What do you enjoy paying for?
High-end espresso machine that makes coffee in one button but with all the settings configurable (grind, volume, temperature, etc)
Canon M50 SLR camera permanently mounted for Zoom calls - got the Mk1 open box, looks amazing on calls, wasn't insanely expensive (~$500).
Tesla Model 3P. We just got a flat at home, they came out and swapped the tire for a temp one within 2hrs and then came to the home the next day to repair/replace the flat. Sadly needed replacing but all we paid for the whole experience in the end was the cost of the tire and that was cheaper than local SF places (which are $$). There's so many other great things about Tesla: it's practically maintenance free, the P edition is faster than a Lambo off the line, it's super safe in a crash, carbon neutral when paired with renewable power source, etc. Might be out of scope for this Ask HN but I just feel it's worth every $ I paid for it, and it's apparently only lost about 5% of it's value in 2.5 years which is unheard of in the car industry.
Main objective is flawless heavy-usage (Zoom, streaming media) from multiple clients within the home, plus support of lots of clients (we have over 150 assigned IP addresses in the house).
My setup is a server cabinet consisting of Ubiquiti EdgeRouter to handle >1Gbps connection, ISP's preferred modem (so they can't shirk out of full support for the connection which they do if you provide your own equipment), Ubiquiti 24 port POE switch, Ubiquiti Cloud Key Gen2+, Synology NAS, Multicore server running docker containers.
I then have 4 Ubiquiti AP AC PRO wireless access points dotted throughout the home (3 level home) all on wired backhaul to the 24 port switch powered by POE and 2 Ubiquiti 8 port switches at different locations for media center, office etc.
I would imagine the total setup is about $1500 which for a large home we both use to work out of too is very reasonable. It was legitimately tax deductible as well.
My satisfaction with Ubiquiti is declining, in part because of the security issue last year. However there isn't really anything I would replace it with because the main draw of Ubiquiti at this class is that it doesn't have recurring licensing fees like Cisco Meraki does (which are $$$$). I could try to roll my own on some of this but I'm too old/busy to run pfSense and a *-WRT flavor etc. If I was buying a new Ubiquiti setup, which if you rely on home internet I would still advocate for, I would buy a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro which negates the router, switch and cloud key as separate purchases. It wasn't available when I purchased this setup a few years ago.
ADDED: Some people below said their Ubiquiti equipment was hard to set up, I actually found it super easy and there is a GUI to help you. I'm am/was happy sysop'ing servers over SSH so YMMV. One strong suggestion is to use their dedicated administration device the Cloud Key rather than roll your own on a docker container. The most problems I have in my entire setup are things running in docker so I try to not have them as dependencies but I am running PiHole for DNS which causes problems if it goes down.
https://github.com/nextdns/nextdns/wiki/UnifiOS
https://github.com/SierraSoftworks/tailscale-udm
https://tailscale.com/kb/1103/exit-nodes/
The other home networking things I would throw in that people may find useful are: using MoCA to put access points in places that have an existing coax drop but running an ethernet line is impractical, you can have y and forked shaped networks without switches (although not the cheapest solution); and http://getchannels.com + an hdhomerun (tuner -> ethernet) plus a media server, nas, or nvidia shield.
It's interesting how "feeling futuristic" is a single network device that does everything and an over the air tv antenna, but the shit actually "just works" finally.
What do you recommend for enterprise grade wifi? My current setup isn't great.
That's if you don't count manufacturing and repairs of course.
The way we look at it is a family of 3 with a young baby needs a car, we only have one car, and it's the most environmentally friendly one we could get as all cars have some manufacturing overhead. It was also manufactured 60 miles away so the delivery footprint was small too. We're trying our best!
This is probably my fourth full automatic espresso machine, definitely the best I've owned. Amortize the price based on how much coffee you drink (I drink 4 a day) and cost of coffee shop vs machine + beans. Factor in well used machines probably last 3-5 years and then they do need replacing.
I make a personal rule that I only buy $$ coffee from coffee shops if I'm wanting to sit and work/meet (less likely these days) or if I'm really on the go and need a pick-me-up. Otherwise I make a latte on the machine and bring it with me in a vacuum container when I am out and about.
