Easily the bidet. That coupled with reusable and washable cloth wipes drastically reduced our dependency on toilet paper.
Bidets are awesome, but what system did you come up with for dealing with the cloth wipes?
Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
411–420 of 530 posts
Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
#412Two additional displays and a three-arms stand, to be able to use three displays with my company issued 13" dell latitude 7390 running GNU/Linux. They're all 24" @ 1929x1200. It's magical, I can keep so many things open at the same time with a reasonable window size. The integrated intel graphics can drive all three of them, but I wasn't able to also drive the laptop display, that would have been perfect.
16:10 FTW. That golden ratio.
Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
#413A dishwasher. I spent the last 7 years doing dishes by hand due to lack of space in my Appartments. Then recently I found out there are things called "countertop" dishwashers which are half the size of normal ones and fit neatly onto your washing machine. No longer having to spend 3-4 hours every week on doing the dishes really makes a big difference for me.
Jesus Christ I passionately hate dishwashers. My roommate uses our full height dishwasher all the time. Except he just throws stuff into it and I regularly pull dirty silverware out of it. Sometimes dirty dishes too. The thing is, you're supposed to at least brush dishes, silverware and pans with a bit of water before putting them into a dishwasher. If anything, not to clog the dishwasher drain with small bits of foo…
I came to find out that it has a lot to do with 1) the dishwasher itself and 2) the detergent or tablets that you use.
We now have a higher(ish) end Bosch machine and the manual specifically tells you to put the dishes with up to "moderately dried food remains". The machine has a sensor that looks at how dirty the water going out is and increases power
That with some Finish Quantum tablets does the job perfectly every time
Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah it's bettes to plan it. Get some good paste like Arctic or something like that.
Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
#415Pickup truck. I bought one 4 years ago. Not having to rely on delivery services has been a game changer. When my dishwasher broke and delivery was 3 weeks out I just went to the warehouse and picked it up that day. When my hot water heater died and the plumber was a no show 3 days in a row (for which I had to take time off work each day) I finally just bought one myself at the hardware store and with the help of YouT…
The automatic feeder is a dream. I’m no longer aggressively stalked by my cat for food. I also have several Wyze cams around the home. When I go away, I’m able to have “kitty conferences” to check in how she’s doing and chat with her.
Did you respond to the wrong thread?
Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
#416A robot vacuum cleaner. «I» now vacuum every day, the the flat just looks overall better. There is barley any dust on the shelfs anymore either. https://us.roborock.com/pages/roborock-s5-max
We actually just bought this exact model, the S5 Max, and it was a near-instant quality of life improvement.
We can now walk around the apartment with bare feet without any dirt or kitty litter-dust getting on the soles of our feet. The kitchen floor is now always clean, it's really incredible.
Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
#417A 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.
The best part is rarely mentioned: this [1] is a thing of the past
Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
#418I have a "BahnCard 100" [1], the German national public transit flatrate. My employer pays for it in lieu of a company car. I only have to pay income taxes on it, which comes out to about 170€ (200$) a month. For that price, I can use all trains across Germany as often as I want and also get free local transit (busses, subway etc.) in 120 cities, including the one where I live. 2020 is my first year with a BC100, so…
A BC 100 is a pet dream of mine :D Unfortunately, as a student, the price tag is still quite a bit beyond me...
Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I also "purchased" a 4-day work week, which has had a substantial impact on my own quality of life." Can you tell me more about this? What was your strategy for bringing this up with your workplace, did you take 20% salary cut, any other adjustments?
I took a 20% salary cut. All other benefits remained the same. It's not a formal policy at my company, but I was able to negotiate a reduced schedule during my annual salary review. I don't know that I did anything clever in the negotiation, I just raised it with my manager and we brought it to HR. Everyone was positive about the idea but unsure of how it would work in the broader scheme, including if other people wo…
I did the exact same thing at my work with the same concerns of hr and the hope that all my coworkers follow my path. But everyone is much more greedy than I expected!
Having 3 days of weekends every week is just amazing on top of my regular vacations
Re: Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?
#420Noise-canceling headphones. I recommend Bose QC35 IIs. You don’t realize how loud the world normally is until you take them off.
I have Airpod Pros, and I found myself wearing them without playing anything, just to tune out the noise.