I'm too intimidated to try one despite staying in hotels round the world that usually have them.
What if it goes wrong? How bad much shitty water do I and the bathroom end up covered in? How do you know if it's clean? Doesn't other peoples shitty water end up on the same appliance that you're now using? Does that mean I end up with other peoples shitty water being jet streamed towards my anus? So many questions, so much doubt. Similarly for those handheld nosel things popular in the middle East and parts of Asia.
Building and running my own server for self hosting multiple tools for my home.
Bitwarden Password manager, now sharing logins/passwords for stuff my fiance and I both use is easy, and every single website we use has its own unique randomly generated password so when one site gets breached, our logins aren't compromised anywhere else
Plex, it's like your own self hosted Netflix. My file copies of any movies/TV shows go on here and it parses em all, keeps it all grouped together, streams in 4k.
Shinobi, for my security cameras. Self hosted free CRTV application, works with any open spec cameras. Has movement detection and tonnes of other open source options for plug-ins.
Deluge, handy UI for downloading torrents onto my server. Conviently added presets to it that let me download to the very folders Plex scans... cough cough.
Kavita, self hosted server for books/pdfs. Some e-readers can even connect to it. A couple popular manga reading apps also work with it. Can also just use its own browser web interface as an e-reader, it has multiple options for styles (infinite scroll, page swiping, left/right click, and even supports right to left mode for manga!)
Nextcloud, pictures/document storage. Sort of like a selfhosted filesshare/file backup. Has a mobile app that can automatically backup every picture/video you take on your phone!
Gogs, open source super lightweight git repo. Has only the bare minimum of features, basic web hook, authorization, permissions, simple web ui to edit. It does the job I need it to and that's good enough.
OpenVPN, self hosted VPN so I can securely access all the above stuff without exposing it to the internet.
Also I host my own websites on it, publicly exposed. Blog, a writing project, nothing terribly fancy.
Eventually I plan to add some more stuff to it. Migrate my smart home dependencies over to Z wave and install Home Assistant, so I don't have to rely on sending my info to google/amazon/etc to do basic smart home stuff.
I havent had any issues with Plex so far, so I continue to use it. Ive definitely looked into jellyfin and it doesnt seem painful to swap over, but at the moment there hasnt been a compelling reason to make the switch.
I put media in my folder, plex scans it by the time I sit on my couch, I click button, show plays. No issues to speak of so far.
While Plex has moved towards the "free" content, it still does remarkably well with apps on all devices. It also makes user management extremely easy without having to manage yourself. Password resets aren't your problem if you share with others.
It has its limitations and it's development budget isn't in the self hosting space as much. But for what it is, it's still a good value.
I personally would never recommend someone to self host a password manager. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong, and any number of them could cause you to lose your passwords or at least access to them when you need them. There’s a lot of value in paying $10/yr for Bitwarden, to have a clear mind, and know that your information is safe, and accessible.
The issue he/she is taking about is reliability of personal infrastructure. Its never run a password manager without HA, and since I'm not going to run servers in HA, I suppose I'm sticking to pen and paper for the important ones
I've used Keepass along with dropbox/onedrive/nextcloud (changed over the years) for a decade now and never had a problem. I keep a backup copy of my database on a flash drive in case I somehow lose all my devices. Takes like 5 minutes to set up.
I would not self host a password manager, simply because I don't want running something like that on a 24/7 online server.
Still, if I needed to run a password manager on a server, I would rather self host it than use a hosted service from someone else.
In my opinion, running such a service commercially is a much harder problem than self hosting it and has a much bigger attack surface.
This is IMHO what many people do not understand about hosting as a service vs. self hosting: The full time DevOps/Admins etc. people who work at the hosting service are hopefully better than me at hosting stuff. At the same time the problem they have to solve is so much harder than self hosting, that even if they are 10x as good as me, running my own little service with a firewall, rate limiting and monitoring should at least not be less secure.
In my opinion the risk of something killing my server and wiping my passwords out is much much scarier than the prospect of a semi competent company hosting them getting hacked. Like several orders of magnitude scarier.
My solution is much simpler and more redundant: A KeepassXC file backed up to different physical locations and 2 different cloud providers.
If I ever forget my password, I am totally screwed. :-P ... but OTOH an event which would lead to the deletion of all of my backups at the same time would be extinction - level. ;-)
does stealing it count? because that would be a boxed copy of redhat linux from best buy in the late 90s/early 2000s. yes, i found a way to steal linux
Have had a dog most of my life. Hard to imagine living without one. They're better than people, fantastic companions, and the entire relationship is based on each other trying to make each other happy.
It's very hard. I cry for days and drink a lot. It is a huge piece of life suddenly gone. But, like my last dog, I see all the things we did, so many adventures, and how many people are upset—even strangers at my climbing gym reached out because they knew him but not me; someone even drew an amazing portrait of him for me and it's on the wall. That made me realise how awesome a life he had and how many people loved him. A truly good boy that got a hell of a life.
I know I'll be sad, but it passes and I'll be very happy with what I did for my dog and what they did for me. Then I'll get another dog and they'll get an awesome life too.
True, it's so hard to loose them. But it's worth it. The pain and sadness goes away and all that's left is good memories.
It's been years since I lost my first dog and I still think about him. Sometimes the eyes are kinda wet but it always end up with some smile on my face.
A Kobo e-reader. I now read much more than before because of the convenience, and I also became a book pirate. It has paid itself multiple times on the money I've saved in physical books.
Tested it again just now. It says "uploaded image is too large". Tried it again with a picture that was one pixel by one pixel. Still I get the same warning.
It's been like this for a month (due to Lemmy disabling the feature to combat people posting risque material). They did this by reducing the maximum image size to zero.
The picture I tested it with was 49kb. I just tested it again to make sure, it still doesn't work.
I know it plays a role though, and it kinda sucks too, Lemmy told me specifically to sign up for this instance because when I was making this account, the other instances were becoming overbooked with people trying to sign up and it was causing too much server stress. And it's not like I can just transfer everything to a new account.
Most of it. 99% of the stuff they don't share is generally stuff you don't want to read. With that said there are a few Amazon exclusive series' like the "Cradle" series.
Have a very old nook (with light!) Got it mainly because it handles epub, but getting books from my server to it is a pain. Can kobo connect to my calibre server and grab books automatically? Or does it need plugging in to sync up?
I have a kobo as well and I I did a lot of research before selecting it. Imho it's the best on the market for my personal needs and that definitely changed how often I use it vs an alternative. Some of the things I like about it are direct integration with the library and the ability to do audiobooks. I also like that it is only an ereader and I can't play games or surf the web on it. I think knowing what's gonna help you as an individual is the most important thing. If you're more likely to take a fully fledged tablet with you somewhere because of the versatility, and would otherwise leave a plain ereader at home, then a tablet is better because if you decide to read at least you have it with you. Like a lot of tech, I think it really depends on the user.
For me it's the ability to read outside in bright days, so I can take care of kids in the beach/pool.
I went for a boox since it's an Android and can run not only my favorite e reader app but also dictionary, browser for Wikipedia, and any apps for Android such as news Guardian, DW etc.
Obviously it also runs official apps such as Kobo, kindle etc, so I can try/ buy the book wherever and later I de DRM it and upload epub.
Oh also I have severe dust allergy from physical books, and moved countries a couple times leaving behind lots of unread stuff.
I almost bought an air fryer, but ended up with a convection toaster oven. Does everything an air fryer does and much more. I bought the Gourmia one from Costco and would buy it again in a heartbeat.
Convection toaster ovens have been around for a long time, but for the most part have been "toaster oven plus a little fan." Air fryers showed up with an emphasis on I'M BLOWING ALLLLL THE HOT AIR!!!! I'll make frozen mini pizzas in my air fryer and have to stab the pepperoni with toothpicks or they end up God knows where lol.
I have both, but would be willing to just have the toaster oven version if it stepped up its blowing game. Until the day comes when one of the appliances craps out on me, I'll use both.
I can fit a baking dish in it so I can use it for many of the things I might want to bake in my oven (lasagna, casserole, small batch of cookies/muffins) but don't want to heat the entire oven for. It fits a standard frozen pizza, I've occasionally baked bread or rolls in it. One of my most frequent uses would be the broiler setting where I just want to quickly brown the top or melt cheese onto something.
One of the drawbacks of my current air fryer is that the fan blows so hard I have to make sure that what I put in there is heavy and secure enough not to get blown around. My son was heating something and put a piece of cheese on it to melt. The cheese was definitely NOT where it was supposed to be when it melted.
I've only had non-convection toaster ovens and the one thing they did better than my air frier is toast. My air frier tends to dry out the toast by the time it's properly browned. However I've never had a problem with it blowing food around.
Exactly! I read some air fryer reviews and one of the reviews said the best air fryer is a convection toaster oven, so I thought, "well it's Costco and if I hate it I can return it and get an air fryer." I use this for so many things and almost every day. Reheating food is generally better in this than the microwave oven too.
I bought a Philips device and installed the companion app (Kitchen+). It has a decent selection of recipes that you can filter by appliance and other stuff. You can add your own recipes too.
Bidet. Amazing for a North American, I know RoW has had them for eons. You are so clean that a couple of squares of tp to dry off and you are golden. No more endless wiping.
In the early 2000's, I bought a 1986 Honda XL250R. Just an old dirt bike.
The motorcyckle shop was across the road from the pawn shop I was originally going to buy a gun from, for the express purpose of taking my own life, for reasons that made sense at the time.
Since I bought that bike, I've made friends, learned a lot of new skills, and I met the best person in existence, who I am now married to. I passed on a final exit, and ended up with a pretty great life.
I went through a glasses addiction myself as well lol. I found an eye-care clinic where they would cut the lenses and have them ready within 3 hours.
