Upgrading my computer's primary storage from a hard disk (HDD) to a solid state drive (SSD). Really young folks on here have no idea how amazing it was for computers to go from taking minutes to start up to taking seconds.
Buying my first cell phone, which was a Nokia smartphone, in 2003. Having email and useful applications in my pocket, including maps and web search.
I feel like the sheer jump in performance from throwing an SSD into an old system was akin to what people would have expected from the “download more ram” scam ads of the 00s.
TBF, before win95 there was definitely legit software that you could buy (not download) that would compress memory, amongst other tricks, to effectively give you more RAM.
QEMM was the shit!
himem.sys
Really young folks on here have no idea how amazing it was for computers to go from taking minutes to start up to taking seconds
Pretty sure we don't have such an young audience here on lemmy haha
Pretty sure one of the devs is still in high school.
I'm pretty young, this place is definitely full of old people though
I was thinking and nothing was to big a deal but you are right. ssd and before that optical mice were major upgrades relative to price (price being the factor when I finally bought them.)
I find that my M.2 SSD (with Win 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC) is weirdly slower at booting up than my SATA SSD (Win 10 Pro) was. I'm not sure why, since the hard drive itself should be faster. BIOS itself seems to be slower.
I also can't currently get it to even start if I have a hard drive plugged into the power supply and any of the SATA slots on the motherboard. IDK why. It reads the hard drives when I have them plugged in to an external bay and connected with a USB cable. It's super-frustrating. I'll try a SATA SSD and see if I have the same problem. If so, then I guess I'm stuck using M.2 drives. :(
You may have an issue with the boot order in your bios. Might be worth looking into. Your bios may try to boot from every other device connected to it before it tries the M2 SSD.
There's literally nothing else connected to it though; no USB drives, no other hard drives, etc. When I tried to plug in my old 2tb 7200rpm drives from my last computer, it wouldn't even power on to boot up.
Doesn’t matter, it will still scan for those devices
With encryption it still takes a bit, but I love the silence.
GPS was life-changing. (Yes, I am that old.) It used to be necessary to find printed maps of wherever you were going, which wasn't always easy. Then you had to figure out a route. The hardest part was often the last bit of the trip, since you weren't likely to have a detailed map of your destination city. An if you got lost, figuring out where you were was sometimes quite difficult.
People tend to think of it as mostly affecting longer trips, but finding new addresses in a city was at least as much of an issue. When I lived in the bay area I had a Thomas guide that was 3/4" of an inch thick, just for finding my way around town.
I worked as a delivery driver before GPS.
If you think looking at your phone while driving is dangerous, we were looking at a folding paper map.
I also had most streets in a major metropolitan area memorized.
But more times than I can count I navigated by the sun or the north star until I was back in an area I recognized.
I gather that to get a London cab license you have to pass a test that requires you to know pretty much every street, alley, and major building in the city. I can't imagine how long it would take to get all of that into your head.
MapQuest ftw! Did so many car trips that way.
Got lost so many times that way.
Better pray sweat/drink condensation/ANY moisture doesn't get on that map, otherwise you're toast!
I got lost leaving prom because I'd only had my license less than a year and didn't know major highways. The printed instructions were illegible at night without your cabin light on, and that was dangerous too!
My first "GPS trip" was using Microsoft Streets and Trips 2007 on DVD-ROM with USB GPS adapter, with my WinXP laptop in the front seat powered by a 12v inverter from Radio Shack.
A buddy of mine was still doing this in 2015
3-5 minutes to catch a signal. Ahhh, those were the good old days.
First time I ever saw in-car GPS was arrive 2003 when I was hitchhiking in Japan. Heading the car just give directions was mind-blowing; it was like being in a William Gibson novel.
GPS and navigation was a life changing thing for me as I am, how shall I put it, geographically challenged.
Give me the option of turning left or right and I will constantly choose wrong. I tested this with my family, who thought I was being dramatic and hyperbolic, and they witnessed my failures in all glory. Since then I am no longer allowed to 'just wing it' when we are on route...
I can't left or right, but am well centered in North, South, East, West and can give directions like that. Those stay put. I hate navigation software though, the ones that talk at you, hate so much. Would rather get lost, usually, but have lived in the same city a long time and always know where north is.
Bidet attachment for a toilet. Absolute life changer.
Hell yeah bidet.
Ah, a person of culture. A most pristine brown eye.
It’s sad how there are people out there who look down on the bidet. It really is a game changer. I still use toilet paper, but the process is so much cleaner and easier.
When putting it in, an older family friend (male) asked me, “oh you got that for your lady friend?” No…I want to save money and have a cleaner experience as a male.
Wait you have to put it in?
I have the “portable” kind where you can just put it under the toilet seat you have and it connects to your toilet’s water system that brings in water. It was about $30 off Amazon.
It is really straightforward, but my issue was that after I installed it, I had unknowingly unscrewed one of the components in the toilet and it was leaking and I needed some help to figure that out and get it fixed correctly. It was when I was screwing in the new T shaped pipe that it was unscrewing something in the toilet.
There are also the kind that can come built in a toilet, usually on the higher end toilets, or you can get one of the dedicated bowls that is like a secondary toilet seated next to your toilet too.
A wrench and a screwdriver. That's all you need
I hate bidet hate. If I upend a bowl full of brownie batter on a shag carpet, I'm not going to "clean" it with dry paper towels. Use your heads, people!
The downside to installing a bidet is I now hate pooping without the home court advantage.
A countertop water boiler, I have one of the Zojirushi 4 liter units. It turns out I drink 3/4 of a gallon of tea or so per day. So not having to boil a kettle for every round is oddly luxurious.
I usually microwave a mug for 1.5 minutes, but this could also be nice
Are you from the US?
I remember Technology Connections doing an episode on the Electric kettle. Its fascinating. Microwaving is still the fastest around the house, but I like being able to make more than one cup at a time.
I actually did a little research and apparently it’s sacrosanct to a Britton to even suggest heating water in a microwave.
I think you mean "Sacrilege" or maybe "Sacrilegious." That means "The violation of something sacred."
Sacrosanct means "sacred and beyond question," which is related, but kind of the opposite of what you mean.
You’re 100% correct.
You are correct. I had a British coworker. He gave me the fish eye when I did it the first time. I personally don't care as long as it gets hot.
What?
And they are super efficient, and insulated. If you have the counter space it's a good kitchen tool.
Maybe I'm just tired, but I'm struggling to think of other uses in the kitchen beyond just a warm beverage? Maybe for instant noodles or warming a bottle?
I have one close to this and it's been amazing. Great Christmas gift idea too.
Bidet. Not even the fancy ones. Like the cheap ones that are no more than $20-30. Every poop, I've got a squeaky clean butthole.
I took the old one off to really clean it and that sold me on this new flip up one.
I clicked on this thinking it was going to be a link to one of the $200+ electric models, but this is actually a relatively inexpensive upgrade I can get behind (pun?) It looks like it's a lot easier to keep clean. Thanks for this.
A goddamn dishwasher. I used to wash a lot of dishes by hand growing up so it took until my 30's before i realized that dishwashers are a wonderful invention.
If you haven't watched technology connections on dishwashers, you should use powder or liquid detergent, not pods. The pods don't add anything to the pre rinse cycle. You should also run your tap on hot until hot water comes out before you start the dishwasher. The pre-rinse cycle uses very little water and the dishwasher is connected to the hot water supply on your sink. It might not actually get hot water at all if you don't.
I read this in Alec's voice.
My dishwasher broke and for a year, our dishes got progressively ickier and ickier. Then we got a new one and everything felt clean again.
Maybe it was all mental. But the hot wash kills a lot.
Bought a dishwasher.
Life changing improvement. Don't be afraid to use the pots and pans setting for everything.
You don't need fancy soap and remember to top up the rinse aid.
(Also every 6 months run a special cleaner through it)
And remember it has a filter you need to clean once in a while
Not all models have a filter to clean. But those that do... definitely remember to clean it. They can get nasty if you don't.
Probably should run the clean cycle monthly.
For me, it was a Quest 3. The first VR headset to cross my personal threshold. My main requirement was that when I wasn't playing actual VR games, the headset was worth using as a virtual computer monitor from the comfort of my recliner. While Quest 3 doesn't quite have enough pixels to truly display my 4k screen at a 1:1 ratio, it is close enough that with the perceived clarity boost from the micromovements of your head meaning the same set of pixels is never sampled twice in a row and the headset running at 120hz, my 60hz real life 4k screen looks exactly as clear in real life as on the headset.
I also have a supplemental completely fabricated virtual 4k 120hz screen in the headset that I use for any games that are easier to run and benefit more from framerate than perfect individual frame clarity. The screens are 20 feet away, but each take up 80 degrees of field of view, twice what is considered comfortable, but I have always preferred what I guess in that context can only be classified as "intimate?" distance from my screens. I only use one screen at a time, the other is stored just out of sight up above. I can still look at it comfortably, and there is a button to swap the monitor locations when I want to change which one is being primarily used.
I also have my real world surroundings in the headset. So the screens are just floating within reality. I can still engage with my family, and thanks to the clarity of the passthrough cameras, I can watch TV with them too. Clearly enough to read the closed captions. The TV screen is about 30-40 degrees of my field of view, and is thus only represented as about a 720p screen, but with that same "temporal antialiasing" the clarity is boosted up to about 1080p level.
So, with all that, I spend about 14 hours a day in my VR headset now. Wirelessly, with a magnetic battery swap every 2 hours. Sometimes standing up and playing real VR games, sometimes reclining in a super comfortable chair playing desktop games. With the bobovr system, or whichever option you prefer, the headset is comfortable to wear for an infinite amount of time. And when I visit my real computer monitor now, I just leave my sit/stand desk in stand mode and no longer have a computer chair.
It has basically replaced every other screen in my life, except my phone. Which is still a main sticking point of VR. They will concievably replace the phone too eventually, but there is alot of software and hardware infrastructure needed to get there. At least Quest 3 is finally a headset clear enough to use your phone without taking it off or peeking through gaps. But only just, a phone tends to take up about 20 degrees of your field of view when used comfortably, even holding it twice as close as that is only 720p(temporally upsampled to 1080p) so holding the phone closer is still only about half the resolution of your phone. Assuming you run your phone in 4k normally. It's probably fine for people without a gaming phone that likely already only run it at 1080p, then they might have text large enough to resolve at a comfortable distance in VR. But anyway. It's not too bad now, so hopefully next headset is enough to completely solve that too, while we wait for it to not even be necessary eventually.
I'm basically retired, built up a big enough money ball that my passive income from it slowly increases, so this is the rest of my life. Slowly getting better and better VR. And while it started at Oculus DK2 for me, all the headsets before Quest 3 were only fun toys that I played with alot. Steadily increasing in capability, but not crossing the threshold into permanent screen replacement. Quest 3 did it, it crossed over that line. While the size of screen I use to represent my 4k TV is only actually physically covered by about 1440p worth of pixels, the free temporal upsampling makes it as good as 4k(2160p).
Though it will take double the current resolution for people that want a 4k screen at 40 degrees of field of view, for now people that like that distance (most people) would have to make due with it looking 1080p. Which might be fine for most people, it is still the most widely used screen resolution.
Edit for plugs for anyone that wants to do this too:
Outside of the Quest 3 itself, I use the third party comfort and runtime mod "M3 pro" from BoBoVR(dumb name, quality company), and Virtual Desktop software to stream my computer screen and create the better supplemental virtual screen out of thin air. I also use Virtual desktop to play my PCVR games when not just running something natively on the headset. Having a good network setup is pretty important too, especially in my case where the aforementioned recliner is on a different floor of my house than my computer. I have a background in networking, so in my case I'm able to setup my router in such a way that I can comfortably stream VR while we have 50 other devices on the router. But for most people, either a second dedicated router or specific VR streamer is going to be a better route. My router was 600 dollars, these bespoke units can be as little as 100 dollars and give you almost the same experience. Plus they are pre-configured specifically for VR streaming. Otherwise there can be alot of configuration changes needed.
I apologize for my verbosity, I hate to leave any details out, even though someone could just ask if I forgot to cover something. I am, unsurprisingly, Autistic. Communicating clearly is a common problem for us. Never know what knowledge I have that isn't common and needs to be conveyed. And I don't change mental gears well, so I like to get everything out once, if possible, to reduce the likelihood of having to get back into this mental space again later.
Give VR sim-racing a try (Assetto Corsa), if it strikes your fancy, at all. It's a downright miraculous experience (especially with a wheel) and THE greatest thing I've experienced in VR. I literally learned to drive a manual in Assetto Corsa before going and driving a real manual Porsche race car.
Flight Simulator in VR is also very impressive.
Oh yeah, I've played pretty much everything over the past 10 years in VR. In your same vein, I would recommend Elite: Dangerous. I played it for about 3 years with just mouse and keyboard, then another 3 years with stick and throttle, I still never got quite as good at combat on stick and throttle, but the game was more enjoyable to play overall that way. I haven't tried the expansion yet. When it came out, it didn't run great in VR, and part of its features weren't VR capable. It should run good in VR now, but I don't think they plan to bring the on-foot stuff to VR.
The base game without the expansion is still fine to play. And with the expansion, the on-foot stuff will just be played on a virtual flatscreen instead, still fine, better than not having access to it, I suppose. But I just kept holding out, hoping it would be integrated with the rest of the otherwise amazing VR experience the game is. If I play the game again, I'll probably just buy it. I still haven't tried it since Quest 3 and my new computer upgrade. It'll probably re-blow my mind.
I have a basic HOTAS for when I reassemble my VR setup and Elite: Dangerous is definitely on my list.
Space Engine in VR, though not really a game, gave me existential terror in a way I imagine Elite: Dangerous might. Accidentally sending yourself zipping through the vastness of space and right up beside a accurate-scale star rocked me in a way I thought an "educational" app never could.
I think it won't be quite as existential, despite how well they make it all feel rooted in reality, it's still pretty easy to keep in mind that it is a videogame. And with default settings and leaving "flight assist" on, the space ships handle more like planes. You can always disable flight assist, or have it on a toggle, or "disable when button held" setup too. Or, enable when held, if you want to be free flying most of the time, but still have a "stop" button when you want to cancel out your inertia, or more accurately match it with your current frame of reference.
Basically, by default, you don't have to think about your frame of reference. The fact that it is a videogame basically takes care of that. It's a convenient way to hide that the instance you are in is faking(incredibly accurately) everything else that is not in your current frame of reference. Despite space travel feeling pretty seamless, it's just cuz they hide the load screens and instance transfers as just part of navigating space. Any time you are unable to touch the controls, that is a load screen. Even if it otherwise looks the same, most notably when entering or exiting a planets frame of reference and switching between the "space" graphics of the planet to the "terrain" graphics. When approaching a planets gravity well, you basically do an uncontrolled glide that transitions you from space appropriate speeds to surface appropriate speed. That speed transition is the loading screen.
