a new favorite as of 21:32 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 20:49
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Rigged Death Trap posted:As for Volvo/Jaguar/Land-Range rover This is a really interesting point about the different types of brands and how they may or may not suffer when ownership changes. I'm not sure that Geely or Tata are looking to cash out so much as launder their quality reputation. But there's a reason they have that reputation in the first place. There is a sort of inertia with companies where they don't just go to hell immediately when they're taken over by people who aren't interested in the fundamental activity of producing a quality product, whether their interest is in a quick cash out or in reputation laundering. Boeing is a great example. After the aquimerger with McDonnell Douglas they still had a reputation for safety and thoughtful engineering. Airplanes are a huge purchase made by professionals in the airline industry but ultimately the reputation that matters is the one held by the end users. These are people making a decision to trust their entire lives to the product so it's hard to imagine a more emotional decision. But inevitably that quality decline happened and we ended up with the 737 MAX, a value engineered aircraft with a design that sacrificed safety and quality for short term profits. That same quality drop is bound to happen with Volvo and Jaguar/Land Rover given that the decisions at the top are now being made by companies with no history of caring about safety or quality. I wouldn't want to be the the person driving the Volvo equivalent of a 737 MAX finding out the drivers assistance feature steers you into oncoming traffic and can't be overridden.
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Feb 2, 2020 21:10
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How does a person like Kat Von D exist? Like you're on the cusp of being a set for life huge loving millionaire, just stop dating Nazis, hire Killer Mike to go over all the poo poo you do and say in public. It can't be that hard.
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Feb 3, 2020 01:29
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Tata isn't exactly hurting reputation wise in India aside from the Nano being a disaster because they tried to make a car cheap enough for the motorcycle buyers in India to afford and compromised on the quality of the car accordingly. Obviously this isn't true for the Jaguar. E: just for context the original Nano was supposed to be priced at 100,000 rupees. It's direct competition is priced around 300,000 to 450,000 on average. They cut massive corners trying to make it profitable and also meet this pricing goal and the result was a piece of poo poo car. It's a massive conglomerate so the owners rarely have anything to do with micromanaging it's various companies besides demanding bigger number. Different brands under Tata have different reputations but ultimately at least inside India most people see them as an ethical business family VS the Ambanis who are extremely corrupt and evil lol. SC Bracer has a new favorite as of 03:54 on Feb 3, 2020 |
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Feb 3, 2020 03:49
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7of7 posted:Here's a nice tidbit about Chipotle. Their board features the son of a (white) South African family that owned an emerald mine during apartheid. Elon Musk?
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Feb 3, 2020 05:30
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Sailor Jerry posted:Every brand of 100% Silicone, you know the stuff you use to seal in bathrooms, is all made in the same plant complex in China. Brands dont matter on stuff that is chemically required to be identical. That’s not entirely true. Things labelled “100% silicone” will cure to almost the same thing, but how they get there is different and they can have minor but significant additives. The classic formulation of silicone caulk (acetoxy) releases acetic acid when curing.   These two are both acetoxy, but the tub & tile version has (mould‐resisting) biocides that the other lacks. “Neutral cure” silicone (oxime or alkoxy) does not release acetic acid. These chemistries cure faster and while curing release various VOCs like MEK or methanol.   GE’s “silicone 2” is code for “neutral cure”. What’s the difference between photos two and three? I would say “probably biocides again”, but this time they both have the same mould claims. They do list different materials they’re supposed to stick to, so maybe they have different cure chemistry. Who knows? GE loves confusing branding. They are all labelled “100% silicone”. So why would anyone care about the difference? For many things, it doesn’t matter. If you were building a fish tank, you definitely wouldn’t want anything with biocides, and you would want the structural strength of acetoxy. If you were sealing an electronics enclosure, you wouldn’t want acetic acid around to corrode everything.
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Feb 3, 2020 06:01
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JEEVES420 posted:When the cashiers can't even do simple mental math to make change why would you pay them 50k a year. maybe if they weren't paid slave wages they would give enough of a poo poo to doublecheck your change
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Feb 3, 2020 07:15
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7of7 posted:This is a really interesting point about the different types of brands and how they may or may not suffer when ownership changes. I'm not sure that Geely or Tata are looking to cash out so much as launder their quality reputation. But there's a reason they have that reputation in the first place. This declines are inevitable under capitalism as companies are always eventually taken over by profit squeezing bean counters that don't give a poo poo about anything but money
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Feb 3, 2020 07:27
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Original_Z posted:Pyrex is another brand where their old stuff is as good as ever, but they sold out and their modern stuff is just junk. Sad result to a legendary and iconic brand. So if you're planning on moving a lot or you're clumsy, new Pyrex is better for you. But if you regularly put a hot dish on a cold stovetop or a marble counter, old Pyrex is better for you. (Modern European Pyrex is still borosilicate so that counts as "old Pyrex".)
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Feb 3, 2020 14:15
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