I would go to garage sales, thrift stores, and swap meets to find glasses to put lenses on. They were like $60 for the lenses and I never spent more than $10 on frames.
I ended up with 3 seeing glasses and 4 sun glasses before I realized it was going to be unsustainable to get new lenses for my new prescription every year.
I had a very different experience with mine. I bought a middle range one, not the cheap one, with very good reviews at the time. I absolutely cannot trust it. It's always getting stuck, getting lost and not able to go back to charging station, or say that it's "finished" and leav obvious spot of dusts.
My living room is indeed a bit cluttered as it's not that big, but there is still enough space for it to move....
I’m always having trouble with mine, we still have it hooked up and we let it run when it decides it’s able, but we basically replaced it with a Sebo Felix
I have a thousand wires hidden under my couch, my rug, my chair, and anywhere else I can hide them. Chargers, home theater, other chargers, smart-ish devices, and whatever else that I don't even want to go look at.
I'm terrified it'll eat all my cables because that's what my last one did.
I got one of those. Thing's been a pain. Last time I let it run, it drove into the kitchen, did a small donut over a tiny spot immediately in front of the door, drove back out into the hallway, proudly announced that it had completed cleaning, started towards its charging station, made 2 attempts to park, missed both times, announced that its path was blocked, and just stopped. I absolutely do not trust that thing to be able to do anything unsupervised, at which point why even have a robot vacuum? I don't use it very often anymore.
Synology NAS (basically a hard drive always connected to the home network and internet) - has been amazing for auto-backing-up photos from the family phones and for running Plex run my own personal streaming service for the whole family around the world. Has been great for file transfer too. I can easily move files between my phone, PC, Steam Deck, etc and all the USB memory sticks I had have been sitting in a drawer ever since.
Exercise compression thermals - wear these is super comfortable and really warm. I wear them constantly at home and can have the heating off almost all winter (UK). Saves tons of energy and money.
Electric blanket - another great low energy purchase for relaxing under when watching TV or warming up the bed before sleeping. Gets super hot while hardly using any energy at all.
Split unit air con installation - this was expensive and I thought it would be unnecessary in the UK, but it seems to be used more and more every summer as we get more heatwaves and summers are becoming unbearable.
Safety razors - I have really thick facial hair and the multi-blade razors from big name brands would dull really quickly and cause tons of shaving rash. These razors are sharper, last longer, are recyclable and much better for my skin.
Liquid ink refillable rollerball pens - I tried fountain pens after seeing the online communities that are crazy about them, and really didn't like them. I found rollerball pens I like that take fountain pen ink and have been super happy with them. I write a lot at work and this has gotten rid of the plastic waste of throwing away used disposable ballpoint refills every couple of weeks.
Hitbox controller - I've been playing Street Fighter 6 since release and I made a leverless controller box myself and I've loved using it to play SF6. Managed to make it for one third the price of what these things sell for and completely customised it.
A house. My mortgage is cheaper than rent, and now I get to actually address annoyances with my living conditions.
It's almost 100 years old, and a bit of an fixer upper, but the important stuff is solid. Last summer I invested in proper drainage around the foundation so that I can start making the basement livable. This year I invested in a proper bathroom. Next year it's a new kitchen. And if time allows I'll start rebuilding the basement mainly for one extra bed room and an office.
This is a good one. I finally teamed up with family to invest in a house last year. I've found a lot of issues that I've since fixed, especially with the electrical. There's still a lot to fix, but I'm elated that I can actually take action to fix stuff.
While renting, my hands were severely tied. The only benefit with renting was that if anything was literally broken, it would be fixed by the landlord, free to me. "Fixed" is subjective, usually done as cheaply as possible, which is often making things less convenient.
Now I can have things fixed correctly, making things more convenient overall for me and my family.
Long term, we're planning on renovating and adding another kitchen and bathroom, possibly another entrance and I'm considering splitting the HVAC for one portion of the place and almost splitting it into two independent homes that are conjoined.
Depends on market. In Vancouver existing rentals are controlled until you move, the house sells, or you are reno-evicted. This involves evicting the tenant to "fix up the suite" and then renting it out at a much higher rate.
There is also the move to evict for a " family member" to move in but often this is abused to get low paying tenants out.
New mortgages are much more than existing rent here. As much as renters go through credit checks, I think landlords should too as you don't want to rent a place where they can't afford the interest rate increases. Often they cheap out on repairs and usually sees the place being sold or one of the above abuses of the evictions to get a higher paying tenant in.
The market is really tight in places like Vancouver and Toronto. The interest rate hikes will eventually catch up to most renters as properties are moved/sold.
Same, cut my monthly housing cost by almost $1000 two years ago. So many good things have happened as a result as well, because it was a move between regions and opened up alternative employment options not previously available. As a result I also doubled my income.
This only talks about rent. And when rent increases, so does the value of the property, because you can get more money as rents are higher.
If you now consider the amount of work you have to invest into owning property and the associated risk of owning a house or flat, in an ideal market its simply not possible.
And while the housing market is imperfect due to the high burden for entrance, I have never seen a proper calculation where mortage, insurance and maintanance comes out lower than renting.
I'm not going to doxx myself by giving the exact address, but my landlady in 2019 wanted to sell the house we were in. She first offered the place to us for $430,000 - which would have been a discount because she wouldn't have needed an agent etc.
Assuming we had the 20% deposit to borrow $344,000 and taken her up on that offer, our current repayments would have been about $464 per week. Even without the discount, repayments would have been under $500.
Instead, she eventually sold the property and we had to move to a smaller house where we are now paying $650 per week. Going from a 4 bedroom house with a yard to a 3 bedroom townhouse sharing the block with two other residences. No yard. Admittedly, we moved a suburb closer to the CBD.
Take a look at Real estate for a 3+ bedroom house within 10km of any Australian city, you'll see that $650 is not extravagant by any means.
The 20% deposit is the entire point. It's the barrier of entry to home ownership that keeps people renting. Of course I factored it in, it's why I spoke of a mortgage of $344k and not $430k.
What does insurance have to do with anything? We are comparing rent to repayments. We have renter's insurance now. We'd be changing that.
Are you saying you spend over $100 per week, every week on maintenance?
True. We've downsized from a four bedroom house to a three bedroom townhouse. You'll just have to take my word for it that 4 bedroom houses in the next suburb go for about the same as the place we have because I've already told Lemmy enough about where I live.
As someone with waxy ears, an ear pick with a wifi camera built in. Would get blockages, cotton buds just pushed it back, olive oil or peroxide would get air locked. The webcam ear pick was super cheap and makes it easy to scoop out any lumps of wax.
I have always hated bath mats. Especially being in a fairly large family, by early afternoon it seems like the bath mat is always saturated and useless; slipping around the floor if you're trying to use it to dry your feet, or soaking your socks if you happen to step on it in the course of other bathroom business.
I recently got a bath stone made of diatomaceous earth and it has erased all of the annoyance. It pulls the water right off you so I always feel safe stepping onto my tile floor after just a few steps on the bath stone, and it dries freakishly fast, like basically in front of your eyes.
I've only had it a month so I don't know how durable it is over the long term, but so far it has been $40 well spent.
I've never understood why more people don't dry themselves in the shower, and dry their feet on the way out. Why use the bath mat as a special communal foot sole towel? It's much nicer when it's just a comfortable dry mat for standing on with bare feet.
It came up in a work lunchtime conversation and there were two of us out of a dozen who do it, and most people thought we were weird and bathmats were supposed to be cold wet rags.
An E-reader. There's no more space in my house for book shelves. I've a ton of books stored inappropriately in a bunch of cabinets and on top of furniture, that I hope to find new homes for before irreparable damage is done to their spine.
Having an e-reader also helped me in the gym. Instead of doomscrolling on lemmy or tiktok, I read between sets. Helped me regain my reading habit and kick my social media habit. Also, helped my social anxiety of having to rest longer than half a minute when other people might want to use the iron I'm using.
This is a great shout. Since I stopped commuting 6yrs ago my reading is almost entirely non existent. Doing it between sets means I can give my brain a workout while the guns get one :D
A dildo. Get to know yourself and what you like a little and it's legitimately brain melting. You don't have to be gay to enjoy em, I'm glad I gave butt stuffing a try.
Just make sure whatever you get is actually body safe. Silicone is generally the only good soft body safe material, look for medical grade or platinum cure.
I personally haven't tried the ergonomic keyboards yet, have been using Ducky One 2 for a few years and recently got KBDcraft Kit Adam (Lego keyboard) and I'm enjoying this one, super soft and nice sounding switches.
From the ergonomic keyboards I've seen Keychron K11 Pro as an interesting one, but you'd have to see if it fits you, I can't really recommend any myself.
i got a cheap gamer's keyboard that happened to have blue switches, the cheapest i actually found with Cherry MX Blue (so, some mechanical keyboard nerds will say this is sh*t and they'll probably be right). It's an "HyperX Alloy". it has these annoyingly red LED, but i don't really care. I recommend it for the price though (I paid around 90 buck back then)
Nothing ever burns and cleaning even when frying something with cheese in there is just a scoop of hot water and ten seconds with the soft side of a kitchen sponge.
Anything that takes away shitty chores. People take washing machines for granted these days, but a decent dishwasher is a godsend. Modern ones don't need anything more than a basic scrape of the dishes as "prep" and loading it before bed to then wake up to a load of sparkling clean dishes is amazing.
In a similar vein we've just got a robot vacuum cleaner that we've set to run every night. The amount of dog fur in its bin every morning is eye opening, and other than for the stairs there's almost no need to do vacuuming ourselves now.
Plus one for shoehorn, underrated and my friends always make fun of me for using one for some reason. Meanwhile I'm standing with my shoes on comfy while they tear their fingers up trying to slide their shoes on
Literally never "torn my fingers up" while putting on shoes, and I'm the kind that ties them once when I buy them and never again. Either your friends wear iron shoes or this is a really extreme exaggeration.