Probably the only thing that might give a similar sense of existential dread for a few seconds is if you jump to a binary star system at a time when the star you aren't jumping to just happens to be in the same direction you just jumped in from. It will look as though you flew through that star. The odds are pretty low, even full time explorers rarely see it, but it is something that can happen.
IRacing with VR and a rig is literally the best video game experience out there.
But boy is my wallet angry at me
It really is. Everyone should try it. I've done it for hundreds of hours and still think, "THIS IS THE FUTURE," every time I do it.
I was too intimidated to try iRacing, but hope to. I drove thousands of miles on the night-time Tokyo interstate/Shutoko map (mod for Assetto Corsa) by itself. Often in the rain with the mod that allowed me to control my Spotify from inside the car.
Sold my rig when I moved, but hope to rebuild it even better ASAP. It certainly isn't cheap, but my first rig was very DIY (including two-directional physics output to my seat via SimHub, which added even more to immersion, only cost $75-$100 to add a basic version) and I was able to cobble it all together for under $1,000 by waiting for deals, etc...
I should probably get some hours in on shutoko revival, now that Genki is making a new Tokyo extreme racer.
Steam deck finally got me working through my steam backlog again.
Might have played everything before I die now
Is it as good as they say? I really want one
As someone who buys a lot of gadgets and quite often barely uses them afterwards or has mild buyers remorse… I have never once regretted buying a Steam Deck. It really is an amazing piece of technology.
Yes!
I don't use mine super often but every time I do I'm glad I have it. It's a very nifty machine, and you'll find excuses to use it.
Internal SSD with the operating system on it. No other upgrade I've made to my PC has ever been so substantial.
I have my OS on an NVMe drive and it's one of the best decisions I made when building.
But the jump from SATA SSD to nvme is much less noticeable than the one from HDD to SATA SSD
HDD, SSD and NVMe all have different versions. Later generations are normally 2x faster than previous version. Comparable generations are normally an 8x speedup. (Later generations are in parentheses).
HDD to SSD is like 80(160)->300(600).
SSD to NVMe is 300(600)->2400(4800, 14000).
So, it's likely a similar upgrade, unless you did HDD-g1 to SSD-g2 to NVMe-g1 (using G1/G2 to simplify).
It's also likely possible that your computer is running so fast that a doubling or quadrupling in speed is a diminishing return as you don't notice the difference.
You're looking at the wrong numbers. Most people won't notice the difference in transfer speeds for large files. Most people will notice boot and loading times, where the results are diminishing.
Let's take a theoretical system that has an HDD and boots in around 30 seconds.
It gets upgraded with an SSD. According to your numbers, the Boot time would be better by a factor of around 3 or maybe 4, making the Boot only take around 10 seconds. That's a difference of 20 seconds, clearly noticeable.
Now it gets upgraded to an nvme drive. The speed increases by an even greater factor of around 7 or so, but you barely notice that because the PC only boots 7 seconds or so faster, much less noticeable than the 20 second difference before, despite the drives being blazing fast in comparison.
I'm not saying nvmes are worthless or anything. Just that in day to day use for most people its not as noticeable as the HDD to SSD upgrade.
Wireless ear buds.
I was pretty adamant that I was absolutely never going to get any, preferring wired and really looking for a phone that still had the jack. Then when new phone time came, I ended up having to choose between a micro sd card slot and the headphone jack. I tried for a bit with a USB-C to headphone adapter but ended up seeing some ear buds on sale and giving them a shot.
They last way longer than I expected, and the carrying case as the charger means I hardly need to worry about keeping another device charged. The freedom of not having the cord is really nice, especially when going for a bike ride or jog. I upgraded to a pair with a little over-the-ear hook and use them probably 10hrs a day every day they are great
I'm the opposite. I have to have music, and Bluetooth just sucks on Android. I've used Bose, air pods, Samsung beans, generic, etc, on multiple versions of Android, and they just suck so hard. lag all the time, can turn my head to the right without connection stuttering. I've tested pockets, hoodies, with and without my watch, naked, nothing works. Bluetooth just blows.
recently got a pair of jvc explosivs that I had a decade ago and couldn't be happier. and I used my Bose headset with the cable too.
Samsung S9 for anyone wondering. have gone through multiple Samsung phones, an LG, tablets, etc.
have wiped. removed belt buckle, changed pockets. it does work better in back right pocket, but that's my wallet pocket. I'm just so confused why it sucks to badly.
I haven't noticed Bluetooth being that bad on either pixel I've had, 3a and now 6.
I certainly get lag in my pixels but no disconnects.
Bluetooth has a general lag of several milliseconds, tens of milliseconds probably, for me. But it's close enough to not bug me when watching videos. And I never have cutouts, not unless I walk very far away. Just tonight at work I was using my pixel buds, left my phone on the desk, walked to the bathroom probably 40 or 50 feet away and through at least 3 walls, didn't miss a beat 🤷♂️
My old BT headphones back in the day couldn't go 20 feet across the room line of sight.
BT has definitely gotten way better in recent years.
yeah, no dcs, but man it stutters bad. can't turn my head or walk
Getting nice in-ear monitors with replaceable cables is so much better than wireless for me. Great sound quality and they weak link that always breaks (the wires) is now no longer an issue. I've had the same IEM now for 10 years and just change the cables every couple of years.
I still have a 5 year old Jabra Elite Active 65t that is still trucking. I had a few glitches starting a year ago like the right earbud dropping in volume or it being stuck in a hung mode where they had to be completely depleted over a few weeks to reset them, they wouldn't even charge.
However, they still work fine and are super convenient with hear-through for office work compared to wired IEMs way better for all fitness activities too, just not as good for really listening to music.
Battery life is still 3-4 hours after 5 years not including the case recharge (the case battery has degraded significantly more than the earbuds themselves, probably due to the high quality VARTA cells in the earbuds)
I am going to wear them into the ground, but jabra is doing a stock sellout before their new version of buds come out, so I bought the €140 Jabra Elite 4s for €60 for when these bite the dust, but they seem to be going strong still.
dunno how old you are but all my friends that were heavy audiophiles with headphones are near def now.
iPhone 3G. I’ll never forget the day I put the internet in my pocket
I bought one but didn't have a data plan. Jumping from WiFi to WiFi still felt like magic. It was a laptop that fit in my pants.
Constant Glucose Monitors compared to the archaic finger stick monitors was like getting a blow job after spending a lifetime hacking it with sandpaper.
Lighting system as a wake up tool.
Have now been using a light or lighting system as a morning wake up for over 15 years. It’s life changing.
Lights start off dim and red/orange, and brighten very slowly to warm white. Works every time.
I wake up without the jolt of an alarm at home.
In fact - automated lighting in general - just so good.
Similar, but lighting system as a sleep tool. Lights start off warm white and slowly dim to amber / red, then off at the push of a button every night.
Same here - it just started as wake up. :)
As a nightshift worker, using lights to wake up is a strange concept...
What one do you use? I tried this but the one I bought even the dimmest setting wakes me up when it comes on.
Phillips Hue, 800 lumen colour bulbs. We have three in our bedroom.
It also depends on how they’re controlled. We do most of our control through HomeBridge/HomeKit but for wake-ups we’ve continued to use the Hue app-configured automations as the soft-on and ramp up are the most gentle.
We were using a dedicated Phillips light alarm clock before the automated lights.
A raspberry pi.
Installed Pihole on it and now get almost no ads on all devices at home.
SBCs are pretty cool.
ESP is pretty cool too.
Setting up my own NAS and offside backup.
Big project for sure, but being in control of my vital backups was important for me. Additionally the up front costs is lower than the subscriptions I would have needed.
offside
Bone apple tea!
Off-site *
Which build you got? What technology for the backup?
I built my own. Proxmox with OMV on top. I use ZFS1 for the nas and ZFS2 for the back up
A good docking station plus KVM for a good work & home setup since the pandemic hit.
I can dock my work laptop when I work from home and have my two screens, ergonomic keyboard, mouse, webcam etc all attached in one go, then a single button on my desk to toggle to my gaming desktop and start playing without having to disconnect anything, reducing wear and tear on the connectors.
Which one did you get? I am currently looking for this for my home setup.
For the docking station I got a WD19TB from Dell provided by my employer, and for the KVM I managed to find this one that does 3xDP v1.4 to ensure it supports VRR (I'm only using two monitors, but it's nice to have the extra capacity), has three USB ports (to plug the mouse, keyboard and webcam) and has an audio out + mic in so that my headset follows the computer I'm using.
I made sure to use good DP cables to make sure the capabilities of the KVM and my hardware are always met, and so far it's been quite smooth.
The next upgrade is Synergy (the software) so you can run both systems side by side with the same keyboard and mouse. Been using it for probably well over ten years now and it's become something I can't live without.
If I had a monitor to dedicate for each, sure, but I prefer using all my monitors for either systems I'm using, plus my work computer is on a dedicated network on a VPN tunnel so that wouldn't work well for that anyway.
Recently, my car. I was driving around a 2006 and recently got a 2024. A backup camera is amazing. The collision detection, touch display, and Bluetooth are a nice bonus also.
Back up cameras and 360 parking detection sensors. Heated and cooled seats. Android Auto with integrated Google Maps. New cars are so much better than my old beater.
Yeah, I recently went from a 2005 to a 2018, and even the jump in that was amazing! Bluetooth for music and for phonecalls, it's changed my driving experience to be a much better one.
Google Home did when it first came out. Unfortunately, the quality has been consistently tanking since inception
I dont get why google home is getting worse. I would have expected it to get better end better
The problem with a product from any large corporation is you want it to get better, but they want it to generate more money.
It's not an enshittification process where it's becoming more expensive or features are going behind a subscription. It just understands less and less and can do fewer things apparently. Plus it's quite inconsistent.
A while ago Amazon introduced plans for an AI powered Alexa.
Sure enough, the original one has got worse since. I can now ask the one upstairs to turn off the office light and be told there are no devices with that name. Yet if I go to the kitchen to ask the same thing, I'll be told there are multiple devices with that name, and it doesn't know which one.
iPhone 1.0. I was notoriously good at getting lost cause I'm not great with directions. A couple days after I got it, I was going somewhere in a city that isn't my own. I stepped off the train and pulled up the map app, looked at a couple of street signs, and said, "I'm going that way."
I thought to myself, this changes everything. Younger people who never had to rely on paper maps will never understand how profound that moment was.
64gb of ram. 32 cores.
if you keep many chonky applications open it's lovely.
induction cooktop? I'd say dishwasher but that's probably more plumbing and pumps than "technology".
With all the other gadgets, I'm not so sure. I've had computers, laptops, phones for ages. Of course my first everything back in the 90s or 00s was a big thing. But since then it's just the newest generation, a bit faster and with more extras, but noting substancially different.
Induction cooktop is a game changer. Water boils even faster than with gas, you have much more precise control over temperature, and you can still handle the metal cookware while it’s on the heat. Absolutely love it.
I have an induction cooktop as well and I do have one complaint about it. It uses capacitive touch to adjust the temperature instead of a knob so I spend far too long tapping it buttons to get the temperature set right whereas with a knob I could have just turned the knob.
Yeah, I agree. I don’t like touch buttons on devices like this either. Fortunately mine has temperature control knobs, but all the other buttons are capacitive. Still worth it imo, but definitely annoying.
Sure. I don't know why they design most of them like that... I really can't be bothered to tap nine times to turn it on. I went to quite some stores and decided on one with two capacitive slider fields. That's perfectly fine. I just tap somewhere at that slider and it'll be 1-9 (boost) depending on how far left or right I touch it. Or I swipe. Main thing being, it just takes one tap. Except if I use more than 2 pans, then I have to choose which plate the sliders apply to. Yeah and it's still the same inconvenience as with every capacitive control field and you can't place a box of pizzas or anything wet or metal on top of the controls or it'll complain and start beeping. I learned to place things behind the controls, but guests regularly get scolded by the cooktop.
If I had to make a wild guess as to why it's designed that way? Cleaning flat buttons seems way easier than cleaning knobs. And no moving parts. Maybe more resilient (can be made with cheaper parts) considering the flimsy electronics that would be underneath the knobs compared to the more industrial (robust?) kind under an electric range.
They could do it like I mentioned mine does? A slider is just a slightly larger touch sensitive area. I guess there are other elements on touch devices we could take inspiration from. And one company has these magnetic knobs. You can just take them off and you're left with a flat glass surface. The majority of the industry seems pretty set on the buttons, however.
I'm... Skeptical. Mostly because I have a lot of cast iron and love it, and I'm not sure how well they'd work with induction burners. And also because I want to get a wok burner (yeah, the 100k+ BTU monstrosities) for doing stir-fry, and I'm not sure that the realistically affordable induction wok burners are going to manage that.
Cast iron is fine with induction.
cast iron is pretty much perfect for induction.
for the wok: try it. Technology Connections did a video about them recently.
Basically: They should be fine. But it really depends on your stir fry style.
The somewhat good ones should be capable to get the heat into the wok. Keep in mind that a giant about of heat is getting lost on those burners. Not everything will heat the wok
Yeah, cast iron should work well. I also like the usual stainless steel or non-stick pans. I mean these get hot and cold almost immediately and I have good control over temperature. A heavy cast iron thing is made to store the heat and not do that. Depends on what someone is trying to achieve.
And something that doesn't work are things that aren't flat at the bottom. You just can't have a wok that is completely round and put that on a flat surface. And also thin metals don't work. So maybe use another cooktop for that. We own a wok that has a flattened bottom. But I don't really like cooking with that thing. Not sure if it's me or the wok.
There exists special wok induction stoves that have an indent for the wok, with the coils around it
Yeah, I've looked at those, briefly. I'm not sure if they would fit my wok, which is very thin cast iron (yes, actually cast iron, not a spun carbon steel wok). Hence the reason I want to get a wok burner that I'd end up needing to use outdoors.
That's crazy. I think I'm fine, though. I own enough spezialized kitchen equipment 😆
Cast iron like everyone else says works very well with induction, it's pretty much the ideal material. However, unlike with a steel pan, you want to start on the low side and warm the pan up. It likely won't cause issues immediately but if you frequently go straight to hot with a cast iron pan it can ultimately lead to the pan warping.
That's good to know, and not something I would have expected.
Getting a second monitor for my work computer gave me a 30% boost in my productivity.
They should cover at least 30% of the cost! Haha
Besides upgrading to an SSD like another person said, I guess an electronic pressure cooker was a pretty sweet upgrade. It's incredibly multi purpose, cuts cooking time dramatically, allows me to walk away and forget about cooking with no consequence, and often only requires cleaning a single pot for an entire meal.
Like ya know those old TV ads for kitchen gadgets that try desperately to convince you it'll change your life, but you never actually use them? An electronic pressure cooker is one the few cooking gadgets that actually lives up to the hype.
