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Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inside the bathroom itself, the doors on individual stalls usually open inwards. One pragmatic advantage of this approach is that if the door opens while you are seated, you can push it closed without getting up. Or requiring help from someone else outside. This also drives the use of push-in-pull-out handles.

One major disadvantage of this approach is that if you are coming in with a bulky bag, or more (hauling carry-on luggage in an airport for instance), you have sharply limited space within to maneuver you and your stuff to a position where you can lift your skirts and do what you came here to do. Every time I go to a public bathroom with stall doors that open outward I am delighted.

You are forgetting about pregnants and bigger people. They usually have a hard time getting into the stalls.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#782
- WD40 - Duct Tape - zip ties - Pilot's "Better Retractable" ballpoint pen - Rhodia reverse book dot book note pad - Thinkpad x220, x230, and x250 - MacBook pro 2015 - Nokia 5110 and 3310 - Henckels Professional Chef knife - Emacs Orgmode - Microsoft Paint - Microsoft Excel - Lego - ipod shuffle 4

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#783
post #151

This may be a normie response - but Apple Airpods Pro are one of the best products I've used. After years of using several bluetooth headsets that get finicky (with connections that is), having a set that just connects and works every single time is refreshing. They really changed my behavior - I went from not liking phone conversations at all (getting agitated after a few minutes)to comfortably having long phone cal…

I bought Airpods soon after they came out, and got a pair of Airpods Pro just a couple of years ago as a gift for my girlfriend.

I just switched back to a pair of $50 IEMs (Tin T2 Pros) with a replaceable MMCX cable and foam tips. Fortunately I use a phone that has a jack.

The removal of the headphone jack is an absolute crime. Everyone I know struggles with Bluetooth regularly, but even the Apple models with special pairing chips don’t ALWAYS behave. Meanwhile, I do have to deal with a cable on these IEMs… but honestly, after 2+ years of suffering with Bluetooth, I’m more than happy with that tradeoff.

By the way, the headphones I have now are absolutely fantastic. Especially with the foam tips, noise cancellation is just about as good as my Airpod Pros, and I can either wear them like normal headphones, or hooked above the ear, to keep them more secure (mostly while running).

They’re also built out of solid aluminum like absolute tanks.

If anybody is skeptical about Bluetooth headphones, please seek out phones with the jack and try out something like these IEMs. I think you’ll be very happy.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#784
When I was a kid, the tub in the bathroom had two knobs to control the faucet and shower: one marked with a red H, one marked with a blue C. Easy to understand, consistent with the faucets in the kitchen and bathroom sinks, easy to control. There was the little thing to pull up and redirect the flow from the faucet to the showerhead.

Every tub/shower fixture in the apartments I've lived in and all the hotels I've visited since has been different. They have all replaced this simple arrangement with some godawful thing that tries to combine the two variables of "amount of hot water" and "amount of cold water" into one knob/lever/dial/whatever. Usually with absolutely no markings. It takes an annoying amount of time to figure these out the first time and sometimes they remain annoying forever - the one in my current apartment is mounted at a weird angle, so "off" is slightly to the right of pointing the handle straight down; maximum hot water is somewhere below pointing straight right, and pointing straight right is cold. Pointing straight down is an annoying, chilly trickle.

Every time I take a shower I miss the simplicity of two knobs, clearly marked.

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The humble handlebar-mounted bicycle gear shift. So much more pleasant than reaching down to a little lever mounted on the frame like I did before these became standard on even the cheapest bikes. Just move my hand over on the handlebar a little, grab, and twist: there's a little resistance, then a distinct click as it moves to the next spot, which changes the tension in the cable and makes the derailleur do its job of moving the chain from one gear to another. It is not perfect, but its failure modes are much more prone to "a little out of alignment and now you skip over a gear or two in the middle" than "it's super easy to shift the chain off the gears entirely". People have come up with other ways to alter the gear ratio between the crank and the wheel but they are all much more complex and power-hungry than the grip-shifter and derailleur combination.

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If you want a specific brand and model of thing, my Tom Binh "Pilot" bag is really nice. Durable, reasonably cute, carries my computer and everything I need for a day going out to cafes to work, with enough room for a change of clothes or two if I stuff it tightly. Has some nice touches like a pocket in the center with a drain hole for a water bottle or a compact umbrella, and a pocket in the back that unzips on the bottom so you can empty it and slide it over the extended handle of your big rolling bag when traveling. I've had it for like half a decade and it's been my main bag for a lot of that time. https://www.tombihn.com/collections/travel-bags/products/pil...

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#785
post #230

Dyson vacuum products are pretty damn impressive. I have an 9 year old Dyson DC33 and every time I take it apart to clean it, I can’t believe how thoughtful the engineers were. Repairability is 9/10 and built like a tank.

Yes, I’ve fixed my animal vacuum in major ways 3 times and it was very easy to do. The vacuum has been running well for a very long time in vacuum years.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#786

Google flights is fantastic. Don't know if it is "the best-designed thing I've ever used", but it is on top of my mind as I just used it yesterday. Google doesn't get enough credit for the things that they did do well - including Search and Maps. Another is Macbooks - the pre-2015 ones at least. I haven't used the latest M1 ones, which I hear great things about. The Aluminum body, the flawless screen, magsafe, great…

One incredibly irritating thing about Google Flights is it ignores and overrides my currency settings every time. And often my language settings too. At least on Safari. No combination of being logged into Google and selecting the currency in the sidebar will result in the currency, rather than the local currency, being set for next visit. That means every single use of Google flights involves going to the sidebar to…

One time I was in a foreign country but looking for hotels on Google Maps for a future weekend getaway in my home country. Despite being logged in and Google having my home address, and with each account needing a country to comply with differing data protection laws, it was still showing me prices for hotels in my home country in the foreign country's currency. Helpful? Not!

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#788
post #291

I'll go a game route: Mario Kart. It's just so perfect. All of them from the SNES to the Switch. I've played countless hours and never get bored. The level designs are all so interesting and unique I find myself discovering something new every time. It's social and I've seen it dominate dinner parties.

This is a fascinating response, partly because of how passionately I disagree. I loved Mario Kart for SNES and N64. After that, Nintendo seemed to have no idea what people even liked about the games. They added more characters, more cars, and more level interference, meaning that you were competing less and less on skill. Worse, your choices for character and car could have enormous and difficult to predict effects o…

I'd second this; the N64 version still took skill. I also can't place my finger on it but modern version NPCs feel worse as well.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#789
post #291

I'll go a game route: Mario Kart. It's just so perfect. All of them from the SNES to the Switch. I've played countless hours and never get bored. The level designs are all so interesting and unique I find myself discovering something new every time. It's social and I've seen it dominate dinner parties.

This is a fascinating response, partly because of how passionately I disagree. I loved Mario Kart for SNES and N64. After that, Nintendo seemed to have no idea what people even liked about the games. They added more characters, more cars, and more level interference, meaning that you were competing less and less on skill. Worse, your choices for character and car could have enormous and difficult to predict effects o…

Nintendo sees them as kids games, hence the effort to balance things.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#790
I think the aeropress coffee press was very well designed. It's made of three sturdy, plastic parts that wash easily and last a very long time. It makes a great cup of coffee. https://aeropress.com/

I'm also impressed by the MSR whisperlite international camp stove. The international edition is designed to work with a variety of fuel types-- white gas, kerosene, etc. The stove compacts down to a very small size. It produces a jet sufficient for boiling a pot of water in less than 10 minutes. It can be easily maintained and there is a market for parts. https://www.msrgear.com/stoves/liquid-fuel-stoves/whisperlit...

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