Ask HN: Favorite purchases of last two years? • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by imjared » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

DarkTree wrote: post #160

imjared wrote: post #101

- a mid-level road bike, Trek Emonda SL6. I'm lucky to live in a city that's really fun to bike in (Washington DC) and has a great community of athletes. I get out for multiple rides per week and am finding myself obsessed with cycling - regular physical therapy. I've started marathon training again and while that in itself beats my body up, I feel like years of sitting at the computer building sites and playing game…

I found this reddit thread regarding running injury prevention and how foam-rolling and stretching may not be as beneficial as might seem interesting [0]. I also enjoy foam-rolling as it tends to alleviate soreness the day after a run/workout, but after seeing this I'm looking more into the evidence behind it. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/running/comments/nghttt/the_low_han...

Thanks for this. I'd agree that foam rolling has never been a huge win for me. It's a nice thing to add to my routine and it's super easy to do while watching TV, messing around on my phone, or having a work conference call with video off.

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

#242

Post by sumedh » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

enobrev wrote: post #201

Headphones: While Working at My Desk: Bose Noise Cancelling 700. Life-changing for me. While Working with Powertools: The ISOTunes SafeMax. Absolutely excellent for protecting my ears and they sound great when playing music through them. Slippers: Gecko-Man. The arch-support was very necessary. Turns out spending an entire year in regular slippers was bad for my feet. Bread Book: "Flour Water Salt Yeast". I've baked…

> Chair: Herman Miller

Has anyone done a blind test between a genuine Herman Miller and a knock off or another similar chair. I suspect people say its good just because of the brand name.

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

#243

Post by Random_Person » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

Chromebook C423NA - for writing. I intentionally bought the lowest end model I could find at Walmart. I wanted it for a single task - writing - and it's perfect for that. It is terrible at most everything else.

Softball glove - my kid has been playing softball and asked me to help work on some of their skills. I'm not into baseball/softball AT ALL, but I've very much enjoyed my time outside passing the ball. It's a very relaxing activity.

EXIT games - a series of tabletop "escape rooms" that kept me and the kids occupied many days over the past year indoors.

Biscuit Joiner - I've long wanted this "luxury" tool for helping keep things aligned when gluing planks for panels... it has become one of my favorite assembly tools in conjunction with pocket holes to make butt join assembly as easy as Lego.

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

#244

Post by _gy5c » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

Coway AP-1512HH Mighty Air Purifier, based on Wirecutter reviews. Home ventilation isn't as good as the office, this makes a very noticeable difference with dust and cat hair. If needed I move it to the kitchen, it cleans up heavy smoke or odor from burgers/steaks/popcorn in about 45 minutes (for a ~6000 ft^3 volume)

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

#245

Post by polytely » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

Open back headphones, Hifiman HE400i (2020). It's really cool to discover more details in my favourite songs. I think I paid ~€200 for it. My previous headphones were the Audio-Technica ATH-M40x ~€100, and you can definitely hear the difference in quality, but I think it is probably past the point of diminishing returns.

Synthesizer: Sequential Prophet REV 2 (8 voice). I have it for 1.5 years now and I still feel like there is a lot left to explore for me in the synth, cool sounds to discover/create, I think I'm gonna buy the expansion board (+8 voices) as a birthday gift to myself

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

#246

Post by yawnxyz » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

100011_100001 wrote: post #228

enobrev wrote: post #201

Headphones: While Working at My Desk: Bose Noise Cancelling 700. Life-changing for me. While Working with Powertools: The ISOTunes SafeMax. Absolutely excellent for protecting my ears and they sound great when playing music through them. Slippers: Gecko-Man. The arch-support was very necessary. Turns out spending an entire year in regular slippers was bad for my feet. Bread Book: "Flour Water Salt Yeast". I've baked…

Bread Book...which one? Or is the name of the book "Bread Book". I have been making sourdough for about 2 years as well, but I am looking to expend to more baking using my starter.

the book is called "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast" — it's my first foray into bread-making, and it's very well-written! It gets a bit into starters, but you might be too advanced for it

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

#247

Post by parf02 » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

monkin wrote: post #170

iPad Pro 12.9” 2020 model, and moving completely to #iPadOnly way. Do not own any other device, and ditched my MBP after buying iPad. Do not miss anything as a designer/developer and I’m happy as hell now. :-)

can you talk about the developer experience on iPad Pro?

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

#248

Post by baby » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

Instant pot. This thing is magical, everything taste so fucking good in it. I bought a crockpot and never used it, but the instant pot was a game changer for me: ramen, couscous, stews, etc. The meat tastes so good when cooked there, vegetables are the same.

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

#249

Post by Random_Person » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

fidrelity wrote: post #172

- barefoot shoes (brands: vivobarefoot and mukishoes). I could write a long rave now about barefoot shoes but I'll try to keep it short: No more knee pains after long walks, every time I go out the amount of sensations is pure joy and a powerful mindfulness experience. - A used Garmin Forerunner 920XT. It's a pretty old model but it still works well for many different sport types. That was great when I did triathlons…

My girlfriend got me a refurb Paperwhite last fall and I didn't put it down for about 4 months. It's been great for my reading habits!

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

#250

Post by coldpie » Thu, May 20, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

Humdeee wrote: post #235

corysama wrote: post #211

An OLED TV. I work in computer graphics and the image quality of my TV makes me smile every day. HDR is a much bigger deal than 4K. The pure blacks of OLEDs make them hard to beat. Not only for the global contrast level. The pixel by pixel contrast level and absence of light leaking at bright edges greatly improves the clarity of the image. I picked up an LG C9 a while back. There have been two more generations since…

> some other brands have obnoxious ads in their UI Can anyone explain this? Are TV manufacturers now dishing out ads themselves and not the cable company? I have a not-so-good dumb TV and have not bought a new one for a long time. I'm completely out of the loop here.

> Are TV manufacturers now dishing out ads themselves

Yes. They have built-in OSes with Netflix, etc apps. They ship ads for the UI to display. It's as ridiculous as it sounds. The best solution is to never allow the TV onto the Internet and use some external device that doesn't hate you.