It was an air fryer for me.
I'm disabled, so I'm usually home alone, or cooking one meal for me and my kid. The oven takes about 10 minutes to preheat, and most things take 20 - 30 minutes to cook after that. The air fryer takes about half the time and doesn't need me to turn things.
On top of that, I get memory issues, probably related to ADHD, and sometimes forget that I've got something cooking. The air fryer has a timer and switches itself off. I literally can't burn the food and risk a fire. At worst it goes cold again 🤷🏻♂️
I got an insta-pot a couple years back, but basically only use it for cooking up grains, and beans. What else do you use your's for?
Baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, pasta, yogurt, steamed veggies, lots of rice dishes, pulled pork, chicken, venison, Thanksgiving turkey breast when it’s just the 3 of us
It’s extremely helpful when I forget to thaw meat for dinner (which is more often than not)
There is a trick to the pasta, but it saves me from panic dashing into the kitchen when the pot boils over because I forgot to check it
I cook most of our meals in it. We even have 2 so I can cook the meat separately since I’m vegetarian
But wait! There’s more! (not really, I just know I sound like an infomercial)
How much would you pay? Don't answer! You also get...
LoL
It's great for making chili, since 7 minutes of pressure cooking replaces an hour of simmering, It can make quick rice based meals with the addition of a handful of ingredients like a rice cooker can, and replaces a slow cooker for any meals that require it.
It also can make yogurt, though I haven't tried that yet myself.
The game changer is stock. Keep a bag of vegetable waste (and bones if you’re doing that) in the freezer. Fill to the max line then add cold water to that line as well. Add peppercorns, mustard seeds, whatever and 30 minutes gets you as good as the best store bought for ~free. An hour gets you restaurant style and 1:30 gets you basically rich, dark soup base. I used to roast bones and vegetable bits before boiling to get more color but that’s not required with the instant pot and you also aren’t running a big ol pot on the stove for hours.
Most people don’t make their own stock because it takes so long and is heavily tied to frugality. When you’re getting basically a kitchen defining ingredient for free at the press of a button the calculus changes and also anyone you give food to will be genuinely amazed.
The yoghurt function is good. I don’t eat enough yoghurt to use it but you’re getting homemade for basically the cost of milk.
Mashed potatoes are fast too.
Linux?
The question is about purchases.
Lots of us used to purchase Linux via floppies or CDs attached to a giant user manual that might hopefully help you get it working. I know we were purchasing the physical media itself, but I think people should remember how in those days you mostly couldn't just easily download any distro and it would just work.
Wait it's suppose to be free? I still pay the 50$/m fee to guy who sold it to me.
Winrar
Electric blanket!
It's not high tech, but it's so good.
I'm still just using an acoustic blanket. Should I splash the cash to upgrade?
Microwave, I never had one, because, I never wanted to eat ultra-processed microwaved food.
But now , I use it all the time:
to reheat my tea
cook my vegetable (since I learn they retain more element being microwaved than cook)
I can stock on pure frozen product, tuna , salmon, raspberry... and eat them when I want without being afraid of spoilage.
So now all my meal are more healthy just because of microwave, which seems counterintuitive, but is true.
I never understood the thought process that led to microwave cooking being unhealthy. Vibrating the water molecules to steam cook isn’t bad.
Maybe it’s the types of instant foods that are available? Those also exist for ovens though and don’t seem to carry the same stigma.
Idk about unhealthy but I generally find that food comes out of the microwave soggy and gross.
Git gud
Affordable solar panels and batteries. With this we were able to life off-grid surrounded by nature.
Were? Did something happen?
Haven't seen this in this thread yet, but I'm going to say an improved sound system. For me, it was just a soundbar and rear speakers. I live in a tiny apartment so couldn't fit a full sound system with front speakers, but just that was a huge improvement over just the TV speakers before.
Wireless noise cancelling headphones and earbuds.
I was reluctant to pay $400 for a gimmick but holy shit, once I did they became my most treasured possessions. Then I got buds for $400.
If we are talking cost per hour of use, they might be the most cost-effective tech I own
My SLA 3D which I used to print IEMs and earplugs which I scanned with my DSLR. Those three things for sure.
Surprised nobody has mentioned a computer yet, so mine is going from a $200 dell optiplex I saved up for to a ~$3,000 gaming rig my parents convinced the government to buy me.
The government had a $5,000 thing to parents with autistic children (diagnosed before the age of 10) and they could spend it on stuff that would help the child. They had to fight tooth and nail to convince them that it would let me play games with my friends (a total lie, I only played Minecraft and terraria then). They surprised me with it on my birthday I think 5 years ago and it was AMAZING.
I've spent nearly every dollar I've earned in the past 5 years improving my setup and game library.
Oh. And a high quality Bluetooth mouse. I used a Glorious Model O (for Minecraft 1.8 pvp) since it came out and used it till the battery only lasts a day or two, also I wanted more buttons. Only 6 months ago have I switched to a g502x and I went like 3 weeks without charging it. Its amazing.
Semi professional wifi(networking) at home (TP link omada or ubiquiti) and just buying excessive amounts of access points in my home.
Bicycle technology. Suddenly I could travel three times the speed of walking for the same effort.
I don't think I could ever go back to a single monitor setup. Screen real estate is ALWAYS at a premium. I feel so constrained when forced to use just one.
A kneepad for my NC Miata. Kept digging my knee into the center console. A pad was the best upgrade I've made to that car.
I have an ND2 and I take a 1200 mile road trip annually. I really should get a pad for my driver side door. By the time I get to and from my destination, I'm all bruised up and sore on the outside of my leg.
A small vacuum and mop Roomba clone. Having two dogs leaving fur everywhere made vacuuming every day a necessary chore but now I only need to empty out their base every day and they take care of keeping the floors clean. I don't have them connected to my Wi-Fi though so hopefully that helps mitigate any hacking attempts.
The Scooba? I was thinking about getting one of those. How do you like it?
They stopped making Scooba a long time ago. Broke too much.
The vacuum's a Matrix Shark and the mop's a Narwal something or other. Aside from them getting stuck in corners or entangled in wires once a week they work great! A little wire management and careful furniture placement lowered the chance of that happening again. One dog pretty much ignores it and the other eyes it with suspicion and wouldn't be in the same room it's running in but otherwise I haven't had any big issues yet.
Beetlecrab Audio Tempera is the most inspiring electronic musical instrument I own. I got it in April, and I'm still finding new ways to use it. It does so much.
Oxi One really is the hardware sequencer to rule them all. Though I'm sure you could get by with a Hapax or Deluge if you don't mind spending twice as much.
Not a purchase, but Csound has always been an invaluable companion to my music making process. It's also entirely free and open-source.
On a tangent, is it just me, or has there been a notable uptick in this type of question? Feels a lot like astroturfing, but so far as I can see there's been no malicious intent
Could be a setup to post ads in the comments, could be sourcing material for a listicle, could just be a genuine question. It is some pretty low-level malice if present, or my imagination is too weak here.
My guess is that due to money being more tight, people want to make sure that they spend it on things that actually matter.
I don't think lemmy is relevant enough for companies to target. The user base is tiny.
I like these kinds of questions here because of that. You get actual people talking, not just bots regurgitating the same shit over and over.
Fair enough, it must have just been a fluke I saw a few posts like this in a row
It’s also almost the holiday season!
Several things:
Bidet. ‘Nuff said.
automatic litter box. Took a lot of training for our one dumb cat but since then … life changing.
ebike. So many times I used to drive because I was feeling lazy or woke up just a smidge late… now I can just dial up the assist a notch and it’s no problem.
Be careful which ebike brands to trust. Avoid Rad Power Bikes. Even though the brand's American, its customer service and reliability's a complete joke. I had a lightly used Rad Runner who's battery died a little after a year of light use. Their warranty only covered up to a year and they said their only solution is to buy a new $600 battery that doesn't even come with a warranty itself.
Gazelle. Sold by my local bike shop which I trust.
Little pricy and all in all I’d prefer something more open than Bosch. But… so far so good.
Going from Sega Megadrive to PlayStation back in the nineties. True 3d graphics on a home console blew my little teenage mind. Lara Croft. Wipeout. Metal Gear Solid! Good times.
Agree with:
Dishwasher (really just toss dishes in as you use them, close and run at night, put 'em away in morning, it's magic. I didn't have one till I was almost 50)
Electric bike (I hate biking but this is like a dream of a bike)
Roomba (wood floors no grit)
And the mesh wifi system that lets me easily see and address the rare hiccups it has.
Electric bikes are so freaking cool.
I hate how they're everywhere in Asian countries.
And in America, it's like a luxury.
When I got my first HD tv. I had previously been playing oblivion on Xbox 360 on an crt tv and when I setup the HD I was absolutely blown away by the clarity. I remember my stupid fucking ex-wife trying to tell me there was no difference between the two.
RAM update. Doubling your RAM on most low/medium -end consumer PCs will noticeably improve responsiveness and multitasking.
I've literally never felt the need for more RAM, except on an old netbook that had 1GB and struggled with opening a website.
Clearly you haven't had the joy of having 10 tabs on Firefox, a film playing on VLC, the torrent client running, and trying to open up a large Solidworks assembly file on a 16GB Windows 10 PC. It gets eaten up fairly quickly.
No. I can't look at 10 browser tabs, a film, and a Solidworks assembly file at the same time, so doing that makes no sense to me.
Recently had my RAM died on me and bought a new pair. I had a 16gb and the 32gb ones were on sale. Really felt the difference lol
Smart lights. What a world of difference coming home to my lights being on either from them automatically triggering, or me turning them on remotely.
Or, being able to take a shower knowing my lights will be able to turn themselves off on whatever timer I set. It's been an excellent expereince
I’ve been looking into some smart lights!
But I’m a bit confused, what do you use them for in the shower?
Not "In the shower persay" I have the Phillips hue lights and I have a set of them in my bathroom
With Alexa, or any app to access them, I can set timers on the lights meaning I could have a 30-minute timer while I'm in the shower or whatever else I'm doing.
They turn themselves on, turn themselves off.
Oh now I see what you’re saying, thanks. Yeah I thought maybe there was something about showering I’d been overlooking all these years lol
Light timers have been great. I feel having the ones in my bedroom work like a daylight alarm has been very helpful, and as you said, you never come home to a dark house, which is helpful if you've got arms full of groceries or such.
Also the smart thermostat in conjunction with smart outlets lets me turn on the room fans and AC when I'm on my way home.
Even having the ability to change color temp is nice so you can have harsh bright white if you need to see something you're working on, but the majority of the time you can have nice warm or soft light.
I've been in the home automation business for over 25 years. Can confirm that smart lighting is the absolute best investment.
I've installed and programmed lighting systems for over $100k but have personally spent less than $250 for Ikea devices for my apartment. Just the ability to dim and set the color of the lights at certain times of day is key for me.
Controlled Lighting isn't only about convenience, it's about setting a mood. You can set a warm dim scene to be more calming or a bright white scene for cooking or cleaning.
I'm curous about these, how is the privacy on the apps? Having my data mined from my lightbulbs is my last consideration against taking the step tbh
Bone conduction headphones for biking. Being able to listen to my tunes while I'm riding around is amazing.
out of my price range and unnecessary for me atm, but the display at Best buy was pretty impressive. was very surprised by them.
I bought a 2080ti for $1200 right before covid and everyone gave me shit about how I was wasting my money because the 3000 series had a lower MSRP which then ballooned to $2000+.
So while everyone else was struggling to get a graphics card due to supply chain issues and prohibitive costs, I was gaming in 4k resolution throughout the pandemic. To say that this was clutch during a time I couldn’t really do much outside of the house with other people would be a massive understatement.
I usually would not have spent that much on a card, but I won a hackathon cash prize right before so had some money burning a hole in my pocket. The card is still going strong and is still my daily driver, so I can’t say it’s been a bad purchase at all.
Automatic litter box! They're so pricey, I always wasn't in a place to do it, but I finally bit the bullet. I don't think I can go back. It's so easy, and my cat wasn't scared at all. I also feel better knowing she always has clean litter. When she comes to bed I can just run the box from my app.
Bonus: it rotates sideways so my cat can keep her head. 👍🏾
I started panicking, but from your last sentence it sounds like you've heard some of them might be dangerous and you have one that isn't.
I love mine but the cats often like jumping out so litter gets kicked out occasionally. Other than that, and that it stops working during power outages, it's great. Changing a bag is so much easier to deal with than scooping litter.
Higher quality electric coffee grinders. I have been using pretty nice hand grinders for years ($100 to $200 range) and while they were good, the consistency and general quality of life improvement gotten from these nicer electric grinders has made a significant improvement in both the coffee quality and my time/life quality related to making coffee daily.
Oh man, I hear you. Actually I'm a slob, I don't just have a grinder, it's one of those all-in-one filter coffee machines. Every morning at 6.30 there's that grinding noise and a few mins later the smell drifts in. I don't wanna get up but dang it you've made it worth my while, coffee machine, I ain't mad.
noise canceling bluetooth headphones (Sony XM3s, in my case). They are always near me. Thousands of hours and I haven't even changed the earpads yet. I don't know how I lived without them.
Does corrective eye surgery count? Because it fundamentally changed my daily quality of life
I got PRK several years past and for a while I felt the same way. When I saw my eye doctor recently and had to get glasses again, this time in another country, he said that was stupid. Eyes degrade always so you’re really just making it worse in the long term (me not you). I’m still considering doing it again. Expensive and slightly risky, but gods walking in the rain without glasses was magical.
An immersion blender, it was $30 but it made my soups seem gourmet and let me recycle my gallons of lard into the best soap I have ever used.
Aside from that, I replaced two of my mismatched odd shaped PC monitors with 27" 4k monitors and the difference is amazing. The monitors were so cheap too only $110 each. Together with my super fancy main screens it really cleaned up the desktop.
These things rock. Making cream of {ingredient} soup is so easy. In fact, making soups out of everything is notmw so easy, and I use more food that might otherwise be wasted. If you have stale bread, you can blend it in stock or water to easily thicken a soup, and nobody else will know there's bread in it.
a 3d printer, I've picked up my now favourite hobby when I got it: gun smithing
It's too bad the pay is kind of shit. I looked into when I was younger and noped right out.
Though if you're actually making guns/parts for sale instead of repairs it might be better.
yeah, that's a problem, I really wish I could live from a gun repair business, but it'll probably stay a hobby
You could always apply your 3d printing knowledge over to cnc milling of custom grips and stocks and engraving.
I wish I could use mine for that, but I live in Canada.
Going full homelab with a rack, battery backups, and 2.5gb backhaul on my home network. Absolutely game changing from an appliance management standpoint where any one node can go down for any reason and there’s a backup and replacement on hand in minutes with built in redundancy. Not to mention the learning and experience opportunities when setting up hardware and software services. Sure is sweet to have data redundancy and protections!
