What is something really stupid you purchased that turned out far better than expected?

RanchOnPancakes@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 1032 points –

I bought a piece of 1.5 inch stiff foam to try to fix a sag in a bed. It didn't work but having that thick piece of solid foam around has been a life saver.

Need something flat to put a laptop on? Throw it on the foam. Going to be doing something that requires you to be on your knees for a while? Get the foam!

It went from stupid purchase to something I'd gladly replace if it broke.

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An old Asus Chromebox CN60, I bought it because it was dirt cheap, as should probably be expected EOL ChromeOS device.

It seems like something that would be completely and utterly useless but once I put Linux on it I was able to use it as a handy little Server. I guess I didn't really think that it was stupid, but other people thought that it was stupid that I bought it.

I had an Acer netbook that I ended up calling the Netbook of Theseus because I bought one in 2009, then several years later bought an identical one on eBay. I ran Linux on the thing and kept it until last year.

You know, that idea wouldn't work if you replace the thing all at once, right?

Oh, I bought the second one for parts but it turned out to be in better shape than my old one. So I moved a bunch of the parts from the first one over to the second, because neither was working before I did that.