Coconut Monkey Cornerclub

[Kaamos_Llama]

Oh absolutely. My alarm is at 630 so we can get the kids out the door by 730 on weekdays. Then they're usually in bed by 830, though last night it was closer to 9pm and at that point I didn't much feel like doing anything. Think I briefly played some Peglin and Diablo 2. Well actually Advance Wars DS when I was lying in bed as well 😆

But I'm lucky enough to have been a stay at home parent for the last 7 years. It's been relentless, but I'm finally at the point that both kids are in school (though the youngest only from Mon-Thurs), so assuming I don't have actual things to accomplish (which I often do), I have time to do my hobbies during the day for an hour or two. I'll probably need to get a job later this year though and finally start contributing to my retirement again; hoping my sabbatical doesn't harm me too much in my career path.

Oh wow, respect for that. I might have gone a little mad doing all that on my own. Ours has been in daycare since she was 3 full time, its quite accessible here.

I should probably buy more handheld gaming devices, we've been through that before though, one day.

 

[Pifanjr]

Oh absolutely. My alarm is at 630 so we can get the kids out the door by 730 on weekdays. Then they're usually in bed by 830, though last night it was closer to 9pm and at that point I didn't much feel like doing anything. Think I briefly played some Peglin and Diablo 2. Well actually Advance Wars DS when I was lying in bed as well 😆

One of my best accomplishments is to get my kid to dress herself. Now I can roll out of bed around 7:50 to get my kid out the door at 8:15.

 

[isleepinabed]

I was thinking of learning how to ride a motorcycle. Having a car license for about 20 years now I'm already legal to drive ones up to 125cc, just don't know how to.

Now I'm actually thinking I should just get the regular full motorbike license, if I'm learning how to drive them anyway.

Anyway, talk me out of it!

Anyone riding motorcycles or having learned in their late 30s?

 

[BeardyHat]

One of my best accomplishments is to get my kid to dress herself. Now I can roll out of bed around 7:50 to get my kid out the door at 8:15.

Oh yeah, my wife and I are pretty aggressive (not the word I want exactly, but I'll use it) about teaching independence. Both of mine will get up, feed themselves and at least change their shirts, if not put on pants in the morning. We just need to get up so we can make a snack for the 4 year old, get our coffee going and get the animals fed, etc. lots of little tasks. Plus I just need some time in general to wake up before I can get out the door 😆

Oh wow, respect for that. I might have gone a little mad doing all that on my own. Ours has been in daycare since she was 3 full time, its quite accessible here.

I should probably buy more handheld gaming devices, we've been through that before though, one day.

It can be pretty damn challenging, especially over breaks. But, it's nice being able to have a strong influence on their growth and their learning. Even in my career, I never felt like I particularly cared about my work or my employer; I do it because I get good money out of it, but if I never worked for a paycheck again, I wouldn't be upset.

I like to see the fruits of my labors in a direct manner, hence my love of painting minis, working on cars, cooking, baking, etc. kids are the same for me, as crazy as they can make me.

Actually, that's what I did enjoy about my career in IT. I have the title and the skills of a System Administrator, but I find the job pretty boring overall. I really loved helping people with basic PC issues and seeing the joy on their faces when I could fix their problem and get them back on their feet.

 

[Zloth]

One real nice thing about working from home is that, when it snows, you aren't out in the coldest part of the day trying to clear off the snow to get to work. A bad thing about working from home is that, when it snows a lot, you don't have an excuse to take a day off.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

It can be pretty damn challenging, especially over breaks. But, it's nice being able to have a strong influence on their growth and their learning. Even in my career, I never felt like I particularly cared about my work or my employer; I do it because I get good money out of it, but if I never worked for a paycheck again, I wouldn't be upset.

With you there 100%.

