• @pacific
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    1365 months ago

    A bidet 💪 even a cheap one is nice.

    • AdaM
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      165 months ago

      After using a dedicated bidet for the first time, I was an instant convert! But the after market ones installed in existing toilets just aren’t the same. If I ever get the chance, I’ll be adding one to any house I own!

      • FaceDeer
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        105 months ago

        You mean those handheld bidets like a tiny shower head on a flexible hose? I actually much prefer those over the ones mounted inside the toilet bowl. I can aim them wherever I want, and I find it handy for all kinds of non-bidet things - you can hose things down in the tub or sink next to the toilet, for example, or use it to clean the toilet bowl itself.

        • AdaM
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          5 months ago

          I mean the stand alone ones built in beside the toilet.

          Something like this

          • FaceDeer
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            5 months ago

            Ahh, yeah, I don’t like the notion of those. Never tried one but just conceptually it seems limited.

            The kind I’ve got is just this, it’s super easy to attach to an existing toilet and is quite handy.

            • @[email protected]
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              I’m Italian and I must support @FaceDeer 's point, these are standard in my country (and they should be standard everywhere, damn barbarians) and they are definitely better than a spray nozzle attached to a toilet. You can also use them for other things, like washing your feet.

              • Fleppensteyn
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                45 months ago

                So you have a dirty crack, you got to get up, and waddle through the bathroom with pants on your ankles?

                • @[email protected]
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                  65 months ago

                  Yeah, I’m wondering about that. I’m a filthy TP barbarian but, how exactly does one make this style of bidet work?

                • FaceDeer
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                  45 months ago

                  I think there’s confusion about which versions of bidet we’re talking about. The kind I’m lauding, the ones like a little shower head, are attached to the toilet you’re on. You don’t need to go anywhere to use them, just reach over and take it from its holder.

            • Altima NEO
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              25 months ago

              How do you guys use that? I’m guessing you live somewhere where it’s warm? That would be spraying ice cold water up my bum over here.

              • FaceDeer
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                75 months ago

                The opposite, actually - I’m Canadian. :)

                All I can say is that if you’ve never tried a bidet before you’ll likely be very surprised by how little sensitivity you’ve got to cold water down there. It’s simply not uncomfortable or even particularly noticeable, either in my experience or in anyone I’ve talked to about it (which is admittedly not many - it’s not a common topic of conversation).

                The hand bidet was super cheap and the shipping was free, so I figured “why not give it a whirl?” And it worked out great.

                • @nikosey
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                  25 months ago

                  ill second that, i thought it would be a problem but decided to just endure the cold because i didnt feel like running power over to the toilet but turned out not to be a problem at all. if anything its sort of refreshing lol

                • @[email protected]
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                  25 months ago

                  How do you make it work though? You slip a hand behind you and aim at the crack at an angle so it sprays into the bowl?

    • @[email protected]
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      85 months ago

      Warning. Purchasing a bidet will ruin travel because you don’t feel clean the entire trip

      • Chozo
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        85 months ago

        How? Aren’t you using more water than normal dry wiping, which uses none?

        • @pacific
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          375 months ago

          It takes a lot of water and energy to make toilet paper. Well, a lot more than turning on my bidet for 10 seconds.

          • @[email protected]
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            135 months ago

            I would also add on that, unless you REALLY rocked that toilet, every poo becomes a single flush. Rather than potentially needing to double flush to avoid clogging it

            • metaStatic
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              115 months ago

              While you’re shopping for a bidet also shop for an Australian toilet. The half flush saves a lot more water too but the proper s-bend makes everything a single flush even if you rocked it hard.

              and by rocked it I mean you filled it with mercury for some reason

              • @[email protected]
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                55 months ago

                What’s this now? There are a number of US toilets that have the dual flush feature, but what’s this about a modified S bend?

                • @Mr_Blott
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                  45 months ago

                  Literally no other countries have problems with toilets clogging. It’s not a modified S, it’s a normal one

          • Chozo
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            65 months ago

            Ahh, that’s an interesting angle I hadn’t considered. I wonder if there’s a way to quantify the water savings this way, like a volume of water per TP roll or something. I feel like that could be a solid selling point to get more people interested in buying one.

            • guyrocket
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              45 months ago

              I was curious a while ago and researched a little. Bidets are the environmental champ for butt cleaning.

