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.

 

[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.

 

[isleepinabed]

This was a weird week. On Monday I went for a walk after work. I passed a an acquaintance I hadn't seen in over 15 years. I recognized him because he was walking his dog and it's the same breed of dog he had back then too (a bull terrier, which you don't see that often here).
Then yesterday, it happened again. Out for a walk after work and I meet an old classmate from a German learning class I went to for a couple of years, about ten years ago.

When I stopped using social media it had the unfortunate effect of making it a bit harder to stay in touch. But if we had stayed in touch it wouldn't have felt so unexpected.

Plus I wouldn't have anything to write on this post either.

 

[Colif]

I have a friend who I only ever bump into outside my house. He used to live in the street a long time ago, so I guess he might like going past his old house, or its just how he knows to get through suburb.

The first time it happened he didn't even live in my city anymore. He just happened to be visiting his parents. He stopped and said hi as he was driving past. The last time it happened was a few weeks ago, but he lives here now, we just don't see each other much.

I rarely see anyone I know other than him.

Its harder still to find friends you knew before social media (or internet) actually existed. That can be hard. I took a month tracking down old friends about 10 years ago. Found most of them. The ones who wanted to be found. Only one remains a mystery to all of us.

 

[isleepinabed]

I have a friend who I only ever bump into outside my house. He used to live in the street a long time ago, so I guess he might like going past his old house, or its just how he knows to get through suburb.

The first time it happened he didn't even live in my city anymore. He just happened to be visiting his parents. He stopped and said hi as he was driving past. The last time it happened was a few weeks ago, but he lives here now, we just don't see each other much.

I rarely see anyone I know other than him.

Its harder still to find friends you knew before social media (or internet) actually existed. That can be hard. I took a month tracking down old friends about 10 years ago. Found most of them. The ones who wanted to be found. Only one remains a mystery to all of us.

Ah yes.. I only keep in touch with a friend from high school (or equivalent), who has been living in another town for a few years now.

Last month we found out in the local newspaper one of our friends then who now is an engineer and running his family's construction business now has a persona as a romantic singer. This was funny by itself but thinking about it then it actually makes sense from what he was like back then..

 

[isleepinabed]

I have to ask: what is with this forum and the AI chatbots?
It's weird that often times it's not even spam. Just text clearly written by AI, with the bold typeface on key words and finishing with questions like "are you interested in X?"

Is someone using this as a test site? Are the protocols for signing up as new members too lax?

 

[Pifanjr]

I have to ask: what is with this forum and the AI chatbots?
It's weird that often times it's not even spam. Just text clearly written by AI, with the bold typeface on key words and finishing with questions like "are you interested in X?"

Is someone using this as a test site? Are the protocols for signing up as new members too lax?

I think they're just trying to get the minimum number of posts to start posting links. Or they're trying to gain some legitimacy before posting links hoping that more people click on them.

From what I understand most of the bots get caught before they can post and the ones that do manage to post often get removed within a day.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I think they're just trying to get the minimum number of posts to start posting links. Or they're trying to gain some legitimacy before posting links hoping that more people click on them.

From what I understand most of the bots get caught before they can post and the ones that do manage to post often get removed within a day.

Yes, I recall when there were tons of spam bot posts, but it's been very clean lately. So I agree, it was more likely new member posts to work toward full posting privileges, as I HAVE seen some new members lately ask why they can't post this or that.

Anyway, here's my Monkey post for the day. I was just at the local tunnel car wash I frequent every few days and for the first time was told to not park where I always do after a wash near their microfiber towel station to wipe off my mirrors and any residual spots left behind. It was unclear to me at first why it was not allowed, but they need a space for any vehicles to pull out that might have something in their pickup bed for instance that could potentially get caught in their brush rollers.

Not adhering to such policies I suppose could even potentially cause damage to someone else's vehicle if say a shard of metal got stuck in one of the big wipe pads strips that the tunnel drapes over the top of your vehicle. For some reason that thought reminded me of a very odd occurrence on the freeway here recently that was shown on the news. A senior age school bus driver was hit in the chest while going 60 mph by a hunk of metal about 8" long that flew through his windshield.

The thing was moving about 60 mph and you could see it glance off his chest and ricochet off the right side of the bus behind him. The guy had no broken bones, just a contusion, but was in so much pain a couple of guys on the bus had to help him pull the bus over. No word yet on where that hunk of metal came from. They wanted to give him time to recover but he asked to go back to work the very next day. I've never been more proud to be a senior I tell ya!

 

[Colif]

I have to ask: what is with this forum and the AI chatbots?
It's weird that often times it's not even spam. Just text clearly written by AI, with the bold typeface on key words and finishing with questions like "are you interested in X?"

Is someone using this as a test site? Are the protocols for signing up as new members too lax?

I can't say i seen them. So one of the other mods gets to them before me...

The amount of spam here compared to 2020 is radically different.
Most of the new spam posts never touch the forums. There will always be a small percentage that makes it on.
The ability to join is about normal but the ability to post is restricted.

most new users can't do anything and when the restrictions are raised is a mystery on purpose.

Announcement - Limitations on New Forum Accounts

Hey folks, In an effort to combat spam on these forums, we've implemented some restrictions on new accounts that some of you may run into. While not being able to use every feature can be frustrating for new users, having a forum filled with spam is even worse, so we're doing our best to ride...

forums.pcgamer.com

 

[BeardyHat]

I'm actually a spammer, but playing the long game...

 

[Colif]

I'm actually a spammer, but playing the long game...

There will always be a small percentage that makes it on.

stop proving my point

 

[ZedClampet]

So the US has a new laser system for shooting down drones. This is much cheaper than wasting missiles on them. Anyway, the laser is controlled by AI, but if something happens to the AI, control switches to a person. It said that the movement and targeting were designed to be how you would do it in a video game. That way the person who suddenly had to use it would be comfortable with it.

 

[ZedClampet]

I love modern world conveniences. I woke up and was in the mood for a fresh bagel, so I just logged into my PC and ordered half-a-dozen everything bagels and also a loaf of French bread, and 45 minutes later they were on my doorstep.

Of course it isn't without problems. I ordered Neufchatel and they sent me honey-walnut cream cheese instead, so then I had to make a grocery order because I'm just not going to eat that sweet cream cheese. Also, it's almost twice as expensive compared to driving to the bakery, but this time of day it would have been 45 minutes both ways (and it's only 3 miles away), and I'll easily spend a few extra dollars to avoid that.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm on my way to pick up my wife, who was away for a week visiting one of our friends who moved to London a few months ago.

I had planned on getting Game Pass and playing through Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void or at least make some decent progress in Baldur's Gate 3, but I didn't really feel like playing anything.

While it was kind of nice being able to set my own schedule and having a quiet apartment, it was also very lonely. I'm happy one of my friends was available to play games almost every day.

I now understand why my brother, who lives by himself, keeps himself so busy with social activities.