A Kobo e-reader. I now read much more than before because of the convenience, and I also became a book pirate. It has paid itself multiple times on the money I’ve saved in physical books.
I found a picture of you.
Everywhere I go suggests Lemmy returned the pictures feature, but then I try it and it still won’t work. What’s going on here?
Is it something specific about a Kobo e-reader that is amazing or would any e-reader have turned you into an avid bookworm you think?
I have a Kobo and my wife has a Kindle - I like the Kobo way better, primarily because the Kindle is trying to sell me stuff all the time.
That’s why you never connect the kindle to the internet and simply upload copies of the books into it
I prefer the Kindle because it’s so easy and cheap to buy books I don’t need to bother pirating.
It’s likely because kobo’s can be flashed with a custom OS https://inkbox.ddns.net/, which can sync with https://calibre-ebook.com/
I am using Calibre to fill my Kindle
Smart vacuum cleaner. You pay once for not needing to vacuum your house anymore - best deal ever.
I had a very different experience with mine. I bought a middle range one, not the cheap one, with very good reviews at the time. I absolutely cannot trust it. It’s always getting stuck, getting lost and not able to go back to charging station, or say that it’s “finished” and leav obvious spot of dusts.
My living room is indeed a bit cluttered as it’s not that big, but there is still enough space for it to move…
My experience is very similar to this. Sometimes it can go a full week or two with no interaction, but mostly it needs a bit of prodding and helping
Can I ask which one you use? I’ve heard such horror stories
I got Xiaomi Mi vacuum cleaner 4 years ago.
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If it’s so smart, why does it clean for you?
I passed an Intelligence check and outsmarted it.
Looks like a great thing to have indeed. I’m a bit too worried about the personal data harvesting.
You can always just not connect it to the internet. Always an option.
Don’t you need an app to operate it ?
I operate my Xiaomi Roborock S5 entirely by the buttons on the device, no internet required.
The app can allegedly give you access to more functionality, but I don’t really need that.
A bidet.
Japan has ruined toilets for me.
I can ruin toilets just fine myself, thank you.
Bidets are from Italy though.
They may have invented them but Japan perfected them.
Bidets are french, source
I’m too intimidated to try one despite staying in hotels round the world that usually have them. What if it goes wrong? How bad much shitty water do I and the bathroom end up covered in? How do you know if it’s clean? Doesn’t other peoples shitty water end up on the same appliance that you’re now using? Does that mean I end up with other peoples shitty water being jet streamed towards my anus? So many questions, so much doubt. Similarly for those handheld nosel things popular in the middle East and parts of Asia.
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I love my airfryer and may upgrade it to a larger one. I’ve started making my own food again instead of eating fast food every day (depression sucks).
What are some food recipes you recommend?!
Any subs you posted on or learned from that you would advise others to follow, curious.
Thank you!
Not OP, but we make roasted carrots with garlic, Italian spices, and parm cheese sprinkled on top.
Be sure to use avocado oil instead of olive.
They’re fucking delicious.
Edit: 325 for about 18-20 minutes. Just check for tenderness that you prefer.
Awesome!
Always great when we come together as a people to share recipes!
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Great!
Do you like soaking potatoes to remove starch or you go without?
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Game changer. We love ours.
We have two different Ninja air fryers. One that’s the bin/grill style and the flip version that can be used as a toaster oven as well.
They get used in one form or another almost daily.
I almost bought an air fryer, but ended up with a convection toaster oven. Does everything an air fryer does and much more. I bought the Gourmia one from Costco and would buy it again in a heartbeat.
Synology NAS (basically a hard drive always connected to the home network and internet) - has been amazing for auto-backing-up photos from the family phones and for running Plex run my own personal streaming service for the whole family around the world. Has been great for file transfer too. I can easily move files between my phone, PC, Steam Deck, etc and all the USB memory sticks I had have been sitting in a drawer ever since.
Exercise compression thermals - wear these is super comfortable and really warm. I wear them constantly at home and can have the heating off almost all winter (UK). Saves tons of energy and money.
Electric blanket - another great low energy purchase for relaxing under when watching TV or warming up the bed before sleeping. Gets super hot while hardly using any energy at all.
Split unit air con installation - this was expensive and I thought it would be unnecessary in the UK, but it seems to be used more and more every summer as we get more heatwaves and summers are becoming unbearable.
