OT - Grumpy Old Man Thread

[FearlessF]

a Ford Focus?

[Cincydawg]

I got my eyes "fixed" so they now focus at distance, great.  And now they don't close up, at all.  I can't read anything inside three feet.  Tradeoffs.  At times I wonder if  that was a good tradeoff given the overall cost.  The doc said he could "relaser" one eye to see closer up but my distance would suffer.  Probably not.

[847badgerfan]

a Ford Focus?

Yeah, they were free if you bought a Dell (actually it was the opposite).

[utee94]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXGO6QSC5Fg

[Cincydawg]

I was about to get a Dell, they run around $300 or so.  I thought I'd ask the stepson, who knows this stuff, and used to work for Apple.  He had some useful comments, and I looked at reviews, and most of them said the Neo was a really nice lower end machine.  Now we're off to an Apple store to get it ... fixed. 

My wife bought an Apple desktop a few years back and then had to go "take courses" in how to operate it.  She's used computers for decades in her work, I was surprised using an Apple needed courses.  I got a new iPad a couple months back and it works just fine, setup was very easy.

I really dislike new things that fail.  My inclination is to throw them in the trash and buy something else.

[utee94]

Yeah I hate it when brand new stuff that's supposed to work, doesn't.  So frustrating.

We got a Macbook (not Neo) for my daughter as she heads off to college.  It takes some getting used to but she has an ipad with the special pen, and she can use it on the Macbook, plus she has iphone and apple watch, so she's firmly entrenched in the ecosystem.

But as his next computer my son wants an Alienware gaming system, so that's what he'll get most likely.

[FearlessF]

from Dell

[utee94]

from Dell

Yup, we own Alienware.  I get a pretty decent employee discount so that's helpful.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Yup, we own Alienware.  I get a pretty decent employee discount so that's helpful.

How bad is the run-up of RAM and SSD prices affecting gaming rigs?

[utee94]

How bad is the run-up of RAM and SSD prices affecting gaming rigs?

A lot.  Cost of input components are spiking which of course drives up our selling price, and then the availability is diminished, which drives price up even further.

We're probably not getting him anything until he's ready for college, 2 years out.  Hopefully prices drop back to something sane by then.

[utee94]

On the flipside he did just realize that he has 4 sticks of used DDR4 RAM that we pulled out of his computer a few years ago when he upgraded, and the prices even on the used market have increased, so I think he could get maybe $100 for them.  Not bad for something that's just been lying around.

[Wildcat4E]

I got my eyes "fixed" so they now focus at distance, great.  And now they don't close up, at all.  I can't read anything inside three feet.  Tradeoffs.  At times I wonder if  that was a good tradeoff given the overall cost.  The doc said he could "relaser" one eye to see closer up but my distance would suffer.  Probably not.

My wife's eyes are terrible.  About 20 years ago she tried to get them fixed--but they were not fixable with regular Lasik, so she had the razor flip and replace her lens with a man-made version procedure.  Essentially cataract surgery for a 35 yo.  They attempted to give her the ability to see near with one and far with the other.  Sounds like a ready-made headache inducer, to me.

Anyway, she still has to get crazy expensive glasses.  Last set was like $1400 bucks at the optometrist's office.  But of course, then she got on the internet and found a couple more "cute" pairs for like $100 each.  Highway robbery.

[betarhoalphadelta]

On the flipside he did just realize that he has 4 sticks of used DDR4 RAM that we pulled out of his computer a few years ago when he upgraded, and the prices even on the used market have increased, so I think he could get maybe $100 for them.  Not bad for something that's just been lying around.

LOL. One of my golf partners from yesterday was showing me his newly upgraded Garmin Fenix watch, as I also wear a Fenix. He ended up buying some discounted SSDs from the employee store before the company split early last year and wasn't doing anything with them, so he ended up selling them at ~3x profit and buying the watch. 

[FearlessF]

My optometrist said he can improve my crappy vision (astigmatism) if and when I have cataract surgery. 
I'm not really looking forward to it