211–220 of 592 posts
Midi devices. I have lots of the cheap ones for controlling my software with hardware wheels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umO-Bwzl3f0 I also control software like blender using those, even my emacs use that. It is always in the same place and once you learn it, you are so fast. I also use sheets of paper and color pens.
2. Snow pants that I can pull on over my regular pants to keep warm during the winter.
3. Puncture resistant bike tires.
4. Carbon fiber bows for stringed instruments.
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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.
Mine too. I currently have a streak of 1004 consecutive days of closing all three rings going on. > 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 ch…
Open ear headphones that use what they describe as bone conduction technology really added some value to my life. It's tough to go running in normal headphones because you can't hear danger (cars, animals, people, etc) but it's a lot easier to push yourself with some good background music. This gives the best of both worlds.
Which headset is good enough? I backed some kickstarter years ago which failed, so i never tried bone conduction again.
Just yesterday I ran 21 miles and listened to 3 podcasts while doing so. Afterward the headphones still reported a battery level of "high".
Sure you don't get amazing music quality, but it's good enough for the distraction and I always hear every bicyclist approaching me from behind.
Anker PowerCore 26800 (26800mAh) - 3 USB outputs, 2 inputs for charging. Removed away all worry about not having phone charging capability if you're on the move. There's likely better options available now with USB-C inputs, but the product is still fantastic. Oral-B Genius 9000 - looked like an overpriced & gimmicky toothbrush (with AR + Bluetooth). It is, but the carry-case is useful to double as an extra shaver->U…
Do you bring your battery with you when you're out and about? How do you carry it (if you do)? I have a battery and it is pocket sized, but it's not exactly comfortable to carry along with my wallet and phone.
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?
1. The bottom left key (Cntrl) is L1. I chose it because it's easy to just lean on it by the side of my palm as opposed to pressing it which is a hard to reach point. It controls commonly used hotkeys like window management, media (vol, play/pause), clipboard etc.
2. A layer for symbols & fn keys.
3. A layer just for VS Code keys. For instance, Ctrl + Page Up/Down behaves like mouse scroll (on Mac), so I've dedicated layer keys around home row. It's naturally placed near home row navigation. I also have some handy macros like that will type language specific stuff like "() => {}" and move cursor inside parenthesis, etc.
4. Another layer for pretty much everything else. Like, locking & unlocking my Mac (bad practice to have pwd in macros, I know), opening "about:logins" in FF, tagging files (Ctrl 1,2,3...) etc.
Pro Tip for newbies: 1. Get comfortable flashing new configs (which shouldn't be a problem these days)
2. Don't over optimize layers & macros - go with something decent that will solve major pain points.
3. While using, make a note of things that work, things that feel odd and things you never use. Then, make incremental modifications. Rinse & repeat.
For people considering Mech boards: It need not cost an arm & a leg. The first board I bought was Tada 68 which cost around 120 bucks. Getting a board with swappable keys might be tricky at this price point - but if you know what sort of key you want, this shouldn't be a big problem.
As with SW development, start simple & expand based on necessity.
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My mum has a Miele washing machine that is almost 30 years old. As far as I know, it's never needed a repair. Which is probably just as well as Mieles can always be repaired, but the cost of parts is, let's say, dramatic. My fridge has a broken egg tray lid and a dent in the door. Replacing the former is £35, a freezer door is almost £300 (nearly half the cost of the whole fridge freezer). The fridge door is almost £…
Apparently, eggs stored in the fridge are more likely to break yolk when cracked. Chuck your egg tray in the bin.
Eggs indeed don't usually go in the fridge: in the UK, eggs aren't washed before sale, so the natural protective layer is still present. I hear that in the US, eggs must be washed, the layer is therefore lost and eggs required to be washed, the layer is lost and eggs need to be refrigerated.
A four-input KVM switch. Lets me switch between my main machine, my work computer, and a couple of other things easily.
The VIC-20 my parents bought me when I was 5. No games, just BASIC on that rinky-dink thing. But it made me a programmer.
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.
Totally agreed. My main keyboard and macropad are both QMK programmable.
A 2560x1440 monitor running at its 1:1 native resolution. The screen real estate improvement over 1080p is substantial. You get so much more vertical space and you can easily fit 4 side by side code windows at 80 chars. At 24" or 25" the PPI is also quite nice for reading text. I wrote up a very big monitor selection guide at https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-fo... , I try to keep it up to dat…
I've tried a lot of different monitor setups for productivity - ranging from three 24" 4k displays to a single 49" ultrawide, and ultimately have found the best setup for me is dual 27" 4ks, each running at a "scaled" 2560x1440. MacOS in particular does an excellent job of rendering 2560x1440 to a 4K screen, and the increased DPI over a regular 1440p 27" screen is very noticeable. Another option if you're not a fan o…