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What 2023 Black Friday deals are you looking into?
I would've gotten the Proton Black Friday offer, but it's only valid for upgrades, not for renewing my current account type. Aside from that I'm looking at:
- Affinity 2 (graphic design software)
- Asesprite (graphic design software)
- Curiosity Stream (streaming service for documentaries)
- Kindle Scribe (I'm particularly intrigued by the pen/notebook functionality on this e-reader)
How about you?
Edit 2023-11-27 - I ended up getting the Affinity deal because it was an additional discount on top of the V1 upgrade discount! So I was able to get the entire V2 package for about 67 USD. The Black Friday discount is 40% and then the upgrade discount is 25% on top of that.
I also would've wanted to get the hydroxyapatite toothpaste from my fave floss brand, Cocofloss (25% off the entire site for Black Friday) but it was out of stock.
Kinda relevant to this site since there's always paywalls:
Washington Post is doing $12 for the year (.99c billed every 4 weeks)
https://subscribe.washingtonpost.com/checkout/payment/?pricingStrategyId=695&s_dt=monthly
For anyone this could possibly apply to: Washington Post is free to United States Federal employees. No need to pay at all if you happen to be.
But only if you sign up with your .gov or .mil email address...
Do you know if that also works for those of us who have a .gov email but don't technically work for the government?
All it says is you need a valid .gov or .mil address.
How does that work?
(If you're willing to talk about it of course.)
I'm a NASA contractor, which means I have a government-issued computer, email, and badge but I'm employed by a private company. It's sort of a hybrid setup used by the military and many federal agencies.
Interesting, makes me wonder what other sorts of cracks in the system contractors fall into. You always hear about government work but I bet a lot of it is contractor employ.
In NASA's case it's mostly contractors, actually. You have to go two levels up the org chart from me before you even hit a civil servant. The majority of the government employees I work with are project managers and SMEs – the grunt work gets done by contractors.
What about federal employees that don't get a government email address?
Thanks! Would you know if they as difficult as NYTimes when it comes to unsubscribing? I just remembered I got a similar deal for NYTimes years ago but when I decided to unsubscribe, it was such a lengthy and annoying process.
I always subscribe to the NYT through the app store on iOS. It cost more, but as Apple manages the entire subscription lifecycle, they have no choice but to suck it up and cancel when you cancel on the app store. Like they just won't get more money deposited to them from Apple, there's no card to keep charging, so of course they honor the cancel. The subscription still applies for your entire NYT account.
I use an app called "prvacy" for that. It lets you create virtual credit cards that you can set as one time use or monthly/yearly spend limits etc. You get the same control but no need to pay extra.
Oh great tip, thanks!
Honestly I have no idea haha. I personally have a sub for Boston Globe because I wanna support smaller papers, but I know that that's a hassle to unsubscribe from.
According to WaPo's site: https://helpcenter.washingtonpost.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000177571-How-to-cancel-your-digital-only-subscription, it doesn't seem that difficult, though I'm guessing it's not as straightforwards as it seems.
I see thank you!
Neither are difficult to unsubscribe.
How does it make sense that the Black Friday deal is $1/month or $29 for one year? I'd assume they would want people to go annual but it's over double the monthly price with this deal.
I suspect it’s so you don’t subscribe and immediately unsubscribe to just get the first year. Billed monthly, you can only unsubscribe in the last month, 11 months away? Possibly, some folks will forget and let it renew at full price?
I bought Affinity Designer just because I liked Affinity Photo, but I didn't have a real use for it because I rarely feel the need to do graphic design work. I finally needed to use it a month or so ago and I'm actually pretty impressed with it. I'm very used to working with Inkscape for these kinds of things but I found that there are so many small touches that make it nicer.
I usually dislike proprietary software, but given the relatively favorable licensing conditions and pricing Serif offers for such polished software, it's a price worth paying.
Oh man, designer curb stomps inkscape in terms of usability. Well worth the money, they deserve it.
You and the parent have sold me on Designer; any opinions on completing the collection compared to their respective FOSS alternatives?
I haven't used GIMP much so I can't really compare it to Photo but I've never heard anything good about GIMP. I also haven't done much photography in a while but I always liked new Lightroom better for the work I was doing... I haven't taken the time to learn Darktable. Currently I don't pay for Lr and just use my copy of Photo V1 for the occasional stuff. If I was doing a bunch of photography still I would grumble and pay for Lr.
I tried Publisher briefly and it was ok? It has a nice UX like Designer and Photo but I have no idea what a FOSS alternative for that would be.
