Min-maxing quality of life enhancements

20^th March 2024

I’ve wasted far too much of my youth on various niche forums and other dusty corners of the internet, thinking that I’m very cool for developing discernment in mundane and ordinary things. Much of this was a waste of time. I’ve come to believe that for each respective QoL enhancement there is an optimal level of engagement at which you reap pretty much all of the benefit, and any further cognitive energy and money you funnel into it is just chasing a nonexistent white whale.

In an effort to make those hundreds of hours worth something, below is a list of the various niches I’ve become obsessed with over the years and associated products which I think represent the pragmatic peak. Go no further, just buy it and enjoy it and do more useful things with your time.

Coffee

• Clever Dripper
  • Follow this recipe
• Hand-crank grinder
  • Budget: Hario Skerton
  • Mid-range: Timemore C2
  • High-end: Commandante C40
• Bulk purchase “house blend” beans from a home-delivery roaster

Tea

• Generic cup infuser (here is an example, avoid those small ball infusers)
• If brewing for two or more, use a (clean) french press instead a teapot
• Try green teas, oolongs, and black teas to figure out what you like
  • Gyokuro is a Japanese tea, and it is good representative for greens
  • Jin Xuan, also known as ‘milk oolong’ is Chinese, and is worth trying for its naturally creamy flavour — in a good milk oolong, no milk is actually used in the preparation process
  • Darjeeling is a good representative for Indian black teas
• Pick a vendor from this list and you’ll probably end up with something good

Mechanical keyboards

• Anything from Keychron that fits your preferred keyboard layout and size
• In terms of key switches:
  • Clicky (blue) if you want something loud and mechanical-feeling, avoid if you are going to use in a communal space
  • Tactile (brown) if you just want to type — middle of the road option
  • Linear (red/yellow) if you are going to game on your computer
• Unicomp make replicas of the IBM Model M buckling spring keyboards; loud but an unbeatable typing experience

Shaving

• Merkur 34C safety razor (~$40) and whatever canned shaving foam you prefer
• Get a blade sampler pack from somewhere like here
  • Make sure to get one with Personna blades since they are gentle and a good way to learn without cutting yourself, but you will probably end up wanting something more aggressive

Writing implements

• Fountain pens
  • Lamy Safari with the Z28 converter to use bottled ink (if you hold your pen conventionally)
  • The Platinum Preppy is even cheaper and is more forgiving of non-typical pen grips
  • For inks, everything from Diamine is good
• Ballpoint: Uniball Jetstream
• Rollerball: Pilot Precise V5/V7
• Gel: Pentel EnerGel
• Pencil: Staedler 925 35-05 with Pentel Hi Polymer Super 0.5mm 2B lead

Headphones

• Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 80-ohm
  • If you have a Mac, you don’t need a DAC
  • If you don’t, then purchase the FiiO K3 and the 256-ohm version of these headphones

Printers

• Any black-and-white Brother laser printer, and use it wired if you can
• Not even AGI will solve printer wireless networking