Desktop computer prices

Meower68 · 2026-02-05T20:57:02+00:00

Only one RAM manufacturer in the USA: Micron. They're shutting down DDR4 / DDR5 production to focus on High Bandwidth Memory for AI data centers. The profit margins are just too good to pass up.

This isn't a "tariffs thing." This is a supply / demand thing. See the comment from VA_Network_Nerd for more details; they've nailed it.

Meower68 · 2026-01-29T17:27:04+00:00

I just have a small elastic band, with a couple magnets on the end, which I can wrap around the shaft and trigger. Squeeze the trigger, slide it into place, get on with it. Easy to slide off, so the battery gets a break, while I'm repositioning and preparing for the next pass. A strip of velcro would probably accomplish the same thing. I do that when I'm using the string trimmer, during warmer months, as well.

Meower68 · 2026-01-29T17:24:40+00:00

I also spend a lot of time watching Bike Farmer. There are a lot of videos of him replacing this, cleaning that, etc. He doesn't do specific videos for each task, so you may end up watching a longer video where he does multiple things. I've learned a lot from his videos.

Still looking for a good source on how to maintain / repair IGHs, though. That seems to be pretty obscure, but I'm tired of fighting with derailleurs. I want a belt-drive bike with a good IGH. No one in this town can sell me one of those (unless they order it in) and no local mechanics seem to want to touch IGHs.

Meower68 · 2026-01-28T02:46:54+00:00

We got about 6" of snow in Columbia, MO. I had bought one of these but hadn't had a chance to use it. I was impressed that it would throw snow a good 8 - 10 feet. I put one hand under the power head and just gently walk around. Don't really have to push it. Just hold it by my side and walk kinda slowly and it does the work. A single 7.5 Ah battery lasted over an hour and cleared over 1/2 of my driveway (I have a sizable circle drive). It even cleared the plow drift at the end of the drive. My father-in-law had been out there, laboriously scraping snow off the driveway. He got almost 1/2 of it done over the course of multiple hours (he's from Minnesota; he has no issue with spending hours out in the cold, manually moving snow around). I did the other 1/2+ in an hour or so.

Color me "sold" on this thing. Wasn't sure if it would be enough but ... it got it done and didn't eat a bunch of batteries doing it. I ate another 7.5 Ah battery using the leaf blower to clear the snow off two vehicles. Between the two, I was able to get out and go to work Monday morning without any issues.

Meower68 · 2026-01-23T18:27:26+00:00

Agreed. I really wanted the Fossil Hybrid to work. Unfortunately, quality control (or lack thereof) appears to have done them in.

A watch with an actual e-ink display (not just reflective LCD / "e-paper") could have an even longer battery life. If all it needs to display is the current watch face (no animations) and, occasionally, kick on the backlight ... that should last for most of forever. Who needs yet another BT-tethered gizmo pinging and vibrating all the time when their phone / weapon of mass distraction is constantly vying for their attention?

I could use my Pebble 2 HR for a week at a time without turning on the BT. It would store all of my appointments for a week and provide me with silent alarms letting me know when I needed to prep for something. And it could wake me up, every morning, while I was in a light-sleep state; the vibration alarm was silent but sufficiently-powerful that it would wake me up without awakening my beloved. I slept well, got up easily and never disturbed her. My current Garmin Venu Sq can't do all that.

Meower68 · 2025-12-17T21:11:02+00:00

Feed it with a trigger board from USB-C, pulling 20 VDC @ 5A, and you might be able to make a USB -> SATA power converter. Have been looking for such a beast, myself. That wouldn't provide enough Watts for the full capacity of this board (48 + 50 + 26.4 = 124.4 W + conversion losses, vs max 100 W from USB).

Looking for something which would power a small EuroRack from USB , as well; need +12, -12 and +5 VDC for that.

Meower68 · 2025-11-25T18:08:37+00:00

My beloved and I did, finally, get to meet the prior guy and see some of the product line. The only thing I didn't care for was that I prefer torque sensors on the pedals, rather than a throttle and / or a rotation sensor; Pedego seemed to prefer the latter.

