What do you refuse to get generic versions of?
batteries.
This one is interesting, because I’ve heard certain generic brands are actually just repackaged Duracells
I’ve also been thinking about getting some rechargeable Ikea ones, heard those are decent
Rechargeables are definitely a good upgrade for most applications where people use alkalines. They have better performance under high load, are much less likely to leak corrosive electrolyte, and you can use them again after you drain them. I’m a little surprised they aren’t more popular.
The Panasonic Eneloop is the gold standard for rechargeables, particularly the white ones which are more shelf-stable and have a longer service life than the higher-capacity black Eneloop Pro. Made-in-Japan Ikea rechargeables are suspected of being rebranded Eneloop Pros, but I don’t think that’s been conclusively proven.
I’ve heard certain generic brands are actually just repackaged Duracells
Might depend where you live, I live in Nothern Europe and the cheap generic brand batteries from a popular electronics store chain, rechargeable, are quite shit when I compare them to my 5+ year old Eneloops. Haven’t tried IKEA ones though.
The Ikea Lada rechargables are rebranded Eneloops. Panasonic is the only manufacturer making rechargable batteries in Japan.
I’m pretty sure ikea just spent a bunch on R&D and tooling to set up their own battery manufacturing plant in Japan.
Does Sony not make CycleEnergy, or Sanyo make their version too anymore?
A few years back a guy did agood dive into this on (other website name redacted). He said for things like digital camersand other high draw items, Duracell is still the champ - however, $/hour of use, some cgeaper bands came out ahead. I still have half a giant pack of AC Delco AA / AAAs that have been quite solid.
Here’s a comparison site that graphs the voltage during discharge of a bunch of AA and AAA batteries with various loads using a high-end battery tester.
NiMH rechargeable AAs trounce every alkaline under heavy load. It’s not even close at 0.5A and above. Disposable lithium is better still up to 2A, but extremely expensive. Few devices will draw more than 2A from an AA battery, but I can think of a couple of flashlights that do; disposable lithium is unsuitable for those.
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Definitely! For electronics, Eneloop batteries are worth every penny. I think I have ~10 AA and AAA, and I haven’t bought disposable batteries in years. I try to make sure I have 4 of each available at all times so I don’t have to wait for them to recharge. I’ve tried cheaper (Amazon) batteries, and they fail much more quickly, and sometimes swell to the point where I have a hard time removing them.
Some people say IKEA’s batteries are just rebranded Eneloops, but I haven’t had a chance to try them
Game console controllers. Miss me with that flimsy shit.
Except the Xbox Series X controller. That thing’s a nightmare. I use my old One controller for that.
Interesting. I still use the 360 controller on my PC because that thing is a tank. Basically indestructible. But my One controllers are garbage. The plastic was so badly formed I got aftermarket grips because it was constantly pinching my hands. It also feels like I could twist it in to pieces with by hand. The Series X controller fails to live up to the 360 but it feels significantly more solid and the pieces at least fit together.
I do feel I could break my xbox controller easily if I twisted it. It’s got some heft but not much. The 360 controller did feel a bit more solid.
The series x controller is also nice. Disturbingly light but I appreciate that it’s good for long sessions to have a light controller. It’s just the damn button sound. It makes a nasally little twing-click sound each time the button is pressed. Drives me nuts.
What’s wrong with the series x controller? I bought one for my pc when my xbox one controller died. I haven’t really used it loads yet to be fair, but it seems fine to me. I preferred the +style dpad on xbox one but other than that it feels basically the same to me.
It’s extremely loud. Once someone tells you about the loud click that every button press makes, you can’t unhear it.
Sorry.
Haha well then fuck you in advance I guess
😘
Video game controllers.
I know the divide is not quite what it was with stick drift affecting almost all of the 1st party offerings, but there’s just something that feels so cheap about using any generic controller, even ones that are marketed as higher end.
8bitdo aren’t really for any particular device, but the quality is fantastic.
Have they changed the joystick material yet? The joysticks off my ol’ 8bitdo pro (the original) kept shedding with use, so I stopped using it in lieu of the switch and steamdeck controllers. Gods, the controller was way more comfortable and sized just right than any other 3rd party controller for me. My google fu is weak, so I never found fitting thumbpad covers for it.
Not sure tbh, I have a couple of SF30 Pros for about 3 years and they’ve been solid, never had any shedding.
Liqueurs, because usually generics don’t exist
And Ziploc bags. The quality is worth the extra dollar over the store brand. I might start doing the same for trash bags as well
Tires. Every time I’ve tried to save money by purchasing some PrimeWell or Sentury or other no-name tire I’ve worn them out in no time flat or they burst when I hit any bump that stands more than 1cm above the road surface. If they are that weak then they aren’t safe.
I work in the rim and tire industry so I find this really interesting. Haven’t seen either of those two brands before where I am, but most cheaper brands nowadays are all made at the same two or three locations and just get a different name stamped into the sidewall.
My information may also be out of date, it’s been years since I was so broke that I had to just buy whatever cheap tires I could afford.
I had a set of “Sentury” tires I put on a Mitsubishi Mirage, and they were worn to the wear bars in 9,000 miles. They were carrying a 1,900 pound/860 kilogram car, and that was heavy enough to wear all four tires down in less than 1/4 the tread warranty period.
That’s really bad, sounds like a winter compound tire was sold as an all-season or something. That sounds like the typical treadwear for a winter tire that gets run in the wrong season.
Also for anyone reading this, If you ever need cheap tires try your local independent mechanics or to a lesser extent franchise mechanics shop, lots of people swap tires when they have 35%+ tread life left. Lots of shops will let these tires go for cheap if you get them put on at their shop. I would gladly take a good quality tire at 40% tread life vs a cheapo crap set at 100%
Toilet paper. My asshole deserves Angel Soft.