I like to see the fruits of my labors in a direct manner, hence my love of painting minis, working on cars, cooking, baking, etc. kids are the same for me, as crazy as they can make me. Actually, that's what I did enjoy about my career in IT. I have the title and the skills of a System Administrator, but I find the job pretty boring overall. I really loved helping people with basic PC issues and seeing the joy on their faces when I could fix their problem and get them back on their feet.

I have a job that pays decently and doesnt stress me out where I get to do that while also helping people out without ripping them off. Its not huge but it never feels useless, no judgement on anyone who has to work a paycheck somewhere they hate but I was lucky to be able to avoid that.

 

[ZedClampet]

Anyway, talk me out of it!

Well, I've had five friends/family die in motorcycle crashes (dating back to before I was born and before helmets were popular), but maybe we're just bad at it. I've also witnessed 3 fatal motorcycle crashes. My suggestion is to ride like a grandma and wear a good helmet.

As for my hobbies, this site counts as one, but I spend most of my time training AI, which is why I'm getting a better PC. I don't know how long my obsession with AI will last because captioning has become something I dread, but I've overall had a blast with it. I also spend a good portion of each day doing research and another portion of the day developing games that I don't finish.

 

[ZedClampet]

We've had 2 commercial plane crashes in a couple of weeks in the US and Canada. The first crash was the first time in about 15 years that there has been a fatal commercial airline crash in the US.

Both crashes appear to be human error, as are most plane crashes. The first one was caused when the airplane collided with a military helicopter as it was coming in to land. The one that happened yesterday, in which, miraculously, no one died, appears to have been just a terrible landing that caused the airplane to flip over on the runway.

As for the first one, I can only assume the Black Hawk helicopter was somewhere it wasn't supposed to be, but I really don't understand the last one. Conditions were bad, as was visibility. Why not let the plane land itself? That's exactly why they are equipped with autoland. Perhaps it will come out that the autoland failed, but from watching the video it looks like the pilot misjudged how far above the runway they were and the plane basically stalled and fell onto the runway.

 

[ZedClampet]

I am disappointed in the whole free world's ability to process information. I have something to say about current events. It is not in any way political, but some might misconstrue it as political because it's involves the most polarizing human alive, Trump. But I'm not coming out in favor of or against Trump, I'm just explaining what is happening which somehow, despite it being obvious, people aren't getting. I'm going to put it in spoilers so anyone who doesn't want to read about current events can skip it.

Spoiler: People need to calm down and think for a minute...

Everyone is freaking out because Trump called the Ukrainian president a dictator and then later said that the Russian invasion was Ukraine's fault. Why? Who does Trump need on his side more, Ukraine's president or Putin? There's only one person on the planet who can stop the Ukraine-Russian war, and that's Putin. If Trump wants to negotiate a peace treaty, he has to win over Putin. It's that simple. It doesn't matter at all if Ukraine is angry. Whether Putin will fall for this is certainly debatable. You usually don't become a world leader without learning how to lie a bit to manipulate situations, and manipulators can usually spot another manipulator pretty easily. But this is what is happening.

 

[BeardyHat]

I am disappointed in the whole free world's ability to process information. I have something to say about current events. It is not in any way political, but some might misconstrue it as political because it's involves the most polarizing human alive, Trump. But I'm not coming out in favor of or against Trump, I'm just explaining what is happening which somehow, despite it being obvious, people aren't getting. I'm going to put it in spoilers so anyone who doesn't want to read about current events can skip it.

Spoiler: People need to calm down and think for a minute...

Everyone is freaking out because Trump called the Ukrainian president a dictator and then later said that the Russian invasion was Ukraine's fault. Why? Who does Trump need on his side more, Ukraine's president or Putin? There's only one person on the planet who can stop the Ukraine-Russian war, and that's Putin. If Trump wants to negotiate a peace treaty, he has to win over Putin. It's that simple. It doesn't matter at all if Ukraine is angry. Whether Putin will fall for this is certainly debatable. You usually don't become a world leader without learning how to lie a bit to manipulate situations, and manipulators can usually spot another manipulator pretty easily. But this is what is happening.

