Henson Razors are engineered to give a spectacular shave with dirt-cheap generic blades, and it's on sale “Razors are one of the most heavily and competitively marketed products in American capitalism. Made with steel and plastic that costs a few pennies but sold for a thousand-percent profit, the razor market is the subject of vigorous academic study and debate. The founder of Gillette famously came up with a model of basically giving away the razor handle so he could sell the blades. Canadian startup Henson has the opposite model, charging $79 for a razor that can give you an excellent shave with dirt-cheap disposable blades that cost about 15 cents each.” I've not used one of these Henson razors yet, but seeing I have been using safety razors and DE blades for the last 15 years or so, I can attest to it costing a lot less than cartridge razors, the shave is pretty good, and it takes about the same time. It should be a no-brainer, but the Gillette PR machine has so many people convinced that they need the latest vibrating 8-blade razor. Two tips I can give with wet shaving with double-edged blades, is not to skimp on the quality of the razor as you're going to use it for decades, and the other is to buy a blade sample pack. The reason for the sample pack is, everyone's skin is different, and razors have differing aggressiveness angles, as do the blades. With those three factors, you want to find the sweet spot. A sample pack helps you test a few popular blades out with your razor. Of course, this type of shaving opens up all sorts of opportunities for gifts from razor stands, to custom handles, to shaving soaps (yes you don't want to use aerosol shaving cream anymore), to shaving scuttles, and so on. It becomes a whole hobby in itself. I was also pleasantly surprised to see in the last month, quite a few youngsters asking on Reddit about how they could get started with traditional wet shaving, as well as one lady who wanted to convert her spouse to it as well. So it is ever-growing, as can be seen from the number of artisans making shaving soaps, handles, razors, etc. I can safely say (that's a pun, by the way) that I will never ever go back to multi-blade cartridge razor shaving. Sorry Gillette. See #technology #retro #traditionalwetshaving
Pikimov is a free video editor that runs entirely in your browser “Pikimov is a free, browser-based motion design and video editing tool developed by Clément Cordier as an alternative to Adobe After Effects. You don’t have to download anything, and you don’t even have to create an account to use the entire app. However, you are encouraged to support the project via Patreon. Just like After Effects, Pikimov uses layer-based editing, a composition system, and a familiar panel layout. So anyone coming from AE should feel right at home, and its simplicity will feel like a breath of fresh air compared to Resolve. Pikimov is the perfect tool for anyone who wants to create animations or edit videos but doesn’t have the hardware, doesn’t want to pay a subscription, or doesn’t have the patience for learning heavyweight tools.” I was actually a bit lost trying to use it, but I'm more used to DaVInci Resolve and Kdenlive video editors, and have never used Adobe After Effects. But seeing it all runs locally in my browser (versus uploading to the cloud) it actually loaded my test video very quickly and scrubbing through it was very quick as well. It says it runs in Chrome and Edge browsers, but it did not load in my Brave browser. It did however load fine in my Vivaldi browser. But it does show again how incredibly powerful browsers can be, and I do like the local first, no account registration needed. See #technology #videoediting
This new Steam game lets you dissect and repair an Atari 2600 “If you're someone who likes dissecting every piece of technology that you come across, especially older retro tech, then keep an eye on this newly revealed Steam game. At the Wholesome Snack: The Game Awards 2025 Edition indie game showcase, I Am Future developer Mandragora and Hello Neighbor publisher tinyBuild revealed ReStory, which is set to launch on Steam in 2026.” I needed this game back in the early 1980s, as I remember taking our family TV apart to build an oscilloscope. The oscilloscope worked, but the TV did not, and my dad had to get a TV technician to repair the TV. Back then, we also did not have smartphones to take photos of things as you were removing their insides. See #technology #gaming #retro
4 productivity Docker containers that don't require 24/7 runtime Yes, these services need not be run 24/7, just when you actually want to use them. It's true, too, that BentoPDF is way lighter on resources than SterlingPDF, but with it's zero-knowledge and ultra-light footprint it also remembers nothing. So, if moving between PDF tools, you will need to save the PDF and re-open it in the next tool to work further. If they could introduce some local persistence, it could be a great tool. The services covered are: * Excalidraw * BentoPDF * Budget Board * BookLore See #technology #selhosting #opensource
