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Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

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Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

#271

Post by barrkel »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #261
barrkel wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nonomo.de/en/babyhammock There are a lot of them on the market. I can't speak to the pros and cons of other makers. The Nonomo was recommended to us by a friend. The Nonomo has the mattress in an insert into the cloth hammock, so there's no risk of the baby getting wedged between the mattress and the hammock - that was the cause of a US recall of one make of baby hammock. Nonomo are also good about gettin…

Is this ok to sleep? My understanding babies need to always sleep flat - that's why they only recommend to use car capsule 1-2hrs max.

The baby in the hammock is not in a seated position like in a normal car seat, and with a baby inside there's not much curvature. (We have two car seats, one lie-flat and one normal, since we expected to travel more with the baby, we're well aware of the issues. Of course COVID put a stop to that plan. The hammock worked well on a whistlestop tour of Germany and Ireland visiting our respective relatives, during the summer COVID lull.)

We got the hammock after he would continuously wake up in a bedside cot.

Do your own research, of course. I'm just saying what worked for us. I'm not invested in selling the product.

Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

#272

Post by nullsense »

anotherevan wrote: post #217

CPAP machine. If you think you may have sleep apnea then get it checked out. In-line water filter. Reduce the barrier-of-entry to drinking water however you can. Started with one of those gravity filters but having to refill it all the time was a barrier. One that's tied into mains pressure just works. Ceiling fans. We have an evaporative cooling system which is good, but adding ceiling fans in the bedrooms and offic…

was just going to comment CPAP machine! Hands down most life-changing thing I have acquired.

Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

#273

Post by nicdc »

samtuke wrote: post #198
adamredwoods wrote: post #136

A Wacom tablet, years ago, when I was working in the graphic arts. Compared to a mouse, the change in my daily ergonomics was astounding, because using a mouse would hurt my entire arm. When I switching to a tablet (using a custom mouse mode), the mouse click was replaced by tapping the tablet which saved my entire career. Although, fast-forward 10 years, now I do full-stack programming, so I don't use it anymore.

+1 for wacom tablets. Been using them for around 10 years instead of mice, for the ergonomic benefit. Portable, and cheap (bamboo series 2nd hand). Last several years each, too. Also native Linux support.

Would be interested to learn more about you're experience. I'm suffering from some RSI, so I'm thinking a pen tablet could help - I've already tried every type of mouse out there.

Two questions: 1. How do you scroll ?! 2. What Wacom tablet do you recommend?

Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

#275

Post by leobakerhytch »

bot41 wrote: post #208
exabrial wrote: post #148

A mountain bike. Every measure of my health has improved and I've never traveling all over to hit bike parks and trails. I've spent more time outdoors this summer than I have the last 5 years.

What brand? I recently got a road bike but honestly don't love it. I think I would prefer a mountain bike.

GMBN has a couple of great videos on buying a mountain bike [0][1], but I can really recommend a direct to consumer brand such as Canyon or YT — especially if you’re not sure whether you’ll commit to the sport. You get a lot more bike for your money compared to the store brands, and you’ll have an easier time getting into the sport the better your first bike is.

The major choice to make, irrespective of brand, is what type of bike — which is dictated by the terrain you have available and would like to ride. There are subcategories, but a useful rough split would be: a cross-country (XC) bike for good pedaling performance both uphill and on the flat, but not so capable going downhill and in the rough stuff; an enduro if you want to ride rougher downhill terrain (roots, rock gardens, etc.), but still have a bike that pedals well enough up technical climbs and fire roads; and a downhill bike if you want to ride the roughest, most technical terrain, with the steepest descents, and you have access to lift-served mountains (not recommended to start with ;).

FWIW, I’ve had a such a great time riding the Canyon Torque this summer. It’s a long-travel enduro, really capable on the descents, and perfectly fine to get back to the top.