If you tie your shoes using the "runners knot", which most sporty shoes are designed for and eliminates heel slip, you will have a hard time getting them on without a shoe horn or having to re-lace them every time.
You won't find a house in Scandinavia without a shoe horn, it's fascinating how rare they are in the US and most of Europe
I guess these first three are kind of limited scope improvents.
Fountain pens. Got me writing notes for work which has helped me stay more organized and on the ball and able to remember more. And with the right pen it makes note taking enjoyable.
Cast iron skillets have improved my enjoyment of cooking.
Portable jump starter has saved the day multiple times since I got it (me, friends, etc)
ADHD diagnosis late in life prompted by career-limiting struggles with a type-A boss. The diagnosis explained so many things about me, my behavior, my struggles in work and relationships, my self image, etc. Therapy helped develop better coping mechanisms and the meds help a lot with focus and motivation. All told, things are better with relationships and other areas of life, I turned around the boss's opinion and got my career back on track.
The big advantage over jumper cables (especially if you're a woman) is that you don't have to wait for anyone, or deal with a take-charge guy who has cables but doesn't really know how to use them and won't let you do it. Same reason I used to keep a wire clothes hanger in my bumper, back in the days when it was easy to lock yourself out of your car.
Oh I see you've dealt with a man like the guy who almost set my car on fire before I snatched the jumper cables and did it the right way myself. Alright, I'm sold. I'll get one before the first snow this year.
See a psych, not a GP. If necessary, get the rec. But don't trust the GP for this. Use them to push you to a psych. A lot of times, you don't even need a rec from a GP to see a psych.
A knee pillow. I have always struggled with the occasional back pain because I would sometimes twist my legs/back at night and be in pain the next day(s). A knee pillow has massively changed that for me. I pretty much never have issues with my back caused by sleeping weird now.
In a similar vein, nasal strips. My nose often gets obstructed at night and it caused a ton of sleepless nights because I had a hard time breathing. Finding the strong nasal strips I'm now using pretty much eliminated that problem.
I was in your boat, and the strips just dont cut it for me.
I bought a cheap pack of "nasal dialators" on amazon (tried a variety pack first to find the size that worked best, now settled on 'large'). They're basically plastic cones that force your nostrils open. They hurt a little at first, but now im used to them and breathe SO MUCH better.
I tried many from Amazon, best was one called Airmax, but irritated with regular usage. I've since found "Noson.ch" and their design is fantastic. You have to buy direct from Switzerland and it's expensive, but personally it's worth it for a better nights sleep.
I've been using the Breathe Right "Extra Strength" ones. They are the only ones that have reliably stayed stuck to my skin overnight and strong enough to keep my nose open.
Don’t you have to be in an almost pitch black room for it to look decent though? I also heard there can be pretty bad input lag?
It was quite a few years ago that I last looked into a projector so maybe they’ve gotten better, but these days massive TVs are so cheap I don’t know if it would even be worth it.
Recently? A cordless stick vacuum. My wife has wanted one because ours was too heavy and she figured she would vacuum more often if she had a lighter one. Of course that turned out to not be the case and I am still doing the vacuuming but it is a heck of a lot easier to maneuver around and bring it to other areas of the house.
Previously? Wireless ear buds. Loved those. Unfortunately my dog ate my first pair and I left the second pair on a plane. My next pair will be cheap ones.
I bought a Dyson upright ball which was an expensive purchase at the time. I thought it would cover everything needed. What a pain in the ass to use the hose and attachments.
Great if trying to reach the ceiling but tedious to use and put away. Not easy to use near the vacuum either.
I have a ryobi cordless vacuum that I found was being used more often as it was a easy pickup and vacuum on the go especially for small jobs. I bought an adapter to allow it to use the Dyson attachments so now it looks like a stick vacuum without the fuss of the Dyson ball. Game changer now I'm told.
Zoloft Lexapro aka escitalopram. I thought everyone had the anxiety voices like I did. I told myself I was just a worrier. Then it got REALLY bad in my 30's and even I thought it was getting absurd. My doc asked me "how are you feeling" and I just broke down, spilled my guts. He said "let's try a small dose." and after a couple months adjustment, the crazy voices went from 4/5 to a 1/5. They're still there, but they're WAY more quiet. I had no idea that this is what normal people think like.
we were picking up some free boots for my partner off of facebook marketplace when i asked about the weight bench that was also in the yard. the owner said "someone said they were coming for it, but they were supposed to be here 2 hours ago. you want it?" I disassembled it in the yard and ruined my folding knife trying to use it as a screwdriver, but it was the best decision I've ever made. Grabbed some adjustable dumbbells from amazon, have been hitting up marketplace for plates people aren't using ever since, and I've now got a full-body 5x/week workout routine that is 100% the key to my mental and physical health. Best thing I've ever done for myself, and getting every piece of equipment that I use today cost about $100 total.
Slip-on shoes, these specific ones are so well designed I can put them on in a few seconds while standing. They basically have loops for fingers on the tongue and pull/heel tab, I wish there were better quality shoes with the same design though as these have very specific cleaning instructions.
Not the person you responded to but you can turn any shoe into this. Lock laces. Instead of tying my shoes daily you can slip them on and off and they always stay exactly perfect. I adjust them mayyybe once a year. They're like 10 bucks and make my shoes feel amazing.
I used to have very bad plantar fasciitis from my time in the military. For years I suffered every step of every day. I researched possible solutions and found out zero drop shoes help it. I bought some Xero shoes and after about three months it all just went away. Now I just wear zero drop shoes.
A Comma 3 to run Openpilot on my Honda Civic. It's lane keep / adaptive cruise control on steroids. I drive about 40 thousand miles each year for work, 46 miles round trip on "local" days. Having that level of driver assist on the highway makes a life changing difference. I arrive less fatigued and feel more capable of reacting to hazards. Their tagline is making driving chill, and it really has delivered. I don't know how I did this mileage before Openpilot.
Blundstones. I live in a coastal city that's wet (but rarely snowy) the vast majority of the year. Having rain-resistant shoes that are comfortable AND durable has been a game changer.
And if I can mention a second: A proper, long raincoat. Combined with good shoes, I'm able to tolerate the weather here much better than when I'd first moved to this city and relied on sneakers + regular jackets.
Not only have they been essential in breaking the habit of reaching for my phone while I'm meant to be watching my TV/monitor, but I also end up with a practical, useful, personalised product at the end
An hdmi to composite converter. It allows me to connect my pc to my old crt, I can play games, watch YouTube, stream everything, it made me realize I don't really need a new TV
I don't really know for sure. Best bet is probably a ball pen when I was like 11. I've used only fountain pens until then.
It just doesn't leak and I don't have to wait for ink to dry up.
Ironically I went the other way lol. I can enjoy writing even if it is work notes. (Mine don't leak and I found inks that dry fast enough for me, most of the time).
May seem silly but a chamber vacuum sealer. It's so much more convenient than the suction style ones. You can place mason jars in it to seal them. I use it pretty much every day.
An 18 button mouse for my PC. 12 buttons on the side which I've mapped my function keys to. It's excellent for gaming, so many things you can do without even using your left hand on the keyboard.
I map those buttons to commonly used keys (that aren't letters), for example Enter, Space, Esc, Ctrl, Shift, etc. Also Mouse4 and Mouse4 and Razer Hypershift
One of those stupid expensive real down feather pillows. I spoiled myself one year for my birthday and only wish I had done it sooner. I go to bed every night and thank myself for getting that pillow.
Just curious, what is "stupidly expensive"? Because I'm allergic to down/feathers/something related to it, and got a really expensive foam pillow that I'm... moderately OK with.
No connoisseur here either, but I am in dire need of a new one for work, as my current one is falling apart. I'm keeping my eyes open, in case I find one that matches these specs:
Durable as hell
1x compartment that can fit two 15" laptops. Chargers can go in a different compartment.
1x general purpose compartment for misc cables, SFP modules, connectors and other work related junk
1x compartment for a change of clothes
2x easy access pockets for things I might need to reach while on the go
2x zippable easy access compartment for things such as keys, battery bank, etc
must be small enough to count as carry-on with most airlines
I'm leaning towards getting one of those pilot backpack, as they're built for people who are on the go.
The reason I'm an Osprey fan is because of the lifetime warranty for any reason, which impressively I've never had to use. And I abuse my gear outdoors.
But I'd imagine if you are doing tech carrying over everything else, you want something more specialized/padded. I try to find lighter gear.
When I have loads or large hardware I usually check in a pelicase or two. The backpack is mostly for short-term in-transit stuff plus bits and pieces I usually need for short stays.
Osprey looks nice - I'll see if they have something that suits my needs
They are expensive and I don't have one for that exact reason, however it's not just "squirting a bit of water into your mouth", it's high pressure water that, as the name suggests, is a complete replacement for traditional flossing.
I love mine and it's absolutely disgusted me when I first used it and found so much stuck between my teeth.
But they are not a replacement for floss. They don't scrape the sides of your teeth the same way. They are a part of my routine, but floss is still required to actually clean the teeth.
A memory foam mattress topper. Mine is 8cm (3") thick and an absolute game changer. It goes on top of your existing mattress and under the fitted sheet.
My ipad. It solves the project management triangle completely when it comes to checking the latest in the world. Which is good because of another change I made that helps in life coinciding with all the telecalls.
Shokz (Aftershokz rebranded) are fantastic for endless online meetings if you're working remotely. I often forget I have them on. I did a whole set of in-person job interviews with them on before I realized I was wearing them at the end of the last interview.
It's pretty much the convenience and comfort of using external speakers, but without anyone else hearing. It's just a shame the audio quality isn't high-end for music.
I have a silver Jansport that is probably a decade old now and is still used 3 times a week or more for work, as well as used for airplane travel.
