Buy it for Life

Recommendations for a color, full duplex, laser printer?

Another printer company (Brother) has fallen to the allure of "remote disable" if they object to you using your own device in a way they don't like: trying to self-service, use third party inks, whatever. It's at their discretion. Given printers are the sorts of devices to which you tend to want to have network access, preventing this is a lot of work.

I've been looking at color duplex laser printers, and Brother has been at the top of the list, until they recently announcement that they'd disable printers using third party inks.

BIFL to me implies that the company isn't going to actively sabotage self-service, or restrict your usage of the thing, so I think this is an appropriate question for this c/.

Hi everyone, not sure if BIFL, as textiles are generally prone to wear out. I'm looking for good rainproof trousers. A little background: I'm commuting by bike, 7 km back and forth plus train commute, all year. Due to the geographical region (Germany) there is a good chance of unforseen rain.

Now I'm looking for a well built, stable set of rainproof trousers. I'm not a fan of those standard trousers where you need to put your feet or shoes through, as I'd like to put them on spontaneously and without too much hassle. I recently found out about full zipper trousers which kind of have a side entry rather than a top entry. They seem interesting, but I'm unsure about the practicability.

I'd be glad to hear your experiences with rainproof trousers for commuting, and ideally a buy it for ~~life~~ very long recommendation.

I am own my own business and it is closed Mondays but I do a lot of ordering and paperwork from home on Mondays. I currently use TV trays as desk, one for my laptop and a second for my iPad and mouse/trackball. They are wobbly, and our cats like to jump onto them and I am always worried they will knock down my laptop.

I am looking for something more substantial, preferably adjustable height so I can sit on the couch or my office chair, and on wheels so I can move it out if the when way not in use.

It does not need drawers or storage, but I am not opposed to them.

Location: US

When I'm logged in, I can only see four threads in this community. If I go to the community in a private window without being logged in, I can read all the threads. My user is on the same instance, so I should be able to see all threads - this can't be a federation issue. What's going wrong?

My current digital kitchen scales (Brabantia) go through batteries faster than I would like. I use rechargeable batteries, but still.

I was looking for long-lasting mechanical kitchen scales or at least one of those kinetic energy scales (turn the knob to power it) to use in the kitchen. Any model that can measure in the ~1g to 5kg range with a tare function is more than enough.

Does anyone have any recommendations or experience with these types of scales (knob or mechanical)? E.g., does the knob thing break easily?

Underwear is one of the things that I struggle to use second-hand, and I'm not sure if I intend to change that (lest some nowaste people teach me mystical ways and methods :P) But the fact is that I can only use what I've got currently for so long, and so I turn to you.

I am not looking for specific reccomendations exclusively, and the type of underwear (underpants, brasseries, undershirts) are all welcome for discussion! But I'm hoping to find advice which will help me find something that will last, and to a decent standard (i.e, don't use polyester socks, due to smell).

So please lend your advice for finding Bras, Briefs, Bobbysocks, and Bundershirts!

EDIT: Also advice on what materials are better suited to different climates is also well appreciated! (I tend to leave my posts personal detail agnostic so they can serve as resources for others :))

Hi there, I came here to the BIFL Lemmy out of suspicion that the reddit posts are just unlabelled marketing, and I was wondering the possibility of sourcing goods that are more to a BIFL standard? In my area, second hand goods tend to be really quite poor in quality (reselling fast fashion) or otherwise not present, and I have not inherited anything that does last. So I would apprecite advice or reccomendations for finding goods at a BIFL standard. I was also wondering if maybe there would be anyone with good advice for finding sustainable, local textile production so that I may be able to tailor what I need without having to buy from the poor selection aforementioned, does anyone know of any of this?

TL:DR I am suspicious that a lot of what is claimed as 'BIFL' has been enshittified, and would like advice on being able to search for sustainable goods for a local area (not specified because I'm hoping for advice with searching, not exactly for specific reccs)

Well it's not an overly inspiring photo, but then what white good is?

Purchased some time before 2000 this fridge survived a move from the outback to the city on the back of a cattle truck, along with cattle, a Simpson top loader and many other household effects.

In March 2022 it decided to stop cooling. I was away so the missus bought an Inalto fridge - quite similar to that red one that drove Technology Connections mental.

