• 12 Posts
  • 359 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 4th, 2023

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  • For home use (and small uses at work) I’ve found cyberpower to be cheaper than APC and yet work as well. You’d likely need to get a model with a network card option, and that’ll cost more I think. I’m not in EU though, so IDK what model would meet your needs and price point (which seems pretty low to me for a network enabled UPS).



  • Strangely, that generally is how my Linux boxes have been - way less IT guy than when we had WinXP or Win7. You have to use a stable distro however - which TBH is the problem with Win10 and 11 for a lot of people - finding the “stable” version isn’t available to home users or is complicated - so you have new OS deployments every 6 months. Windows Updates are now forced and still often have problems or bugs.

    That all said, I think we’ve just got to get used to unstable / rolling release OSs cause “everyone” is doing it. Even Alma is not as stable as previous enterprise linux rebuilds due to Red Hat not releasing point release security updates anymore.





  • The sales people are cons, but the idea has merit but not to make money. You’re probably not going to rent it out for a profit.

    Where it has merit is if you do the research and understand specifically that the concept can work for you, and take the timeshare off someone else in the secondary market it can save you a lot of money, but only in specific situations.

    There are good and bad systems and locations. You want to optimize on those.

    You also have to be someone who will go on week long trips multiple times a year and have a life that let’s you either lock the dates in firm 9 months to 13 months out (depending on system) or can go in 30 days or less to what opens up last minute.

    And you have to want to go to resort locations like Myrtle Beach, Orlando, Las Vegas, Smoky Mountains, Hawaii, Breckenridge, Branson, Williamsburg or California.

    Oh, and you’ll want to be ok with 3 star locations without daily maid service.

    The upside is you can often stay in 2 bedroom suites with full kitchen and laundry with pools and hot tubs and arcades and mini golf in various amazing locations for about 1,800 dollars a week or less. Sometimes much less. If you’re comparing 2 hotel rooms at today’s prices that can be very cheap for 7 days. The average say Hampton Inn is close to 200 a night per room, so at the higher end of 1,800 you’re still 1k less for the week.

    And I’ve hit sales in the less demanding seasons for as little as $550 for the week. But of course if you’re looking at Hawaii in season you might be at the higher end of 4k for a week cash, and technically the sky is the limit. This is where knowledge and planning comes in because you can pay for a week in say Florida for 1,600 every year, but trade that week with one that in Hawaii that goes for 4,000 much of the time. You just have to beat everyone else to the trade which is what the planning is for.

    I am not a salesman just a so far happy “owner” going on a lot of trips this way by “sams clubbing” my vacations and paying ahead for some.

    If you do want to learn realistic costs and nuts and bolts - tugbbs.com can teach you a lot for free.


  • First I don’t see an issue with a “store brand” if it does what you need.

    Secondly - who is the name brand for say a power strip or a USB hub or USB C charger or cables? Or do you buy monster audio cables? SD card reader? Microfiber cloth? What about regular bath towels?

    Somewhat more controversial - what about things that are inherently disposable like latex gloves or laundry detergent?

    I went from all free and clear from Sam’s club which took up space and got me like 120 packets for 20 dollars to these detergent sheets which are much smaller and got 300 for 7 dollars. You use the same number of sheets as you would packets. The clothes come out the same.

    But yes, try searching for something like an electric lighter for candles on both sites and tell me the “quality non knock off” on Amazon. 90 percent are on temu also for less.


  • I mean, most people don’t think ease of changing a light bulb (that they never have to do) is a deal breaker for a car. I haven’t had to change a headlight since they went to LEDs. My last car that was 7 years of owning it.

    I think we should insist on making things repairable, but should focus on the things that come up frequently.

    Because everything is a tradeoff, things like how often it is likely to need repair, how much the car costs, functionality of the car day to day, looks, gas mileage, heck a lot of stuff will come before a once a decade thing that you’re either going to pay a shop to do or trade before it’s an issue.






  • I think we all have some things that we either don’t talk about to maintain relationships. Of course usually thats respected by both sides.

    Do they care that you call them out? Do you dislike doing it? If neither happens it can be useful for people to realize they’re not necessarily holding a position that “everyone does”. It’s useful to be taken out of your bubble I think, and to see “regular people” can have different positions, and maybe try and understand why they do. It might change someone’s mind.

    If course if they or you get worked up by the discussion and no one is getting anything out of it, no one is even ‘agree to disagree’ and it’s just causing everyone stress… Then you need to clearly lay out that you don’t like those sorts of comments.

    If they ignore you, then you need to decide how much you want the relationship. You could say “I’m serious about these comments. If you don’t want to stop then you need to decide how much you want to see or interact with me. Because I am willing to just avoid these discussions, but I will not keep hearing these comments, and will stop coming.”


  • If you buy your phone unlocked, you can get Red Pocket which is extremely cheap for service compared to most post paid plans. You can get ~5gb data and unlimited everything else for 20 a month on AT&T. And then if you go to Europe you can just buy a cheap Sim while there and pop it in.

    If you’re not picky about the phone, I have gotten sub 300 USD phones for the last 2, first lasted 4 years and I’m about 6 months into the second. Honestly there’s not much I feel like I’m missing, except spending way more money.