Ask HN: Share a product you loved using in 2023 | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Share a product you loved using in 2023

42 pointsvinniepukh61 comments

Can be anything - physical, software, old, new.

- For finding information: Perplexity

- For finding websites or products: Kagi

- For reading, annotating, journaling, daily planning: Supernote A5X (the only device I’ve ever purchased that lands in the same tier of usefulness as my MBP or iPhone)

- For typing comfortably: A custom Corne keyboard (https://keebmaker.com/products/corne-cherry)

- For note-taking at work: Obsidian (the graph-like organization scheme has paid dividends multiple times for me)

> For finding information: Perplexity

How is this better than ChatGPT?

It's better than ChatGPT in pretty much every possible way. The two that are most important and least subjective: Up to date information and cited sources.

Other more subjective things: fewer hallucinations (I have yet to encounter a factual error in Perplexity, and I do check the source on anything that seems questionable) and the follow-on question suggestions are very useful.

To be clear, by "finding information," I'm mostly referring to factual historical or current event information about the real world, i.e. not reference information for writing code. For the usecase I'm describing, I think it's frankly silly to use ChatGPT over Perplexity.

Could you elaborate on the dividends?

I’ve been using it to learn about/discuss/work on the same topic area for several years (since Obsidian’s first beta launch IIRC). Now I will regularly be writing up notes on a “new” topic and start tagging entities (or people/companies) and realize I already have some old notes on them. Then it’s easy to traverse the graph to find all sorts of adjacent context.

It just has a great balance of level of work required to add organization to your notes versus level of work required to leverage that organization.

Are there any other tagging conventions besides those based on people or companies?

Topics, books, projects, and lots of automations around date-based tagging.

E.g. I generate daily notes “daily/2023-12-27” and have macros to create e.g. meeting notes that are already tagged to [[2023-12-27]] as well as [[2023 Month 12]], [[2023 Week 52]]. Every note is prepended with its date, so [[2023-12-27 hh:mm - Book - Thinking in Systems]]

Steam Deck OLED. Runs much better than my 3 year old Dell laptop that cost $2k, for $500. Steam for gaming is great value as I already have a library of games, and you can play pretty much the entire switch library as well. Simple enough for my 6 year old to use, flexible enough to install mods and whatever. Don't do much gaming anymore due to life and kids, but this device makes it much easier to get started when I do have time.

I will absolutely second this. Working full time and going to school full time, I never game anymore because the last thing I wanna do is spend more time at my desk.

I was an immediate early adopter of the LCD deck, since I’d been waiting for a device like this for years. While I absolutely loved it, I can concede it still felt a bit half-baked, especially on battery life. The OLED version feels like the proper 1.0 of the device in this form factor. Games that would drain the batter of my OG 512 model now run (EDIT) up to 3-4 times as long.

I still carry my portable battery with me for it, but now outside of very long trips (international flights, etc) I don’t need to break it out if I start from a full charge. Plus the screen and user experience on the OLED just looks and feels better. While the OLED Deck isn’t perfect, I’ve been able to happily game so much more than before, and feel confident further iterations on the tech will improve it

> Games that would drain the batter of my OG 512 model now run 3-4 times as fast.

Wait, really? How does that work? I thought they didn't really upgrade the specs much? https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/steam-deck-oled-vs-s...

These benchmarks show a few FPS difference (maybe 10% at most), nowhere near 3-4 times faster?

edit: did you mean 3-4x as long? But that's also hard to believe... a 3-4x improvement in battery life for any device would be a HUGE upgrade that normally takes like a decade to achieve, not a year or two?

Yes! Sorry I meant 3-4 times as long. It’s not universal to every game, but for a perfect example, my husband and I both played Mario Kart 8 on CEMU (Wii U Emulator) and I can play for about 6 hours uninterrupted before needing to charge, whereas my husband only gets 1.5 or so on my old LCD deck.

Wow, I wonder what they did to make such a huge difference.

mermaid.js - Excellent tool for creating architecture (and other) diagrams from text. Add to a markdown file with special syntax. Renders in GitHub natively. Has some bugs, but team seems to have a good head on its shoulders and should hopefully work them out soon. 8/10

VSCode - One of the few things Microsoft hasn't totally screwed up yet. Plug-in ecosystem is enormous. 9/10

Vim - At the other end of the spectrum. I forced myself to learn keybindings last year and now I can't not use them. I find myself unable to use text editors that lack a "vim mode". 2dWi" - fixed that missing quote! I find the extension ecosystem a bit puzzling still - extensions I install never seem to work quite right. Having to memorize extra keybindings for each plugin maxes out my mental load. 8/10

