After using a dedicated bidet for the first time, I was an instant convert! But the after market ones installed in existing toilets just aren't the same. If I ever get the chance, I'll be adding one to any house I own!
You mean those handheld bidets like a tiny shower head on a flexible hose? I actually much prefer those over the ones mounted inside the toilet bowl. I can aim them wherever I want, and I find it handy for all kinds of non-bidet things - you can hose things down in the tub or sink next to the toilet, for example, or use it to clean the toilet bowl itself.
I'm Italian and I must support @FaceDeer 's point, these are standard in my country (and they should be standard everywhere, damn barbarians) and they are definitely better than a spray nozzle attached to a toilet. You can also use them for other things, like washing your feet.
I think there's confusion about which versions of bidet we're talking about. The kind I'm lauding, the ones like a little shower head, are attached to the toilet you're on. You don't need to go anywhere to use them, just reach over and take it from its holder.
All I can say is that if you've never tried a bidet before you'll likely be very surprised by how little sensitivity you've got to cold water down there. It's simply not uncomfortable or even particularly noticeable, either in my experience or in anyone I've talked to about it (which is admittedly not many - it's not a common topic of conversation).
The hand bidet was super cheap and the shipping was free, so I figured "why not give it a whirl?" And it worked out great.
ill second that, i thought it would be a problem but decided to just endure the cold because i didnt feel like running power over to the toilet but turned out not to be a problem at all. if anything its sort of refreshing lol
I would also add on that, unless you REALLY rocked that toilet, every poo becomes a single flush. Rather than potentially needing to double flush to avoid clogging it
While you're shopping for a bidet also shop for an Australian toilet. The half flush saves a lot more water too but the proper s-bend makes everything a single flush even if you rocked it hard.
and by rocked it I mean you filled it with mercury for some reason
Ahh, that's an interesting angle I hadn't considered. I wonder if there's a way to quantify the water savings this way, like a volume of water per TP roll or something. I feel like that could be a solid selling point to get more people interested in buying one.
To add: not everyone needs to shower daily, either. I don't have a physical job, I shower maybe twice a week. More than enough for me. Also use Aleppo soaps, because they keep you clean longer. High oil percentage.
There are very few people in this world in my opinion who shouldn't be showering daily or at least every other day.
I can spend all day doing nothing and still reek at the end of the day. I'm sorry but you sound gross. Ain't no high quality shampoo. Keeping the stink off you that long.
Sounds like you don't have enough experience with talking to people about hygiene? I know many people who don't shower daily and are perfectly hygienic and not smelly at all, me included, and my wife. Kids definitely usually don't need to bathe daily either. Sometimes weekly is enough. Especially infants shouldn't rinse too much, else they develop skin problems.
If you spend all day doing nothing and reek?? Sounds like a you problem. Probably genetic.
Came to say bidet. I have the poor man version .. 25 at Amazon. I suffer Everytime I have to go back to only tp when not at home. I feel like a savage caveman without one. Smearing poop is just nasty and uncivilized to me. I have used the fancy ones in Japan but really did not like the warm water. I prefer the shocking cold glaciar feeling of butt refreshes. To anyone reading this...get a bidet, ANY KIND... Try cleaning up peanutbutter from your arm with just paper to experience what we talking about .
Sony wishing they didn't make the vita is a double edged sword, because it also means you can be a completely obvious hacker, and Sony doesn't give a singular fuck. And they still ban people for hacking on ps3, so it isn't just age.
Check out βDave the diverβ. Iβve fallen out of love with gaming as well and Iβve been dropping a lot of hours into this game on my steam deck. Super unique and easy to pick up and put down. Feels fresh.
If you like platformers Bzzt just came out and would definitely run on the deck. For roguelikes I'd recommend Darkest Dungeon, Hades, or Rogue Legacy. For a straightforward RPG with 3D models but pixel art I'd recommend Octopath Traveller 2.
I also recommend Dave the Diver as well, fantastic game.
Also just ordered mine. Since I started working fulltime remote a year ago, I found myself not wanting to spend more time on my desk after work. That translated into me almost giving up gaming even though I used to love it.
Moving to a place where I can have a second desk would cost me one Steam Deck per month so I just went with a Steam Deck lol
I got one recently too, and itβs already helping me with this. I hope you find joy in it :). I never buy myself anything so I was worried Iβd regret itβ¦ but I really like it so far.
Along these lines, iβm thrilled with the ps portal as well. was only $200, but the ps online streaming is so good. i used to use it on ps4 on my ipad with an external controller from 1200 miles away at legit decent frame rate and latency.
ps portalβs display is crisp and beautiful, it looks so much more gorgeous than the steam deck (because all the rendering is done on the ps5), and there are some games that i donβt even really want to play on the big screen format that the portal has made awesome because theyβre wonderful on handheld format.
Iβve been struggling with gout in my knee and ankle off and on. When it gets bad Iβm almost immobile and I broke down and finally bought a cane to help me hobble around when itβs at its worst.
Mine also came from Ukraine and like you I wanted something with personality. I got an oak, ball top style stained cherry and I love it!
Physical Therapy! Do the exercises/stretches. If you need to go back and ask a doctor for another round, do it. I get it though.
Sometimes KT tape can do wonders, but it really really depends. Personally, the best was with knees and arms. I wear a different kind of brace for my ankle, a Trilok, but there are apparently a whole bunch of similar ones now.
Dude do it. I dealt with chronic pain for way too long and just accepted it as hopeless. I had tried stretches and exercises on my own with no luck so I wrote physical therapy off as pointless.
Eventually I gave in and 6 weeks in to physical therapy my pain is like 80% gone. I started noticing improvements after a week.
Probably it doesn't quite count as a gadget, but repurposing my old PC as a home server. Firstly it makes a great mass storage solution making all my media accessible from any device, no matter what architecture it is and what apps it can run. I also self-host Home Assistant, Syncthing, Radicale, Navidrome, Jellyfin and UrBackup. The ten years old 2 core Pentium with 8GB of RAM can do it all, it's much cheaper to run than half a dozen subscription services and I have total control over my data and privacy.
I actually bought just one new 6TB HDD and repurposed an older 3TB one as a redundancy drive for mirroring most critical data using a simple rsync cron job (no need for realtime mirroring of media files that are write-once), plus another old 1 TB drive just because. I haven't run out of storage yet and I have automated download/sharing for OpenStreetMap and some Linux distros which takes up half a TB or so, but I plan on expanding the array using MergerFS and SnapRAID when the need arises.
The rest is just SMB shares, Navidrome, Jellyfin, DLNA and FTP. Remote access from outside my local network is done via Tailscale VPN.
What benefits do you see in navidrome compared to having your music in Jellyfin? I'm just starting out with jellyfin and added some music to it. I listen to it with findroid on my phone and so far it seems to work okay.
Navidrome just seems to be faster and more responsive. But the main reason of using both is that I just like to try things out and tinker. I also use Foobar2000, Kodi, MPC-HD, AIMP and other media players.
If you don't mind, which processor do you have? I've been thinking of setting up a Jellyfin server too, but I have a G4500 and I've always been worried that it can't handle the load...
Mine is the venerable G3258βthe budget overclocking champ in the 4th generation Core family. Runs at 4,4 GHz and handles OpenMediaVault and 19 Docker containers just fine. I think G4500 would be fine, too.
True, the old server parts are dirt cheap if you can source them (theyr'e not really available in my country and importing from China, UK or US would more than double the cost). But they're also quite power hungry and energy cost has gone up crazy over the past few years. My current setup consumes around 127 W total (overclocked CPU, 3 HDD-s) and it costs me around 20β¬/month or half my energy bill (small one bedroom apartment with full LED lighting). If I upgrade it'll probably be cheap current PC hardware which tends to be much more power efficient.
My dream setup is a 16 core ARM CPU with something like 64...128 GB of LPDDRπ«
As I understand it, media streaming isn't actually that taxing because your server doesn't actually have to render all of that data, just transfer it; so as long as it can handle a copy operation faster than one second per second, and you're only watching from one device at a time, it'll still work.
I haven't done it, though, so I'm not sure how much overhead Plex/Jellyfin add by way of transcoding.
I recently picked up a 13 year old dell inspiron to run my instance of home assistant and Plex. It was an upgrade from a shitty old Linux laptop that was literally falling apart. All I had to do was add ram (it only had 6gb and it wasnβt stable, so I maxed it out with 16gb) and I swapped the old slow HDD for a crucial SATA SSD and itβs been perfect. It probably pulls more wattage than necessary but itβs exactly what I need for now.
What benefits do you see in navidrome compared to having your music in Jellyfin? I'm just starting out with jellyfin and added some music to it. I listen to it with findroid on my phone and so far it seems to work okay.
I originally stored my music in Plex and used Plexamp. I have a large playlist downloaded from youtube which caused horrible performance issues in Plexamp. Navidrome is pretty much a read-only service. It can only read metadata from the files, not add any or manage them. For me this feels safer to expose to the internet since my docker container only has read-only access to all of my files. Even if someone broke into the service for some reason, they couldn't do anything to my files.
I don't know if jellyfin has similar performance issues with large playlists since I already had navidrome set up by then.
Thanks! I don't have too much music on it yet, I guess, so not sure on the performance. I do like that read only approach, though. Currently I'm running just the regular jellyfin app on my Mac. What made you use it in docker? It sounds like in Linux it's a safeguard to prevent dependency issues but I don't think that's really a factor on mac
Mostly ease of management. I have a server on which I run multiple applications. If I don't need something anymore, I can just purge the container. The directories used by that container are clearly listed in my docker-compose file so I never have to wonder whether I purged everything that is now unnecessary.
It also makes it very easy to deploy a new service.
Bidet for sure. A good one in the $300-400 range. It is such a gamechanger to always have a clean ass. And without TP, the toilet never clogs and you aren't spending extra on TP. Also helps with hemorrhoids if/when you get those, as TP is really rough on your asshole/not good for you.
I still have some TP for guests, but with the dryer built in, it really isn't needed.
Also, a bidet is a lifesaver if you like extreme hotsauces. Basically, it's the only piece of daily furniture that makes me go "God, I'm so glad I bought this" for literal years since I got it in the pandemic. No cold toilet seat during winter. Heated seat that doesn't slam. Hot water. Hot air blow dryer. Self-cleaning.
Came to say bidet, but I have the poor man version .. 25 at Amazon. I suffer Everytime I have to go back to only tp when not at home. I feel like a savage caveman without one. Smearing poop is just nasty and uncivilized to me. I have used the fancy ones in Japan but really did not like the warm water. I prefer the shocking cold glaciar feeling of butt refreshes. To anyone reading this...get a bidet, ANY KIND... Try cleaning up peanutbutter from your arm with just paper to experience what we talking about .
Well, you can spend 300-400 or you can buy a "portable bidet bottle" and clean your asshole with warm water. You'll still need to use some toilet paper (or maybe a towel) to dry, but you'll be spending $15 more or less and you can carry it with you when you travel.
Have you ever used one of these? I thought about getting one for backpacking trips; TP becomes a major consideration on those, and - frankly - I often have all the time in the world to wait, and airdry, and enjoy the view. At least, on summer trips. But I've wondered how well they work in practice.
i have a backpacking bidet (culo clean specifically) and I would say it gives mixed results. basically, you need to practice and develop a technique to "get the most" out of it in terms of water usage, how clean you can get, etc. I don't have a normal bidet so i have nothing to compare it with and maybe my technique isnt so good. mine gets me mostly clean but i still need a square of toilet paper to make sure in almost every case. better than not having it, but not the results I was hoping for.
