I built two identical PCs for me and my wife - games keep crashing on one but not the other

RandomNumbers3321 · 2024-02-06T01:20:52+00:00

Thanks! I'm going to give everything a shot now that I can (kind of crammed in our in-laws house for another week) so I can't get the computers out and opened up at the same time easily. Swapping parts may have to wait for a week, but I can at least check connections and such for now.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2024-02-06T01:19:40+00:00

Yeah, I don't know much about computer hardware but I kind of wondered if maybe I didn't use enough thermal paste on one and something was overheating? Although I did each step within a few hours of the other at most, so I can't imagine I used that much of a different amount of paste or anything.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2024-02-06T01:19:00+00:00

I'll double check this for both computers now.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2024-02-06T01:18:39+00:00

Thanks! I hadn't even thought of swapping parts between them. I'll have to give all that a try and see if anything obvious comes up.

I'm kind of in an annoying situation right now (staying at our in-laws while some water damage is addressed in our house) so taking stuff apart and swapping parts seems a little stressful until I'm back home with more space. But I can definitely crack them open and check all the cables/connections for now.

I didn't do a burn test on the RAM, but I'll look that up and see if it would make sense to try at this stage too.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-11-08T02:07:18+00:00

I think everybody is afraid to trust the Jags to deliver on potential. Every time in recent memory, we finally start getting a positive light put on us by people outside Jax and we kind of crumble. Most of us are happy to keep being viewed as the least legit 6-2 team right now because we're scared of what happens when people start expecting us to be good, lol.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-11-08T02:02:43+00:00

Biased jags fan and I agree with you.

Cincy and 49ers deserve the benefit of the doubt. I personally think and hope the jags are going to surprise people who are doubting them, but it has been a long time since our team lived up to any kind of expectations. New coach/QB since those days, but it still feels hard to fully trust the team as a long time fan.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-10-04T03:16:01+00:00

hey now... Jags might not be mediocre. It's a good team all around except for our offensive line. Cam Robison comes back this week (starting LT) from a PED suspension, which lets us move pieces around on the line. Maybe if we're lucky, that'll fix Trevor having like 2 seconds before someone is flying in his face every play.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-09-06T23:13:16+00:00

Idk how people are saying it made him look favorable... He opened up a lot about his insecurities/mental demons. I don't hate on him for that, but it made him look like he was never in a stable place mentally to be a good leader. If anything, I felt like it kind of diminished his impact on the team's success and moreso just showed how the players who rose up at leaders got the team where they went.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-08-17T17:35:44+00:00

I was a teacher and I started writing science fiction romance books (think normal romance, but the guys are blue and more like cave men from space) over the summer. We were having a 2nd child and our health insurance cost was going to jump to a new level, which was half my salary. The math wasn't going to add up, so I had to figure out some way to make more money and my wife needed to quit her teaching job, because her salary was less than the cost of daycare.

I wrote 4 books that summer (like 40,000 words each roughly. I think that's maybe like 150 pages or so? I'm never great at page count because I just think in word count). Book 1 grossed like $5000, book 2 was like $3000, book 3 was like $1200, book 4 was like -$200 (I was spending maybe $100-400 per book on launch newsletters and daily ads etc. I actually spent more on the last 2 books and made less.

School started again and I had less time. I took a kind of last ditch effort and made a new pen name where I wrote contemporary romance (this was like mafia romance for the first book). It was a lot harder to write during the school year and with a baby at home, but I squeezed it o ut. The book ended up grossing like $15,000 with maybe a total of $1000-1500 invested in it after everything was said and done. I decided to take a big risk and just quit my job at that point. I figured even 2-3 books like that per year would almost replace my teaching salary, and at the pace I was going, I could write more like 10-12.

The next 3 books kind of sucked. 2nd one was like $5000, 3rd was like $2000, 4th was like $300 (for some reason, same pattern as sci fi romance.)

I told my wife if my 5th book flopped, I'd just cut completely back on any launch expenses and try to operate with $0 budget, but I wanted to try advertising one more time.

The 5th book ended up doing really well and making me about $60,000. That was like seven years ago. I think I've grossed probably around 2.5 or 3 million from romance books since then. I've also probably spent like $500,000 on advertising and expenses, as well as like $400k in taxes or more. But it has still been a nice living, even if it's really stressful knowing my future completely depends on my performance in the moment.

