What did you buy that improved your life?

Depends on if you think socks are a fashion accessory or a utility.

Didn’t want to be a shill, but I got a bunch of medium thick wool socks from Darn Tough and sweaty wool socks are a lot nicer than sweaty cotton/poly socks.

Yep. We have grey and black.

Get 'hiking' socks, as opposed to 'athletic' - they last far longer.

That would have made my post so much butter.

I’m an electrician in the PNW, and that plug will usually run you $750 to move one close to that spot, just for a price point.

I doubt that you can get your skin hot enough to denature those proteins without damaging yourself. I've given myself a blister before trying.

How hot does it need to be?

My partner is also allergic to mosquito bites and he got a HeatIt and it was life-changing. He previously had to stay home and permanently ice his bites to not get blood poisoning and was in huge pain, but now since it's always with him on his keychain, he can treat the stings right away before they get too bad and can go out and do pretty much everything now. He still needs to treat the stings regularly, but it's so much more portable and accessible than the ice packs he used before.
Compared to the larger devices like BiteAway, it performs a bit worse and it's a bit pricey and the durability is kinda shit, but the fact that it's always on him and ready to use (as long as you bring your keys and phone), he can treat the bites right away on the go, which makes a huge difference in effectiveness.

You can achieve the same thing with a metal spoon dipped in hot water, like after stirring a fresh cup of tea. It should be hot enough to hurt but not to burn/damage your skin. I've been doing this trick for ages and it works every time :)

wife and daughter.

oh no

They

oh phew

It's the same principle, true enough. But this tool I think reaches higher temps which makes it more effective.

I suffer from eczema pretty badly so I always have some sort of cortisol cream nearby. They clear up any bug bites quickly. Luckily, mosquitos prefer my wife's blood over mine.

African ground nut stew is my favorite recipe. This set of instructions is for stovetop, for pressure cooker, I just throw it all but the peanut butter and hot sauce, which are to be stirred in after high pressure. 25 minutes on high pressure.

8-10 chicken thigh Large can of diced tomato Small can of tomato paste 1 large onion 2 medium carrot 2 stalks celery 8 mushrooms or 2 cans of sliced mushroom 1 or 1.5 cup stock chicken 2.5 tbsp peanut butter Hot sauce optional 3 clove garlic

instructions:

prep: dice the onion peel and chop the carrot/celery Clean and slice mushrooms mince garlic or one small spoon worth of pre minced cut chicken into small pieces to quickly cook or cut thigh in two or breast into three if you want bigger chunks

cooking: put olive oil in large fry pan on high add onion,carrot, and mushroom cook until onion is getting soft then add chicken and garlic keep everything moving around so the onion and mushrooms don't burn when the chicken is half cooked (white on the outside 50% or so) then add both cans of tomatoes (paste and diced) and stock let simmer for 20-25 mins so the tomatoes break down and chicken finishes cooking, stirring every few minutes add peanut butter in 1/2 tbsp at a time to the pan and mix in with the liquids add salt and pepper approx for 2 more minutes making sure not to let the sauce burn on the bottom Add hot sauce to taste. serve over rice

This makes a good amount of leftovers too.

I'm also interested. My work provides moulded ear plugs, but they definitely don't let the same range of frequencies through.

It depends on if you’re on Android or Apple. The Bose Earbuds 2 and the Apple Airpods Pro 2 trade blows pretty well, both in noise canceling and sound quality. I personally prefer the sound stage of the Apple ones but if actually care about stuff like that, I pull out my cans.

Same.

Years ago when I was on Medicaid I spent about 2 weeks in the hospital. They took my appendix out and after looking at it and running some tests found out that I had some rare parasite. I was in excruciating pain at the time, throwing up blood a few times a day and just withering away. There was a pill that I was waiting to get that would've killed the parasites which could've been given to me after my 4th day there when they confirmed what I had. I spent the rest of the 2 weeks being doped up on morphine and an array of fluids until I couldn't take it anymore and left the hospital 'AMA'.