I've been using a 0.5L one for years now. Usually it's enough, but there are times that when I dry (with toilet paper) I see that I need a little more cleaning and then I either finish with the paper or refill the bottle and try again.
I've cleaned it twice just to feel good about it, but it's been sparkling aside from some hard water deposits, which came off pretty easily. It always runs water over it after use, and the nozzle angle is so steep, it doesn't get poo on it. I have a toto one. (I've had mine since about mid 2021)
I still clean the toilet seat and the underside of the seat though, which can get a bit of pee on it if you're a guy. I'm a bit of a clean freak too, so when I say clean, I mean clean, lol.
A countertop water boiler. It turns out I go through just about 4L of tea a day and now I spend a lot less time boiling water. And when you refill it and it comes to temperature it plays Fur Elise
They're a little different. Kettles are small (1-2 liters) will heat water until it's boiling and then shut off(or have the user disconnect the heat source)
Water boilers hold a larger amount of water (3-5 liters) at a consistent temperature with a button to dispense it.
I upgraded from a kettle to a zojirushi water boiler and I've never looked back. The thing is incredible. Absolutely worth the price.
It's because the USA power standards are not suitable for kettle life. The 110 voltage on their power means it takes ages to come to the boil. The idea of putting a few cups of water into a kettle, pushing a button and having boiling water inside a minute does not exist.
That's why these tabletop things are useful: yes they take ages to initially boil, then they maintain that temperature. 110 volts is fine for that task.
There are 240v outlets in the USA, but they're usually only used for things with heavy power draw (clothes dryers, EV chargers, electric hot water heaters, etc). Some areas have 208v instead of 240v though.
But yeah, boiling water is slow in the USA and a lot of people do it in the microwave (whereas I never saw anyone ever do that in Australia). We've got a Breville espresso machine that has instant hot water, which is useful for some of the use cases we'd use a kettle for.
This is kinda true and kinda not. Even on 110, an electric kettle is faster than a kettle on a gas stove. The real answer is that Americans just don't drink much tea. My family is unusual in that regard.
This video also proves my point. And he knows it. Nearly 5 minutes to boil a litre of water? That's hilarious!
I just replicated his experiment, with an identical bottle of water in my kettle, and was surprised that it took 2:47 to boil. I honestly would have thought it quicker than that.
This isn't about tea, either. In fact, I boil the kettle for coffee far more frequently than for tea. I would also boil a kettle to quickly get 2L of water for cooking pasta. But since I've just boiled it and it's 10:30pm, I make peppermint tea. Ahhh.
Did you miss the part about how it's still the fastest way to boil water? Yes yes, it's slower than yours, we're all jealous. Even still, we would all have electric kettles if we needed to boil water all that often because it's faster than anything else we have. But:
People don't make pasta or rice every day, and even when you do you usually have plenty of time for it to come to a boil while you're chopping or stirring or whatever. People who do make rice that often typically use a rice cooker.
You can't really boil enough water in a kettle to cook potatoes or vegetables or anything else.
Coffee makers of most types typically boil their own water (yes there are pourovers and chemexes, but they aren't that common and people who use them do buy kettles).
Nobody would buy a kettle for just cooking even if we did have more power delivery, simply because you don't cook anything by boiling all that often. Case in point: my family drinks tea, and so we own a kettle, but tea is really the only time we boil water (in the kettle or otherwise) for anything on a daily basis.
No, these devices hold water at the appropriate temperature for long periods of time using extremely good insulation. They provide hot water on-demand after reaching temperature and are used in a way that is somewhat different from kettles.
While that is true in this case, I do remember a post about one of their rice cookers that bricks itself when the CR battery dies, that requires a soldering iron to replace.
+rep for Zojirushi. My water boiler lid recently began chipping and pretty much disintigrating and on their website I saw they even have replacement parts for discontinued products. Very cool of them
Arduino in the same vein. There's a great "30 Days Lost in Space" tutorial set, but even to play around with by yourself for cheap, you can get an off brand (the hardware is open source!) Arduino Mega for 20 bucks. All sorts of cool programming and electronics fun.
AdGuard Home is better since it supports DNS over HTTPS, which prevents your internet provider from seeing and intercepting your DNS queries (which they can do even if you use a third-party DNS service like Google or Cloudflare). You can get DoH working on PiHole but it's a lot of manual work.
It's even easier with AdGuard Home though, since it uses DoH via Quad9 out-of-the-box. People usually use solutions like PiHole and AdGuard Home because they don't want to mess with it at the command-line, just via the web UI.
Steam Deck. Without question. I don't think I would have been able to cope with the last year and a half of my life without it. This year has been very rough and I have been able to escape life while still spending time with my family. Top-tier psychological maintenance for me.
This one seems silly, but one really useful cheap thing I bought that I use much more than I thought I would is an electric kettle. (I should point out I'm in the US) I use it to make iced tea, my wife uses it for hot tea, and we both use it for boiling water for whatever cooking project needs it. We have a gas stove, and it takes about twice as long to heat up a liter of water as this kettle. It uses a normal US 120v outlet and I think it draws 1,000w. (Edit: I looked it up and it's 1,100 watts)
Just don't forget backups! I use Borgbackup for mine.
I know some people don't want a home server because of the space it'd take up, but you can get pretty powerful mini PCs these days (look for ones with an i3-N305 processor) or buy cheap second-hand ex-office PCs on eBay.
For people that still don't want to have a physical server at their house, you can do a lot of the same self-hosting stuff using a VPS. If you live in an area with expensive electricity (like California or Australia), you can usually get a VPS with a modern processor, ~8GB RAM, and a decent amount of NVMe disk space for $5/month or less, which is easily what it'd cost you just for the electricity usage of a home server.
I like GreenCloudVPS, and they've got a "budget" line that's very reasonably priced: https://greencloudvps.com/billing/store/budget-kvm-sale. They're currently running a promotion where if you pay for three years in advance, you get double the RAM. I think they're sold out of their cheapest one ($15/year) at the moment though.
A lot of hosts had good Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales recently so it's probably worth browsing LowEndTalk and seeing if any deals are still active.
How do you access it away from home. I'm able to access my NAS since Synology gives us a domain to use and we do everything using port forwarding. I would assume that if you set everything up by yourself, you would need to get your own domain and ssl certificates and everything?
I have a domain name on cloudflare DNS, Let's Encrypt certificates that auto renew and an Nginx reverse proxy pointing at the services I host. Port forwarding through the opnsense router for https.
It's been a journey setting it up, but its basically been unchanged for about 5 years now and works well. If I need to I can VPN in too.
Last time I needed new headphones for going out, I bought a Shockz bone conducting headphone.
While the specific one I bought was the wrong choice (the Run I got is slick but needs a proprietary charging cable instead of the USB-C the Move uses, and they sound 100% the same), overall the concept is really good. I enjoy hearing people around me, for someone who more listens to podcasts and radio shows not music the quality is perfect, and I can wear these on my bicycle without having to worry I won't hear something.
Also, since they don't sit in the ear not enclose it it's easy to semi-forget them there as they're so comfortable, no stuffed feeling or sweaty ears. I sometimes just use them at home instead of shifting a podcast onto the sonos speakers. Just easier.
Yes. I love mine. I originally got some bone-conduction headphones to use at my job because I work in a high noise environment and they still work while you're wearing earplugs, but I use them pretty much constantly now. It's really nice to have my music or podcasts and still be able to hear when someone asks me a question, or to be able to hear traffic coming if I'm out walking or jogging.
I've had a couple pairs of them now and weirdly bone-conduction headphones seem to be the one electronic device that under promises on its battery life. I don't know if maybe I just got lucky, but the cheap no name set I got off Amazon promised 5 hours, but even after a year still regularly lasts 8 or 9. My Shokz Open Run Pros promise 10 hours, and I routinely get 15 or 16 hours. So that's nice.
Out of curiosity: did you ever test noise cancelling headsets in that high noise environment?
Iβd think that in-ear and over-ear nc headphones should work quite well too.
No, because active noise cancellation doesn't offer any hearing protection. It doesn't make the noise go away, it works by sending out an extra soundwave which is a mirror inversion of noise to be cancelled, sends out peaks where there were troughs and troughs where there were peaks, and they cancel each other out as far as your brain is concerned. But to work the destructive soundwave has to be as loud as the sound it's cancelling, and now you have two sound waves blasting away, still moving air and putting pressure on your eardrums, and it's that pressure causes the damage to your hearing.
Proper PPE has a passive barrier that physically blocks the bulk of the vibration from reaching your eardrums in the first place. Active noise cancellation does kind of the opposite of that.
I've heard of these for a while and general question for you and anyone else who's looked. What are the red flags? Nothing comes without risks and years of research has shown the hearing damage from traditional headphones. There has to be a rub with these. What are the negative rumblings of using these style of headphones. They have to be there. We just don't have the decades of research yet.
If I now say that your premise is wrong (headphones don't cause hearing loss, loud noises do, independent of the source), does that automatically answer your question? π
Now to dig a bit deeper into that, there is a lot of research into MIHL from using PLDs, and the key thing is always people turning up the volume higher than they normally would, usually due to the context of where they are. That is, we use our little headphones in noisy environments, and to drown out the noise we turn them up too much and start damaging our ears over time.
In that regard, bone conduction headsets are worse. They are intentionally fully open, and don't in the slightest bit try to reduce ambient noise. That is, if anything you'd be tempted to crank them up even higher.
I will however say that the models I've used all came with an interesting "safety" in this regard that stems from the way they work: At a certain and not that loud noise level, they start vibrating physicially off the skin during playback, in turn plateauing the achievable volume. I suspect however that this level is already beyond healthy.
So, in other words:
If you're concerned about hearing loss, keep the volume in sane reaches. If you also need to ignore outside noise while listening, this means getting enclosing and/or noise-cancelling headphones, not open ones like bone conducting. However, if keeping the volume low, say during listening at home, bone conduction is no different from other forms of receiving audio, both still stimulate the hearing canal hairs.
Before I got my noise cancelling headphones, I was very aware of the volume that I have set when trying to watch a movie in a plane. After I got the noise cancelling headphones, I no longer have to set it that loud anymore.
That said, some airlines need to relook their volumes of their PA system. Some of them are shockingly louder than necessary. Lol
Yeah, I love my ANC earbuds. In pass-through mode, I can hear ambient sounds almost better than I can without them, especially on a bike where I can tune them to blank wind noise but allow voices and bells. And you're right about not needing high volume to hear music well. They have great sound quality, and the ANC is indispensible on airplanes.
The downside is cost; GP's bone-conducting headset is $90, and the other pair they mention is $60. A good pair of ANC earbuds starts around $200, and some of the better pairs are upwards of $300.
Worth the money, IMO, but if $60 is all you can afford, GP's might be the better bet than super sketchy-quality cheap ANC earbuds.
These free up so much time. Love mine too. I cook a lot and mess around a lot in the open kitchen/living room area and had to sweep the floor daily..not anymore.
Y'all this sound crazy, but the Bug A Salt is fucking awesome.
It's worth it if you can get a black Friday deal or something under 30$ because it's just a little salt when you shoot it and there's no guts on your wall, no dirty fly swatter, no chasing, no jumping, no reaching, and you feel like a sniper hitman.