I'm about to look into having the large zipper repaired (it still zips, but I just have to make sure it's aligned now), rather than buying a new one. Best backpack I've ever had
Nintendo switch OLED. I used to game at my PC which always caused me a lot of stress because I prefer the ease and relaxation of a console I can pick up whenever, take anywhere and game instantly as opposed to something I have to sit down with and work at. Sold my PC for it and a bunch of extra money
I have a gas one. But I also work from home, so I use much less gas than the average person to begin with. I plan to replace it with an electric unit when this one quits.
I mostly clean them off the driveway, paths, and grass since they get slick as it's quite rainy here. I usually will try to mulch them and add them back to the flower beds, or compost most of what I clean up. I uave a few areas where I don't clean them at all. But the drive and paths are a must.
I want to eventually convert the front grass to a native habitat and am in the process of getting certified, but that takes time and we just started recently. Once it's mostly converted, I won't need to leaf blow that area any longer.
I recently moved to a new place surrounded by leafy trees and realized I'll actually have to rake the yard, for the first time in a very long time.
But I also just bought a small leaf blower to clear the driveway after mowing... and you made me realize that it's... well... a leaf blower. I hope it's powerful enough, but I bet it'll still speed things up regardless
Yeah, it should help some. It was taking my wife and I a fair amount of time to clean it all up, every weekend during the fall. Now, I can blow it into a huge pile in about 15-20 minutes. Then I can mulch it, add it to the compost, or just send it to the yard debris container. It was a bit pricey, but has saved me countless hours.
I'm a heavy shitter, I shit alot and I shit so much my ass crack looks like caramelized fondu. When I go outside flys swarm around my ass and get stuck on my sticky ass crack. Everyone would avoid me in the local Walmart when I shop for gaming supplies (Doritos and Dr Pepper mostly). I have difficultly wiping because I can't physically reach under there and I can't stand up in the shower. One day my mom told me to lose weight (yeah thanks for bullying me again mom 😒) and I know I'm a little heavy at the moment because I have to use cooking oil to greese up the doorframes so I can squeeze through but that's only because of capitalism shrinking all the rental apartments and cramming as many people in as possible. Anyway I was playing Amongus and one of my femboy friends told me about bidgets. At first I was like "huh?" and he explained that because he plays Genshin he cannot physically leave the house or bathe and he has a special toilet that cleans his butthole for him. So I ordered one off Amazon and my god it is the best thing ever, now this device shoots water up my asshole and poof! No more shit streaked stretch pants woohoo!
A bidet.
Japan has ruined toilets for me.
I can ruin toilets just fine myself, thank you.
Bidets are from Italy though.
They may have invented them but Japan perfected them.
Bidets are french, source
I was gonna ask how they got such a French name.
Or else you'll be FUNKAYYY! 🎶
I'm too intimidated to try one despite staying in hotels round the world that usually have them. What if it goes wrong? How bad much shitty water do I and the bathroom end up covered in? How do you know if it's clean? Doesn't other peoples shitty water end up on the same appliance that you're now using? Does that mean I end up with other peoples shitty water being jet streamed towards my anus? So many questions, so much doubt. Similarly for those handheld nosel things popular in the middle East and parts of Asia.
Italian here. Get a bidet, nobody died or took any infection from them. Your brain is over thinking it. Get a bidet. Thank me later. Go get a bidet.
I'm gonna use a bog roll like a caveman until the day I die
Building and running my own server for self hosting multiple tools for my home.
Bitwarden Password manager, now sharing logins/passwords for stuff my fiance and I both use is easy, and every single website we use has its own unique randomly generated password so when one site gets breached, our logins aren't compromised anywhere else
Plex, it's like your own self hosted Netflix. My file copies of any movies/TV shows go on here and it parses em all, keeps it all grouped together, streams in 4k.
Shinobi, for my security cameras. Self hosted free CRTV application, works with any open spec cameras. Has movement detection and tonnes of other open source options for plug-ins.
Deluge, handy UI for downloading torrents onto my server. Conviently added presets to it that let me download to the very folders Plex scans... cough cough.
Kavita, self hosted server for books/pdfs. Some e-readers can even connect to it. A couple popular manga reading apps also work with it. Can also just use its own browser web interface as an e-reader, it has multiple options for styles (infinite scroll, page swiping, left/right click, and even supports right to left mode for manga!)
Nextcloud, pictures/document storage. Sort of like a selfhosted filesshare/file backup. Has a mobile app that can automatically backup every picture/video you take on your phone!
Gogs, open source super lightweight git repo. Has only the bare minimum of features, basic web hook, authorization, permissions, simple web ui to edit. It does the job I need it to and that's good enough.
OpenVPN, self hosted VPN so I can securely access all the above stuff without exposing it to the internet.
Also I host my own websites on it, publicly exposed. Blog, a writing project, nothing terribly fancy.
Eventually I plan to add some more stuff to it. Migrate my smart home dependencies over to Z wave and install Home Assistant, so I don't have to rely on sending my info to google/amazon/etc to do basic smart home stuff.
You should check out Jellyfin
Plex is getting shittier by the minute, and this is a good alternative.
I havent had any issues with Plex so far, so I continue to use it. Ive definitely looked into jellyfin and it doesnt seem painful to swap over, but at the moment there hasnt been a compelling reason to make the switch.
I put media in my folder, plex scans it by the time I sit on my couch, I click button, show plays. No issues to speak of so far.
I generally have issues with subtitles. Sometimes they don't work out are out of sync, etc.
Try different subtitle files, usually if the first one is off, the second or third will sync up properly
Ah interesting, I havent had such an issue yet, or at least not to a degree I notice it egregiously.
While Plex has moved towards the "free" content, it still does remarkably well with apps on all devices. It also makes user management extremely easy without having to manage yourself. Password resets aren't your problem if you share with others.
It has its limitations and it's development budget isn't in the self hosting space as much. But for what it is, it's still a good value.
Have been using Plex for years, thought I’d give Jellyfin a shot but my god how ugly it was 😩
I prefer how Jellyfin’s UI, but you can also use a third party client IIRC
I personally would never recommend someone to self host a password manager. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong, and any number of them could cause you to lose your passwords or at least access to them when you need them. There’s a lot of value in paying $10/yr for Bitwarden, to have a clear mind, and know that your information is safe, and accessible.
The value in self hosting is your passwords aren't exposed to the internet at all, and can only be accessed over VPN from outside the house.
If you care about security and you know how to run a network properly, then it's definitely worth doing.
In terms of things that can "go wrong", the first rule of homelab is "Back your stuff up", and the second rule of homelab is "Back it up again"
Seriously, when you have a single small file which is that important, it's really not hard to make sure it's backed up in several places.
The issue he/she is taking about is reliability of personal infrastructure. Its never run a password manager without HA, and since I'm not going to run servers in HA, I suppose I'm sticking to pen and paper for the important ones
Im not sure I would classify "back up your access key" as HA but you do you
I've used Keepass along with dropbox/onedrive/nextcloud (changed over the years) for a decade now and never had a problem. I keep a backup copy of my database on a flash drive in case I somehow lose all my devices. Takes like 5 minutes to set up.
I would not self host a password manager, simply because I don't want running something like that on a 24/7 online server.
Still, if I needed to run a password manager on a server, I would rather self host it than use a hosted service from someone else.
In my opinion, running such a service commercially is a much harder problem than self hosting it and has a much bigger attack surface.
This is IMHO what many people do not understand about hosting as a service vs. self hosting: The full time DevOps/Admins etc. people who work at the hosting service are hopefully better than me at hosting stuff. At the same time the problem they have to solve is so much harder than self hosting, that even if they are 10x as good as me, running my own little service with a firewall, rate limiting and monitoring should at least not be less secure.
In my opinion the risk of something killing my server and wiping my passwords out is much much scarier than the prospect of a semi competent company hosting them getting hacked. Like several orders of magnitude scarier.
Fair enough!
As I said, I would not host it myself.
My solution is much simpler and more redundant: A KeepassXC file backed up to different physical locations and 2 different cloud providers.
If I ever forget my password, I am totally screwed. :-P ... but OTOH an event which would lead to the deletion of all of my backups at the same time would be extinction - level. ;-)
Shinobi is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the suggestion
You may also want to take a look at zoneminder. I've had great luck with it over the years.
I was using Shinobi for like a year, but I'm enjoying Frigate so much more now. Shinobi is definitely more feature rich though.
Thanks to you I have today discovered Kavita. It's excellent!
All the stuff I listed is also free for personal use. But yeah, all those are solid alternatives as options.
I used emby briefly after ditching Plex then settled on jellyfin. It's been over a year and I've had no issues with reliability.
Maybe, I messed around with things about a year ago now
If starting from scratch - what camera recommendations would you give to connect to Shinobi?
I honestly am not sure I would recommend shinobi at this point, it seems to be very unstable and has a lot of issues with randomly failing.
Im not sure if its my cameras or shinobi's fault, but Im gonna try out a few other FOSS options.
I use Reolink cameras personally.
That was a fair bit of scrolling to find the homelabber. Thanks
does stealing it count? because that would be a boxed copy of redhat linux from best buy in the late 90s/early 2000s. yes, i found a way to steal linux
A dog.
Have had a dog most of my life. Hard to imagine living without one. They're better than people, fantastic companions, and the entire relationship is based on each other trying to make each other happy.
How do you deal with losing them? It's as hard as losing a loved one imo
It's very hard. I cry for days and drink a lot. It is a huge piece of life suddenly gone. But, like my last dog, I see all the things we did, so many adventures, and how many people are upset—even strangers at my climbing gym reached out because they knew him but not me; someone even drew an amazing portrait of him for me and it's on the wall. That made me realise how awesome a life he had and how many people loved him. A truly good boy that got a hell of a life.
