MetaFilter posts tagged with cheap

Good enough or just cheap crap?

Harald74 — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:01:57 -0800

Robert Capps, Wired senior editor, has an article up called The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine. It explores what happens when an established product meets a competitor that has most of the features at fraction of the price. Think hi-fi vs MP3s, A-10 bombers vs Predator drones or landline vs Skype. From the article:

"To some, it looks like the crapification of everything. But it's really an improvement. And businesses need to get used to it, because the Good Enough revolution has only just begun."

Hurry! Cash For Clunkers Ends Monday

netbros — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:37:42 -0800

What’s so special about the super cars that make people spend cosmic sums on a single car to buy it? Here are the Most Expensive Supercars: Exotic Showcase. Looking for cheap wheels? Here they are — the ten least-expensive 2009 cars on sale in America. But sticker price insn't everything; here are the 10 most and least expensive cars to insure.

“I do not prize the word "cheap." It is not a badge of honor. It is a symbol of despair. Cheap prices make for cheap goods; cheap goods make for cheap men; and cheap men make for a cheap country.”

orthogonality — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:28:42 -0800

Crestwood is the "best-run town in America" because it's "run like a business".

"Our budget is $2 million dollars a year while a town of similar size, with 12,000 people, might have a budget of $10 million["], said City Director Frank Gassmere. Added Mayor Stranczek: "Folks are happy here and I intend to keep them that way."

Taxes are so low, property tax payers get rebates! Privatizing local government works brilliantly!As long as you didn't drink the cheap, cheap municipal water -- for the last twenty years.

Anomalous Materials

Artw — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:00:17 -0800

Ten years ago Valve released Half Life, to the delight of gamers, modders, critics and people who hate cut scenes. Marc Laidlaw, writer for Valve, talks about the genesis of scientist turned crowbar wielding survivor, Gordon Freeman. Somehow avoided playing it in all these years? You can buy it on Steam for less than a dollar until midnight November 21st.

Ebay Art

chakalakasp — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:15:52 -0800

"What would you say if I told you that I filled my entire living room with completely original works of art for less than $300?" Andrea Dickson from Wise Bread has found an unlikely -- though, the more you think about it, almost obvious -- place to find original art from new artists: Ebay. If you can filter through the crapload of "artistic nudes", there are plenty of gems, and usually at buyers' market prices. And, as Andrea's mother mused, when it comes to decorating the house, it beats buying mass-produced art from Costco, which is about as original as a Big Mac.

I see wizardry

orthogonality — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:53:58 -0800

Attach syringes full of oil to the temples of a pair of double-lensed magic Harry Potter eyeglasses and let poor people see.

Anything you want, for $2

divabat — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:45:04 -0800

Webcomic artist D.J. Coffman offers to draw anything you want for $2 apiece.

Notch tubing without a notcher.

Mitheral — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 18:19:34 -0800

Cope pipe without a jig. Enter a few parameters and get a pdf that will give you a printable pattern that will allow you to notch tubing for welding or brazing to another pipe.

Lee press-on car

XMLicious — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:16:25 -0800

The Tata Nano (pic) is a car that costs less new than the amount I've spent on gas during single car trips, recently announced to the auto market in India. The Chery QQ ^, successful , wide ly ex por ted, and recognized as the Hostage Taker's Vehicle of Choice by China Car Times, is the runner-up for the world's cheapest car but is still approximately twice as expensive. Yes indeed, the price of gas is not going to come back down. So much for my coast-to-coast road trips. Forbes magazine's The World's Cheapest Cars (javascript slideshow)

Of course, the frames are probably made from Chinese toothpaste...

Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:24:01 -0800

A selection of eyeglasses for $8. (That's including your lens prescription.) Or if that's not to your liking, there's $39.

Cheap booze!

pompomtom — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:46:34 -0800

When happy hour's over, and it's time to cruise back to trash someone's loungeroom, continue the tight-arse tradition with Boozle!