Safety razors - I have really thick facial hair and the multi-blade razors from big name brands would dull really quickly and cause tons of shaving rash. These razors are sharper, last longer, are recyclable and much better for my skin.
Liquid ink refillable rollerball pens - I tried fountain pens after seeing the online communities that are crazy about them, and really didn’t like them. I found rollerball pens I like that take fountain pen ink and have been super happy with them. I write a lot at work and this has gotten rid of the plastic waste of throwing away used disposable ballpoint refills every couple of weeks.
Hitbox controller - I’ve been playing Street Fighter 6 since release and I made a leverless controller box myself and I’ve loved using it to play SF6. Managed to make it for one third the price of what these things sell for and completely customised it.
More info on the homemade controller?
Yes please
As someone with waxy ears, an ear pick with a wifi camera built in. Would get blockages, cotton buds just pushed it back, olive oil or peroxide would get air locked. The webcam ear pick was super cheap and makes it easy to scoop out any lumps of wax.
Got any recommendations? My ears have been pissing me off lately cause they’re constantly feeling blocked. Not just for the ear pick but anything in general to help with to much wax in the ear.
I use a 50/50 mix of isopropyl alcohol and white vinegar. I drip about ten drops in one ear, let it sit there while I read a book on my side. Then I catch it all with a Kleenex tissue as I rotate my head.
This works great on ear infections too.
I wonder how many people have used one of these to look down their peehole.
That doesn’t sound like it would be any fun.
First place, aSmartwatch.
I all but stopped checking every fcking notification, my life has become peacefull and tranquil.
Second place, my 4yo daughter. Achieved the exact opposite.
How does a smartwatch get you to stop looking at notifications?
Before, I picked up my phone at every ping or vibrate.
When I wear the watch, all phone notifications are automatically muted and the watch is set to only notify a few apps (Whatsapp, phone calls, calendar). No emails, no kik, no games nothing.
Noise cancelling earphones.
Oh man. Just not having to listen to my dishwasher, clothes machines or vacuum cleaner run their mouths while they’re in service is live improvening.
That’s no way to talk about the women in your family /s
Bicycle. No gas expenses, no tabs, no loan, free parking. I understand how it works and can mostly fix it myself for very little money. I can take quiet side streets and arrive in a much better mood, plus my fat lazy ass gets some exercise.
It also transformed my feelings about winter, which is long, gray and mostly charmless here excepting the occasional blizzard, but commuting by bike warms me and gets me fresh air and exercise. It makes it much more tolerable. I actually enjoy my commute and look forward to it.
So many people I work with insist biking is unappealing or borderline impossible while complaining almost daily about their commute. Obviously for some people and some commutes it really is impossible, but I’m not talking about those situations.
Where do you live?
I wish there was infrastructure for them where I live, I hate driving and I like cycling
I’ll add on and say upgrading to an ebike (and specifically a cargo ebike) really made the difference to me. One would think that it would reduce the exercise, but for me the fact that it allows me to use it in far far more situations meant that I actually get more exercise overall. I consider the faster acceleration to be a safety feature for when the bike lanes run out, and it makes red lights, heavy loads and steep hills less of a mood killer.
In last 5 years for me:
- a pair of decent (second hand) speakers
- a cheap (blue switches ftw) mechanical keyboard
- a standing desk
- an ergonomic chair
(sorry it’s not single item…)
What keyboard did you get? I’m searching for a good ergonomic one that won’t break the bank
I’ve been using Microsoft natural ergonomic keyboards for years. They are a split keyboard (one piece) and I use the corded version.
Everything else just seems insanely expensive.
Oh looks like I’m set then, that’s what I’m using right now lol! Thanks!
You might want to join the [email protected]
I personally haven’t tried the ergonomic keyboards yet, have been using Ducky One 2 for a few years and recently got KBDcraft Kit Adam (Lego keyboard) and I’m enjoying this one, super soft and nice sounding switches. From the ergonomic keyboards I’ve seen Keychron K11 Pro as an interesting one, but you’d have to see if it fits you, I can’t really recommend any myself.
Ooh a Lego keyboard? Nice! I’ll look into those, thanks!
Very small quality of life increase, but I got the Scrub Daddy Soap Daddy. Makes life a bit easier and tidier for cleaning up in the kitchen.
Scrub Daddy is a weird product in that it seems a bit silly, but it’s ridiculously well designed.
I can only agree fully with this, get one asap. It costs essentially nothing anyway.