On the other hand it wasn't worth for us to spend time/money on Netflix/Amazon prime (streaming stuff) so we just killed the subscription and channeled it to Youtube.
you can do that by asking youtube to display the desktop version of the webpage or by using the Newpipe application...
I would never pay for Youtube, just for the fact that I am already paying for it by watching all the spam that ask me to pay for it.
I don't care if the bill of materials is really high, that's no reason for a consumer to be any more sympathetic for a price; similarly, costing almost nothing is no reason to deride a price. That's the company's problem.
It's optimal to just focus on what you get for what you pay.
Dont feed the tech giants dark patterns
and you get the youtube music with it.
it costs me about 20 min worth of work once a month to remove ads from my primary media consumption site.. totally worth it, and don't have to mess with 3rd party BS. Completely changes the youtube experience
I remember having to manage so many folders of mp3s, manually syncing them to devices. And paying $.99 a song meant a very limited selection. I often relied on free iTunes playlists to find new music, because I couldn't afford to buy new music at the time.
They've eliminated all of these problems. Pay $10-15 a month, and you can listen to whatever you want, wherever and whenever.
I say this purely from the consumer's perspective, though - I'm not super familiar with what artists' experience is like. On one hand I'm sure Spotify broadens your audience quite a bit, but I wouldn't be surprised if artists run into issues similar to creators on other platforms (e.g. YouTube).
(Well, that and that Spotify funds -and will not stop recommending to me- some podcasts that I find grating. I wish I wasn’t constantly reminded that I’m indirectly funding anti-science nonsense. Were it not that I’m paying for several other people’s Spotify accounts via family sharing I would have switched to Apple Music by now.)
But Spotify changed everything. I recently saw a series on Netflix and liked some of the music used in it, but had no idea what it was. I just entered the name of the show and “soundtrack” into Spotify, and there it was.
Edit: actually looks like he sold it to Amazon a few years ago and it was absorbed into Amazon Music where his catalog is now available. Regardless, Garth owns the rights to all of his music except for his 2014 album "Man Against Machine", so the lack of availability is again entirely his own decision.
And yet each of your comment’s 4 current replies describes a different “only” problem with Spotify that’s solved with folders of mp3s ;)
(Disclaimer: I listen to very little music, so I have no horse in this race except for loathing DRM, and I’m only guessing that the “missing quite a few major artists” problem is solvable by torrenting)
Even though I like music quite a bit, do I want to dedicate multiple terabytes and hours of my time building out and managing a personal catalogue of music I like? Because this is exactly what Spotify gives me for the majority of artists, with 0 effort.
As someone who wants to see local journalism succeed, I would be willing to subscribe at a reasonable rate.
But the only subscription plan they offer is {ridiculously low rate for first 6 months} then {ridiculously high rate after that).
And I know what a hassle it is to cancel. No online option. You have to phone in, endure 20-30 minutes on hold, then resist a retention specialist's multiple efforts to get you to reconsider.
No thanks. I want to support local journalism, but this is not the way.
The FTC recently announced that it's ramping up enforcement of subscription services cancellation rules:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/10/ftc-r...
"Marketers should provide cancellation mechanisms that are at least as easy to use as the method the consumer used to buy the product or service in the first place."
I hope that these efforts do make a difference with news subscriptions.
I did that experiment with NYT (note: not a California resident), where i signed up regularly through their website first and tried canceling, and then did the same through App Store.
With the first one (website), i had to call or email them to cancel, no way to do it through a UI. Took me a few days to get it done. With the second one (App Store), all it took was one click from “My Subscriptions” page that has all my subscriptions from App Store.
Aisler is super fast and cheap, but I need to solder myself, so I use them for small interface boards
pcbway is in China, but I can send in my own components. I used them for example for an usb3+fpga+RAM base board. They are great for stock modules like USB interfaces, but have no NDA options.
jlcpcb is in China and cheap and fast, but you can only use components in their list. So I use them for larger batches of boards that I prototyped with aisler. Also no NDA option.
For the price of the smallest dedicated CPU Linode, I get a 64GB AMD Epyc 16 core server from Hetzner.
