An ergonomic chair (Hag Capisco). Fixed back/leg pain.
Yes, Capisco gang!
Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
161–170 of 221 posts
Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
#162OK, cheating a bit here, but: My Jetbrains IDEs. It's a huge productivity boost for me over VSCode, with batteries included out of the box (great diff engine, gitlens like visual git, built in postman like client, SQL query editor and table browser, amazing indexed searched, awesome refactoring). I've paid for an individual sub for a decade and will probably keep doing it for life. Really great product that's useful…
100% agreed, Jetbrain IDEs are great buys, but some people refuse to make the leap. I'm currently running into formatting issues/PR conflicts because of other devs refusing to switch over and the default formatting rules between Code and Jetbrains is wide.
Oh, yeah, we had that issue too and solved it pretty successfully with `.editorconfig` (shareable between VScode and IntelliJ, https://editorconfig.org/) combined with `prettier`.
Each IDE is configured to:
- Not reformat code on its own
- Ignore whitespace
- Run `prettier` as a pre-commit hook
Those settings are saved to `.editorconfig` where possible, or to each IDE's repo-specific folder (e.g. `.idea`).
Then in theory each developer can use whatever IDE they want, whatever whitespace settings they want (tabs vs spaces), and the end code committed to the repo is still the same. It took a commit or three to set up and work out all the kinks, but afterward it ran flawlessly.
Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
#163I would get pretty bad wrist pain due to what I'm assuming is carpal tunnel, so I got a DeltaHub Carpio 2.0. It changed everything -- no more pain. It took a few weeks to get used to, but now I don't even notice it (unless it's gone). I work with it, I play competitive FPS games with it.
Another would be a standing desk with an Ergodriven Topo Mat. I stand 99% of the time. I don't even own an office chair anymore. My back feels much better (I really feel better overall). My feet hurt pretty bad in the morning, right after I wake up, though. But a worthy tradeoff.
Another would a Audient EVO 4 audio interface. It lets me mix ambient sound from my mic with my music (sometimes I like to hear my wife and kids or my mechanical keyboard, other times I do not).
Lastly would be an AirDoctor.
Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
#164- Moonlander keyboard. I was experiencing numbness in a couple of my fingers, and having the keyboard split into two pieces lets me relax my shoulders and just feels much, much more comfortable. Plus the programmable layout means I can make all the stuff I need for coding (curly braces, brackets, oft-used combos like =>) much more accessible. -48” 4k OLED screen. A single large screen, combined with a tiling window m…
are you on Linux since you mentioned a tiling window manager, or are you using something like yabai on mac?
Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
#165AirPods Pro without a doubt. It's the only item in my life that if it broke, I would immediately buy a replacement. I used them in the office to isolate myself from other people and when I'm walking outside to isolate myself from cars.
I can't wear them because they really hurt after about 20 minutes. Indoors, I use AirPod Max. They have the same benefits. They are really overpriced, but I can use them all day without any negative effects. The quality is superb. One caveat: don't workout in them. They have issues with moisture.
How did you choose them over Bose and Sony? My understanding is that they are more expensive and heavier than both of those. Is the noise cancellation so much better that it outweighs the cost and weight considerations?
Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
#166Physical sticky notes Really! I never used them and after receiving them as a "gift" I started loving using em. They really help me manage both: job and private stuff!
They have an extra-sticky variety. Now my notes don't "grow legs" or fall off the wall.
Peel them off from left to right (not bottom to top, as feels natural) and they won’t be as inclined to grow legs.
Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
#167I'll second what others said about chairs and nice keyboards. If you're going to spend a lot of time using it, it might as well be a good one. Some other things that helped me with a mainly work from home life: - A very large desk with a ton of space to tinker with things. I got an corner desk, with one wing holding an electronics workbench, and the other kept clean for working on my 3d printer or camera or taxes, et…
Which EInk notebook do you use?
I use a boox ultra c. I really like it and take notes, draw, read but the color is not great for this generation.
Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
#168HM Embody. It's not "comfy", but after six months, a lower back condition that hasn't been corrected, only managed by years of PT improved enough for me to go off pain management. Bonus: It also solved a prostate issue I didn't know I had. RealForce R3S TKL, 30g. I returned a Kinesis 360 and got this instead. None of the reviews helped, and tbf, it's not easy to explain the difference or value of optical programmable…
Back pain is no joke. Great to hear you’re better. Which air purifiers do you recommend?
If you’re looking for a weekend project and are even slightly handy… a fan and a decent furnace filter is a good cheap solution.
I’ve got two 3M filtrete filters, some activated charcoal sitting in front of them, and a small duct fan to pull air through it all. (Build information is in this comment and the one reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37223106). For what a filter rated for 600sqft would have cost me, I instead got one that can do 3,000sqft. Or more usefully less space with more air changes per hour (like ten per hour instead of two).
I’ve got a $600-ish German air quality monitor that says it does what it should, which makes sense because as long as you’re pulling air through the filters… they’re gonna filter.
If you’re looking smaller scale, you can buy sheets of activated charcoal and sheets of MERV13 filter material. A little 120mm fan and a tiny filter box could run pretty quietly in an office and do the trick.
However I think the most important advice I’d give (and also the cheapest!) is to, unless you’re in a _heavily_ polluted area, open your windows. No air filter you’re going to get will remove CO2 and once you start measuring it you’d be amazed/horrified how quickly it builds up indoors to “brain fog” levels.
Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
#169I'll second what others said about chairs and nice keyboards. If you're going to spend a lot of time using it, it might as well be a good one. Some other things that helped me with a mainly work from home life: - A very large desk with a ton of space to tinker with things. I got an corner desk, with one wing holding an electronics workbench, and the other kept clean for working on my 3d printer or camera or taxes, et…
I think a problem with multiple monitors is eventually you start getting neck problems due to constant head pivot movements.
Its like you are watching a tennis game, all day, every day, for years.
Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back pain is no joke. Great to hear you’re better. Which air purifiers do you recommend?
I've gotten the Winix ones from Costco and they work great. I really notice a difference now that it's getting cold and my windows are shut most of the time.
The problem with shutting windows is CO2 quickly gets up to unhealthy levels.
Takes about 2 hours in my office.
A good quality CO2 monitor (e.g Aranet) is a worthwhile investment.