Not very high tech, but I love it: a projector clock (an alarm clock that can project the time on a ceiling or wall).
Not having to turn over to see the time is extremely nice when I’m cozy in bed. I didn’t even ask for it - it was given to me as a gift. If you get one, be sure that the angle and orientation are highly adjustable.
I have a "No clocks in the bedroom" rule. As a person who has struggled with falling asleep, having a bright glowing display constantly reminding me how tired I'm going to be in the morning just gave me more anxiety and made it even more difficult to fall asleep.
I still have my watch and my phone, but those are things I need to purposely move to look at.
A projector clock sounds like hell to me.
I use my phone or watch as my clock or alarm but I have a rule to not look at the time if I wake up early. If I’m not wide awake I go back to sleep until my alarm goes off. It’s bliss even if it’s only for 15 more minutes since I wouldn’t know how long I’ve been out again.
Interesting take. I wish you the best.
Yeah. I think there are two schools out there, us anxious types that have to have the room pitch black without light source anywhere or we feel like a laser is drilling into our brain, and then normal people.
Motion sensor and smart light switch. There are two rooms in my house with multiple entryways and awful light switch options, so without these I’d just stumble in the dark.
We also have it for our carport and it’s so pleasant for the light to automagically happen and then go off without needing to remember to change anything.
(And all of this done through local mesh and Apple HomeKit. We do not use proprietary services that can be shut down on us.)
I got a microwave with an inverter magnetron.
When you set your microwave to, let's say, 20% power, a typical microwave will cycle the magnetron, so that it runs at 100% power for 20% of the cooking time and is off in between. With an inverter, the actual power output of the magnetron can vary, so it's actual 20% power for the whole time. It does an excellent job of gently reheating things like sandwiches and cooked rice without drying them out or scorching. Also, if something has instructions written for a lower wattage microwave, I can just turn the power down until it's close to that wattage instead of doing calculations to modify the time.
TIL. But also 2-3 times as expensive it seems.
My first very small mp3 player, something from sony. It was amazing.
My first digital camera, just being able to see your picture after shooting them. being able to delete photos was revolutionary.
My first wifi access point, having Internet at home without cable.
My first phone that could load msn messager. Also pretty cool.
Steam owen. Haven't reheated my food un the microwave ever since.
Be nice to Owen, ok, it's been a hard life for him
So many women who want his alphabet leg. Poor guy can't keep up.
I keep Owen locked in the basement. He keeps the fire burning.
My Thinkpad T440p, its a reliable laptop that works amazingly. It may not be the most powerful but the keyboard is amazing and the build quality is better then any modern laptop.
This. Don't buy consumer laptops. You can get secondhand business laptops that are just as cheap and more durable. You won't get one with a touchscreen but that's about it for the downsides.
Lenovo has decent clearance prices around Memorial day for their last gen ThinkPads. Otherwise they're definitely not worth over 1k new like they pretend.
The problem is that the current generation is literally worthless in between their defective CPUs and pushing the new Windows spyware so I'm not sure the same statement will be true next year.
Cries in European. Any decent Thinkpad is 2.5k+ and rarely are any discounts. They just don't care about private consumers over here. Either university students or big companies can get reasonable prices.
It's been several years since I ran Windows on any of my laptops. And haven't run into any CPU issues yet. In my experience if stay away from the slim models and go for the more high-end ones you're good.
Never have I used a laptop and thought "boy, I wish this had a touch screen".
Can't miss what you don't know. I refuse to purchase at a laptop without a touch screen.
When you don't have a mouse it is great for quick interactions that cover a distance across the screen - interact with a button here, another over there, select a field far off from where my cursor is, screen skip, quick markup, etc. It's also far friendlier to use when commuting or flying where there are bumps and little elbow room. It isn't a 100% replacement for a touch pad but having it there to augment at times is such a boon.
I have a Surface 2. I only used the touchscreen when it's in tablet mode or the dogshit type cover starts annoying the fuck out of me. I don't miss it when I'm on my work laptop. As for moving the cursor and selecting things I just turn the cursor speed all the way up on every pc I use.
You won't get one with a touchscreen
Your physiotherapist will thank you, and so will your neck, shoulders, and elbows.
Also a happy T440p owner. Nice laptop and the keyboard is great.
The best recent one was a Faraday bag for my phone.
I use it as a step counter but didn't want to be checking it often nor tracked all the time, and the faraday bag blocks signals from the outside and minimizes my phone as a nuisance AND helps curb the urge to check it all the time while still counting my steps.
Overall, though, I'd say a USB powerbank. I've had it for three years and only used it a handful of times, but when I'm in an airport or road tripping, it's nice to have an easy way to recharge my devices.
My e-book reader (Tolino).
As I got older and had problems with my eyes, this was a game changer. I had basically stopped reading books and now I do it daily. I can choose the font and letter size, background color, and backlighting based on what works best for my eyes that day and the light where I am.
Being able to hold a very light device with a big screen when I would have to balance a heavy weight as a paper book is also great, and I take the reader with me everywhere, whereas a big book would stay at home most of the time.
The reader has a bigger screen than my phone and the battery lasts longer.
The reader works flawlessly with my library, so I don't have to buy books, which keeps costs down, and I don't have to leave the house to get a new book.
Calibre helps us share books in our family, which is one reason we've stayed away from Amazon's Kindle, so we've all gone to ".epub".
Noise cancelling headphones. I wish I could wear them 24/7.
A 1000€ ebike. Best choice ever. Always on time, unaffected by traffic and never get tickets since I don't have a registration table :)
I absolutely LOVE my ebike. We live on a hill that would be impossible for me to ride up (without breaks), having the pedal assist means I don't dread it anymore. It's quite fun! I will often do 20-30 mile rides just because it's so easy. And it replaced my need to drive my car most places.
My Ampler E-Bike I bought 2 years ago. More than 5000 km later I still love it to bits.
Putting more than 256MB of ram in a Windows XP machine. People think that the jump from HDD to SSD was big, but imagine Windows actively using the HDD as virtual memory. It would grind your PC to a halt. Going to 512MB made your computer feel like a Ferrari.
Going from 8MBto 16MB on Windows 95 was a pretty big improvement.
Not sure if that counts as technology, but simple LED lights over my kitchen counter (mounted under the upper cabinets) were a pretty inexpensive purchase that made my life significantly better. I don't understand now how I was ever able to cook with just the ceiling lights on, it's absolutely terrible.
Egg cooker. Hard boiled and omelettes were already easy but the cooker made it even easier, with less water, and less cleanup.
So close! Get one that does poached eggs. It's basically like an ice-cube tray, but the cells are bigger so they fit a whole egg. Only downside is that you need to be quite precise when filling the water. (We use a kitchen scale and measure it to the gram, but it's perfect every time)
The exact model we have is the Cuisinart CEC-10, but I'm sure there are others.
Stand mixer. It's so much easier to mix things now and I make less of a mess.
Oh, I forgot that in my list - I upgraded mine to a model that can handle my 2 loaves of sourdough dough (about 2 kilos) and it's glorious. Had wanted one for a dozen years, finally started watching the prices and got it last year when it hit the lowest I'd seen.
My girlfriend and I are on a huge sourdough kick right now, and we'd love to start making it ourselves. Do you have a recipe you'd recommend? Any tips and tricks you've learned from experience?
For 2 loaves, this one doesn't need the mixer, way more process than recipe, super simple ingredients.
1000g flour (between 30-50% whole grain something, the rest white bread flour), 20g salt
700-750g water
200g refreshed starter, 100% hydration
Mix everything and let it sit 20 minutes to hydrate. Then I smush it into a big ball and wash the bowl, leave it wet and dump the dough back in. Stretch and fold immediately, then every half hour 3 or 4 more times. Cover the bowl with a plate or towel in between. No, you don't have to knead it. Once it looks strong and elastic, after the last stretch and fold, make it a smooth ball (flipping it over usually works) and let it rise 2-3 hours, covered, until bigger and lighter.
Dump it carefully onto a big flat surface and split it in two. Make lazy dough balls, dust them with flour and cover with a flat towel or t-shirt cloth. Let rest for 20 minutes - this is called 'bench rest' Meanwhile line 2 bannetons (or flattish bowls- something shaped like you want the top of the dough to end up) with flat kitchen towels and dust with rice flour. Shape each loaf carefully and place into the baskets with bottoms up. Let rise then bake in preheated cast iron pot at about 450F, 230C ish, no fan, 20 minutes with lid then 30 without - I have to tent mine with foil because oven heats from the top.
There are 2 places you can pause this, since it's such a long process. Either after stretch and fold (cover bowl with plate) or after putting them in baskets, which is what I do. If you do this you have to enclose them in plastic loosely, I use produce bags for that, and even if they don't look like they rose in the fridge, the cold dough into hot pan enclosed makes steam that makes them rise so well.
It's easier to do than describe so ask anything.
I got a Microsoft Surface earlier this year. I have had phones and tablets with pens before but none were very satisfying to use and I have had laptops for decades at this point. This is the thinnest and lightest laptop as well as the best tablet I have ever used.
I no longer carry a paper notebook with me because I always have my surface. I have needed One Note for a very long time but didn't realize it. having access to all of my notes and being able to carry all of them without having to find the right notebook as been huge.
A kitchen sink. Did an impromptu kitchen reno due to a gas leak and being without one is such a huge downgrade in quality of life. I was washing dishes in the bathtub nightly and it was absolutely miserable. I don't think I've ever been more appreciative of the technology of modern plumbing than the day I was able to rerun lines to the sink area and get it all going.
Not sure that's the kind of technology purchase to which the OP was referring. I thought you were going to say you purchased some kind of high tech sink and was excited to hear what it did to improve your life. I mean, I can see the point but....
A controller frame for my phone. I'm now carrying around a DS, N64, PS1, SNES, and GBA with me everywhere I go. I'm looking forward to adding Gamecube and PS2 and 3 to the list in the future. I can also play PC games in my bed, but can't quite take that around with me because it's streaming from my PC.
A temperature controlled pod for my bed. I used to sleep so hot all night long, constantly moving to find the cool part of the bed.
Now I keep it like as cold as can be all night, and my sleep has improved 10x. Plus my partner likes it warm so her side is nice and cozy. Both of us are happier for it.
Switched my polyester comforter for a wool blanket. It's so much better for temperature regulation.
The original GameBoy in like 1992, I was 6 and it was everything. Then Pokemon came out and hell yeah
My NAS, having access to all my files anywhere at any time is great
A robot vacuum with a mop and self emptying/mop washing base (I live with two dogs in the PNW where mud is constant for 6 months of the year).
Roomba.
I got a different brand, would love an open source one for sure, AND it's amazing to have an actually clean floor pretty much ongoingly. One still has to do stuff to prepare for the robotic underlord; they don't like string, or cords, afterall. or like them all too much.
Apple Watch
No longer would I have to get out my phone to pay for something, or pause music, or adjust the Temperature. The early models didn’t have health sensors but I still get excited every September for Apples announcement to see what sensor they add next
Even the first Apple Watch had the heart rate monitor, which is the main one people care about.
Going to get roasted for this, but Alexa devices. The video versions play Netflix, YouTube, Hulu etc and have much better sound than the standard little speaker orb version. They all sync together so you can stream music in each room that has one like having a whole house stereo system.
Being able to verbally add something to the grocery list at any time is a game changer. People aren't taking advantage of that feature as much as they should IMO.
The second part sounds like a thing phones should already be capable of, if it weren't for trying to charge for something. Or snoop on me. Or something worse I just haven't thought of.
Enshittification is such a downer. Oh, well, guillotines will fix it eventually, I guess.
I don't know for sure, but we may as well try
Just any voice assistant in the kitchen to set cooking timers.
The shopping list feature is the most used part of my Alexa, followed by morning weather report while I feed the animals, and then occasional music.
Many have had big impacts.
Piano, phone, computer.
Last January I got a new laptop that blows my desktop out of the water in terms of specs. I was dumb and decided to get a budget desktop because of all the USB ports and the disk drive it has. It was something like $300-400USD. My current laptop was roughly $1000USD before tax.
Had to remove the complete spyware win11, but otherwise it's been a great laptop (minus the few times I've either somehow broken MXLinux or broke KDE Plasma). Totally better than my old laptop as well considering I don't need to constantly charge my new one to keep the battery from dying and it doesn't have a lot of damage.
My current gaming computer. Besides a faulty wi-fi adapter that leaves online gaming a lot to be desired and failing HDD's because of old age, I haven't touched a physical console besides the Nintendo Switch in years. When you have a powerful computer you can emulate pretty much anything which I feel is an upgrade in comparison to a console which can only play games that are specifically made for that console.
If you thought many PS3 and PS2 games looked beautiful before, my gosh...they look even more beautiful in 4K!! Bonus if they're able to go up to 60 FPS when they natively ran at 30 due to console limitations. Raytracing + HDR mods are always yummy too!
I got a Garmin fitness tracker. I really wanted a smart watch, but don't want to have to charge it all the time.
I got the Instinct, and ended up turning the notifications off right away - i just wanted to see the stats on my sleep and step count. It also encouraged me to start running and exercising more.
I've allowed notifications for texts and calls, and now my phone is on perpetual mute.
Electric whisks. I'm never stirring a drink with a spoon in my life.
Smart oven + meal plan: My spouse bought me one for my birthday (a Tovala) and I have to admit I was skeptical at first but hot diggity damn does it make fresh cooked meals easy. We very rarely order out now and the meals are usually very good (stay away from the burgers though, their bread usually sucks).
A Fujitsu Lifebook U9310x convertible laptop.
It's my main computing device, which doubles as a tablet.
It's light enough to take anywhere, has over 12h of battery on Linux, and holds up better mechanically than my Thinkpad.
Epson tank printer
Second the tank printers. Cartridges cost way to much fing money
Always, only, get one with toner.
Back in the day, a smartphone was a major upgrade. They continue to improve which is just amazing. I came from an age of wall phones and dial-up internet.
Going from a Candybar phone to an iPhone.
How do you define "technology". Because if it means "any human invention" then I have to give it to my squatty-potty. I have Crohn's Disease and "quality of pooping life" is a very important factor. And it's just a lot comfier when your legs aren't falling asleep due to an unnatural position.
If it has to be something from "the tech industry", then my very first smartphone, circa 2012. After decades of oldschool cell phones, it was a real game-changer. Doubly so because I'm in Brazil, where texting was never really a thing, so for the first time I had access to the likes of WhatsApp and could be in touch with my mates, whereas previously the cell was really just for calls, which is to say, emergencies.
VR, it was janky and barely worked, I still can't wait for the future of AR.
Electric Peper grinder, now I don't have to feel like I'm working out to get that nice peppery taste.
