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Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

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31–40 of 428 posts

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#31
post #9

Cheap attachable toilet bidet

Seconding this. I bought this one: https://www.amazon.com/Greenco-Non-Electric-Mechanical-Toile...

Works great and doesn't require electricity. Previously had an expensive one that had extra features like water/seat heating, but honestly the cheap one is fine.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#32
post #6

What a great question! * A very long USB-C cable from an Apple store. I get jealous looks when I break it out to charge my phone. * Scented candles from Aldi. It's such a quality of life boost to have the place smelling nice. They last ages and cost nothing. * A creme brulee hand blowtorch. Surprisingly useful! Excellent for lighting aforementioned candles instantly, without burning your knuckles. * A real P3 respira…

Often a real P3 respirator has a valve to prevent fogging with doesn't filter what you exhale though so you're not helping the pandemic.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#33

Mail processor. I spend $20/month, they receive all of my mail, open it, and digitize it. They discard the junk mail if I want. I never have to visit a mailbox again. I can even register it as my address on my driver's license and for my vehicles. EDIT: The service I use is https://www.sbimailservice.com/ .

Wow I’d be far too paranoid about them leaking things

Why? That's a federal offense in the USA at least. If you're afraid of that, you may as well fear any mail delivery person.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#34

Mail processor. I spend $20/month, they receive all of my mail, open it, and digitize it. They discard the junk mail if I want. I never have to visit a mailbox again. I can even register it as my address on my driver's license and for my vehicles. EDIT: The service I use is https://www.sbimailservice.com/ .

Wow I’d be far too paranoid about them leaking things

They have controls as most of these folks have to have (background checks, access controls, physical security, etc [1]). Still better than randos pulling your mail out of the mailbox in front of your residence imho. Its a shim until the last of need for paper mail gets deprecated, as I still need to receive correspondence of importance via snail mail (business filings, IRS, etc).

[1] https://www.sbimailservice.com/security/

(all commercial mail processors you consider should have similar controls in place, make sure you ask!)

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#35
Libby - I used to buy so many Kindle books and had an expensive Audible subscription a year ago but all that stopped when I discovered Libby. I can read ebooks and audiobooks right in the app using my local public library card for free and the entire UX of the app is just beyond awesome. I can now read/listen to 5-7 books a month using Libby.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#37

A vacuum insulated water bottle. It reminds me to drink more water and it stays cold the entire day.

Thermos sells a $30-33(?) one in two different shades of silver — the one with with green rubber(silicone?) grommets.

After performing the research, I can confirm you'll struggle to find better in any category you've been disappointed in previously.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#38
post #4

this isn't super cheap, but relative to the competing products, it is very cheap - A 43" 4K monitor from TCL is ~$300 (they used to be like $220, but I think a new model has supports 120Hz instead of just 60Hz). It's the equivalent of having 4, 23" 1080p monitors, all smooshed together with no bezel. You can see sooo much. It's not as high of a dpi, but I switched to it from a 39" ultra curved widescreen that was ove…

I used to do the same thing for years until I got tired of Windows' horrid handling of a mixture of 4k and HD monitors (I thought they would fix it but things just got worse). I went with an AOC 2560 32" curved gaming monitor...zero issues.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#40
post #4

this isn't super cheap, but relative to the competing products, it is very cheap - A 43" 4K monitor from TCL is ~$300 (they used to be like $220, but I think a new model has supports 120Hz instead of just 60Hz). It's the equivalent of having 4, 23" 1080p monitors, all smooshed together with no bezel. You can see sooo much. It's not as high of a dpi, but I switched to it from a 39" ultra curved widescreen that was ove…

I bought a little Epson label printer, and I print tags for both ends of a cable. Same idea, but sometimes it's hard to get a variety of colors, depending on the cable.

Also works magnificently for trying to figure out what's plugged into the multi-outlet next to the entertainment center. "This is the TV plug. This is the amplifier. This is the NAS. This is the switch." It's so much easier when the switch's power adapter has a big "SWITCH" label on it.

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