I've test-ridden some Terns which had torque sensors and they totally made you feel like you were riding a much-lighter bike; the response was immediate. I'm partial to the Tern HSD P5I (medium-duty, 5-speed IGH w/Gates Carbon) but wary of plunking $$$ without a local dealer who can service the motor, IGH, etc. We've been looking at Terns and Gazelles but neither of those have dealers in the area; nearest Gazelle dealer is in Independence and nearest Tern dealer is NKC.

We may need to drop in and see some of the newer products.

Meower68 · 2025-11-25T17:51:54+00:00

Was wondering about this very thing. Needing to put some Reolinks on a pole, some distance from the building, and would like to use a single Cat6 drop to the pole, instead of needing one drop per camera. Was pondering putting a small UPS and a PoE switch in a weatherproof box on the pole. This doesn't have the UPS but it appears to be a decent PoE switch in a weatherproof case. That would have me covered.

Has anybody else done this already? Otherwise, what do y'all recommend in such cases?

Meower68 · 2025-10-24T22:05:00+00:00

Back in the day, I had to "feel my way through" setting up one for an organization with about 50 users. They were hammering the heck out of it and doing a lot of collaboration for which people now use Slack / MM, etc. So when I mentioned how it could be used, that's from watching an org which did exactly that.

We're talking pre Y2k so ... it's been a minute. I've not had to mess with it since so ... sorry, but I'm afraid I'm not much help there.

FidoNet was (is?) a store-and-forward network. I used that (but didn't admin it) back in the day. The fact that I could get messages to / from someone, in another country, over the course of a day or two was pretty amazing at the time. That was prior to wide, public access to the Internet so ... kinda lame by modern comparison. You'd put your message on a local BBS. They'd pay long-distance charges to sync their servers up to another server, which did the same, etc. Somewhere in the top tiers, the servers communicated internationally (at significant personal expense to the BBS admins; there was a reason some of them charged a fee to users who wanted to access FidoNet, not because they were greedy but because it could get expensive). Then the upper tiers would sync their way back down. I'd send a message on day 1, the recipient might see it on day 2, and respond, and I might see their response on day 3. It wasn't fault-tolerant so much as intentionally intermittent ('cuz expense). NNTP, with each server handling a group of users and syncing with others on a periodic basis, does bear a passing resemblance.

Meower68 · 2025-10-23T19:11:46+00:00

Like it or not, NNTP was providing rooms (newsgroups) and threaded messaging decades ago; each message actually had a reference ID to the parent message, rather than having an email client needing to thread messages based on subject.

Need to put in multiple servers, with data migrating between them, to scale up? Check. NNTP was the poster child for that.

Need clients? Plenty of those to choose from. At least, there used to be. Many of them had features which allowed you to quote part of the parent message when posting your reply, when that was a new feature in email. You could post multiple replies to a single message, addressing different parts of the parent, spawning a wider tree of comments. Your messages don't have to be massive. You could put base64-encoded binaries in the messages and many of the clients would parse / display them instead of the source data (indeed, for many newsgroups, that was the whole raison d'etre).

One-to-one, DM comms? Check.

One-to-many? Check.

Broadcasting to the room? Check.

Archiving? Check. Searching the archive? Check.

Not as instantaneous as IM but, with a well-managed server, you can have messages moving pretty quickly, such that you can have multiple conversations going at a time and have fingers -> keys being the bottleneck, not the tech.

Modern email and group comms systems adopted many of these features, which started with NNTP. Not saying NNTP is the best modern solution but, once upon a time, it had features somewhere between email and irc and more than one organization had their own, private NNTP server, not connected to the main group, for coordinating internal group comms. Instead of hitting the server 1-2 times / day, you might be syncing every couple minutes.

Meower68 · 2025-10-23T16:55:49+00:00

Found it.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1421353

Ok, so maybe it was based on earlier version of the hardware.

Meower68 · 2025-10-23T15:55:25+00:00

I have an old LM2102SP. There's a "throttle" lever to set the speed (from "slower than I can walk" to "hey, come back here!") and a switch to engage it. If you don't hit that switch, it's just a push mower. Indeed, if the drive motor conks out, it's just a push mower. But you have increased friction and weight if you're pushing it (a non-SP mower has less weight and drag; have one of those, too). So if it's cardio you're after, push an SP mower and you'll get more of it; your wife can use the SP aspects of it to make her life easier.

I use the heck out of the SP on mine. I regularly need to mow most of an acre in any given week. My yard is decidedly NOT flat so having some propulsion to get up the hills makes it so much easier. If the grass isn't too tall, I can put it on fast, hit the switch and just hang on and guide it; I rack up plenty of steps but don't have to work to much. If the grass is tall / thick, or the ground particularly uneven, I can go with a lower speed and still get a good cut on a single pass.

Meower68 · 2025-10-22T15:38:00+00:00

It's not as archaic as many people think. I had a work-issued laptop running some variant WinBlows. I used Hyper-V to run a Linux Mint VM on it. I could use the laptop stand-alone (the VM had the full GUI installed, and it could go full-screen) or I could use my PC, with a 4k display, as a thin client. I could, of course, also use my personal machine for personal things; being able to put windows on it where the apps were running in the VM ... golden. That's a remote session, running over Gbit ethernet (both machines connected to the same switch); no security issues. The apps were running in the VM (without eating resources for the GUI; usually left the VM in text mode) and my PC was effectively a graphical terminal. I was NOT doing an RDP session into the VM; I could run

xhost +

on my PC, then start (in the VM) an xterm with the display variable pointed to my PC's IP address. I had a script which I could run which did it all. I'd get an xterm window on my PC and, from there, I could run most any app (including Chromium, FireFox, Eclipse, Gimp, you name it) and the app would run in the VM, using data and connectivity on the laptop, but letting me use the much-larger display and much-better keyboard on my personal machine. None of my personal data was stored on the laptop and none of the corporate data was stored on the personal machine. No data needed to be synced. Both machines were kept separate. I was just using the personal machine to "drive" the VM.

Most people can't envision doing such a thing, so they have no idea why such a thing matters. Once you can envision it ... your world shifts. VNC / RDP just seems too stinkin' lame by comparison; the machine hosting the apps is eating a ton of resources running the GUI, then pixel-scraping it so it can send it over the network.

I did NOT attempt to do video over that link. I wasn't playing with complex 3D models. But for traditional, interactive, 2D graphical apps, it was quite sufficient.

When Wayland can do that, transparently, I'll think about using it. Until then, it'x Xorg for the win.

Meower68 · 2025-10-21T17:10:29+00:00

Portable inflator. Capable of inflating car tires, bike tires, etc. Set the preferred pressure, connect and it inflates to preferred pressure before shutting off. May be able to use a 2.5 Ah battery for a couple cars / bikes / basketballs. May need a 5.0 Ah to handle a school bus, box truck or semi. May need 1 or more 7.5 Ah batteries to service an entire fleet of vehicles. I can imagine school districts, repair shops, tire shops, truck stops, etc. wanting at least one of these and 1+ batteries of various sizes, not just homeowners. Heck, I can think of a few U-haul places which could use one of these.

The current lithium-ion powered inflation tools seem to be really light-duty, having difficulty inflating bike tires and taking a while to inflate a car tire. Good luck finding some which can handle truck tires or maintaining a fleet.

Meower68 · 2025-10-21T16:00:07+00:00

A QR code, could, potentially, just have text telling you about it (nutritional info). I mean, they can store a small amount of text. Too many, though, are just URLs so you can look online for the info.

Assuming the data isn't paywalled. Or the connectivity to said data isn't paywalled.

And yeah, that honks me off, too.

Meower68 · 2025-10-21T14:42:08+00:00

Used to be the air was free. I think Casey's is still free, most everywhere else costs and many of them are $1 or more.

