[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What are some great items you own or want?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: What are some great items you own or want?
Is there anything you have that makes life better, or work easier?
Author : cannotread
Score : 9 points
Date : 2022-10-29 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Ember mug. Sounds like an absolute waste of 130 USD, but it
| really works, and means I can abandon my coffee for an hour or so
| (the joys of being a new father), and come back to it still
| almost as hot as I made it.
|
| https://ember.com/products/ember-mug-2?variant=3084397782638...
| angrais wrote:
| Couldn't you achieve the same with any standard Thermos mug?
| (<$10)
| helij wrote:
| That was my first thought as well. Thermos keeps my tea and
| coffee hot since early 90'.
| telman17 wrote:
| Definitely a want and not a need but I am an avid gamer and
| switched to all oled screens in the house. Would never go back. I
| love immersion in games and the difference between a non oled and
| an oled is night and day.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| Next time I'm getting a new monitor is when 4K240 monitors come
| out. Might take 2-5 years. Also, when a decent 4K OLED tablet
| comes out.
| autoexec wrote:
| Are you worried about burn in?
| smileysteve wrote:
| I've had the LG old since Dec 17, I had a few pixels get
| stuck once so far, but the refresher program solved them.
|
| Also something I have 0 regrets buying and miss when watching
| anywhere else. Any sound system is also non my list (vs built
| in)
| tmtvl wrote:
| Leatherman Wave, amazing little multitool. Would be my EDC if it
| weren't illegal to carry around an EDC with a blade.
| marapuru wrote:
| A decent bike that gets me around town for free and keeps me fit.
| It's nothing too special or fancy (Sparta Marathon 5), bought it
| second hand. And that helps in actually using it and not worrying
| too much about using it.
| autoexec wrote:
| Is this market research?
| ozzythecat wrote:
| Want: I drive a 2011 Toyota Corolla. It's a decent four cylinder.
| Reliable. Runs smooth. Gets me from point a to point b, mainly to
| pick up my prescriptions these days though I suppose I could have
| them delivered.
|
| Now I was never really a car person. I see all these people
| buying fancy cars. I tell ya, they're money pits. Especially the
| German vehicles. I have family members that trade in every few
| years, rolling in their negative equity to the new car, and
| making car payments in perpetuity.
|
| Yes sir call me an hypocrite, but after a friend picked me up in
| his Lexus, I want one. This was a Lexus GS sedan. Very
| comfortable, quality ride. Night and day different than my
| Corolla. I want to buy one and take it with me beyond my
| retirement and to the grave. And the Lexus is just a souped up
| Toyota anyway, so figure I can splurge for once.
|
| I spoke with a Lexus dealer about purchasing a new IS, since it's
| all they had on the lot. Despite a very high credit score and my
| house being paid off, they quoted me a > 7% interest rate. And
| they wanted me to pay $3000 for paint protection and some other
| useless stuff. No thanks, bunch of clowns. I got up to leave, and
| I couldn't! I had given them my car keys because I thought about
| figuring out what my Toyota might be worth. But god damn they
| didn't want to give me the keys back. The sales manager also came
| out trying to convince me why a 7% rate was more than good enough
| and how some stupid plastic film on the door that they're
| charging me $800 is worth it (it's not).
|
| I haven't made time to talk to a different lender. Might just
| wait a year and see if there's more vehicle inventory with this
| god damn recession everyone keeps talking about.
|
| I'm waiting for the stock market to crash so I can hopefully buy
| a fewer things for cheap. Where I live, cost of housing and goods
| is insane because of big tech companies. The bubble starting to
| burst is music to my ears. My former employer is one of them, and
| I pray they crash and burn with what a horrible work environment
| they've created. That's another story.
| drstewart wrote:
| >I'm waiting for the stock market to crash so I can hopefully
| buy a fewer things for cheap.
|
| >Where I live, cost of housing and goods is insane because of
| big tech companies.
|
| >My former employer is one of them,
|
| This has real "you're not stuck in traffic, you are traffic"
| vibes
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| 1. Interesting, I hadn't heard that about German cars. Well,
| BMWs had that reputation, but Porsche's are supposed to be
| fairly reliable, I thought.
|
| 2. The story about them not letting you leave is creepy af,
| sounds borderline illegal to me.
| BrentOzar wrote:
| Never buy a new Lexus. They're incredibly reliable. Let someone
| else eat the depreciation, and buy a 2-3 year old one instead.
|
| Get an account at PenFed, apply for a used car loan through
| them, and you can use it to pay for vehicles from dealers or
| independent third parties. PenFed is a credit union that anyone
| can join with a donation - you don't have to be a former
| Pentagon employee.
