I bought a piece of 1.5 inch stiff foam to try to fix a sag in a bed. It didn’t work but having that thick piece of solid foam around has been a life saver.
Need something flat to put a laptop on? Throw it on the foam. Going to be doing something that requires you to be on your knees for a while? Get the foam!
It went from stupid purchase to something I’d gladly replace if it broke.
When I worked at a small startup, we were moving to a new office and I was asked to help with the buildout. I engaged with the flooring vendor, and he came by one day to drop off a carpet sample. He put it on my desk where my mouse was. It was a rectangle sample of tight knit office carpet, about 18”x22”. When I got back to my desk, I just put my mouse on top of it and started using it as a mouse pad. That was 15 years and 3 companies ago, and I still use it as my mousepad. It’s perfect for the mouse to glide on, soft enough for my wrist to rest on, absorbent of sweat or drink condensation, and large enough I never hit the edge. I will never not use it. It is my mouse carpet, and I love it.
So you’re saying you decline to take this business opportunity which could have made you rich for 15 years just to feel superior to us gaming-spaceage-mousepad plebs with your exclusive desk carpet? How dare you.
How does it feel being superior to all the lame mousepad users?
Good. Really good.
I work in automotive interiors tooling. We had a customer bring by a sample of this headliner material. But they brought an entire roll of it, four feet wide, no idea how long. Probably 75 feet. I cut a couple feet off of it, now my whole desk is a mousepad.
Better than car carpet mousepad - imagine vacuuming your desk for 15 minutes and still have sand particles jumping around under the vacuum head like fleas.
That is a nice solution. There are also these giant mouse pads that can cover most of the desk. They are awesome.
Got a bidet as a joke gift for Christmas a few years ago, it has been an absolute game changer. Hate pooping anywhere but home now, I actually feel clean, and use much less toilet paper.
Bidet crew represent
There are dozens of us!
A significant portion of the world uses water to clean after doing their business! It’s just us westerners that are odd about it.
I’m curious what the history behind it is, because I never feel clean if I only wipe. Like if you handled faeces with your hands (for whatever reason) would you be OK with just wiping it off with a paper towel? I sure wouldn’t!
I’m from Italy. It’s full of bidets here.
Va bene! That’s not so much the case here in Sweden.
It kind of boggles the mind though. Setting aside the fact that paper only can’t possibly clean enough, isn’t it also more environmentally friendly to use water? I mean obviously if you pour a bathtub over your butt every time you do your business, then probably not so much, but no one uses that much water.
I use only water from the bidet.
If it wasnt for China, Westerners would also still scratch their asses with shells and stones.
So middle east gave them bidet and China gave them paper. They are so lucky
Hahaha, I had no clue about the shells. You piqued my interest, so I went down the toilet paper history rabbit hole.
I knew that the Romans used communal sponges, I didn’t know they were called tersorium though. Shockingly they spread disease.
Apparently here in the north, the vikings used animal bones, rags, and oyster shells! I’m not surprised we didn’t use paper though, since we didn’t really get paper until the Christians came and brought paper with them, and even then it was only for the educated Christian elite for hundreds of years, up until around the 1200-1300 or so, a good 700 years after people in China wiped their butts with paper!
Toilet paper started being produced here in Sweden in 1882, and the first factory stayed producing until sometime in the early 2000s.
Until the 1900s common folk often used leaves, grass, or the bottom hem of their skirt to clean themselves.
That last bit sounds really gross by modern standards, but given that skirts came in layers, and were really long, they were already covered with the muck of the outside ground so in the grand scheme of things I don’t think it made a very big difference.
According to the manufacturer, the first toilet paper (in Sweden) without wood chips and splinters was released in 1935.
My bidet butt could never handle scraping with oysters or splinterful toilet paper; I’d just scrape my anus off. I can barely use regular toilet paper as it is. People of old were built different hahahaha.
Hahaha, I had no clue about the shells.
He doesn’t know how to use the three seashells!
Demolition Man is a cool movie
It is not a significant portion. Most countries still use TP
Some cursory googling for this turned up a value by researcher Alex Crumbie, though I didn’t find any papers about it. According to them however 30% of the world uses toilet paper, the majority consumer being China. The remaining 70% of the world finds other solutions.