I know I'll be sad, but it passes and I'll be very happy with what I did for my dog and what they did for me. Then I'll get another dog and they'll get an awesome life too.
True, it's so hard to loose them. But it's worth it. The pain and sadness goes away and all that's left is good memories.
It's been years since I lost my first dog and I still think about him. Sometimes the eyes are kinda wet but it always end up with some smile on my face.
take peace in knowing that i gave him a good life, and i got to share it beginning to end. it's nice to know i could do that for him.
I lost my first dog last week. He was a great friend.
A Kobo e-reader. I now read much more than before because of the convenience, and I also became a book pirate. It has paid itself multiple times on the money I've saved in physical books.
I found a picture of you.
Everywhere I go suggests Lemmy returned the pictures feature, but then I try it and it still won't work. What's going on here?
Not sure what issues you are having. I am using the Jerboa app on android.
Tested it again just now. It says "uploaded image is too large". Tried it again with a picture that was one pixel by one pixel. Still I get the same warning.
It's been like this for a month (due to Lemmy disabling the feature to combat people posting risque material). They did this by reducing the maximum image size to zero.
Your instance probably has a very low upload size limit
Edit: lemm.ee has a limit of like 100kb.
The picture I tested it with was 49kb. I just tested it again to make sure, it still doesn't work.
I know it plays a role though, and it kinda sucks too, Lemmy told me specifically to sign up for this instance because when I was making this account, the other instances were becoming overbooked with people trying to sign up and it was causing too much server stress. And it's not like I can just transfer everything to a new account.
Can just use an external image host in the meantime.
That will be available in the next version of lemmy IIRC.
Is it something specific about a Kobo e-reader that is amazing or would any e-reader have turned you into an avid bookworm you think?
I have a Kobo and my wife has a Kindle - I like the Kobo way better, primarily because the Kindle is trying to sell me stuff all the time.
That’s why you never connect the kindle to the internet and simply upload copies of the books into it
I prefer the Kindle because it’s so easy and cheap to buy books I don’t need to bother pirating.
It's just as easy on Kobo and it has a price match guarantee.
Does it have the same selection as Amazon?
Most of it. 99% of the stuff they don't share is generally stuff you don't want to read. With that said there are a few Amazon exclusive series' like the "Cradle" series.
It's likely because kobo's can be flashed with a custom OS https://inkbox.ddns.net/, which can sync with https://calibre-ebook.com/
I am using Calibre to fill my Kindle
I’ve just been downloading books from Anna’s Archive and throwing the azw3 files on my kindle.
How easy is Calibre?
Very once you figure out the few steps to do conversions. But if you are simply adding an azw3 file, it’s 2 clicks
My unmodified kobo syncs with calibre.
Have a very old nook (with light!) Got it mainly because it handles epub, but getting books from my server to it is a pain. Can kobo connect to my calibre server and grab books automatically? Or does it need plugging in to sync up?
I have a kobo as well and I I did a lot of research before selecting it. Imho it's the best on the market for my personal needs and that definitely changed how often I use it vs an alternative. Some of the things I like about it are direct integration with the library and the ability to do audiobooks. I also like that it is only an ereader and I can't play games or surf the web on it. I think knowing what's gonna help you as an individual is the most important thing. If you're more likely to take a fully fledged tablet with you somewhere because of the versatility, and would otherwise leave a plain ereader at home, then a tablet is better because if you decide to read at least you have it with you. Like a lot of tech, I think it really depends on the user.
For me it's the ability to read outside in bright days, so I can take care of kids in the beach/pool.
I went for a boox since it's an Android and can run not only my favorite e reader app but also dictionary, browser for Wikipedia, and any apps for Android such as news Guardian, DW etc.
Obviously it also runs official apps such as Kobo, kindle etc, so I can try/ buy the book wherever and later I de DRM it and upload epub.
Oh also I have severe dust allergy from physical books, and moved countries a couple times leaving behind lots of unread stuff.
I love my airfryer and may upgrade it to a larger one. I've started making my own food again instead of eating fast food every day (depression sucks).
I almost bought an air fryer, but ended up with a convection toaster oven. Does everything an air fryer does and much more. I bought the Gourmia one from Costco and would buy it again in a heartbeat.
What's the difference between an air fryer and a convection toaster oven. Everybody's so excited for air fryers but AFAIK, both just blow air around.
Convection toaster ovens have been around for a long time, but for the most part have been "toaster oven plus a little fan." Air fryers showed up with an emphasis on I'M BLOWING ALLLLL THE HOT AIR!!!! I'll make frozen mini pizzas in my air fryer and have to stab the pepperoni with toothpicks or they end up God knows where lol.
I have both, but would be willing to just have the toaster oven version if it stepped up its blowing game. Until the day comes when one of the appliances craps out on me, I'll use both.
What does your convection toaster oven do that the air fryer doesn't?
I can fit a baking dish in it so I can use it for many of the things I might want to bake in my oven (lasagna, casserole, small batch of cookies/muffins) but don't want to heat the entire oven for. It fits a standard frozen pizza, I've occasionally baked bread or rolls in it. One of my most frequent uses would be the broiler setting where I just want to quickly brown the top or melt cheese onto something.
One of the drawbacks of my current air fryer is that the fan blows so hard I have to make sure that what I put in there is heavy and secure enough not to get blown around. My son was heating something and put a piece of cheese on it to melt. The cheese was definitely NOT where it was supposed to be when it melted.
I've only had non-convection toaster ovens and the one thing they did better than my air frier is toast. My air frier tends to dry out the toast by the time it's properly browned. However I've never had a problem with it blowing food around.
Exactly! I read some air fryer reviews and one of the reviews said the best air fryer is a convection toaster oven, so I thought, "well it's Costco and if I hate it I can return it and get an air fryer." I use this for so many things and almost every day. Reheating food is generally better in this than the microwave oven too.
What are some food recipes you recommend?!
Any subs you posted on or learned from that you would advise others to follow, curious.
Thank you!
I bought a Philips device and installed the companion app (Kitchen+). It has a decent selection of recipes that you can filter by appliance and other stuff. You can add your own recipes too.
Great!
Do you like soaking potatoes to remove starch or you go without?
Bidet. Amazing for a North American, I know RoW has had them for eons. You are so clean that a couple of squares of tp to dry off and you are golden. No more endless wiping.
Noise cancelling earphones.
Oh man. Just not having to listen to my dishwasher, clothes machines or vacuum cleaner run their mouths while they're in service is live improvening.
In the early 2000's, I bought a 1986 Honda XL250R. Just an old dirt bike.
The motorcyckle shop was across the road from the pawn shop I was originally going to buy a gun from, for the express purpose of taking my own life, for reasons that made sense at the time.
Since I bought that bike, I've made friends, learned a lot of new skills, and I met the best person in existence, who I am now married to. I passed on a final exit, and ended up with a pretty great life.
Glasses.
Now I'm addicted.
As in lenses for your face, or drinkware?
Either way, yes.
Just any kind of glass.
Microscope slides, dildos, windows, bongs, pyrex
Addicted is a good way to put it. I suffer withdrawal symptoms like dizziness and nausea when I go more than a few waking minutes without my glasses.
Just say no to glasses kids, or you'll end up like this guy.
I put on glasses once as a kid, now i'm glasses for life!
I got hooked in my mid 20s, and it's like I can't imagine how lived without them
I went through a glasses addiction myself as well lol. I found an eye-care clinic where they would cut the lenses and have them ready within 3 hours.
I would go to garage sales, thrift stores, and swap meets to find glasses to put lenses on. They were like $60 for the lenses and I never spent more than $10 on frames.
I ended up with 3 seeing glasses and 4 sun glasses before I realized it was going to be unsustainable to get new lenses for my new prescription every year.
Smart vacuum cleaner. You pay once for not needing to vacuum your house anymore - best deal ever.
I had a very different experience with mine. I bought a middle range one, not the cheap one, with very good reviews at the time. I absolutely cannot trust it. It's always getting stuck, getting lost and not able to go back to charging station, or say that it's "finished" and leav obvious spot of dusts.
My living room is indeed a bit cluttered as it's not that big, but there is still enough space for it to move....
My experience is very similar to this. Sometimes it can go a full week or two with no interaction, but mostly it needs a bit of prodding and helping
I’m always having trouble with mine, we still have it hooked up and we let it run when it decides it’s able, but we basically replaced it with a Sebo Felix
I have a thousand wires hidden under my couch, my rug, my chair, and anywhere else I can hide them. Chargers, home theater, other chargers, smart-ish devices, and whatever else that I don't even want to go look at.
I'm terrified it'll eat all my cables because that's what my last one did.
You can just set that zone as of limits
Can I ask which one you use? I've heard such horror stories
I got Xiaomi Mi vacuum cleaner 4 years ago.
I got one of those. Thing's been a pain. Last time I let it run, it drove into the kitchen, did a small donut over a tiny spot immediately in front of the door, drove back out into the hallway, proudly announced that it had completed cleaning, started towards its charging station, made 2 attempts to park, missed both times, announced that its path was blocked, and just stopped. I absolutely do not trust that thing to be able to do anything unsupervised, at which point why even have a robot vacuum? I don't use it very often anymore.
Looks like a great thing to have indeed. I’m a bit too worried about the personal data harvesting.
You can always just not connect it to the internet. Always an option.
Don’t you need an app to operate it ?
I operate my Xiaomi Roborock S5 entirely by the buttons on the device, no internet required.
The app can allegedly give you access to more functionality, but I don't really need that.
I absolutely love my Dreame L10 Pro.
I also installed Valetudo Cloud on it to self host.
First place, aSmartwatch.
I all but stopped checking every fcking notification, my life has become peacefull and tranquil.
Second place, my 4yo daughter. Achieved the exact opposite.