Its not a toy. That shit hurts when you get hit lol
I hear the modded firmware takes all the restrictions off, and you can broadcast in a greater range, for car remotes, as well as read more from RFID, like credit cards. Not that I would know of course
Ham here too, what practical uses have you found? Mine is sitting in a box, I got it almost a year ago and haven't checked the latest firmware or apps in almost that long.
Cordless vacuum was a costly one but certainly made that chore a lot more easy and kinda fun. I planned to store it in a closet but I'd take it out every few days so eventually I started leaving it on the floor, it's not in the way there either.
3D printer. At any moment in time I could just print something out and it would be ready by the time I finish eating. The possibilities are endless, plenty of free models online or just learn how to design yourself.
Bone conducting ear phones, I have tiny narrow ear canals and can't get any type of ear bud to go in my ears, the bone conductors are a revelation for listening to audio books, radio and music when I'm out and about
InstaPot. It makes a lot of things so much easier to cook. Rice, lentils, potatoes, eggs... I use it mostly for that. No need to stand there stirring, looking at the clock. Fire and forget and always perfectly cooked.
Its kind of silly, but VR. I like hanging out in vrchat with my internet friends and it makes me feel a lot closer to them. Even when we're just talking and goin to cool worlds.
Not for everyone obviously, but I developed a synthesizer habit some years ago, and right now is probably the best time ever for a beginner to get into it. Korg's Volca series, Roland's Aira compact, teenage engineering's Pocket Operators, Arturia's Microfreak, and Elektron's Model series are all affordable and a great way for a beginner to start making some cool-ass music. Beware developing a habit though. It only stays affordable so long.
My espresso machine. They're expensive. I do not know why they are, but they are. I hemmed and hawed for years about us getting one and finally decided fuck it. Im an adult, I want one, we can afford it.
In 2+ years the only times I have not made myself a cappuccino are when I have not been home to do so. It is one of my most used appliances. Espresso owns.
That's awesome. Yeah, definitely a rollercoaster for me, winter gets harder since walking was/is a big part of my routine. But even 25kg must feel great. I love feeling like I've kept some of the muscle, but lost a beer keg worth of extra weight every time I climb some stairs or carry something heavy.
At first, solo, very solo. Like I'd even avoid my wife until I felt comfortable, because at my size (was over 300lbs) certain things were embarrassingly difficult. As I lost some, and more importantly found workouts that worked for me, I started venturing out, now I do a lot of group classes (dance stuff mostly). Even though I'm still often the biggest, I feel a lot better about myself overall so I enjoy it and I've found some very supportive studios with awesome vibes.
If you don't mind, how did the Fitbit motivate you to be more active? I've been considering one for a while but it doesn't seem like something I'd have a lot of utility for
Two ways:
One, it kinda gamified it for me, just having a score, meant I could go for a high score on days when I had the time for lots of steps/exercise. They build some in too, like streaks and hitting goals.
Two, the HR monitor definitely helped me push harder in cardio workouts. Knowing when I hit my max, and when it started dipping made even short workouts feel more effective (even if they weren't, placebo FTW).
Swapped out the head unit on my 2016 car for a touchscreen that supports Android Auto. I got spoiled using a similar one in my friend's rental car. It was only $600 installed at Best Buy. It's so nice not to have to fight with keeping my phone in a display holder where I can see the map, and now I can control my phone-streamed music with my steering wheel controls. Makes driving so much more pleasant.
The Panic Playdate. Itβs just a really nice gaming console that is getting a lot of support from game devs. Itβs one of the very few truly portable handhelds as it can easily fit in a pocket and the battery lasts forever too.
I have remote sensors integrated into Home Assistant. As well as a DIY watering solution. My plants get watered even when I'm on a two week vacation in the other part of the world!
A smart switch for my espresso machine so it turns on a timer each morning so it's ready for when I get up, it takes about 25 minutes to fully warm up. Also I can turn it on or off using voice controls, great when I want another coffee later in the day.
Damn, that is a slow espresso machine. Mine takes like 1min.
Also, would that work for devices that need to have the "on" button pressed in order to turn on?
For example: Say I unplug one of my devices, while turned on. If I plug them again in the outlet, they will be turned off and I will have to turn them on again, even though they were on when I unplugged them.
Majority of any e61 espresso machine is like that, pretty much par for the course for anything other than budget non e61 or some of the new high end espresso machines that use some variation of electrically heated groups.
Mine will be "ready" after about 15 minutes but as an e61 group head is a heavy block it takes along time to get good thermal stability. Difference is I can steam and extract shots at the same time with 2bar steam and 9bar espresso, shot after shot.
My espresso machine has a proper on/off switch, so I just leave that set to on and control the power from the smart switch.
They might have a different style. I have one of these, and it definitely takes 20 minutes or so to get up to pressure.
I didn't think about a smart switch, like GP. That's a slick idea. OTOH, I turn the machine on and go do something else for a few minutes - I don't find it an imposition.
They nice machines but I wanted more consistent with its pressure and water flow, better steaming, not made by breville,and made with industry standard components that can last decades.
It's a decent machine for the money but compared to its competitors from gaggia and rancilio what they lose in fancy programming or the pid or the easy steaming (which is still way off mine) they gain in actually having an opv (depending which one you have), build quality and self service.
I've seen far too many people have issues with breville stuff and then problems returning it. It's not that good ones don't exist it's just that more reliable does.
To put your seven years into perspective I should be getting 30 to 40 years out of mine with some regular servicing.
No, its a smart thing switch as I have the hub, so its z wave. However I have a lot of smart home switches, lights and so on so that makes sense for me. Plenty of options if you do not want a hub now.
The espresso machine has a proper on off button so I just leave it in on position and the switch turns the power on and off
My super automatic espresso machine. Dead simple to use and so much cheaper than operating a keurig. I bought it because Iβm awful at real coffee machines and need to have a single serve option. Being able to use whole beans has made it pay for itself in the 3 years Iβve had it.
Hanklight D4K for $50 was my first portable enthusiast flashlight. I'm currently 4 hanklights deep and they're loads of fun out in the country for spotting wildlife and general use with the open source Anduril 2 firmware (yes, flashlights can get firmware updates).
Ooh. I have an Olight Arkfeld Pro every day carry flashlight that I love. It's kind of flat and has a good clip for your pocket. Brightest mode is 1300 lumens and also has a blacklight and a 5mw green laser. Built solid as can be and has a lifetime warranty, including the built in battery. Love the thing.
Hank makes great lights, but I love OLights. I have 3 of those damned Arkfelds - I loved the UV one so much I got the laser version, and then they came out with the tri-function version!
It's such a great light! The UI is fantastic, the battery indicator is pretty, the UV is incredibly bright, and kudos to them for choosing a laser color other than red - green was a good choice. The battery lasts forever, the rectangle form factor is super comfortable to pocket-carry, and (of course) the 5-mode light is bright and clean. Oh, and that tail magnet is a beast! It's the only flashlight I carry, anymore.
That said, I'd give up some of that huge battery to slim it down. The original Arkfelds are OK, but the new tri-function is chonky. Doesn't stop me from carrying it, but it's right on the threshold. I could go for a smaller tri-function; the current battery is IMO overkill.
While I like the magnetic charger, I do wish it had a USB-C charge port. As is, having to travel with an extra bespoke charge cable sucks. It's my only real beef with OLights; contact charging is nice, but I'd trade it for versatility.
The proprietary charger is my only real negative about it. If not for that, I would take a slimmer version, like the old one over the bigger battery, but since I don't have as much access to my proprietary charger like I do with USB c all over the place I'm good with the bigger battery.
Right? If it had a C charging port, it wouldn't need the big battery.
I've been carrying and using the tri-function since it arrived, at the end of October. It's still at 4 bars. I haven't tried to run it down, but it's an absurd amount of battery.
Lemmy needs a community dedicated to pointless debate over which flashlight is best. I'm about to permanently borrow somebody's ThruNite T1 but it's too heavy, I miss the mini Maglite I used to carry. Phone flash is fine, yes, but I miss a flashlight/torch without a fucking login procedure involved for fuck sake.
Fidget toys got a bad rep, especially after Fidget Spinners became trendy for the younger generation.
But just having a little thing I can toy around with has been great for my pens and game controllers, as in the before times my grabby hands would fiddle with them whenever I was thinking about shit and it was bad for their durability.
For less than a dollar? (ay, currency exchange rates) Yeah, one of the best things I bought.
I got a mechanical keyboard for Black Friday this year. So much better than scissor switches. I think I got one with a yellow switch. Feels quite cushiony while still having the clickity clack.
My wife was against it, so I bought it in secret, let it run around the house during the day, and she was amazed at all the cleaning I was doing. A few months later, I let her into my dark secret, and now she loves it too.
Speaking of wife, I bought her a hooded blanket with an electric warming bag a few years ago. Within 3-5 minutes it's nice and toasty, and she's used it practically every day since I bought it.
A Nvidia Shield TV 2019 Pro and a Synology NAS, they really are the perfect combo to sail the seas, or watch legal streams if you want to.
Both gadgets have been used daily since the day they were purchased, and that is a good sign lol.
The Shield TV uses hardware since 2015, and even when some could say it is failing into the enshitification territory due to the usual crappy decisions regarding putting ads in the stock launcher, it is to applaud that Nvidia still supports this thing officially though.
About the NAS, I have a two bay unit (bad decision) but it supports Docker and it has helped me to feel attached to Linux again.
Your usual multimedia selfhosted program that you have running in your overpowered server/rack, you name it, I could probably be using it too in my humble DS218+
If I had to choose only one I'd say the Shield, because along with Smart Tube Next already is 80% of my total usage lol (plus I had my NAS turned off for months because a recent fuck up, and I didn't have a PC to check it out, which is kinda solved now).
Iβm on board with this. I did something similar putting a Synology 920+ and an Asus NUC style machine running Ubuntu in place of my old OptiPlex and WD MyCloud setup.
Iβm now the primary content provider for a bunch of my family!
It is truly amazing how you can put a decent multimedia provider with minimal hardware, heck, my two units act as a PMS each, and it serves well enough my usage, my girlfriend and the one user that actually uses it remotely lol.
You don't really need a NAS if you get a Real Debrid account plus an app that supports it, like Weyd, Syncler, or Stremio + Torrentio. You can run a Plex server directly on the Shield, too.
Only for content that you're legally allowed to watch, of course. Nobody would ever pirate content over the internet!
regarding putting ads in the stock launcher,
This was Google's decision, not Nvidia's. It's in the base OS and Nvidia have no control over it. I replaced the stock launcher with flauncher which is basic and lightweight - just what I wanted. I used "Method 2: disable the default launcher" from the flauncher Readme to disable the default launcher and it worked well on both of my Shields.
You don't really need a NAS if you get a Real Debrid account plus an app that supports it, like Weyd, Syncler, or Stremio + Torrentio. You can run a Plex server directly on the Shield, too.
Yeah for sure, and that has actually helped me to offload a lot of storage of my NAS as well, but RD can fail, and it is good to have something offline too.
This was Google's decision, not Nvidia's. It's in the base OS and Nvidia have no control over it. I replaced the stock launcher with flauncher which is basic and lightweight - just what I wanted. I used "Method 2: disable the default launcher" from the flauncher Readme to disable the default launcher and it worked well on both of my Shields.
I understand, I actually decided to just rollback the launcher to the old stock UI, it works pretty well to me.
I'd start with deleting updates of your launcher, that way you'll have it in its original state, then deactivate automatic updates.
I downgraded to 8.2.3 just to be extra safe it won't change back because of the server side update thingy... Plus seeking for a better performance/less clunkiness.
