Radar cruise control is pretty awesome. It certainly reduces my stress levels when driving!
Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
291–300 of 592 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
#292If 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 :)
My first Sous Chef gave me his Victorinox from when he went to Culinary Institute of America. I still use it even though I've since bought a Wusthof. I like how it is thinner, it holds an edge well and has good ergonomics.
Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
#293For me it is the Nintendo Wii Balance board [1]. It is still running strong even after more than 13 years of usage. I hope Nintendo will introduce a new balance board for the Switch console and together with the new Ring Fit it will be a blast for indoor fitness and exercise.
[1] Wii Balance Board:
Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
#294The latest iPad Mini. It was meant to be a Moleskine replacement. I draw a lot but I can't carry all sorts of pencils with me. I made it a dedicated drawing and reading device. No notifications, no emails, etc. Holy moly is it good. Procreate and Notability are incredible apps. Having different pens, layers and an undo button is fantastic. It replaced the paper pad next to my computer, as well as my Moleskine. The si…
I use the latest iPad Air similarly. Got it and an Apple Pencil as a more-capable replacement for my reMarkable tablet and my Kindle, turned off all notifications and did not install any distractions. It's a great device. For me the main apps are Bear and Concepts.
The new amount of control Apple gives you over notifications in the latest iOS'es is a game-changer. I literally just discovered I could bundle all notifications from certain apps and have them notify me at certain times of the day en masse, which is AMAZING.
Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
#295I love my Fully Jarvis standing desk. It has a curved edge so I can “stand” into it. The Capisco Hag chair is even better. Tens of ways to sit/stand on it. Which is perfect for me since I can’t sit still.
Seconded on the Jarvis desk. It's quite comfortable, and holds two monitors and my notebooks easily. The legs and arms of the desk are much heavier/sturdier than I'd expected. The motor raising and lowering the desk is strong, smooth, and quiet.
A fine investment!
Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
#296Air purifiers and air monitors. It is shocking and disgusting how much dust and particles these air purifiers suck out of the air. The air monitors detect when to open windows for CO2, among other things. My allergies no longer exist. Edit: A few people have asked for recommendations. I recommend the Coway Airmega AP-1512HH for larger spaces and Blueair Blue Pure 411 for smaller spaces. For the air monitor I have the…
A warning: the cheap air monitors don't monitor particle count, just CO2. If you're allergic to pollen you expose yourself to it by opening windows. I've had to help a couple friends who used this and ended up sneezing and sniffling like crazy.
I have the Dylos monitor which does monitor particle count so you can see it drop when your air filter is working https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08F2YM8SM/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_...
Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
#297The 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.
Good solid-state storage has been the biggest quality of life improvement you can make to a single-disk device for the past decade.
I get a chuckle out of colleagues who ask for copious RAM today, and while I'll usually show them where they can put money to do what they actually need better, this kitchen analogy suffices for most of their use cases:
The hard drive, RAM, and CPU are like the fridge, the prep table, and the stove. In the days of high storage latency and low throughput mechanical storage, it took a few weeks to gather ingredients from the fridge and bring them back to your prep table, so it made sense to buy the largest prep table you could afford to save yourself the trip. However, your stove only had one or two burners, so you were still waiting around for one thing to finish cooking one thing so you could move on to another.
Today, high bandwidth, low latency storage like NVMe means you have an always-on instantaneous portal to the ingredients realm so there's no real need for the extra-large prep table. It's usually better to spend the money on more burners for the stove so you can keep it as busy as possible and get the most work out.
It's a vast over simplification, but I can't help but sigh when someone says they literally cannot do their job without 64GB of RAM and then choose a quad-core or some low-power series laptop.
Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
#298A 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 run an HP Z27 4K display at 2560x1440 and feel it’s perfect.
Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
#299If 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.
Cut with the claw or you'll be cutting with a claw.
Tuck your fingertips under and rest the flat of the blade against your knuckles. It should not be possible to reach the tip of a finger with your blade. Check some youtube videos and practice. Establishing good knife skills is not only good for safety but makes cooking faster and more pleasant.
Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
Summary? I can't watch video now.
The tablets have nothing fancy in them other than some dyes, they are just soap at a mark-up. Even the cheapy store brand stuff does just as good of a job. Additionally, depending on the hardness of your water you may need less detergent than the tablets have in them which could leave a white residue on your dishes. Finally, with the powdered detergent you may need to sprinkle a little in the door for a pre-rinse whi…
Since first lockdown in my country, when dishwasher tabs went missing in stores, I got used to use 1/2 a tab for each wash. Turns out dishes were just as clean as with a full tab. To this day I keep using 1/2 tab per wash.