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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?

#871

Post by eps »

colinwilyb wrote: post #766
eps wrote: post #566

Thermapen Unfold, stick in, see the temperature. If it's dark, it will highlight the screen, If it's upside down, it will flip the screen. Very fast, because it uses gradient descend and not linear estimation. Pull it out, place it down and it switches off. Move it, it switches on. Single moving part, no buttons. You want it in Farneheights - open it up with a screwdriver, flip a microswitch. Fairly big in size for n…

Thank you so much for this. I've been through 3 terrible thermometers in the last year and have been looking for a replacement.

Happy to recommend it. Take a look at Meater too. Same type of functional minimalist design, really well-executed.

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

#872

Post by kleopullin »

Zeiss Axio Imager research grade upright light microscope with DIC, phase contrast, and fluorescence. It's easy to use without training if you've had at least a high school or college bio course with a real microscope. It's stable and sturdy, the lenses rotate into position with a lovely stop, the stage moves steadily, the lenses are fantastic. All the microscopy perks are there, but just the way the basics are assembled into an instrument make it a gem, from focusing the eyepieces, to focusing the image, centering the stage, aligning the beam in the optical axis, inserting prisms or filters. It reminds me of my 40 year old Husqvarna sewing machine, built solid and heavy and designed to be used with controls to be handled.

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

#873

Post by amarshall »

Oddskar wrote: post #606
amarshall wrote: post #239

The Kinesis Advantage keyboard [1]. The height of the keys in each column are different because, well, the length of each of our fingers is different. It’s so naturally comfortable that it goes unnoticed and one’s fingers just fall into the right position. Placing one’s fingers offset left or right is so obviously uncomfortable that it’s basically impossible to have off-by-one typos. There is a lot of subtly well-des…

It was very good about 5 years ago, and is still quite comfortable. However I would say that today this has largely been superseded by a myriad of better choices. For the adventurous type there's e.g. Dactyl Manuform. If one does not care so much for the keywell there's Lily 58, Iris or Kyria. For built-in tenting there's ZSA Moonlander, Redox etc. All of these have better customizability, repairability and portabili…

There’s a project to replace the board in the Kinesis with a QMK-driven one. One day I’ll get around to it.

https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2020-07-09-kint-kinesis-...

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

#874

Post by convolvatron »

mismatchpair wrote: post #810
pfortuny wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it with linux+emacs and definitely the best keyboard ever. Already 15 years old.

Could you share how you remapped your modifier keys for optimal emacs use on the Kinesis Advantage2? Thank you in advance.

I put all the modifiers on the thumbs. so meta and mac option need to be mapped, and I put a control key on each thumb, space, backspace and newline. so all chords are 1 or 2 thumbs plus a normal key.

I guess that leaves 3 on the thumbs unused ... I should look at that

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

#875

Post by convolvatron »

corinroyal wrote: post #754

Redwing boots with a steel shank and toe cap. Totally indestructable, classic styling. Once broken in they conform to your foot shape to provide amazing support, comfort, and protection from puncture or crushing. They are American made, and the town is gorgeous.

ech. I used to wear redwings. i could only get a year or two out of them.

I've been switching off between two pairs of wescos for 20 years now and while one of them is finally about to go, the second one is still in solid shape.

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

#876

Post by freyir »

pxeger1 wrote: post #868

YouTube's video player (almost the entire rest of the site is beyond crap, don't get me wrong! I'm just talking about the watching experience) (assuming you have an ad-blocker, which you obviously should). Plenty of other video players have some of these features, but YouTube has almost everything. - click to pause - double-click to fullscreen - customisable captions - speed controls - sensible keyboard shortcuts for…

> assuming you have an ad-blocker, which you obviously should

Stating the the obvious, but these features were developed by real people and revenue pays these developers, pays for the infrastructure, and pays the content creators. As an alternative for those who have the means, you can also sign up for a subscription to remove ads. I’ve gotten more value out of my youtube subscription than most other streaming services I pay for.

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

#877

Post by bquest2 »

pxeger1 wrote: post #868

YouTube's video player (almost the entire rest of the site is beyond crap, don't get me wrong! I'm just talking about the watching experience) (assuming you have an ad-blocker, which you obviously should). Plenty of other video players have some of these features, but YouTube has almost everything. - click to pause - double-click to fullscreen - customisable captions - speed controls - sensible keyboard shortcuts for…

Its an ok player, but its not designed well:

- No stop button

- No way to easily stop buffering

- Auto pops open the mini player when you navigate away from the page

- Autoplay being agressively enabled by default.

All of these make it like an nightmare ex-spouse situation where all you want to do is have it stop draining your bandwidth to play videos but it won't let you go.

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

#878

Post by cgranier »

fredophile wrote: post #779
wmwmwm wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There used to be a coffee shop opposite my office that had a pull handle on the push side of the double doors. The right hand side doors were also often locked. I once sat at the nearest table to the doors and watched a dozen people pull then push on the right door, then pull and finally push on the left door, and often end up visibly aggravated by the time they got in and joined the morning queue! The next day my de…

Double doors where one door doesn't actually open are one of the most frustrating designs I commonly encounter.

To this day, I can't understand the thought process behind opening only one half of the door and locking the other one. I used to go around unlatching the offending doors, but got tired of it.

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

#879

Post by vort3 »

Call me old, but Total Commander.

So much functionality and extensibility in a pretty small software, it almost didn't change in years, and still does its job very efficiently, and my favourite part is that you can literally do every possible action with just a keyboard.

I love software that doesn't require a mouse. Terminal emulators and shells are obviously things I love using (hello vim users), but Total Commander is probably the only GUI software I respect because I could do just fine if my mouse got broken.

---

Also, Keypirinha + Everything search. Both of those individually are great and do their job well, but the fact that you can combine them makes them even better. Oh, and Total Commander also can use Everything search.

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

#880

Post by invalidator »

rsync wrote: post #855
invalidator wrote: post #149

GearWrench ratcheting wrenches. They're compact and fit in places that sockets never will. The ratcheting mechanism is very fine, with low backlash, which matters a lot in those tight places. They feel great, and they're a delight to use. Wirewrap tools. They're mechanically simple, easy to learn, and let you create neat, dense hobby prototypes faster and easier than soldering. Wago Lever Nuts. These let you join a w…

"Wago Lever Nuts ..." These are great but you need to strip a specific length of insulation of off the wire - within a certain range, that is. That's not that difficult but I wonder if there is an adjustable stripping tool that can be fixed to a certain length to get repeatable strips over and over ? It seems like this is what I am looking for: https://www.amazon.com/C-K-TOOLS-T3757ESD-Adjustable-Strippe... ... but t…

I use manual strippers because I only do small jobs. I compare the length against the template on the side of the lever nut and it's easy to keep it in tolerance.

If you want to do a lot of connections, I recommend using an automatic stripper.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003B8WB5U Knipex

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OQ21CA Irwin

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BC39YFQ Klein

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