A heated vest that can be powered by almost any USB battery pack.
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A shiny new giant air-fryer.
Specifically, this one.
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An instapot. 90% of the time something else would have worked, but for that 10% this thing will be awesome, and fun to play with the rest of the time. Iāve heard making boiled eggs is stupid simple and quick.
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TechnoMistress: Got a question for you. Are there any problems or advantages to using CFL bulbs instead of LEDs for photos with a setup like this?
Iāve had one for a year and keep finding things to use it for. It makes spaghetti stupid-simple. Break the noodles in half, rotate them as you put them in the pot so they donāt clump, dump an entire jar of sauce in on top of them, then fill the sauce jar with water and dump that in too. Turn the sucker on and let it cook the noodles in the sauce.
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Not sure - I donāt really know much about lighting, so this is going to be a learning experience. 
Itās the best way to cook brown rice that weāve found (excluding uni-tasker rice cookers). It beats the Alton Brown ābake it in the oven for an hourā method by a long shot.
Oh yeah, works great as a rice cooker, and I also have a recipe for a damn good Instant Pot Pot Roast. Itās an incredibly versatile machine.
I need to look at more ways to use mine. Iāve made chili in it and some quail.
I now have a instapot cooking chicken and my rice cooker making rice. And then Iām going to use my electric skillet to make my āfamousā chicken taco messā¦ famous according to my oldest daughter who has requested it for our immediate family Christmas today.
They are on their way so Iāll give the silly story behind it later today.
I love the Starbucks sous vide egg bites, and I found a site that has the recipe to make them in the Instapot. If you want to make them youāll need to get the silicone egg bite mold, but thereās lots of places on Amazon you can get them. I got a set of two with stainless steel lifting tray for $25. Warning - only fill them half full. I filled them almost totally full and ended up with overflowing trays
Thereās also this site which has āfreezer dumpā meals - you put everything together, freeze it, then just thaw and dump in the Instapot. Iāve only tried the Orange Chicken recipe (and only from āfreshā, not frozen first) but itās wonderful.
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Holy crap, not only is this thing great for frozen stuff like french fries, it makes an absolutely AMAZING grilled cheese sandwich.
I bought a used InstantPot Duo Plus for $50. Brand new, never used. Thanks for the idea, you guys.
In the process of setting up my new laser engraver. I noticed that the Y-axis gantry is off by a centimeter over the travel. Which is a lot. Iām asking if theyāll send another gantry because this one is hella bent.
Itās not a bug, itās a feature, like those machines that would apply postage stamps at a slight angle to make it look like a human applied them.
Well, not these filthy mirrors. I took the gantry out of the laser and found out what the problem is (the holes for the travel arm were not drilled properly, so the gantry is not a square). I took a look at the mirrors since I had them out.
OO! Shiny new mortgage renewal at 1.8% fixed closed.
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Nice. Ours comes up next year - hereās hoping for low rates as wellā¦
I had to get a new KVM as my old IOGear had the mouse port drop out this week.
The replacement is from āAIMAISHIā whole Iāve never heard of, but has some nice featuresā¦ with a couple annoying bugs.
Itās all HDMI-based so I had to reachable, but I think the ābulkā of an HDMI and single USB B->A to each device is less than the IOGearās heavier-duty cabling (which used a big screw-on connector for each āpairā of devices). Plus I planned ahead and got some short 3 foot HDMI cables for the two Mac Minis I have racked practically right below the KVM.
Itās also USB powered, so one less plug. Iām not sure if it draws power from each attached device or just the first one.
The downside is it doesnāt āfakeā a minor quite the same way so if I switch from my work PC to a personal device everything gets wonky as everything gets dumped from he work laptopās 2nd monitor to the built-in display. Not a huge deal as thatās the only multi-monitor device I currently use, and I probably shouldnāt be jumping screens if Iām sharing.
More serious there is a weird āfailure stateā I got in. Most KVMs intercept keypresses and this is no different: Specifically, my IOGear intercepted ctrl-ctrl-enter to move to the next device, while this one prefers ctrl-ctrl-# (with # being 1-4). I prefer the latter as itās easier to jump around, but ctrl-ctrl-enter seems to enter a weird mode where the USB and Video are in disagreement, which also leads to the keyboard port dropping out. (The Keyboard port is the only one checked for the special signaling, I think.) Amazon reviews did mention the keyboard port dropping out, which can usually be fixed by power cycling the box (which actually has a power switch, compared to the IOGear which freaked out less, but to resolve you had to unplug itās power brick.
Hereās the one I got: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_dp_s_web_0?ie=UTF8&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=AIMAISHI
Kind of a mixed bag, TBH.
This crosses over with the 'What game?" thread, but I got a Nintendo Switch and the Ring Fit Adventure game/accessory.
Itās basically a special ring one of the mini-controller ājoy-consā connects to along with a leg strap for the other of the pair. You wear the leg strap so it can sense your leg movement and use the ring in various exercises. Itās apparently a āpilatesā based workout routine, but with a shell that youāre a hero-type in a strange fusion of a generic fantasy RPG and a gym. Really, the ānormalā monsters resemble barbells and other equipment, while the bad guy is a ridiculously buff dragon who does exercises to show off between attacks.
An interesting POV is my non-gamer wife has jumped on board. Sheās about a day behind me, but Iām curious how/if she interacts with he more āgameā aspects. Your on-screen character does have āAttackā (performed by choosing various exercises) and āDefenseā stats (performed by doing an āAb Guardā exercise) that improve and are modified by gear and such. (Iāve unlocked a couple alternative āgearā options, and they seem to so far be a choice between a more pastel style and the hard-edged brightly-colored style.
As a workout it seems somewhat effective. Itās certainly not for everyone, and you have to react well to this style which is very upbeat and positive. It seems to (in less than a week) favor slow and careful changes in activity which works better for my personality I think. Itās also not like some of the brain-training games that got big for a while where it yells at you for skipping a day. It is, so far, optimistic, upbeat, and encouraging. I like it because I know Iād get bored with the repetition of āgo ride a bike for an hourā (which I used to do)
The exercise value is a lot of jogging in place augmented by various ring-based exercises; Pushing and pulling on the ring, moving it around, etc. Some leg stuff like doing leg lifts to attack an enemy.
The writing is cRPG āBā grade and thatās being generous, but I really didnāt expect more.
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I wonāt have it for 6-10 weeks (build time depends upon who you talk to). The purchase was necessitated by this purchase.
And holy crap did I burn a lot of mental energy on deciding whether to get a maxed-out 1500 or a more modest 2500. The deciding factor was getting actual weights from my brother in law (who has the same trailer) and coming to the realization that no one was ever pointed downhill in the mountains while saying āyāknow, I think I bought too much truck for this.ā
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