Your usual multimedia selfhosted program that you have running in your overpowered server/rack, you name it, I could probably be using it too in my humble DS218+
I've been using a low power embedded-cpu server for proxmox+homeassistant+openmediavault+*arr stack, but I've recently built a new one with my desktop's Ryzen 3600 CPU, 'cause I wanted to use Jellyfin. It's gone from 35 to 60 W/h, but it's got more drives, so I think the power consumption can be good with a more powerful server.
Even a small knife is handy. Multitools are fine, but IME I only ever use the blade, and single-purpose knives are better at being knives than multi tools. My favorite knife is a MicroTech 70; I can carry it in any pants without it feeling bulky.
Flippers are good too; I do like the clean lines on the MicroTech(s).
Maybe it's because I used multi tools, but I can't relate. At different points about 20 years ago, I carried a cybertool and a Leatherman (not at the same time). In both cases, I used the screwdrivers, very occasionally the pliers. I never used the blades, though. I honestly don't know when I'd want a knife. Certainly not for a daily carry.
Note there's more than a cube. As someone with two ADHD boys and myself with ADHD there's lots of options and they're almost all cheap just find what works for you
Two "gadgets" that I'm never without. My Leatherman multitool and my RovyVon Aurora flashlight. The multitool with locking blades is like carrying a toolbox on your hip. And that flashlight - it's 2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide, but it can kick out a beam that lights up things 1000 feet away. Or provide enough light to read by for 40 hours. Yeah, I can use the smartphone's flash, but it isn't bright enough to show me if the two eyes reflecting back at me belong to a dog or a bear. That's important where I live.
My QNAP NAS drive. As well as storing all my media I also have various containers running all sorts... My Home Assistant instance, MQTT broker, ESPHome, zigbee2mqtt, Frigate, and Emby to name a few. It does so much for something so small and cheap to run.
An Ice Cream Maker. Been making my own Ice Cream for years now and its amazing. The cheap machines which requires you to freeze the bowl is nice, but the one with a heat pump built in is amazing. In 3 hours I can make batches of Mint, Chocolate and Vanilla Ice Cream.
I bought a cheap plumbers torch a little over two years ago and it's been the most useful thing I've purchased.
Lights my wood stove quickly and without hassle, lights my offset smoker, lights my firepit and any other fires quickly and effortlessly. It's such a small thing but makes a huge difference in everyday life for me and my family. 4th of July is better without needing to constantly click a lighter that may or may not blow out from a gust of wind.
Years ago I got one of those iRig guitar input jacks for my iPhone. Having a wealth of tones and a basic DAW available to me for the first time really did a lot to help me expand my playing ability.
Honestly? I find a lot of things a smartphone CAN do aren't as convenient as they should be.
Like the stopwatch function is buried inside the clock app. So you can't open it quickly. And on top of that, instead of a tactile button you can rest your finger on and hit at a moments notice, the button on the phone is a touch sensitive area on a glass pane. It's just not as optimal as a dedicated digital stopwatch.
Not sure for iOS, but on Android you can put the stopwatch widget on your home screen if you use it a lot, makes it easier to reach. Not as easy as a dedicated stopwatch, but an option if you don't want one but use the feature a lot.
Takes time to reach the app. Takes one second to press one button on the stopwatch.
And I rather reserve the phone's battery for something else than for this purpose.
I am by no means gadget shaming, don't get me wrong. It's just I do all you mentioned there with a stopwatch on my phone, and personally I would never consider buying a dedicated stopwatch for this purpose. I'm happy you're enjoying yours though, may it last you long!
Agree. I think that about watches too. Beyond a fashion accessory, I can't find them useful. I've had good watches, cheap watches, digital and automatic. Not only do they feel weird on my skin, my phone can do the job better.
I got it as a present rather than buying it myself but my tire pressure / tread depth measuring tool gets near constant use so itβs super easy to check on my carβs tires when I need to
Wireless lapel mic for iPhone. It was either $14 or $24 and now Iβm making a bunch of videos and having fun doing it. Consistently getting voiceover audio quality that is significantly better than Iβd expect out of a cheap microphone.
I have two items I bought for my upcoming Aviation Maintenance training this December. A usb rechargeable flashlight and a 17-in-1 multitool, both which will come in mighty handy these next few years
@Fumbles Bose Quiet Comfort 35 headphones. Though I suspect the noise cancellation doesn't work as well as it did when I bought it. Also it's been several years, I wonder if they make new ones like they used to.
On that theme: MegaBoom 3 (without Alexa etc) speaker. Awesome bass and volume for a portable, waterproof. Great for bike parties and frankly a shower radio.
If you asked me 10 years ago I'd probably not expect to love any Bluetooth devices.
Fuck Bezos, but this fidget spinner with a tiny built in knife. It's actually pretty durable and I've used both sides a lot. It's also a great fidget spinner for me since I clip my keys to my waist.
A small fan with usb port for 10-20cad. I used to get hot in the summer, so I bought a fan, soon after I started using it at night while I was sleeping, and it worked perfect. Point it to my bed, set it to speed 2 and sleep.
A bidet πͺ even a cheap one is nice.
After using a dedicated bidet for the first time, I was an instant convert! But the after market ones installed in existing toilets just aren't the same. If I ever get the chance, I'll be adding one to any house I own!
You mean those handheld bidets like a tiny shower head on a flexible hose? I actually much prefer those over the ones mounted inside the toilet bowl. I can aim them wherever I want, and I find it handy for all kinds of non-bidet things - you can hose things down in the tub or sink next to the toilet, for example, or use it to clean the toilet bowl itself.
I mean the stand alone ones built in beside the toilet.
Something like this
Ahh, yeah, I don't like the notion of those. Never tried one but just conceptually it seems limited.
The kind I've got is just this, it's super easy to attach to an existing toilet and is quite handy.
I'm Italian and I must support @FaceDeer 's point, these are standard in my country (and they should be standard everywhere, damn barbarians) and they are definitely better than a spray nozzle attached to a toilet. You can also use them for other things, like washing your feet.
So you have a dirty crack, you got to get up, and waddle through the bathroom with pants on your ankles?
Yeah, I'm wondering about that. I'm a filthy TP barbarian but, how exactly does one make this style of bidet work?
I think there's confusion about which versions of bidet we're talking about. The kind I'm lauding, the ones like a little shower head, are attached to the toilet you're on. You don't need to go anywhere to use them, just reach over and take it from its holder.
How do you guys use that? I'm guessing you live somewhere where it's warm? That would be spraying ice cold water up my bum over here.
The opposite, actually - I'm Canadian. :)
All I can say is that if you've never tried a bidet before you'll likely be very surprised by how little sensitivity you've got to cold water down there. It's simply not uncomfortable or even particularly noticeable, either in my experience or in anyone I've talked to about it (which is admittedly not many - it's not a common topic of conversation).
The hand bidet was super cheap and the shipping was free, so I figured "why not give it a whirl?" And it worked out great.
How do you make it work though? You slip a hand behind you and aim at the crack at an angle so it sprays into the bowl?
ill second that, i thought it would be a problem but decided to just endure the cold because i didnt feel like running power over to the toilet but turned out not to be a problem at all. if anything its sort of refreshing lol
Warning. Purchasing a bidet will ruin travel because you don't feel clean the entire trip
I recently started carrying one of these in my travel kit. Absolutely recommended for just that reason.
https://culoclean.com/
As someone who speaks Spanish
choking on my White Russian
Same here my friend! They nailed the name.
It literally saves so much water. π§
How? Aren't you using more water than normal dry wiping, which uses none?
It takes a lot of water and energy to make toilet paper. Well, a lot more than turning on my bidet for 10 seconds.
I would also add on that, unless you REALLY rocked that toilet, every poo becomes a single flush. Rather than potentially needing to double flush to avoid clogging it
While you're shopping for a bidet also shop for an Australian toilet. The half flush saves a lot more water too but the proper s-bend makes everything a single flush even if you rocked it hard.
and by rocked it I mean you filled it with mercury for some reason
One of those is a bathroom remodel and the other is twenty minutes with a wrench in a rental
What's this now? There are a number of US toilets that have the dual flush feature, but what's this about a modified S bend?
Literally no other countries have problems with toilets clogging. It's not a modified S, it's a normal one
That's my secret, I've got a 50 year old toilet with a five gallon tank. There's nothing this bad boy can't take down.
https://youtu.be/DGyaFzRciMA?si=AAOU8yHrWBnT0ti4
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Ahh, that's an interesting angle I hadn't considered. I wonder if there's a way to quantify the water savings this way, like a volume of water per TP roll or something. I feel like that could be a solid selling point to get more people interested in buying one.
I was curious a while ago and researched a little. Bidets are the environmental champ for butt cleaning.
Ten seconds? I think Mother Nature can understand if you wanna live it up a little bit more you know?
I spray my ass with the force of a thousand tsunamisβ10 seconds is more than enough.
Hahaha well then what better experience can you have with an ebb and flow like that? That's beyond living it up, and more like riding the storm π
What i mean is that you can save a lot of water by cleaning yourself using a bidet + bath sink instead of doing a full shower. π°
You don't need to shower every day. πΏ
You don't need a shower everyday just because your ass gets dirty. You need to shower everyday because the rest of you is dirty too lol
To add: not everyone needs to shower daily, either. I don't have a physical job, I shower maybe twice a week. More than enough for me. Also use Aleppo soaps, because they keep you clean longer. High oil percentage.
There are very few people in this world in my opinion who shouldn't be showering daily or at least every other day.
I can spend all day doing nothing and still reek at the end of the day. I'm sorry but you sound gross. Ain't no high quality shampoo. Keeping the stink off you that long.
Sounds like you don't have enough experience with talking to people about hygiene? I know many people who don't shower daily and are perfectly hygienic and not smelly at all, me included, and my wife. Kids definitely usually don't need to bathe daily either. Sometimes weekly is enough. Especially infants shouldn't rinse too much, else they develop skin problems.
If you spend all day doing nothing and reek?? Sounds like a you problem. Probably genetic.
Research Aleppo soaps. Might actually help you!
Good luck, stinky! β€οΈπ
Came to say bidet. I have the poor man version .. 25 at Amazon. I suffer Everytime I have to go back to only tp when not at home. I feel like a savage caveman without one. Smearing poop is just nasty and uncivilized to me. I have used the fancy ones in Japan but really did not like the warm water. I prefer the shocking cold glaciar feeling of butt refreshes. To anyone reading this...get a bidet, ANY KIND... Try cleaning up peanutbutter from your arm with just paper to experience what we talking about .
Cold water tho
Gotta get a heated one
I find the cold water refreshing. That said, I've never tried a heated one.
If it counts, definitely the Steam Deck. With that and emulators, it's like having almost every game I've ever owned in one portable machine.
In a similar vein, I love my ps vita. Hacked, it's an absolutely amazing console, and is able to boast the "actually fits in my pocket" award.
Similar here: Anbernic RG280V. Fits in a pocket. Plays everything up through PSX. I use it all the time!
Such a cool console. Sony butchered it, but theres still so much fun to be had with it. We got a GTA san andreas port by the community ffs
Sony wishing they didn't make the vita is a double edged sword, because it also means you can be a completely obvious hacker, and Sony doesn't give a singular fuck. And they still ban people for hacking on ps3, so it isn't just age.
Yeah i have a modded psvita, scene is suprsingly active. You got ensΕ?
I have whatever I set up with when I hacked it tbh. I don't really do much beyond transfer games onto it at this point
Have had mine for 10 years and it still going. The screen edges are a bit yellow but not a big deal.