So Linode is roughly 16x more expensive.
That said, I rent a lot from Hetzner so I get special pricing. But also aside from the price, all of my servers are in their own cage with biometric access check plus I have private dedicated 1GBit LAN between my nodes. And their uptime was better than our Amazon AWS and Heroku instances...
Works great for me!
DigitalOcean. While I'm sure it's not the MOST affordable option, I think the value is pretty good. (If anyone has more affordable option please throw it out there!)
Minecraft. Bought the windows 10 version to play with some friends and check out the new world generation. Infinite creativity for ~20 bucks.
I use a no-name vps provider that offered a deal for 3core, 2G mem, 40G ssd kvm for 23/year. Could up-in-smoke any time but I've enjoyed it for the last 1.5 years. I usually look for deals on LEB.
Minecraft as well; some of my college buddies and I do a book club and meet up on minecraft since we don't live nearby each-other anymore. 10 years of entertainment for maybe $30.
Depending on what you need from DigitalOcean, AWS LightSail is cheaper
I would seriously consider moving a couple small Linodes I use for work over that way. I quite like Linode, but free is compelling.
Hoppy.network, so I can give the Raspberry Pi running in my closet a real IPv4 address.
Monthly donations to Ardour.org, my favorite DAW.
Some things sound ok, while others are encoded with some painful loss of fidelity. It is like it is 1999 again and you try to encode MP3 at 112 kbit/s to squeeze a full album into your 64 MB player, that bad.
I read somewhere that it uses Youtube as the source material and reencodes that instead of sourcing it properly as in Google Music.
Been living ad-free for 3 years now
Why? Ad-blockers exist.
A few months ago, I found out about https://endmyopia.org/ and have been following their principles to improve my eyes. I've since learned about how my eyes works and went from -2.75 to -2.25.
If I could have paid a service to heal my eyes naturally without lasik, I would have done it, but the site offered everything for free.
“Nearsightedness Is Not An Illness” - of course it’s an illness, an illness is anything that impairs the normal function of your body. A heart stent is just a little tube, and I don’t see anybody arguing that’s not real medicine.
“…classify bits of clear curved plastic as 'prescriptions'” - just about anything can be prescribed. I’m not sure why lenses aren’t eligible.
“An unorthodox approach” - not really, most optometrists will happily talk to you about vision therapy if they think you’re overminused. The only thing unorthodox here is how large his claims are. Vision therapists would love to make claims this huge - but they don’t, because almost nobody will see deltas as big as what he’s describing.
He’s also being pretty misleading about how he’s citing those studies on the main page - while the quotes are there, the studies in general don’t support this idea that myopia is entirely lens induced and/or mental in origin.
Actually, the more I read the more crank-like this gets. Myopia being primarily down to the eyeball growing too long is extremely, extremely well supported by research. This guy rejects that on the basis of anecdote.
Here's a link to a research about the eyeball shortening in adults: http://europepmc.org/article/med/3688185
I think you misread, there is no disputing the fact that eyeball gets longer, I remember him explaining that you have myopia because your eyeball got longer.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/fashion/xinjiang-forced-l...
Cheaper than bars and clubs, way better results.
I also do not have time to fake enjoy a group hobby or event for years in hopes that a hot single woman will eventually join and become friends with me and blossom into a relationship.
I'm in an exclusive relationship now, but I'd used Tinder for years prior when I wasn't interested in a committed relationship and made many genuine connections as friends with benefits (and I'm still just friends with many of them today).
People seek different things at different times. I agree that hookups can be a bit shallow, but those aren't the only answer for physical connection if you're not in a relationship.
- Last.fm
- Spotify
- Cloud storage
- Figma for teams
- Managed hosting
- Fiber-optic broadband
Physical things:
- Audio gear
- A good bike
- Food and drink
- Anything for my dog
- Computer + phone
- Home gym, paid for itself after two years
- Experiences
- BIFL quality items, like clothing from brands that will happily repair stuff if it breaks or send you replacement items if you can fix it yourself.
- Skilled laborers/consultants of any kind. Plumbers, electricians, financial advisors, lawyers or specialized health personnel like manual therapists.
