• Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 months ago

      And a disaster kit, tailored to the most common disasters in your region. If you have a first aid kit you already have a large portion of what it needs!

  • UnfortunateBlaster69@feddit.de
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    11 months ago

    A bike. Poor people in underdeveloped countries can use it to get access to education and markets, while people from developed countries can ise it to keep healthy and reduce their environmental footprint

    • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nz
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      11 months ago

      I was going to say that, but out of the 6 bikes in the garage none of them are under $100 even second hand.

      In fact I would advise against getting a cheap shitty bike that isn’t going to last. Spend the extra money, get something good. It’s better for the environment and your wallet in the long run.

      • Atemu@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        I’ve driven “good” bikes all my life. Aluminium frame, disc brakes, fancy suspension, 3x9 gears. That sort of thing.

        Wanna know what my best biking experience was? Riding a steel frame, 3-speed dutch-style rental omafiets with no suspension and regular-ass brakes on a vacation. That thing was hella comfortable, sturdy as a brick and convenient.

        If I lived in a not fully car-brained city where you can safely bike and was tight on money, I’d absolutely buy an old cheap used regular-ass steel frame bike with no frills and use the hell out of it until it’s irreparably broken. You can leave that thing standing in the rain, locked with just a frame lock (or perhaps even no lock at all) all without worrying that it might get damaged or stolen because there isn’t much to damage or steal in the first place.

        I also don’t see how buying a “good” bike in any way helps the environment when the alternative is re-using something that’s already been built and successfully used before.

        I love my 2000€ Brompton that I daily-drive but I’d be nearly as happy with a 100€ bike like I described above. You don’t get more bike when you go above that price point, you only get a more fancy bike.

    • teft@startrek.website
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      11 months ago

      I have a bike in a city and it’s faster than the cars. The cars are always stuck in traffic as I fly by. Bikes are the best.

    • corm@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      I was gonna say this.

      $100 on craigslist or a local bike refurbishing place (where I got mine) will get you something that will last for years.

      Throw in a $15 bike lock, a cheap returned helmet, and a $5 rear bike light and you’re set for life.

  • VaultOS@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    A pair of high fidelity earplugs (aka concert earplugs or filtering earplugs). You can get a good non-custom pair for $15–$40, and that’ll work well for the average person for a long time.

    They’re excellent for live music, airplanes, and anytime you want the world to be quieter but still need to be able to understand speech. And for music specifically, they can bring the volume level down just enough to be safe without muffling the sound like traditional foam earplugs do. Protect your hearing, kids!

    • interolivary@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      Protect your hearing, kids!

      Seriously, PROTECT YOUR FUCKING HEARING. I was young and stupid (now I’m no longer young) and went to way too many raves, gigs etc. without any sort of hearing protection, and now I have a nice constant background track of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and can’t hear higher frequencies worth shit

      • Piers@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        Right ear went to working in a call centre. Left ear seems to be trying to decide if it’s going to recover or not from some unaware idiot in Tesco suddenly walking up and slamming his stock cart shut right next to me. I really hope I don’t end up with stereo EEEEEEEEEEEEE but it feels like an inevitable matter of time at this point. There goes the left one again…

        • Linssiili@sopuli.xyz
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          11 months ago

          I can get tinnitus if I have too much ear-wax and I have to remove it periodically, since it wont come out on its own.

          • IgnacioM@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            Yep, tinnitus is your brain filling in the absence of hearing, its not a condition in itself

    • Damaskox@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I have done this same thing. My hearing is a bit hypersensitive and these kinds of headphones have helped me in many different, loud situations!

    • Paul@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      I know it’s way more expensive, but the last gig I went to, I used my AirPods Pro in transparency mode, and it reduced the sound down from an insane ~110db to peaks of 90! Definitely worth protecting your ears.

  • nbailey@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    If you have a car get a dashcam. It’s more valuable than any insurance because it will definitively prove what happened when something goes wrong. Bonus: you can post videos of bad drivers doing stupid things on the internet for imaginary points.

    • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
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      If only there was actually a good car dashcam, but every time I go down that rabbit hole I give up frustrated. The quality (build, mounting, video, whatever) is shit in pretty much all of them, and the “passable” ones look like a web cam from 2005 still.

      • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nz
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        11 months ago

        There’s a reason for that, Linus Tech Tips did a great video on it. You’re better off buying an old go pro and using that.

      • Hubi@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        I’ve bought the N2 Pro from Vantrue a couple of years ago and I’ve been super happy with it. The quality is pretty good and it has actually capable night vision and parking surveillance. I’ve also bought one for my brother in law (who got into an accident just a month after) and one for my grandma. Not to sound like an ad, but these are definitely worth checking out even if it’s an older model.

