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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?

#321

Post by Cr0s »

nickjj wrote: post #95

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 read your monitor selection guide and one thing that stood out to me was the distance you need to have from you monitor. Completely overlooked that one when I made my first upgrade to a larger monitor and it definitely lowered my use of that monitor. Sometimes i found myself using my second, older monitor more since the distance was more comfortable.

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

#322

Post by CharlesW »

floatingatoll wrote: post #255
clktmr wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rendering 2560x1440 to a 4K screen How does this work? Will it just upscale or is e.g. text still rendered at 4K? Rendering not at native resolution results always in blurred edges in my experience.

In macOS, the entire display is rendered at 4K no matter what you pick from the resolution box. Most apps have learned to provide 2x-3x “retina” icons so that their bitmap resources look crisp alongside the system UI resources at user-selected “resolutions”. The Windows UI scaling slider behaves in exactly the same way, though fewer apps include 2x or 3x bitmap resources.

> In macOS, the entire display is rendered at 4K no matter what you pick from the resolution box.

This makes it sound as if macOS upscales a 4K render when displaying to (for example) 5K monitors, but on a 5K monitor everything is ultimately rendered at a full physical resolution of 5120x2880. But in the Displays Preference Pane, the logical resolution is set by default to 2560x1440 (2:1). One can choose a logical resolution of 5120x2880 (1:1), but I can't imagine anyone working like that.

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

#323

Post by aqme28 »

preommr wrote: post #226
aqme28 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I watched the whole thing.

If your theory isn't borne out by experiment, you should probably revise the theory or the experiment before publishing your video.

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

#325

Post by bobbob1921 »

clarkdave wrote: post #161
nickjj wrote: post #95

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…

On windows , I have used over 25 different monitors over the years, I have found these two sizes to be the best:

32” at 4k (native res, 1:1)

30” 2560-by-1600 (native res, 1:1) ( few monitors support this physically, but two are my goto: old 30” apple studio displays , and a 30” old dell monitor. Both can be found on eBay at very low cost , but do use 2 to 4x the power draw as modern monitors)

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

#326

Post by newcomber »

ywain wrote: post #249
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…

Is the Litter Robot really good? Most reviews I've seen said all those auto-cleaning litter boxes are meh at best, but man this is one chore I could really do without.

The litter robot is great as long as you empty the tray every few days. It runs into issues (like many things) if you let it go too long.

I've owned two. Once you get past the sticker shock, it's quite convenient. I also used regular kitchen trash bags for the tray. Was perfectly serviceable.

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

#327

Post by CharlesW »

megabless123 wrote: post #247
parkingrift wrote: post #233

Air 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…

can you recommend a specific product(s)?

I've been happy with the Wirecutter recommendation: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-air-purifier...

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

#328

Post by logicalmonster »

mateuszf wrote: post #235
logicalmonster wrote: post #125

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.

> It's tough to go running in normal headphones because you can't hear danger There are some noise reducing headphones (like Airpods Pro or Sony Wh-1000xm*) which have ambient mode - mixing music with external noises which also work great for that scenario.

I have not tried those. Maybe they work great, but I'd find it harder to psychologically trust my environment if my ears were covered. Having my ears open to the environment means that I don't have to merely trust that some kind of noise mixing technology works perfectly.

As far as anything like an earbud goes, I don't know if the shape of my ears is a bit unusual, but I cannot run with anything like an earbud without having the earbud slip out frequently. I need something like a headphone to avoid having to constantly fidget with my ears.

Just my personal experience.

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

#329

Post by Cr0s »

Arkanosis wrote: post #311

The list could be very long, but here are a few things which I have started using lately and which have proved more useful than expected: - A dish draining rack: that's very inexpensive and I'm wasting way less time and space than before arranging dishes. - A vertical desktop file sorter: exactly the same thing, but for papers. - Thin, fingerless gloves I can type with: while this has not solved my dry hands problem…

To comment on the monitor and speaker stands, even just a bit more desk space can be surprisingly useful once you have 15+ things on your desk. Feels like one of those things you don't learn to appreciate until you need them.

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

#330

Post by owenversteeg »

c54 wrote: post #238

The new GaN transistor power brick charger thingies. Surprisingly small with high power output means no more carrying around a huge laptop power brick. Anker sells them on amazon under the “Nano II” brand

I can vouch for this. It's amazing - one of these tiny 30W chargers, barely larger than the 5W iPhone cubes, powers all my devices. Especially coming from a huge Thinkpad charging brick, this thing is magic.

I have a PowerPort Atom 30W (about 1.5 inches on each side, or ~35mm.) It plugs into my M1 Air, and my iPhone charges off the Air's second USB-C port. Two cables and this tiny charger is all I need. There's a newer version, the Nano II, which is indeed slightly smaller, but some people claim that it has issues with various charging protocols so I don't see a reason to upgrade.

My only complaint is that for whatever reason, these don't seem to exist with EU plugs. There are GaN EU chargers, but they're not nearly as compact, which is disappointing. The US/China designs (the plug types are similar) are hyper optimized for every cubic millimeter, which is cool, but the EU ones are just the US/CN ones bolted onto an EU plug, which obviously wastes space.

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