          • Cool Beance
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            35 months ago

            Ten seconds? I think Mother Nature can understand if you wanna live it up a little bit more you know?

            • @pacific
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              15 months ago

              I spray my ass with the force of a thousand tsunamis—10 seconds is more than enough.

              • Cool Beance
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                25 months ago

                Hahaha well then what better experience can you have with an ebb and flow like that? That’s beyond living it up, and more like riding the storm 😆

        • Granixo
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          -25 months ago

          What i mean is that you can save a lot of water by cleaning yourself using a bidet + bath sink instead of doing a full shower. 🚰

          You don’t need to shower every day. 🚿

          • @[email protected]
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            45 months ago

            You don’t need a shower everyday just because your ass gets dirty. You need to shower everyday because the rest of you is dirty too lol

            • Victor
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              15 months ago

              To add: not everyone needs to shower daily, either. I don’t have a physical job, I shower maybe twice a week. More than enough for me. Also use Aleppo soaps, because they keep you clean longer. High oil percentage.

              • @[email protected]
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                15 months ago

                There are very few people in this world in my opinion who shouldn’t be showering daily or at least every other day.

                I can spend all day doing nothing and still reek at the end of the day. I’m sorry but you sound gross. Ain’t no high quality shampoo. Keeping the stink off you that long.

                • Victor
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                  35 months ago

                  Sounds like you don’t have enough experience with talking to people about hygiene? I know many people who don’t shower daily and are perfectly hygienic and not smelly at all, me included, and my wife. Kids definitely usually don’t need to bathe daily either. Sometimes weekly is enough. Especially infants shouldn’t rinse too much, else they develop skin problems.

                  If you spend all day doing nothing and reek?? Sounds like a you problem. Probably genetic.

                  Research Aleppo soaps. Might actually help you!

                  Good luck, stinky! ❤️😊

    • @[email protected]
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      25 months ago

      Came to say bidet. I have the poor man version … 25 at Amazon. I suffer Everytime I have to go back to only tp when not at home. I feel like a savage caveman without one. Smearing poop is just nasty and uncivilized to me. I have used the fancy ones in Japan but really did not like the warm water. I prefer the shocking cold glaciar feeling of butt refreshes. To anyone reading this…get a bidet, ANY KIND… Try cleaning up peanutbutter from your arm with just paper to experience what we talking about .

  • @[email protected]
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    1295 months ago

    If it counts, definitely the Steam Deck. With that and emulators, it’s like having almost every game I’ve ever owned in one portable machine.

    • @[email protected]
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      315 months ago

      In a similar vein, I love my ps vita. Hacked, it’s an absolutely amazing console, and is able to boast the “actually fits in my pocket” award.

      • GrappleHat
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        5 months ago

        Similar here: Anbernic RG280V. Fits in a pocket. Plays everything up through PSX. I use it all the time!

      • @[email protected]
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        85 months ago

        Such a cool console. Sony butchered it, but theres still so much fun to be had with it. We got a GTA san andreas port by the community ffs

        • @[email protected]
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          05 months ago

          Sony wishing they didn’t make the vita is a double edged sword, because it also means you can be a completely obvious hacker, and Sony doesn’t give a singular fuck. And they still ban people for hacking on ps3, so it isn’t just age.

      • KSP Atlas
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        25 months ago

        Yeah i have a modded psvita, scene is suprsingly active. You got ensō?

        • @[email protected]
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          05 months ago

          I have whatever I set up with when I hacked it tbh. I don’t really do much beyond transfer games onto it at this point

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        Have had mine for 10 years and it still going. The screen edges are a bit yellow but not a big deal.

    • @[email protected]
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      125 months ago

      I just got one so reading this makes me hopeful. Fallen out of love with gaming a bit in recent years

      • @CheesyGordita
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        95 months ago

        Check out “Dave the diver”. I’ve fallen out of love with gaming as well and I’ve been dropping a lot of hours into this game on my steam deck. Super unique and easy to pick up and put down. Feels fresh.

          • Thassodar
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            25 months ago

            If you like platformers Bzzt just came out and would definitely run on the deck. For roguelikes I’d recommend Darkest Dungeon, Hades, or Rogue Legacy. For a straightforward RPG with 3D models but pixel art I’d recommend Octopath Traveller 2.