I just got one so reading this makes me hopeful. Fallen out of love with gaming a bit in recent years
Check out βDave the diverβ. Iβve fallen out of love with gaming as well and Iβve been dropping a lot of hours into this game on my steam deck. Super unique and easy to pick up and put down. Feels fresh.
Will do sir
If you like platformers Bzzt just came out and would definitely run on the deck. For roguelikes I'd recommend Darkest Dungeon, Hades, or Rogue Legacy. For a straightforward RPG with 3D models but pixel art I'd recommend Octopath Traveller 2.
I also recommend Dave the Diver as well, fantastic game.
Also just ordered mine. Since I started working fulltime remote a year ago, I found myself not wanting to spend more time on my desk after work. That translated into me almost giving up gaming even though I used to love it. Moving to a place where I can have a second desk would cost me one Steam Deck per month so I just went with a Steam Deck lol
I got one recently too, and itβs already helping me with this. I hope you find joy in it :). I never buy myself anything so I was worried Iβd regret itβ¦ but I really like it so far.
Omg same, but it's been a rough year so this is my Christmas gift to myself I guess. Also glad to hear it's helping you :)
Itβs been great for getting to games Iβm not sure I would have otherwise. Ori and the Blind Forest was the perfect game to play through on it!
I hope you have a better rest of the year and beyond. This year stank a bit for me too, but thereβs been some good things as well.
I got a retroid pocket 3+ for emulators and it's fuckin awesome. I feel like a steam deck may be in my near future lol
Almost all my gaming is on my SD now. Love this thing.
Along these lines, iβm thrilled with the ps portal as well. was only $200, but the ps online streaming is so good. i used to use it on ps4 on my ipad with an external controller from 1200 miles away at legit decent frame rate and latency.
ps portalβs display is crisp and beautiful, it looks so much more gorgeous than the steam deck (because all the rendering is done on the ps5), and there are some games that i donβt even really want to play on the big screen format that the portal has made awesome because theyβre wonderful on handheld format.
best gaming purchase iβve made in a long while
I came here to type that, so I'll just upvote yours instead. Such a versatile device, the Steam Deck!
Bitchin'
Now that is a B1tchinβ cane.
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Bitchin'.
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Iβve been struggling with gout in my knee and ankle off and on. When it gets bad Iβm almost immobile and I broke down and finally bought a cane to help me hobble around when itβs at its worst.
Mine also came from Ukraine and like you I wanted something with personality. I got an oak, ball top style stained cherry and I love it!
I got one made of holly, with a phoenix feather core. It's very nice and supple.
did you pick it or did it pick you?
Physical Therapy! Do the exercises/stretches. If you need to go back and ask a doctor for another round, do it. I get it though.
Sometimes KT tape can do wonders, but it really really depends. Personally, the best was with knees and arms. I wear a different kind of brace for my ankle, a Trilok, but there are apparently a whole bunch of similar ones now.
Other times you just suffer in silence...
Dude do it. I dealt with chronic pain for way too long and just accepted it as hopeless. I had tried stretches and exercises on my own with no luck so I wrote physical therapy off as pointless.
Eventually I gave in and 6 weeks in to physical therapy my pain is like 80% gone. I started noticing improvements after a week.
Probably it doesn't quite count as a gadget, but repurposing my old PC as a home server. Firstly it makes a great mass storage solution making all my media accessible from any device, no matter what architecture it is and what apps it can run. I also self-host Home Assistant, Syncthing, Radicale, Navidrome, Jellyfin and UrBackup. The ten years old 2 core Pentium with 8GB of RAM can do it all, it's much cheaper to run than half a dozen subscription services and I have total control over my data and privacy.
wow that's amazing. so it's connected to all other PCs in the house? did you have to buy a lot of new storage?
I actually bought just one new 6TB HDD and repurposed an older 3TB one as a redundancy drive for mirroring most critical data using a simple rsync cron job (no need for realtime mirroring of media files that are write-once), plus another old 1 TB drive just because. I haven't run out of storage yet and I have automated download/sharing for OpenStreetMap and some Linux distros which takes up half a TB or so, but I plan on expanding the array using MergerFS and SnapRAID when the need arises.
The rest is just SMB shares, Navidrome, Jellyfin, DLNA and FTP. Remote access from outside my local network is done via Tailscale VPN.
What benefits do you see in navidrome compared to having your music in Jellyfin? I'm just starting out with jellyfin and added some music to it. I listen to it with findroid on my phone and so far it seems to work okay.
Navidrome just seems to be faster and more responsive. But the main reason of using both is that I just like to try things out and tinker. I also use Foobar2000, Kodi, MPC-HD, AIMP and other media players.
If you don't mind, which processor do you have? I've been thinking of setting up a Jellyfin server too, but I have a G4500 and I've always been worried that it can't handle the load...
Mine is the venerable G3258βthe budget overclocking champ in the 4th generation Core family. Runs at 4,4 GHz and handles OpenMediaVault and 19 Docker containers just fine. I think G4500 would be fine, too.
True, the old server parts are dirt cheap if you can source them (theyr'e not really available in my country and importing from China, UK or US would more than double the cost). But they're also quite power hungry and energy cost has gone up crazy over the past few years. My current setup consumes around 127 W total (overclocked CPU, 3 HDD-s) and it costs me around 20β¬/month or half my energy bill (small one bedroom apartment with full LED lighting). If I upgrade it'll probably be cheap current PC hardware which tends to be much more power efficient.
My dream setup is a 16 core ARM CPU with something like 64...128 GB of LPDDRπ«
As I understand it, media streaming isn't actually that taxing because your server doesn't actually have to render all of that data, just transfer it; so as long as it can handle a copy operation faster than one second per second, and you're only watching from one device at a time, it'll still work.
I haven't done it, though, so I'm not sure how much overhead Plex/Jellyfin add by way of transcoding.
I bought a cheap low power minipc. Don't know the numbers but having a 10yo desktop powered 27/7 can't be that great for your power consumption.
The one I bought is an Intel Alder Lake N100 Quad Core up to 3.4GHZ, 16GB DDR5 512GB for β¬160.
I recently picked up a 13 year old dell inspiron to run my instance of home assistant and Plex. It was an upgrade from a shitty old Linux laptop that was literally falling apart. All I had to do was add ram (it only had 6gb and it wasnβt stable, so I maxed it out with 16gb) and I swapped the old slow HDD for a crucial SATA SSD and itβs been perfect. It probably pulls more wattage than necessary but itβs exactly what I need for now.
What benefits do you see in navidrome compared to having your music in Jellyfin? I'm just starting out with jellyfin and added some music to it. I listen to it with findroid on my phone and so far it seems to work okay.
I'm not the guy you replied to.
I originally stored my music in Plex and used Plexamp. I have a large playlist downloaded from youtube which caused horrible performance issues in Plexamp. Navidrome is pretty much a read-only service. It can only read metadata from the files, not add any or manage them. For me this feels safer to expose to the internet since my docker container only has read-only access to all of my files. Even if someone broke into the service for some reason, they couldn't do anything to my files.
I don't know if jellyfin has similar performance issues with large playlists since I already had navidrome set up by then.
Thanks! I don't have too much music on it yet, I guess, so not sure on the performance. I do like that read only approach, though. Currently I'm running just the regular jellyfin app on my Mac. What made you use it in docker? It sounds like in Linux it's a safeguard to prevent dependency issues but I don't think that's really a factor on mac
Mostly ease of management. I have a server on which I run multiple applications. If I don't need something anymore, I can just purge the container. The directories used by that container are clearly listed in my docker-compose file so I never have to wonder whether I purged everything that is now unnecessary.
It also makes it very easy to deploy a new service.
Bidet for sure. A good one in the $300-400 range. It is such a gamechanger to always have a clean ass. And without TP, the toilet never clogs and you aren't spending extra on TP. Also helps with hemorrhoids if/when you get those, as TP is really rough on your asshole/not good for you.
I still have some TP for guests, but with the dryer built in, it really isn't needed.
Also, a bidet is a lifesaver if you like extreme hotsauces. Basically, it's the only piece of daily furniture that makes me go "God, I'm so glad I bought this" for literal years since I got it in the pandemic. No cold toilet seat during winter. Heated seat that doesn't slam. Hot water. Hot air blow dryer. Self-cleaning.
Came to say bidet, but I have the poor man version .. 25 at Amazon. I suffer Everytime I have to go back to only tp when not at home. I feel like a savage caveman without one. Smearing poop is just nasty and uncivilized to me. I have used the fancy ones in Japan but really did not like the warm water. I prefer the shocking cold glaciar feeling of butt refreshes. To anyone reading this...get a bidet, ANY KIND... Try cleaning up peanutbutter from your arm with just paper to experience what we talking about .
Well, you can spend 300-400 or you can buy a "portable bidet bottle" and clean your asshole with warm water. You'll still need to use some toilet paper (or maybe a towel) to dry, but you'll be spending $15 more or less and you can carry it with you when you travel.
Have you ever used one of these? I thought about getting one for backpacking trips; TP becomes a major consideration on those, and - frankly - I often have all the time in the world to wait, and airdry, and enjoy the view. At least, on summer trips. But I've wondered how well they work in practice.
i have a backpacking bidet (culo clean specifically) and I would say it gives mixed results. basically, you need to practice and develop a technique to "get the most" out of it in terms of water usage, how clean you can get, etc. I don't have a normal bidet so i have nothing to compare it with and maybe my technique isnt so good. mine gets me mostly clean but i still need a square of toilet paper to make sure in almost every case. better than not having it, but not the results I was hoping for.
I've been using a 0.5L one for years now. Usually it's enough, but there are times that when I dry (with toilet paper) I see that I need a little more cleaning and then I either finish with the paper or refill the bottle and try again.
How well do they self-clean? How often do you need to clean it manually?
I've cleaned it twice just to feel good about it, but it's been sparkling aside from some hard water deposits, which came off pretty easily. It always runs water over it after use, and the nozzle angle is so steep, it doesn't get poo on it. I have a toto one. (I've had mine since about mid 2021)
I still clean the toilet seat and the underside of the seat though, which can get a bit of pee on it if you're a guy. I'm a bit of a clean freak too, so when I say clean, I mean clean, lol.
A countertop water boiler. It turns out I go through just about 4L of tea a day and now I spend a lot less time boiling water. And when you refill it and it comes to temperature it plays Fur Elise
edit: typo
You mean a kettle? How did you not already have one?
Very uncommon in the US at least.
They're a little different. Kettles are small (1-2 liters) will heat water until it's boiling and then shut off(or have the user disconnect the heat source)
Water boilers hold a larger amount of water (3-5 liters) at a consistent temperature with a button to dispense it.
I upgraded from a kettle to a zojirushi water boiler and I've never looked back. The thing is incredible. Absolutely worth the price.
Oh! Ok, you've sold me! :)
It also keeps the water still hot because they're insulated.
It's because the USA power standards are not suitable for kettle life. The 110 voltage on their power means it takes ages to come to the boil. The idea of putting a few cups of water into a kettle, pushing a button and having boiling water inside a minute does not exist.
That's why these tabletop things are useful: yes they take ages to initially boil, then they maintain that temperature. 110 volts is fine for that task.
There are 240v outlets in the USA, but they're usually only used for things with heavy power draw (clothes dryers, EV chargers, electric hot water heaters, etc). Some areas have 208v instead of 240v though.
