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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?

#461

Post by bredren »

darkteflon wrote: post #448
bredren wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if they have a charcoal filter. The Coway AP-1512 is a favorite to handle both odor and lower particulates. I have three. There are a number of past threads where people discuss their enthusiasm for this model. Have a search.

Can second that - I have four of them, they run 24/7 on medium and pull ~8 watts at the wall each, assuming my meter is accurate. Picked them up after the last big discussion on air quality here a few months back. They are the Wirecutter pick, I believe.

I keep an agent that monitors amazon pricing on the filters, and just buy a bunch when they dip abnormally low. Have you found any other ways to minimize cost on them? I have only used the ones sold by coway, as my pal tried some 3rd party and they were jenky.

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

#462

Post by solarmist »

t-3 wrote: post #451
solarmist wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the wireless chargers, but until Apple added the MagSafe to ensure your alignment was correct I wouldn't have recommended them to people. My wife and I had too many times where we'd put our phones on the charger and in the morning realize it hadn't charged. ...not sure how that leads to never losing your phone though? I don't see the connection. How would wireless charging affect that? You still have the hardw…

I'm talking about charging pedestals, using inductive charging . Edit: Apple apparently does carry inductive chargers, but I don't know anything about alignment issues. I use a OnePlus phone.

Yes. I know what wireless charging is.

We had flat induction chargers because we also used them for our Airpods.

And they were finicky if you didn't center them carefully. So MagSafe has been a massive aggregation saver.

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

#463

Post by rdtwo »

chefkoch wrote: post #375
washadjeffmad wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good solid-state storage has been the biggest quality of life improvement you can make to a single-disk device for the past decade. I get a chuckle out of colleagues who ask for copious RAM today, and while I'll usually show them where they can put money to do what they actually need better, this kitchen analogy suffices for most of their use cases: The hard drive, RAM, and CPU are like the fridge, the prep table, an…

I am honestly shocked that someone working in IT would even think about working with a laptop with a spinning disk. This isn't 2010.

I’ll take spinning disk over vdi any day. VDI is the worst

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

#464

Post by bsenftner »

miller_joe wrote: post #313
bsenftner wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have four 4K screens, and it is heaven. I got spoiled early in my career by a Unix system that had a greyscale newspaper layout monitor in the early 90's. That monitor could crispy display an unfolded two page newspaper layout with space on the left and right for tool/editing interfaces. For a while, 4K monitors were landing right near US $300, so I got 4 over a period of months. Simply being able to array referenc…

Do you recall the name of that monitor from the 90s? Sounds interesting

It was a Sony News Workstation, with an IBM branded grey scale monitor displaying 16 grey levels at 150 pixels an inch. Total display was about 1900x3600, a bit larger than an opened two-page newspaper spread. It was a CRT monitor, requiring two feet behind the screen for the back of the monitor and quite thick cabling. It was a Unix workstation, used to author R&D CD ROMs, back when the CD ROM itself was R&D.

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

#465

Post by gpvos »

I still use a mouse pad made of hardwood and a hempen cover, and find it by far the most pleasant mouse pad I have ever used, with its very slightly rough surface that feels natural to the hand. You can even put it slightly over the edge of your desk and it won't go floppy. Easily cleaned every few months with some water and dish washing soap. In the age of mechanical mice, it also kept the mouse ball clean, but it works fine with optical mice too. I have two, one at home and one for work, and must have used them for more than twenty years now. Very durable, I am sure there would be a market for these things, but I have never seen anything like it before or since.

I bought it from the now-defunct Hober folk web radio, one of the earlier internet radio stations, which only recently finally turned off their stream. Here's an archive page describing the mouse pad: https://web.archive.org/web/20021013110318/http://banqa.uaqa...

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

#466

Post by secureleaf »

lucumo wrote: post #381
runjake wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t notice the slightest decrease in speed or any benchmark going from native 1440p to 1440p hidpi at 4K. If there is a speed decrease, I can’t notice it on an M1. I’ve seen a lot of people parrot this claim or claim it renders awfully but have yet to experience any evidence. On the contrary, it’s been glorious. Edit: if you do 1440p scaling on a 4K on macOS make damned sure you select “1440p (Hi-DPI)” other you…

Maybe the M1s are better. I have a 2019 MacBook Pro. And two external screens, maybe that makes a difference. It was especially bad after upgrading to Monterey. I don't "parrot" the claim. I've experienced the problem. It's day and night. After installing Monterey I couldn't run MS Teams on the external monitors anymore. It more or less locked up and I couldn't move the window back to the laptop screen. This was repe…

I also have the 2019 MacBook Pro and it's been a dumpster fire. I'm running 3x 4K monitors and it's completely unusable with the dedicated GPU (the 5500M).

I spent months trying everything I could think of: downgrading to Catalina, turning off transparency/shadows, running as few background services as possible, and not using scaling at all (which was the most effective solution). And this was only with 2x 4K monitors; I added a 3rd more recently.

Nothing worked. Thermal throttling and insufficient sustained power were two problems I was able to identify (the 96W adapter is not sufficient for the system's peak power load, so it uses the battery to get over 96W of draw).

Eventually, I broke down and bought an eGPU (Blackmagic eGPU) which solved the problem. For about ~$700, I'm now able to use my machine without a hiccup. Not a great or affordable solution, but it has made my $3,100 machine usable again.

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

#467

Post by solarmist »

Jackdanie1s wrote: post #459
solarmist wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a low-profile version of the ultimate hacking keyboard. https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/ I'd be interested to see a comparison between the UHK, Moonlander, and Dygma Rise. They all seem to be converging on the same design principles. I agree, though; having a good split keyboard has been a requirement for me since I first got the original MSFT natural keyboard.

Didn't look low profile to me

Ah, maybe not. I think the angle combined with the ramp made it look slimmer than the UHK to me.

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

#468

Post by Tryk »

gpvos wrote: post #465

I still use a mouse pad made of hardwood and a hempen cover, and find it by far the most pleasant mouse pad I have ever used, with its very slightly rough surface that feels natural to the hand. You can even put it slightly over the edge of your desk and it won't go floppy. Easily cleaned every few months with some water and dish washing soap. In the age of mechanical mice, it also kept the mouse ball clean, but it w…

mouse ball?

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

#469

Post by Jackdanie1s »

entropicgravity wrote: post #383

The Logitech MX Ergo "thumb ball" mouse. A normal mouse requires your entire arm to move to make the mouse operate properly. You might notice that the repetitive motion can cause muscle pain all the way from your shoulder blade, through your neck, down your arm to your wrist. A thumb ball requires just your thumb to move and makes life a lot easier on your arm. It takes two to three hours to transfer your motor memor…

I use this but I still try to swap periodically with a normal mouse to give your thumb a rest.

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

#470

Post by gpvos »

Tryk wrote: post #468
gpvos wrote: post #465

I still use a mouse pad made of hardwood and a hempen cover, and find it by far the most pleasant mouse pad I have ever used, with its very slightly rough surface that feels natural to the hand. You can even put it slightly over the edge of your desk and it won't go floppy. Easily cleaned every few months with some water and dish washing soap. In the age of mechanical mice, it also kept the mouse ball clean, but it w…

mouse ball?

Yes, it's in the second paragraph of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse
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