Upgrading my computer's primary storage from a hard disk (HDD) to a solid state drive (SSD). Really young folks on here have no idea how amazing it was for computers to go from taking minutes to start up to taking seconds.
Buying my first cell phone, which was a Nokia smartphone, in 2003. Having email and useful applications in my pocket, including maps and web search.
I feel like the sheer jump in performance from throwing an SSD into an old system was akin to what people would have expected from the “download more ram” scam ads of the 00s.
TBF, before win95 there was definitely legit software that you could buy (not download) that would compress memory, amongst other tricks, to effectively give you more RAM.
QEMM was the shit!
himem.sys
Pretty sure we don't have such an young audience here on lemmy haha
Pretty sure one of the devs is still in high school.
I'm pretty young, this place is definitely full of old people though
I was thinking and nothing was to big a deal but you are right. ssd and before that optical mice were major upgrades relative to price (price being the factor when I finally bought them.)
I find that my M.2 SSD (with Win 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC) is weirdly slower at booting up than my SATA SSD (Win 10 Pro) was. I'm not sure why, since the hard drive itself should be faster. BIOS itself seems to be slower.
I also can't currently get it to even start if I have a hard drive plugged into the power supply and any of the SATA slots on the motherboard. IDK why. It reads the hard drives when I have them plugged in to an external bay and connected with a USB cable. It's super-frustrating. I'll try a SATA SSD and see if I have the same problem. If so, then I guess I'm stuck using M.2 drives. :(
You may have an issue with the boot order in your bios. Might be worth looking into. Your bios may try to boot from every other device connected to it before it tries the M2 SSD.
There's literally nothing else connected to it though; no USB drives, no other hard drives, etc. When I tried to plug in my old 2tb 7200rpm drives from my last computer, it wouldn't even power on to boot up.
Doesn’t matter, it will still scan for those devices
With encryption it still takes a bit, but I love the silence.
GPS was life-changing. (Yes, I am that old.) It used to be necessary to find printed maps of wherever you were going, which wasn't always easy. Then you had to figure out a route. The hardest part was often the last bit of the trip, since you weren't likely to have a detailed map of your destination city. An if you got lost, figuring out where you were was sometimes quite difficult.
People tend to think of it as mostly affecting longer trips, but finding new addresses in a city was at least as much of an issue. When I lived in the bay area I had a Thomas guide that was 3/4" of an inch thick, just for finding my way around town.
I worked as a delivery driver before GPS.
If you think looking at your phone while driving is dangerous, we were looking at a folding paper map.
I also had most streets in a major metropolitan area memorized.
But more times than I can count I navigated by the sun or the north star until I was back in an area I recognized.
I gather that to get a London cab license you have to pass a test that requires you to know pretty much every street, alley, and major building in the city. I can't imagine how long it would take to get all of that into your head.
MapQuest ftw! Did so many car trips that way.
Got lost so many times that way.
Better pray sweat/drink condensation/ANY moisture doesn't get on that map, otherwise you're toast!
I got lost leaving prom because I'd only had my license less than a year and didn't know major highways. The printed instructions were illegible at night without your cabin light on, and that was dangerous too!
My first "GPS trip" was using Microsoft Streets and Trips 2007 on DVD-ROM with USB GPS adapter, with my WinXP laptop in the front seat powered by a 12v inverter from Radio Shack.
A buddy of mine was still doing this in 2015
3-5 minutes to catch a signal. Ahhh, those were the
goodold days.First time I ever saw in-car GPS was arrive 2003 when I was hitchhiking in Japan. Heading the car just give directions was mind-blowing; it was like being in a William Gibson novel.
GPS and navigation was a life changing thing for me as I am, how shall I put it, geographically challenged.
Give me the option of turning left or right and I will constantly choose wrong. I tested this with my family, who thought I was being dramatic and hyperbolic, and they witnessed my failures in all glory. Since then I am no longer allowed to 'just wing it' when we are on route...
I can't left or right, but am well centered in North, South, East, West and can give directions like that. Those stay put. I hate navigation software though, the ones that talk at you, hate so much. Would rather get lost, usually, but have lived in the same city a long time and always know where north is.
Bidet attachment for a toilet. Absolute life changer.
Hell yeah bidet.
Ah, a person of culture. A most pristine brown eye.
It’s sad how there are people out there who look down on the bidet. It really is a game changer. I still use toilet paper, but the process is so much cleaner and easier.
When putting it in, an older family friend (male) asked me, “oh you got that for your lady friend?” No…I want to save money and have a cleaner experience as a male.
Wait you have to put it in?
I have the “portable” kind where you can just put it under the toilet seat you have and it connects to your toilet’s water system that brings in water. It was about $30 off Amazon.
It is really straightforward, but my issue was that after I installed it, I had unknowingly unscrewed one of the components in the toilet and it was leaking and I needed some help to figure that out and get it fixed correctly. It was when I was screwing in the new T shaped pipe that it was unscrewing something in the toilet.
There are also the kind that can come built in a toilet, usually on the higher end toilets, or you can get one of the dedicated bowls that is like a secondary toilet seated next to your toilet too.
A wrench and a screwdriver. That's all you need
I hate bidet hate. If I upend a bowl full of brownie batter on a shag carpet, I'm not going to "clean" it with dry paper towels. Use your heads, people!
The downside to installing a bidet is I now hate pooping without the home court advantage.
Any recommendations?
Nah. Anything on Amazon should be fine
A countertop water boiler, I have one of the Zojirushi 4 liter units. It turns out I drink 3/4 of a gallon of tea or so per day. So not having to boil a kettle for every round is oddly luxurious.
I usually microwave a mug for 1.5 minutes, but this could also be nice
Are you from the US?
I remember Technology Connections doing an episode on the Electric kettle. Its fascinating. Microwaving is still the fastest around the house, but I like being able to make more than one cup at a time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpoXFk-ixZc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c
I actually did a little research and apparently it’s sacrosanct to a Britton to even suggest heating water in a microwave.
I think you mean "Sacrilege" or maybe "Sacrilegious." That means "The violation of something sacred."
Sacrosanct means "sacred and beyond question," which is related, but kind of the opposite of what you mean.
You’re 100% correct.
You are correct. I had a British coworker. He gave me the fish eye when I did it the first time. I personally don't care as long as it gets hot.
What?
And they are super efficient, and insulated. If you have the counter space it's a good kitchen tool.
Maybe I'm just tired, but I'm struggling to think of other uses in the kitchen beyond just a warm beverage? Maybe for instant noodles or warming a bottle?
I have one close to this and it's been amazing. Great Christmas gift idea too.
Bidet. Not even the fancy ones. Like the cheap ones that are no more than $20-30. Every poop, I've got a squeaky clean butthole.
Totally agree; I hate pooping without it. Though I did upgrade a while back from a $20-30 one to this: https://luxebidet.com/pages/neo-185-plus-highlights
I took the old one off to really clean it and that sold me on this new flip up one.
I clicked on this thinking it was going to be a link to one of the $200+ electric models, but this is actually a relatively inexpensive upgrade I can get behind (pun?) It looks like it's a lot easier to keep clean. Thanks for this.
Almost never having to cram paper in between my buttcheeks is fucking heaven. No more shit smears!
Fitting username.
haha!
As someone with a currently chapped asshole, squeaky is not the kind of clean you want for it.
Used one for the first time recently. Seriously considering getting one of my own.
A goddamn dishwasher. I used to wash a lot of dishes by hand growing up so it took until my 30's before i realized that dishwashers are a wonderful invention.
If you haven't watched technology connections on dishwashers, you should use powder or liquid detergent, not pods. The pods don't add anything to the pre rinse cycle. You should also run your tap on hot until hot water comes out before you start the dishwasher. The pre-rinse cycle uses very little water and the dishwasher is connected to the hot water supply on your sink. It might not actually get hot water at all if you don't.
I read this in Alec's voice.
My dishwasher broke and for a year, our dishes got progressively ickier and ickier. Then we got a new one and everything felt clean again.
Maybe it was all mental. But the hot wash kills a lot.
Bought a dishwasher.
Life changing improvement. Don't be afraid to use the pots and pans setting for everything.
You don't need fancy soap and remember to top up the rinse aid.
(Also every 6 months run a special cleaner through it)
And remember it has a filter you need to clean once in a while
Not all models have a filter to clean. But those that do... definitely remember to clean it. They can get nasty if you don't.
Probably should run the clean cycle monthly.
For me, it was a Quest 3. The first VR headset to cross my personal threshold. My main requirement was that when I wasn't playing actual VR games, the headset was worth using as a virtual computer monitor from the comfort of my recliner. While Quest 3 doesn't quite have enough pixels to truly display my 4k screen at a 1:1 ratio, it is close enough that with the perceived clarity boost from the micromovements of your head meaning the same set of pixels is never sampled twice in a row and the headset running at 120hz, my 60hz real life 4k screen looks exactly as clear in real life as on the headset.
I also have a supplemental completely fabricated virtual 4k 120hz screen in the headset that I use for any games that are easier to run and benefit more from framerate than perfect individual frame clarity. The screens are 20 feet away, but each take up 80 degrees of field of view, twice what is considered comfortable, but I have always preferred what I guess in that context can only be classified as "intimate?" distance from my screens. I only use one screen at a time, the other is stored just out of sight up above. I can still look at it comfortably, and there is a button to swap the monitor locations when I want to change which one is being primarily used.
I also have my real world surroundings in the headset. So the screens are just floating within reality. I can still engage with my family, and thanks to the clarity of the passthrough cameras, I can watch TV with them too. Clearly enough to read the closed captions. The TV screen is about 30-40 degrees of my field of view, and is thus only represented as about a 720p screen, but with that same "temporal antialiasing" the clarity is boosted up to about 1080p level.
So, with all that, I spend about 14 hours a day in my VR headset now. Wirelessly, with a magnetic battery swap every 2 hours. Sometimes standing up and playing real VR games, sometimes reclining in a super comfortable chair playing desktop games. With the bobovr system, or whichever option you prefer, the headset is comfortable to wear for an infinite amount of time. And when I visit my real computer monitor now, I just leave my sit/stand desk in stand mode and no longer have a computer chair.
It has basically replaced every other screen in my life, except my phone. Which is still a main sticking point of VR. They will concievably replace the phone too eventually, but there is alot of software and hardware infrastructure needed to get there. At least Quest 3 is finally a headset clear enough to use your phone without taking it off or peeking through gaps. But only just, a phone tends to take up about 20 degrees of your field of view when used comfortably, even holding it twice as close as that is only 720p(temporally upsampled to 1080p) so holding the phone closer is still only about half the resolution of your phone. Assuming you run your phone in 4k normally. It's probably fine for people without a gaming phone that likely already only run it at 1080p, then they might have text large enough to resolve at a comfortable distance in VR. But anyway. It's not too bad now, so hopefully next headset is enough to completely solve that too, while we wait for it to not even be necessary eventually.
I'm basically retired, built up a big enough money ball that my passive income from it slowly increases, so this is the rest of my life. Slowly getting better and better VR. And while it started at Oculus DK2 for me, all the headsets before Quest 3 were only fun toys that I played with alot. Steadily increasing in capability, but not crossing the threshold into permanent screen replacement. Quest 3 did it, it crossed over that line. While the size of screen I use to represent my 4k TV is only actually physically covered by about 1440p worth of pixels, the free temporal upsampling makes it as good as 4k(2160p).
Though it will take double the current resolution for people that want a 4k screen at 40 degrees of field of view, for now people that like that distance (most people) would have to make due with it looking 1080p. Which might be fine for most people, it is still the most widely used screen resolution.
Edit for plugs for anyone that wants to do this too:
Outside of the Quest 3 itself, I use the third party comfort and runtime mod "M3 pro" from BoBoVR(dumb name, quality company), and Virtual Desktop software to stream my computer screen and create the better supplemental virtual screen out of thin air. I also use Virtual desktop to play my PCVR games when not just running something natively on the headset. Having a good network setup is pretty important too, especially in my case where the aforementioned recliner is on a different floor of my house than my computer. I have a background in networking, so in my case I'm able to setup my router in such a way that I can comfortably stream VR while we have 50 other devices on the router. But for most people, either a second dedicated router or specific VR streamer is going to be a better route. My router was 600 dollars, these bespoke units can be as little as 100 dollars and give you almost the same experience. Plus they are pre-configured specifically for VR streaming. Otherwise there can be alot of configuration changes needed.
I apologize for my verbosity, I hate to leave any details out, even though someone could just ask if I forgot to cover something. I am, unsurprisingly, Autistic. Communicating clearly is a common problem for us. Never know what knowledge I have that isn't common and needs to be conveyed. And I don't change mental gears well, so I like to get everything out once, if possible, to reduce the likelihood of having to get back into this mental space again later.
Give VR sim-racing a try (Assetto Corsa), if it strikes your fancy, at all. It's a downright miraculous experience (especially with a wheel) and THE greatest thing I've experienced in VR. I literally learned to drive a manual in Assetto Corsa before going and driving a real manual Porsche race car.
Flight Simulator in VR is also very impressive.
Oh yeah, I've played pretty much everything over the past 10 years in VR. In your same vein, I would recommend Elite: Dangerous. I played it for about 3 years with just mouse and keyboard, then another 3 years with stick and throttle, I still never got quite as good at combat on stick and throttle, but the game was more enjoyable to play overall that way. I haven't tried the expansion yet. When it came out, it didn't run great in VR, and part of its features weren't VR capable. It should run good in VR now, but I don't think they plan to bring the on-foot stuff to VR.
The base game without the expansion is still fine to play. And with the expansion, the on-foot stuff will just be played on a virtual flatscreen instead, still fine, better than not having access to it, I suppose. But I just kept holding out, hoping it would be integrated with the rest of the otherwise amazing VR experience the game is. If I play the game again, I'll probably just buy it. I still haven't tried it since Quest 3 and my new computer upgrade. It'll probably re-blow my mind.
I have a basic HOTAS for when I reassemble my VR setup and Elite: Dangerous is definitely on my list.
Space Engine in VR, though not really a game, gave me existential terror in a way I imagine Elite: Dangerous might. Accidentally sending yourself zipping through the vastness of space and right up beside a accurate-scale star rocked me in a way I thought an "educational" app never could.
I think it won't be quite as existential, despite how well they make it all feel rooted in reality, it's still pretty easy to keep in mind that it is a videogame. And with default settings and leaving "flight assist" on, the space ships handle more like planes. You can always disable flight assist, or have it on a toggle, or "disable when button held" setup too. Or, enable when held, if you want to be free flying most of the time, but still have a "stop" button when you want to cancel out your inertia, or more accurately match it with your current frame of reference.
