What is a creative product you've discovered recently?

Blender3D for video editing is really cool.

iMovie crashed bad on me and I never got it working again. Almost paid 300 bucks for Final Cut Pro.

Then remembered that Blender had this built in. And its really good. No need to import videos into a bin or nonsense like that. Just drag them into the timeline, add filters, drag to reorder, render to mp4/aac and its done.

Best discovery of the year sofar

I found remarkable [0] recently and ordered one. I love writing with pen and paper. Remarkable looks the closest to that experience and can save digitally. It's like having your cake and eat it too :)

[0] https://remarkable.com/

I'll leave software aside:

- Toto 550 bidet and a poop stool changed my life.

- Sideclick learning remote that snaps on to a Fire TV remote.

- "Neon" addressable LED RGB silicone strips that don't have the fugly individual LEDs exposed. Especially neat when directed by a music & bluetooth controller.

- It's something I assembled: installed a waterfall shower head and wand in an apartment using a very long extension pipe, 6 heavy-duty removable bathroom hooks, and strong fishing line for support like a bridge.

- Toilet bowl motion lights for not just toilet bowls.

- Hand-made plamp hats.

- Vinyl records turned into bowls.

- Sunglasses made from discarded baseball bats.

- Bed made out of enameled rebar with chemical drum nightstands.

- Lighting and tornado detector.

- Handmade and custom items on Etsy all the time.

Walden Pond. It's a service that curates unread articles from your Pocket collection, print, binds, and mails them to you. I get the long edition, which works out to about 140 pages for $14 USD/month.

I've used pocket for years, but I collect articles much faster than I read them. I currently have enough saved for 300 editions. You can tag articles as must-print. The print quality and paper are amazing. It's now my preferred way to read good online content, especially things I know I will want to read again in the future.

Here is the table of contents for my most recent volume: https://imgur.com/a/3ceBfOB

https://waldenpond.press/

I feel embarrassed saying this but I feel both Clubhouse and TikTok are pretty amazing.

Both of them lower the barrier of entry on content creation and make distribution easier when one is starting out.

A pen and paper. It might be so old and unused that it has become radically new and extremely creative. :)

Bone conducting headphones are nice, especially if you realize you are too tired to read after work, but not too tired to listen. You can still interact with people around you because there's a quick play/pause button.

GeForce Now.

I've known about these "cloud gaming" utilities for some time, but have always just owned my own hardware. I typically don't bother asking my friends to play games with me, because the only ones with a gaming PC are already the few I play games with. The rest I figure would never spend the time or the money to get one.

Recently, I wanted my girlfriend to play a game with me, but it didn't run on Mac. I was about to set up dual boot for her, but then remembered that this existed, so I figured I'd give it a try. Extremely easy to get up and running, and you can even run it from a browser. Given that your internet connection is good enough, latency is low and quality is high.

I'm now recommending it to all of my friends.

LookingGlass displays. Their small version is available for pre-order for $250 and ships in June. I've got a leap motion laying around and some experience with Unity, so it sounds like something that would be fun to mess around with.

I hesitate because the product isn't that new and I have praised it quite a bit already at HN ...

... but nextdns is Such. A. Great. Idea.

I really wish I had thought of it - not only is it a great idea but it would have been so fun to spin up a global dns network (I wouldn't have done it with cloud instances - I would have owned the servers ...).

Also, I hear some rumblings about some less-than-perfect behavior from nextdns - specifically how their own homepage has trackers on it ... although, as of this writing, ublock origin had zero hits, so perhaps they have cleaned that up ...

Notion.so I have been an Evernote user for years. But Notion allows me to easily create connections between notes and to creatively synthesize new ideas in ways that Evernote never could. I am very happy with Notion.

Telegram + dynamist

Every time I have an idea, I send a message to myself using telegram: there is actually a widget just for that in android.

It's awesome cause you can type, take a a picture or a video, dictate... And it syncs across devices, giving you access anywhere to a timeline of your thoughts.

Then when I got time I pop the stack and sort in as projects into the wonderful dynamist. It works offline, on Linux and mobile, syncs, allows notes and nested todo.

A small USB-C rechargeable LED lantern. It has 3 modes: warm light, cool light and RGB. It has only one capacitive button to turn it off (double tap) or adjust intensity (tap and hold).

I bought it for my small balcony, but end up using it all the time. It's a great night light, reading light, ambiance light etc. It's also mobile.

I honestly haven't fell in love like this with a product in years.

Not recently but as a kid: wooden blocks, LEGO, a pad of graph paper, a pad of blank paper, ruler, mechanical pencil.

Ocassionally as an adult, the pads of paper and mechanical pencil are great for doodling.

For kids, those items alone aren't the magic answer - it's raising them so that they'll be okay with just those items.

I hope to have kids in the next couple of years, and they won't be given electronic pacifiers.

Craft (https://craft.do) has become my goto note taking / productivity / knowledge management app. I've tried Workflowy, Roam, Obsidian, and Notion before landing here. It has a great compromise of features I liked from all the different apps, native mac + iOS applications (huge if you're coming from Notion electron land), and a great dev team that's delivering new features at a rapid clip.

Edit: Matter (https://getmatter.app) has replaced Pocket / Instapaper / Email as my article reader & queue. Still early but looks quite promising.

I don't if its creative but boox air has been life changing for me. I've doubled my reading easily because my eyes aren't hurting. I am actually reading full length articles now. So boox air + pocket app = increased reading.

Roam Research has made tracking all the details to GM my DnD campaigns a breeze.

I find the "daily notes" really lowers the barrier to entry for just writing. I find myself writing a lot more with it.

WorkFlowy is pretty good for brainstorming an idea without worrying too much about structuration. I've discovered it recently and can only recommend it.

I think this key cluster module [0] for the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard is pretty creative. I don't own a UHK or this module, but I think this is a better answer to your question than Workflowy, Notion, Roam Research, and pen and paper.

[0] https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/product/keycluster

SnagIt!

80% of what I do is sending people screenshots. It's ridiculously time saving for me, and is one of the first things I install on a new computer.

The dodow 'sleep aid' https://www.mydodow.com/dodow/en-us/home

Incredibly creative how they turn a flashing led into a $60 product.

An epson home cinema projector, Apple TV and a $200 soundbar with subwoofer + a liter of neutral gray paint.

Instant 8’ movie theater in the living room.

FUSER.

It's basically easy-mode music mixing/DJing with live cooperative multiplayer.