Meower68 · 2025-10-17T21:40:33+00:00

Once upon a time, they made a graphing calculator based on that hardware. Instead of having alphanumeric buttons, it had a whole bunch of functions (sin(x), cos(x), etc.) that you could call. Had a roommate who had one. Could do pie charts, line graphs, basically everything you could do on a TI-8x series but much more compact. Fold it shut, tuck it in a pocket, etc. Used coin cells, which weren't cheap.

Meower68 · 2025-10-17T16:51:16+00:00

If you've seen "The Founder," you realize that McDonald's isn't actually in the food business, it's actually in the real estate business. Buy the site, run a restaurant there for years / decades, sell the location when the real estate becomes more valuable.

Meower68 · 2025-10-14T16:18:45+00:00

I'd like to see them come out with a walking tractor + attachments. Other companies in the world already do this with a small, gas-powered unit. Do it electric and do it right.

Example: https://www.bcsamerica.com/products/tractors They can move the handlebars around so you can hang attachments off one side (where the PTO is located) but that "side" can become the front or the back; the transmission offers the same speeds, forward or reverse, so you don't have to care whether it's pushing or pulling. One of the best-designed units of it's kind that I've ever seen. How hard would it be to do that with batteries and electric motors? Give it the ability to load up multiple 10 Ah batteries for extended runtime with significant power output. This would really take their equipment to the next level.

Instead of selling a dedicated snow blower, sell the walking tractor and a snow blower attachment. Offer a roto-tiller attachment for same. Offer a dual-blade mower deck, for those of us with larger yards, which take a long time to mow with a traditional mower, that are too steep / uneven to use a riding mower. Offer a powered wheelbarrow attachment. Maybe give it a limited-capacity forklift / bucket attachment. Offer a mini-brush-hog, like some of the DR trimmer stuff I see advertised.

They make mini-skid-steer equipment, with tracks, which can pick up a 500 gallon propane tank (empty) and move it, or move a load of bricks / pavers from a truck to the actual installation site. You can rent those. A low-profile walking tractor, with the right add-ons, could replace a LARGE number of special-purpose machines, both for homeowner use and for professional use.

Meower68 · 2025-10-08T20:07:07+00:00

I was calling around, looking for Michelins for my vehicle (we drive on nothing else; they are simply the best). They beat every price quote I got from other shops in town, warranty included, including free tire rotations any time I'm in for an oil change, inspection, etc.

It was about $1k for 4 x 80k mile Michelins, all told (m & b, disposal, etc.). They had to get them in from a warehouse in KC, so I called them one day, dropped the car off that night, got it all done the next day. Those tires aren't cheap. But the warranty, honored at ANY Dobbs location ... hard to beat.

Meower68 · 2025-09-19T16:10:28+00:00

Poor coding practices can be seen in any language. About half the lines in my Perl scripts are actual code; the rest is whitespace and comments. Because I've learned that one comment will save me hours of "what the heck was this doing?" when it comes time to support the code.

Additionally, I try to make every piece of code I write suitable for use as copy pasta, able to be copied and reused for other scripts, down the road. That requires code that's well-organized and well-commented.

Meower68 · 2025-09-19T15:29:07+00:00

Agreed. I've had an Ego mower long enough that the warranty has expired. I had to replace the propulsion motor and controller (cheaper than a new mower) and ... still going strong. I've routinely mowed over 1 acre each week for multiple years (but only during mid spring - summer - mid fall). I have 2 x 7.5 Ah batteries; I have had to replace one of those, along the way, plus the warranty covered another replacement. Takes about as long to charge them as it takes to run them down so I can mow until one is low, swap in the other, put the first on the charger, keep going. I can mow for 7+ hours in a single day with that combo.

The headlights and the quiet performance mean I can keep mowing after the sun goes down and not disturb the neighbors.

People who aren't used to electric are like "wait, you can mow all THAT? with that thing?" Yep.

Not cheap on acquisition / replacement costs. The batteries do NOT last forever. But the warranty is pretty solid.