Basically, by default, you don't have to think about your frame of reference. The fact that it is a videogame basically takes care of that. It's a convenient way to hide that the instance you are in is faking(incredibly accurately) everything else that is not in your current frame of reference. Despite space travel feeling pretty seamless, it's just cuz they hide the load screens and instance transfers as just part of navigating space. Any time you are unable to touch the controls, that is a load screen. Even if it otherwise looks the same, most notably when entering or exiting a planets frame of reference and switching between the "space" graphics of the planet to the "terrain" graphics. When approaching a planets gravity well, you basically do an uncontrolled glide that transitions you from space appropriate speeds to surface appropriate speed. That speed transition is the loading screen.
Probably the only thing that might give a similar sense of existential dread for a few seconds is if you jump to a binary star system at a time when the star you aren't jumping to just happens to be in the same direction you just jumped in from. It will look as though you flew through that star. The odds are pretty low, even full time explorers rarely see it, but it is something that can happen.
IRacing with VR and a rig is literally the best video game experience out there.
But boy is my wallet angry at me
It really is. Everyone should try it. I've done it for hundreds of hours and still think, "THIS IS THE FUTURE," every time I do it.
I was too intimidated to try iRacing, but hope to. I drove thousands of miles on the night-time Tokyo interstate/Shutoko map (mod for Assetto Corsa) by itself. Often in the rain with the mod that allowed me to control my Spotify from inside the car.
Sold my rig when I moved, but hope to rebuild it even better ASAP. It certainly isn't cheap, but my first rig was very DIY (including two-directional physics output to my seat via SimHub, which added even more to immersion, only cost $75-$100 to add a basic version) and I was able to cobble it all together for under $1,000 by waiting for deals, etc...
I should probably get some hours in on shutoko revival, now that Genki is making a new Tokyo extreme racer.
Steam deck finally got me working through my steam backlog again.
Might have played everything before I die now
Is it as good as they say? I really want one
As someone who buys a lot of gadgets and quite often barely uses them afterwards or has mild buyers remorse… I have never once regretted buying a Steam Deck. It really is an amazing piece of technology.
Yes!
I don't use mine super often but every time I do I'm glad I have it. It's a very nifty machine, and you'll find excuses to use it.
Internal SSD with the operating system on it. No other upgrade I've made to my PC has ever been so substantial.
I have my OS on an NVMe drive and it's one of the best decisions I made when building.
But the jump from SATA SSD to nvme is much less noticeable than the one from HDD to SATA SSD
HDD, SSD and NVMe all have different versions. Later generations are normally 2x faster than previous version. Comparable generations are normally an 8x speedup. (Later generations are in parentheses).
HDD to SSD is like 80(160)->300(600).
SSD to NVMe is 300(600)->2400(4800, 14000).
So, it's likely a similar upgrade, unless you did HDD-g1 to SSD-g2 to NVMe-g1 (using G1/G2 to simplify).
It's also likely possible that your computer is running so fast that a doubling or quadrupling in speed is a diminishing return as you don't notice the difference.
You're looking at the wrong numbers. Most people won't notice the difference in transfer speeds for large files. Most people will notice boot and loading times, where the results are diminishing.
Let's take a theoretical system that has an HDD and boots in around 30 seconds.
It gets upgraded with an SSD. According to your numbers, the Boot time would be better by a factor of around 3 or maybe 4, making the Boot only take around 10 seconds. That's a difference of 20 seconds, clearly noticeable.
Now it gets upgraded to an nvme drive. The speed increases by an even greater factor of around 7 or so, but you barely notice that because the PC only boots 7 seconds or so faster, much less noticeable than the 20 second difference before, despite the drives being blazing fast in comparison.
I'm not saying nvmes are worthless or anything. Just that in day to day use for most people its not as noticeable as the HDD to SSD upgrade.
Wireless ear buds.
I was pretty adamant that I was absolutely never going to get any, preferring wired and really looking for a phone that still had the jack. Then when new phone time came, I ended up having to choose between a micro sd card slot and the headphone jack. I tried for a bit with a USB-C to headphone adapter but ended up seeing some ear buds on sale and giving them a shot.
They last way longer than I expected, and the carrying case as the charger means I hardly need to worry about keeping another device charged. The freedom of not having the cord is really nice, especially when going for a bike ride or jog. I upgraded to a pair with a little over-the-ear hook and use them probably 10hrs a day every day they are great
I'm the opposite. I have to have music, and Bluetooth just sucks on Android. I've used Bose, air pods, Samsung beans, generic, etc, on multiple versions of Android, and they just suck so hard. lag all the time, can turn my head to the right without connection stuttering. I've tested pockets, hoodies, with and without my watch, naked, nothing works. Bluetooth just blows.
recently got a pair of jvc explosivs that I had a decade ago and couldn't be happier. and I used my Bose headset with the cable too.
Samsung S9 for anyone wondering. have gone through multiple Samsung phones, an LG, tablets, etc.
have wiped. removed belt buckle, changed pockets. it does work better in back right pocket, but that's my wallet pocket. I'm just so confused why it sucks to badly.
I haven't noticed Bluetooth being that bad on either pixel I've had, 3a and now 6.
I certainly get lag in my pixels but no disconnects.
Bluetooth has a general lag of several milliseconds, tens of milliseconds probably, for me. But it's close enough to not bug me when watching videos. And I never have cutouts, not unless I walk very far away. Just tonight at work I was using my pixel buds, left my phone on the desk, walked to the bathroom probably 40 or 50 feet away and through at least 3 walls, didn't miss a beat 🤷♂️
My old BT headphones back in the day couldn't go 20 feet across the room line of sight.
BT has definitely gotten way better in recent years.
yeah, no dcs, but man it stutters bad. can't turn my head or walk
Getting nice in-ear monitors with replaceable cables is so much better than wireless for me. Great sound quality and they weak link that always breaks (the wires) is now no longer an issue. I've had the same IEM now for 10 years and just change the cables every couple of years.
I still have a 5 year old Jabra Elite Active 65t that is still trucking. I had a few glitches starting a year ago like the right earbud dropping in volume or it being stuck in a hung mode where they had to be completely depleted over a few weeks to reset them, they wouldn't even charge.
However, they still work fine and are super convenient with hear-through for office work compared to wired IEMs way better for all fitness activities too, just not as good for really listening to music.
Battery life is still 3-4 hours after 5 years not including the case recharge (the case battery has degraded significantly more than the earbuds themselves, probably due to the high quality VARTA cells in the earbuds)
I am going to wear them into the ground, but jabra is doing a stock sellout before their new version of buds come out, so I bought the €140 Jabra Elite 4s for €60 for when these bite the dust, but they seem to be going strong still.
dunno how old you are but all my friends that were heavy audiophiles with headphones are near def now.
iPhone 3G. I’ll never forget the day I put the internet in my pocket
I bought one but didn't have a data plan. Jumping from WiFi to WiFi still felt like magic. It was a laptop that fit in my pants.
Constant Glucose Monitors compared to the archaic finger stick monitors was like getting a blow job after spending a lifetime hacking it with sandpaper.
Lighting system as a wake up tool.
Have now been using a light or lighting system as a morning wake up for over 15 years. It’s life changing.
Lights start off dim and red/orange, and brighten very slowly to warm white. Works every time.
I wake up without the jolt of an alarm at home.
In fact - automated lighting in general - just so good.
Similar, but lighting system as a sleep tool. Lights start off warm white and slowly dim to amber / red, then off at the push of a button every night.
Same here - it just started as wake up. :)
As a nightshift worker, using lights to wake up is a strange concept...
What one do you use? I tried this but the one I bought even the dimmest setting wakes me up when it comes on.
Phillips Hue, 800 lumen colour bulbs. We have three in our bedroom.
It also depends on how they’re controlled. We do most of our control through HomeBridge/HomeKit but for wake-ups we’ve continued to use the Hue app-configured automations as the soft-on and ramp up are the most gentle.
We were using a dedicated Phillips light alarm clock before the automated lights.
A raspberry pi.
Installed Pihole on it and now get almost no ads on all devices at home.
SBCs are pretty cool. ESP is pretty cool too.
Setting up my own NAS and offside backup.
Big project for sure, but being in control of my vital backups was important for me. Additionally the up front costs is lower than the subscriptions I would have needed.
Bone apple tea!
Off-site *
Which build you got? What technology for the backup?
I built my own. Proxmox with OMV on top. I use ZFS1 for the nas and ZFS2 for the back up
A good docking station plus KVM for a good work & home setup since the pandemic hit.
I can dock my work laptop when I work from home and have my two screens, ergonomic keyboard, mouse, webcam etc all attached in one go, then a single button on my desk to toggle to my gaming desktop and start playing without having to disconnect anything, reducing wear and tear on the connectors.
Which one did you get? I am currently looking for this for my home setup.
For the docking station I got a WD19TB from Dell provided by my employer, and for the KVM I managed to find this one that does 3xDP v1.4 to ensure it supports VRR (I'm only using two monitors, but it's nice to have the extra capacity), has three USB ports (to plug the mouse, keyboard and webcam) and has an audio out + mic in so that my headset follows the computer I'm using.
I made sure to use good DP cables to make sure the capabilities of the KVM and my hardware are always met, and so far it's been quite smooth.
The next upgrade is Synergy (the software) so you can run both systems side by side with the same keyboard and mouse. Been using it for probably well over ten years now and it's become something I can't live without.
If I had a monitor to dedicate for each, sure, but I prefer using all my monitors for either systems I'm using, plus my work computer is on a dedicated network on a VPN tunnel so that wouldn't work well for that anyway.
Recently, my car. I was driving around a 2006 and recently got a 2024. A backup camera is amazing. The collision detection, touch display, and Bluetooth are a nice bonus also.
Back up cameras and 360 parking detection sensors. Heated and cooled seats. Android Auto with integrated Google Maps. New cars are so much better than my old beater.
Yeah, I recently went from a 2005 to a 2018, and even the jump in that was amazing! Bluetooth for music and for phonecalls, it's changed my driving experience to be a much better one.
Google Home did when it first came out. Unfortunately, the quality has been consistently tanking since inception
I dont get why google home is getting worse. I would have expected it to get better end better
The problem with a product from any large corporation is you want it to get better, but they want it to generate more money.
It's not an enshittification process where it's becoming more expensive or features are going behind a subscription. It just understands less and less and can do fewer things apparently. Plus it's quite inconsistent.
A while ago Amazon introduced plans for an AI powered Alexa.
Sure enough, the original one has got worse since. I can now ask the one upstairs to turn off the office light and be told there are no devices with that name. Yet if I go to the kitchen to ask the same thing, I'll be told there are multiple devices with that name, and it doesn't know which one.
So now I use a switch.
There were some patent fights involved that resulted in features being altered.
That cant explain it all though.
iPhone 1.0. I was notoriously good at getting lost cause I'm not great with directions. A couple days after I got it, I was going somewhere in a city that isn't my own. I stepped off the train and pulled up the map app, looked at a couple of street signs, and said, "I'm going that way."
I thought to myself, this changes everything. Younger people who never had to rely on paper maps will never understand how profound that moment was.
64gb of ram. 32 cores.
if you keep many chonky applications open it's lovely.
induction cooktop? I'd say dishwasher but that's probably more plumbing and pumps than "technology".
With all the other gadgets, I'm not so sure. I've had computers, laptops, phones for ages. Of course my first everything back in the 90s or 00s was a big thing. But since then it's just the newest generation, a bit faster and with more extras, but noting substancially different.
Induction cooktop is a game changer. Water boils even faster than with gas, you have much more precise control over temperature, and you can still handle the metal cookware while it’s on the heat. Absolutely love it.
I have an induction cooktop as well and I do have one complaint about it. It uses capacitive touch to adjust the temperature instead of a knob so I spend far too long tapping it buttons to get the temperature set right whereas with a knob I could have just turned the knob.
Yeah, I agree. I don’t like touch buttons on devices like this either. Fortunately mine has temperature control knobs, but all the other buttons are capacitive. Still worth it imo, but definitely annoying.
Sure. I don't know why they design most of them like that... I really can't be bothered to tap nine times to turn it on. I went to quite some stores and decided on one with two capacitive slider fields. That's perfectly fine. I just tap somewhere at that slider and it'll be 1-9 (boost) depending on how far left or right I touch it. Or I swipe. Main thing being, it just takes one tap. Except if I use more than 2 pans, then I have to choose which plate the sliders apply to. Yeah and it's still the same inconvenience as with every capacitive control field and you can't place a box of pizzas or anything wet or metal on top of the controls or it'll complain and start beeping. I learned to place things behind the controls, but guests regularly get scolded by the cooktop.
If I had to make a wild guess as to why it's designed that way? Cleaning flat buttons seems way easier than cleaning knobs. And no moving parts. Maybe more resilient (can be made with cheaper parts) considering the flimsy electronics that would be underneath the knobs compared to the more industrial (robust?) kind under an electric range.
They could do it like I mentioned mine does? A slider is just a slightly larger touch sensitive area. I guess there are other elements on touch devices we could take inspiration from. And one company has these magnetic knobs. You can just take them off and you're left with a flat glass surface. The majority of the industry seems pretty set on the buttons, however.
I'm... Skeptical. Mostly because I have a lot of cast iron and love it, and I'm not sure how well they'd work with induction burners. And also because I want to get a wok burner (yeah, the 100k+ BTU monstrosities) for doing stir-fry, and I'm not sure that the realistically affordable induction wok burners are going to manage that.
Cast iron is fine with induction.
cast iron is pretty much perfect for induction.
for the wok: try it. Technology Connections did a video about them recently.
Basically: They should be fine. But it really depends on your stir fry style.
The somewhat good ones should be capable to get the heat into the wok. Keep in mind that a giant about of heat is getting lost on those burners. Not everything will heat the wok
Yeah, cast iron should work well. I also like the usual stainless steel or non-stick pans. I mean these get hot and cold almost immediately and I have good control over temperature. A heavy cast iron thing is made to store the heat and not do that. Depends on what someone is trying to achieve.
And something that doesn't work are things that aren't flat at the bottom. You just can't have a wok that is completely round and put that on a flat surface. And also thin metals don't work. So maybe use another cooktop for that. We own a wok that has a flattened bottom. But I don't really like cooking with that thing. Not sure if it's me or the wok.
There exists special wok induction stoves that have an indent for the wok, with the coils around it
Yeah, I've looked at those, briefly. I'm not sure if they would fit my wok, which is very thin cast iron (yes, actually cast iron, not a spun carbon steel wok). Hence the reason I want to get a wok burner that I'd end up needing to use outdoors.
That's crazy. I think I'm fine, though. I own enough spezialized kitchen equipment 😆
Cast iron like everyone else says works very well with induction, it's pretty much the ideal material. However, unlike with a steel pan, you want to start on the low side and warm the pan up. It likely won't cause issues immediately but if you frequently go straight to hot with a cast iron pan it can ultimately lead to the pan warping.
That's good to know, and not something I would have expected.
Getting a second monitor for my work computer gave me a 30% boost in my productivity.