Synology NAS (basically a hard drive always connected to the home network and internet) - has been amazing for auto-backing-up photos from the family phones and for running Plex run my own personal streaming service for the whole family around the world. Has been great for file transfer too. I can easily move files between my phone, PC, Steam Deck, etc and all the USB memory sticks I had have been sitting in a drawer ever since.
Exercise compression thermals - wear these is super comfortable and really warm. I wear them constantly at home and can have the heating off almost all winter (UK). Saves tons of energy and money.
Electric blanket - another great low energy purchase for relaxing under when watching TV or warming up the bed before sleeping. Gets super hot while hardly using any energy at all.
Split unit air con installation - this was expensive and I thought it would be unnecessary in the UK, but it seems to be used more and more every summer as we get more heatwaves and summers are becoming unbearable.
Safety razors - I have really thick facial hair and the multi-blade razors from big name brands would dull really quickly and cause tons of shaving rash. These razors are sharper, last longer, are recyclable and much better for my skin.
Liquid ink refillable rollerball pens - I tried fountain pens after seeing the online communities that are crazy about them, and really didn't like them. I found rollerball pens I like that take fountain pen ink and have been super happy with them. I write a lot at work and this has gotten rid of the plastic waste of throwing away used disposable ballpoint refills every couple of weeks.
Hitbox controller - I've been playing Street Fighter 6 since release and I made a leverless controller box myself and I've loved using it to play SF6. Managed to make it for one third the price of what these things sell for and completely customised it.
A house. My mortgage is cheaper than rent, and now I get to actually address annoyances with my living conditions.
It's almost 100 years old, and a bit of an fixer upper, but the important stuff is solid. Last summer I invested in proper drainage around the foundation so that I can start making the basement livable. This year I invested in a proper bathroom. Next year it's a new kitchen. And if time allows I'll start rebuilding the basement mainly for one extra bed room and an office.
This is a good one. I finally teamed up with family to invest in a house last year. I've found a lot of issues that I've since fixed, especially with the electrical. There's still a lot to fix, but I'm elated that I can actually take action to fix stuff.
While renting, my hands were severely tied. The only benefit with renting was that if anything was literally broken, it would be fixed by the landlord, free to me. "Fixed" is subjective, usually done as cheaply as possible, which is often making things less convenient.
Now I can have things fixed correctly, making things more convenient overall for me and my family.
Long term, we're planning on renovating and adding another kitchen and bathroom, possibly another entrance and I'm considering splitting the HVAC for one portion of the place and almost splitting it into two independent homes that are conjoined.
God I wish my mortgage was cheaper than rent lol.
Depends on market. In Vancouver existing rentals are controlled until you move, the house sells, or you are reno-evicted. This involves evicting the tenant to "fix up the suite" and then renting it out at a much higher rate.
There is also the move to evict for a " family member" to move in but often this is abused to get low paying tenants out.
New mortgages are much more than existing rent here. As much as renters go through credit checks, I think landlords should too as you don't want to rent a place where they can't afford the interest rate increases. Often they cheap out on repairs and usually sees the place being sold or one of the above abuses of the evictions to get a higher paying tenant in.
The market is really tight in places like Vancouver and Toronto. The interest rate hikes will eventually catch up to most renters as properties are moved/sold.
Same, cut my monthly housing cost by almost $1000 two years ago. So many good things have happened as a result as well, because it was a move between regions and opened up alternative employment options not previously available. As a result I also doubled my income.
That doesn't make any sense. Unless the market at your country is completly broken, that simply does not happen.
Australia checking in: mortgage repayments are absolutely cheaper than rents. Especially if you bought pre-pandemic.
Source.
This only talks about rent. And when rent increases, so does the value of the property, because you can get more money as rents are higher.
If you now consider the amount of work you have to invest into owning property and the associated risk of owning a house or flat, in an ideal market its simply not possible.
And while the housing market is imperfect due to the high burden for entrance, I have never seen a proper calculation where mortage, insurance and maintanance comes out lower than renting.
And, as a matter of fact, it doesnt even in your own example Sydney: https://www.smh.com.au/money/saving/as-costs-soar-is-it-cheaper-to-rent-or-buy-20230407-p5cywp.html
I'm not going to doxx myself by giving the exact address, but my landlady in 2019 wanted to sell the house we were in. She first offered the place to us for $430,000 - which would have been a discount because she wouldn't have needed an agent etc.
Assuming we had the 20% deposit to borrow $344,000 and taken her up on that offer, our current repayments would have been about $464 per week. Even without the discount, repayments would have been under $500.
Instead, she eventually sold the property and we had to move to a smaller house where we are now paying $650 per week. Going from a 4 bedroom house with a yard to a 3 bedroom townhouse sharing the block with two other residences. No yard. Admittedly, we moved a suburb closer to the CBD.
Take a look at Real estate for a 3+ bedroom house within 10km of any Australian city, you'll see that $650 is not extravagant by any means.
The 20 % deposit has to be taken into the calculation as well.
You are completly neglecting insurance.
You are negleticing maintanance.
You are comparing two different properties.
Often rent covers the owner's mortgage plus their benefit, so yes, it's easy for your mortgage to be cheaper than rent.
As someone with waxy ears, an ear pick with a wifi camera built in. Would get blockages, cotton buds just pushed it back, olive oil or peroxide would get air locked. The webcam ear pick was super cheap and makes it easy to scoop out any lumps of wax.
A dishwasher... For a family, it saves a huge amount of time and water.
Chemotherapy absolutely changed my life, does that count?
I have always hated bath mats. Especially being in a fairly large family, by early afternoon it seems like the bath mat is always saturated and useless; slipping around the floor if you're trying to use it to dry your feet, or soaking your socks if you happen to step on it in the course of other bathroom business.
I recently got a bath stone made of diatomaceous earth and it has erased all of the annoyance. It pulls the water right off you so I always feel safe stepping onto my tile floor after just a few steps on the bath stone, and it dries freakishly fast, like basically in front of your eyes.
I've only had it a month so I don't know how durable it is over the long term, but so far it has been $40 well spent.
I've never understood why more people don't dry themselves in the shower, and dry their feet on the way out. Why use the bath mat as a special communal foot sole towel? It's much nicer when it's just a comfortable dry mat for standing on with bare feet.
This is the first I'm finding out that anyone doesn't do this.
It came up in a work lunchtime conversation and there were two of us out of a dozen who do it, and most people thought we were weird and bathmats were supposed to be cold wet rags.
My SO doesn't even do that.
I have two bath mats and two large rugs leading out of the bathroom.
He still manages to leave foot prints everywhere.
An E-reader. There's no more space in my house for book shelves. I've a ton of books stored inappropriately in a bunch of cabinets and on top of furniture, that I hope to find new homes for before irreparable damage is done to their spine.
Having an e-reader also helped me in the gym. Instead of doomscrolling on lemmy or tiktok, I read between sets. Helped me regain my reading habit and kick my social media habit. Also, helped my social anxiety of having to rest longer than half a minute when other people might want to use the iron I'm using.
What? You bring your ereader to the gym and read between sets? That's a new one...
Massive chad energy right there tbh, supersetting with brain reps
Don't knock it! I know it's weird, but if you need to improve your reading, it really helps.
This is a great shout. Since I stopped commuting 6yrs ago my reading is almost entirely non existent. Doing it between sets means I can give my brain a workout while the guns get one :D
A dildo. Get to know yourself and what you like a little and it's legitimately brain melting. You don't have to be gay to enjoy em, I'm glad I gave butt stuffing a try.
Just make sure whatever you get is actually body safe. Silicone is generally the only good soft body safe material, look for medical grade or platinum cure.
Sunglasses and UV-blocking clothes.
With the first I discovered that I have a high sensitivity to light, now I can see much more during the day.
And the second is very useful, protecting me from sun without the need to worry about sunscreen (except for the face)
An electrical sit/stand desk
Self hosting. I’m still a beginner on this but Nextcloud and plex made me way richer than before both economically and mentally
In last 5 years for me:
(sorry it's not single item...)
What keyboard did you get? I'm searching for a good ergonomic one that won't break the bank
I've been using Microsoft natural ergonomic keyboards for years. They are a split keyboard (one piece) and I use the corded version.
Everything else just seems insanely expensive.
Oh looks like I'm set then, that's what I'm using right now lol! Thanks!
You might want to join the ![email protected]
I personally haven't tried the ergonomic keyboards yet, have been using Ducky One 2 for a few years and recently got KBDcraft Kit Adam (Lego keyboard) and I'm enjoying this one, super soft and nice sounding switches. From the ergonomic keyboards I've seen Keychron K11 Pro as an interesting one, but you'd have to see if it fits you, I can't really recommend any myself.
Ooh a Lego keyboard? Nice! I'll look into those, thanks!
i got a cheap gamer's keyboard that happened to have blue switches, the cheapest i actually found with Cherry MX Blue (so, some mechanical keyboard nerds will say this is sh*t and they'll probably be right). It's an "HyperX Alloy". it has these annoyingly red LED, but i don't really care. I recommend it for the price though (I paid around 90 buck back then)
I'll look into it, thanks!
Sit stand desks change your life
Even just a sit stand converter like Varidesk sells is a game changer. I lost 5 lbs the first week I got it at work.
You lost weight just by standing?
Could you tell me about all of them? Which model, what do you like about then etc?
A ceramic non stick pan.
Nothing ever burns and cleaning even when frying something with cheese in there is just a scoop of hot water and ten seconds with the soft side of a kitchen sponge.
My fileserver. I have more media than I could ever need and plenty of room for more.
Anything that takes away shitty chores. People take washing machines for granted these days, but a decent dishwasher is a godsend. Modern ones don't need anything more than a basic scrape of the dishes as "prep" and loading it before bed to then wake up to a load of sparkling clean dishes is amazing.
