Oh man, there’s this German company Beurer that makes simple equipment for medical home application. They make this sort of zapper thing, which is battery oper and it just heats the shit out of a little ceramic plate. Put that on a bug bite, it heats away the irritation. No more itch, no more venom in your body, just gone.
I am no longer careful around biting bugs. Keep in mind it’s not supposed to work for stingers.
I figured for 15 euros it’d be too bad if it doesn’t work but I now can’t imagine not having it.
I’ve since also bought a TENS/EMS machine of theirs and a laser hair removal tool is underway for my wife.
I completely trust this company based on just two products.
Oh wow, there’s a product out there? I’ve been heating the back of a spoon on the stove and applying it directly to the skin for a minute all these years. You gotta do it carefully, but it works very well!
Nerdage
The mechanism relies on denaturing the mosquito proteins injected with the bite. Meaning the heat causes the proteins to loosen up and deform so they no longer interact with the surrounding tissues in the same way.
I’ve just run a spoon under the hottest possible tap water. It’s hot enough to work and it’s not hot enough to actually burn you
My wife swears by it. For me it does nothing. She gets wasp-sized bumps from mosquito bites.
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Very wholesome! How do you keep yours and his from getting mixed in the laundry?
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I bought a reusable tote for like $3 in the section at the front of Target where they stick all the cheap stuff. It looks like it’s made of woven burlap. It says “Going to Market” on the sides. It’s shorter than the standard reusable tote, but a reasonable width.
I bought it on a whim and thought it would sit in my trunk after I forgot about it. I use it all the time, and I’ve gotten a ton of compliments on it at checkouts of various stores.
I knew I wouldn’t regret starting to use user notes.
Isn’t everyone a better off Ted fan? Some people just don’t know it yet.
Actually, I just realized that I have only seen Portia de Rossi in two things and they were both fucking killer. Maybe I should watch ally mcbeal…
Both excellent points!
I’m honored!
Its incredibly useful. Kind of interesting to recognize an unhinged jackass from one thread being normal a week later.
It’s too bad I don’t have a note about you, because I feel like that would make this more contentious but probably interesting.
If I were going to make one about you, and you were as honest as you think you can be, what do you think it would say? I haven’t looked at your post history and I don’t remember your username from elsewhere (sorry), so I’m genuinely curious how you’ll choose to represent yourself.
You can use mine.
That’s very kind of you, but I hesitate to take the word of the noteless and I can’t just take you at your word that you are bereft of hinges.
An Aeropress. I bought it when work removed the free coffee and was super surprised at how good it tasted vs what they were serving. Later, I found a bean hand grinder that fits right inside the Aeropress plunger and now I take it on work trips, vacation and camping.
It’s not fully inclusive for $20 because you need a cup, some way to procure and heat water and beans but still, it’s served me well.
I didn’t buy an aeropress for years as I had a coffee machine and was like, surely that’s better.
But finally got one, and my god. The simplicity. The ease of cleaning. The nice coffee.
It’s basically my sole way of making coffee now, despite more pricey alternatives at my disposal.
I find a good pour over cone makes better tasting coffee with a little less fuss, but the aeropress is irreplaceable for iced coffee.
The clever dripper is pretty nice pour over cone with a shut off valve.
When I’m making just one cup of coffee I use an aero press, for 2+ cups I use the clever dripper.
+1 for the Aeropress!
A package of blue-tack - it is basically sticky play-dough that is completely opaque and you can use wads of it to blunt the pain of stupid LEDs on on your tech shit. I am currently sitting in my living room looking at my TV and various components including router and stuff…easily 20 gobs of blue-tack masking 20 blinking LEDs.
Ooh, good idea! I hate all those lights.
It’s also great for holding electronic components in place while you solder them into circuit boards - even LEDs lol.
- knife sharpening steel
- squeezing bidet (made me realize how gross using toilet paper is)
- caffeine pills (extremely cheap [15€ for 180pcs. x 200mg] compared to coffee and great if you’re in a hurry)
- Raspberry Pi Zero (tiny single board computer, tbh not in use anymore, but I had fun tinkering for days)
- remote controlled power outlets
- easily cleanable drinking bottle and switching to drinking tap water
My pocket stun gun was $19.99. Decided I needed a defense mechanism I could conceal after an encounter with a scary aggressive homeless man.
Also has a flashlight.
This has been “useful” to you? I hope mostly the flashlight and not the tazing homeless people part.
Go judge someone else. It wasn’t my decision to turn whole cities into mental institutions. It was Ronald Reagan’s.
Hahaha. Who said I was judging you? I hope you don’t need to be using a tazer often because it doesn’t sound like a fun existence. It sucks that we have homeless people in the richest country in the world, but that doesn’t mean homeless people can’t be dangerous. Take a chill pill please.
Apologies.
Every time I mention I had a run-in with a homeless person, some self-righteous SJW discounts my experience and infers that I must have been in the wrong, though I was just sitting on a bus minding my own business on the way to work. My city has fare-free buses, so we end up having a lot of close encounters with untreated homeless people. (Also why I carry a stun-gun instead of mace, so if I have to use it there’s no chance of friendly fire.)
So I figured you were another one here to cast aspersions, and I have a short fuse with it for sure. My mistake.
All good. Stay safe out there. It’s a wild world we live in.
A screwdriver kit with multiple head tips, can repair almost anything as long as I am given some schematics
An ezel. You know, the kind that artists use to put their cavvas on.
I’m a digital artist, so I have a display drawing tablet. Eventually having the tablet completely horizontally flat got annoying to draw on. I ended up sitting cross-legged and awkwardly perching the table on the edge of my desk on my lap to get some sort of comfortable angle on it. However that was annoying too.
I went and looked what a tablet stand costed for my tablet model and… It damn near costed the same as my tablet! The. I had an idea. There’s this cheap ass hardware store called Harald Nyborg in Denmark, maybe they have cheap ezel?
Lo and behold they do. Made from the crappiest cheap wood available, it serves its purpose perfectly! I’ve had it for a few years now and never needed to think about getting that dedicated stand for my tablet.
Easel. But we understood. 😀
I have a friend who does digital art as a side gig, always complaining about his back. Maybe I’ll suggest he get an easel.
Once found a whole functioning pc (minus ram and the hard drive) at a thrift store for $3. My guess is it came from an office, and when they plugged it in, and when it didn’t work, they assumed it was junk. Actual value of the parts was like $300.
Wireless phone charger. I’ll be stuck somewhere looking at my low battery life, and suddenly remember it’s in my purse. It isn’t the fastest charge but it is useful.
Or called powerbank
Or that yeah.
I got two of these squiggly window wedges. They are incredibly versatile and handy when you want to keep a window open.
Extra long shoe horn. I eventually upgraded to a solid metal one when the cheap one broke.
Really good nailclippers:
https://www.victorinox.com/en-US/Products/Swiss-Army-Knives/Personal-Care/Nail-Clipper/p/8.2050.B1
If you’re willing to go over the $20 barrier, you get more functionality:
I liked it enough, I bought two more.
Smallest MagLite:
https://maglite.com/products/solitaire-led-key-chain-flashlight-with-gift-card-gift-box
I have a pair of these safety 1st nail clippers:
https://safety1st.com/en-ca/products/fold-up-nail-clippers-10435
They’re meant for babies, and I think my parents got them when I was a baby, but to this day they are still sharper and easier to use than any other pair I’ve bought or used.
Electric screwdriver from Lidl (well, it was less than £20) - as a DIY novice/flat pack builder, it changed my life