100 Things You or Martha Stewart Can Make

ThePinkSuperhero — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:23:14 -0800

Since the US economy will soon explode and eat all our monies, I give you this: 100 Things You Can Make Yourself!

possum living

petsounds — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 08:53:16 -0800

POSSUM LIVING: How To Live Well Without a Job ..building a $100 Log Cabin, a geodesic dome out of cardboard.. handbook for cob building.. cheap solar power system.. stocking up on food.. some more

Airline travel on the cheap made easy

champthom — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 18:24:54 -0800

WhichBudget.com: a site that helps you find a low cost airline flight for your destination

Darren Sherman is cheap

jonson — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 14:57:06 -0800

Attention Darren Sherman: When you go on a date with someone, and they offer to split the tab, once you've declined their offer it can be perceived as bad ettiquette to threaten to get a court summons for the money if they refuse a second date with you. Voicemails & emails of a JDate gone awry.

Want to be obsessed with your grocery store?

scblackman — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 04:39:11 -0800

It took 30 years to spread from California to New York but the Trader Joe's grocery store chain is finally making a foothold in the Big Apple. The deniznes of NYC will now be able to obsess about something new . Not everyone is a fan, but maybe it's just that they haven't yet tried the Two-buck Chuck.

What does a dollar buy these days?

anjamu — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 23:40:38 -0800

"If ever a company needed a marketing department, it's New Choice, whose Original Flavor Round Crackers take the cake for stating the obvious. Points should be awarded for attempts to woo health-conscious consumers with facts about added DHA ("prevents heart attack, enhances eye sight"), but there's no two ways to look at Round Crackers: It's a badly executed Ritz rip-off." So sayeth the wits at the Onion A.V. Club, who scour the nation's dollar stores for food products to evaluate in their sporadic feature "Dining for a Dollar." Round crackers too boring? You might prefer Freakin' Nuts (tagline: Is it a chip? Is it a nut? Yes!), Thick Mints, or maybe just a handful of Balls. Their annual Cheap Toy Roundup is just as good; last year's featured products such as Preeminent Car ($1), Stretchy Body Bits ($1.19), and a DVD titled Clothes That Went to a Party ($2). Perhaps the all-time best, though, is the Mini Wooden Furniture: Table: a "plain, unadorned wooden table." ($1)

Dumb terminals are cool again

flabdablet — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 02:53:55 -0800

Ndiyo systems consist of a central PC running Linux, serving a bunch of ultra-cheap, ultra-thin VNC-ish clients over 100Mbit Ethernet connections. The developers hope that mass production will soon make the clients cost as little as a typical video cable.

Restive masses grasp knowledge: outcome ?

troutfishing — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:10:47 -0800

Simputer : High tech meets extreme poverty

White noise

madamjujujive — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 10:18:28 -0800

White plastic chairs - Jens Thiel blogs his research of the ubiquitous chair we all love to hate for an upcoming monobloc monograph and museum exhibition. The first chair emerged midcentury, devil spawn of a noble heritage. Today, some fear the monobloc population rivals or exceeds that of humans. Some view the chair as art, others see their place in history, but I agree with the wag who dubs them tupperware containers for lard butts.

Travel Aggregators

yankeefog — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 07:16:55 -0800

Upstart travel sites challenge the big three Catering to skinflints who can't be bothered to check multiple sites for the best fares, travel aggregator sites like Mobissimo, CheapFlights, Qixo, or Sidestep allow you to search Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity with a single query, as well as bargain airlines like JetBlue and Southwest, which aren't covered by the big three. (note: Sidestep requires a download, and only works on Windows; the others are all just regular websites.) But maybe you'd be best off just heading straight to an obscure Belgian travel site.

Sexy, smart, and cheap date ideas.

oh posey — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 10:38:45 -0800

Friday night is date night.

Conversational cheap shots

xmutex — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:04:46 -0800

It seems evident that here we all too aware of these, but just in case you're knee-deep in a flame war: conversational cheap shots.

Travel,edification,breakfast-cheap!.

troutfishing — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 08:50:37 -0800

The Educator's Bed and Breakfast Network Lodging for US $34 per couple per night, and breakfast too! Required - a house of your own (or maybe a large apartment, I suppose) to host fellow members. Membership costs $35 per year with a one-time $10 initial registration fee. "Educators" is a broad category which includes teachers of all sorts, writers, journalists, researchers, librarians, probably DJ's....many bloggers...

The Computational Complexity of Air Travel Planning

patrickje — Mon, 09 Dec 2002 13:39:26 -0800

Do you have problems finding the cheapest flight? Well so do computers.
Carl de Marcken, the man who created the engine behind Orbitz and other travel search engines posits that finding the cheapest fare from one point to another is a NP-Hard problem. Even if you fix the specific route between destinations there can be as many as 10³⁶ combinations.