
Dead weight added to video transfer gadget to make it feel more solid - elsewhen
http://idsamp.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/whats-that-adding-dead-weight/
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icey
I made a small bench when I was going through my woodworking phase. I didn't
like how it sounded when I moved it around on the floor, so I routed out a
couple of channels on the underside and implanted a couple of rods of rebar in
it.

Suddenly, everyone asked where I bought that "wonderful bench" - after it had
been in my house for 6 months.

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kragen
With epoxy? Did the rebar add weight, change the sound, or what?

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icey
Sorry, yes - I epoxied it in, and then capped the channels with wood strips.

It added weight and it changed the acoustics when it got moved around.

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jws
The weight also serves the purpose of keeping the unit in place against the
forces of the cables. I wish I could find a USB hub that weighs a pound or
more.

Edit: Ok, after googling I must amend. I wish I could find a USB hub that
weighs a pound or more, actually supplies power, and isn't abusively priced.

~~~
ars
Mix sand with glue and you can mold your own weight.

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blhack
I'm not entirely opposed to this. In fact, I wish that more manufacturers
would do it...

I _hate_ setting things on my desk, then having them slide all over the
place...one of my favorite pieces of kit is my old 1987 model M keyboard. Not
entirely because of the bucky-spring keys, the wonderful noise it makes, or
the stark contrast between it, my monitors, my wacom tablet, and whatever new-
aged gizmos happen to be floating around on my desk, but because of its heft.

My frineds and I have got a scale for judging the utility of a piece of
hardware. "could you kill somebody with it? I mean...in the event of zombie
apocalypse, could this device be used to take down a zombie?"

The answer with the model M is likely a solid "no". (it's heavy, and sturdy,
but zombies are freaking TOUGH!), but it's close.

The extra weight, even though artificial, gives us that feeling of "this is a
sturdy piece of equipment". This is a good thing. I liken it to eating a nice
steak. Your brain is going "good job! Eat a lot of this!" because it is
assuming that protein (and fat, and all the other good things in a steak)
is/are scarce, and that you should ingest as much as possible. Well, this is
silly...steaks are not scarce!

It's the same thing, it's false, it's stupid, it's trickery, but I still like
it.

~~~
Tichy
My Logitech mouse comes with a set of weights to allow you to modify it's
weight. It's a bit of a gimmick, though, and sometimes the cartridge with the
weights slips out of the mouse.

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tlb
20 years ago, I wrote an intermediate compilation step for a big software
project. It basically took the text strings and compressed them. The program
only took a fraction of a second to run, so I added a sleep(1) to make it seem
more impressive.

~~~
blhack
I believe this is the inverse of a speedup loop.

Although, if you removed it a few releases later for a _drastic_ performance
improvement, then I guess it is both!

Good show!

~~~
ars
Speedup loop: <http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Speedup-Loop.aspx>

And this one is even better:
<http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/It_Must_Be_Broken.aspx>

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jacquesm
That's pretty common actually. Think of it, all the stuff that you have is
packaged, the weight of something is a big factor in its day to day use. The
right weight is just a decision in packaging something. It will also help to
dampen vibrations in some cases, usually a slab of some dense metal taped to
the inside of an otherwise thin and relatively flimsy panel.

Most electronics if packaged 'minimally' would weigh next to nothing, they
would literally feel cheap and flimsy.

We're conditioned to think of something that is 'dense' as 'solid'.

Boris the sneaky Russian said it best: "The weight is a sign of reliability".

Imagine a skill saw that worked just fine but weighed only half a pound... Or
a 10 gram keyboard, it would skitter all over your desk if you typed on it.

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fburnaby
I don't think this would have been surprising back in the days when we put
things on desks and sat at them all the time... It's just that we now expect
everything to be "mobile/portable" and lightness is then presumed to be good.
Weight is definitely a legitimate feature, as this example so clearly
demonstrates.

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DTrejo
I heard they did this with plastic phones when they first came out (the kind
you have to dial with a dial).