DigitalOcean - A breath of fresh air compared to AWS. There are fewer services and quite a lot of abstraction, but I'm happy to pay for higher reliability than something I can self-host. Encountered some bizarre behavior/bugs at times, but DO support has been super prompt and helpful (even on the free support tier). If you need three+ 9's of reliability call AWS or GCP. For everything else there's DigitalOcean. 9/10

Django - The first time I've enjoyed web development in quite some time. The abstraction level can get a bit silly at times, but I find that it's easy to peel back the layers of the onion, so to speak, and troubleshoot the inner workings. I really, really wish that a strongly-typed version of Python could be used. `mypy` and `typeddjango/django-stubs` just don't cut it. I want more compile time errors! 8/10

Logic Pro - Technically started using it in late 2021 but really got more into it this year. Used to produce music for a group of friends that play together. Tons of keybindings. Interface can get confusing, but it's a powerful tool. 9/10

Thanks for mentioning mermaid.js. I am bookmarking this and excited to try it.

I’ve always loved https://sequencediagram.org for creating sequence diagrams with text (highly recommend btw), but have also wanted to create other diagram types in a similar manner. Mermaid.js looks super intriguing.

> VSCode - One of the few things Microsoft hasn't totally screwed up yet.

It's only a matter of time.

mermaid.js seems interesting. It reminded me of Graphviz. Another tool I have used on my environment.

https://github.com/npiv/chatblade

Basically GPT on the command line. I had my own, but chatblade is just prettier. I thought with the ChatGPT subscriptions I wouldn't have to use it anymore, but there's just a lot of raw searches that the API does much better than the chat. Recent example is how to access new fonts from mac's Pages app, both Google and ChatGPT gave incorrect answers on top.

- ChatGPT to replace a lot of small Google searches made annoying by the current state of the web.

- My Macbook Air M2 to replace my 12" Macbook. Best laptop I've ever used!

- Syncthing just works. It's always a bit messy to set up, but then it syncs everything unfailingly across Mac, Linux and Android.

- Obsidian is great. I only use it for journaling (with Syncthing synchronization), but I love the idea.

- Sublime Merge. I use git in the command line, but since I edit markdown files for a living, diffing content changes so efficiently is a game changer. It works well with Sublime Text, another incredible product.

I adore Syncthing. I agree that it's iffy to set up, but once it works it works.

> Sublime Merge. I use git in the command line, but since I edit markdown files for a living, diffing content changes so efficiently is a game changer. It works well with Sublime Text, another incredible product.

Hey, I love Sublime Text too! Have you compared Sublime Merge with other similar visual diff tools (like the ones in VSCode or IntelliJ, or Gitkraken, etc), especially for Markdown?

I have not. I only tried Sublime Merge and it works really well. It also ran really smoothly on my old 12" Macbook.

Frankly, I'm not sure what more I could expect. It's fine for my purpose: seeing what I'm commiting, and splitting unrelated changes into multiple commits.

OK, thanks for the response! I was just curious :)

Honestly I miss my MacBook 12”. I still have it but it too long in the tooth and will soon be converted to a Chromebook or sold. It's just a lovely size for traveling.

I've never been able to convert over to iPad + keyboard for the same writing and hyper-productive working.

Do the new Airs not meet this need? Are they too big, or...?

They are.

I also really loved my Air 11". A lot of tech friends who were on call would carry them in large jacket pockets. I remember someone pulling one out at a restaurant in Valencia St in SF because pager duty went off.

MacBook 12 was a worthy upgrade on size to get the retina screen. Air 13" is just a laptop at this point.

I hope we see a Mac Netbook at some point, lol.

I went from the 12" Macbook to the 13" Macbook Air. It's noticeably bigger and heavier, especially if you're backpacking or bikepacking.

On the other hand, the new Macbooks... wow.

GeForce Now. It's been amazing for being able to play AAA games for $20/mo. (Not so great for my social life.) I grew up building my own PCs with 3Dfx Voodoo cards, but honestly this is waaaaaaay better -- no heat or noise, and a way better GPU than I could afford. Combined with PC Game Pass or an Ubi or EA subscription, this is a great way to go through a bunch of great games for a month or two at a time.

Microsoft To Do is a simple, free, multiplayer to-do list app that runs on all the things: my Android, my iPad, my Mac, my partner's Windows laptop. No ads, no bullshit, it just works (thanks, Microsoft, this is probably the single best software you've ever written -- even more than TypeScript or VSCode). We use it for sharing grocery and other lists, and it's great being able to check things off in real-time as we shop different aisles.

My Airpods are still as comfortable and amazing as ever (even though I use Android). The M2 Mac is also awesome, but you knew that. The Magic Mouse is the only thing that doesn't give me cramps after a day of work.

Jetbrains IDEs continue to be worth it (in my case, as a web dev, Webstorm and RubyMine), even as VSCode keeps getting better.