But yeah, boiling water is slow in the USA and a lot of people do it in the microwave (whereas I never saw anyone ever do that in Australia). We've got a Breville espresso machine that has instant hot water, which is useful for some of the use cases we'd use a kettle for.
We use our breville for hot water too
This is kinda true and kinda not. Even on 110, an electric kettle is faster than a kettle on a gas stove. The real answer is that Americans just don't drink much tea. My family is unusual in that regard.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
This is kinda true and kinda not
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
This video also proves my point. And he knows it. Nearly 5 minutes to boil a litre of water? That's hilarious!
I just replicated his experiment, with an identical bottle of water in my kettle, and was surprised that it took 2:47 to boil. I honestly would have thought it quicker than that.
This isn't about tea, either. In fact, I boil the kettle for coffee far more frequently than for tea. I would also boil a kettle to quickly get 2L of water for cooking pasta. But since I've just boiled it and it's 10:30pm, I make peppermint tea. Ahhh.
Did you miss the part about how it's still the fastest way to boil water? Yes yes, it's slower than yours, we're all jealous. Even still, we would all have electric kettles if we needed to boil water all that often because it's faster than anything else we have. But:
Nobody would buy a kettle for just cooking even if we did have more power delivery, simply because you don't cook anything by boiling all that often. Case in point: my family drinks tea, and so we own a kettle, but tea is really the only time we boil water (in the kettle or otherwise) for anything on a daily basis.
No, these devices hold water at the appropriate temperature for long periods of time using extremely good insulation. They provide hot water on-demand after reaching temperature and are used in a way that is somewhat different from kettles.
No, I mean the things I linked to. They're like small countertop hot water tanks. I also do have multiple kettles.
In the US most do not own a kettle
What? Iβm American and everyone I know owns one.
While that is true in this case, I do remember a post about one of their rice cookers that bricks itself when the CR battery dies, that requires a soldering iron to replace.
Found it
Edit: ok not a total brick but stillβ¦
+rep for Zojirushi. My water boiler lid recently began chipping and pretty much disintigrating and on their website I saw they even have replacement parts for discontinued products. Very cool of them
Example: https://www.zojirushi.com/app/spare_parts/item/8-CDQ-P010
fur elise? fleur de lis is the β
Yes, thank you
would a raspberry pi count? i've been self-hosting a nextcloud instance and my RSS feed for a while now and i've really been enjoying it
Arduino in the same vein. There's a great "30 Days Lost in Space" tutorial set, but even to play around with by yourself for cheap, you can get an off brand (the hardware is open source!) Arduino Mega for 20 bucks. All sorts of cool programming and electronics fun.
Ditto on the Arduino. I built a pickup winder for electric guitar, and it's more than made up for its price in entertainment alone.
Heck yes. I never want to use the internet anywhere but my house because my husband installed a Pihole and itβs the best thing evaaaar.
AdGuard Home is better since it supports DNS over HTTPS, which prevents your internet provider from seeing and intercepting your DNS queries (which they can do even if you use a third-party DNS service like Google or Cloudflare). You can get DoH working on PiHole but it's a lot of manual work.
It's pretty easy to put unbound on with pihole.
It's even easier with AdGuard Home though, since it uses DoH via Quad9 out-of-the-box. People usually use solutions like PiHole and AdGuard Home because they don't want to mess with it at the command-line, just via the web UI.
I have a whole stack of RasPis doing all kinds of things, from Home Assistant powered smart home management to 3D printer control thanks to Klipper.
Steam Deck. Without question. I don't think I would have been able to cope with the last year and a half of my life without it. This year has been very rough and I have been able to escape life while still spending time with my family. Top-tier psychological maintenance for me.
Same. Long Covid has me tied to my bed and with the Steam Deck I can at least get some gaming to pass the time. It's awesome!
This one seems silly, but one really useful cheap thing I bought that I use much more than I thought I would is an electric kettle. (I should point out I'm in the US) I use it to make iced tea, my wife uses it for hot tea, and we both use it for boiling water for whatever cooking project needs it. We have a gas stove, and it takes about twice as long to heat up a liter of water as this kettle. It uses a normal US 120v outlet and I think it draws 1,000w. (Edit: I looked it up and it's 1,100 watts)
A good pair of headphones and a decent amp and dac to power them. It's like discovering music all over again.
My personal recs: Modhouse Argon Mk3, Hifiman Sundara, Sennheiser hd6xx
Any recommendations for amp and DACs?
I got a Topping E30/L30 stack but you can't go wrong with a JDS Labs Atom stack or a Schiit Magni
I use the older version of this Xduoo XD05 if I'm going "mobile".
Apple USB C dongle + Schiit Heresy is my combo, I love it
A home server. Originally a Dell R710, now a custom built desktop.
If I can possibly self host something now I will do that over using big tech proprietary services. I feel free.
Same. I'm almost completely off the cloud at this point and I love it.
Just don't forget backups! I use Borgbackup for mine.
I know some people don't want a home server because of the space it'd take up, but you can get pretty powerful mini PCs these days (look for ones with an i3-N305 processor) or buy cheap second-hand ex-office PCs on eBay.
For people that still don't want to have a physical server at their house, you can do a lot of the same self-hosting stuff using a VPS. If you live in an area with expensive electricity (like California or Australia), you can usually get a VPS with a modern processor, ~8GB RAM, and a decent amount of NVMe disk space for $5/month or less, which is easily what it'd cost you just for the electricity usage of a home server.
Can you recommend a good VPS service? I've been meaning to get a Synology, but it's out of my budget for now.
I like GreenCloudVPS, and they've got a "budget" line that's very reasonably priced: https://greencloudvps.com/billing/store/budget-kvm-sale. They're currently running a promotion where if you pay for three years in advance, you get double the RAM. I think they're sold out of their cheapest one ($15/year) at the moment though.
RackNerd is good too. https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/182479/official-b-l-a-c-k-f-r-i-d-a-y-thread-community-endorsed-take-a-peek-racknerds-black-friday/
A lot of hosts had good Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales recently so it's probably worth browsing LowEndTalk and seeing if any deals are still active.
How do you access it away from home. I'm able to access my NAS since Synology gives us a domain to use and we do everything using port forwarding. I would assume that if you set everything up by yourself, you would need to get your own domain and ssl certificates and everything?
I have a domain name on cloudflare DNS, Let's Encrypt certificates that auto renew and an Nginx reverse proxy pointing at the services I host. Port forwarding through the opnsense router for https.
It's been a journey setting it up, but its basically been unchanged for about 5 years now and works well. If I need to I can VPN in too.
I setup my own VPN using this on a raspberry pi. Using the ikev2. I like DietPi for the OS.
https://github.com/hwdsl2/setup-ipsec-vpn/tree/master
Last time I needed new headphones for going out, I bought a Shockz bone conducting headphone.
While the specific one I bought was the wrong choice (the Run I got is slick but needs a proprietary charging cable instead of the USB-C the Move uses, and they sound 100% the same), overall the concept is really good. I enjoy hearing people around me, for someone who more listens to podcasts and radio shows not music the quality is perfect, and I can wear these on my bicycle without having to worry I won't hear something.
Also, since they don't sit in the ear not enclose it it's easy to semi-forget them there as they're so comfortable, no stuffed feeling or sweaty ears. I sometimes just use them at home instead of shifting a podcast onto the sonos speakers. Just easier.
Yes. I love mine. I originally got some bone-conduction headphones to use at my job because I work in a high noise environment and they still work while you're wearing earplugs, but I use them pretty much constantly now. It's really nice to have my music or podcasts and still be able to hear when someone asks me a question, or to be able to hear traffic coming if I'm out walking or jogging.
I've had a couple pairs of them now and weirdly bone-conduction headphones seem to be the one electronic device that under promises on its battery life. I don't know if maybe I just got lucky, but the cheap no name set I got off Amazon promised 5 hours, but even after a year still regularly lasts 8 or 9. My Shokz Open Run Pros promise 10 hours, and I routinely get 15 or 16 hours. So that's nice.
Out of curiosity: did you ever test noise cancelling headsets in that high noise environment? Iβd think that in-ear and over-ear nc headphones should work quite well too.
No, because active noise cancellation doesn't offer any hearing protection. It doesn't make the noise go away, it works by sending out an extra soundwave which is a mirror inversion of noise to be cancelled, sends out peaks where there were troughs and troughs where there were peaks, and they cancel each other out as far as your brain is concerned. But to work the destructive soundwave has to be as loud as the sound it's cancelling, and now you have two sound waves blasting away, still moving air and putting pressure on your eardrums, and it's that pressure causes the damage to your hearing.
Proper PPE has a passive barrier that physically blocks the bulk of the vibration from reaching your eardrums in the first place. Active noise cancellation does kind of the opposite of that.
I've heard of these for a while and general question for you and anyone else who's looked. What are the red flags? Nothing comes without risks and years of research has shown the hearing damage from traditional headphones. There has to be a rub with these. What are the negative rumblings of using these style of headphones. They have to be there. We just don't have the decades of research yet.
If I now say that your premise is wrong (headphones don't cause hearing loss, loud noises do, independent of the source), does that automatically answer your question? π
Now to dig a bit deeper into that, there is a lot of research into MIHL from using PLDs, and the key thing is always people turning up the volume higher than they normally would, usually due to the context of where they are. That is, we use our little headphones in noisy environments, and to drown out the noise we turn them up too much and start damaging our ears over time.
In that regard, bone conduction headsets are worse. They are intentionally fully open, and don't in the slightest bit try to reduce ambient noise. That is, if anything you'd be tempted to crank them up even higher.
I will however say that the models I've used all came with an interesting "safety" in this regard that stems from the way they work: At a certain and not that loud noise level, they start vibrating physicially off the skin during playback, in turn plateauing the achievable volume. I suspect however that this level is already beyond healthy.
So, in other words:
If you're concerned about hearing loss, keep the volume in sane reaches. If you also need to ignore outside noise while listening, this means getting enclosing and/or noise-cancelling headphones, not open ones like bone conducting. However, if keeping the volume low, say during listening at home, bone conduction is no different from other forms of receiving audio, both still stimulate the hearing canal hairs.
Agreed 100%.
Before I got my noise cancelling headphones, I was very aware of the volume that I have set when trying to watch a movie in a plane. After I got the noise cancelling headphones, I no longer have to set it that loud anymore.
That said, some airlines need to relook their volumes of their PA system. Some of them are shockingly louder than necessary. Lol
Yeah, I love my ANC earbuds. In pass-through mode, I can hear ambient sounds almost better than I can without them, especially on a bike where I can tune them to blank wind noise but allow voices and bells. And you're right about not needing high volume to hear music well. They have great sound quality, and the ANC is indispensible on airplanes.
The downside is cost; GP's bone-conducting headset is $90, and the other pair they mention is $60. A good pair of ANC earbuds starts around $200, and some of the better pairs are upwards of $300.
Worth the money, IMO, but if $60 is all you can afford, GP's might be the better bet than super sketchy-quality cheap ANC earbuds.
What's the frequency response like on those? Can you hear low-end bass in a way that sounds good?
Robot vacuum. Autistic and ADHD and could never keep on top of keeping my floor clean. But I can now!
Been looking at these for a while but I can't seem to decide on one, any suggestions?
These free up so much time. Love mine too. I cook a lot and mess around a lot in the open kitchen/living room area and had to sweep the floor daily..not anymore.
Y'all this sound crazy, but the Bug A Salt is fucking awesome.
