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Ask HN: Favorite purchases of last two years?

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Re: Ask HN: Favorite purchases of last two years?

#91
post #86

A pullup bar (door frame) and resistance bands. Exercising at home has kicked me off into being healthier.

Could you do pull-ups before you bought the bar? I’m always so tempted to get one because I so badly want to be able to do a pull-up. I’d be so pumped if I could just do one. But I have no upper body strength to speak of and getting to a pull-up seems nearly impossible so I never pull the trigger on buying the bar.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite purchases of last two years?

#92

I'm a giant fan of robot vacuums. My Eufy Robovac died last year and decided to upgrade to a Roomba i3. We've got a dog and my girlfriend has very long hair that we would have to cut strands out of the rollers every couple of runs. The new Roomba models have these rubber rollers doesn't catch hair. I'm not entirely what about the design prevents that, but it is fantastic! The i3 is probably $100 more than you'd spend…

I was super skeptical about getting a Roomba, but there was a great deal during around the holiday's last year, and we pulled the trigger.

I'm still 100% happy with the purchase. Does it vacuum as well as a person? No, absolutely not, but what it does do is remove 90%+ of the work.

My only suggestion is that you get one that has a self-emptying container. We have two kids and a cat, and we still only have to change the bag every few WEEKS.

I'm not going to tell you it's perfect. It will occasionally get stuck, or you have to clean it out, but boy has it removed a lot of work for my wife and I.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite purchases of last two years?

#93
post #90
post #86

A pullup bar (door frame) and resistance bands. Exercising at home has kicked me off into being healthier.

Same. My favorite is the simple jumping rope. Never used one at the gym and simply forgot how much fun it is. (Can't use it in the living room though).

You can jump rope without the rope. I do this because I don't have much space in my garage for a rope to sling around, so I just pretend to hold the handles and skip rope that way.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite purchases of last two years?

#94
post #17

- Noise-cancelling headphones (Sony 1000X-M3) are totally saving the rest of my productivity in home office. (The bluetooth does not work with my current Linux version, but I will not update that until my work is done just in case something else stops working. It does however work with my 10-year-old Nokia phone. But hey, there is an audio cable which also works fine. The next time I will probably buy Bose, but only…

I also bought the Sony 1000X-M3 headphones, and they have indeed been a game changer. My work puts me in "war room" situations several times a year, and having noise-cancelling headphones allows me to continue deep work even when there's a crowd of people.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite purchases of last two years?

#95
post #37

1999 GMC Savanna passenger van (seats removed) for use as a farm truck. It’s huge inside and easily holds 4x8 sheets of ply. Here in Seattle it gets wet a lot so I never have to worry about transporting or storing in the rain. Has 8 cylinder engine that will last forever and is easyish to maintain. I get an surprising amount of sheepish interest/envy from dudes who had the same idea but who bought pickups (which seld…

First the white collar hipsters jacked up the prices of station wagons.

Then the white collar hipsters jacked up the prices of small trucks.

Then the white collar hipsters jacked up the prices of fullsize trucks.

In what universe is it sane to tell HN how great vans are?

Re: Ask HN: Favorite purchases of last two years?

#97
Airpods Pro.

Not traditionally an apple guy so didn't expect to like them, but the guy talked us into them while we were upgrading my wife's phone.

Wow. These things are just way better than any other earbuds and so much more convenient and comfortable than headphones. The Bluetooth just works even when switching between my Android and MacBook. The noise cancelling is great as well, way better than my Sennheisers.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite purchases of last two years?

#100

Aeropress, coffee maker.

Wow I’m tempted to order one. It almost looks like a gimmic but it would be cool to get the counter space back from the coffee maker. How do you heat the water though? Does it taste like cold brew?

It makes a great cup of a coffee with a bit of effort. I've had one for 10 years and it gets used often and brought on camping trips, but as another posted suggested, if you are making more than 1 cup it is best to use something like a Chemex. Making multiple cups of coffee with the Aeropress can be a little time consuming. Here is a how to video showing it being used for camping:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmjPjZZRhNQ

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