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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?

#951

Post by DracheZahn »

I have a list of my best purchases and things that will likely change the way I work for life:

Sonos Move - I now take my music outside and work during the day or take my music out in the evening.

Logitech MX Keyboard and Mouse - One mouse and keyboard for three computers. Tried Synergy and other tools but this worked much better across my home computer and work computers.

Anker PowerExpand Elite 13-in-1 Thunderbolt 3 Dock - One cable to my laptop... No Dongles but still get USB, HDMI, and Ethernet with PD Power at 85W.

Tesla Solar and 2x Powerwall2 for home - Effectively Off the grid. When rolling black-outs hit or random power outages, I stay online. Biggest investment of the year by far, but it will ensure I don't pay for electricity for the next 25 years. Sold our second car as we both work from home and used it to pay for solar. Net gain on both sides (no car payment/insurance, and no electricity bills beyond connection fee)

STÁLOGY STATIONERY Grid Notbook and Faber-Castell .7mm Mechanical pencil with HB graphite. I take this everywhere and make notes, journal, draw, design, and plan my life. Best notebook and pencil combo I have.

YETI Rambler 20 OZ tumbler with a Magslider lid - If you want cold coffee at your desk, drink from a standard mug, but if you want hot coffee and tea all day, use a YETI!.

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

#952

Post by parentheses »

Jakobeha wrote: post #128

Material goods: Ear plugs (silicone). Don't waste your money on noise-cancelling headphones, I have $200 ones and they don't compare to simple ear plugs. If you live in a moderately noisy area and you want peace and quiet, get them. They basically just make everything quiet. 24 from CVS = $10. OpenMove by Aftershokz - Bone-conduction headphones. Perfect for running and just good for listening to music. They work, the…

If you're a regular ear plugs user, look into getting audiophile noise dampeners.

They're designed to be reusable and tend to be really comfortable. Some of them don't stick out of your ears like the plugs.

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

#953

Post by UnFleshedOne »

lbotos wrote: post #42

Anova Sous Vide. Cooking perfect Chicken or pork chops every single time is an absolute joy. I don't eat as many steaks but also cooks them just the same. It's one of my go-to kitchen gadgets, and I cook most of my meals with it.

Do you have to cook in plastic, or does it cook in a normal pan?

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

#954

Post by BallCramp »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #811
dharma1 wrote: post #510

I concur with the people who have mentioned robovac, instant pot, sony xm3/xm4, ooni pizza oven, MacBook m1 - all making my life better. Other things - door frame pull up bar, resistance band. Cheap, get a lot of use, don't take much space. One of those shiatsu machines with infrared - used one almost daily for a couple of years. Great for upper back/shoulder muscle tension release while sitting on the sofa in the ev…

> door frame pull up bar YouTube is riddled with those falling out of the door frames and people face-planting or falling on their back. Are all those failures from improper install/usage or what?

Some of them could be badly designed. Mine has a part that hooks over the top of the door-frame, along with a bar that sits against the door frame on the other side... so the more weight you have on it, the more solidly it sits. I like that my body weight isn't hanging from a little screw in the door frame (which I suspect is a failure point).

From what I've seen in those videos, most of the time people are screwing around, swinging out of them and trying to do tricks... if you're doing proper form when the bar breaks, you should probably be landing on your feet anyway?

I'd definitely recommend getting one though.

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

#955

Post by elric »

leadbase0 wrote: post #585
ultra-jeremyx wrote: post #299

Cold climate mini-split heat pumps * I live in northern New England and used to heat exclusively with wood in the winter time. Very cozy, but hard to maintain a consistent temp throughout the house. The new cold-climate models can operate at 100% capacity down to an ambient temp of -13F outdoors. One in each bedroom, the living area, and home office makes it easy to dial in the optimal temp for the space. No more loa…

Can't stress this enough, especially the hyper heat models: caulked compressors (very high pressure) with phase control injector, not only it runs at very low temps but the performance and COP is linear down to -15C. Insulation matters more with heat pumps, especially ceiling for cold starts (for descending heat build up from the top) as low temp air heating is not as radiative as IR from traditional heating applianc…

This is the first time I've heard that CO2 heat pumps might be dangerous. Can you elaborate on why that is?

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

#956

Post by smusamashah »

operator-name wrote: post #853
smusamashah wrote: post #184

Remarkable 2. It does what it says and does it well.

What other devices would you compare the pen latency for?

There is no noticeable latency. You will notice it even if you are looking for it and you will need to really concentrate and draw lines very fast to see the difference.

In general writing and even drawing latency is not something to worry at all. You can write and draw naturally.

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

#957

Post by lbotos »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #953
lbotos wrote: post #42

Anova Sous Vide. Cooking perfect Chicken or pork chops every single time is an absolute joy. I don't eat as many steaks but also cooks them just the same. It's one of my go-to kitchen gadgets, and I cook most of my meals with it.

Do you have to cook in plastic, or does it cook in a normal pan?

You do cook in a plastic bag, but I've seen people also use Silicone sous vide bags.

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

#958

Post by destined »

sizzle wrote: post #881
farrisbris wrote: post #196

Plants. I didn't have many before covid/wfh, but they really make the place more liveable/ejoyable by just being there and this became increasingly important as i spent so much more time at home

Fungus gnats and aphids and making this hobby a living hell for me right now. I’ve been watering my veggies with BTI and spraying aphids with Spinosad(sp?), any tips on ending this infestation nightmare? I’m so close to calling it quits. Have about 12 different veggies going in raised planter boxes.

I had a really bad fungus gnat infestation. I tried sticky traps, BT, and water with Fels Naptha soap. In the end, drying out the soil was the only thing that worked for me. I did it two different ways, but not sure if this is doable in your situation with veggies and planter boxes. For an avocado plant, I let the soil dry completely and then some before watering the plant again. The other was a money tree where I couldn't get the soil to dry fast enough, so I ended up repotting it with cactus mix. Once deprived of water, the fungus gnats disappeared.

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

#960

Post by Aachen »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #806
Aachen wrote: post #165

More RAM. I've got 20GB now (4+16) and it's just never an issue anymore no matter how much I've got open. Sure, I can fill it up if I tried but... if I'm not purposefully trying, it doesn't happen. Previously on 8GB I'd have to quit a few applications to run a big Factorio map, or my browser might run out if I didn't restart for browser updates in a few weeks. It's one of the few nonessentials I've spent more than a…

These days, I'd recommend a 16 gig minimum if you game at all, with 32 gig recommended if you play RAM intense games.

Yeah I was going to go for 16G in 2018 but then didn't find a laptop I actually liked, everything was disappointing (turns out computers just don't get faster anymore, at least not per core, and some of the higher-end stuff didn't have Linux support at all, and not only WiFi drivers or so but actually unbootable or major issues on the latest kernel), so this was kind of an in-betweener while hoping to find something nicer in 3-5 years depending on how well I'd end up liking this one.
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