      • Chahk@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        People lie. Even a shittiest, cheapest dashcam will be better than nothing, when you have to prove to your insurance company who was really at fault after a collision.

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    11 months ago

    One I didn’t see mentioned yet: a rice cooker.

    Put in rice, add water, push start button, and you get perfect rice every time. I’m usually against single-purpose kitchen tools but a rice cooker is soo worth it.

    • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
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      11 months ago

      Really only if you eat a lot of rice. For once a year or so, a pot on the stove works just fine. The actual benefit I’ve see for ricecookers is how well they can hold the rice for hours ready to go, but that’s more of a commercial benefit I think.

      • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org
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        11 months ago

        […] but that’s more of a commercial benefit I think

        For me, this is the primary benefit of a rice cooker. Having warm, cheap, filling food on demand at any time is fantastic. I am so lazy and my little rice buddies are always ready to go when I can’t be bothered.

      • IonAddis@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        A rice cooker can serve as a cheaper instapot tho. I can steam rice and veggies without having to babysit a pot.

        I also have kitchen anxiety, and in a roommate situation can keep a rice cooker in my room.

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      11 months ago

      Living in Japan, this almost didn’t register to me. I have literally never met anybody that didn’t have one. When you move out, you use your family’s old one until you can buy a newer one.

      Everyone should have one, absolutely.

      • zagaberoo@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        When I did a homestay in Japan, my host dad was shocked my family didn’t have one. I do now though!

    • Helix 🧬@feddit.de
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      11 months ago

      We sold our rice cooker on eBay after finding out the microwave rice cooker addon for 10€ is just as good, if not faster.

    • ebits21@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      I know this will be a popular response, but I don’t get it.

      I just use a pot and the rice is always perfect? Not hard at all? Am I just good?

      • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        I used to do that for years, but rice cookers really do some magic to get perfectly fluffy rice. I thought my technique was good, until I tried rice from a rice cooker.

    • doomy@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      ok this might sound heretical but a “hack” i learned from cooking youtube is to just boil rice like pasta then drain. I do this for about ~12 mins with white rice and it comes out perfect every time with no risk of messing up. Downside is you need to drain it.

      unsure the validity of this claim? but apparently there can be a non-insignificant amount of arsenic in american grown rice, and boiling can help leech it out into the water.

  • LeateWonceslace@reddthat.com
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    11 months ago

    3 dozen pairs of identical socks. Mine are black crew cut. I’ll wear them until the last few pairs are worn through and I’ll never have a sock without a mate.

  • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nz
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    11 months ago

    My dad would say a cast iron pan. That would outlive you and your kids.

    I would say maybe an air fryer, I think you could get a decent one for less than $100USD. I use mine every day.

    Otherwise, maybe good waterproof boots. I got some decent ones at an outlet store. They are kind of dressy so nice enough for work, but also warm AF and during the winter they are so good.

    • kommerzbert@feddit.de
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      11 months ago

      Why does the thought of being outlived by ones air fryer feel worse than being outlived by ones cast iron pan?

      • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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        11 months ago

        An air fryer is an appliance with electrical parts, including probably some fragile cheap electronics, moving parts (the fan that blows the air around) and parts made of different materials in a machine that is going to experience lots of cycles of heating and cooling. That is to say, there is a pretty sizable room for wear and tear. Hopefully it’ll last you many years, but one doesn’t really expect a machine like that to last for generations, especially considering things like planned obsolescence. A pan has no moving parts, no powered components, nothing but a hug sturdy slab of metal formed into a specific shape. As long as you take care of it properly to avoid corrosion, there’s not really anything to break about such a thing. So the idea of the later lasting practically indefinitely makes sense, the former not so much.

    • DozensOfDonner@mander.xyz
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      11 months ago

      Plus one for airfryer. Bought one that was on discount a few years back, has a spot on top of the cabinet when not in use but it’s almost always on the counter.

      • BorgDrone@lemmy.one
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        11 months ago

        What do you use it for? I can’t think of a single thing that I would need an airfryer for. Between a standard convection oven and a deep fryer there is a better tool for anything you would possibly use the airfryer for.

        • DozensOfDonner@mander.xyz
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          11 months ago

          I think you could get away with an oven and a deepfryer with everything, but in my experience an airfryer is generally faster than the oven, and less oily than a deep fryer (I wanna say more healthy but I don’t really know enough about the details, so I’ll just stick to the objectively “less oily”).

          I use it for fries (sweet potatoe fries most often), anything resembling nuggets (like vegetarian nuggets/schnitzels, other veggy pattys, falafel), fry-snacks (eggrolls, samosa, bitterballs), and you can get a bit adventurous with trying our breads, vegetables, or other stuff that you would just plop in the oven.