It's worth it if you can get a black Friday deal or something under 30$ because it's just a little salt when you shoot it and there's no guts on your wall, no dirty fly swatter, no chasing, no jumping, no reaching, and you feel like a sniper hitman.
Its not a toy. That shit hurts when you get hit lol
Flipper Zero - I'm not being devious with it. Yet.
Kidding - I bought it since I am a ham and I can find a dozen uses for it in the field.
It'd probably be worth it just to turn off the TV's that blare ads at you at train stations and such if it can do that.
they had TV b gone years ago. I'd wager it is still around or has many improved copy cats.
I hear the modded firmware takes all the restrictions off, and you can broadcast in a greater range, for car remotes, as well as read more from RFID, like credit cards. Not that I would know of course
I'd have a ham sandwich
Any idea if they ever go on sale? $175 seems a bit much for what it is.
Ham here too, what practical uses have you found? Mine is sitting in a box, I got it almost a year ago and haven't checked the latest firmware or apps in almost that long.
Cordless vacuum was a costly one but certainly made that chore a lot more easy and kinda fun. I planned to store it in a closet but I'd take it out every few days so eventually I started leaving it on the floor, it's not in the way there either.
3D printer. At any moment in time I could just print something out and it would be ready by the time I finish eating. The possibilities are endless, plenty of free models online or just learn how to design yourself.
Edit: I currently use an Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro
Mobile telephone. Does all kinds of fancy stuff, it's even got a torch!
Bone conducting ear phones, I have tiny narrow ear canals and can't get any type of ear bud to go in my ears, the bone conductors are a revelation for listening to audio books, radio and music when I'm out and about
Refillable Salt and Pepper-Mills. I can "feel" now how much Salt or Peper I add to something.
InstaPot. It makes a lot of things so much easier to cook. Rice, lentils, potatoes, eggs... I use it mostly for that. No need to stand there stirring, looking at the clock. Fire and forget and always perfectly cooked.
I love mine, if for nothing more than making my porridge on a timer so it's ready for when I get up in the morning
Totally
Modern induction hobs usually have built-in timers and boil sensing, which is nice. No need for an extra appliance.
I don't think is the same. I've used pressure cooker with induction plate and it's just not as easy and precise as instapot
Ah okay, my mistake. Maybe I misunderstood what an Instapot actually does, or what kind of product it is. Should've looked it up before commenting.
Its kind of silly, but VR. I like hanging out in vrchat with my internet friends and it makes me feel a lot closer to them. Even when we're just talking and goin to cool worlds.
Not for everyone obviously, but I developed a synthesizer habit some years ago, and right now is probably the best time ever for a beginner to get into it. Korg's Volca series, Roland's Aira compact, teenage engineering's Pocket Operators, Arturia's Microfreak, and Elektron's Model series are all affordable and a great way for a beginner to start making some cool-ass music. Beware developing a habit though. It only stays affordable so long.
A wedding ring. Enlightens my life every day.
My espresso machine. They're expensive. I do not know why they are, but they are. I hemmed and hawed for years about us getting one and finally decided fuck it. Im an adult, I want one, we can afford it.
In 2+ years the only times I have not made myself a cappuccino are when I have not been home to do so. It is one of my most used appliances. Espresso owns.
The cheap (est, I think) fitbit. Dropped a 100lbs and it was a big part of the motivation.
Same.. 35kgs for me.. I've put about 10kg.back.on..but im less active than I used.to be to get the weight off
That's awesome. Yeah, definitely a rollercoaster for me, winter gets harder since walking was/is a big part of my routine. But even 25kg must feel great. I love feeling like I've kept some of the muscle, but lost a beer keg worth of extra weight every time I climb some stairs or carry something heavy.
Have you done solo exercises or with others?
At first, solo, very solo. Like I'd even avoid my wife until I felt comfortable, because at my size (was over 300lbs) certain things were embarrassingly difficult. As I lost some, and more importantly found workouts that worked for me, I started venturing out, now I do a lot of group classes (dance stuff mostly). Even though I'm still often the biggest, I feel a lot better about myself overall so I enjoy it and I've found some very supportive studios with awesome vibes.
If you don't mind, how did the Fitbit motivate you to be more active? I've been considering one for a while but it doesn't seem like something I'd have a lot of utility for
Two ways:
One, it kinda gamified it for me, just having a score, meant I could go for a high score on days when I had the time for lots of steps/exercise. They build some in too, like streaks and hitting goals.
Two, the HR monitor definitely helped me push harder in cardio workouts. Knowing when I hit my max, and when it started dipping made even short workouts feel more effective (even if they weren't, placebo FTW).
Swapped out the head unit on my 2016 car for a touchscreen that supports Android Auto. I got spoiled using a similar one in my friend's rental car. It was only $600 installed at Best Buy. It's so nice not to have to fight with keeping my phone in a display holder where I can see the map, and now I can control my phone-streamed music with my steering wheel controls. Makes driving so much more pleasant.
The Panic Playdate. Itβs just a really nice gaming console that is getting a lot of support from game devs. Itβs one of the very few truly portable handhelds as it can easily fit in a pocket and the battery lasts forever too.
I bought one too andI love mine. I feel like my plants like it too!
Do they really work?
Why wouldn't they? It just measures electrical resistance of the soil, less moisture means more resistance. Nice and simple.
I have cheap one connected to arduino, and small water pump conected to it too. It works nicely.
The soil composition, minerals and nutrients can change the eletrical resistance. Thats what i read somewhere.
I have remote sensors integrated into Home Assistant. As well as a DIY watering solution. My plants get watered even when I'm on a two week vacation in the other part of the world!
A smart switch for my espresso machine so it turns on a timer each morning so it's ready for when I get up, it takes about 25 minutes to fully warm up. Also I can turn it on or off using voice controls, great when I want another coffee later in the day.
Damn, that is a slow espresso machine. Mine takes like 1min.
Also, would that work for devices that need to have the "on" button pressed in order to turn on?
For example: Say I unplug one of my devices, while turned on. If I plug them again in the outlet, they will be turned off and I will have to turn them on again, even though they were on when I unplugged them.
My Bambino was ready in minutes. My Profitec Go takes a while. Very very dependent on the model. I wouldn't go back to the Bambino at all
I use two Zooz Zen15 with both my Moccamaster and Profitec. Been absolutely wonderful.
What don't you like about the Bambino?
It's great! Just ready for an upgrade and I've redone the kitchen recently and I came in under budget so why not? PID for me!
Majority of any e61 espresso machine is like that, pretty much par for the course for anything other than budget non e61 or some of the new high end espresso machines that use some variation of electrically heated groups.
Mine will be "ready" after about 15 minutes but as an e61 group head is a heavy block it takes along time to get good thermal stability. Difference is I can steam and extract shots at the same time with 2bar steam and 9bar espresso, shot after shot.
My espresso machine has a proper on/off switch, so I just leave that set to on and control the power from the smart switch.
It's more about getting the portafilter hot too.
As for the on button, I use a SwitchBot Bot.
They might have a different style. I have one of these, and it definitely takes 20 minutes or so to get up to pressure.
I didn't think about a smart switch, like GP. That's a slick idea. OTOH, I turn the machine on and go do something else for a few minutes - I don't find it an imposition.
I went with the Breville machines mostly cause theyβre fully ready in like 3-30 seconds
They nice machines but I wanted more consistent with its pressure and water flow, better steaming, not made by breville,and made with industry standard components that can last decades.
I canβt speak to lasting decades but, for the price, I am quite happy with the quality of the coffee & steaming.
Iβve had mine for 2 years and zero issues, hoping Iβll get another 5+ out of it
It's a decent machine for the money but compared to its competitors from gaggia and rancilio what they lose in fancy programming or the pid or the easy steaming (which is still way off mine) they gain in actually having an opv (depending which one you have), build quality and self service.
I've seen far too many people have issues with breville stuff and then problems returning it. It's not that good ones don't exist it's just that more reliable does.
To put your seven years into perspective I should be getting 30 to 40 years out of mine with some regular servicing.
Is it a Switch bot?
If so, quick question: Does it need a hub? Or can I just but the switch, install an app for it, then couple it with a home assistant?
The most common ones use WiFi, so you don't need any hubs other than a router.
No, its a smart thing switch as I have the hub, so its z wave. However I have a lot of smart home switches, lights and so on so that makes sense for me. Plenty of options if you do not want a hub now.
The espresso machine has a proper on off button so I just leave it in on position and the switch turns the power on and off
My super automatic espresso machine. Dead simple to use and so much cheaper than operating a keurig. I bought it because Iβm awful at real coffee machines and need to have a single serve option. Being able to use whole beans has made it pay for itself in the 3 years Iβve had it.
I bought a semi professional meat slicer , and a decent dehydrator. Now I make my own beef jerky and saving tons.
Hanklight D4K for $50 was my first portable enthusiast flashlight. I'm currently 4 hanklights deep and they're loads of fun out in the country for spotting wildlife and general use with the open source Anduril 2 firmware (yes, flashlights can get firmware updates).
Link to Hank's Site
Ooh. I have an Olight Arkfeld Pro every day carry flashlight that I love. It's kind of flat and has a good clip for your pocket. Brightest mode is 1300 lumens and also has a blacklight and a 5mw green laser. Built solid as can be and has a lifetime warranty, including the built in battery. Love the thing.
https://www.olightstore.com/arkfeld-pro-flat-edc-flashlight
Hank makes great lights, but I love OLights. I have 3 of those damned Arkfelds - I loved the UV one so much I got the laser version, and then they came out with the tri-function version!
It's such a great light! The UI is fantastic, the battery indicator is pretty, the UV is incredibly bright, and kudos to them for choosing a laser color other than red - green was a good choice. The battery lasts forever, the rectangle form factor is super comfortable to pocket-carry, and (of course) the 5-mode light is bright and clean. Oh, and that tail magnet is a beast! It's the only flashlight I carry, anymore.
That said, I'd give up some of that huge battery to slim it down. The original Arkfelds are OK, but the new tri-function is chonky. Doesn't stop me from carrying it, but it's right on the threshold. I could go for a smaller tri-function; the current battery is IMO overkill.
While I like the magnetic charger, I do wish it had a USB-C charge port. As is, having to travel with an extra bespoke charge cable sucks. It's my only real beef with OLights; contact charging is nice, but I'd trade it for versatility.
The proprietary charger is my only real negative about it. If not for that, I would take a slimmer version, like the old one over the bigger battery, but since I don't have as much access to my proprietary charger like I do with USB c all over the place I'm good with the bigger battery.
Right? If it had a C charging port, it wouldn't need the big battery.
I've been carrying and using the tri-function since it arrived, at the end of October. It's still at 4 bars. I haven't tried to run it down, but it's an absurd amount of battery.
Paramotor
Edit: And you should get a paramotor too so I have someone to talk to about it on Lemmy lol
Unless I'm at home, I'm probably wearing mine! (They get hidden behind my hair, so people don't even know I'm wearing them)
Lemmy needs a community dedicated to pointless debate over which flashlight is best. I'm about to permanently borrow somebody's ThruNite T1 but it's too heavy, I miss the mini Maglite I used to carry. Phone flash is fine, yes, but I miss a flashlight/torch without a fucking login procedure involved for fuck sake.
Honestly?
A fidget cube.
Fidget toys got a bad rep, especially after Fidget Spinners became trendy for the younger generation.
But just having a little thing I can toy around with has been great for my pens and game controllers, as in the before times my grabby hands would fiddle with them whenever I was thinking about shit and it was bad for their durability.
