In the cheaper price point, IEMs are probably the way to go for noise isolation. If you can get ear tips with a good seal, then the passive noise isolation should be good enough. I’d recommend something like the kz zsn pro (~$20) or the kiwiears cadenza (~$30), along with comply foam tips (~$15) for a perfect seal into your ear. If you have smaller ears like me, then kz IEMs can be a bit uncomfortable, so keep that in mind. If your budget stretches further, then you can try Etymotic ER2SE IEMs (~$100), which have triple flange tips that really plug your ears deep, but I definitely don’t find them comfy enough for long sessions.

If your device doesn’t have a headphone jack, an Apple USB C dongle (~$10) is plenty good enough for any IEMs, or you could get a Bluetooth DAC from Fiio starting at around $40 (for the longest time I had one doing double duty for my headphones and for Bluetooth audio in my car).

My hands get really dry after washing bottles for my newborn, and nothing does the trick quite as well as working hands (although it does feel oily after applying, so I only use it right before going to sleep)

Division Bell! It’s punchy and tart with the citrus and slightly bitter aperol, and the mezcal gives a really welcome smoky flavor. I add just a quarter oz simple to the standard recipe, otherwise I find it a little dry.

-1 ounce mezcal -3/4 ounce Aperol -1/4 ounce Luxardo maraschino liqueur -3/4 ounce lime juice, freshly squeezed -1/4 ounce simple syrup

-Add ingredients to a shaker with ice, shake well before straining into a coupe and garnishing with a grapefruit twist

Seconding Jack Rudy’s. While you’re doing yourself a favor, do yourself a favor and try 0.75oz syrup and 0.75oz st. Germain. That extra floral note is great with some gins (I’ve tried citadelle and malfy with this recipe to great success)

Dumb question: did you remember to plug the battery connector back in? Or maybe you damaged that connector? That would explain if it only works when connected to power

It probably falls into the “costs a shit ton” but some people recommend the fellow carter mug. I’ve never tried it myself, but apparently ceramic-coated insides are best for not affecting the taste of coffee. I think I also saw some kind of ceramic-coated travel mug at Starbucks too? Can’t speak for how spill-proof either of those things are though

My wife and I ended up having a girl, but the names we were thinking of if we had a boy were Apollo or Layton. Those probably don’t need your criteria, but just throwing it out there!

That would be Age of Ultron, also home to the wonderfully awful scene where black widow tells Bruce banner that she’s a monster too because she can’t reproduce 😬

Even compared to something like a washed Ethiopian? To be honest I’ve never tried kopi luwak, I just figured it was overhyped and comparable to other specialty coffee lol

That reminds me of this great place I once went to that was literally just a farm house that was repurposed into a restaurant, in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road and surrounded by farmland. It wasn’t cheap but also not outrageous, and the salads were amazing.

I also just remembered this Hungarian restaurant. Can’t get any more homey than some ukranian grandma’s house

You can get that same experience with coffee for much cheaper, but it does require a little effort. You just need to find a good coffee roaster near you or online where you can get freshly roasted specialty coffee(arabica, not robusta; and from a single farm, not a blend), instead of the stuff at grocery stores that’s been sitting for months. It might cost $15-$20 a bag, but that’s still less than a dollar per cup! If you want the absolute best coffee, then grinding the beans yourself and using something like an aeropress or pourover brewer is ideal, but you can still get great coffee just by buying locally roasted beans from a nearby shop, letting them grind the beans for you, then brewing with a regular old coffee machine

Honestly, unless you’re getting headphones that require a decent amount of power, you should be good with Apple’s USB C DAC that they sell for around $8. If you have a limited budget, it’s better to put as much towards the actual headphones as possible, you’re going to get a lot better sound out of $100 headphones through a $10 DAC than you would with $50 headphones through a $50 DAC

Nobody gonna mention the pennies in Belize? That’s the only coin I can think of with wavy edges and it’s so fun

Aww cmon, you might be able to find a used flair lever machine for under $100 like I did, and then it’s game over

Just be careful or you might go fullDIY Perks after long

If your grades are good and you enjoy your major, could I suggest becoming a tutor/teaching assistant for a class or professor you liked? It would give you a way to interact with people in your major that might even be in your other classes (whether that’s other TAs or the students you’re teaching), you’d get something for your resume, a professor to use as a job reference, and you should even get paid!

Software support, basically ASUS doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to updating phones to the newest versions of Android (although they might be getting better at this). I would only expect 1 or 2 Android version updates if I were buying a zenfone (and probably to get those significantly later than Google and Samsung phones), and it would be a good idea to double check on how long they’re committing to security updates for the phone you’re eying

I wish there was a better recommendation I could have given! Good luck finding something that works well for you though :)

I think your best bet might still be a pixel (probably a-line), since that would be the path of least resistance for software support and custom rom development/rootability. Another fun option is ASUS with great price/performance and a huge battery (I think it’s fairly repairable too?), but it doesn’t seem there’s a community for custom roms. Here’s the main possibilities and downsides as I see them:

Pixel: a little pricey, not great price/performance, not sure on repairability, weird issues with extra sw features apparently getting worse over time

Samsung: forget about custom roms, again not great price/performance at your price range, repairability okay but not good

Fairphone: bad performance, I don’t believe there’s any water resistance and build quality would be a concern for me, unsure about software support but I’d expect good custom rom community

Sony: not a large user base, so I’d assume there won’t be custom roms. I think Sony hasn’t committed to the same software support as other big names. I’d be worried about availability of replacement parts for repairs

ASUS zenfone: out of your price range. Bad track record for sw support