----------------------

In the real world, probably my bicycles (Cannondale/Specialized especially, Canyon a little less so). All are great fun to ride. I wish I discovered this much younger (almost 40 now, didn't start cycling until my late 20s).

And good boxing gloves... I love my Hayabusas with their integrated wrist straps. I don't fight competitively or anything, just do it for a workout, but it's saved my wrists so many times. They make great training shin guards too. Perfect for this big ol' softy with fragile bones.

My Costco membership? After 2020, I'll never take toilet paper for granted ever again, lol. edit: oh yeah, and of course, my bidet!

I cycle everywhere whenever the weather allows, and I regularly bike outwards during the weekends. I've also gone on a few multi-day bike trips. I take it with me on road trips.

And yet, I've been riding the same 100€ bike for 8 years.

This summer, I splurged on the perfect all-rounder for my needs: drop bars, disk brakes, Alfine 11 in-hub gear and belt drive. The difference is night and day. I wish I did it sooner.

I tell everyone who moved to Berlin that a bike is the best investment they can make here. This city and its surroundings are meant to be discovered on a bike.

I'm jealous! Cycling in Europe sounds amazing :) The US has pockets of good bike trails here and there, but in general we are way too car-oriented.

> The difference is night and day. I wish I did it sooner.

Especially if you're not so hardcore and only occasionally cycle! The difference between a $100 and $1000 bike is HUGE. $1000 to $5000? Not so much.

IMO the sweet spot is getting a lightly-used bike at a professionally managed bike swap sale where professionals and mechanics are actually looking at the bikes being sold, not just rusty things off Craigslist. Often times some rich person will buy way more bike than they need, don't end up using it much, and then letting it go for 3-4x less just to free up space. But to a beginner-intermediate cyclist they are still amazing machines.

There's soooooooo much technology that goes into them, everything from the drivetrain to the materials to the aerodynamics to the brakes... it can make a huge huge difference in comfort, especially over long distance.

Fit is another big thing: adjusting the bike with small tweaks (saddle, handlebars, stems, etc.) can change it from "painful" to "dreamy" depending on ergonomics.

But all in all, a good bike is probably the single best investment I've ever made. Cheaper and way more fun than paying for either a gym membership or a doctor.

Plumbing - fresh water piped directly to me, available on demand, and dirty water shipped away. Relatively simple technology and more useful than any other tech I've ever used.

Can't understate how nice this is, lol. We all take it for granted, but it's such an amazing invention.

When I was a kid we didn't have potable water all the time (we had to boil everything that came from the faucet) and it would frequently go out (we'd fill up bathtubs just in case).

More recently, as a young adult I did some trailwork in the woods for a few months. We ran a long length of hose along a river and just used gravity to provide running water and piped it through a slow filtration system. Got maybe a gallon or two a minute, enough to do dishes and wash hands and slowly fill up water bottles, but that's it. No showers or laundry.

It would frequently clog and we'd have to go and figure out why, in the rain or smoke or dead of night. The filtration also wasn't perfect and the entire crew got cryptosporadium and was out for a good week, keeled over in pain one after the other.

Potable running water has probably saved more lives than anything else...

I see a lot of love for Obsidian, so I want to offer an alternative that I loved this year: Joplin. It has become my go-to note taking app, and the main feature in my opinion: I give it AWS keys for a bucket I provisioned just for Joplin. My keys, my data, and someday if I want to build RAG on top of my notes database, I know it’s just a few S3 calls away.

Thinkpad T480 - https://maxrozen.com/replacing-my-macbook-m1-with-thinkpad-t...

I grew up using a nipple mouse on some of my first laptops. Loved them. But after using the MacBook trackpads, it's hard to go back to anything else.

On the Linux part: Does using the Thinkpad trackpad on Linux work well? How well does it handle sleep/wake from sleep? How seamless is monitor support?

I guess what I'm saying is that, while I would like to run Linux full-time, I like having a Linux-like/Unix environment, but where everything Just Works without fiddling.

The T480 is the first computer I've run Linux on that 100% Just Worked (Pop!_OS), and I've been looking since around 2009.

The trackpad even picks up gestures. Wakes up from sleep without issue. Same deal with plugging in my caldigit tb3 hub (with a monitor + keyboard and mouse plugged in).

The trackpad is crap compared to a MacBook, but compared to most Windows laptops it's good (even better when you swap it out for a Thinkpad X1 glass trackpad).

Plus 1 for the T480! I bought mine as an open-box new item, and upgraded it with a 2Tb NVME drive and 48Gb of memory (would have been 64Gb but it has a vPro CPU). Then a 128Gb drive in the WWAN slot and a couple of days ago, a smart card reader. The fingerprint readers works fine after a bit of software fiddling using Zorin OS. The smaller drive is Debian 12.