I will happily spend hours just to do that initial research, to find a brand that is less likely to disappoint or fall short of my expectations.
If I can maintain and service it myself I will gladly pay a premium price. Examples could be a leather belt or shoes, hardwood flooring or anything that can be repaired and serviced like tools and knives.
Can you list some items?
> - Skilled laborers/consultants of any kind. Plumbers, electricians, financial advisors, lawyers or specialized health personnel like manual therapists.
What's the best way to separate the reasonably priced experts from the overpriced crooks?
That said, here are some things I value:
- Spotify. At ~$10/month, a great deal that makes listening and discovering music really easy. Have a shared account with my wife.
- Gaming. While gaming hardware isn't cheap these days (~$2k for a decent build) games have incredible value. Playing competitive online games once a week with friends kept me sane through the pandemic. Incredibly immersive experience.
- Guitar and Rocksmith. At ~$300, let's you hook up an electric guitar to your computer and learn how to play the guitar in a fun way. Really elevating experience.
- Electric Bike. These aren't cheap either ($2k+), but this purchase made commuting by bike exclusively (pre-pandemic) practical (cutting down my commute from ~55min by regular bike to about ~35min).
- Climbing gym membership. About $70/month. Such a fun way to stay in shape and socialize while doing so.
- Wired headphones that work well while biking. Let me keep in touch with aging parents on daily basis. Never need to worry about charging.
- Relatedly, Pixel 4a. Comparatively cheap ($400) phone with a headphone jack. Camera is great. It's very light which makes reading before sleep pleasant.
- Books. Unbelievable value. Authors' life's insights distilled into something you can buy for ~$10. The hard part is finding good ones, but lots of good recommendations on HN.
- Good food.
Other things that I don't have yet, but am considering:
- Mail forwarding service (~$30/month). We've been moving around a bit since the pandemic started. These services let you maintain a permanent address, scan or forward mail if needed. Still deciding which one to get since it's not an easily reversible decision.
- Fiber. Not offered yet where we live, but would get it in a heartbeat.
This may sound cliche, but luckily some of the greatest things in life are free (spending time with family and friends, playing volleyball on the beach, going for hikes in nature and all the great content online such as on HN).
While they are nothing special and aren't expensive (~$30), their shape keeps noise levels from airflow low while biking. I've owned them for about 3 years now and they are still going strong.
2. Wolfram One: Symbolic computation for everything. A high-level shell which can run almost any basic computation with great visuals and natural language input.
2. I use it for easy image hosting that I can control in the Wolfram command line (vs. imgur, etc).
3. I use it to upload lengthy text files (e.g. error outputs when programming) over things like pastebin.
4. Until very recently, I used it to manage our site's email waitlist (setting up an email submission form was 1 Wolfram function).
5. I use it to visualize personal data (productivity stuff, timelog data, etc).
6. I use it to run mathematical computations when reading technical materials. Wolfram can do things like "show how this integral is derived in a human-readable way", which makes it easier to understand steps glossed over in math proofs.
7. I use it to collage images together when sharing them with other people (https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ImageCollage.html).
8. I use it to make timelines when making back-of-the-napkin Gantt charts (e.g. https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/george.w.singer/business/pn...), or histories (e.g. https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/george.w.singer/business/pn...)
Hope this is helpful =)
There are a lot of smart good plans in life if you care looking for it. Is there a subreddit ?
Travel can be so cheap and so good. The expensive hotels are so overrated. As long as there's a good bed, it's clean, i'm set.
I was very reticent to spend that amount of money (140$) in an IDE, but when I started daily driving Linux, it was the only viable option for C# development out there. I fell in love with it and I couldn't imagine myself working on .NET projects without it, even on Windows. Worth every single penny, made me a lot more productive.
Yes, gog doesn't have DRM but also expect me to use windows.
I wasn't a huge fan of Valve until MS pushed them into this direction about a decade ago
Wine exists.
Books - Teaches you variety of stuff that will save you money
[0] https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass#join [1] https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/The-Artful-Escape/9NG...
Goodwill is great.