I have the complete Affinity 1 suite but barely used it, sadly! I also have the full Adobe CC Suite which is what I mainly use for work. I did write myself a list of features that I have in my workflow in Adobe Illustrator, that weren't in Affinity 1 yet. I'll have to double check and see if Affinity Designer 2's workflow can now compete. But in any case, the offer is really tempting, since I have v1 I'm eligible for the v2 discount (on top of the Black Friday discount too).
Black
Fridayweekmonth gets less interesting each year but that comes with the benefit of not having to worry about saving my purchases for a specific time of year.Snapware’s website regular has pretty good deals (40%). They will do something similar for this “holiday”.
They seem to outright block all(?) European IPs so I couldn't even take a look. After a bit of searching, it looks like Snapware offerings in Europe are quite limited.
If someone has other suggestions for good quality food storage containers that are readily available in Europe, feel free to reply.
It's pretty much coincidence but I recently discovered Everdrive, who make premium flash cartridges for the Gameboy and I'm getting one. Only 20% off but the prices are spicy and it's still much cheaper than from their resellers.
This is aesthetics, but I heard about a company called BoxyPixel a while back that makes custom CNC'd shells for nintendo cartridges and some of their old handhelds.
** Also offering $2/month for Disney Plus and $1/month for Starz as additional services. All but Starz has ads.
** Wait for the next free month promotion, you can immediately cancel and then just use next months code. This even works for the ad free versions.
** There is supposed to be a deal for Netflix and Max combined for $10 if you go through Verizon, both with ads. Might as well just get this one now?
If I wasn't so happy with my piracy setup I'd be tempted by the hulu. But then again its probably ad hulu which I just can't stand
If you may share, what is your piracy setup? looking to learn and fill in the gaps.
Check out Stremio with a debrid service. Super easy to use, barely any learning curve, and it works natively on most smart TVs. The debrid service costs like 2 bucks a month but its well worth it to not worry about copyright strikes
will check it out, thank you
Those prices are tempting but it is hard not to just see “with ads” over and over again and be deterred. I wish streaming services weren’t going that way.
Comic Books:
Nebula: $3/month, $30/year or $300/lifetime (First two are evergreen, lifetime comes and goes.)
Apple
(Both services are available for free through Target and Best Buy, but if one service doesn't work with your Apple ID, try the other.)
Oh shoot Nebula lifetime is back? It's a hard decision for me, I wanna support the creators and watch more on it but most of the time I just jump back to YouTube
There's a lot of overlap between my subscriptions. (When I remember) I've started using the Youtube video as a notification that there's one to watch on Nebula.
EDIT: Went and looked. the "Enhancer for Nebula" extension/add-on adds a button to go to Nebula so that seems useful. Just searched/installed though so will see.
I'm seeing some decent deals on 4TB SSDs for my planned new local file server.
On the fun side, I see that Steam, PSN, and Nintendo's online store all have Black Friday or Autumn sales going on right now that are somewhat enticing to me right now.
If your use case is not write-intensive, there is an in insane deal on an 8TB SATA drive on Amazon right now. I bought this same drive for about $50 more a few months ago for my steam library.
That would be awesome, but the little miniITX I am using doesn't have room for a 2.5". Solid suggestion though, my work load would be fine on that.
I got a pretty nice NVME one from WD for only 220, hard to believe storage has gotten so cheap
Where? I'm also interested in a 4TB SSD to replace an old 2TB HDD that I have in my PC atm. My PC is already built and I don't want to redo anything though, so I don't want nvme.
I got the Crucial P3 Plus 4TB for $179 on Amazon. It's ludicrously cheap. It's not absolutely top tier performance, but it is miles ahead of what I had in there and this is mostly for storage anyway.
I got a nextorage 4tb for $200 from Amazon. I haven’t heard of the company, but apparently it’s Sony employees making drives specifically for the PS5 which is what I am using it for. Seems like a pretty sweet deal.
I got blindsided by this year's game sales, ended up with like 4 things from my wishlist. I've been looking forward to the Outer wilds for a while - now we just need Balder's gate to go on sale!
Balder's gate is on my list as well. I just finally picked up Dave the Diver and Rimworld. Their discounts were modest, but I am firmly between games other than poking around in Grim Dawn because of that big free update they released.
Grabbed a nice microSD card for the OLED Steam Deck that’s in the mail.
Samsung 512GB Pro Plus microSD Card is on sale for ~$32 at various places, but you can stack discounts if you buy from Samsung’s site:
3%10% back at Samsung.comAll said and done,
$23.40$21.27 shipped for a top tier 512GB microSD card.There’s more lucrative stacking opportunities if you’re in the market for a Samsung phone or tablet, which get deeper edu discounts and qualify for 10% back at Rakuten but I’m good in those device categories for the time being.