When I got back I took the old fridge apart to see if it was the thermostat that was sick. The tip had rusted off, letting out the gas that operates the bellows in the thermostat, so ordered and fitted a new one. Success. Kept it in the shed just in case.

Now the Inalto struggles to get below 11°C, so have dragged the Kelvinator out of storage and it's back to full time duty again.

As for the Inalto, it's freezing up at the top corner of the unit and only drawing 30 watts. Will do some research, but suspect it's not fixable. At under three years old, that's an exceptionally short life.

where could someone find a pair of sturdy, comfortable goggles that an optometrist can put a prescription into?

Hello there!

Any recommendations for a sous vide thermoplongeur, like this one? It should be available in Europe, temperature from 30 - 60°C (90 - 140°F) and have a cooking time of up to 36h. Its main purpose will be yogurt making.

My big winter boots I have used for the last few years got a split in them today. I use them a lot as I walk about 1km a day to and from work. I have to walk up hills and on ice at times. Which boots should I buy that will be good quality, keep my feet warm and dry, and last repeated daily use?

I've been looking for a good Bluetooth speaker for a while now. My old one, a 1st gen Anker SoundCore that I bought in late in 2018 decided to quit working on me 2020 when the battery failed. I decided that I didn't want another one that would only last me a year or two before it failed. The ones that have actually decent sound just cost too much for me to be able to justify that. That one requirement turned out to be a big problem as almost nobody makes a decent Bluetooth speaker with a replaceable battery. Except, the power tool makers.

About 15 years ago (give or take) I had owned a Ryobi Bluetooth radio. The sound was crap and it wasn't exactly what you would call compact but it was loud and it took a good 5 years of actual, honest to god, abuse until it finally died. It fell into a pan of used motor oil. I cried. Not so much over the radio but rather over the 4ah 18v battery that had been powering it. Those things were damned expensive at the time.

So when I noticed that Ryobi had produced a new Bluetooth speaker, I figured that it would probably take a beating. Question was, how was the sound and more importantly for me, how loud could it get. Unfortunately, everybody seemed to be sleeping on it and hadn't done more than a cursory review on it.

Price wise, it's a bit eye watering with a $100USD MSRP with a 2ah battery included but it does seem to be on discount frequently. Which is good because I recommend getting a 3ah battery for it.

The speaker is a triangular rod a little taller than a 20oz coke bottle. Call it 8 inches long and 2 across. Feels well built, though not as solid as the Anker Soundcore. Ryobi claims that it has a IP67 rating and there are rubber bumpers on every surface the thing could possibly rest on. Feels like it weighs about a pound and a half.

On one end there are it's controls, a power button, play/pause, volume, and the Verse Link pairing button (which is not for pairing Bluetooth). On the other end is the battery door held closed by a toggle clasp and sealed with a rubber gasket. And finally on the side, opposite the speaker, is a USB-C port for charging only. I did check, and no, he charge port will not power the unit without a battery installed.

Sadly, no 3.5mm audio jack nor can the USB-C port handle audio in. This is a Bluetooth only speaker.

Bluetooth pairing is pretty simple, just press and hold the play/pause button while it is on and it will drop its current connection and enter pairing mode. I'm not sure what Bluetooth standards it is using, but the only device I have that I couldn't get to pair with it was my 9 year old Dell Latitude. It could see the speaker but I was never able to get the laptop to pair with it. My desktop did not have the same problem so it's probably just the ancient bluetooth chip on my laptop.

The sound quality is excellent within the limits of my damaged hearing. An audiophile coworker of mine (whose hearing is even worse due to spinning lug nuts off heavy trucks with air impacts all day) says the bass is a bit muddy but otherwise good. As for how loud, at max volume, playing Crab Rave on YouTube, my Apple Watch was showing 90dB 3 feet from the speaker. So more than loud enough for my needs and loud enough to continue damaging my hearing.

Ryobi claims that the 2ah battery it comes with will last "up to" 6 hours and that seems about right. The one time I actually used the battery it came with, it died about an hour before my 8 hour shift ended. I put the 3ah battery in it and it lasts longer than my attention span for testing it. In practice, the 3ah battery lasts me about a shift and a half, playing audio about 60% - 70% of the time.

