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Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

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Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#111

Post by diego_moita »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #15

If a microplane counts as "hardware", then I can't not bring up my whetstone! Cost all of around $40, is a genuine joy to use, and keeps all of my knives sharper-than-sharp. I started out with a very expensive knife (Wusthof classic 8", around US$150 or so at the time) but nothing to sharpen it with, and this was a mistake. If I could do it again I'd recommend young cooks on a budget start out with a $20 IKEA knife a…

> start out with a $20 IKEA knife and a stone to keep it sharp. You'll get better long term results than you would with an expensive knife on its own any day of the week.

This is very, very smart advice.

The only thing I'd add is to learn proper knife techniques: how to hold food keeping your fingers away from the blade. Never take risks with a well sharped knife.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#112

Post by dividedbyzero »

j4yav wrote: post #67

The Apple Watch surprised me in how much awareness of my health it generated - mainly how much and what quality sleep I was getting, but also other general signals. It helped me pay more attention and make some good health improvements. Presumably any other smart watch offers similar benefits.

When do you charge yours? Is the battery life good enough for using it day and night?

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#113

Post by amelius »

throw0101a wrote: post #65
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #25

A good dishwasher. I resisted getting one for years because the one I had growing up was pretty bad. Nothing would dry, items would come out dirty all the time and it was loud and would "chug" for hours. However, a good (not even fancy, just mid-range from a competent manufacturer) modern dishwasher is night and day. Doesn't even need special tablets, it just gets things clean, even on the eco mode, which is the only…

> Doesn't even need special tablets […] A thirty minute video explaining why tablets are bad and that you should simply use powder: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04 Also, a follow-up video: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll6-eGDpimU

Summary? I can't watch video now.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#115

Post by bikingbismuth »

awiesenhofer wrote: post #56
maxwelldone wrote: post #49

A QMK or a similar programmable keyboard. Often found in mechanical ones. I believe QMK supports 32 layers. So far I've only needed 4 or 5 but the boost in productivity is night and day.

Looks interesting, how do you use it?

I use an Ortholinear keyboard and I remapped all the brackets to make more sense (to me). I also have few very common programming symbols on another layer like “:=“, “if __name__ …”, “try…except”.

I have a layer that is my “network numpad”. The right side of my board (a Levinson) in this mode is:

EF789(Del)

CD456(Macro to type 255)

AB123(Enter)

__0.:

I also have a HID device attack mode layer that has payloads for popping shells, adding accounts to windows machine, grabbing wifi passwords, etc. This one is just fun stuff from my previous life in red team InfoSec.

Some of this is overkill but it shaves a few seconds off my day and I had a lot of fun building it.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#116

Post by throwawaynay »

edude03 wrote: post #75

A Mac Pro (2019) - I was/am using the 2019 Macbook Pro, but under heavy load (compiling rust/flutter mostly) the machine would get slower and slower as it became more and more heat saturated, and worse, when driving an external monitor the GPU would get hot as well and the whole UI becomes slow. The mac pro is ~2.5x as fast in compilation but more importantly it doesn't lose responsiveness when the CPU is fully loade…

sounds kind of insane that a 2-3k$ laptop can't compile stuff and allow you to browse the web at the same time lol

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#117

Post by bikingbismuth »

rgoulter wrote: post #20

A keyboard where the keys are symmetrical, and allow greater use of the thumb (and allow less usage of the pinky fingers). -- Maybe it's not for everyone, but I wish I'd gotten a keyboard like this years ago.

I “tried out” a Planck on a whim for a month in 2017 and never looked back. I currently use a Levinson and it just about perfect (I wish I could find a solid aluminum case and then it would be perfect).

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#118

Post by khaledh »

The switch from a mechanical HDD to a SDD was the biggest gain in performance I've seen from any piece of hardware. I still remember the time when HDDs were the norm and the agony of waiting on loading/accessing something from disk was real.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#119

Post by notreallyserio »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #112
j4yav wrote: post #67

The Apple Watch surprised me in how much awareness of my health it generated - mainly how much and what quality sleep I was getting, but also other general signals. It helped me pay more attention and make some good health improvements. Presumably any other smart watch offers similar benefits.

When do you charge yours? Is the battery life good enough for using it day and night?

Not OP: I charge mine while I'm in the shower and eating breakfast. That gets me through the day with about 50-60% to spare. I do wear mine overnight.

I have a relatively new series 7. It remains to be seen how it performs as the battery cycles hundreds of times.

edit: Fixed percent remaining. It was much better than I'd remembered.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#120

Post by dustractor »

About ten years ago, I lived in an area where power outages were a common occurrence, sometimes lasting up to a week. Naturally, during those times, I found it necessary to own some sort of flashlight or headlamp, along with whatever batteries it took. Unfortunately, being that this was in rural America, all of the available headlamps (coleman/energizer/craft, at walmart, at lowes, at DG, etc) are of such low-quality that they basically start out being trash. As a rule, they take three AAA's, and also, as a rule, they flicker out all the time so you have to give a technical-tap every few minutes to jiggle the loose connections, and that's when they're actually working. Over the course of two years, I went through five headlamps. I had one explode on my forehead after only five minutes of use.

It made me very sad, that we as a species appeared to have forgotten how to build a simple apparatus consisting of a light-bulb, a switch, batteries and wires. So then I got a Fenix. It's machined out of a single block of aluminum and it takes 18650 cells instead of triple A's. I've used it on a regular basis for the last decade and it still works every time I need it, the whole time I need it. No more technical taps.

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