            I also recommend Dave the Diver as well, fantastic game.

      • BlueFairyPainter
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        45 months ago

        Also just ordered mine. Since I started working fulltime remote a year ago, I found myself not wanting to spend more time on my desk after work. That translated into me almost giving up gaming even though I used to love it. Moving to a place where I can have a second desk would cost me one Steam Deck per month so I just went with a Steam Deck lol

      • @Chobbes
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        5 months ago

        I got one recently too, and it’s already helping me with this. I hope you find joy in it :). I never buy myself anything so I was worried I’d regret it… but I really like it so far.

        • @[email protected]
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          25 months ago

          Omg same, but it’s been a rough year so this is my Christmas gift to myself I guess. Also glad to hear it’s helping you :)

          • @Chobbes
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            35 months ago

            It’s been great for getting to games I’m not sure I would have otherwise. Ori and the Blind Forest was the perfect game to play through on it!

            I hope you have a better rest of the year and beyond. This year stank a bit for me too, but there’s been some good things as well.

    • @Thteven
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      35 months ago

      I got a retroid pocket 3+ for emulators and it’s fuckin awesome. I feel like a steam deck may be in my near future lol

    • Baby Shoggoth [she/her]
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      25 months ago

      Along these lines, i’m thrilled with the ps portal as well. was only $200, but the ps online streaming is so good. i used to use it on ps4 on my ipad with an external controller from 1200 miles away at legit decent frame rate and latency.

      ps portal’s display is crisp and beautiful, it looks so much more gorgeous than the steam deck (because all the rendering is done on the ps5), and there are some games that i don’t even really want to play on the big screen format that the portal has made awesome because they’re wonderful on handheld format.

      best gaming purchase i’ve made in a long while

    • @[email protected]
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      25 months ago

      I came here to type that, so I’ll just upvote yours instead. Such a versatile device, the Steam Deck!

    • @[email protected]
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      75 months ago

      I’ve been struggling with gout in my knee and ankle off and on. When it gets bad I’m almost immobile and I broke down and finally bought a cane to help me hobble around when it’s at its worst.

      Mine also came from Ukraine and like you I wanted something with personality. I got an oak, ball top style stained cherry and I love it!

        • 🐍🩶🐢
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          15 months ago

          Physical Therapy! Do the exercises/stretches. If you need to go back and ask a doctor for another round, do it. I get it though.

          Sometimes KT tape can do wonders, but it really really depends. Personally, the best was with knees and arms. I wear a different kind of brace for my ankle, a Trilok, but there are apparently a whole bunch of similar ones now.

          Other times you just suffer in silence…

            • @[email protected]
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              15 months ago

              Dude do it. I dealt with chronic pain for way too long and just accepted it as hopeless. I had tried stretches and exercises on my own with no luck so I wrote physical therapy off as pointless.

              Eventually I gave in and 6 weeks in to physical therapy my pain is like 80% gone. I started noticing improvements after a week.

  • Shurimal
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    985 months ago

    Probably it doesn’t quite count as a gadget, but repurposing my old PC as a home server. Firstly it makes a great mass storage solution making all my media accessible from any device, no matter what architecture it is and what apps it can run. I also self-host Home Assistant, Syncthing, Radicale, Navidrome, Jellyfin and UrBackup. The ten years old 2 core Pentium with 8GB of RAM can do it all, it’s much cheaper to run than half a dozen subscription services and I have total control over my data and privacy.

    • @[email protected]
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      25 months ago

      wow that’s amazing. so it’s connected to all other PCs in the house? did you have to buy a lot of new storage?

      • Shurimal
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        15 months ago

        I actually bought just one new 6TB HDD and repurposed an older 3TB one as a redundancy drive for mirroring most critical data using a simple rsync cron job (no need for realtime mirroring of media files that are write-once), plus another old 1 TB drive just because. I haven’t run out of storage yet and I have automated download/sharing for OpenStreetMap and some Linux distros which takes up half a TB or so, but I plan on expanding the array using MergerFS and SnapRAID when the need arises.

        The rest is just SMB shares, Navidrome, Jellyfin, DLNA and FTP. Remote access from outside my local network is done via Tailscale VPN.