They should cover at least 30% of the cost! Haha
Besides upgrading to an SSD like another person said, I guess an electronic pressure cooker was a pretty sweet upgrade. It's incredibly multi purpose, cuts cooking time dramatically, allows me to walk away and forget about cooking with no consequence, and often only requires cleaning a single pot for an entire meal.
Like ya know those old TV ads for kitchen gadgets that try desperately to convince you it'll change your life, but you never actually use them? An electronic pressure cooker is one the few cooking gadgets that actually lives up to the hype.
It was an air fryer for me.
I'm disabled, so I'm usually home alone, or cooking one meal for me and my kid. The oven takes about 10 minutes to preheat, and most things take 20 - 30 minutes to cook after that. The air fryer takes about half the time and doesn't need me to turn things.
On top of that, I get memory issues, probably related to ADHD, and sometimes forget that I've got something cooking. The air fryer has a timer and switches itself off. I literally can't burn the food and risk a fire. At worst it goes cold again 🤷🏻♂️
I got an insta-pot a couple years back, but basically only use it for cooking up grains, and beans. What else do you use your's for?
Baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, pasta, yogurt, steamed veggies, lots of rice dishes, pulled pork, chicken, venison, Thanksgiving turkey breast when it’s just the 3 of us
It’s extremely helpful when I forget to thaw meat for dinner (which is more often than not)
There is a trick to the pasta, but it saves me from panic dashing into the kitchen when the pot boils over because I forgot to check it
I cook most of our meals in it. We even have 2 so I can cook the meat separately since I’m vegetarian
But wait! There’s more! (not really, I just know I sound like an infomercial)
How much would you pay? Don't answer! You also get...
LoL
It's great for making chili, since 7 minutes of pressure cooking replaces an hour of simmering, It can make quick rice based meals with the addition of a handful of ingredients like a rice cooker can, and replaces a slow cooker for any meals that require it.
It also can make yogurt, though I haven't tried that yet myself.
The game changer is stock. Keep a bag of vegetable waste (and bones if you’re doing that) in the freezer. Fill to the max line then add cold water to that line as well. Add peppercorns, mustard seeds, whatever and 30 minutes gets you as good as the best store bought for ~free. An hour gets you restaurant style and 1:30 gets you basically rich, dark soup base. I used to roast bones and vegetable bits before boiling to get more color but that’s not required with the instant pot and you also aren’t running a big ol pot on the stove for hours.
Most people don’t make their own stock because it takes so long and is heavily tied to frugality. When you’re getting basically a kitchen defining ingredient for free at the press of a button the calculus changes and also anyone you give food to will be genuinely amazed.
The yoghurt function is good. I don’t eat enough yoghurt to use it but you’re getting homemade for basically the cost of milk.
Mashed potatoes are fast too.
Linux?
The question is about purchases.
Lots of us used to purchase Linux via floppies or CDs attached to a giant user manual that might hopefully help you get it working. I know we were purchasing the physical media itself, but I think people should remember how in those days you mostly couldn't just easily download any distro and it would just work.
Wait it's suppose to be free? I still pay the 50$/m fee to guy who sold it to me.
Winrar
Electric blanket!
It's not high tech, but it's so good.
I'm still just using an acoustic blanket. Should I splash the cash to upgrade?
Microwave, I never had one, because, I never wanted to eat ultra-processed microwaved food.
But now , I use it all the time:
So now all my meal are more healthy just because of microwave, which seems counterintuitive, but is true.
I never understood the thought process that led to microwave cooking being unhealthy. Vibrating the water molecules to steam cook isn’t bad.
Maybe it’s the types of instant foods that are available? Those also exist for ovens though and don’t seem to carry the same stigma.
Idk about unhealthy but I generally find that food comes out of the microwave soggy and gross.
Git gud
Affordable solar panels and batteries. With this we were able to life off-grid surrounded by nature.
Were? Did something happen?
Haven't seen this in this thread yet, but I'm going to say an improved sound system. For me, it was just a soundbar and rear speakers. I live in a tiny apartment so couldn't fit a full sound system with front speakers, but just that was a huge improvement over just the TV speakers before.
Wireless noise cancelling headphones and earbuds.
I was reluctant to pay $400 for a gimmick but holy shit, once I did they became my most treasured possessions. Then I got buds for $400.
If we are talking cost per hour of use, they might be the most cost-effective tech I own
My SLA 3D which I used to print IEMs and earplugs which I scanned with my DSLR. Those three things for sure.
Surprised nobody has mentioned a computer yet, so mine is going from a $200 dell optiplex I saved up for to a ~$3,000 gaming rig my parents convinced the government to buy me.
The government had a $5,000 thing to parents with autistic children (diagnosed before the age of 10) and they could spend it on stuff that would help the child. They had to fight tooth and nail to convince them that it would let me play games with my friends (a total lie, I only played Minecraft and terraria then). They surprised me with it on my birthday I think 5 years ago and it was AMAZING.
I've spent nearly every dollar I've earned in the past 5 years improving my setup and game library.
Oh. And a high quality Bluetooth mouse. I used a Glorious Model O (for Minecraft 1.8 pvp) since it came out and used it till the battery only lasts a day or two, also I wanted more buttons. Only 6 months ago have I switched to a g502x and I went like 3 weeks without charging it. Its amazing.
Semi professional wifi(networking) at home (TP link omada or ubiquiti) and just buying excessive amounts of access points in my home.
Fuck you, low wifi signal. Fuck you, crashed router.
Bicycle technology. Suddenly I could travel three times the speed of walking for the same effort.
I don't think I could ever go back to a single monitor setup. Screen real estate is ALWAYS at a premium. I feel so constrained when forced to use just one.
A kneepad for my NC Miata. Kept digging my knee into the center console. A pad was the best upgrade I've made to that car.
I have an ND2 and I take a 1200 mile road trip annually. I really should get a pad for my driver side door. By the time I get to and from my destination, I'm all bruised up and sore on the outside of my leg.
A small vacuum and mop Roomba clone. Having two dogs leaving fur everywhere made vacuuming every day a necessary chore but now I only need to empty out their base every day and they take care of keeping the floors clean. I don't have them connected to my Wi-Fi though so hopefully that helps mitigate any hacking attempts.
The Scooba? I was thinking about getting one of those. How do you like it?
They stopped making Scooba a long time ago. Broke too much.
The vacuum's a Matrix Shark and the mop's a Narwal something or other. Aside from them getting stuck in corners or entangled in wires once a week they work great! A little wire management and careful furniture placement lowered the chance of that happening again. One dog pretty much ignores it and the other eyes it with suspicion and wouldn't be in the same room it's running in but otherwise I haven't had any big issues yet.
Beetlecrab Audio Tempera is the most inspiring electronic musical instrument I own. I got it in April, and I'm still finding new ways to use it. It does so much.
Oxi One really is the hardware sequencer to rule them all. Though I'm sure you could get by with a Hapax or Deluge if you don't mind spending twice as much.
Not a purchase, but Csound has always been an invaluable companion to my music making process. It's also entirely free and open-source.
On a tangent, is it just me, or has there been a notable uptick in this type of question? Feels a lot like astroturfing, but so far as I can see there's been no malicious intent
Could be a setup to post ads in the comments, could be sourcing material for a listicle, could just be a genuine question. It is some pretty low-level malice if present, or my imagination is too weak here.
My guess is that due to money being more tight, people want to make sure that they spend it on things that actually matter.
I don't think lemmy is relevant enough for companies to target. The user base is tiny.
I like these kinds of questions here because of that. You get actual people talking, not just bots regurgitating the same shit over and over.
Fair enough, it must have just been a fluke I saw a few posts like this in a row
It’s also almost the holiday season!
Several things:
Be careful which ebike brands to trust. Avoid Rad Power Bikes. Even though the brand's American, its customer service and reliability's a complete joke. I had a lightly used Rad Runner who's battery died a little after a year of light use. Their warranty only covered up to a year and they said their only solution is to buy a new $600 battery that doesn't even come with a warranty itself.
Gazelle. Sold by my local bike shop which I trust.
Little pricy and all in all I’d prefer something more open than Bosch. But… so far so good.
Going from Sega Megadrive to PlayStation back in the nineties. True 3d graphics on a home console blew my little teenage mind. Lara Croft. Wipeout. Metal Gear Solid! Good times.
Agree with:
Dishwasher (really just toss dishes in as you use them, close and run at night, put 'em away in morning, it's magic. I didn't have one till I was almost 50)
Electric bike (I hate biking but this is like a dream of a bike)
Roomba (wood floors no grit)
And the mesh wifi system that lets me easily see and address the rare hiccups it has.
Electric bikes are so freaking cool.
I hate how they're everywhere in Asian countries.
And in America, it's like a luxury.
When I got my first HD tv. I had previously been playing oblivion on Xbox 360 on an crt tv and when I setup the HD I was absolutely blown away by the clarity. I remember my stupid fucking ex-wife trying to tell me there was no difference between the two.
RAM update. Doubling your RAM on most low/medium -end consumer PCs will noticeably improve responsiveness and multitasking.
I've literally never felt the need for more RAM, except on an old netbook that had 1GB and struggled with opening a website.
Clearly you haven't had the joy of having 10 tabs on Firefox, a film playing on VLC, the torrent client running, and trying to open up a large Solidworks assembly file on a 16GB Windows 10 PC. It gets eaten up fairly quickly.
No. I can't look at 10 browser tabs, a film, and a Solidworks assembly file at the same time, so doing that makes no sense to me.
Recently had my RAM died on me and bought a new pair. I had a 16gb and the 32gb ones were on sale. Really felt the difference lol
Smart lights. What a world of difference coming home to my lights being on either from them automatically triggering, or me turning them on remotely. Or, being able to take a shower knowing my lights will be able to turn themselves off on whatever timer I set. It's been an excellent expereince
I’ve been looking into some smart lights!
But I’m a bit confused, what do you use them for in the shower?
Not "In the shower persay" I have the Phillips hue lights and I have a set of them in my bathroom With Alexa, or any app to access them, I can set timers on the lights meaning I could have a 30-minute timer while I'm in the shower or whatever else I'm doing. They turn themselves on, turn themselves off.
Oh now I see what you’re saying, thanks. Yeah I thought maybe there was something about showering I’d been overlooking all these years lol
Light timers have been great. I feel having the ones in my bedroom work like a daylight alarm has been very helpful, and as you said, you never come home to a dark house, which is helpful if you've got arms full of groceries or such.
Also the smart thermostat in conjunction with smart outlets lets me turn on the room fans and AC when I'm on my way home.
Even having the ability to change color temp is nice so you can have harsh bright white if you need to see something you're working on, but the majority of the time you can have nice warm or soft light.
I've been in the home automation business for over 25 years. Can confirm that smart lighting is the absolute best investment.
I've installed and programmed lighting systems for over $100k but have personally spent less than $250 for Ikea devices for my apartment. Just the ability to dim and set the color of the lights at certain times of day is key for me.
Controlled Lighting isn't only about convenience, it's about setting a mood. You can set a warm dim scene to be more calming or a bright white scene for cooking or cleaning.
I'm curous about these, how is the privacy on the apps? Having my data mined from my lightbulbs is my last consideration against taking the step tbh
Bone conduction headphones for biking. Being able to listen to my tunes while I'm riding around is amazing.
out of my price range and unnecessary for me atm, but the display at Best buy was pretty impressive. was very surprised by them.
I bought a 2080ti for $1200 right before covid and everyone gave me shit about how I was wasting my money because the 3000 series had a lower MSRP which then ballooned to $2000+.
So while everyone else was struggling to get a graphics card due to supply chain issues and prohibitive costs, I was gaming in 4k resolution throughout the pandemic. To say that this was clutch during a time I couldn’t really do much outside of the house with other people would be a massive understatement.
I usually would not have spent that much on a card, but I won a hackathon cash prize right before so had some money burning a hole in my pocket. The card is still going strong and is still my daily driver, so I can’t say it’s been a bad purchase at all.
Automatic litter box! They're so pricey, I always wasn't in a place to do it, but I finally bit the bullet. I don't think I can go back. It's so easy, and my cat wasn't scared at all. I also feel better knowing she always has clean litter. When she comes to bed I can just run the box from my app.
Bonus: it rotates sideways so my cat can keep her head. 👍🏾
I started panicking, but from your last sentence it sounds like you've heard some of them might be dangerous and you have one that isn't.
I love mine but the cats often like jumping out so litter gets kicked out occasionally. Other than that, and that it stops working during power outages, it's great. Changing a bag is so much easier to deal with than scooping litter.
Higher quality electric coffee grinders. I have been using pretty nice hand grinders for years ($100 to $200 range) and while they were good, the consistency and general quality of life improvement gotten from these nicer electric grinders has made a significant improvement in both the coffee quality and my time/life quality related to making coffee daily.
Oh man, I hear you. Actually I'm a slob, I don't just have a grinder, it's one of those all-in-one filter coffee machines. Every morning at 6.30 there's that grinding noise and a few mins later the smell drifts in. I don't wanna get up but dang it you've made it worth my while, coffee machine, I ain't mad.
noise canceling bluetooth headphones (Sony XM3s, in my case). They are always near me. Thousands of hours and I haven't even changed the earpads yet. I don't know how I lived without them.
Does corrective eye surgery count? Because it fundamentally changed my daily quality of life
I got PRK several years past and for a while I felt the same way. When I saw my eye doctor recently and had to get glasses again, this time in another country, he said that was stupid. Eyes degrade always so you’re really just making it worse in the long term (me not you). I’m still considering doing it again. Expensive and slightly risky, but gods walking in the rain without glasses was magical.
An immersion blender, it was $30 but it made my soups seem gourmet and let me recycle my gallons of lard into the best soap I have ever used.
Aside from that, I replaced two of my mismatched odd shaped PC monitors with 27" 4k monitors and the difference is amazing. The monitors were so cheap too only $110 each. Together with my super fancy main screens it really cleaned up the desktop.
These things rock. Making cream of {ingredient} soup is so easy. In fact, making soups out of everything is notmw so easy, and I use more food that might otherwise be wasted. If you have stale bread, you can blend it in stock or water to easily thicken a soup, and nobody else will know there's bread in it.
a 3d printer, I've picked up my now favourite hobby when I got it: gun smithing
It's too bad the pay is kind of shit. I looked into when I was younger and noped right out.
Though if you're actually making guns/parts for sale instead of repairs it might be better.
yeah, that's a problem, I really wish I could live from a gun repair business, but it'll probably stay a hobby
You could always apply your 3d printing knowledge over to cnc milling of custom grips and stocks and engraving.
I wish I could use mine for that, but I live in Canada.
Going full homelab with a rack, battery backups, and 2.5gb backhaul on my home network. Absolutely game changing from an appliance management standpoint where any one node can go down for any reason and there’s a backup and replacement on hand in minutes with built in redundancy. Not to mention the learning and experience opportunities when setting up hardware and software services. Sure is sweet to have data redundancy and protections!