As for motivation, I would echo the sibling comment. Time in nature, good exercise, a ton of techniques to learn and master, a really sociable scene, such a rush riding tough and steep stuff. You won’t regret it.

[0]: https://youtu.be/EX1Kb6TEyn8 [1]: https://youtu.be/Y_xiq2mczX4A

Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

#276

Post by znpy »

Two additional displays and a three-arms stand, to be able to use three displays with my company issued 13" dell latitude 7390 running GNU/Linux.

They're all 24" @ 1929x1200.

It's magical, I can keep so many things open at the same time with a reasonable window size.

The integrated intel graphics can drive all three of them, but I wasn't able to also drive the laptop display, that would have been perfect.

Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

#277

Post by dzhiurgis »

barrkel wrote: post #271
dzhiurgis wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this ok to sleep? My understanding babies need to always sleep flat - that's why they only recommend to use car capsule 1-2hrs max.

The baby in the hammock is not in a seated position like in a normal car seat, and with a baby inside there's not much curvature. (We have two car seats, one lie-flat and one normal, since we expected to travel more with the baby, we're well aware of the issues. Of course COVID put a stop to that plan. The hammock worked well on a whistlestop tour of Germany and Ireland visiting our respective relatives, during the s…

What is the lie-flat seat? Never heard of it.

We've got 360 seat with is one of the best purchase we've got for bubs (and probably the only item we've got brand new).

Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

#278

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

wollef wrote: post #267
rozab wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who don't want to fund youtube, Youtube Vanced is a hacked version of the official client that provides all the features for free (no root required), and there are also various open source clients available.

Isn't youtube without ads exactly the business model we should be encouraging?

People are really vocal about being perfectly ok with paying for ad-free products and not pirating, until the exact moment they actually have to fork out money.

Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

#279

Post by znpy »

neurostimulant wrote: post #238
pgt wrote: post #153

1. Apple Watch Series 5 w/GPS: - Surprisingly, my iPhone Xs battery lasts longer because I'm checking it less. - Counter-intuitively, I'm spending less time on my phone because I'm less likely to get sucked into my Watch than my phone. Now I just read non-urgent messages and Dismiss them. - I use the compass all the time now that I'm travelling[^1] in the UK and I use the compass all the time to learn the city layout…

My mbp 2012 is very slow when used to compile stuff these days, and struggles to build react projects and docker images. So I built a small server out of secondhand parts to offload those tasks away from my old laptop. Using vscode's remote development support (which lets you mount a remote machine in the editor as well as doing port forwarding), there is almost no change to my usual development routine but massive i…

Did you open it up to clear the fans from dust?

Macbooks accumulate a lot of dust during their life, and they're not really servicing-friendly. But many people reported lower temperatures die to better cooling.

This also means longer lasting batteries and faster CPUs (because of less thermal throttling).

It won't completely resurrect your MacBook, but it might give a significant performance boost (and lower the operating temperatures).

Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?

#280

Post by znpy »

nestorD wrote: post #63
statquontrarian wrote: post #17

Books. A few handfuls of them, combined, made a magnitude of a difference in my quality of life. An incredible amount of similar content is available now in video and text form for free, but I think that the same ideas non-book form wouldn't have had the same impact on me.

My variation on that is realizing that I know have enough money to buy the expensive, specialized, books I want to read without having to debate it with myself. Getting one or two book I love every month fills me with both joy and knowledge.

My variation on that is realizing that I can now buy the more or less expensive books that I downloaded illegally when I was a teenager.

Most people in the publishing industry don't realise that I probably wouldn't have got into the industry or wouldn't have reached my current level without some pirated books.

I can now afford without many problems to spend 60+ euros on a book and I'm doing it. Not often, but I'm doing it (books take time to read :) ).

My last purchase was advanced programming in the Unix environment (~65 euros), about one month ago, I'm currently at about page 200 out of ~970.

O'Reilly is going to get so much money from me in the next years... They kinda deserve them lol.

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