I went to a different hospital and got the medicine I needed almost immediately.

I did throw up again though when I got a ~$60k bill from my 2 week stay at the first hospital. Again they took out my appendix, ran some test, and pumped me with opiods for 2 weeks without treating my actual issue.

Fr im B?

Yeah, it's pretty BS. No one would ever make fun of someone driving a car for not being 100% human powered.

I will say that the only time I get a little uptight about ebikes is when I come across them on trails/paths that are designated for non-motorized traffic only. Somehow people think that motorized only means combustion engines.

My style, exactly! But even my $20 grinder works wonders compared to pre-ground coffee. I've thought about updating that component but I make pretty good coffee as is.

...up until now, I actually thought that we were friends. I guess all those deep meaningful convos we had whilst playing Burnout2 and drinking diet Dr Pepper meant nothing to you...

Sorry I misspoke. I meant people who I fear socially so I try to stay in their good books

Just went with a generic option. I have some that have blue zip tops & some with gray.

The one big recommendation I can make is to get one with a battery powered suction pump. They’re little bit more expensive, but the handheld pumps have broken on me in the past.

This is the latest brand I purchased.

I’ve found that with proper care & paying attention to what I use each bag for helps.

If I use a bag say for tandoori chicken sous vide…

When the chicken’s done, I rinse the bag thoroughly, fill it to ¼, add a lil soap, seal it up, & put it back in the sous vide bath, while it’s still warm.

Let it cool off & then give it a rinse & scrub, before drying.

It’s gentler on the bag than the dishwasher, but still gets it sanitary & clean.

I’ll try to continue using that bag for chicken, if not specifically tandoori chicken.

This is where having two different colors can be helpful. I use gray for meat & blue for everything else.

Blue bags obviously last a bit longer, but this current batch of gray is a year old & still in decent shape.

I have one and I'd say that depends.

I bought the tongue scraper because when I switched to an electric toothbrush (oral-b), I felt it was not cleaning my tongue as well. Before that, using a regular toothbrush, I had no issue keeping my tongue clean and never needed the scraper. I do still like the electric toothbrush better.

It works much better. Your tongue is like velcro, so a bristle brush doesn't really get plaque out. The tongue scrapers depress the bumps and scrape everything clean.

(I have a cheap metal one so I can throw it in the dishwasher. Plaque can eventually kinda make it dirty, but the dishwasher cleans it right off without deforming it)

They are really convenient for getting around the city! :)

I got a 12mm thick chain from Oxford and a kryptonite ulock and so far, I've been fine (I live in a high bike crime city).

It's really about making your bike unappealing to steal because of how long it would take to cut through a beefy chain in two places and a Ulock in two places. It can be done, though. I also have a bike horn that sounds if someone moves the bike.

Aventon sells ebikes starting at $1,000, and Juiced Bikes go on sale for $1,150 (they are consumer direct unless you live in San Diego). Radpower and Lectric bikes aren't too spendy, either. Ebikes are getting surprisingly affordable!

(My little electric commuter next to my traditional weekend mountain bike!)

I got the new Litter Robot 4. I was worried about the price, but after 5 months with 2 cats, I love it. It scoops the litter 15 minutes after they go and keeps the smells contained really well. We change the tray about every 5 days and it takes a regular kitchen trash bag. So it’s just as easy and taking out the trash. No regrets, money well spent

I got a Litter Robot 3 a couple years ago and its the best money I've spent in a long while. Super convenient and I haven't had any issues with it even with 2 cats.

We have the litter robot. It was pretty expensive, and can be a little quirky at times, but for the most part it’s been a real time saver.

The biggest problem is that it can get stuck while doing it’s rotation, which then requires you to intervene. It really doesn’t happen often, though. It’s had errors similar to that around 5 times or so in the past couple years. Not too bad.

We change out the turd bag around once per week. 2 cats have access 24/7, and another cat has access 12-15 hours per day.