In a similar vein we've just got a robot vacuum cleaner that we've set to run every night. The amount of dog fur in its bin every morning is eye opening, and other than for the stairs there's almost no need to do vacuuming ourselves now.
CPAP.
Bidet, heated mattress pad, shoehorn.
Plus one for shoehorn, underrated and my friends always make fun of me for using one for some reason. Meanwhile I'm standing with my shoes on comfy while they tear their fingers up trying to slide their shoes on
Literally never "torn my fingers up" while putting on shoes, and I'm the kind that ties them once when I buy them and never again. Either your friends wear iron shoes or this is a really extreme exaggeration.
If you tie your shoes using the "runners knot", which most sporty shoes are designed for and eliminates heel slip, you will have a hard time getting them on without a shoe horn or having to re-lace them every time.
You won't find a house in Scandinavia without a shoe horn, it's fascinating how rare they are in the US and most of Europe
For extra dork points I get on marketed for geriatrics that's a full meter long so you don't have to bend down to put your shoes on.
Shout-out to Kiziks. Never tying my shoes again
I guess these first three are kind of limited scope improvents.
Fountain pens. Got me writing notes for work which has helped me stay more organized and on the ball and able to remember more. And with the right pen it makes note taking enjoyable.
Cast iron skillets have improved my enjoyment of cooking.
Portable jump starter has saved the day multiple times since I got it (me, friends, etc)
ADHD diagnosis late in life prompted by career-limiting struggles with a type-A boss. The diagnosis explained so many things about me, my behavior, my struggles in work and relationships, my self image, etc. Therapy helped develop better coping mechanisms and the meds help a lot with focus and motivation. All told, things are better with relationships and other areas of life, I turned around the boss's opinion and got my career back on track.
Thank you for reminding me that my dad keeps telling me to get a portable jump starter
The big advantage over jumper cables (especially if you're a woman) is that you don't have to wait for anyone, or deal with a take-charge guy who has cables but doesn't really know how to use them and won't let you do it. Same reason I used to keep a wire clothes hanger in my bumper, back in the days when it was easy to lock yourself out of your car.
Oh I see you've dealt with a man like the guy who almost set my car on fire before I snatched the jumper cables and did it the right way myself. Alright, I'm sold. I'll get one before the first snow this year.
How did you get your doctor to test you for adhd? I'm in USA, and my GP is not understanding my situation.
I went to a therapist who specialized in adult ADHD. I wouldn't trust a GP to understand ADHD well enough to diagnose it.
See a psych, not a GP. If necessary, get the rec. But don't trust the GP for this. Use them to push you to a psych. A lot of times, you don't even need a rec from a GP to see a psych.
My girlfriend got a recommendation from her therapist. Her GP was also useless.
Wheelchair :)
That and medication. The two changed my life completely.
A knee pillow. I have always struggled with the occasional back pain because I would sometimes twist my legs/back at night and be in pain the next day(s). A knee pillow has massively changed that for me. I pretty much never have issues with my back caused by sleeping weird now.
In a similar vein, nasal strips. My nose often gets obstructed at night and it caused a ton of sleepless nights because I had a hard time breathing. Finding the strong nasal strips I'm now using pretty much eliminated that problem.
I've tried strips, but they're not strong enough. Do you mind sharing what brand or type you use now?
I was in your boat, and the strips just dont cut it for me.
I bought a cheap pack of "nasal dialators" on amazon (tried a variety pack first to find the size that worked best, now settled on 'large'). They're basically plastic cones that force your nostrils open. They hurt a little at first, but now im used to them and breathe SO MUCH better.
I tried many from Amazon, best was one called Airmax, but irritated with regular usage. I've since found "Noson.ch" and their design is fantastic. You have to buy direct from Switzerland and it's expensive, but personally it's worth it for a better nights sleep.
I've been using the Breathe Right "Extra Strength" ones. They are the only ones that have reliably stayed stuck to my skin overnight and strong enough to keep my nose open.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07F4B4HQL
Thank you. They do look serious. I'll give em a crack
Glerups. Greatest slippers I have ever worn.
A projector. Watching movies and playing games is now a cinematic experience.
Don’t you have to be in an almost pitch black room for it to look decent though? I also heard there can be pretty bad input lag?
It was quite a few years ago that I last looked into a projector so maybe they’ve gotten better, but these days massive TVs are so cheap I don’t know if it would even be worth it.
Depends on lumens for brightness and there are plenty of projectors with good refresh rate.
I use a epson home cinema 4k and it's amazing.
Same for me! It’s an awesome way to watch movies and tv shows
Any devices y'all prefer than others?
Baby Brezza formula machine.
Pre-heats the water and has a hopper for the powder. You can have a bottle of formula ready to go in about 10 seconds. Wifi with an app too.
As a father of two bottle fed kids, I whole heartedly agree.
Why downvotes?
Seems like an awesome machine!
Such a great appliance! Saved so much time and effort, especially when sleep deprived and screaming babies waiting for food.
Wireless JBL earbuds. I mainly use them while doing housework or listening to something in a way that won't bother other folks in the house.
Recently? A cordless stick vacuum. My wife has wanted one because ours was too heavy and she figured she would vacuum more often if she had a lighter one. Of course that turned out to not be the case and I am still doing the vacuuming but it is a heck of a lot easier to maneuver around and bring it to other areas of the house.
Previously? Wireless ear buds. Loved those. Unfortunately my dog ate my first pair and I left the second pair on a plane. My next pair will be cheap ones.
I bought a Dyson upright ball which was an expensive purchase at the time. I thought it would cover everything needed. What a pain in the ass to use the hose and attachments.
Great if trying to reach the ceiling but tedious to use and put away. Not easy to use near the vacuum either.
I have a ryobi cordless vacuum that I found was being used more often as it was a easy pickup and vacuum on the go especially for small jobs. I bought an adapter to allow it to use the Dyson attachments so now it looks like a stick vacuum without the fuss of the Dyson ball. Game changer now I'm told.
I would t vacuum nearly as much if I didn’t have a cordless stick vacuum. Works well enough between deeper cleans with the upright.
ZoloftLexapro aka escitalopram. I thought everyone had the anxiety voices like I did. I told myself I was just a worrier. Then it got REALLY bad in my 30's and even I thought it was getting absurd. My doc asked me "how are you feeling" and I just broke down, spilled my guts. He said "let's try a small dose." and after a couple months adjustment, the crazy voices went from 4/5 to a 1/5. They're still there, but they're WAY more quiet. I had no idea that this is what normal people think like.Very small quality of life increase, but I got the Scrub Daddy Soap Daddy. Makes life a bit easier and tidier for cleaning up in the kitchen.
Scrub Daddy is a weird product in that it seems a bit silly, but it's ridiculously well designed.
I can only agree fully with this, get one asap. It costs essentially nothing anyway.
The mechanism that dispenses soap or what exactly?
Sorry, am lost when lookimg at all products...
A few different aspects:
It's honestly pretty impressive.
Oh, wow!
Yes, very useful applications!
I was not expecting that many uses, thank you!
Now that I see the product, I know what you mean, but man your description sounded so wrong before I had a visual to go off of
Can you give me a link? Seems like scrub daddy has many different products.
You're looking for Scrub Daddy the product, not Scrub Daddy the brand (although Scrub Daddy the brand makes Scrub Daddy the product).
https://scrubdaddy.com/scrub-daddy-original/
How long does one of these last you?
Good question - I'm still on our first one, which I think we bought at least a year ago, and it's not showing any signs of giving up yet.
we were picking up some free boots for my partner off of facebook marketplace when i asked about the weight bench that was also in the yard. the owner said "someone said they were coming for it, but they were supposed to be here 2 hours ago. you want it?" I disassembled it in the yard and ruined my folding knife trying to use it as a screwdriver, but it was the best decision I've ever made. Grabbed some adjustable dumbbells from amazon, have been hitting up marketplace for plates people aren't using ever since, and I've now got a full-body 5x/week workout routine that is 100% the key to my mental and physical health. Best thing I've ever done for myself, and getting every piece of equipment that I use today cost about $100 total.
CPAP
YES!
Bone conducting earphones, my stupid tiny ear canals mean I can't get any ear buds, to stay in my ears, the bone conducters have changed my life....
Slip-on shoes, these specific ones are so well designed I can put them on in a few seconds while standing. They basically have loops for fingers on the tongue and pull/heel tab, I wish there were better quality shoes with the same design though as these have very specific cleaning instructions.
Could you provide a link please?
I forgot to respond to you, these are the ones I have, they were gifted to me so idk about their availability outside of my country.
Not the person you responded to but you can turn any shoe into this. Lock laces. Instead of tying my shoes daily you can slip them on and off and they always stay exactly perfect. I adjust them mayyybe once a year. They're like 10 bucks and make my shoes feel amazing.
Yeah, I've used those before. Super handy, for the right applications.
Definitely recommend Kiziks for this!
Chef's knife. Mountain bike (a "real" mountainbike) Gaming Laptop
A foam/gel pillow that allows me to sleep with my neck at the proper angle so my degenerating disks don't keep me up all night. A literal lifesaver.
I used to have very bad plantar fasciitis from my time in the military. For years I suffered every step of every day. I researched possible solutions and found out zero drop shoes help it. I bought some Xero shoes and after about three months it all just went away. Now I just wear zero drop shoes.
Two things together allowed me to sleep soundly for the fist time in my life:
-Melatonin
-A sleep mask
I take melatonin an hour before I want to sleep and the eye mask ensures that no light bothers me.
Espresso machine, best present ever.
A Comma 3 to run Openpilot on my Honda Civic. It's lane keep / adaptive cruise control on steroids. I drive about 40 thousand miles each year for work, 46 miles round trip on "local" days. Having that level of driver assist on the highway makes a life changing difference. I arrive less fatigued and feel more capable of reacting to hazards. Their tagline is making driving chill, and it really has delivered. I don't know how I did this mileage before Openpilot.