        • @[email protected]
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          15 months ago

          What benefits do you see in navidrome compared to having your music in Jellyfin? I’m just starting out with jellyfin and added some music to it. I listen to it with findroid on my phone and so far it seems to work okay.

          • Shurimal
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            15 months ago

            Navidrome just seems to be faster and more responsive. But the main reason of using both is that I just like to try things out and tinker. I also use Foobar2000, Kodi, MPC-HD, AIMP and other media players.

    • @[email protected]
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      25 months ago

      If you don’t mind, which processor do you have? I’ve been thinking of setting up a Jellyfin server too, but I have a G4500 and I’ve always been worried that it can’t handle the load…

      • Shurimal
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        35 months ago

        Mine is the venerable G3258—the budget overclocking champ in the 4th generation Core family. Runs at 4,4 GHz and handles OpenMediaVault and 19 Docker containers just fine. I think G4500 would be fine, too.

        • bruhduh
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          15 months ago

          deleted by creator

          • Shurimal
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            15 months ago

            True, the old server parts are dirt cheap if you can source them (theyr’e not really available in my country and importing from China, UK or US would more than double the cost). But they’re also quite power hungry and energy cost has gone up crazy over the past few years. My current setup consumes around 127 W total (overclocked CPU, 3 HDD-s) and it costs me around 20€/month or half my energy bill (small one bedroom apartment with full LED lighting). If I upgrade it’ll probably be cheap current PC hardware which tends to be much more power efficient.

            My dream setup is a 16 core ARM CPU with something like 64…128 GB of LPDDR🫠

      • @ilinamorato
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        15 months ago

        As I understand it, media streaming isn’t actually that taxing because your server doesn’t actually have to render all of that data, just transfer it; so as long as it can handle a copy operation faster than one second per second, and you’re only watching from one device at a time, it’ll still work.

        I haven’t done it, though, so I’m not sure how much overhead Plex/Jellyfin add by way of transcoding.

    • @[email protected]
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      15 months ago

      I recently picked up a 13 year old dell inspiron to run my instance of home assistant and Plex. It was an upgrade from a shitty old Linux laptop that was literally falling apart. All I had to do was add ram (it only had 6gb and it wasn’t stable, so I maxed it out with 16gb) and I swapped the old slow HDD for a crucial SATA SSD and it’s been perfect. It probably pulls more wattage than necessary but it’s exactly what I need for now.

    • @[email protected]
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      15 months ago

      What benefits do you see in navidrome compared to having your music in Jellyfin? I’m just starting out with jellyfin and added some music to it. I listen to it with findroid on my phone and so far it seems to work okay.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        I’m not the guy you replied to.

        I originally stored my music in Plex and used Plexamp. I have a large playlist downloaded from youtube which caused horrible performance issues in Plexamp. Navidrome is pretty much a read-only service. It can only read metadata from the files, not add any or manage them. For me this feels safer to expose to the internet since my docker container only has read-only access to all of my files. Even if someone broke into the service for some reason, they couldn’t do anything to my files.

        I don’t know if jellyfin has similar performance issues with large playlists since I already had navidrome set up by then.

        • @[email protected]
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          15 months ago

          Thanks! I don’t have too much music on it yet, I guess, so not sure on the performance. I do like that read only approach, though. Currently I’m running just the regular jellyfin app on my Mac. What made you use it in docker? It sounds like in Linux it’s a safeguard to prevent dependency issues but I don’t think that’s really a factor on mac

          • @[email protected]
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            15 months ago

            Mostly ease of management. I have a server on which I run multiple applications. If I don’t need something anymore, I can just purge the container. The directories used by that container are clearly listed in my docker-compose file so I never have to wonder whether I purged everything that is now unnecessary.

            It also makes it very easy to deploy a new service.

    • @protput
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      15 months ago

      I bought a cheap low power minipc. Don’t know the numbers but having a 10yo desktop powered 27/7 can’t be that great for your power consumption.

      The one I bought is an Intel Alder Lake N100 Quad Core up to 3.4GHZ, 16GB DDR5 512GB for €160.

  • @[email protected]
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    5 months ago

    Bidet for sure. A good one in the $300-400 range. It is such a gamechanger to always have a clean ass. And without TP, the toilet never clogs and you aren’t spending extra on TP. Also helps with hemorrhoids if/when you get those, as TP is really rough on your asshole/not good for you.

