You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

PECOS-9 comments on How can I spend money to improve my life? - Less Wrong Discussion

15 Post author: jpaulson 02 February 2014 10:16AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (230)

Comments (230)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: PECOS-9 02 February 2014 03:56:43PM *  19 points [-]

Improve the ergonomics of your computer situation:

  • Better chair
  • Better desk
  • Keyboard without a numpad so that the mouse doesn't need to be so far out
  • Bigger monitors/multiple monitors
  • If your computer is at all slow or annoying-to-use, consider whether better hardware could help that (and thus reduce the stress of using it). E.g. getting an SSD could decrease load times if you find those problematic

Buy nice clothes

Comment author: 4hodmt 03 February 2014 12:59:26AM *  11 points [-]

Strongly seconding the SSD recomendation. I can't think of anything else that's given so much enjoyment for the money. A SSD dramatically increases perceived performance of a computer beyond what you'd expect from benchmarks. Adding extra ram can hide the latency of a mechanical HD by caching, but it does nothing for worst case performance, and worst case performance is highly salient. I'd much rather use a low spec PC with a SSD than a high spec PC with a mechanical HD. Predictably mediocre performance feels faster than high average performance with high variance.

Comment author: Lumifer 04 February 2014 02:12:01AM 3 points [-]

A SSD dramatically increases perceived performance of a computer beyond what you'd expect from benchmarks.

That really depends on what you are running. In the general case, if you get a LOT of performance increase from an SSD, this generally means your disk cache is way too small and you should start by buying more RAM.

Comment author: kalium 05 February 2014 06:10:54AM 1 point [-]

Not losing data when the computer is dropped or mishandled is an important performance feature if you're clumsy.

Comment author: palladias 02 February 2014 06:21:47PM *  2 points [-]

I'm still really happy with buying a massage cushion (not this one but about this type and price). I bought it shortly after I got my first job, and wanted one, noticed it wasn't too expensive (per massage), and went for it.

It's a nice treat that still feels luxurious and indulgent, so I also desire other indulgent things less.

Plus, I named mine "Adulthood" since I could buy it because I was an adult and my money was mine to do with as I wished. Thus my roommates and I were prone to say things like:

"I never dreamed Adulthood would be so wonderful"
"Sometimes Adulthood is all that keeps me going"

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit