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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?

#221

Post by rdtwo »

drakonka wrote: post #160

* An ereader (Kindle, now Kobo) * Stadler Form George air washer. Not a full on humidifier, but does help keep humidity up in my dry bedroom. Also judging by the state of the water during my weekly cleaning it really does help to "clean" the air somewhat. * More recently, a high quality drying rack (inspired by the drying rack article linked here a few weeks ago). Helps me keep humidity up in my apartment and prevent…

What drying rack? My wife has a 10$ one and I hate that thing with a firey passion

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

#222

Post by alanfranz »

alias_neo wrote: post #44
alanfranz wrote: post #12

A very large display. I got a 4k 43” display, with a bit of retina magnification, and I can sit properly without slumping, my back fully straight on my seat. I don’t suffer back pain anymore.

How far are you sitting from that monster? I've never understood having large format displays for work (programming in my case). I once (before children) had 3x28" 4K displays but they had to wrap pretty tight around my sitting position otherwise I had no chance of seeing what's at the far ends.

I think my desk is about 90cm deep, I’d say I stay about 100/120cm from my eyes to the display.

Sometimes I just don’t place things to the edges or the very bottom. A 37” or 40” display would suffice but I didn’t find any, and 32” is too small imho.

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

#223

Post by linsomniac »

adriand wrote: post #139
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…

This is exactly what I have. An IKEA knife I’ve had for the past 20 years or so. I’ve always kept it sharp, but the game changer in the past few months was reading advice to sharpen it every time I use it. I do that now, just a little bit, and over time what you end up with is an insanely sharp knife. I also have a sharpening steel, like the kind used in commercial kitchens, but I much prefer the stone.

Agreed, I've had both the ceramic and diamond "steels" handy for the last decade, and basically every time I use a knife I spend 30 seconds running it over one of these, and my kitchen experience is better for it. Of course, I'm the only one in my household that does this, but I use them frequently enough that generally it keeps them pretty good.

Was recently prepping some food at someone else's house, and they didn't even have a sharpener. It was a terrible experience, even after using the bottom of a coffee cup to help the knife out.

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

#224

Post by als0 »

tbrock wrote: post #189

The 3dFX Voodoo2 - amazing leap in 3D gaming The oculus quest 2 - VR for the masses, so much fun, actually works well for the first time without $$$ The Intel Core CPU - multi core computing for the masses, huge performance and efficiency gains over prior gen merging pentium M tech Most recently Apple Silicon, specifically the Apple M1 MacBook Air: - it runs dead silent - it runs cool on my lap - it has a tiny charge…

I traded my M1 MBA for the new MBP 14 and I'm feeling regretful. The weight of the MBA and its 16+ hour battery life, just incredible.

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

#225

Post by falcolas »

amelius wrote: post #121
cik wrote: post #29

I've spent a long time engineering, and adapting my workspace. It's at the point now that going to an office is a horrible experience, compared to my home office. Here's my setup * Ikea Standing desk (I never sit). I know plenty of people who use these for sitting, simply because the height of the desk is finally suited to their specific frame. * As many monitors as will make you happy (to each their own, but I'm hap…

> Wacom One tablet - Now I can draw on digital whiteboards in Zoom, or even on shared websites and it's significantly better than the mouse experience. Except there's no scroll wheel to zoom in/out. Which makes it difficult to use in programs like Inkscape and KiCAD. Does anybody have a good alternative (external scrollwheel perhaps?)

The last time I used a Wacom pad, you could use pinch actions with your fingers to not only zoom in and out, but rotate and scroll. It differentiated between finger and pen actions quite cleanly.

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

#226

Post by preommr »

aqme28 wrote: post #195
throw0101a wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I only watched the first video, but I really can't see the difference between his experiment (with the soap at the beginning) and his control. I'm not convinced.

Did you just skip to it or did you watch it with audio and pay attention to what he's saying?

Becaue he mentions that the difference might not be super obvious but still makes a pretty good case for it.

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

#227

Post by tucosan »

snowwrestler wrote: post #87

Switching from a mouse to a multitouch trackpad completely resolved my wrist pain, and I find gestures essential to productivity now. I started off with a Fingerworks trackpad; this is the company Apple bought to bring in multitouch technology. Then when Apple’s trackpads got big enough and supported enough gestures, I switched to those.

I switched back from the Magic Trackpad to an ergonomic mouse, because I got pretty bad carpal tunnel syndrome after a few months of usage.

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

#229

Post by whoisburbansky »

amelius wrote: post #175
renewiltord wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=_rBO8neWw04&t=538 The video pretty much says “use detergent in both pre-wash and wash receptacles”. Using the pods makes this hard. Using powder lets you do this easily yourself. That’s pretty much it.

Aren't there tablets made of two layers, one which dissolves during prewash, and the other mostly during wash? I mean the two-colored ones.

He tests those as well, finds that they don’t actually do a staged release like that.

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

#230

Post by ecf »

tbrock wrote: post #189

The 3dFX Voodoo2 - amazing leap in 3D gaming The oculus quest 2 - VR for the masses, so much fun, actually works well for the first time without $$$ The Intel Core CPU - multi core computing for the masses, huge performance and efficiency gains over prior gen merging pentium M tech Most recently Apple Silicon, specifically the Apple M1 MacBook Air: - it runs dead silent - it runs cool on my lap - it has a tiny charge…

Recently was given a 16” Intel MBP from 2019 for work after using my personal M1 Air for a few months and the damn Intel machine becomes warm simply by being on, idling away.

It’s kinda ridiculous that we put up with Intel for so long.

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