What is something really stupid you purchased that turned out far better than expected? - eviltoast

I bought a piece of 1.5 inch stiff foam to try to fix a sag in a bed. It didn’t work but having that thick piece of solid foam around has been a life saver.

Need something flat to put a laptop on? Throw it on the foam. Going to be doing something that requires you to be on your knees for a while? Get the foam!

It went from stupid purchase to something I’d gladly replace if it broke.

  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    As for them staying in your ear, do you pull up on your earlobe when inserting normal ear plugs? I discovered this a while ago and it took in-ear stuff from being absolutely unusable to working great.

    • ritswd@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I did! I noticed it written on a box of disposable earplugs at some point, so I abided. It made things marginally better in my case, but not by much. Either I was doing it wrong, or it’s that ear canal shapes are different enough that different people have to have different solution (why on Earth can some people use foam earplugs all right, and yet they just spring out of my ears?? 😆)

      • TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I have small ear canals and can’t use most ear plugs and ear buds because they just push out of my ears, and if they do manage to stay I can feel it constantly pushing outwards on my ear and it starts to hurt pretty quickly. No one else in my house has this problem. I would absolutely say ear canals are different enough that there cannot be a catch-all solution so they just have to go with average range. I’m sure if I got custom plugs it would be different, but anything off the shelf is not going to work for my baby ears.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Not for plugs, but check out bone conduction headphones for a listening alternative to over ear headphones. They just cut your ear canal out of the equation entirely.

          • TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Holy crap that is amazing! Headphones/earbuds are a big issue for me, partly since I am allowed to listen at work, but I am not allowed to have over ears, but especially since most ear buds cause great pain and inevitable eat infections for me. Thank you so much!

            Update: I ordered a pair to try. Twisted my rubber arm.

        • ritswd@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Hah well, yeah, for sure for you the custom ones would make even more sense than for me, if you use earplugs enough.

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          thing is, i thought this was the case for me too! but pulling on the ear while inserting the plugs completely solved the issue.

        • jiji@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Not trying to be funny, have you tried actual children’s ear plugs? Or are those too small?

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        Interesting, i thought i had small ear canals until i learned about the ear pulling trick and now i can even wear bog-standard earbuds without issue.