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Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

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Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#421

Post by bitzun »

bitzun wrote: post #411

1. Buying a house 2. Deciding not to have kids 3. Deciding not to plan to live past 50-55

I realize this is incredibly flippant. I can probably make these sound better:

1. At my old apartment my neighbours had become obnoxious. The house is much bigger so I have more room to tinker, and my wife is much happier living here. If she's happier, I'm happier.

2. We've passed the age where having biological children is really feasible, and we really enjoy our lifestyle, so "formally" rejecting the pressure to raise children has reduced my stress.

3. I'm fine with living past 55, but I have historically been incredibly risk averse, especially with my finances. Deciding that I don't care if I'm poor or dead at 55 is a mental trick to compensate for my own neuroses. I can do riskier investments, risk my phobias, say what I think and buy whatever.

I'm aware these are pretty idiosyncratic.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#422

Post by gonehome »

Viker wrote: post #416
gonehome wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it’s still possible to eat ice cream even though such a thing would not be found on the savanna. Some people can’t control this and become wildly obese, but others eat ice cream, understand what it is, and get on with their life.

The drive for reproduction is way stronger than the need for energy (sugar - ice cream).

I don’t agree.

You need to eat to not die before you need sex.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#423

Post by oe »

emgo wrote: post #67
rococode wrote: post #40

Video walks on Youtube. If you haven't heard of them before, they're simple first-person videos where the filmer walks around some area with a stabilized video camera - no talking, just walking. I've really missed traveling and watching video walks while exercising has been a great way to satisfy that travel craving a bit and also trick my brain into experiencing some semblance of normalcy (not sure I could remember…

+1 Also, train ride videos, for example this one in Switzerland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw9qiV7XlFs

It's interesting how much art direction there is involved in a relatively simple video (train driving from A to B), and for example rmoriz's cycle videos. What is the field of view, how high is the camera? How is sound recorded? Do you cut when the train is stopped on station (or bike in traffic lights), do you fast forward or just show the stop in real time?

As a viewer I'd want there to be zero cuts: If your video puts me on a train I want to experience the whole train journey. Some train videos record audio from the train cars, maybe to avoid recording radio traffic in the engine but this also makes the experience somehow worse.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#424

Post by testfoobar »

nickkell wrote: post #336
testfoobar wrote: post #43

Such a pandemic cliche: making sourdough bread. Takes all day. Took about 3 or 4 tries until I got the hang of it. Now I make two loaves every weekend. Tastier than anything I've bought at a store. Started with Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2020/07/how-to-make-sour... Settled at Tartine Country Bread: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016277-tartines-country... Makes me happy every time.

Same! Received a cast iron pan set that doubles as a Dutch oven as a gift. Since then I've been making the most delicious sourdough pizzas. I'm annoyed with myself that I ate crappy frozen pizzas/takeaway for so long, when I should have been cooking from scratch using a cast iron pan or pizza stone.

I have not tried sourdough pizza dough. Nice. Will try later this week.

I have two cast iron skillets. I make my bread by covering them with 9inch round cake pans. Comes out all right.

Serious Eats is my preferred home made pizza: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/01/foolproof-pan-pi...

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#425

Post by testfoobar »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #371
testfoobar wrote: post #43

Such a pandemic cliche: making sourdough bread. Takes all day. Took about 3 or 4 tries until I got the hang of it. Now I make two loaves every weekend. Tastier than anything I've bought at a store. Started with Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2020/07/how-to-make-sour... Settled at Tartine Country Bread: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016277-tartines-country... Makes me happy every time.

I think this is the same recipe for Tartine Country Bread but not paywalled: https://tartinebakery.com/stories/country-bread

Thanks.

I aspire to make Tartine morning rolls. But haven't gotten past the croissant dough yet.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#426

Post by lallysingh »

M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote: post #368
don-code wrote: post #344

Buying a home. But not for any of the typical reasons. If you told me back in February that I'd buy a home in 2020, I'd have told you to get lost. I lived alone in a small apartment, with a "necessities" mentality, and homeownership was on my radar for 5-10 years out. Why invest in exercise equipment when I go to a gym, a decent WFH setup when I work in an office, or kitchenware when most of my meals are eaten at wor…

isn't it harder to socialize when you're not surrounded by people in gyms, an office, and so on? I personally would put that above home ownership, especially while I don't have a family.

I don't think that stuff is available in a city during Covid lockdown.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#427

Post by tomatocracy »

loeg wrote: post #413
hasbot wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, I found the dishwasher produced more stress than handwashing. Living alone, it takes days to fill up the dishwasher to a level where running it isn't wasteful. Every day, I'd eye how full it was and judge whether it was "worth it" to run it that day. Meanwhile, any time I cooked invariably the pot or pan I needed was sitting dirty in the dishwasher. With hand washing, I just spend 15 minutes usually ev…

> it takes days to fill up the dishwasher to a level where running it isn't wasteful Dishwashers are much more efficient than you think -- more than handwashing. Just run it every day or two.

Indeed, and modern dishwashers also often have a cycle which adjusts the amount of washing they do to the load (using things like sensors to see how clean the wastewater is) which can further improve this.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#428

Post by gabrielsroka »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #202
jcpst wrote: post #198

WFH. I take my dog on a walk during standup. I hang out with my kids when I can step out of the office. I recently started exercising over lunch (this habit was never easy for me- it took getting Ring Fit Adventure on Nintendo Switch to start that). I saved 15000 miles on my car’s odometer. —— Reconnecting with old friends from HS/college. We normally do a march camping trip every year. Not in 2020. Instead, We set u…

I have dogs. I do stand-ups. I never thought of combining these. It makes so much sense because I can think better when walking. This is so simple yet brilliant!! Thanks for this.

> I have dogs

I thought you were an atheist.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#430

Post by kjakm »

M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote: post #368
don-code wrote: post #344

Buying a home. But not for any of the typical reasons. If you told me back in February that I'd buy a home in 2020, I'd have told you to get lost. I lived alone in a small apartment, with a "necessities" mentality, and homeownership was on my radar for 5-10 years out. Why invest in exercise equipment when I go to a gym, a decent WFH setup when I work in an office, or kitchenware when most of my meals are eaten at wor…

isn't it harder to socialize when you're not surrounded by people in gyms, an office, and so on? I personally would put that above home ownership, especially while I don't have a family.

Are those socialisations meaningful though? If so, you could meet those people elsewhere. If not, why waste time on them instead of actual meaningful friendships?
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