    I still have some TP for guests, but with the dryer built in, it really isn’t needed.

    Also, a bidet is a lifesaver if you like extreme hotsauces. Basically, it’s the only piece of daily furniture that makes me go “God, I’m so glad I bought this” for literal years since I got it in the pandemic. No cold toilet seat during winter. Heated seat that doesn’t slam. Hot water. Hot air blow dryer. Self-cleaning.

    • @[email protected]
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      Came to say bidet, but I have the poor man version … 25 at Amazon. I suffer Everytime I have to go back to only tp when not at home. I feel like a savage caveman without one. Smearing poop is just nasty and uncivilized to me. I have used the fancy ones in Japan but really did not like the warm water. I prefer the shocking cold glaciar feeling of butt refreshes. To anyone reading this…get a bidet, ANY KIND… Try cleaning up peanutbutter from your arm with just paper to experience what we talking about .

    • @[email protected]
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      55 months ago

      Well, you can spend 300-400 or you can buy a “portable bidet bottle” and clean your asshole with warm water. You’ll still need to use some toilet paper (or maybe a towel) to dry, but you’ll be spending $15 more or less and you can carry it with you when you travel.

      • Have you ever used one of these? I thought about getting one for backpacking trips; TP becomes a major consideration on those, and - frankly - I often have all the time in the world to wait, and airdry, and enjoy the view. At least, on summer trips. But I’ve wondered how well they work in practice.

        • @[email protected]
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          25 months ago

          I’ve been using a 0.5L one for years now. Usually it’s enough, but there are times that when I dry (with toilet paper) I see that I need a little more cleaning and then I either finish with the paper or refill the bottle and try again.

        • businessfish
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          25 months ago

          i have a backpacking bidet (culo clean specifically) and I would say it gives mixed results. basically, you need to practice and develop a technique to “get the most” out of it in terms of water usage, how clean you can get, etc. I don’t have a normal bidet so i have nothing to compare it with and maybe my technique isnt so good. mine gets me mostly clean but i still need a square of toilet paper to make sure in almost every case. better than not having it, but not the results I was hoping for.

      • @[email protected]
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        I’ve cleaned it twice just to feel good about it, but it’s been sparkling aside from some hard water deposits, which came off pretty easily. It always runs water over it after use, and the nozzle angle is so steep, it doesn’t get poo on it. I have a toto one. (I’ve had mine since about mid 2021)

        I still clean the toilet seat and the underside of the seat though, which can get a bit of pee on it if you’re a guy. I’m a bit of a clean freak too, so when I say clean, I mean clean, lol.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍
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    5 months ago

    A countertop water boiler. It turns out I go through just about 4L of tea a day and now I spend a lot less time boiling water. And when you refill it and it comes to temperature it plays Fur Elise

    edit: typo

    • AdaM
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      465 months ago

      You mean a kettle? How did you not already have one?

      • @[email protected]
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        325 months ago

        They’re a little different. Kettles are small (1-2 liters) will heat water until it’s boiling and then shut off(or have the user disconnect the heat source)

        Water boilers hold a larger amount of water (3-5 liters) at a consistent temperature with a button to dispense it.

        I upgraded from a kettle to a zojirushi water boiler and I’ve never looked back. The thing is incredible. Absolutely worth the price.

      • @[email protected]
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        145 months ago

        It’s because the USA power standards are not suitable for kettle life. The 110 voltage on their power means it takes ages to come to the boil. The idea of putting a few cups of water into a kettle, pushing a button and having boiling water inside a minute does not exist.

        That’s why these tabletop things are useful: yes they take ages to initially boil, then they maintain that temperature. 110 volts is fine for that task.

        • @[email protected]
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          35 months ago

          There are 240v outlets in the USA, but they’re usually only used for things with heavy power draw (clothes dryers, EV chargers, electric hot water heaters, etc). Some areas have 208v instead of 240v though.

          But yeah, boiling water is slow in the USA and a lot of people do it in the microwave (whereas I never saw anyone ever do that in Australia). We’ve got a Breville espresso machine that has instant hot water, which is useful for some of the use cases we’d use a kettle for.

        • @ilinamorato
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          15 months ago

          This is kinda true and kinda not. Even on 110, an electric kettle is faster than a kettle on a gas stove. The real answer is that Americans just don’t drink much tea. My family is unusual in that regard.