If you really care about your asshole get a bidet
I have a vagina and bidets can fuck up your vaginal microflora, so no bidet for me. If I didn’t I’d probably use one, though.
Interesting I just had surgery in my vagina and the doctors recommended using bidet to make sure that area cleaner then just wiping.
Probably a different consideration for a fresh wound vs normal maintenance, I’d definitely follow your doctor’s instructions!
Billions of women in the world east of Europe all the way to Japan would disagree with you. But then again it’s the bidet shower variety.
It’s not really an opinion, bidets are associated with abnormal vaginal flora and preterm birth.
Your linked study is done with 212 subjects. 212!
With a population that small, you can have any conclusion you’d like. There are billions of people who use bidet showers daily in the world, your study has 212!
If you believe in the scientific method, you should know that a study has to be verified by many independent studies with big enough data samples before it is accepted as fact. You must surely know that there are studies that conclude that the climate change is a hoax. But the overwhelmingly majority makes these handful outliers or flawed studies.
Sigh, I was wondering if this particular misunderstanding of statistics had migrated from reddit to here.
No, you cannot dismiss a study because it “only” has 212 people. 200 people is enough to get an 85% confidence level.
On top of that, it is hardly the only study showing vaginal microflora alteration in bidet users:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21058441/
Normal microflora (Lactobacillus species) was not present in 42.86% of bidet toilet users, compared to 8.77% of non-users. Fecal bacteria were detected in 50 of the 268 cases (18.66%), 46 cases in users (92%) and only 4 cases in non-users (8%). Contamination by other pathogens was 4 to 6 times higher in users than in non-users.
I get there is a cult of bidet users who will hear no slander of them, but it’s not going to make me spray water from my toilet seat and around my vulva and potentially into my vagina. You are not changing my mind on this and I invite you to read more about sample sizes if you want to do something productive: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6970301/
Your first study has even used women who had admitted to the hospital and therefore used the shared hospital toilet bidets. I think this fact alone would make it enough to disqualify it.
Apart from hospital bidet being a one extra germ filled surface the patient touches, it raises the following questions. Was there a problem with the brand of bidet used in the hospital that might cause more of an uncontrolled spray? Did the particular toilet bowl shape contribute to the result? Non of these stays the same within the general population and any outliers would be cancelled out in a huge dataset.
You need the handheld kind that can shoot water front to back.
Stop recommending bidets to me, I’m already convinced. It’s just that from the three toilets I’ve owned in my life, all of them were for one reason or another incapable of being retrofitting with one. I envy your guy’s clean assholes
They don’t have a standard supply line with threaded connections?
They do but it’s in such an awkward position that I’d need a custum made connection piece
Get a bidet shower then. Controlled spray so there’s minimal splash as well.
Same but cottonelle
Oh yeah, how is your husband?
Fisherman’s friend cough drops. They’re not the tastiest cough drops out there, but they fucking work.
These and “Sucrets” - for when you throat hurts and you want novacaine in tablet form.
Source: professional singer. These two have saved me many times.
Windex for cleaning mirrors and glass. All the other knockoffs feel like watered down blue food coloring.
Time to join the Sprayway army.
Isn’t it just ammonia though?
… Siracha.
At least before the debacle with Underwood Ranch. I unknowingly bought extra before it happened and am close to running out. I’m not sure what to do afterwards but I’m not inclined to support Huy Fong.
I hear Underwood ranch sells siracha made from the same peppers Huy Fong used to buy from them. Might be worth checking out
Tabasco Sriracha is not quite the same but decent.
Fix Sriracha is pretty damn good, less sweet, more heat, a touch more fermented funkiness. Downside is it is thinner and more expensive.
Computer hardware
which brands do you trust for GPU heatsink+board (not chip) manufacturers? there’s so many to choose from and I don’t know who to trust.
I personally trust Asus, EVGA (Rip), Gigabyte, Palit, PNY, Sapphire and XFX when buying graphics cards.
My current card is a Geforce GTX 1060 6GB from Asus that I bought in 2017, and it hasn’t skipped a beat.3A
Mobiles, laptops, SIM card, Wifi provider
Wtf is a WiFi provider?
The one who provides your wifi connection. Technically ISP but without internet through SIM
Interesting. I switched from brand phones (HTC) to generic no-name phones a while ago. My current one is by Ulefone and I couldn’t tell any difference. For 300 bucks I got a phone thats comparable to samsung phones twice the price, since I didn’t pay anything for the brand name. Any specific reason why you avoid no-name with technologie?
It’s cheap AND all your friends in China can easily keep tabs on your life. I call that a win!
Mac&cheese
It’s Kraft Dinner or nothing.
I didn’t have to open your username to know what instance your account is on…
because I agree.
Gotta be KD
Kraft isn’t even remotely better that every other shitty brand of that “stuff”.
Go buy real pastas, real cheese and seasoning and learn to make real fucking food.
Garbage food is genuinely enjoyable for people.
Also dog food and bogey, doesn’t mean it’s a nice thing.
I sometimes make my mac and cheese with real pasta and Kraft singles. Tastes almost as good as the real thing.
Annie’s?
Honestly PC white cheddar is very good
Toothpaste. Generics are awful.
How come? I’m asking because my dentist said the opposite.
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You have the tenth dentist!
Tires. Never cheap out on tires.
This I agree with.
I once heard someone say: «never skimp out on what seperates you from the ground».
For bed and tires I really agree, but with shoes I’m not as strict.Changed my tires for the first time last year. Bought the cheapest tires acailable to me and now my car feel a bit wobbly. I’m definitely buying better tires next time.
Butter. Kerrygold is simply the best.
Would you say it’s better than all the rest?
Oh, better than anyone!