Given that Muslims wash as a religious requirement and are 1.8 billion…
(FYI, “there are dozens of us” is an Arrested Development quote. Your questions are definitely valid, but I’m not sure the poster of the comment actually meant much by it, besides the joke.)
This joke was old on Reddit and it doesn’t work when there are billions of you
Underrated comment.
Bidet 2024!!!
baby wipes are the next best thing when you need to go on the go!
Just don’t flush them please. Even the “flushable” kind clog pipes.
“There are no flushable wipes.” - Ozzy Osbourne
I got the glasses with 90 degree prisms in them so you can read while laying down. The person on the product page looked like an idiot and thought it would be funny, but I’m on my 3rd pair now
Does it work well with laptops too?
Yeah, even works if you want to watch TV
Need testimony from people using this with prescription
I don’t think you could fit them over glasses. Luckily I’m nearsighted so it doesn’t really matter for my use case
I’m very nearsighted. I wouldn’t be able to read that way bevause it would be too far away.
Hmmm, I might try them
Scooter. Not an electric one. I had a thought once “hey I did ride one in childhood, maybe it can be a bit of nostalgic fun from time to time”. Got myself the cheapest Chinese thing I could find, “no point investing too much into a fad”.
Turned out a scooter is absolute peak urban mobility. Short distances become much shorter. Mid-long distances become short. Granted, for a longer trip somehow the time gains diminish, probably because it’s not as efficient as a bike. But a scooter isn’t a long-hauler. It’s there to zip through an empty mall. It’s there to be folded up in a second and brought into a bus or a shop without being a hassle. It’s like 3-4 kg, not too fast for sidewalks but fast enough for bike roads, extremely easy to stop, doubles as a cart when carrying bags of groceries home.
The chinese one broke after 1 season because I was riding it everywhere. Then I got myself one from a better company, I chose it for small weight and portability. It’s technically children’s thing but I’m well below weight tolerance and also smol so it’s easy to handle. It’s already like a 5th year and whenever it’s not raining or too cold I ride it for shopping, errands, leisure walks, to work… Almost daily.
The wheel turns out to be a pretty good invention for multiplying by pi. For example, bicycling is about pi times faster than walking, with the same amount of effort.
They’re absolute shit if you live in a hilly city. Felt like I was going backwards.
Oh I believe. I live in an area that’s very flat.
Which scooter do you have now?
The lightest from Decathlon which is large enough to hold someone over 12 yrs of age. They may or may not still have them on offer as it was a few years ago.
I love the concept, tried some and would be willing to pay good money for a kick scooter that folds small enough to fit inside or hang off a big backpack, made of some super light material like carbon fibre
I’ve lost hours searching for such a thing online and the closest one is the Valor scooter. but unfortunately it’s ugly and they only make it for kids and I’m a big guy :/
Unfortunately I think we’re not there yet. My one folds into a meter-long bundle of a metal plank with wheels and a metal pipe and while it;s still light and handy it won’t fit in any backpack.
I feel it’s a lack of appetite. very few adults actually want non-electric. I’ve seen a much wider range of electrics, including small form, experimental ones and more :/
A PVC pipe cap.
I was making a lightsaber for my kid, and bought a length of clear PVC from Home Depot. (I know, they have bad politics, but Lowe’s didn’t carry clear PVC.) My local store didn’t have any clear PVC or clear accessories in stock, so I had to place an order for shipping, so I got a couple things “just in case” for the build. One of those was a pipe cap.
Didn’t end up using the pipe cap, because lightsabers don’t have that sort of end. It now sits at my desk as a teeny tiny trash can. Bits of thread from sewing, nail clippings, tags I clip off of shirts, a lot of things fit in the teeny tiny trash can. When it’s full, I empty it into the trash, but for a rather small pipe cap, it holds quite a bit of small trash.
What bad politics?
A toy accordion I bought at a truck stop 30 years ago. I blew all of my $30 in vacation spending money on it and everyone said I’d regret it. It ended up kind of joke\prop instrument in all my bands and I still have it and it’s still fun to play.
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Ratchet straps are like zip ties for big problems, absolutely invaluable.
Totally feel this.
I always kept a pair in my trunk alongside some twist ties, duct tape and a ratchet set.
The jams it got me out of or the stuff I was able to haul. Amazing.
Shower mirror. It has a base that suctions to the wall and a reservoir that you fill with hot water so that it doesn’t fog. I had no idea how much better it was than shaving at the sink. If I’m in a hurry I’ll sink shave but I love shower shaving and I love that mirror.