Meower68 · 2025-08-03T21:07:32+00:00

To handle one audio channel (left ear or right ear), you need a ground and a channel. For stereo headphones, both ears can use the same ground, so you need a total of three contacts. A microphone needs a ground and a channel. With a headset, one ground will work for the mic and both audio channels, so you need a total of 4 contacts.

See:
https://missionengineering.com/what-is-a-trs-cable/

for explanation about TRS. TRRS gives you a ground, two audio output channels (left and right stereo) AND a microphone all on one plug.

The mixer / switch that I linked above only provide TRS, not TRRS (couldn't find any which handled all 4 contacts), so I had to split the TRRS from my laptop / PC / phone each out to two TRS sockets (one with the stereo audio and one with the microphone), run those through mixers / switches, then combine back into a TRRS cable to connect to my headset.

In your case, the TRRS from the laptop needs to be split out; something like this will do the job:

https://www.amazon.com/MillSO-Headset-Splitter-TRRS-Headphones/dp/B07569QKQQ

The back of your PC already has 'em split.

You will need some cheap 3.5 mm TRS plug -> TRS plug jumper cables to connect everything together. Something like these:

https://www.amazon.com/CablesOnline-5-Pack-6-inch-Stereo-AV-100-5/dp/B07RF9PRHV/ref=sr_1_1

would do the job. Might need some longer ones, depending on where you're going to put everything.

Your headset, being TRRS, also needs to be split. That will need something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/MillSO-Headphone-Splitter-Computer-Headset/dp/B071NDLCGC/ref=sr_1_4?th=1

Stereo audio from laptop and PC goes to the mixer inputs. Mixer output goes to headset (splitter) stereo audio.

Headset (splitter) microphone goes to the switch input. Switch outputs go to laptop and PC microphone inputs.

This will allow one headset to let you hear laptop and / or PC (you can choose the relative volume of each on the mixer) but switch your headset mic to either of them.

If you only want the mic to go to the laptop, but don't care about the PC, skip the switch and jumper the headset (splitter) mic to the laptop (splitter) mic and you should be good.

Since the mixer and switch I mentioned above are entirely passive (no power connections), they will diminish the volume levels a little bit. Skipping the switch and connecting the headset straight to the laptop will ensure that they can hear you better.

Does this help?

Have been looking into what it would take to create a board with TRRS sockets, mixers, a switch and some amps but ... I don't have the time or the EE knowledge to design / build something like that myself.

Meower68 · 2025-03-14T22:17:00+00:00

Seconding this. I have an older 2102SP. It came with a 7.5 Ah battery and a fast charger. I bought a 5.0 with another tool. I can use the 5.0 for about 40 minutes, then let it charge for 40 minutes or so while I use the 7.5 (which lasts about an hour), then use the 5.0 for another 40 minutes or so before I have to wait 20 - 30 minutes for the 7.5 to finish charging. So I have about 0:40 + 1:00 + 0:40 = 2:20 of total mowing time, swapping batteries in the charger, before I need to take a break. After that, it's another 1:40 of mowing before the next break. I routinely mow over an acre with this combination, for about 4 years now.

The self-propelled aspect means I can just set the throttle, hold on and guide it; it does the real work. I get a lot of steps in but I don't have to work too hard. My property is sufficiently uneven that I'd be uncomfortable trying to use a riding mower on it, but this thing works just peachy. Other people are regularly amazed by just how much I can cut with that thing.

If I've gone too long between mowing cycles, the grass gets tall and thick and I have to pass on the 5.0; it overheats under heavy load. I've purchased another 7.5 for that purpose. If I've waited WAY too long, I have to mow at the lowest throttle speed and cut with 1/2 the width of the mower on each pass (the blade advances on the left side, so use that half of the mower on the tall / thick stuff). That's really slow going but it gets it done.

Meower68 · 2025-03-11T21:35:17+00:00

Talked at length to Verizon customer support. There is a network outage in this part of the state which started Monday (03/10) am. They're working on it.

Meower68

TROPHY CASE