Most Patagonia products. The last 5-6 years they've greatly increased their range of offerings with no noticeable diminution of quality (from my perspective).
Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
791–800 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
#792Hiking boots: Meindl http://www.meindl.de/produktwelten/berg-wandern/modelle-berg...
Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
#793Textmate 2 - It's such a well-engineered piece of software, and it's gorgeous. Bialetti Brikka - Such an elegant design, and it makes delicious coffee, Italian-style. Nespresso - If Apple made espresso machines. The espresso tastes great and it's easy to clean. Patagonia MLC 45L - My pet peeve with luggage is that the good stuff tends to be heavy. Not this! It's big enough for extended travel, has backpack straps if…
I'm so annoyed that the awful Textmate 1 website is still the first result on Google, and has not been replaced. Every time I recommend it, I have to go into an explanation of how to ACTUALLY find the editor, so they don't just see the one from 2005 and leave.
Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
#794The Fisher Space Pen. Small enough to carry in your pocket without even noticing it, no sharp edges, unbreakable and trivially refillable. And it writes, too!
Small enough to easily lose, too - I miss mine!
I went through two bullet pens before throwing in the towel. I understand that a permanently mounted clip would throw off the sleek, classic design - but it would be way more functional if the pen and clip would actually stay attached to each other.
Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
#795Software: Winamp. It is so simple and stupid and it works really well.
I've tried using other players, but I keep sticking to the light, versatile, and familiar Winamp.
Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
#796Google Reader. It actually let me add feeds, read them, and mark them read reliably. Everything after is focused on value-add instead of just fucking working.
If you are using mac, try reeder( http://reederapp.com/mac/ ). It syncs with a lot of online rss readers (I use feedly and instapaper). But where it shines is its UX. It does what you need without any fluff and does it elegantly. All essential parts are there without showing million buttons. Keyboard shortcuts also work perfectly. It is the only app that I didn't feel any need to change settings after the first time.
I was using Reeder back when Google Reader was killed, and it was super easy for me to switch to Feedly as the back end — just export the subscriptions and import them into Feedly. Just like I didn't use Google Reader in the browser, I don't ever use Feedly in the browser, either.
It's a beautiful little app. Great native app on iOS, too.
Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
#797MUJI 0.5mm gel ink pens [0] - I've used these pens for so long that my handwriting goes haywire when using a different make. Perfect balance of smoothness and scratchiness - with fast drying ink, which as a lefty is vital. Harmon Kardon Soundsticks II – had mine for over a decade and they still sound and look great. Gaggia Colour espresso machine – looks great, built like a tank, simple to repair, and still produces…
> MUJI 0.5mm gel ink pens [0]
Yes! They're fantastic. Muji has a lot of excellent, well-designed, minimalist products. (Also some crappy ones, but they're the minority.)
Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
#798The ancient microwave in my first apartment. It had two knobs: one for time, one for power. It's immediately obvious how to cook something for how long, how to add more time, etc. All other microwaves that I've used I had to have someone explain to me what buttons to press in what order to do even the simplest things. And I've never seen anyone use all of those fancy buttons.
The household has been stove-shopping since late November. I've discovered a few things: 1. A major manufacturer and appliance dealer have managed to deliver 3 DOA appliances. 2. There are no gas stovetop/oven combinations which don't have electronic controls. Certainly nothing for less than $3,000 (and the budget is about 1/6 - 1/2 that). 3. It is oh so easy to screw up a design with a simple oversight. The GE oven…
> I'm curious as to what thermal-cycling protection or durability is engineered into these.
Just enough to be sure it lasts past the end of the warranty period.
Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
#799My steel backplate original IBM Model M keyboard in use continuously from when it was new until today. I can't figure out any way to improve it. Logitech trackman wheel from a decade or two ago, perfect to have a desk with 3 or 4 machines on. Must have thousands of hours of FPS and minecraft on it, feels new, feels perfect. The original Radio Shack wire wrapping tool, you could pay up to 100x more for something less…
What would be a good book or article for getting into making electronics with wire wrapping?
I'm not sure it would be viable. You need sharp edged sockets because the wire cold welds to the socket pin and if you unravel you can feel it pop loose from the corners. "Gas tight connection" as they called it. You can wrap round analog component pins but it doesn't stick as well. So you're mostly limited to digital DIP components in sockets. Given that limitation it worked very well back when "The TTL cookbook" from the late 70s was mostly contemporary.
Counter intuitively people assume short neat wiring is lower capacitance therefore better, actually complete rats nest has lower capacitance and lower coupling. You aren't going to be running much above maybe 20 MHz but that was OK in the days when a 2 MHz nmos Z80 was "pretty fast".
Everyone does something dumb once like wrap an entire 8-bit microprocessor system using the same wiring color, but back then it was easy to get multiple colors and do your data bus in green and address bus in red or whatever.
Another anecdote back in the old, old days original "TTL", no series like LS or HC, was kinda power hungry and 30 gauge wire is not thick and people would daisy chain from power pin to power pin and 20 hungry chips later be perturbed that 5 volts comes in but there's only 4 volts at the power pins of the last chip. Lots of people hand soldered larger gauge wire for power and ground along with hand soldering on decoupling capacitors.
Another anecdote from the ancient days WRT cross coupling and interference the electrical noise a circuit generates is almost solely proportional to risetime / falltime of gate which depends on gate family not clock speed. So a 10 MHz plain TTL board was much more electrically quiet than a 0.89 MHz "quarter colorburst crystal" circuit made with "F" family chips, this is very counter intuitive to many people.
What a color burst crystal is, and why they were so cheap until the 00s or so, is beyond the scope of this post LOL.
Nothing forces people to learn RF/analog electronics as well as trying to do fast digital electronics.
Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?
#800Fiskars Axes: http://www.fiskars.eu/products/gardening/axes/splitting-axe-... Barbour Jackets: http://www.barbour.com/eu/categories/mens/waxed-jackets/barb... Camper Shoes: https://www.camper.com/en_FI/men/shoes/peu/camper-peu-17665-... Stihl Chainsaws: http://www.stihl.com/STIHL-power-tools-A-great-range/Chainsa... Genelec Speakers: http://www.genelec.com/8351 Desktops: Mac Pro 1st Generation Laptops: Macbook Pro Ph…
4000$ for a single speaker seems pretty extreme, and i've spent a good amount of time in professional recording studios. Am i missing something with the Genelec speakers?
What am i getting out of 1x Genelec that I'm not able to get out of having 10x (!!!) Yamaha MSP7 studio monitors?