Ask Lemmy

Going from Sega Megadrive to PlayStation back in the nineties. True 3d graphics on a home console blew my little teenage mind. Lara Croft. Wipeout. Metal Gear Solid! Good times.

On a tangent, is it just me, or has there been a notable uptick in this type of question? Feels a lot like astroturfing, but so far as I can see there's been no malicious intent

When I got my first HD tv. I had previously been playing oblivion on Xbox 360 on an crt tv and when I setup the HD I was absolutely blown away by the clarity. I remember my stupid fucking ex-wife trying to tell me there was no difference between the two.

Several things:

1. Bidet. ‘Nuff said.
2. automatic litter box. Took a lot of training for our one dumb cat but since then … life changing.
3. ebike. So many times I used to drive because I was feeling lazy or woke up just a smidge late… now I can just dial up the assist a notch and it’s no problem.

Agree with:

Dishwasher (really just toss dishes in as you use them, close and run at night, put 'em away in morning, it's magic. I didn't have one till I was almost 50)

Electric bike (I hate biking but this is like a dream of a bike)

Roomba (wood floors no grit)

And the mesh wifi system that lets me easily see and address the rare hiccups it has.

RAM update. Doubling your RAM on most low/medium -end consumer PCs will noticeably improve responsiveness and multitasking.

Higher quality electric coffee grinders. I have been using pretty nice hand grinders for years ($100 to $200 range) and while they were good, the consistency and general quality of life improvement gotten from these nicer electric grinders has made a significant improvement in both the coffee quality and my time/life quality related to making coffee daily.

noise canceling bluetooth headphones (Sony XM3s, in my case). They are always near me. Thousands of hours and I haven't even changed the earpads yet. I don't know how I lived without them.

Automatic litter box! They're so pricey, I always wasn't in a place to do it, but I finally bit the bullet. I don't think I can go back. It's so easy, and my cat wasn't scared at all. I also feel better knowing she always has clean litter. When she comes to bed I can just run the box from my app.

Bonus: it rotates sideways so my cat can keep her head. 👍🏾

I bought a 2080ti for $1200 right before covid and everyone gave me shit about how I was wasting my money because the 3000 series had a lower MSRP which then ballooned to $2000+.

So while everyone else was struggling to get a graphics card due to supply chain issues and prohibitive costs, I was gaming in 4k resolution throughout the pandemic. To say that this was clutch during a time I couldn’t really do much outside of the house with other people would be a massive understatement.

I usually would not have spent that much on a card, but I won a hackathon cash prize right before so had some money burning a hole in my pocket. The card is still going strong and is still my daily driver, so I can’t say it’s been a bad purchase at all.

Smart lights. What a world of difference coming home to my lights being on either from them automatically triggering, or me turning them on remotely. Or, being able to take a shower knowing my lights will be able to turn themselves off on whatever timer I set. It's been an excellent expereince

Bone conduction headphones for biking. Being able to listen to my tunes while I'm riding around is amazing.

An immersion blender, it was $30 but it made my soups seem gourmet and let me recycle my gallons of lard into the best soap I have ever used.

Aside from that, I replaced two of my mismatched odd shaped PC monitors with 27" 4k monitors and the difference is amazing. The monitors were so cheap too only $110 each. Together with my super fancy main screens it really cleaned up the desktop.

Does corrective eye surgery count? Because it fundamentally changed my daily quality of life

a 3d printer, I've picked up my now favourite hobby when I got it: gun smithing

Going full homelab with a rack, battery backups, and 2.5gb backhaul on my home network. Absolutely game changing from an appliance management standpoint where any one node can go down for any reason and there’s a backup and replacement on hand in minutes with built in redundancy. Not to mention the learning and experience opportunities when setting up hardware and software services. Sure is sweet to have data redundancy and protections!

Not very high tech, but I love it: a projector clock (an alarm clock that can project the time on a ceiling or wall).

Not having to turn over to see the time is extremely nice when I’m cozy in bed. I didn’t even ask for it - it was given to me as a gift. If you get one, be sure that the angle and orientation are highly adjustable.

Motion sensor and smart light switch. There are two rooms in my house with multiple entryways and awful light switch options, so without these I’d just stumble in the dark.

We also have it for our carport and it’s so pleasant for the light to automagically happen and then go off without needing to remember to change anything.

(And all of this done through local mesh and Apple HomeKit. We do not use proprietary services that can be shut down on us.)

I got a microwave with an inverter magnetron.

When you set your microwave to, let's say, 20% power, a typical microwave will cycle the magnetron, so that it runs at 100% power for 20% of the cooking time and is off in between. With an inverter, the actual power output of the magnetron can vary, so it's actual 20% power for the whole time. It does an excellent job of gently reheating things like sandwiches and cooked rice without drying them out or scorching. Also, if something has instructions written for a lower wattage microwave, I can just turn the power down until it's close to that wattage instead of doing calculations to modify the time.

My first very small mp3 player, something from sony. It was amazing.

My first digital camera, just being able to see your picture after shooting them. being able to delete photos was revolutionary.

My first wifi access point, having Internet at home without cable.

My first phone that could load msn messager. Also pretty cool.

My e-book reader (Tolino).

As I got older and had problems with my eyes, this was a game changer. I had basically stopped reading books and now I do it daily. I can choose the font and letter size, background color, and backlighting based on what works best for my eyes that day and the light where I am.

Being able to hold a very light device with a big screen when I would have to balance a heavy weight as a paper book is also great, and I take the reader with me everywhere, whereas a big book would stay at home most of the time.

The reader has a bigger screen than my phone and the battery lasts longer.

The reader works flawlessly with my library, so I don't have to buy books, which keeps costs down, and I don't have to leave the house to get a new book.

Calibre helps us share books in our family, which is one reason we've stayed away from Amazon's Kindle, so we've all gone to ".epub".