EDIT: Got the email confirmation for cash back from Rakuten and the SD card actually qualified for 10%, despite their site suggesting it’d be 3%! Post corrected.
(Digital Security)
Yubico (of Yubikey fame) is doing a Buy 1 Get One 50% off sale for Black Friday. Honestly that still feels super expensive, but I'll just bite the bullet for 2FA and hope they don't crap out on me any time soon.
https://www.yubico.com/store/2023/cyber-week/
Computer Peripherals
I have gotten hopelessly addicted to a competitive video game, and am looking to get some new peripherals:
Personal Grooming
I was hoping to get a deal on some clippers for hair.
If you're playing competitive, it's better to be wired. I know all the reasons someone might want wireless but even with quick swapping double As, you're going to lose ground, even a whole round or match to that damn thing dying at some point. Even my Logitech, where it could be wired and wireless, I'd still have it plugged in more often than not due to that. Never want to be 'that guy' on the team who lost the round and said "Sorry guys, my mouse died."
I just use the logitech g305 and it'll keep working for several days after giving me the low battery warning.
Wired keyboards for sure but I'll never go back to wired mice for games.
I'm wired right now, and the issue that's been tripping me up is that my cable keeps getting caught on stuff. I've never really cared before since I'd never played a game where fast, precise mouse movement mattered.
I tried using a bungee and it didn't really work out.
Well, I hate to keep throwing 'solutions' at you that don't work for your situation. I don't use a bungee thing, I just hang the cable from a hook on the side of my monitor - just keep it charged I guess.
Also, I avoid most Razer products - I've had multiple devices of theirs fail way to quickly but one of my cheap $10 Razer mice still hasn't died. Are you looking for any specific features? Buttons on the side, adjustable weight, RGB lighting? I'm not much of a shill but I mainly stick to Logitech mice.
I have a razer ?naga? wired/wireless mouse (not at home today or I'd be more specific, iirc it was $70+ and has a ton of buttons and the buttons are physically swappable from 3 extra to 6 extra to like 10+, attached by magnets). I felt like the wireless was a must have when I bought it but charging got annoying fast, always dying at inconvenient times with little warning. THE REAL REASON I'M POSTING: the usb cable that shipped w/the mouse is amazing (not sure what other superlatives to pile upon it) it's ultra lightweight and beyond supple and feels to me like it's not really there at all. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I haven't used it as a wireless in well over a year...
I still have a yubikey (nfc USB -A) from 2008, it still works like it did when brand new. My only complaint is that they're often hard to get a good connection with in cheaper ports. I put mine on a necklace and wore it daily for years. It's gotten rain on it and it's still going strong, though you can see some of the metal wearing down.
I've been considering getting a USB-C one, but am not sure that minor hassle is worth the extra cost.
My mouse I used, the logitech g604 seems to have been discontinued without replacement unfortunately, so not sure what my next mouse will be. The rubber cover is peeling and splitting so it's due replacement though
I've currently got the Logitech MX Master 3, and previously had the 2. I'd recommend it without reservations.
this has an excellent teardown showing just how much engineering detail goes into them.
Not really an equivalent product with 4 fewer programmable buttons and no dpi adjustment buttons (which you could reprogram as 2 more programmable buttons if you wanted a fixed DPI).
I need a new GPU now that games are requiring dx12. I'm not sure exactly what one I want though; the field is a mess to get reacquainted with every few years when I upgrade. Something that can run Talos Principle 2 and maybe Starfield.
FWIW these guys tend to be pretty good for comparisons. At the moment I'm pretty happy with my nvidia 3070 and can run pretty much everything without having to pay the extra for a 40xx series card. But that's just what I landed on that was on sale last year.
Not sure if anybody here is into selvedge denim, but Tate & Yoko is having a pretty good BF sale on Naked & Famous jeans (fit guide). Just got my partner and I both a pair of jeans for $154 shipped. Watch out, though, returns only get you store credit. Make sure to measure and look at their measurement guides, because different fits have different measurements. A good tip for figuring out the waist is to lay out a pair of jeans you have that fit you well, measure across the waist, and then double it.
I really like the white ones and I've been looking (unsuccessfully) for a pair that's thick enough to not show my boxers through them -_-, as is the case with the Levis 511 pair. Any idea if these would be thick enough? https://tateandyoko.com/collections/sale/products/super-guy-all-natural-organic-cotton-selvedge
Those are 14oz denim, so I would imagine they'd be thick enough to not be see through. Also, if you like Levis 511s, you may prefer their Weird Guy cut. Super Guy is skinnier. I just got the Weird Guy pair I ordered in the mail today, and they are very similar in fit to my Levis 511 Made & Crafted.