          • @[email protected]
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            25 months ago

            This video also proves my point. And he knows it. Nearly 5 minutes to boil a litre of water? That’s hilarious!

            I just replicated his experiment, with an identical bottle of water in my kettle, and was surprised that it took 2:47 to boil. I honestly would have thought it quicker than that.

            This isn’t about tea, either. In fact, I boil the kettle for coffee far more frequently than for tea. I would also boil a kettle to quickly get 2L of water for cooking pasta. But since I’ve just boiled it and it’s 10:30pm, I make peppermint tea. Ahhh.

            • @ilinamorato
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              15 months ago

              Did you miss the part about how it’s still the fastest way to boil water? Yes yes, it’s slower than yours, we’re all jealous. Even still, we would all have electric kettles if we needed to boil water all that often because it’s faster than anything else we have. But:

              • People don’t make pasta or rice every day, and even when you do you usually have plenty of time for it to come to a boil while you’re chopping or stirring or whatever. People who do make rice that often typically use a rice cooker.
              • You can’t really boil enough water in a kettle to cook potatoes or vegetables or anything else.
              • Coffee makers of most types typically boil their own water (yes there are pourovers and chemexes, but they aren’t that common and people who use them do buy kettles).

              Nobody would buy a kettle for just cooking even if we did have more power delivery, simply because you don’t cook anything by boiling all that often. Case in point: my family drinks tea, and so we own a kettle, but tea is really the only time we boil water (in the kettle or otherwise) for anything on a daily basis.

      • VegaLyrae
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        95 months ago

        No, these devices hold water at the appropriate temperature for long periods of time using extremely good insulation. They provide hot water on-demand after reaching temperature and are used in a way that is somewhat different from kettles.

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍
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        5 months ago

        No, I mean the things I linked to. They’re like small countertop hot water tanks. I also do have multiple kettles.

        • @pensivepangolin
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          15 months ago

          What? I’m American and everyone I know owns one.

    • @[email protected]
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      85 months ago

      And Zojirushi sells parts for their appliances! So instead of having to buy a brand new boiler, I just got a lid for my 15 year old boiler. I’ll always give business to companies that support their products like that

      • Billygoat
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        5 months ago

        While that is true in this case, I do remember a post about one of their rice cookers that bricks itself when the CR battery dies, that requires a soldering iron to replace.

        Found it

        Edit: ok not a total brick but still…

  • Bri Guy
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    545 months ago

    would a raspberry pi count? i’ve been self-hosting a nextcloud instance and my RSS feed for a while now and i’ve really been enjoying it

    • JoeCoT
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      95 months ago

      Arduino in the same vein. There’s a great “30 Days Lost in Space” tutorial set, but even to play around with by yourself for cheap, you can get an off brand (the hardware is open source!) Arduino Mega for 20 bucks. All sorts of cool programming and electronics fun.

      • eighthourlunch
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        75 months ago

        Ditto on the Arduino. I built a pickup winder for electric guitar, and it’s more than made up for its price in entertainment alone.

    • @proudblond
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      65 months ago

      Heck yes. I never want to use the internet anywhere but my house because my husband installed a Pihole and it’s the best thing evaaaar.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        AdGuard Home is better since it supports DNS over HTTPS, which prevents your internet provider from seeing and intercepting your DNS queries (which they can do even if you use a third-party DNS service like Google or Cloudflare). You can get DoH working on PiHole but it’s a lot of manual work.

          • @[email protected]
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            25 months ago

            It’s even easier with AdGuard Home though, since it uses DoH via Quad9 out-of-the-box. People usually use solutions like PiHole and AdGuard Home because they don’t want to mess with it at the command-line, just via the web UI.

    • @Aux
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      15 months ago

      I have a whole stack of RasPis doing all kinds of things, from Home Assistant powered smart home management to 3D printer control thanks to Klipper.

  • @Adalast
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    535 months ago

    Steam Deck. Without question. I don’t think I would have been able to cope with the last year and a half of my life without it. This year has been very rough and I have been able to escape life while still spending time with my family. Top-tier psychological maintenance for me.

    • Björn Tantau
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      105 months ago

      Same. Long Covid has me tied to my bed and with the Steam Deck I can at least get some gaming to pass the time. It’s awesome!