The Intel N100 killed the Raspberry Pi for home servers Yes, Pi prices have gone up, as have requirements for hosting a few services. I already found myself migrating off my original Pi, and even my Intel NUC device as a home server. It is worth keeping in mind what your requirements are vs the total cost of ownership. See #technology #raspberrypi #selfhosting
8 tiny open source utilities that can instantly make your Linux desktop feel faster I'd not heard of these apps before, so would be interested to hear if anyone has had good experiences with them? * Zram-generator * Preload * Profile-sync-daemon * Ananicy-cpp * Nohang * Wl-clipboard * FSearch (had heard of this one) * Vicinae See #technology #Linux #opensource
I tried this text adventure game from 1977, and it was better than I expected Back in the early days, before graphics and even block graphics, we had text adventure games. This sort of goes back to the dial-up bulletin board days. They were actually a lot of fun, and one of the reasons why was, because we used our imagination instead of 4K graphics on a plate. Even my Hewlett-Packard HP-41CV programmable calculator had a great text adventure game called Hunt the Wumpus, where you had to navigate 20 interconnected caves with pits, bats, and try to find and shoot the Wumpus. See #technology #gaming #retro
Finamp - an open source Jellyfin music client for mobile devices Finamp is really beautifully designed and dedicated music player that connects to your existing Jellyfin music library. There are a number of improvement sin the beta version already, so I'd recommend you aim to use the beta version. Yes, it still has a few improvements needed, such as Android Auto compatibility (coming in the beta release) as well as a self-populating favourites playlist (is planned). It is available for iOS, and Android from both Google Play and F-Droid. Just note there is no beat release via F-Droid. I actually use Obtanium to pull the APK updates straight from GitHub. See #technology #music #Jellyfin #opensource
Viseron is a self-hosted camera monitoring app and the perfect Frigate alternative “If you've ever wanted to keep an eye on your surroundings without sending data to third-party servers, you've probably heard of Frigate. The open-source is a popular choice as an NVR that runs locally and taps into the power of AI to detect people, cars, and more. But Frigate isn't the only game in town. There's another contender worth looking at. It's called Viseron, and it's a self-hosted camera monitoring platform that offers a polished interface, widespread hardware support, and, most importantly, it works on your local network. Viseron is designed from the ground up to be simple, flexible, and private. There are no subscriptions to worry about, no hidden restrictions, and, of course, no cloud dependencies to worry about.” Having any CCTV cameras running 24/7 in or around your home has to be a concern for privacy. We have seen way too may vulnerabilities, with even a website dedicated to showing you everyone's exposed cameras, which included children's nursery cams. My own cameras are restricted to a VLAN that has no Internet access (ingoing or outgoing). So it is good to see more and more self-hosted alternatives becoming available for everyone. This one even has AI-powered object detection, which my much older Reolink system does not have. See #technology #privacy #opensource #CCTV
FreeDV - Open Source HF Digital Voice for Amateur Radio “FreeDV is a suite of digital voice modes for HF radio. Our flagship mode is the Radio Autoencoder (RADE). You can run RADE using a free GUI application for Windows, Linux and OSX that allows any SSB radio to be used for high quality digital voice. FreeDV technology is being developed by an international team of radio amateurs working together on Machine Learning, DSP, coding, design, user interface and testing.” It's true that amateur radio has been constantly evolving over the years. A lot has been happening with digital text based messaging, and just a few watts of power is easily transversing 10,000+ kms between continents. Voice took a big leap forward with SSB when it came out, and with many clinging to that because they want to “talk” to others, it looks like FreeDV will offer that same experience, whilst utilising all the advantages that a digital mode can offer. Apart from being able to use less power, the other plus of digital modes, is punching through the ever-growing noise floors that are killing some voice/phone bands. Best of all, unlike the VaraHF and VaraFM protocols, this is an open source protocol. See #technology #amateurradio #hamradio #freedv #opensource