Also, an addendum to my original post, sale items are not returnable at all. So it's a gamble. I'm happy with mine, but the pair we ordered for my partner don't fit. They were only $54, though, so we'll be able to sell them easily.
I'd like to upgrade my Proton account, but I'm currently on Mail Essentials (Business) and want to move to Proton Family, but it's not doable to jump from Business to Family without first removing all sub-accounts. So they want me to essentially do an email migration. At the same time, it's good that I have full-access to my Mom's email account in case anything happens to her. So Business is probably the right place for me and I don't think the Black Friday deals apply to Business accounts. I would consider going to Visionary (which I've read bridges the gap between Business and Family), but even though I've been with Proton for 6+ years, I never get invited. So... probably no upgrade for me.
I didn't realize you had to be invited to Visionary! I did get an email offer for it, the email was titled "Proton Black Friday Sale is here! Save up to 33% for a limited time" and the Visionary offer was near the bottom of the email. (Just in case you might have received this email from Proton too but missed the Visionary offer since it's not in the email title.) I've only been with Proton since May this year.
I never got a Black Friday sale email, probably because I have a Business account and I don’t believe there’s a sale for Business accounts. I only learned about the sale from elsewhere. Also, no mention of Visionary at all in the account upgrade section in my settings.
Interesting; must be targeted. I got this email but don’t see mention of Visionary and have had an account for much longer.
How is proton with spam?
I never see any spam on Proton, though I'm also pretty stingy with my email address.
I’ve tried the Scribe and the Remarkable 2 is far and away a better device. If you are deep into amazon stuff and want a kindle you can draw on, it’s fine. As a notepad, the Remarkable is much better.
Thanks! I've also been looking at Remarkable but concerned about the subscription. Do you feel that you need to be subscribed for basic functionality?
No you do not need the subscription for the basic functionality, but if I hadn't already got one before they pulled that stuff, it would likely have made me look elsewhere.
I didn’t know they had a subscription until this comment.
you can also take a look at Boox. Don't know if it is on sale or not.
Still have to look into it a bit, but looking forward to buying a robot vacuum for my 500sqft apartment!
If anyone here had reccs / advice on robot ownership, would be appreciated :)
Funny to see your question directly under my plan :D
Sooo I can gladly tell you that I am going to order a Roborock S8+, though it will be my first. Mrs Satures (we always kept two households to make it work) has an Eufy G10 Hybrid. Already this small and rather simple one is surprisingly helpful. I didn't want to buy it as you have to empty that small internal bin everytime, and I already regret buying my bagless "big" vacuum, so that was out of question.
After reading what felt like everything about it I narrowed it down on the Roborocks. The Deebots seem to have a bad app, while the DreaMe have a real camera - which admittedly scares me more than it makes me comfortable, but maybe my tinfoil hat is too narrow for this.
Then I decided it must be one of the Roborock "+" models which mean that they auto-empty themselves at the station so you have to remove the big bag every some weeks, and not the small internal bin every single time. So the Q7+, Q8+ (the mid-range models), and S8+ (the close to the top) remained in the race, while I excluded the absolute top models like the S8 Pro Ultra given the extra price tag and they offer things I don't believe I need (like the S8 Pro Ultra replenishes the water and cleans and dries the mop - I think that's a bit over the top). In the end the price difference between the Q7+ and the S8+ isn't too big while the advantages are clearly visible. Among other things the S8+ has the best obstacle avoidance of these three. So I finally settled for the S8+ and hope for a discount. But if not, the current price tag of ~ 740 € including shipping seems to be fair for me.
I enjoy my family's roomba a lot. We still vacuum occasionally when we need a deep clean, but our floors are way cleaner on a day-to-day basis with a robot vacuuming the kitchen daily.
My only recommendation is getting one of the robots with a vacuuming charging base. It's super convenient to only change the vacuum bag in the base every few months. The robot has been easy to repair and maintain too.
Got an old refurbished Roomba on eBay for about $80, it's not terribly smart, but it will clean up a room well enough and do a pass with a broom if you want to get all the dirt. You could probably get all the dirt with just a broom , but that wouldn't be automated.
Backbone's controllers for phones are $70, down from $100.
https://playbackbone.com/
I bought this VIA keypad that I will use to control my media center. I'll map a layer for arrows, media keys, knob for volume, etc.
