131–140 of 592 posts
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…
A simple Pok3r mechanical keyboard, I think mine has blue Cherry switches. I recently changed to an even cheaper (ca. $40) mechanical tenkeyless. People might flame me for saying this, but it really doesn't matter to which mechanical keyboard you switch when you're used to cheap rubberdome keyboards. Typing is so much better on any of them.
A Mac Pro (2019) - I was/am using the 2019 Macbook Pro, but under heavy load (compiling rust/flutter mostly) the machine would get slower and slower as it became more and more heat saturated, and worse, when driving an external monitor the GPU would get hot as well and the whole UI becomes slow. The mac pro is ~2.5x as fast in compilation but more importantly it doesn't lose responsiveness when the CPU is fully loade…
sounds kind of insane that a 2-3k$ laptop can't compile stuff and allow you to browse the web at the same time lol
An insulated mug. I didn't think it would change the way I drink tea. Now I can bring it to my desk and take small sips. This helps me get back to work and stay focused, and probably reduces my overall consumption because I don't feel like I have to chug while warm and then go brew more.
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…
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…
People over here are insane and remodel perfectly fine kitchens when moving in to a new apartment, and sell all the appliances for a pitence. I picked up a year old Miele for 100€, it’s been chugging along like a tank.
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.
Second this. I was highly skeptical of the watch until I received it as a gift for Christmas. It has made me more acutely aware of how sedentary I’ve been during a typical work day. Closing the rings is now an obsession and I’m better for it.
> Closing the rings is now an obsession and I’m better for it
So far I've not become obsessed about it. It is more that I've changed my habits so that I'm more active.
There have been a few times where before the watch I might have skipped my morning walk due to something like waking up with a sore ankle, without even checking to see if it was a "you slept on it wrong and the soreness will go away when you move it a little" kind of soreness or a "OK you actually did hurt it yesterday and should just stay off you feet all day" kind of soreness. Now I check, and so far it has always been the former.
I'm thinking of intentionally taking a day off and missing closing all the rings just to keep from accidentally becoming obsessed over the length of the streak.
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…
Is there a particular whetstone grit you would recommend?
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…
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…
America's Test Kitchen recommends the Victorinox knives for every skill level and budget, including professional chefs. It's just a damn good knife, and it happens to be cheap at around $50. Go with this rather than Ikea if it's in the budget :)
The mass market knife block sets are actually worse than the victronix and cost more.