|
| Don't use them for your primary banking needs though. Their
| tech is a dilapidated nightmare. Just use them for auto and
| home loans.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| As a kid, I drove luxury cars all through my 20s, and after
| being married for a while, we stopped driving Germans because I
| was done with that chapter of my life.
|
| Now I let my 2022 Corolla drive itself, and at my current age I
| measure luxury by SAE levels.
|
| Occasionally, I miss the feeling of a Porsche or Tesla, but
| they're really not that great if you spent several years
| driving them. What it really feels like is that they're OK, and
| everything else is rubbish.
| BrentOzar wrote:
| Philips LatteGo 3200 series fully automatic coffeemaker including
| lattes. Pour beans and water in, makes all kinds of drinks
| automatically, and most of the parts are dishwasher safe. About
| $800 USD.
|
| Not as good as my local barista, but damn close, and a hell of a
| lot cheaper in the long run. Great for dinner parties too where
| folks want a cappuccino or something after dinner.
| jonas-w wrote:
| I put the exact machine a year ago on my wishlist and never
| thought about it again (thanks for reminding me), if i remember
| correctly i put it on there because it is easy to clean. I love
| a good cappuccino but the amount of cleaning these machines
| need is a mood killer.
| jleyank wrote:
| Stealth monster miata. Should have bought that rather than the
| mustang cobra. Would have been a better ride and a way better
| story.
| pedalpete wrote:
| I think the question conflates two different things.
|
| Great items we want or own are not necessarily the things that
| make life better or work easier.
|
| Over a decade ago I was given a Rolex by my work. It doesn't make
| my life better or work easier. I actually need to get it cleaned
| because it doesn't keep great time. But it is a nice piece of
| design, and caused me to recognize quality and balance.
|
| I love my bike, a 12 year old (maybe more) Kona Honky Tonk. It
| fits me perfectly, I love the timeless look of it. Does it make
| life better than any other bike? Probably not, but I have a
| strong attachment to it because it is unique and mine. Same with
| my mountain bike, but that's a custom job made for me, so a bit
| difficult to compare.
|
| Artwork, stuff that I've made, or stuff I've been given.
|
| I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think we can take the
| "life is better" without the attachment, which is often post-
| rationalized as to why we like something.
|
| It's something that is front of mind for the work we're doing at
| https://soundmind.co - we're creating a sleep headband that
| improves the function of your brain during sleep. The design of
| something somebody is going to wear to bed is more important than
| many people initially think it is. In order to be successful, you
| have to create something that doesn't only work, and do the job,
| but also makes people feel the right way about how they put it
| on, what it feels, like, and how they become attached to it.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| LC4
| metadat wrote:
| This?
|
| https://www.cassina.com/content/experience-fragments/cassina...
|
| https://www.cassina.com/ww/en/products/lc4.html
|
| Apparently it's a $6k lounge chair.
|
| Looks like it cost $50-80 to build.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| thats the current licensed producer but it's much older than
| cassina. repros are not close to $80 cost cutting measures
| inclusive
| testmasterflex wrote:
| Ninebot Max g30
| MrVandemar wrote:
| I want nothing. I have all I need, which is relatively modest. I
| couldn't even tell you what model of (2nd hand) laptop I have or
| how much RAM it has because I don't care and it's not an issue
| for my use-cases.
|
| As for things that make life better or work easier ... I carry a
| Swiss Army "Climber" multitool. (In his Last Viridian Note writer
| Bruce Sterling eloquently describes a multitool as "a set of
| possible creative interventions in your immediate material
| environment"). When I go hiking I'll also take my Opinel #6
| pocket-knife - it's light and has a really nice locking
| mechanism. It's great for quartering an apple or stripping the
| bark from a branch.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| It's not an item, but a system I am envisioning for liberating
| potential homeowners. I want something as approachable as IKEA
| instructions for building your own home, super to nuts, for
| whatever style of home you want, but primarily using stick
| framing.
|
| I'm semi-retired right now having just turned 30, and I spent the
| last ~7 years of my life dealing with contractors in the Phoenix
| metro, and let me tell you: if you want to do any sort of
| renovation, let alone building a house, you are screwed.
|
| You can take the entire ROC (Registrar of contractors) list and
| given any particular job you need done, call just about every
| contractor in that space within a day or two and literally get
| the best quote in the entire city, or even statewide.
|
| Pricing is so heavily variable, that what I want is to completely
| bypass most contractors and teach the average person how to just
| do it themselves.
|
| I've had to run my own Romex and do my own carpentry and I can
| pretty confidently say now that most of what these professionals
| have to offer is not worth your time. There is a small percentage
| of them that are exceptionally good, and basically that cohort
| does not advertise.
|
| I want better housing for my fellow man.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-10-29 23:01 UTC)