Topic: Last Person to Speak Wins! 最后发言者获胜

[goldshirt*9]

Spoiler (hover to show)

BOOM

  what a thrill

[Beatrix]

 I can safely say that swimming in the ocean isn’t my first instinct, seeing it though, I just want to see it.  I want to show it to my children.  It would take me a few foot dips to have what it takes to overcome my open water fear.  I’d love to though.
Life is as it is, we will see it all eventually.  I’m so warm and well fed that I couldn’t ask for more, even though I never have money left after bills and food, we are to happy to live alone.  I got the boy a black acoustic fender for his 13th, he loves when I play for him and show him a few strings and one chord at a time 💕
Hope you are staying warm Six, can’t imagine how cold it would be by the ocean in the winter of a coast.  I’d love it, what storms may come..
We, the local metal heads of the greater Cincinnati area, have a show called Iron Fest coming up.  Looking forward to going out for the second or third time this entire year 😆 as I said, I love being home 🏡
No reason to not enjoy what we build. 

[goldshirt*9]

I can safely say that swimming in the ocean isn’t my first instinct, seeing it though, I just want to see it.  I want to show it to my children.  It would take me a few foot dips to have what it takes to overcome my open water fear.  I’d love to though.
Life is as it is, we will see it all eventually.  I’m so warm and well fed that I couldn’t ask for more, even though I never have money left after bills and food, we are to happy to live alone.  I got the boy a black acoustic fender for his 13th, he loves when I play for him and show him a few strings and one chord at a time 💕
Hope you are staying warm Six, can’t imagine how cold it would be by the ocean in the winter of a coast.  I’d love it, what storms may come..
We, the local metal heads of the greater Cincinnati area, have a show called Iron Fest coming up.  Looking forward to going out for the second or third time this entire year 😆 as I said, I love being home 🏡
No reason to not enjoy what we build.

Having nearly and i mean nearly drown in my youth I can appreciate your  worry B. Sometimes you just gotta get back on the horse as we say.
Love wild swiming any time of the year but am overly careful.

[8ullfrog]

I drowned. Technically dead. brought back before EMS showed up, waterpark refunded everyone.

Still prefer a pool to the ocean. Never been in the ocean on the east coast, the times I was stuck in NJ it was always treated as a massive hassle.
On the west coast I often just walked in. Nobody tried to stop me.

[6pairsofshoes]

Glad they were able to revive you, 8ully.  The Pacific is way too cold to swim in here w/o a wetsuit.  The currents come down from Alaska, so my interaction has been limited to walking on the beach out here.  The Atlantic on the East Coast was warmer, although I never found it super warm, until I was swimming in Florida.  The Caribbean was the best for swimming.  That's the best exercise I've ever had, as it's so relaxing and you can float around for hours if you get tired.  Bonus:  you get to watch the fish.

Pools can be fine, although the chemicals they put in them aren't so great for the skin.

[goldshirt*9]

I drowned. Technically dead. brought back before EMS showed up, waterpark refunded everyone.

Feel your pain

Glad they were able to revive you, 8ully.  The Pacific is way too cold to swim in here w/o a wetsuit.  The currents come down from Alaska, so my interaction has been limited to walking on the beach out here.  The Atlantic on the East Coast was warmer, although I never found it super warm, until I was swimming in Florida.  The Caribbean was the best for swimming.  That's the best exercise I've ever had, as it's so relaxing and you can float around for hours if you get tired.  Bonus:  you get to watch the fish.

Pools can be fine, although the chemicals they put in them aren't so great for the skin.

North Atlantic  and the English channel mainly for me unless you can count Inland Tarns,lakes . Braising to say the least.
 N. Caribbean was nice but the Ocean was devoid of anything. Italy was Tremendous but made me nervous.
Thailand was again barren due to tourism.

[smokester]

The Caribbean was the best for swimming.  That's the best exercise I've ever had, as it's so relaxing and you can float around for hours if you get tired.  Bonus:  you get to watch the fish.

While in the Caribbean, I spend more of my waking hours in the sea than I do on land. I do have a sea scooter, though.

[goldshirt*9]

While in the Caribbean, I spend more of my waking hours in the sea than I do on land. I do have a sea scooter, though.

How cool

[smokester]

How cool

Fits in my suitcase with little room for much else. However, we get shedloads of luggage allowance with the big ticket tickets.

Can't afford that any more ... unless I stop blowing things up.

[goldshirt*9]

Fits in my suitcase with little room for much else. However, we get shedloads of luggage allowance with the big ticket tickets.

Can't afford that any more ... unless I stop blowing things up.

WHAT ? Caribbean and clothes,  pair shorts and a T, buy the rest there 

[smokester]

WHAT ? Caribbean and clothes,  pair shorts and a T, buy the rest there 

You need 3 shirts a day for all the sweating you do.

[goldshirt*9]

You need 3 shirts a day for all the sweating you do.

In the sea ?,  but if i can remember that far back it was gloriously warm 
Day 6 and still feal like poo.

[8ullfrog]

Terrible no good day.

So, I've got a very nice PC, double what I'm using now, but it's two parts short, and it has a heart condition.
Specifically, it's tremendously underpowered. 300w PSU.

And a memory problem in that it was sold without a hard drive, but that's the cheaper of the two issues.

What a 300w PSU means is no PCI-E power leads. That means low profile, or a very specific set of cards. Thankfully, I've done my homework, and I have that list.

Today I set out to rectify this issue. I've got a short list on parts to choose from, and an even shorter list of what to avoid (Kingston, Sata to 6 pin adapters)

I headed out to the Goodwill recycling center, where they scrap PC's. They also sell them for a short window before they mulch them, but like many thrift shops, they don't clean them up anymore. These machines have been kicked a few times.