I want to respond, but I'm unsure how without making it likely overtly political.

I guess all I want to say is that we know a particular person associated with the Administration has backdoor dealings and phone calls with Putin and we know that Putin is also admired by those at all levels of said Administration.

Seems to me that they're trying to actively support a war of aggression on Russia's part by calling for elections in such a time. We know that historically Russia is capable, willing and able of rigging elections, thus, it all seems a ploy to install a puppet in Ukraine to broker a deal in favor of Russia.

Just my initial gut reaction to seeing that stuff. I've been actively avoiding social media and having a minimal intake of news since January 20th to maintain my mental health and try to keep my anxiety in check.

At any rate, I don't think that was terribly political, but let me know mods. I'm otherwise content to leave it at that.

 

[ZedClampet]

I want to respond, but I'm unsure how without making it likely overtly political.

I guess all I want to say is that we know a particular person associated with the Administration has backdoor dealings and phone calls with Putin and we know that Putin is also admired by those at all levels of said Administration.

Seems to me that they're trying to actively support a war of aggression on Russia's part by calling for elections in such a time. We know that historically Russia is capable, willing and able of rigging elections, thus, it all seems a ploy to install a puppet in Ukraine to broker a deal in favor of Russia.

Just my initial gut reaction to seeing that stuff. I've been actively avoiding social media and having a minimal intake of news since January 20th to maintain my mental health and try to keep my anxiety in check.

At any rate, I don't think that was terribly political, but let me know mods. I'm otherwise content to leave it at that.

In order to not start a political debate, I'll not respond to this.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I think we are safe if we leave it there, thanks guys.

Any further posts about that will be deleted.

 

[neogunhero]

Best Buy laptop link

I'm trying very hard to convince my girlfriend she NEEDS this laptop. I really just want to play better games with her lol.

RTX 4050, 16GB DDR5, 512GB SSD, decent 1080p 6-core Ryzen CPU AND 144hz 1080p display all for $600, probably the best laptop deal you can find these days. I like to look at laptops when I know we aren't going to buy one, but this blows every other laptop I've seen lately out the water. Most of the time you get the same specs but only 8GB of DDR4 for around 700 or more. I've seen laptops with the exact same specs starting around $750. The RTX 4050 isn't the greatest, but 6GB VRAM and the DLSS suite makes it perfect for 1080p. I've seen people run RDR2 on High with DLSS on at 60FPS.

 

[BeardyHat]

Best Buy laptop link

I'm trying very hard to convince my girlfriend she NEEDS this laptop. I really just want to play better games with her lol.

RTX 4050, 16GB DDR5, 512GB SSD, decent 1080p 6-core Ryzen CPU AND 144hz 1080p display all for $600, probably the best laptop deal you can find these days. I like to look at laptops when I know we aren't going to buy one, but this blows every other laptop I've seen lately out the water. Most of the time you get the same specs but only 8GB of DDR4 for around 700 or more. I've seen laptops with the exact same specs starting around $750. The RTX 4050 isn't the greatest, but 6GB VRAM and the DLSS suite makes it perfect for 1080p. I've seen people run RDR2 on High with DLSS on at 60FPS.

The deals you can get these days on laptops are pretty damn impressive. Yet here I am, still sticking with my used ThinkPads for approximate the same price.

Not sure if I'm really dumb or I'm seeing something others aren't. I have no idea what's wrong with me.

Though I do occasionally consider buying a used Asus Zephyrus g14.

 

[neogunhero]

The deals you can get these days on laptops are pretty damn impressive. Yet here I am, still sticking with my used ThinkPads for approximate the same price.

Not sure if I'm really dumb or I'm seeing something others aren't. I have no idea what's wrong with me.

Though I do occasionally consider buying a used Asus Zephyrus g14.

