does stealing it count? because that would be a boxed copy of redhat linux from best buy in the late 90s/early 2000s. yes, i found a way to steal linux
Bidet. Amazing for a North American, I know RoW has had them for eons. You are so clean that a couple of squares of tp to dry off and you are golden. No more endless wiping.
Noise cancelling earphones.
Oh man. Just not having to listen to my dishwasher, clothes machines or vacuum cleaner run their mouths while they’re in service is live improvening.
That’s no way to talk about the women in your family /s
As a guy with misophonia, noise cancelling earbuds are preserving my sanity.
A bidet.
Japan has ruined toilets for me.
I can ruin toilets just fine myself, thank you.
Bidets are from Italy though.
They may have invented them but Japan perfected them.
Bidets are french, source
I was gonna ask how they got such a French name.
I’m too intimidated to try one despite staying in hotels round the world that usually have them. What if it goes wrong? How bad much shitty water do I and the bathroom end up covered in? How do you know if it’s clean? Doesn’t other peoples shitty water end up on the same appliance that you’re now using? Does that mean I end up with other peoples shitty water being jet streamed towards my anus? So many questions, so much doubt. Similarly for those handheld nosel things popular in the middle East and parts of Asia.
Italian here. Get a bidet, nobody died or took any infection from them. Your brain is over thinking it. Get a bidet. Thank me later. Go get a bidet.
The only way for it to go wrong is if you turn it on while standing over it looking directly into the nozzle. You couldn’t get the room or yourself wet without really trying.
The water is clean because it comes from the water that fills the toilet, not the water that drains from it. Nothing from other people ends up on the appliance or you. Clean water sprays from the device, onto the user, then draining into the toilet bowl. Bidets are much cleaner than toilet seats.
Mine won’t turn on unless someone is sitting on it properly. The chances of it going badly are essentially zero.
I’m gonna use a bog roll like a caveman until the day I die
In the early 2000’s, I bought a 1986 Honda XL250R. Just an old dirt bike.
The motorcyckle shop was across the road from the pawn shop I was originally going to buy a gun from, for the express purpose of taking my own life, for reasons that made sense at the time.
Since I bought that bike, I’ve made friends, learned a lot of new skills, and I met the best person in existence, who I am now married to. I passed on a final exit, and ended up with a pretty great life.
First place, aSmartwatch.
I all but stopped checking every fcking notification, my life has become peacefull and tranquil.
Second place, my 4yo daughter. Achieved the exact opposite.
How does a smartwatch get you to stop looking at notifications?
Before, I picked up my phone at every ping or vibrate.
When I wear the watch, all phone notifications are automatically muted and the watch is set to only notify a few apps (Whatsapp, phone calls, calendar). No emails, no kik, no games nothing.
You could have just disabled notifications for all apps except Whatsapp, calls and calendar on your phone.
Yeah but those notifications are still valuable, they just need to be dealt with on a daily basis not instanteously.
You can still do that with your phone
If you’re on Android, long-press the notification and select “silent”. The notification will still be there, but it won’t vibrate or light up the flashing indicator (if your phone has one). Smart watches are still useful, though.
that’s great but I don’t want a silent notification, I want it to buzz. 4 priority levels, watch>buzz on phone>silent on phone>snoozed until EoD
Makes sense. From your earlier post it sounded like there were only two levels needed: “deal with right now” and “deal with at end of day,” in which case “silence” works as a poor-man’s snooze for me because I don’t pick up my phone and deal with them unless it vibrates or I’m at home going through the backlog. But now that you’re talking about four different priority tiers, having them be device-specific sounds like a good plan. Best I can do without a separate tier from smartwatch/KDE Connect/ChromeOS is notify, snooze, and silent - 3 tiers. Pretty sure there are a few apps offering custom ringtones or vibration patterns per app or per notification keyword for further granularity on the phone itself, but for those who already wear a smartwatch (like me) having the separate device do that heavy lifting is a great way to go.
So it won’t improve your life. Way to go.
It did mine, it was asked and I answered.
I turned off all notifications but calls, missing a lot of things, but well, I guess it’s not that important if it’s not a call.
Still not answering call though. I’m not a logical person
That’s a very smart idea!
Besides the other answers, it trivializes them while making you put forth the tiniest effort towards one you might care about while you can discard the rest. The trick with phones isn’t in picking it up to look, but rather on putting it back down.
With a smart watch (I’ve owned a few over the years) my phone has been on silent for years. No more dings, beeps, or rings especially in meetings or with other people. I set it to vibrate only for text and calls. Game changer. I wish those in sales would use them more.
Bicycle. No gas expenses, no tabs, no loan, free parking. I understand how it works and can mostly fix it myself for very little money. I can take quiet side streets and arrive in a much better mood, plus my fat lazy ass gets some exercise.