Not very high tech, but I love it: a projector clock (an alarm clock that can project the time on a ceiling or wall).
Not having to turn over to see the time is extremely nice when I’m cozy in bed. I didn’t even ask for it - it was given to me as a gift. If you get one, be sure that the angle and orientation are highly adjustable.
I have a "No clocks in the bedroom" rule. As a person who has struggled with falling asleep, having a bright glowing display constantly reminding me how tired I'm going to be in the morning just gave me more anxiety and made it even more difficult to fall asleep.
I still have my watch and my phone, but those are things I need to purposely move to look at.
A projector clock sounds like hell to me.
I use my phone or watch as my clock or alarm but I have a rule to not look at the time if I wake up early. If I’m not wide awake I go back to sleep until my alarm goes off. It’s bliss even if it’s only for 15 more minutes since I wouldn’t know how long I’ve been out again.
Interesting take. I wish you the best.
Yeah. I think there are two schools out there, us anxious types that have to have the room pitch black without light source anywhere or we feel like a laser is drilling into our brain, and then normal people.
Motion sensor and smart light switch. There are two rooms in my house with multiple entryways and awful light switch options, so without these I’d just stumble in the dark.
We also have it for our carport and it’s so pleasant for the light to automagically happen and then go off without needing to remember to change anything.
(And all of this done through local mesh and Apple HomeKit. We do not use proprietary services that can be shut down on us.)
I got a microwave with an inverter magnetron.
When you set your microwave to, let's say, 20% power, a typical microwave will cycle the magnetron, so that it runs at 100% power for 20% of the cooking time and is off in between. With an inverter, the actual power output of the magnetron can vary, so it's actual 20% power for the whole time. It does an excellent job of gently reheating things like sandwiches and cooked rice without drying them out or scorching. Also, if something has instructions written for a lower wattage microwave, I can just turn the power down until it's close to that wattage instead of doing calculations to modify the time.
TIL. But also 2-3 times as expensive it seems.
My first very small mp3 player, something from sony. It was amazing.
My first digital camera, just being able to see your picture after shooting them. being able to delete photos was revolutionary.
My first wifi access point, having Internet at home without cable.
My first phone that could load msn messager. Also pretty cool.
Steam owen. Haven't reheated my food un the microwave ever since.
Be nice to Owen, ok, it's been a hard life for him
So many women who want his alphabet leg. Poor guy can't keep up.
I keep Owen locked in the basement. He keeps the fire burning.
My Thinkpad T440p, its a reliable laptop that works amazingly. It may not be the most powerful but the keyboard is amazing and the build quality is better then any modern laptop.
This. Don't buy consumer laptops. You can get secondhand business laptops that are just as cheap and more durable. You won't get one with a touchscreen but that's about it for the downsides.
Lenovo has decent clearance prices around Memorial day for their last gen ThinkPads. Otherwise they're definitely not worth over 1k new like they pretend.
The problem is that the current generation is literally worthless in between their defective CPUs and pushing the new Windows spyware so I'm not sure the same statement will be true next year.
Cries in European. Any decent Thinkpad is 2.5k+ and rarely are any discounts. They just don't care about private consumers over here. Either university students or big companies can get reasonable prices.
It's been several years since I ran Windows on any of my laptops. And haven't run into any CPU issues yet. In my experience if stay away from the slim models and go for the more high-end ones you're good.
Never have I used a laptop and thought "boy, I wish this had a touch screen".
Can't miss what you don't know. I refuse to purchase at a laptop without a touch screen.
When you don't have a mouse it is great for quick interactions that cover a distance across the screen - interact with a button here, another over there, select a field far off from where my cursor is, screen skip, quick markup, etc. It's also far friendlier to use when commuting or flying where there are bumps and little elbow room. It isn't a 100% replacement for a touch pad but having it there to augment at times is such a boon.
I have a Surface 2. I only used the touchscreen when it's in tablet mode or the dogshit type cover starts annoying the fuck out of me. I don't miss it when I'm on my work laptop. As for moving the cursor and selecting things I just turn the cursor speed all the way up on every pc I use.
Your physiotherapist will thank you, and so will your neck, shoulders, and elbows.
Also a happy T440p owner. Nice laptop and the keyboard is great.
The best recent one was a Faraday bag for my phone.
I use it as a step counter but didn't want to be checking it often nor tracked all the time, and the faraday bag blocks signals from the outside and minimizes my phone as a nuisance AND helps curb the urge to check it all the time while still counting my steps.
Overall, though, I'd say a USB powerbank. I've had it for three years and only used it a handful of times, but when I'm in an airport or road tripping, it's nice to have an easy way to recharge my devices.
My e-book reader (Tolino).
As I got older and had problems with my eyes, this was a game changer. I had basically stopped reading books and now I do it daily. I can choose the font and letter size, background color, and backlighting based on what works best for my eyes that day and the light where I am.
Being able to hold a very light device with a big screen when I would have to balance a heavy weight as a paper book is also great, and I take the reader with me everywhere, whereas a big book would stay at home most of the time.
The reader has a bigger screen than my phone and the battery lasts longer.
The reader works flawlessly with my library, so I don't have to buy books, which keeps costs down, and I don't have to leave the house to get a new book.
Calibre helps us share books in our family, which is one reason we've stayed away from Amazon's Kindle, so we've all gone to ".epub".
Noise cancelling headphones. I wish I could wear them 24/7.
A 1000€ ebike. Best choice ever. Always on time, unaffected by traffic and never get tickets since I don't have a registration table :)
I absolutely LOVE my ebike. We live on a hill that would be impossible for me to ride up (without breaks), having the pedal assist means I don't dread it anymore. It's quite fun! I will often do 20-30 mile rides just because it's so easy. And it replaced my need to drive my car most places.
My Ampler E-Bike I bought 2 years ago. More than 5000 km later I still love it to bits.
Putting more than 256MB of ram in a Windows XP machine. People think that the jump from HDD to SSD was big, but imagine Windows actively using the HDD as virtual memory. It would grind your PC to a halt. Going to 512MB made your computer feel like a Ferrari.
Going from 8MBto 16MB on Windows 95 was a pretty big improvement.
Not sure if that counts as technology, but simple LED lights over my kitchen counter (mounted under the upper cabinets) were a pretty inexpensive purchase that made my life significantly better. I don't understand now how I was ever able to cook with just the ceiling lights on, it's absolutely terrible.
Egg cooker. Hard boiled and omelettes were already easy but the cooker made it even easier, with less water, and less cleanup.
So close! Get one that does poached eggs. It's basically like an ice-cube tray, but the cells are bigger so they fit a whole egg. Only downside is that you need to be quite precise when filling the water. (We use a kitchen scale and measure it to the gram, but it's perfect every time)
The exact model we have is the Cuisinart CEC-10, but I'm sure there are others.
Stand mixer. It's so much easier to mix things now and I make less of a mess.
Oh, I forgot that in my list - I upgraded mine to a model that can handle my 2 loaves of sourdough dough (about 2 kilos) and it's glorious. Had wanted one for a dozen years, finally started watching the prices and got it last year when it hit the lowest I'd seen.
My girlfriend and I are on a huge sourdough kick right now, and we'd love to start making it ourselves. Do you have a recipe you'd recommend? Any tips and tricks you've learned from experience?
For 2 loaves, this one doesn't need the mixer, way more process than recipe, super simple ingredients.
1000g flour (between 30-50% whole grain something, the rest white bread flour), 20g salt
700-750g water
200g refreshed starter, 100% hydration
Mix everything and let it sit 20 minutes to hydrate. Then I smush it into a big ball and wash the bowl, leave it wet and dump the dough back in. Stretch and fold immediately, then every half hour 3 or 4 more times. Cover the bowl with a plate or towel in between. No, you don't have to knead it. Once it looks strong and elastic, after the last stretch and fold, make it a smooth ball (flipping it over usually works) and let it rise 2-3 hours, covered, until bigger and lighter.
Dump it carefully onto a big flat surface and split it in two. Make lazy dough balls, dust them with flour and cover with a flat towel or t-shirt cloth. Let rest for 20 minutes - this is called 'bench rest' Meanwhile line 2 bannetons (or flattish bowls- something shaped like you want the top of the dough to end up) with flat kitchen towels and dust with rice flour. Shape each loaf carefully and place into the baskets with bottoms up. Let rise then bake in preheated cast iron pot at about 450F, 230C ish, no fan, 20 minutes with lid then 30 without - I have to tent mine with foil because oven heats from the top.
There are 2 places you can pause this, since it's such a long process. Either after stretch and fold (cover bowl with plate) or after putting them in baskets, which is what I do. If you do this you have to enclose them in plastic loosely, I use produce bags for that, and even if they don't look like they rose in the fridge, the cold dough into hot pan enclosed makes steam that makes them rise so well.
It's easier to do than describe so ask anything.
I got a Microsoft Surface earlier this year. I have had phones and tablets with pens before but none were very satisfying to use and I have had laptops for decades at this point. This is the thinnest and lightest laptop as well as the best tablet I have ever used.
I no longer carry a paper notebook with me because I always have my surface. I have needed One Note for a very long time but didn't realize it. having access to all of my notes and being able to carry all of them without having to find the right notebook as been huge.
A kitchen sink. Did an impromptu kitchen reno due to a gas leak and being without one is such a huge downgrade in quality of life. I was washing dishes in the bathtub nightly and it was absolutely miserable. I don't think I've ever been more appreciative of the technology of modern plumbing than the day I was able to rerun lines to the sink area and get it all going.
Not sure that's the kind of technology purchase to which the OP was referring. I thought you were going to say you purchased some kind of high tech sink and was excited to hear what it did to improve your life. I mean, I can see the point but....
A controller frame for my phone. I'm now carrying around a DS, N64, PS1, SNES, and GBA with me everywhere I go. I'm looking forward to adding Gamecube and PS2 and 3 to the list in the future. I can also play PC games in my bed, but can't quite take that around with me because it's streaming from my PC.
A temperature controlled pod for my bed. I used to sleep so hot all night long, constantly moving to find the cool part of the bed.
Now I keep it like as cold as can be all night, and my sleep has improved 10x. Plus my partner likes it warm so her side is nice and cozy. Both of us are happier for it.
Switched my polyester comforter for a wool blanket. It's so much better for temperature regulation.
The original GameBoy in like 1992, I was 6 and it was everything. Then Pokemon came out and hell yeah
My NAS, having access to all my files anywhere at any time is great
A robot vacuum with a mop and self emptying/mop washing base (I live with two dogs in the PNW where mud is constant for 6 months of the year).
Roomba.
I got a different brand, would love an open source one for sure, AND it's amazing to have an actually clean floor pretty much ongoingly. One still has to do stuff to prepare for the robotic underlord; they don't like string, or cords, afterall. or like them all too much.
Apple Watch
No longer would I have to get out my phone to pay for something, or pause music, or adjust the Temperature. The early models didn’t have health sensors but I still get excited every September for Apples announcement to see what sensor they add next
Even the first Apple Watch had the heart rate monitor, which is the main one people care about.
Going to get roasted for this, but Alexa devices. The video versions play Netflix, YouTube, Hulu etc and have much better sound than the standard little speaker orb version. They all sync together so you can stream music in each room that has one like having a whole house stereo system.
Being able to verbally add something to the grocery list at any time is a game changer. People aren't taking advantage of that feature as much as they should IMO.
The second part sounds like a thing phones should already be capable of, if it weren't for trying to charge for something. Or snoop on me. Or something worse I just haven't thought of.
Enshittification is such a downer. Oh, well, guillotines will fix it eventually, I guess.
I don't know for sure, but we may as well try
Just any voice assistant in the kitchen to set cooking timers.
The shopping list feature is the most used part of my Alexa, followed by morning weather report while I feed the animals, and then occasional music.
Many have had big impacts. Piano, phone, computer.
Last January I got a new laptop that blows my desktop out of the water in terms of specs. I was dumb and decided to get a budget desktop because of all the USB ports and the disk drive it has. It was something like $300-400USD. My current laptop was roughly $1000USD before tax.
Had to remove the complete spyware win11, but otherwise it's been a great laptop (minus the few times I've either somehow broken MXLinux or broke KDE Plasma). Totally better than my old laptop as well considering I don't need to constantly charge my new one to keep the battery from dying and it doesn't have a lot of damage.
My current gaming computer. Besides a faulty wi-fi adapter that leaves online gaming a lot to be desired and failing HDD's because of old age, I haven't touched a physical console besides the Nintendo Switch in years. When you have a powerful computer you can emulate pretty much anything which I feel is an upgrade in comparison to a console which can only play games that are specifically made for that console.
If you thought many PS3 and PS2 games looked beautiful before, my gosh...they look even more beautiful in 4K!! Bonus if they're able to go up to 60 FPS when they natively ran at 30 due to console limitations. Raytracing + HDR mods are always yummy too!
I got a Garmin fitness tracker. I really wanted a smart watch, but don't want to have to charge it all the time.
I got the Instinct, and ended up turning the notifications off right away - i just wanted to see the stats on my sleep and step count. It also encouraged me to start running and exercising more.
I've allowed notifications for texts and calls, and now my phone is on perpetual mute.
Electric whisks. I'm never stirring a drink with a spoon in my life.
Smart oven + meal plan: My spouse bought me one for my birthday (a Tovala) and I have to admit I was skeptical at first but hot diggity damn does it make fresh cooked meals easy. We very rarely order out now and the meals are usually very good (stay away from the burgers though, their bread usually sucks).
My 486. With colour screen and speakers!
A Fujitsu Lifebook U9310x convertible laptop.
It's my main computing device, which doubles as a tablet.
It's light enough to take anywhere, has over 12h of battery on Linux, and holds up better mechanically than my Thinkpad.
Epson tank printer
Second the tank printers. Cartridges cost way to much fing money
Always, only, get one with toner.
Back in the day, a smartphone was a major upgrade. They continue to improve which is just amazing. I came from an age of wall phones and dial-up internet.
Going from a Candybar phone to an iPhone.
How do you define "technology". Because if it means "any human invention" then I have to give it to my squatty-potty. I have Crohn's Disease and "quality of pooping life" is a very important factor. And it's just a lot comfier when your legs aren't falling asleep due to an unnatural position.
If it has to be something from "the tech industry", then my very first smartphone, circa 2012. After decades of oldschool cell phones, it was a real game-changer. Doubly so because I'm in Brazil, where texting was never really a thing, so for the first time I had access to the likes of WhatsApp and could be in touch with my mates, whereas previously the cell was really just for calls, which is to say, emergencies.
VR, it was janky and barely worked, I still can't wait for the future of AR.
Electric Peper grinder, now I don't have to feel like I'm working out to get that nice peppery taste.