Upgrading my computer’s primary storage from a hard disk (HDD) to a solid state drive (SSD). Really young folks on here have no idea how amazing it was for computers to go from taking minutes to start up to taking seconds.
Buying my first cell phone, which was a Nokia smartphone, in 2003. Having email and useful applications in my pocket, including maps and web search.
I feel like the sheer jump in performance from throwing an SSD into an old system was akin to what people would have expected from the “download more ram” scam ads of the 00s.
TBF, before win95 there was definitely legit software that you could buy (not download) that would compress memory, amongst other tricks, to effectively give you more RAM.
I find that my M.2 SSD (with Win 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC) is weirdly slower at booting up than my SATA SSD (Win 10 Pro) was. I’m not sure why, since the hard drive itself should be faster. BIOS itself seems to be slower.
I also can’t currently get it to even start if I have a hard drive plugged into the power supply and any of the SATA slots on the motherboard. IDK why. It reads the hard drives when I have them plugged in to an external bay and connected with a USB cable. It’s super-frustrating. I’ll try a SATA SSD and see if I have the same problem. If so, then I guess I’m stuck using M.2 drives. :(
GPS was life-changing. (Yes, I am that old.) It used to be necessary to find printed maps of wherever you were going, which wasn’t always easy. Then you had to figure out a route. The hardest part was often the last bit of the trip, since you weren’t likely to have a detailed map of your destination city. An if you got lost, figuring out where you were was sometimes quite difficult.
People tend to think of it as mostly affecting longer trips, but finding new addresses in a city was at least as much of an issue. When I lived in the bay area I had a Thomas guide that was 3/4" of an inch thick, just for finding my way around town.
I worked as a delivery driver before GPS.
If you think looking at your phone while driving is dangerous, we were looking at a folding paper map.
I also had most streets in a major metropolitan area memorized.
But more times than I can count I navigated by the sun or the north star until I was back in an area I recognized.
Constant Glucose Monitors compared to the archaic finger stick monitors was like getting a blow job after spending a lifetime hacking it with sandpaper.
A countertop water boiler, I have one of the Zojirushi 4 liter units. It turns out I drink 3/4 of a gallon of tea or so per day. So not having to boil a kettle for every round is oddly luxurious.
I usually microwave a mug for 1.5 minutes, but this could also be nice
I remember Technology Connections doing an episode on the Electric kettle. Its fascinating. Microwaving is still the fastest around the house, but I like being able to make more than one cup at a time.
I actually did a little research and apparently it’s sacrosanct to a Britton to even suggest heating water in a microwave.
Are you from the US?
Bought a dishwasher.
Life changing improvement. Don’t be afraid to use the pots and pans setting for everything.
You don’t need fancy soap and remember to top up the rinse aid.
(Also every 6 months run a special cleaner through it)
Bidet. Not even the fancy ones. Like the cheap ones that are no more than $20-30. Every poop, I’ve got a squeaky clean butthole.
Totally agree; I hate pooping without it. Though I did upgrade a while back from a $20-30 one to this: https://luxebidet.com/pages/neo-185-plus-highlights
I took the old one off to really clean it and that sold me on this new flip up one.
I clicked on this thinking it was going to be a link to one of the $200+ electric models, but this is actually a relatively inexpensive upgrade I can get behind (pun?) It looks like it’s a lot easier to keep clean. Thanks for this.
I got a couple of these about two years ago. They work great and we’ve had no trouble with them. 10/10
I’ve been using simple cold water models for over 10 years now. But I really like this upgrade in design. Same basic simplicity, but it looks a lot easier to keep clean.