It also transformed my feelings about winter, which is long, gray and mostly charmless here excepting the occasional blizzard, but commuting by bike warms me and gets me fresh air and exercise. It makes it much more tolerable. I actually enjoy my commute and look forward to it.
So many people I work with insist biking is unappealing or borderline impossible while complaining almost daily about their commute. Obviously for some people and some commutes it really is impossible, but I’m not talking about those situations.
That thing that transformed winter for me was skiing and winter hiking. Now that we’re getting into shoulder season I can’t wait to hit the trails/slopes!
It used to also be so for me, but every year I realise this is becoming a dying sport reserved for the extra wealthy.
Where do you live?
I wish there was infrastructure for them where I live, I hate driving and I like cycling
You’d be very surprised at the impact one person showing uo to every town hall to complain or even just frequent letters can make. I know that can be harder than it sounds, but it is super worth it.
I’ll add on and say upgrading to an ebike (and specifically a cargo ebike) really made the difference to me. One would think that it would reduce the exercise, but for me the fact that it allows me to use it in far far more situations meant that I actually get more exercise overall. I consider the faster acceleration to be a safety feature for when the bike lanes run out, and it makes red lights, heavy loads and steep hills less of a mood killer.
Absolutely life changing once you get one and go!
Synology NAS (basically a hard drive always connected to the home network and internet) - has been amazing for auto-backing-up photos from the family phones and for running Plex run my own personal streaming service for the whole family around the world. Has been great for file transfer too. I can easily move files between my phone, PC, Steam Deck, etc and all the USB memory sticks I had have been sitting in a drawer ever since.
Exercise compression thermals - wear these is super comfortable and really warm. I wear them constantly at home and can have the heating off almost all winter (UK). Saves tons of energy and money.
Electric blanket - another great low energy purchase for relaxing under when watching TV or warming up the bed before sleeping. Gets super hot while hardly using any energy at all.
Split unit air con installation - this was expensive and I thought it would be unnecessary in the UK, but it seems to be used more and more every summer as we get more heatwaves and summers are becoming unbearable.
Safety razors - I have really thick facial hair and the multi-blade razors from big name brands would dull really quickly and cause tons of shaving rash. These razors are sharper, last longer, are recyclable and much better for my skin.
Liquid ink refillable rollerball pens - I tried fountain pens after seeing the online communities that are crazy about them, and really didn’t like them. I found rollerball pens I like that take fountain pen ink and have been super happy with them. I write a lot at work and this has gotten rid of the plastic waste of throwing away used disposable ballpoint refills every couple of weeks.
Hitbox controller - I’ve been playing Street Fighter 6 since release and I made a leverless controller box myself and I’ve loved using it to play SF6. Managed to make it for one third the price of what these things sell for and completely customised it.
More info on the homemade controller?
Yes please
See above comment
My DIY controller made from scratch. It has a built in USB c hub so when I use it with the Steam Deck I can connect the charger cable to the controller. If someone is playing locally with me their controller just plugs into the side of mine and works with the Steam Deck. Made the footprint as small as I could. It’s 21 x 15.3 x 3.6 cm Seimitsu buttons. Raspberry pi controller. 5 additional side buttons for navigation and shortcuts.
I made this post as well: https://lemm.ee/post/9700155
The whole collection: https://i.imgur.com/nB1Mfa9.png
There’s a community for this but it’s pretty dead: https://lemmy.world/c/arcadesticks
I can make a detailed guide if anyone is interested. And I’m looking to sell the black and white controller with the integrated hub. Maybe even the one with the keyboard buttons if I can fix the firmware annoyance in it.
I really need to finish building my NAS. You just reminded me of that.
And the other tips are good as well. Thanks.
2 years ago I bought an electric mattress pad. My wife gave me a hard time about it at first, didn’t think we’d ever use it.
But wow. Nothing better than climbing into a preheated bed on a cold night. I always set it to high about 20 minutes before we actually go to bed, then turn it down to the lowest setting. When it’s cold out, every single time we get into bed, we both let out a sigh of comfort. Can’t recommend it enough.
Congrats fellow hitbox user. Btw the Norelco one blade works better on my thick facial hair than a straight Razer does with less hassle and they are pretty cheap to try out. I’m still debating that split ac for the upstairs office…
Chemotherapy absolutely changed my life, does that count?
A dishwasher… For a family, it saves a huge amount of time and water.
