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Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

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241–250 of 428 posts

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#241
post #9

Cheap attachable toilet bidet

Is there some issue with the cold water? If you live in a cold climate? Asking for a friend :D

You can just ask for yourself, this is HN not Reddit. You get used to the cold after a few uses, but there are luxury models that allow temperature control.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#243

Blue light blocking glasses. I work on computers a lot and usually ended up feeling fatigue by the middle of the day. When wearing blue light blocking glasses, I don't feel tired anymore :). I've had them for about a year and a half now.

Would you mind sharing which brand?

Not OP, but I've bought a dozen different blue light blocking glasses, including the fancy $100 ones from Gunnar Optiks. Gunnar had good performance, but no better than the $12 cheapo pair I got off Amazon (no doubt from a reseller of generic Chinese wares). Save yourself the money and go with a cheap pair to see if you like it. You can always invest more later if you find it to be worthwhile, but in this case price did not yield any appreciable difference to me.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#244
post #88
post #71

A Fujitsu S1500 ScanSnap, dual-sided, document scanner (now discontinued, replacement might be the iX1600). Completely changed how I manage my personal documents (e.g. financial, invoices, receipts, product manuals, medical info, business docs, recreation and hobby stuff, etc). Anything remotely important, I scan to PDF, which triggers automatic OCR that is reasonably accurate, then I upload the PDF to Google Drive,…

Does anyone have a suggestion for a dual-sided feed scanner like this which can be used to semi-automate document scanning and which is not discontinued? I've been thinking about this for a while but I don't know enough about the market

I have a Brother ADS-2400n[0]. For me the killer feature was wired Ethernet connectivity to upload scans straight to my file server w/o a PC being involved. It's on the counter where I process mail so I can just throw stuff in it, scan, and dump the originals into a box for eventual disposal.

I have been meaning to get around to trying Mayan EDMS[1] to ingest, OCR, and categorize the scans but that still hasn't happened... >sigh[0] https://www.brother-usa.com/products/ads2400n

[1] https://www.mayan-edms.com

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#245

I buy high mileage Honda minivans for no more than $3000 because they're dependable and cheap at high mileage. I generally get 100,000 miles out of them, so 4 mostly dependable vans and 400,000 miles for about $12,000. You'll lose $12K in depreciation alone just driving a new car off a lot. I've lived in them safely and comfortably for a total of about 3 years, living all over the western US from New Mexico to Montan…

Where do you park in the night?

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#247
Casio $12 & $22 watches. I get to choose which watch I wear, no battery problems, not heavy, simple resin black straps, rather smaller face.

$4 Car Lighter USB Charger from Walmart auto elec section with two ports. One for my phone, cable always attached, one for occasional passenger. Same in Electrical section is $11.

$20/year Google One storage 100GB. $120/year Dropbox 1TB. Finally having a offsite backup.

$2.04 Pen & Gear paper journals from Walmart with Magnetic closure flap.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What breed of dog? How much is the insurance?

I got an Aussie. No insurance. I would just pay the 40 bucks for the vet visit if I need it which I haven't in two years of dog ownership so far.

Not sure what your financial situation is, but emergency procedures at the vet can get very expensive very quickly. I would very much recommend insurance even if it is hardly ever needed. Also, starting with insurance later will get you exclusions on the policy for age related issues.

I'm paying USD600 a year per dog in insurance. It already paid for itself for several years with one stomach bug gone bad that needed somewhat intensive care at a vet hospital for several days.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#249
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what happens when your bank sends you a new atm card when the old one expires?

They priority mail me the envelope, international mail if out of the country.

I tried to priority mail the keys to a mailbox slot back to someone last year so it would go to their doorstep and not the mailbox slot. Post office put it in the slot anyway ostensibly due to covid. Had to get new keys made. I should have pushed for a refund.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#250

I buy high mileage Honda minivans for no more than $3000 because they're dependable and cheap at high mileage. I generally get 100,000 miles out of them, so 4 mostly dependable vans and 400,000 miles for about $12,000. You'll lose $12K in depreciation alone just driving a new car off a lot. I've lived in them safely and comfortably for a total of about 3 years, living all over the western US from New Mexico to Montan…

Where do you park in the night?

I find a spot in a national forest and make it my home for a week or seven. If it has decent cellular reception, I can stay there indefinitely, until I run out of supplies, usually water.

No one messes with you in the forest. We woodsies know every Honda minivan also has 12-gauge shotgun inside, for squirrels, tasty, tasty squirrels, and errant humans crazy enough to walk up to your van at night.

:)

Just stay out of the city and you'll be fine. Every square inch of the city is owned by someone, so you're never comfortable. Not so the forest. All Americans own the national forest. We can all use it responsibly and for free.

No campfires, please. No fires period. We're running out of trees to burn in the west.

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