For less than a dollar? (ay, currency exchange rates) Yeah, one of the best things I bought.
I got a mechanical keyboard for Black Friday this year. So much better than scissor switches. I think I got one with a yellow switch. Feels quite cushiony while still having the clickity clack.
A bedside arm for mobile phone. No more uncomfortable phone holding for bedtime youtube session.
Massage gun. I thought they were an over hyped trinket until I tried one. Relaxed a muscle that hadn't relaxed in years.
If you're using it purely to relax muscles, then it is amazing. All the other claims about them seem to be BS though.
A cheap robot vacuum.
My wife was against it, so I bought it in secret, let it run around the house during the day, and she was amazed at all the cleaning I was doing. A few months later, I let her into my dark secret, and now she loves it too.
Speaking of wife, I bought her a hooded blanket with an electric warming bag a few years ago. Within 3-5 minutes it's nice and toasty, and she's used it practically every day since I bought it.
A cheap little projector I got using Amazon vouchers from my birthday. Is it perfect? No. Is it still great for watching movies and sport? Absolutely.
3d printer
Last generation emulation console (A*bernic). All history of video games up to PS1 in my pocket/backpack <3
I'd like to mention a combo:
A Nvidia Shield TV 2019 Pro and a Synology NAS, they really are the perfect combo to sail the seas, or watch legal streams if you want to.
Both gadgets have been used daily since the day they were purchased, and that is a good sign lol.
The Shield TV uses hardware since 2015, and even when some could say it is failing into the enshitification territory due to the usual crappy decisions regarding putting ads in the stock launcher, it is to applaud that Nvidia still supports this thing officially though.
About the NAS, I have a two bay unit (bad decision) but it supports Docker and it has helped me to feel attached to Linux again.
Your usual multimedia selfhosted program that you have running in your overpowered server/rack, you name it, I could probably be using it too in my humble DS218+
If I had to choose only one I'd say the Shield, because along with Smart Tube Next already is 80% of my total usage lol (plus I had my NAS turned off for months because a recent fuck up, and I didn't have a PC to check it out, which is kinda solved now).
I'd have more if I had the cash ngl.
I've bought 2/3 of mine on Facebook marketplace for super cheap.
That is great, I'd consider it.
Well, I never felt so disappointed to not be a US citizen.
I started out with a DS220+ and soon bought a 4 bay DS920+ for my media center with the 220+ on backup (as in system backup) duty π
Yeah, this seems like the logical path to me, although, at this point I ask myself, why not a 5 or 6 bay unit better? π
Iβm on board with this. I did something similar putting a Synology 920+ and an Asus NUC style machine running Ubuntu in place of my old OptiPlex and WD MyCloud setup.
Iβm now the primary content provider for a bunch of my family!
It is truly amazing how you can put a decent multimedia provider with minimal hardware, heck, my two units act as a PMS each, and it serves well enough my usage, my girlfriend and the one user that actually uses it remotely lol.
For sure! The only reason I upgraded is because the OptiPlex costs a lot to run in terms of electricity.
For stuff I pretty much run 24/7 I really wanted better power efficiency.
You can run Plex on a Raspberry Pi if you disable transcoding!
Yeah I know, but sooner or later you'd need transcoding, especially if you share your server :/
You don't really need a NAS if you get a Real Debrid account plus an app that supports it, like Weyd, Syncler, or Stremio + Torrentio. You can run a Plex server directly on the Shield, too.
Only for content that you're legally allowed to watch, of course. Nobody would ever pirate content over the internet!
This was Google's decision, not Nvidia's. It's in the base OS and Nvidia have no control over it. I replaced the stock launcher with flauncher which is basic and lightweight - just what I wanted. I used "Method 2: disable the default launcher" from the flauncher Readme to disable the default launcher and it worked well on both of my Shields.
Yeah for sure, and that has actually helped me to offload a lot of storage of my NAS as well, but RD can fail, and it is good to have something offline too.
I understand, I actually decided to just rollback the launcher to the old stock UI, it works pretty well to me.
I didn't even realise that was possible! How do you do it?
I'd start with deleting updates of your launcher, that way you'll have it in its original state, then deactivate automatic updates.
I downgraded to 8.2.3 just to be extra safe it won't change back because of the server side update thingy... Plus seeking for a better performance/less clunkiness.
I've been using a low power embedded-cpu server for proxmox+homeassistant+openmediavault+*arr stack, but I've recently built a new one with my desktop's Ryzen 3600 CPU, 'cause I wanted to use Jellyfin. It's gone from 35 to 60 W/h, but it's got more drives, so I think the power consumption can be good with a more powerful server.
Whirly-Pop popcorn pot. Perfect unburnt popcorn every time.
A spring assisted, liner lock, pocket clipped, flipper knife.
It is really useful to have a sharp blade in your hand less than one second after you think you need it.
Even a small knife is handy. Multitools are fine, but IME I only ever use the blade, and single-purpose knives are better at being knives than multi tools. My favorite knife is a MicroTech 70; I can carry it in any pants without it feeling bulky.
Flippers are good too; I do like the clean lines on the MicroTech(s).
Maybe it's because I used multi tools, but I can't relate. At different points about 20 years ago, I carried a cybertool and a Leatherman (not at the same time). In both cases, I used the screwdrivers, very occasionally the pliers. I never used the blades, though. I honestly don't know when I'd want a knife. Certainly not for a daily carry.
I had a similar experience. Whats funny is I prefered the little scissors over the knife for most box opening.
So weird. The cm the opposite. Use the knife multiple times a day, use a a screwdriver maybe once a month? But, I'm a desk jockey.
A Blunt Metro umbrella. Makes me happy every time I get to use it. It's aesthetically pleasing, it oozes quality, it's easy to bring with you.
Fidget cube, helps me get through boring but informitive youtube content.
Care to share a link please?
There's millions but here's an example on Amazon.
PTX Products Matte White and Neon Green Fidget Cube https://a.co/d/4lLZJry
Note there's more than a cube. As someone with two ADHD boys and myself with ADHD there's lots of options and they're almost all cheap just find what works for you
Yes! I have so much random junk I've fidgeted with on my desk, and a fidget cube really helps.
Two "gadgets" that I'm never without. My Leatherman multitool and my RovyVon Aurora flashlight. The multitool with locking blades is like carrying a toolbox on your hip. And that flashlight - it's 2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide, but it can kick out a beam that lights up things 1000 feet away. Or provide enough light to read by for 40 hours. Yeah, I can use the smartphone's flash, but it isn't bright enough to show me if the two eyes reflecting back at me belong to a dog or a bear. That's important where I live.
Chulka chuks https://www.chukachuks.com one more way I can pretend i'm a musician.
My QNAP NAS drive. As well as storing all my media I also have various containers running all sorts... My Home Assistant instance, MQTT broker, ESPHome, zigbee2mqtt, Frigate, and Emby to name a few. It does so much for something so small and cheap to run.
Koss KSC75, I've been using them for almost 10 years now.
An Ice Cream Maker. Been making my own Ice Cream for years now and its amazing. The cheap machines which requires you to freeze the bowl is nice, but the one with a heat pump built in is amazing. In 3 hours I can make batches of Mint, Chocolate and Vanilla Ice Cream.
chinese handhelds. always have my rg nano with me
Second whoever said massage gun, nail on the head.
I however developed an addiction to 3D printing, it's as frustrating as it is fun but damn have I been busy...
3D printer.
I bought a cheap plumbers torch a little over two years ago and it's been the most useful thing I've purchased. Lights my wood stove quickly and without hassle, lights my offset smoker, lights my firepit and any other fires quickly and effortlessly. It's such a small thing but makes a huge difference in everyday life for me and my family. 4th of July is better without needing to constantly click a lighter that may or may not blow out from a gust of wind.
Aeropress coffee maker. $30? Sure I'll try it. Best coffee I've made at home besides a real espresso machine
Years ago I got one of those iRig guitar input jacks for my iPhone. Having a wealth of tones and a basic DAW available to me for the first time really did a lot to help me expand my playing ability.
Stopwatch.
I can measure my computerless time, exercise time...and, of course, many other things π
Have you heard of smartphones? π
Honestly? I find a lot of things a smartphone CAN do aren't as convenient as they should be.
Like the stopwatch function is buried inside the clock app. So you can't open it quickly. And on top of that, instead of a tactile button you can rest your finger on and hit at a moments notice, the button on the phone is a touch sensitive area on a glass pane. It's just not as optimal as a dedicated digital stopwatch.
Not sure for iOS, but on Android you can put the stopwatch widget on your home screen if you use it a lot, makes it easier to reach. Not as easy as a dedicated stopwatch, but an option if you don't want one but use the feature a lot.
"Hey google. Start a stopwatch."
Much less convenient for me.
Takes time to reach the app. Takes one second to press one button on the stopwatch.
And I rather reserve the phone's battery for something else than for this purpose.
Also - I didn't know we were gadget-shaming here?
I am by no means gadget shaming, don't get me wrong. It's just I do all you mentioned there with a stopwatch on my phone, and personally I would never consider buying a dedicated stopwatch for this purpose. I'm happy you're enjoying yours though, may it last you long!
It also depends on how often you need to use a specific tool.
In my case, I use the stopwatch often enough to have it existing on its own π
Agree. I think that about watches too. Beyond a fashion accessory, I can't find them useful. I've had good watches, cheap watches, digital and automatic. Not only do they feel weird on my skin, my phone can do the job better.
Razer Kishi controller for an old Android Phone running various emulators.
olight mini led torch. Fits in my pocket and especially during winter months it is so useful.
Not quite a gadget but I bought a sleeping mask some years ago and it has definitely made sleeping much easier.
I used to struggle a lot to sleep and having total darkness helps a lot, so I recommend giving it a try.
I got it as a present rather than buying it myself but my tire pressure / tread depth measuring tool gets near constant use so itβs super easy to check on my carβs tires when I need to
Is that a 2-in-1 tool?
Yep, pressure measurement on the top and a slide out digital ruler on the side.
Wireless lapel mic for iPhone. It was either $14 or $24 and now Iβm making a bunch of videos and having fun doing it. Consistently getting voiceover audio quality that is significantly better than Iβd expect out of a cheap microphone.
I have two items I bought for my upcoming Aviation Maintenance training this December. A usb rechargeable flashlight and a 17-in-1 multitool, both which will come in mighty handy these next few years
Could you tell me what flashlight and multitool you got?
Course! [Here's the Multi-Tool](Multitool Knife 17 in 1Fire... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BYRN75WT?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share) and [Here's the flashlight!](Hoxida LED Tactical Flashlight,... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09T96Y3QX?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share)
Thanks!
@Fumbles Bose Quiet Comfort 35 headphones. Though I suspect the noise cancellation doesn't work as well as it did when I bought it. Also it's been several years, I wonder if they make new ones like they used to.
On that theme: MegaBoom 3 (without Alexa etc) speaker. Awesome bass and volume for a portable, waterproof. Great for bike parties and frankly a shower radio.
If you asked me 10 years ago I'd probably not expect to love any Bluetooth devices.
Fuck Bezos, but this fidget spinner with a tiny built in knife. It's actually pretty durable and I've used both sides a lot. It's also a great fidget spinner for me since I clip my keys to my waist.
Didn't buy this (got as gift) but Nicron B74 flashlight, super bright
A small fan with usb port for 10-20cad. I used to get hot in the summer, so I bought a fan, soon after I started using it at night while I was sleeping, and it worked perfect. Point it to my bed, set it to speed 2 and sleep.
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