Edit: Here’s the one I use. No major complaints, just remove the mirror between uses and re-suction every once in a while.
Yeah I’m gonna need a link for that one
People complain in the comments about it falling off and breaking the mirror. I can attest the base does pop off after maybe a month or two of daily use. If you remove the mirror when you aren’t using it and re-suction every once in a while it’s really not an issue. It’s a bit unrealistic to be asking for an infinite suction cup. Materials admittedly feel cheap but it’s only $20. Just don’t put the base above anything it would damage if it pops off on you.
Where do you get one with a water reservoir?
Sweet. Thanks!
i have something similar. found it at target
What the actual fuck.
I’ve been shaving like a caveman my whole life.
Forty thousand years of evolution and we’ve barely even tapped the vastness of human potential.
An oversized poncho cape from the local Goodwill. It was woven in different shades of blue and while I’d never wear it outside, I’ve used it as a wearable blanket at home for a few years now.
I found out it was actually hand made, and costs 300+ USD from the original shop. Bonus points, I feel like a wizard when I wear it
How do you know you’re not a wizard when you wear it? Have you tried magic?
I was a Snuggie hater for many years, but I got an off-brand one as a Christmas gift probably 10 years ago and I live in that thing when I’m at home. It’s great for when I want to be cozy and play video games but don’t want to put my controller under the blanket.
If you ever break or have surgery on any part of your arm, you’ll be very happy to have that cape in the winter. I have a couple from when I broke my wrist and used them again when I had shoulder surgery.
I bet its fantastic orb pondering wear.
A 3D-Printer, I thought I just play around with it and get bored, but you discover so many things that you can do!
The handle on the fridge broke? Print new ones. Need a Flowerpot? Just print one. The router needs a wallmount? I have one ready in a few Hours.
Also I can watch it print for hours, very fascinating and calming.
ventilate my dude. read up on breathing around your 3D printer while its printing. no bueno
Micro plastics making me feel spastic!
E: if you know the song I will give you a Lemon
Aqua - Barbie Girl.
🚫
they were close!
Wait until you start printing more printers
I found one in a bin, and after a dumpster dive and £10 worth of parts, it’s now the most used appliances in my house.
I got one to print parts for my drones thinking it would be no big deal and it turned in to a hobby in itself.
I’ve really been resisting getting into drones via my 3d printer. I just love the idea that I could print out parts and make my drone better and better!
I only use it for things like guards, wire/cap/cameral holders… gopro case… things like that. but the frames are all carbon fiber. There are templates to print the entire drone out off the printer but I have not done that.
You can get the electronics pretty cheap. It might be a fun project for you :)
So noob question - I got a 3D printer relatively recently and have printed a few things with it by downloading files from various websites.
How do you go about making or getting files for your specific custom jobs like these please?
I remember literally watching it for an hour when it was new, it was fascinating.
Now I’m thinking of getting one. But hear me out, I have a lot of tools already. And it will suck me in to stuff that I didn’t know existed.
Get a Sovol SV06, it’s going to be cheap, easy to use, and minimal maintenance. You won’t regret it. Even if you just use it for jigs and custom clamp points, or something simple like replacing a missing end cap or something, every shop/garage/home can benefit from a 3D printer. It can be just another tool, or a hobby that consumes you, you can dive as deep as you want lol. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!
Yeah except you’re never really saving a lot of money and even when you do some duct tape would have worked just fine
Here’s an odd one my wife and I were just talking about. Some years ago, we were redoing our kitchen and the contractor told us to go buy the kitchen faucet we wanted. We went off, looked at several, and picked the one we thought looked the best with what we were doing.
When the contractor went to install it, he opened the box and a battery pack fell out. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why a faucet would need batteries. It turned out that you can turn it on and off by touching it anywhere (handle, faucet itself, whatever), you just leave the physical handle open and set where you want it, then you can touch on and off. I thought it was the dumbest thing ever and we’d never use it.
Flash Forward to now and it’s one of the most used conveniences we’ve ever bought. All those times your hands are covered in raw meat or other cooking mess? Just touch the faucet with your elbow. Rinsing a bunch of veggies one at a time? Tap on, tap off. It works flawlessly, unlike those touchless ones at the airport: no delay and works every time. We will never have a kitchen sink without it - my wife wants them for the bathroom.