The mechanism that dispenses soap or what exactly?
Sorry, am lost when lookimg at all products…
A few different aspects:
- You can get it to be either hard or soft for different scrubbing applications by using hot or cold water
- Using the mouth hole you can efficiently clean utensils
- Using the eye holes, you can get it inside glasses
- The material is quite simple to keep clean, by just running it in the dishwasher
It’s honestly pretty impressive.
Oh, wow!
Yes, very useful applications!
I was not expecting that many uses, thank you!
Can you give me a link? Seems like scrub daddy has many different products.
You’re looking for Scrub Daddy the product, not Scrub Daddy the brand (although Scrub Daddy the brand makes Scrub Daddy the product).
How long does one of these last you?
Good question - I’m still on our first one, which I think we bought at least a year ago, and it’s not showing any signs of giving up yet.
A house. My mortgage is cheaper than rent, and now I get to actually address annoyances with my living conditions.
It’s almost 100 years old, and a bit of an fixer upper, but the important stuff is solid. Last summer I invested in proper drainage around the foundation so that I can start making the basement livable. This year I invested in a proper bathroom. Next year it’s a new kitchen. And if time allows I’ll start rebuilding the basement mainly for one extra bed room and an office.
God I wish my mortgage was cheaper than rent lol.
This is a good one. I finally teamed up with family to invest in a house last year. I’ve found a lot of issues that I’ve since fixed, especially with the electrical. There’s still a lot to fix, but I’m elated that I can actually take action to fix stuff.
While renting, my hands were severely tied. The only benefit with renting was that if anything was literally broken, it would be fixed by the landlord, free to me. “Fixed” is subjective, usually done as cheaply as possible, which is often making things less convenient.
Now I can have things fixed correctly, making things more convenient overall for me and my family.
Long term, we’re planning on renovating and adding another kitchen and bathroom, possibly another entrance and I’m considering splitting the HVAC for one portion of the place and almost splitting it into two independent homes that are conjoined.
Same, cut my monthly housing cost by almost $1000 two years ago. So many good things have happened as a result as well, because it was a move between regions and opened up alternative employment options not previously available. As a result I also doubled my income.
My mortgage is cheaper than Rest
That doesn’t make any sense. Unless the market at your country is completly broken, that simply does not happen.
Australia checking in: mortgage repayments are absolutely cheaper than rents. Especially if you bought pre-pandemic.
This only talks about rent. And when rent increases, so does the value of the property, because you can get more money as rents are higher.
If you now consider the amount of work you have to invest into owning property and the associated risk of owning a house or flat, in an ideal market its simply not possible.
And while the housing market is imperfect due to the high burden for entrance, I have never seen a proper calculation where mortage, insurance and maintanance comes out lower than renting.
And, as a matter of fact, it doesnt even in your own example Sydney: https://www.smh.com.au/money/saving/as-costs-soar-is-it-cheaper-to-rent-or-buy-20230407-p5cywp.html
I’m not going to doxx myself by giving the exact address, but my landlady in 2019 wanted to sell the house we were in. She first offered the place to us for $430,000 - which would have been a discount because she wouldn’t have needed an agent etc.
Assuming we had the 20% deposit to borrow $344,000 and taken her up on that offer, our current repayments would have been about $464 per week. Even without the discount, repayments would have been under $500.
Instead, she eventually sold the property and we had to move to a smaller house where we are now paying $650 per week. Going from a 4 bedroom house with a yard to a 3 bedroom townhouse sharing the block with two other residences. No yard. Admittedly, we moved a suburb closer to the CBD.
Take a look at Real estate for a 3+ bedroom house within 10km of any Australian city, you’ll see that $650 is not extravagant by any means.
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The 20 % deposit has to be taken into the calculation as well.
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You are completly neglecting insurance.
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You are negleticing maintanance.
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You are comparing two different properties.
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A projector. Watching movies and playing games is now a cinematic experience.
Same for me! It’s an awesome way to watch movies and tv shows
Any devices y’all prefer than others?
Don’t you have to be in an almost pitch black room for it to look decent though? I also heard there can be pretty bad input lag?
It was quite a few years ago that I last looked into a projector so maybe they’ve gotten better, but these days massive TVs are so cheap I don’t know if it would even be worth it.
Glasses.
Now I’m addicted.
Addicted is a good way to put it. I suffer withdrawal symptoms like dizziness and nausea when I go more than a few * waking minutes* without my glasses.