TOP OF THE LIST: bidet (duh),
electric water kettle (fuck gas stoves and also faster),
$3 metal tongue scrapper (clean ass mouth),
noise cancelling headphones (it’s amazing not going back),
slow cooker (it’s impressive how lazy i am. spend an hour cruising slow cooking recipes on reddit/chaptgpt, pick out 10+, set for life),
piratebay
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
50+ pack of small white rags and using those instead of paper towels. simple washer after all used to reuse
cheap air purifier in room @ night, clean air and dual white noise maker.
small $10 desk usb fan. fuck running the A/C just turn this guy on.
electric space heater. depending on your climate, you don’t need central gas heat just get space heater and shut the door to the room you’re in.
If like to add to the space heater. I’ve got solar panels, the guy installing them also has infrared panels. We got to try one out, and never looked back.
A infrared panel will warm a small space very effectively. Way better then water radiator heating (which is the norm here). It’s also instantaneous and is a radiant heat (like a wood burner).
We’ve ditched all our gas heater radiators and went with infrared. It’s cheaper and easily regulated per room.
electric water kettle (fuck gas stoves and also faster),
Are they not common where you live? I’m in my 30s and have had electric kettles my whole life. I don’t have one at the moment though - my espresso machine has instant hot water and that’s been sufficient, and much faster.
Also - if you’re in the USA and think kettles are fast, you should see kettles in countries with 240v power. People from Australia complain about how slow kettles are in the USA.
Now those are some good ideas right there.
As someone with waxy ears, an ear pick with a wifi camera built in. Would get blockages, cotton buds just pushed it back, olive oil or peroxide would get air locked. The webcam ear pick was super cheap and makes it easy to scoop out any lumps of wax.
Got any recommendations? My ears have been pissing me off lately cause they’re constantly feeling blocked. Not just for the ear pick but anything in general to help with to much wax in the ear.
Not medical advice, but when I can tell it’s getting full in there, I pour 50% diluted hydrogen peroxide (just use the cap of the bottle) in my ear, let it bubble away for 5 minutes or so, then use a bulb syringe thing with warm water to flush it out til it’s clean. Be careful with pressure and temperature of the water, but it works great.
This is what I do. I got a flushing ear thing specifically with the nozzle for ears on Amazon for like 10 bucks and it’s a game changer. I gotta do it yearly.
When searching for a pick, there were many with Micro USB ports, but only a few with USB-C so chose based on that. In the app, you choose what ear your working on, but found my brain needed the opposite view.
After initially pulling out chunks of wax, sometimes I feel blocked but can see it’s my ear canal being irritated, and with it clear, can use olive oil drops or moisturiser on a cotton tip to treat the sore areas.
I use a 50/50 mix of isopropyl alcohol and white vinegar. I drip about ten drops in one ear, let it sit there while I read a book on my side. Then I catch it all with a Kleenex tissue as I rotate my head.
This works great on ear infections too.
I wonder how many people have used one of these to look down their peehole.
That doesn’t sound like it would be any fun.
Also you can make your own niche YouTube channel and make a living out of it lololol
I bought one of these recently and somewhere between the device and the crappy app it just won’t connect all the way. Is there one made by a company that isnt just six random letters?
I have one from Spade that I bought a while ago that I love.
A Kobo e-reader. I now read much more than before because of the convenience, and I also became a book pirate. It has paid itself multiple times on the money I’ve saved in physical books.
Glasses.
Now I’m addicted.
I went through a glasses addiction myself as well lol. I found an eye-care clinic where they would cut the lenses and have them ready within 3 hours.
I would go to garage sales, thrift stores, and swap meets to find glasses to put lenses on. They were like $60 for the lenses and I never spent more than $10 on frames.
I ended up with 3 seeing glasses and 4 sun glasses before I realized it was going to be unsustainable to get new lenses for my new prescription every year.
Addicted is a good way to put it. I suffer withdrawal symptoms like dizziness and nausea when I go more than a few waking minutes without my glasses.
Just say no to glasses kids, or you’ll end up like this guy.
I put on glasses once as a kid, now i’m glasses for life!
I got hooked in my mid 20s, and it’s like I can’t imagine how lived without them
I love my airfryer and may upgrade it to a larger one. I’ve started making my own food again instead of eating fast food every day (depression sucks).
I almost bought an air fryer, but ended up with a convection toaster oven. Does everything an air fryer does and much more. I bought the Gourmia one from Costco and would buy it again in a heartbeat.
We have two different Ninja air fryers. One that’s the bin/grill style and the flip version that can be used as a toaster oven as well.
They get used in one form or another almost daily.
What are some food recipes you recommend?!
Any subs you posted on or learned from that you would advise others to follow, curious.
Thank you!
Not OP, but we make roasted carrots with garlic, Italian spices, and parm cheese sprinkled on top.
Be sure to use avocado oil instead of olive.
They’re fucking delicious.
Edit: 325 for about 18-20 minutes. Just check for tenderness that you prefer.
Awesome!
Always great when we come together as a people to share recipes!
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Great!
Do you like soaking potatoes to remove starch or you go without?
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