You can definitely find better deals on used laptops. I just personally feel a bit uneasy about used cheap laptops. Cheaper budget laptops aren't built to last long at all, so if that's what I'm aiming for, I'd rather buy new. However higher end laptops seem to last much longer. My brother had a Gigabyte laptop with a GTX 780M that he bought for around $1500 in 2013, and it lasted him a good 6-7 years. I'm sure the one I linked in my original post wouldn't last more than half that time span, unless you cooled it very well.

 

[BeardyHat]

You can definitely find better deals on used laptops. I just personally feel a bit uneasy about used cheap laptops. Cheaper budget laptops aren't built to last long at all, so if that's what I'm aiming for, I'd rather buy new. However higher end laptops seem to last much longer. My brother had a Gigabyte laptop with a GTX 780M that he bought for around $1500 in 2013, and it lasted him a good 6-7 years. I'm sure the one I linked in my original post wouldn't last more than half that time span, unless you cooled it very well.

Oh yeah, definitely. I've owned several consumer grade (gaming) laptops throughout the years and none of them have lasted more than 2 years. Even the Razer I had only lasted me about a year. Though the gaming laptop a friend gave me is now approaching the 10-year mark and my kids still use it every day. Though I probably need to dust it and repasted it.

But yeah, everytime I look at those used Zephyrus machines, I remember my general experience with those types and go back to looking at ThinkPads.

Not too mention, the consumer grade stuff is difficult to open and generally frustratingly laid out.

But, $600 for something you'll use for 3 years definitely isn't a terrible deal and it's certainly going to perform better than any of the used machines I might buy.

 

[BeardyHat]

Yesterday, I did something I'm rather ashamed of, but ultimately is a learning experience for me.

I picked up a specialized USB-C power adapter that I had intended on putting into my DSi to make it a little more travel friendly, this required desoldering the old power connector. I've done a decent amount of fairly simple desoldering in the past, but this one was a little more technically difficult due to the space constrains and size of the solder joins.

I managed to successfully desolder most of it and then grabbed it, trying to gently pry the old connector off. I did successfully remove the connector, unfortunately, I also tore-up two solder/copper pads that the sides of the power need to connect to, effectively destroying the board. I unfortunately don't have the prowess to be able to fix my mistake, so now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with this broken DSi.

As mentioned, I feel ashamed of myself, as I take a lot of pride in my ability to fix things and have repaired a great many items in the last several years, so to essentially intentionally break something that was function feels bad. That said, I think I'll have to actually learn how to (de)solder a little better. Soldering itself isn't too difficult, but desoldering is apparently more of an art, so I'm intending to actually begin learning it a little more thoroughly in earnest. Maybe I'll get to a point in the future that I can fix this board.

At any rate, I've switched to playing my DS games on my 3DS, which is fine. The 3DS is a higher quality system, but the resolution on it is weird, so DS games tend to look a little bit blurry on it as opposed to the crispness of the original DS. I also have another DSi XL, which I've loaned to a friend for the time being, so if I choose I can practice there, but when I'm feeling motivated again, I may pick-up a couple of broken DSi's (though people still want like 30-bucks for them, which is absurd) and see if I can practice on them.

I'm also still sick and have been sleeping like absolute garbage, so I'm sure that doesn't help at all. I've been getting around 6-hours of sleep a night recently, all of which has been interrupted multiple times, which just absolutely screws with me.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I think we are safe if we leave it there, thanks guys.

Any further posts about that will be deleted.

What exactly IS the policy in this thread on whether posts get deleted? I was shocked that I got a 1 day ban the other day and the reason given was it was not related to gaming. I responded saying at least HALF or more of the posts here are not gaming related, and I got no response. Worse yet, the ban locked me out of the entire forum, not just this thread! It left me feeling like taking my chat elsewhere (and I don't mean another thread) especially since I've seen no one else receive such treatment in this thread.