          • BorgDrone@lemmy.one
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            11 months ago

            Oven (or airfryer) fries and snacks aren’t even close to being as good as deep fried. Especially the bitterballen and kroketten are bad. Because it’s not actually frying, but baking, you don’t get the nice thin crunchy outside, to compensate for this they make special airfryer versions of these but those have a really thick outer crust to give that crunchiness and it just doesn’t work. Same goes for oven fries, they have this artificial layer on the outside to give it some crunch but that’s just not very good.

            I just don’t get any of it. If you want to eat junkfood, eat junkfood. If you want to be a little healthier, then eat it less often. There are plenty of actually healthy snacks that aren’t a gross artificial version of proper junkfood.

            • DozensOfDonner@mander.xyz
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              11 months ago

              Idk, I’ve got good experiences with stuff from the airfryer so far, also in terms of crispiness and stuff. It’s idd different from a deepfryer, for sure, but works good enough for me. Also gotta say that I don’t have a deepfryer anymore, and when I had one years ago it was an annoying device to use, so I guess the ease of use is also something that makes me like it.

              • BorgDrone@lemmy.one
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                11 months ago

                It’s different from a deep fryer because an airfryer isn’t a fryer at all. It’s literally just a small convection oven + clever marketing.,Most people I know already have a convection oven in their kitchen so there really is little point to getting an additional one that just takes up space on the counter.

        • Luvon@beehaw.org
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          11 months ago

          A large oven uses a lot of electricity that is wasted for heating up that entire space.

          An air fryer is nothing but a small convection oven. That means it heats up almost instantly, wastes much less heat, can circulate the air much faster for faster baking, and uses substantially less heat. And it doesn’t generate the smell of deep frying.

          We use ours almost every day. The oven is basically not used unless we make full size pizza.

          The standard convection oven isn’t a better tool except in size.

          Our air fryer is also quite good at making things like potatoes or tofu crispy, not deep fried crispy, but nice and crispy without that much oil or the amount of time it would need in the convection oven.

  • quinnly@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    A basic set of tools. Car jack, tire iron, jumper cables. Rice cooker, crock pot, and air fryer (probably more than 100 collectively, but each one should be less than 100).

    • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      car jack

      Tire iron

      I’m assuming a tire iron is a wheel nut key - has anyone ever owned a car that didn’t have these?

        • ekky43@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 months ago

          It’s a nightmare. They have those mobile compressors instead. How am I supposed to get to the next mechanic if I have to use the compressor for every 2km? And then they have this puncture safe paste that the compressor can mix in, which turns a 10$ repair into a 200$ repair.

          It’s insanity! And using the compressor takes even longer than just changing the wheel!

        • daninet@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          My 10 years old volvo does not have a spare only some spray can repair kit. However it has all the tools to change a tire

  • OkeyDokey@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Water sensor alarms.

    If you have any doubts about the pipes in your house or have a feeling that water might enter your basement, sensors will help you sleep at night.

    Water damage to your home is no joke. I know two separate homeowners who have had leaks from their refrigerator’s plumbing (water and ice dispenser). The damage for each homeowner was quite extensive given how small the leak was.

    • Kyle@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      I second this!

      Most people who have heard of water sensors know of the moen one. I’m in Canada, and my plumber recommended a Canadian company, Sinope. They were much less expensive and had a sensor in the line and ones you could put in and around appliances that use water.

      The in-line flow sensor shuts off the water if it senses abnormal flow anywhere. But the physical sensors shut off the water when it’s leaking at that spot.

      We’ve had no leaks, but the flow sensor shut off the water when I filled the kiddie pool and forgot to turn it off. It also cuts short, excessively long showers (that can be turned off).

      The safety net is fantastic to have. We can install that freezer ice cube maker without a worry.

      • AngryDemonoid@lemmy.lylapol.com
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        11 months ago

        I went to go check out Sinope’s site, and it was already in my browser history. I wonder what past me was looking up…lol

        Besides that, the smart valves are so much cheape than Moen! I might have to actually get one now. The ever looming threat of potential water damage stresses me out way too much.

  • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    A bedbug proof mattress cover. Order it today. Doesn’t matter what sort of life you live, anyone can get them and it’s a horror show.

  • Mr_1077@monero.town
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    11 months ago

    A fire extinguisher can be found for less than 100 USD and is a must-have. A smoke detector is also a bare minimum in my opinion.

    • EddoWagt@feddit.nl
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      11 months ago

      A smoke detector is also a bare minimum in my opinion.

      In your opinion? You’re required to have one where I life

      • Melllvar@startrek.website
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        11 months ago

        In the USA private homes are not usually required to have them. Rentals, yes, but that’s a responsibility of the landlord.