I also value my Digital Ocean nodes, but they get torn up and down based on what I am doing.
Have you tried beets?
Bottomless - my internet connected coffee scale, I love this thing.
Stratechery - probably the best tech/software newsletter available.
Sam Harris, Persuasion, and Astral Codex Ten - writers and podcasts I like a lot.
YouTube Premium - I’ll pay for a no ads version of any service I use that allows me to.
Gigabit internet, ubiquiti networking hardware, T-Mobile cellular (actually super fast now compared to Verizon with 5Guc - I can get 600mbps and it doesn’t require being a foot from the access point).
Why?
Did you buy a lifetime license or are you stuck paying for annual updates?
All of the major streaming services. I rotate amongst them depending on what I want to watch. Unbelievably cheap relative to the amount I binge.
I bought my girlfriend a pair of Airpods to upgrade over her cheap Bluetooth earbuds, and it's a massive improvement as well. So I don't recommend any particular brand. Just get a good pair that works well with your phone, has decent battery life (at least eight hours between charges), and provides either ANC or good passive noise cancellation.
It's a real quality of life improvement for me to have these things that can be in my pocket all the time and can pull out any time I need a distraction for whatever I'm doing.
A good microphone on them is also a plus, as it allows people to hear me through my mask.
Hetzner is my favourite VPS provider. Performance and great quality of service for a little price, I've never looked back since I switched from OVH to them a few years ago.
I also use Hetzner for my NextCloud instance[0]. Price for storage is worth it, you own your own data, and it removes the hassle of maintaining your NextCloud yourself.
Aldi has come to town. DigitalOcean has a serious challenge on their hands.
I’ll add: Mint Mobile in the US. $15/mo (paid in larger chunks, I pay annually) for 4GB data, unlimited voice/text. With working from home it’s really quite enough for me.
Outside of that, over the ear wired headphones are used everyday. Mine are 10 years old and work and sound fantastic.
* AWS S3 - nice, cheap hosting for my personal site.
* HBO Max, especially after I took advantage of their new member deal after they phased our HBO Nordic recently.
* Polyver boots. So warm. So comfortable. So ugly, but so worth it.
* Patagonia Insulated Prairie Dawn parka. I've had this thing for years and it's held up really well and gotten me through several Nordic winters.
I expected to go back to the office after getting vaccinated. But that much took longer than expected, and now again we're stuck in a lockdown waiting for booster vaccines to become available.
Keyboard: Keychron K1 mechanical keyboard. Slim enough so that no additional wrist support is needed but still feels great to type on.
Screen: Dell 27" U2720Q 4K screen. Good quality screen, charges the laptop with one cable and connects keyboard mouse etc. with built in USB hub. But the best feature is the optional soundbar with built in microphones and noise cancelling like a teleconference unit you find in a meeting room. It allows me to talk to people without having to plug things in my ears all the time which was a giant bother before.
2. Chase Sapphire Preferred - rental car insurance, free memberships for Doordash (12 months), Instacart (6 months) etc
3. IWI multivitamins
I used to be a huge miser and resent the idea of paying for, well, anything digital or knowledge based.
Now I realise that, well, I'd spend £5 on a pint in a pub, what's £10 a month? Even if there's only a 1% chance I actually learn XYZ that's better than nothing.
Well worth the $12/month or whatever I’m paying.
My Fujifilm x100v (or most of the previous x100 models), it’s been a fantastic family camera. I try to just leave it around the house for moments with the kids.
The coloring is superb and makes it seem like I know what I’m doing when I certainly do not.
Dev tools:
GitKraken. Linqpad. Sublime Text.
We pay for a handful of inexpensive channels, get an incredible array of shows for a fraction of the price we used to pay for basic dish. It's awesome.
* HAIX P3 Shoes - best shoes I ever had.
* UFPro P40 Pants
* Eberlestock F3F FAC
The money I spent to upgrade home WIFI and have Ethernet for my desk
Lexus
The money I pay to book Tennis court every week
Donations
All my ergo equipments (chair, monitors, standing desk, lighting, keyboard, mouse ...)
Certain publications (Economist) and Substacks.
Not happy I paid money to: Sonos Samsung tv