The batteries this uses has a pair of party tricks, the first of which is actually pretty useful. While you can certainly charge the battery using an external charging dock or via the speaker's own USB-C port, the batteries themselves have a USB-C port on them which can be used for charging the battery. It can charge via any USB charger.

The second party trick is that the battery can also be used as a very small, very slow, 10W USB-C PD power bank to charge a phone or something. I get the feeling that the engineer in charge of designing the battery said "It's got the port, why not!" and nobody in accounting thought to stop them. And no, that ability does not pass through the speaker, and yes, I tried. Though I did find out that my iPhone 16 and iPad Air can themselves act as powerbanks, which I did not know.

About the Verse Link. It's not something I have a use for and haven't tested, but Ryobi crows about this feature more that anything else about this speaker so I figure I'll mention it. The Verse Link is a way to link up several Verse Link speakers up to a single audio source with a range of up to 125'. Again, not something I have a use for, but might be handy at a pool party or something.

All in all, I really like this speaker. Is it "buy it for life"? Probably not, but it does have the makings to be a piece of kit that will last a good long time. How long, I suspect, will depend more on whether Ryobi kills off the USB Lithium line like they did the Tek4 line. I don't think they will, but time will tell.

I'm looking for a BIFL (or at least last me for a while) music player that can play .wav files, has a lot of storage, is portable, and the parts are able to be replaced/upgraded. I've heard about using iPod classics but it seems like they're unable to play .wav files. Any reccomendations?

Had an old Wahl just die after probably a good 20+ years, kind of looks like the cable is frayed and splitting where it connects to the trimmer. Did a quick check online and the new products don't even look remotely similar.

Just using it for normal hair cuts at home, any recommendations?

Edit: Preferably on the budget side.

Looking for a buy it for life option for a lantern. Will mostly be used during power outages and only occasionally otherwise. Ideally it would hold a charge well and be bright enough to allow reading/puzzles/games/etc.

I took a look around and a lot of comments mentioned to get one that uses 'LiFePO4 Batteries', and that seemed like a reasonable requirement.

They're supposed to have a longer life span, be safer, light weight, and better charge/discharge efficiency which is in line with what I'd be looking for.

Some brands/models that I saw recommended:

• BLUETTI came up in more recent posts
• Ecoflow (specifically the RIVER 2) came up a lot
• Anker was suggested a few times, but the comments weren't that detailed

edit, added an image of what I'm referring to

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22583951

I'm currently still using my CanoScan F910114 from ~2006 (pictured). The light recently burned out, but it still works for scanning documents if I add some contrast and brightness after the fact. Not great for photographs, though.

If I'm not able to replace the light, I might be in the market for a new scanner. Are there any that you all recommend for durability and potential repairability?

Obviously no electronics are truly going to be BIFL, but I figure I can at least aim high and see what I can find.

Edit: Thank you all for your replies! I'm probably going to go for a used Epson Perfection v600 or v700. I've learned a lot about scanners following your leads.

I basically listen to music constantly, and when I'm on holiday or riding my bike I generally use USB-C earbuds. I've had way too many wireless buds break and I'm sick of them, but these aren't fairing much better tbh.

Problem is that the cables always eventually stop working, often from my phone being in my pocket while I'm walking or cycling. I've been able to partly extend their life by keeping my phone in the thigh pocket on my cargo pants but it often just falls over and bends the cable more sharply than my hip pocket.

I'm looking for either a pair of highly durable earbuds either USB-C or 3.5mm with a USB-C DAC recommendation, or even better a DSP cable that I could use with IEMs with a 0.78mm connector.

I'm also open to any other suggestions at all.

Oh my goodness, it's so much better than petroleum jelly (and it won't degrade latex/rubber). Put it anywhere, you can even eat it, it's safe for nursing babies.

Other than nipples, it has thousands of uses. I use it under my nose where my CPAP machine rubs me raw. Oh, and it's a great moustache wax too!

Just try it. I costs a bit more than PJ, but it's like owning the best quality product of it's type. Nobody can buy anything better.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17069345

Because I've been eating rice more often I realized via my energy bill that cooking in a pot on an electric plate for 30 minutes consumes massive amounts of electricity. Therefore I'm currently browsing for rice cookers, but the info on energy efficiency leaves much to be desired.

What would be the most efficient method to cook brown rice? Which appliance would be recommendable and ideally be in line with the Buy It For Life philosophy?