Blundstones. I live in a coastal city that's wet (but rarely snowy) the vast majority of the year. Having rain-resistant shoes that are comfortable AND durable has been a game changer.
And if I can mention a second: A proper, long raincoat. Combined with good shoes, I'm able to tolerate the weather here much better than when I'd first moved to this city and relied on sneakers + regular jackets.
Knitting needles.
Not only have they been essential in breaking the habit of reaching for my phone while I'm meant to be watching my TV/monitor, but I also end up with a practical, useful, personalised product at the end
I wish good yarn wasn’t so expensive!
I bought a hand spindle and some raw combed fleece...and I wish I knew how to use the hand spindle hahaha
An hdmi to composite converter. It allows me to connect my pc to my old crt, I can play games, watch YouTube, stream everything, it made me realize I don't really need a new TV
CRT image quality is amazing. It's sad their weight limits their sizes so much.
Crocs. Technically two items but you need a pair to get the benefits.
A Linux USB (Linux was not included but it's the key thing)
I don't really know for sure. Best bet is probably a ball pen when I was like 11. I've used only fountain pens until then.
It just doesn't leak and I don't have to wait for ink to dry up.
Ironically I went the other way lol. I can enjoy writing even if it is work notes. (Mine don't leak and I found inks that dry fast enough for me, most of the time).
What is a bell pen? And why not just use a ballpoint pen?
Hehe, typo.
chatgpt. it's the perfect workaround for my weaknesses.
My PC, which allowed me to do more than 2000 custom ROM builds.
Curious, custom rom builds for...?
Poco X3 NFC
May seem silly but a chamber vacuum sealer. It's so much more convenient than the suction style ones. You can place mason jars in it to seal them. I use it pretty much every day.
Which one do you have?
This one. Got it as a gift from my parents last Christmas.
VEVOR Chamber Vacuum Sealer Machine DZ 260S Commercial Kitchen Food Chamber Vacuum Sealer, 110V Packaging Machine Sealer for Food Saver, Home, Commercial Using https://a.co/d/8ITn4c2
I bought a low sided frying pan for when I make pancakes. It makes getting them out so much easier
SO THATS WHAT THOSE ARE FOR! I bet making a omlette on one is much easier too.
A car. Insane freedom, I can take a day off work and drive to a secluded beach on a whim.
An 18 button mouse for my PC. 12 buttons on the side which I've mapped my function keys to. It's excellent for gaming, so many things you can do without even using your left hand on the keyboard.
Sounds like it leaves one hand free for so many... activities.
I map those buttons to commonly used keys (that aren't letters), for example Enter, Space, Esc, Ctrl, Shift, etc. Also Mouse4 and Mouse4 and Razer Hypershift
One of those stupid expensive real down feather pillows. I spoiled myself one year for my birthday and only wish I had done it sooner. I go to bed every night and thank myself for getting that pillow.
Just curious, what is "stupidly expensive"? Because I'm allergic to down/feathers/something related to it, and got a really expensive foam pillow that I'm... moderately OK with.
I'm pretty cheap and it took a lot of justification to spend triple digits on a high quality pillow.
Towels.
Nah just kidding. It was cutlery.
Interesting thread from [email protected] on this topic: https://lemmy.world/post/6778039
Awesome, new place to sub to!
Thanks!
A swiss backpack. Loved it since I got it for Christmas, the most useful item I will ever own
Are they different from normal backpack, or is it the upgrade in quality that matters?
I'm wondering if they are talking that brand that you get from like Walmart/target.
I'm no backpack connoisseur, but I'd be surprised to find out that those are life changing.. but maybe I'm just to big of an Osprey fan
No connoisseur here either, but I am in dire need of a new one for work, as my current one is falling apart. I'm keeping my eyes open, in case I find one that matches these specs:
I'm leaning towards getting one of those pilot backpack, as they're built for people who are on the go.
The reason I'm an Osprey fan is because of the lifetime warranty for any reason, which impressively I've never had to use. And I abuse my gear outdoors.
But I'd imagine if you are doing tech carrying over everything else, you want something more specialized/padded. I try to find lighter gear.
When I have loads or large hardware I usually check in a pelicase or two. The backpack is mostly for short-term in-transit stuff plus bits and pieces I usually need for short stays.
Osprey looks nice - I'll see if they have something that suits my needs
Is that like a Swiss army knife...but instead of assorted cutting tools, you get assorted baggage?
Water flosser + electric toothbrush combo. Water flossers are game changers.
I've never heard of a water flosser. After searching, they seem expensive for squirting a bit of water in your mouth.
There are cheap ones on Amazon that work exactly the same as the original brand. I bought mine for 8€ in Lidl, it has served me for years without fail
Awesome, how often do they pop up at Lidl? I haven't seen them, granted I didn't know they existed so haven't been looking!
They seem to have them in stock for a week about every other month or so, I usually skim through their newspaper to see if I find anything interesting
They are expensive and I don't have one for that exact reason, however it's not just "squirting a bit of water into your mouth", it's high pressure water that, as the name suggests, is a complete replacement for traditional flossing.
I love mine and it's absolutely disgusted me when I first used it and found so much stuck between my teeth.
But they are not a replacement for floss. They don't scrape the sides of your teeth the same way. They are a part of my routine, but floss is still required to actually clean the teeth.
Good to know, thanks!
A memory foam mattress topper. Mine is 8cm (3") thick and an absolute game changer. It goes on top of your existing mattress and under the fitted sheet.
I'm more of a pillow top kind a guy but yes.
My ipad. It solves the project management triangle completely when it comes to checking the latest in the world. Which is good because of another change I made that helps in life coinciding with all the telecalls.
3 single items, all improvements.
Braun Series 7 wet/dry shaver
Jansport silver backpack (watchtower model is good)
Aeropex Aftershockz (bone conducting headphones)
Shokz (Aftershokz rebranded) are fantastic for endless online meetings if you're working remotely. I often forget I have them on. I did a whole set of in-person job interviews with them on before I realized I was wearing them at the end of the last interview.
It's pretty much the convenience and comfort of using external speakers, but without anyone else hearing. It's just a shame the audio quality isn't high-end for music.
To be fair: hardly any headset manages to combine good sound both ways and looking halfway presentable for business purposes.
I have a silver Jansport that is probably a decade old now and is still used 3 times a week or more for work, as well as used for airplane travel.
I'm about to look into having the large zipper repaired (it still zips, but I just have to make sure it's aligned now), rather than buying a new one. Best backpack I've ever had
I have the openrun headphone, it's great for cycling when you need to be aware of the surroundings. And to sleep with.
I recently got a series 7 and feel like it's a slight downgrade from my old Panasonic.
A laptop. So much more flexible than a desktop pc.
Enough money to pay my bills and also invest in me.
Nintendo switch OLED. I used to game at my PC which always caused me a lot of stress because I prefer the ease and relaxation of a console I can pick up whenever, take anywhere and game instantly as opposed to something I have to sit down with and work at. Sold my PC for it and a bunch of extra money
A leaf blower. I have a massive amout of leafy trees and it ised to be an all day chore to clean it up in the fall. Now, it takes about 20 minutes.
Hopefully you have an electric one. The gas ones are fucking terrible for the environment.
I have a gas one. But I also work from home, so I use much less gas than the average person to begin with. I plan to replace it with an electric unit when this one quits.
Why clean up leaves at all? What happens if you don't?
I mostly clean them off the driveway, paths, and grass since they get slick as it's quite rainy here. I usually will try to mulch them and add them back to the flower beds, or compost most of what I clean up. I uave a few areas where I don't clean them at all. But the drive and paths are a must.
I want to eventually convert the front grass to a native habitat and am in the process of getting certified, but that takes time and we just started recently. Once it's mostly converted, I won't need to leaf blow that area any longer.
Sounds awesome!
Also I didn't really think about them being in paths and being a danger. Good point!
Thanks for the reply!
I recently moved to a new place surrounded by leafy trees and realized I'll actually have to rake the yard, for the first time in a very long time.
But I also just bought a small leaf blower to clear the driveway after mowing... and you made me realize that it's... well... a leaf blower. I hope it's powerful enough, but I bet it'll still speed things up regardless
Yeah, it should help some. It was taking my wife and I a fair amount of time to clean it all up, every weekend during the fall. Now, I can blow it into a huge pile in about 15-20 minutes. Then I can mulch it, add it to the compost, or just send it to the yard debris container. It was a bit pricey, but has saved me countless hours.
I have this one. It's hurricane force when turned up all the way. never had a problem pushing anything with it.
I also recently bought an electric hedge trimmer, which I love. Should have bought one years ago, it saves so much time compared to hand clippers.
I always plug in. I don’t know if it works with calibre server.
I'm a heavy shitter, I shit alot and I shit so much my ass crack looks like caramelized fondu. When I go outside flys swarm around my ass and get stuck on my sticky ass crack. Everyone would avoid me in the local Walmart when I shop for gaming supplies (Doritos and Dr Pepper mostly). I have difficultly wiping because I can't physically reach under there and I can't stand up in the shower. One day my mom told me to lose weight (yeah thanks for bullying me again mom 😒) and I know I'm a little heavy at the moment because I have to use cooking oil to greese up the doorframes so I can squeeze through but that's only because of capitalism shrinking all the rental apartments and cramming as many people in as possible. Anyway I was playing Amongus and one of my femboy friends told me about bidgets. At first I was like "huh?" and he explained that because he plays Genshin he cannot physically leave the house or bathe and he has a special toilet that cleans his butthole for him. So I ordered one off Amazon and my god it is the best thing ever, now this device shoots water up my asshole and poof! No more shit streaked stretch pants woohoo!
big diddi goth gf
Interesting, you bought a life-sized doll!
First time I hear someone buy one!
Healthier life style changes, better mood over all?