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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?

#391

Post by kioleanu »

afarviral wrote: post #383
martindbp wrote: post #178

Kindle - had one or another model for many years, but in terms of utility to price ratio, it's still one of the highest. Youtube Premium - I realized I was spending a ton of time on Youtube, both for education, entertainment and podcasts. Removing the annoyance of ads and not being able to just listen to a video while out walking is worth it to me.

Slightly more friendly for sideloading books out the box; Kobo Glo HD Its my favorite gadget. Pretty sure kindle are better value though, and can still be hacked/sideloaded onto. E-Ink is marvel in itself and it is disgustingly uncommon. I hope more products emerge that use them.

> Pretty sure kindle are better value though, and can still be hacked/sideloaded onto.

unfortunately toying with kindles not trivial, at least not with the latest models. last time I checked, you needed to do some hardware bypassing

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

#392

Post by benhurmarcel »

williamstein wrote: post #79

A bidet to save on toilet paper and improvement the quality of your life. I learned about bidets from a HN post a few years ago. Any bidet is pretty good compared to nothing and they are surprisingly easy to install.

Not sure if that's exactly what you mean by a bidet, but the Japanese toilets with water cleaning are the best I've encountered in that space.

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

#393

Post by dimatter »

tasnent wrote: post #301
scpedicini wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time YouTube premium comes up, somebody mentions ublock origin failing to realize that a lot of people use devices other than a personal computer to watch videos (chrome cast, smart tv, phone, etc).

You could also set up something like Pi-Hole.

doesn't work well on youtube ads

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

#394

Post by neurostimulant »

raihansaputra wrote: post #347
znpy wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opera…

I agree on this. Re-pasting the cooler + clearing up the dust boosts the performance quite significantly. But beware that you need to pay attention to the rubber gasket and how it seals to the body. On the rMBP 2015 the camera cable needs to be clipped into the gasket carefully to maintain the seal.

I did opened the macbook several times to replace the disk, ram and the battery and I always clean the dust from the fan surface, but I never considered opening the fan and reapply the thermal paste. Maybe I'll do that later when I have some extended downtime.

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

#395

Post by dzhiurgis »

Yetanfou wrote: post #369
dzhiurgis wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with lack of social life and having to drive everywhere - especially for children? My partner hates the idea - she likes to take stroller out and walking around area, going to coffee groups, etc. Living in a farm means at least 10 minute drive and not being able to safely walk anywhere but your farm.

Social life changes but it does not disappear. Those coffee groups make way for meetings with friends and neighbours (which might become equivalent, when there are fewer neighbours you tend to get to know them better). We live 3 km outside of a small village where our youngest goes to school so we can cycle (or ski in winter) there, she can also take the school bus. Our children can walk and cycle to their friends, t…

We live in NZ. Suburbs here are not like in US. There's usually a corner shop about 20 minutes walk max away, some connecting bus not too far away. Cars move OK - not too fast to be annoying.

However I found the houses tiny (compared to a farm we've lived in recently), backyards minimal and just so claustrophobic.

Country roads here mean people driving past you at 70-90 kmh - you can bike and walk relatively safely, but it's going to be too far to get anywhere unless it's just for a hike. Also not super pleasant to have cars rushing past you where as traffic in suburbs is much slower and you've got a sidewalk.

The cost in country is also much higher, especially in areas that are not too far from city. Of course you get 10x more land that's going to appreciate like crazy in future, but you also shelve out at least 2x initial cost + more on maintenance.

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

#396

Post by rozab »

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?

I would encourage creators to run their own in-video ads (avoiding unethical tracking) and collect funds directly from viewers (i.e. Patreon). This seems to be a much more stable way of collecting income, and doesn't expose them to the whims of YouTube's demonetization system.

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

#397

Post by npteljes »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #300
cjauvin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would recommend a white noise machine for that, I haven't been able to live without mine for many years now: https://www.amazon.com/Marpac-Classic-White-Noise-Machine/dp...

There are also a million white noise apps on the play store. I like Noice, its in the f-droid repository.

Mynoise.net is also a wonderful resource.

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

#398

Post by seventhtiger »

santa_boy wrote: post #286
gotem wrote: post #8

Noise-canceling headphones. I recommend Bose QC35 IIs. You don’t realize how loud the world normally is until you take them off.

Thanks, bookmarked. I so much wish I went for these. I bought the Beats headphones that were a little cheaper. I don't find anything good about them either in comfort or functionality. Social media influence!

I have worn the Bose QC35 II on a 19 hour flight. It greatly reduced the terrible hum of the airplane and the battery lasted all the way through (bluetooth and sound were on maybe 6 to 8 hours). They are that comfortable.

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

#399

Post by benhurmarcel »

mleonhard wrote: post #355

Shave your dry and oily (unwashed) face with an electric shaver. I have sensitive skin. I used disposable razors for years and had got painful and disgusting blisters on my neck. I switched to a $40 Philips 3-head shaver and the blisters reduced. Then someone told me the secret to irritation-free shaving: shave dry, before washing. The oils on the skin protect it from damage by the shaver. I started to shave before m…

It varies for each person. For years I shaved using a Philips 3-head shaver and had my skin red from irritation. It's much better since using wet (soap) shaving with a disposable cartridge razor.

I tried DE razors, which didn't create irritation but even after years I couldn't consistently shave without cuts. I just use Mach 3 cartridges now.

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