This is all I'm looking for this year and I'm happy as a clam.
I ended up upgrading my TV and soundbar.
LG ULED 45 -> LG OLED C3 65
Samsung Soundbar -> Samsung Soundbar 5.1.2
Overall I'm happy. I liked my old TV (~6 years old at this point), but it was really struggling with noise and dithering in blacks and smooth gradients.
LG C3: I definitely paid more than I would have liked but I wanted to be sure I could disable any surveillance-ware that was being shipped. It was very easy at setup to decline all terms/privacy disclosures and none of that stuff works (if I try it asks me to sign the releases before enabling). Looks great, very bright, lots of neat display and audio features.
Samsung 5.1.2 Soundbar: The soundbar and sub worked out of the box. Rear speakers took a bit longer, I was troubleshooting with HDMI, Digital Audio, and Bluetooth connections thinking the TV wasn't sending the channels correctly. Ended up just being the wireless receiver for the rears wasn't synced with the soundbar (to my partner's credit that was what she thought the problem was). The set up sounds great.
One interesting observation. We've been staunch subtitle users though I've read that the current muddiness in dialogue comes from mixing practices that assume a true surround set up. While we still have subtitles on, I find I am not reading them nearly as much. I can actually hear what is being said. Pretty silly that you need a several hundred dollar set up to hear through the modern mix.
😧 I've been struggling with muddy dialogue, I wonder if there's a way to fix it without an expensive audio setup!
I posted a bunch of news deals but I just bought clothes this weekend, Been feeling like I needed some more higher quality basics, so I ended up grabbing some stuff at Cos and Everlane. Grabbed a pair of jeans mentioned above at Tate + Yoko too!
I also grabbed a lot of protein. Boba Tea Protein and one that tastes like strawberry shortcake
I hope there will be a deal for the Roborock S8+, so including the self-cleaning station. For me it seems the best trade-off in the Roborock S8 lineup - better than just the charging station, but the much more expensive ProUltra offers more than I need. I haven't seen any deals at all for it yet in Germany, the price has gone a little down the past three weeks, but no deal yet. So I'm going to buy it on Cyber Monday anyway if the price is unchanged.
I had just decided that, and which robovac I wanted three weeks ago, so I thoght that I can now wait for black week as well.
I ended up getting the s8 prultra since the BF deal started two days ago. Should get it this weekend to see if it’s worth the cost over my existing $60 dumb roomba.
For the benefit of everyone else, the entire Affinity suite is $99 instead of $165 and Designer by itself is $42.
I’m debating whether I should invest in them. Is Affinity Photos more in line with GIMP and Photoshop or is more like iPhoto’s editor but fancier and more powerful? I’m honestly not sure what I’d want to use Publisher for—perhaps some Mark Danielewski-inspired layout magic that’s easier as a WYSIWYG instead of writing an entire suite of ConTeXt macros.
I welcome anyone with experience and comparisons for the Affinity Suite to add their opinions.
Gimp has all the algorithms but the UI is pure trash. Affinity actually has a good UI and thus is the only serious alternative to Photoshop that I know off. I tried using it for work stuff successfully but they only have photoshop at my current office so my hype for it fizzled a little. I want more competition in that space. If you can see yourself using a new image editor, please support them! I consider buying an upgrade to their current version (got a license for an older version in the past and it’s nice they’re not forcing you into a subscription).
Affinity Photos is a photoshop alternative, yes. It's in my experience the most powerful editor outside of Photoshop itself - certainly has a lot more than GIMP. I mainly own it for photo stacking since I'm trying to see if I can avoid having to subscribe to lightroom and photomator doesn't have stack supports (on that note, I will probably have to go back to lightroom - there just isn't a good alternative).
Definitely leaning towards buying the whole suite now. My main jam in GIMP (and the pirated Photoshop that served me loyally throughout college before it stopped working in new Mac OS) is making collages and composites more so than touching up photos. Have you used Affinity Photos for that?
I would love to use Affinity Photo, but I feel like every time I do a trial and mess around with it, there's something that's incredibly basic in Photoshop that Photo just... doesn't have.
I picked a random .psd I've been using, opened it, and immediately there's no option for texture overlays as a layer effect.
I just don't know how to escape the Adobe ecosystem sometimes.
In addition to the WaPo one posted above, I just got an email from 404Media for 10% off an annual subscription.
Well, I was looking forward to hopefully picking up a discounted GPU and CPU...but i haven't found them being sold anywhere at a discount, to be honest. Pretty underwhelmed. I guess maybe they won't be until Cyber Monday?