Here are objects I like. It feels to me that having good objects is underrated.

General rules I follow:

  • It’s okay to pay for something if it gives you more value than however-much-the-subscription costs.
  • Minimize unnecessary physical objects, but don’t be afraid of having good ones around.

Other People’s Objects⌗

Other people have good objects, too. Many of them are probably better than mine. An incomplete list:

(I wonder if there should be a central list for this, or something.)

The Physical⌗

Physical objects are very annoying. They have to be moved, stored, gotten from another room, etc. But some of them are worth it.

Technology⌗

  • AirPods Pro for wireless earbuds that don’t hurt my ears over time
  • iPad + Pencil + a paper-like screen protector for Anki, scratch writing, and RemNote review (currently)
  • Kindle for reading (coupled with Calibre + USB transfer for ebooks)
    • I have the Kindle KT7, but there are better models these days.
  • Spectre C35 for an external montior
    • There are better monitors out there, but this one was a nice balance of cost and performance for me.
  • Magnetic USB-C adapter to make plugging in and out ridiculously convenient
  • Ergodox EZ for an incredibly quality keyboard that doesn’t squish my hands
  • Logitech G602 for a fairly speedy wireless mouse
  • Flexispot Motorized Standing Desk Converter for an effective standing desk that can fit in a dorm
  • A good USB-C hub for a desk setup where you can plug in and out with just one cable
  • A USB charging station with enough ports to top off every single device I own at a time

Potential Future Things⌗

  • A Lumenator to make the room look like daylight

The Digital⌗

A note: many of these apps are Apple products-only. This is kind of unfortunate. I suspect there are alternatives that are about as good on Windows, though.

Productivity⌗

  • Krisp for never having to worry about noise in video calls again

  • Linux-only:

    • i3 for an efficient tiling window manager. (Sway is another option, but Wayland still has a lot of rough edges wrt screen sharing and cursor lag, so I wouldn’t recommend unless it’s required, e.g. for a mixed DPI setup.)
      • Flameshot for a powerful snipping tool
      • Redshift for making screens nicer in the dark
      • kitti3 for a quake-style dropdown terminal in i3
      • xidlehook for a better idle locker daemon
    • PulseEffects + Pipewire for noise suppression that’s only slightly buggier and lower quality than Krisp

  • macOS-only:

    • Things for a low-effort and pretty way to capture tasks
      • Shout out to Emacs Org Mode, though, which I used for several years prior.
    • Alfred for a slightly faster Spotlight
    • Karabiner-Elements for fixing macOS’s insane keyboard problems
    • SensibleSideButtons to fix the forward/back buttons on my mouse
    • Rectangle for window hotkeys
    • Dropover for making drag and drop ridiculously easy
    • MultiTimer for naming timers and counters

Notetaking⌗

  • Anki for learning a language (currently Chinese!)
  • RemNote for a powerful knowledge base and amazing flashcard system
    • I tried Roam. It was okay, but it felt kind of cobbled-together (markdown? paste random js into your editor to add plugins? no spaced repetition by default?). RemNote is definitely buggier, but I feel that it wins out just because it seems like it got the data structure right.
  • Instapaper for queuing things to be read later without getting distracted in the moment
  • Mathpix Snip for amazing screenshot-to-LaTeX abilities
  • macOS-only:
    • GoodNotes for handwritten notetaking
    • Apple Books for a book syncing system that works well enough
      • I also used to use Calibre, but I realized that I don’t really need all of its complexity.

Development⌗

Chat⌗

  • Element for an open-source, end-to-end encrypted chat application with nice UX

Fun⌗

Historical⌗

Things I used to have, but no longer do. They might still be good for you, though.

  • MacBook Pro (M1, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) for an incredible-quality computer
    • I really enjoyed the performance and battery life, but ultimately, it didn’t “spark joy” since I disagree with Apple’s philosophy against user control.