I bought a used Dell office PC from FreeGeek for about 100 bucks, then installed Proxmox on it with Portainer. Now I've got a place to put all my crap that isn't AWS, which is not only easier, but faster, and way cheaper.
Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
401–410 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#402CO2 sensors for every room in my apartment. Before monitoring the CO2 levels I did not realize the relation of tiredness, mental fatigue and high CO2 levels.
CO2 in atmosphere: 0.04%. What sort of levels is it inside? Isn't it inert? (hence the problem of global warming)
In a room with poor ventilation it can go to several percent.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#403A dog recovery suit. It's a breathable, close-fitting suit that you use instead of a cone to prevent biting at healing wounds. Available for $25 or so on Chewy.
Buddy had some surgery and would have been in a cone for 2 weeks (!!!), an utterly shit experience for both of us. This prevented that while making sure he didn't lick or bite at his stitches.
It wouldn't stop a persistent dog like a cone would, but I felt like it gave me enough time to observe the behavior had he bit or licked and stop it without opening the wound.
It's easily my best purchase of the last 5 years, except perhaps for my instant pot, which I use every day to make steel cut oats.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#404Instant Pot. Can be used as a rice cooker, slow cooker, pressure cooker (mostly known for this last use) Though probably not as good for rice specifically as an actual high-end rice cooker, it greatly increased the range of foods I eat. Makes it easy to make nice one pot meals overnight for multiple days, you can make really good broth soups from chickens etc quickly, or slowly if you prefer. If you like to try tough…
We got an Instant Pot and our Zoji rice cooker has collected dust ever since. It is great for brown basmati rice where the Zoji is weak and slow. Try 360g brown basmati rice (we don't bother rinsing it), 705g water, a quarter tsp of salt, 1 tsp of oil. Cook 23m on high and then let it sit for 10min before venting the rest of the pressure off. Remove lid, fluff the rice, and wait a minute or two before serving.
The one weakness of the Instant Pot is that most models won't go to 15psi and there is the odd recipe where a longer cooking time can't compensate. For example, there is a Modernist Cuisine recipe for pressure cooked root vegetables that uses a bit of baking soda to help bring a caramelized flavor to the party. Works great in a 15 psi cooker but is a disaster in an instant pot: the veggies just taste like baking soda. I suspect that stocks made in the Instant Pot might not be as good as well for similar reasons but haven't tried that yet.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#405A Bamix immersion blender; powerful enough to blend frozen fruit in my morning smoothies and safe for a deep pot of soup that needs blending. Also makes top notch Hummus.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#406A one-hour shopping session with a personal stylist, at about $175. I desperately wanted to break out of my t-shirt/blue jeans habit, but parsing clothes sizes, trying things on, and getting opinions is equal parts sorcery and torture for me. (I'd tried Stitch Fix and felt like it wanted to reinforce my habits rather than break me out of them.) After sending her details about my problems and the kinds of styles I adm…
I don't want to belittle your experience as stylists can be helpful for achieving a certain look, but often department stores (especially Nordstrom) have sales associates trained as stylists. They will spend a lot of time helping you with your style for free, albeit you'll probably want to buy from that particular store. Nordstrom clothes are a bit on the pricier end, but ~most~ are often good quality.
We went to a Nordstrom, actually, and worked with their designated stylist who did quite a bit of the picking. The value for the hired stylist was not working for Nordstrom, which meant being able to say "that looks good, here's something that will look as good and cost half as much, and also here's why that looks good on you and where you can find it elsewhere".
EDIT: I really also want to stress that the stylist was just... nice. Completely non-judgmental about me waffling over things, offering lots of advice beyond just the clothing — how different postures affect fits, being able to explain to me why layering was sometimes uncomfortable and how to alleviate it, how to better adjust my fit when my body's size changes, even a gym recommendation. The in-shop stylist was also very nice, but the hired stylist got me through the door to the shop, and for me at least, that was worth the $175.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#407This is a weird one—Fiskars 4-Claw Weeder
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Fiskars-34-in-Aluminum-Handle-an...
Our dogs are frequently out in the yard, so other than spring pre-emergent I try to avoid herbicides. I bought it after a hand weeder broke pulling up crabgrass.
This thing has oddly been one of the most satisfying purchases I've made in years. You put it in the ground, step on it and the thing easily pulls out weeds and only in the spot you put it. Then you get to shoot them off the claw. I have a bucket I try and shoot them into. It's oddly therapeutic.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#408I gave up on flaky WiFi mesh networking and connected the APs to my home's inactive cable wiring using MoCA adapters. Local bandwidth increased 4x, and I was able to achieve solid coverage throughout the house. I also replaced a rock, a brick, and a rubber wedge with magnetic door holders, each about $5. Now when we're bringing in the groceries, we can keep the door open without the rock, and it's easy to close when…
Me too. I was doing a bit of RTS gaming and flaky wifi is terrible. I got a $199 a Base/Satellite Netgear mesh starter kit (Mk62 I think) on some kind of discount. It's also not the latest/top model. I later added a 3rd satellite and it's great. The satellites even have an Ethernet port so that you're only using the base-satellite backhaul channel and not the normal wifi client ones.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#409Most of products I buy are used ones, so almost everything falls in under $200 :)
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#410Space heater, 20 bucks. In the past I chose to heat the bedroom a little on cold days and otherwise suck it up and dress while shivering (no point burning a ton of gas to heat an entire bedroom). Now, I use 1.5 kW for ~3 minutes (0.01 kWh) to have hot air be blown on me while getting dressed in the morning. Because it changes how warm I feel while going downstairs, I also don't need downstairs to be as warm to get wa…
I took this even further, put air purifiers in most rooms and hooked them up to air quality sensors. Mostly they run on the very quiet setting (or not at all), but they’ll automatically spin up if someone cooks, farts, opens a window or hits a vape pen.
> automatically spin up if someone cooks, farts, opens a window or hits a vape pen.
I guess it will be on all the time for me.