An ebike: I don’t even really drive anymore most of the time and it beats the hell out of being stuck in traffic. Getting around is fun again.
I always enjoyed cycling and still ride my MTB, but for getting around town quickly, ebikes are hard to beat.
Same here with the ebike. I live near Seattle and everything I need is within a few minutes of ebike driving
If I can’t ebike, then I uber and it saves me a ton
Feel free to check out !micromobility@lemmy.world
Thank you for the recommendation!
It’s great that Lemmy is already growing with niche communities
can we get some more deets on what you use it for in terms of terrain/altitude/distance/weather?
Seriously considering an ebike to replace a 20 minute car commute (12 miles). There are some 750w used bikes on my local craigslist for ~1-2k USD, but there’s also a super cool dual-motor bike with rear suspension for $3k. Any advice?
I have an ebike I use as my daily commuter for a distance of 11 km each way (6.8 miles) over decently hilly terrain in a windy city as a large man. It still only takes 25 minutes and I charge my battery once a week? Maybe twice if I’m tired and using more boost.
Are you mechanically inclined at all? I purchased a motor conversion kit and a battery to convert my regular bike to ebike. It wasn’t really a difficult process, the hardest part was removing the bottom bracket as it was quite stuck. Took some thinking to get enough leverage without having the tool head chew out the bracket teeth. The rest was relatively plug and play. I was able to get the 500 W motor and 48 V 18 A hour battery for ~$1200 CAD together. I use it to commute to work so I wanted a longer range, if you don’t need as much power or as much range you could do it for cheaper.
I went for a mid drive motor which are more efficient but more expensive than hub drive, if you’re budget conscious you could do a hub drive. From my understanding the hub drive can be more difficult for maintenance (the wheel is a special version, so you need to buy another wheel that works with the hub drive if any issues occur) but I’m no expert.
All of that is a moot point if you don’t already have a bike to use, but you could find a local bike recycle store to get one cheap? Or you could get a new bike and convert that. I had a marin fairfax 2 that I converted over and it works great, haven’t had any issues and I’ve put on a couple thousand kms on it since converting (the display tracks total distance which is handy). I believe the marin was $700ish new from my local store.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B083J95GJP?geniuslink=true&psc=1
https://www.amazon.ca/10AH-Electric-Bicycle-Lithinum-Battery/dp/B09C1RP9KV
You could search for other options if you don’t want to support amazon, there are different sites to source the parts from, those were just the first two that I saw.
Here’s a battery from a Canadian company.
https://lunacycle.com/no-drill-battery-mount-kit/
Here’s a mounting bracket for the battery if the bracket seems unsteady or the holes don’t line up like with mine.
This is what I ended up going with. Let me know if you have any questions, I’d be happy to chat about the process more.
All of this is canadian specific because I reposted the meat of it from an older comment, bug I’m sure you could find local alternatives easily enough.
You don’t need much, 500w is enough.
Hell many people can get by with just a cheapo e-scooter.
An air fryer. It was a bit of an impulse buy and I didn’t think I would use it very much but as it turns out it’s much more versatile than I initially thought. I’m actually considering getting rid of my regular oven since I’ve rarely used it since I got my airfryer.
I was so against the air fryer. But I was wrong.
I bought my parents one for Christmas and my mom grumbled that it was a waste. They ended up using it most nights. Their oven broke and they didn’t even bother fixing it for 6 months or so
I didn’t understand the hype, everyone was saying “it’s just a small convection oven”. Sure it might be, but now I’ve used it, it definitely cooks differently and I much prefer it to my regular convection oven. I have been converted.
My wife was sweet about it but did a slight eye-roll when my Brother In-law got us an air fryer 3 years ago for Christmas. We’ve gotten rid of our toaster and use our oven less often.
PS - Air fried leftovers are so freaking good.
8 years ago, i got an EUC, aka Electric Unicycle, seamed difficult strange, i managed to learn how to ride it, everybody said i looked like an alien…
8 years later i ride a Veteran Sherman S (suspension model) and i freakngly still love to ride it!! Got a couple of friends hooked, now i’ve got a whole team in Greece! 😉
I needed a “lap desk” or something to put my laptop on, but I wanted it to be low-profile and I could only find a wooden cutting board. Now wooden cutting boards are the only thing I use as lap desks because most actual lap desks I find are super bulky.