  • @CADmonkey
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    5 months ago

    This one seems silly, but one really useful cheap thing I bought that I use much more than I thought I would is an electric kettle. (I should point out I’m in the US) I use it to make iced tea, my wife uses it for hot tea, and we both use it for boiling water for whatever cooking project needs it. We have a gas stove, and it takes about twice as long to heat up a liter of water as this kettle. It uses a normal US 120v outlet and I think it draws 1,000w. (Edit: I looked it up and it’s 1,100 watts)

  • @[email protected]
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    425 months ago

    A home server. Originally a Dell R710, now a custom built desktop.

    If I can possibly self host something now I will do that over using big tech proprietary services. I feel free.

    • @[email protected]
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      35 months ago

      Just don’t forget backups! I use Borgbackup for mine.

      I know some people don’t want a home server because of the space it’d take up, but you can get pretty powerful mini PCs these days (look for ones with an i3-N305 processor) or buy cheap second-hand ex-office PCs on eBay.

      For people that still don’t want to have a physical server at their house, you can do a lot of the same self-hosting stuff using a VPS. If you live in an area with expensive electricity (like California or Australia), you can usually get a VPS with a modern processor, ~8GB RAM, and a decent amount of NVMe disk space for $5/month or less, which is easily what it’d cost you just for the electricity usage of a home server.

    • /home/pineapplelover
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      15 months ago

      How do you access it away from home. I’m able to access my NAS since Synology gives us a domain to use and we do everything using port forwarding. I would assume that if you set everything up by yourself, you would need to get your own domain and ssl certificates and everything?

      • @[email protected]
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        25 months ago

        I have a domain name on cloudflare DNS, Let’s Encrypt certificates that auto renew and an Nginx reverse proxy pointing at the services I host. Port forwarding through the opnsense router for https.

        It’s been a journey setting it up, but its basically been unchanged for about 5 years now and works well. If I need to I can VPN in too.

    • bruhduh
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      15 months ago

      deleted by creator

  • Carighan Maconar
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    405 months ago

    Last time I needed new headphones for going out, I bought a Shockz bone conducting headphone.

    While the specific one I bought was the wrong choice (the Run I got is slick but needs a proprietary charging cable instead of the USB-C the Move uses, and they sound 100% the same), overall the concept is really good. I enjoy hearing people around me, for someone who more listens to podcasts and radio shows not music the quality is perfect, and I can wear these on my bicycle without having to worry I won’t hear something.

    Also, since they don’t sit in the ear not enclose it it’s easy to semi-forget them there as they’re so comfortable, no stuffed feeling or sweaty ears. I sometimes just use them at home instead of shifting a podcast onto the sonos speakers. Just easier.

    • @Mostly_Gristle
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      95 months ago

      Yes. I love mine. I originally got some bone-conduction headphones to use at my job because I work in a high noise environment and they still work while you’re wearing earplugs, but I use them pretty much constantly now. It’s really nice to have my music or podcasts and still be able to hear when someone asks me a question, or to be able to hear traffic coming if I’m out walking or jogging.

      I’ve had a couple pairs of them now and weirdly bone-conduction headphones seem to be the one electronic device that under promises on its battery life. I don’t know if maybe I just got lucky, but the cheap no name set I got off Amazon promised 5 hours, but even after a year still regularly lasts 8 or 9. My Shokz Open Run Pros promise 10 hours, and I routinely get 15 or 16 hours. So that’s nice.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        Out of curiosity: did you ever test noise cancelling headsets in that high noise environment? I’d think that in-ear and over-ear nc headphones should work quite well too.

        • @Mostly_Gristle
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          35 months ago

          No, because active noise cancellation doesn’t offer any hearing protection. It doesn’t make the noise go away, it works by sending out an extra soundwave which is a mirror inversion of noise to be cancelled, sends out peaks where there were troughs and troughs where there were peaks, and they cancel each other out as far as your brain is concerned. But to work the destructive soundwave has to be as loud as the sound it’s cancelling, and now you have two sound waves blasting away, still moving air and putting pressure on your eardrums, and it’s that pressure causes the damage to your hearing.

          Proper PPE has a passive barrier that physically blocks the bulk of the vibration from reaching your eardrums in the first place. Active noise cancellation does kind of the opposite of that.