They're supposed to close at 4, but previous experience told me to get there before 2. I now know you have to get there before ONE. Google was no help; said they close at 2 on Saturdays.

I got there at 1:19.

They told me the register was shut off, and they were not going to turn it back on, but they let me peruse. They've got some generics as low as $50, and most of the desktops are in the $150 range.

I then stepped over to parts. Not much to pick through, they keep the good stuff behind a counter, and they weren't going to open it for me.
I did find out you can get 1TB spinny drives for $13, which is a screaming deal, even used. They do Smart test those, so they must have one tech with a conscience.

So, I'm off to Worst Sell. Google made the distance appear much shorter than it actually turned out to be. The views were nice, a rather winding canyon trail, lots of new housing developments, and I worry about the fire danger.

I got to Worst Sell, and their PC component section is now ONE END CAP. Ram, SSD's, processors, and about 4 video cards. They didn't even have motherboards or PSUs! It's prebuilt or golly off at Worst Sell.

 I noticed one of the video cards was tampered with and decided this was not the shop to shop at.

Good thing too, because I mistakenly thought the 1650 they had in stock was board powered (It's not)
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/pny-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1650-4gb-gddr6-pci-express-3-0-graphics-card-with-dual-fan-black/6502683.p?skuId=6502683

So back to Navigator Google to find another PC place. It once again drew a deceptively short map that was anything but. By the time I got to the independent PC shop it was 4 PM.

And this was actually embarrassing. The guy running the shop was a former coworker I got fired. He would upsell customers, and they'd come back to the store very angry. My boss was an Office Dweller, so I often absorbed quite angry returns.

I mentioned to the boss about this guy's chronic upsell problem. He tapped a few buttons on his keyboard and pulled up the audio/video feed from the counter, something I'd never seen but always suspected was there.

And he was doing it on the spot. Customer wanted a basic hard drive, Doofy tried to spin the bells and whistles.

Boss stood up looking like this man set his cat on fire, walked to the counter, and fired him on the spot. I honestly didn't feel all that bad, as the dude was making the workplace super uncomfortable.

So, about 15 years later, did he learn his lesson? He did not. His postage stamp shop is stocked with only the highest priced (and underperforming) stock possible. He had the EXACT Kingston SSD that makes many online "DO NOT BUY THIS poo FOR THE LOVE OF GOD" lists, and he only sells eight pin graphics card, personal selection.

I told him the newest game I play is New Vegas, and he looked at me like he'd never heard of it but was disgusted anyway.

I thanked him for his time and left.

As a Hail Mary I went to an Office Depot. They had overpriced Hard Drives, and no video cards whatsoever. Als,o the PC game section is now gone. Not that it was particularly exciting in the past.

If you need paper, or paper related products, Office Depot has your back. If you're not looking for paper products, you're SOL.

So, I spent most of the day driving, lost PSI in the front right tire, and even THAT got attitude. Big sticker on the air machine saying "AIR IS NOT FREE"

Which is actually illegal in the state of CA. All you have to do is walk in and tell them to turn the machine on, and they will. Thankfully ONE store clerk knew what was up, and I got the PSI back to normal. I'm desperately hoping it's just a glitch and not a puncture.

Oh, and my portable unit I keep in my car to re-up the pressure, so I don't need to hit a shop was broken.
 By the last person I leant it to, who used electrical tape to hide his perfidy, the prick.

I found out the second I plugged it into the cigarette lighter, the whole plug just came apart in my hand. He did a hell of a job, until that moment it looked perfectly fine, as it always had before.

Thankfully once I got home, things became far more complimentary, until Microsoft told me that I logged in from China, Jakarta, and Thailand.

(For some reason you can not lock your account to only log in through CONUS) I'd find that more useful than 2fa, which China, Jakarta, and Thailand apparently ignored.

So now I get to rotate all my passwords and hope they didn't do a deep dive straight up my ass.

[6pairsofshoes]

Office Depot price matches.  And they give you a couple bucks for every ink cartridge you recycle with them, so you can get some limited tech from them for next to nothing.  I recently got a 2TB HD price matched with amazon for about $10 out of pocket from accumulated "rewards" from buying the occasional flash drive, free batteries (100% back in rewards credit), and by ridding self of an accumulated pile of empty inkjet cartridges.  They don't have a huge selection, but if it's the same thing they have at amazon or Worst Sell, they'll match the price.  I never get paper there.  I wait for people to move and collect it then.  I'm still working on multiple reams that someone gave away on the next block from moving.  I don't lurk at Goodwill as much as I once did, but there are other sources in corporate America where things can be had for a song.

Good for you for getting that jerk fired.

[8ullfrog]

He was one of two.

The other one wasn't a tech but got curious about laptops. So, he started taking a CUSTOMER's sony down, with a standard Philips. like a bless'ed ph2.
A PH2 is what you use to pull a doorknob.

Anyone who has ever worked on a sony notebook just recoiled in disgust.

I didn't even have to say anything, I just pointed at the politician.

We had a dedicated Sony tech. SHE was amazing, and I took all her calls because customers expect technicians to have testicles, so I put mine on loan.

She quit when they wouldn't let her buy a wii. Store policy. She was right, she could write her own ticket anywhere. I'll admit I was smitten. Not at her, but her standards.

She diagramed EVERYTHING. A lesson that has saved my ass several times since working there.

I have no idea what the repercussions are on the hack, it happened Friday night when I was asleep.

I'm still angry because Samsung recently appended my health history to my phone, and I still haven't found a way to make them stop.

So that's a skull peeling nightmare right there. It's beyond hate, I'm incandescent.

I've never disclosed any of this poo to microsoft. On my windows install I'm "Fake Name" or "Owner"

But those gits piggyback on everything.