Aight y'all. Here’s a lesson I learned from my wife, and I wish I’d learned it years ago:
Before you buy anything, take 5 minutes to search (preferably with a non-Google search engine like DuckDuckGo) “best [whatever] for [specific purpose if necessary].”
Make sure you look at who the reviews are from; there are a lot of bad spam sites out there, but you can find good lists on reputable sites. However, you’ll get some of the best lists on Reddit.
Most of what you’ll find at the top of the lists on Amazon (and Walmart) are people who have paid for that spot. You’ll still have to use discernment to make sure you’re picking a good review site, but I’m not kidding when i say that the last time we had to buy a plunger, I ended up on a thread on a plumber’s forum where they were discussing which plunger they keep in their own bathroom. (The overwhelming winner was something called a Toilet Saber, and… it’s much easier to use than the usual style of plunger, actually.)
She searches “best potato peeler” and “best pastry blender” and “best standing desk” and it seems so obvious, right, but she does it for literally everything and the average quality of things I own has gone way, way up since I started taking 5 minutes to search “best yoga socks” and “best cuticle trimmers” and then going to buy whatever it is.
Her research skills go into overdrive when it comes to big purchases; she’s the one who researched our sublimation printer and found the desk I currently use. If there’s an extremely passionate subreddit out there about the thing she wants to buy, she’ll find it and then read half a dozen reviews.
I cannot stress enough how much she does this. About. Everything. And how much everything we own is better as a result.
It’s amazing, honestly.
Seriously tho, reddit used to be hyperfocused small communities of ppl devoted to Specific Things. The answers you get about products on reddit threads from more than ~3 years ago are very, very genuine. They may be out of date, as product quality tends to drop when high prestige can make up for it, but it’s an absolutelylovely starting point
Additionally: Check to see if Wirecutter has anything.
Wirecutter is an offshoot of the New York Times that is dedicated solely to reviewing products. Meaning you can know for certain they are 100% not a spoof review site designed to make someone’s product look good, or a shady “pay for good reviews” outlet.
They have full time staff whose job is to test out products and tell you what the best options are.
They also usually have a couple different categories in their reviews and will tell you what the best “budget” option is, too, if the one they recommend is too expensive for you. For an example, this review of noise cancelling headphones gives you their top picks for headphones and ear buds, and then their top budget pick for both categories, too. Or this review of steam irons gives you their top pick, runner up, and a more expensive upgrade option.
They also update their recommendations, or go back and re-review and then tell you that they still stand by something, like in this dishwasher review. And they usually give you the Amazon price right in the article.
It’s an incredibly useful tool, especially if there isn’t a reddit community associated with whatever you want.
(Also their review staff are unionized with the same union I am, and they’re cool people.)
And the granddaddy of these is Consumer Reports. I have an annual subscription and I donate to CR every year because they do such an incredible job
In case you’ve never heard of Consumer Reports, it is sort of the U.S. industry standard for being a non-biased third-party catalogue of reviews for like… pretty much everything.
Consumer Reports is a non-profit consumer advocacy group that started as a ‘consumers union’ in 1936.
Their online interface allows for side-by-side comparisons and it’s easy to search for what you want to look up, and they review a truly impressive range of stuff.
A lot of libraries also have subscriptions to Consumer Reports as well, so if you’re interested in checking out CR but a personal subscription isn’t accessible for you, there is a really good chance you cam access the Consumer Reports database for free through your local library!
I didn’t know about the library bit, which is why this wasn’t part of my original recommendations - I try not to recommend pay-gated things. Cool!
You know that study that found when doing a blind taste test the majority of people prefer pepsi over coca cola so coke changed their recipe to taste more like pepsi, and people actually liked the new coke a lot less because the people who were buying coke didn’t want it to taste like pepsi they wanted their coke to taste like coke. That’s what a lot of the new changes tumblr is working on feel like.
everyone’s saying it but yeah the new tumblr desktop layout is complete garbage lmao
yknow what i really can’t fucking stand. how every social media now feels like it’s designed for mobile first but then subsequently there is NO design for desktop and they just kinda slap a mobile interface onto a widescreen canvas and fill it with a solid color. like why is what feels like 60% of my dashboard just negative space on a 16:9 monitor. the entire thing is so fucking claustrophobic and just bunched together. use the space!!!! why are the timeline switcher tabs at the top of the screen getting cut off!!! you could fit all of them!!!
dating-type app but instead of matching for romance it connects writers/artists+ who don’t want to do research with autistic people with the appropriate special interest
the creators get the needed information without needing to filter out filler and translate technical jargon, and the autistic person gets someone who’s willing to listen to their infodumps. what is there to lose
have you considered the possibility that special interests are infectious and that listening to an excited autistic breathlessly explain why a topic you need to know about but don’t want to immerse yourself in is dangerous? the activity has a tendency to set hooks in a person and make the topic interesting, and now you run the risk of generating packs of autistics with a new special interest to spread to all and sundry
actually wait no that’s a great outcome, full speed ahead
all the screenshots I took from Sex Kitten Sim Date 3 and 5 that I can post on tumblr without getting flagged. Shoutouts to shitpost hentai flash games from 2004
the “came back wrong” trope except like… they didnt. like this mad scientists wife died, and so he studied necromancy, brought her back, and she came back and it all worked. like she came back exactly the same as she was before with literally no difference. but the scientist guy is like “oh no… what have i done…. shes Different now!!!! she came back Wrong!!!!” and shes just like. chilling. reading a book. cooking dinner. shes just so so normal but in the guys mind hes like “oh shes soooo weird” but shes just normal
