HN Explorer

Ask HN: What simple items have you found to be amazingly handy or practical?

16 points by jamesbritt ↗ HN
Sometimes you discover something that is just so practical you wonder how people get along without it. For example, sitting with the laptop actually on my lap was a problem because of the heat over time. I tried a few different things as heat guards, but one of the best was a $2.00 wooden back-scratcher. Depending on how I placed it I could rest the laptop in such a way to get it away from the body and get good airflow around it. Plus, with the back-scratcher now always at hand, I could more easily fetch remote items, like my wireless headphones from the charger. And, of course, scratch my back when needed.

What common or readily assembled things do you use for assorted purposes to ease your life?

14 comments

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frankus
A 50¢ padded envelope makes a great iPad case.
charliepark
I used to use an old laptop that got very hot. I took a wire "inbox" basket, turned it over, and used that as a stand. Great airflow, and I was able to use twist-ties to tie cables, USB ports, etc. to the underside of the wire basket, to keep the desk more organized.
chipsy
An ordinary mechanical pencil or pen and the smallest pad of paper I can manage - just as long as they fit well in a pants pocket. It happens all the time that you might want to sketch a thought, take notes, give a signature, etc.
jamesbritt
For a while I was carrying around a Hipster PDA, complete with Space Pen.

I've now taken to using a small, thin bound notebook thing, roughly the size of an index card, and a gel pen. I find the pen better for the kinds of drawings I do.

I need some no-brainer way to carry this around with me in the house. I sometimes think I need to Velco stuff to my forearms.

aohtsab
weekly planner. Any will do, really — seeing events/responsibilities on paper laid out for the whole week helps me clear my thoughts and organize my time.
kineticac
Zipties have been awesome for me. When I'm working on a car, when I'm setting anything up, zip ties are strong and reliable, as well as disposable and cheap. You can get the long ones that just work for everything, and if you need longer, just chain them together.
pmccool
They're useful in many non-car situations too - tidying up cabling is another favourite.
soyelmango
A Chinese cleaver replaces a set of knives, garlic choppers, tenderizer...

- use the blade to cut (obv!)

- use the flat to crush garlic/ginger (either by its weight, or safely using your other hand to press)

- use the back edge to tenderize

- or use the butt to tenderize

- use the flat to carry ingredients

- and because it's heavy, you use less strength and have more control

- chop through meat and bones (the weight of the cleaver helps)

- look like a badass

Use a cleaver and you'll never go back to a standard knife.

pasbesoin
Metal "office" binder clips.

- Replace twist ties in the kitchen. They hold more tightly and last indefinitely.

- Pinch and detach a metal handle to make a gripping keyring or similar, looping the handle through the key's or other object's hole and then reattaching to the binder clip.

- Pinch a length of speaker wire to a boom box aerial to get extended, adjustable radio reception for the boom box when painting outside.

- All the usual and unusual office applications.

- Hold folded tubes of stuff -- toothpaste, caulk, etc. -- folded. Increasingly useful these days as most tubes are now plastic and so don't stay crimped on their own.

- All sorts of small scale mechanical repairs where I need to hold a couple of items together. You can wrap some tape around the edges to increase grip or provide a bit of protection against marring the gripped surface.

- Clamp items being glued or whatnot.

- Several applications I'm not thinking of, now.

I notice some variation in gripping strength between binder clips fresh out of the box, so I try a few until I find the optimal strength for the application at hand. Also, opening one very wide tends to exceed its limit for full recovery; it will not close as tightly in the future.