    • @[email protected]
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      5 months ago

      I’ve heard of these for a while and general question for you and anyone else who’s looked. What are the red flags? Nothing comes without risks and years of research has shown the hearing damage from traditional headphones. There has to be a rub with these. What are the negative rumblings of using these style of headphones. They have to be there. We just don’t have the decades of research yet.

      • Carighan Maconar
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        135 months ago

        If I now say that your premise is wrong (headphones don’t cause hearing loss, loud noises do, independent of the source), does that automatically answer your question? 😛

        Now to dig a bit deeper into that, there is a lot of research into MIHL from using PLDs, and the key thing is always people turning up the volume higher than they normally would, usually due to the context of where they are. That is, we use our little headphones in noisy environments, and to drown out the noise we turn them up too much and start damaging our ears over time.

        In that regard, bone conduction headsets are worse. They are intentionally fully open, and don’t in the slightest bit try to reduce ambient noise. That is, if anything you’d be tempted to crank them up even higher.

        I will however say that the models I’ve used all came with an interesting “safety” in this regard that stems from the way they work: At a certain and not that loud noise level, they start vibrating physicially off the skin during playback, in turn plateauing the achievable volume. I suspect however that this level is already beyond healthy.

        So, in other words:
        If you’re concerned about hearing loss, keep the volume in sane reaches. If you also need to ignore outside noise while listening, this means getting enclosing and/or noise-cancelling headphones, not open ones like bone conducting. However, if keeping the volume low, say during listening at home, bone conduction is no different from other forms of receiving audio, both still stimulate the hearing canal hairs.

        • @[email protected]
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          55 months ago

          Agreed 100%.

          Before I got my noise cancelling headphones, I was very aware of the volume that I have set when trying to watch a movie in a plane. After I got the noise cancelling headphones, I no longer have to set it that loud anymore.

          That said, some airlines need to relook their volumes of their PA system. Some of them are shockingly louder than necessary. Lol

        • Yeah, I love my ANC earbuds. In pass-through mode, I can hear ambient sounds almost better than I can without them, especially on a bike where I can tune them to blank wind noise but allow voices and bells. And you’re right about not needing high volume to hear music well. They have great sound quality, and the ANC is indispensible on airplanes.

          The downside is cost; GP’s bone-conducting headset is $90, and the other pair they mention is $60. A good pair of ANC earbuds starts around $200, and some of the better pairs are upwards of $300.

          Worth the money, IMO, but if $60 is all you can afford, GP’s might be the better bet than super sketchy-quality cheap ANC earbuds.

    • @RaoulDook
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      15 months ago

      What’s the frequency response like on those? Can you hear low-end bass in a way that sounds good?

  • @guriinii
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    375 months ago

    Robot vacuum. Autistic and ADHD and could never keep on top of keeping my floor clean. But I can now!

    • @[email protected]
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      25 months ago

      These free up so much time. Love mine too. I cook a lot and mess around a lot in the open kitchen/living room area and had to sweep the floor daily…not anymore.

  • @GenesisJones
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    365 months ago

    Y’all this sound crazy, but the Bug A Salt is fucking awesome.

    It’s worth it if you can get a black Friday deal or something under 30$ because it’s just a little salt when you shoot it and there’s no guts on your wall, no dirty fly swatter, no chasing, no jumping, no reaching, and you feel like a sniper hitman.

    Its not a toy. That shit hurts when you get hit lol

  • oleorun
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    345 months ago

    Flipper Zero - I’m not being devious with it. Yet.

    Kidding - I bought it since I am a ham and I can find a dozen uses for it in the field.

    • @[email protected]
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      105 months ago

      It’d probably be worth it just to turn off the TV’s that blare ads at you at train stations and such if it can do that.

    • TherouxSonfeir
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      5 months ago

      I hear the modded firmware takes all the restrictions off, and you can broadcast in a greater range, for car remotes, as well as read more from RFID, like credit cards. Not that I would know of course

    • SVcrossDO
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      35 months ago

      I’d have a ham sandwich

    • @[email protected]
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      15 months ago

      Ham here too, what practical uses have you found? Mine is sitting in a box, I got it almost a year ago and haven’t checked the latest firmware or apps in almost that long.

    • @glitch1985
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      15 months ago

      Any idea if they ever go on sale? $175 seems a bit much for what it is.