If anyone else wants to do this, I'm selling a gently used T480 with the extended battery. Email me (see profile) for specs, pics, and price if you'd like. Local pickup in the Boise, ID area or I can ship to the US.

An air fryer. I was a skeptic, thinking that an air fryer is unlikely to outperform my conventional convection oven in any meaningful way.

When my pressure cooker died, I replaced it with a multi-purpose machine that also included air frying capabilities, and I gave it a try. I was pleased to discover that my prior skepticism was misplaced. It's not perfect for everything, but it heats up fast, and it really shines in a few areas (e.g., making fries, reheating fries/pizza, cooking seasoned chicken, etc).

Heh, there should be a cult for this. After I got mine, I use it at least daily (for breakfast sandwiches) and usually every single meal. It's like a toaster oven on steroids, everything comes out nice and crisp and evenly heated. I never use the big oven anymore.

I'm so in love with this thing I thought about making a cookbook. Only thing is, I'm a shit cook, and crispy shit is still shit XD

The OnePlus Open - I was on the fence about foldables and was saving up for the next generation of the Samsung Galaxy Fold. I didn't know OnePlus was going to release one until I saw a newspaper ad. I'm so glad I bought one and traded in my Nothing Phone(1). This is the best tech device I've used in the last few years and I've not been this excited about a device since I first bought my friend's used Nexus S.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Ultra - No brainer when my S7+ screen died. I love the form factor. It's not for everyone but I love it. I might get the S6 Lite sometime next year for use during travel, but perhaps not.

Boox Tab Mini C - Bye-bye Kindles. I'm in love with this device. Color in an e-reader is great and this device allows me to use an app of my choice to read. I'm not locked into reading on one app. Tachiyomi also works flawlessly. Love it.

I wish they had a version that opened horizontally instead of vertically. The point of getting a folding phone for me (Galaxy Z Flip 3) was an overall smaller package to fit in my pockets. I was tired of carrying a huge rectangle all the time. These vertically-folding phones just seem like a huge rectangle that folds out into an even huger rectangle.

StrengthLog - for tracking gym progress. Such a fluid and satisfying interface with various interesting utilities/calculators/result visualisations.

BeReal - a very cool new take on close group social networking.

exercise - climbing gym and regular gym helped me improve my mental health drastically after years of not enough exercise

Thanks for the app recommendation! I've been thinking about hitting up the gym more, that should help.

- Raycast (with List Repos, Snippets & Window Management Extensions in it)

- Logseq (Wasn't able to use Obsidian due to licensing issue, accidentally found this amazing alternative with a supportive FOSS ecosystem)

- vscode (with Github Copilot, Better Comments, Error Lens, GitLens)

- iterm2 + zsh + fzf

Kindle Scribe. I'm reading a lot more books on it because I find experience much better compared to the small ones. Don't really use handwriting notes functionality because I rely on pen and paper for notes.

Armytek Wizard flashlight. Joy to use on the runs and for walking around neighborhood in the evening.

Pacsafe Metrosafe X Urban Sling. Kind of expensive but has a very thoughtful design. Now I have my wallet, notepad and bunch of other small things in one place instead of being spread out across various pockets.

> Kindle Scribe

Oh cool! I was wondering when they'd bring back the DX. Looks like this is Amazon's take on the Remarkable?

Monarch as a financial management tool / Mint replacement.

Ref link: https://www.monarchmoney.com/referral/chszg37bgv Regular link: https://www.monarchmoney.com/

UHK Ultimate Hacking Keyboard.

https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/

I’ve tried several split keyboards but this is the one I finally stuck with. Amazing config software, I have several Mac and PyCharm shortcuts setup.

ChatGPT iOS app with voice.

Ninja Air Fry Digital Oven

> UHK Ultimate Hacking Keyboard.

The backlog due to limited and expensive materials is extreme: six to nine months to build and ship out a keyboard.

This used to be the case, but nowadays, UHKs ship in a week.

Obsidian! perfect for me so far!

Honesty I had a blast with Midjourney. Takes some getting used to, and it's not actually that useful (I think) but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't great fun to use.

What are your costs? I find their pricing scheme a bit confusing...

If you don't mind sharing what do you use it for?

Mostly ideation and placeholder content. Say I have a rough idea for a logo. I'll hammer something in Midjourney to iterate on ideas.

Thanks!

Space efficient exercise gear

- foldable pullup bar - bullbar. I have the 1.0 but 2.0 looks much easier to setup - Bowflex adjustable dumbbells

Pikapods - host open-source apps

Pages app - word processor

Proton mail

Bose quite comfort

Day one

Chatgpt Paper & pen Educative.io

* Apple M1 Pro

* Noteplan

* PyCharm

Reply on news.ycombinator.com