That’s great! I also use smart plugs for grow lamps! So convenient. The home country of the creator of Linux. Lucky! :)

It's a Nishiki Pro Air from 2015, they are handmade here in Sweden. (Probably in other places as well.)

It cost me around 16,000 SEK at the time, but they seem to be around 13,000 today.

https://nishiki.se/hybrid/herr/pro-air-pg-1076

If I were you, I'd check around your area for a bike co-op. They often have great deals on used bikes they tuned up, so you'd save money and end up with something as good (or even better!) than entry-level hybrid models. Plus co-ops tend to be staffed by the hugest bike nerds who are sincerely eager to help new cyclists.

If you'd rather buy new, I'd recommend an entry-level (starting at around 600$) hybrid from any of the big bike brands (this advice is a bit location-specific, I'm talking about North America here). I ride a Trek FX1, but all the big bike brands have similarly-featured models.

Whatever you do, please stay away from cheap, big box store bikes. These are usually assembled by people who are not trained bike mechanics and shoddily assembled bikes can easily be dangerous. They also often have non-standard parts, making repairs and maintenance frustrating.

This is a thread about things people bought. Money is implied.

because everything else people have listed are free

Not everyone can afford to spend 60-70 EUR each week plus driving and 1.5h to see a shrink. And those who can't afford that are usually the ones who need therapy the most.

The opposite, they are three quart bowls with rounded bottoms. That makes it so that food doesn't get trapped in the corners like you would get with steep walls. The medium bowls have walls that are basically straight, which is space efficient for prep.

The dock has a decent size bag. The long hair is the maintenance killer, have to pull the rotating brushes and cut off the hair regularly.

We've had both a Roomba and now a Bissell thinking that the longtime vacuum company would be a better choice.

I'd give the roomba a 4.5/5 and the Bissell a 3/5 at best.

Stick with the robot companies.

I got a TP-Link. Seems to work well and already had the Tapo app.

It's full Android with the Play store but wifi only, no cell modem. You can install whatever you want just like on a phone, you just can't do calls or SMS. I haven't tried Google Maps on it but I'm sure it works, although you might need to adjust things to make it look better. I've used it to send audio to Bluetooth devices but haven't tried the built in speaker, I wouldn't expect it to sound good.

I set a timer to turn it off after 45 minutes or so, but it's much better than not falling asleep at all. And at 3:00 when I wake up again, I set another 45 minute timer. I'm not sure what the issue would be with my sleep when I'm only listening to droning voices. Maybe if the symphony snare drum kicked in it would be disruptive, but what I listen to is almost white noise with words.

I smoke weed to fall asleep nightly. That's also very helpful.

If we are being really pedantic, a Dutch oven is a type of pot used for cooking on open fire. They used to have little legs built on so you could place it over some coals. The lid would be flat so you could put coals on top of it. That way you could use it as an actual oven to bake bread or whatever on a wood fire.

Modern people don't cook much on wood fires, but in the US, we still generally call any big cast iron pot a "Dutch oven".

$12K, but I had only bought the 10K a few days ago

When I bought my 3 it was $2200 including the harness for my car. Now the newer 3X is $1450 including harness (economies of scale!). I've been running it for 2 and a half years now and have 80,000 miles logged in my unit.

I'm using it in a 2016 Civic Touring which was their original dev car model so it's well documented and had a modification available to get necessary torque in tighter highway turns and be able to slow to and resume from stop. Other cars may work better or worse in terms of torque and ability to control speed. They have pretty extensive vehicle listings on their site and GitHub detailing the capabilities they are available depending on the car.

https://comma.ai/shop/comma-3x

I don't work for Comma or anything, just am a fan of the tech and how it has allowed the controls in my car to get better over time rather than being stuck with what they shipped in 2016. My wife's 2021 CR-V has better stock driver assist than my 2016 Civic, but my Comma's assist experience today is far better than either stock system.