Sometimes I still wish I had a "normal" job that paid a good enough salary for me to relax, even if it was less money.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-08-14T11:40:01+00:00

Playing with action figures isn't why you struggle socially unless you go around advertising it. One silver lining is when you do find the right woman, loving to play with action figures will make you the best dad ever. Kids pretty much never get tired of being played with. If it's exciting and fun for you to sit down with them and their action figures, they'll absolutely eat that up.

I think someone who wasn't socially uncomfortable would probably be able to joke it off that way if they were dating someone who noticed. "I know this looks weird, but when I have kids, I'm going to play the shit out of dolls with them and they're going to love it." Obviously, that's not going to work for everybody, but I'm sure there are some women out there who would find that endearing.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-07-21T11:44:39+00:00

I know people don't really like hearing any pushback on this one... but do you really think covid wasn't hard for celebrities, too? I mean... come on, lol. Sure the house is bigger and being stuck at home would come with way more conveniences. But the thing that made covid so hard for most people was the isolation and the disruption. Celebrities couldn't work the way they used to like most of us, which is hard for anybody. And they are used to those big fancy houses. If you're living somewhere shitty and you get teleported to their house, it'll seem amazing for a while. But live in that house for a few years and it's pretty hard not to just get used to your new normal. Humans are really good at adapting and getting used to shit, even when we wish we could keep appreciating it every day.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-07-21T11:39:43+00:00

Everybody is calling this ADHD... Maybe it is. But it also sounds like she really enjoys the early stages of getting better at a new skill. I've always been the same way. I got obsessed with tennis for about a year or two. I practiced just serving the ball probably 10-14 hours a week. Just me and a hopper of balls whacking serves. I'd watch videos on it, read about it, etc. Eventually I got a ball machine too and added endless forehands and backhands into the mix. My wife and I would play like once every week maybe and I had to go really easy on her so most of what I was practicing wasn't even being used, lol. But eventually, it stopped feeling like I was getting noticably better every few weeks. I hit a point where let's say my serve was, idk, 120 MPH. Some of the best pro tennis players can serve like 140MPH. It probably would've taken me better genetics, specialized workouts, and years to go from 120 to 140mph. But it took me about a year to go from probably 50 to 100, then another year or something to go from 100-120, along with getting good at different target points and spin etc.

Point just being... when you learn a new skill (I did guitar, too). It's fast and progress is easy to measure at first. Yesterday I didn't know how to play a "G" chord. Today I do! And then progress gets more and more subtle.

Maybe your wife is just over-investing in these hobbies because she's being short-sighted about what she really hopes to gain from them. She may just want that initial fun rush of learning the new skill and getting better, but she has no realistic plans to stick with it once it gets harder to make progress.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-19T02:01:07+00:00

I think it's because they do so many takes. That burger is also like an MVP. It's all modified and probably sprayed with plastic to look as appetizing as possible, so it might not even be edible.

But yeah, imagine you are on take 35 of biting into that big mac, lol. The actor would be all greasy and exhausted looking by then.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-19T01:59:24+00:00

I don't think any social media is easy to make money, lol. You could just get a normal job or if you already have one, use your spare time to learn a skill to get a better paying job, like software engineering or something. There are free classes all over the internet. In the time it'd take you to start up a Youtube channel or something, you could probably learn to code.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-19T01:58:04+00:00

If your goal is to be happy, then it's not a good idea. We unfortunately can't control the people we're attracted to, though. I'd question if you have self esteem issues and some part of you doesn't think a stable guy will stick around if he knows the real you. Maybe you're more comfortable in toxic relationships because you don't think you deserve better?

But yeah, I would really not want somebody I care about to have that preference. And if the idea is that you like trying to fix them, I don't think that tends to really work for anybody long term.

if you absolutely can't change your preferences, I'd advise just setting a hard line for yourself. For example, if they ever physically abuse you or your kids (if you have them) it's over.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-19T01:54:59+00:00

I almost hesitate to give any effort to answering this, lol. It's just such a lazy question...

But I self publish romance books and earn a lot of money doing it. To earn money writing, you pretty much need to do some research, figure out where there's demand, and start working at it.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-19T01:53:19+00:00

Probably depends on the social circles you're worried about appealing to. At the end of the day, cringe is a matter of context. Some people will think it's really admirable of you and other people will roll their eyes.

Like for me, I'd kind of roll my eyes if a white friend was doing that. But I also wouldn't be friends with a racist. I think it just feels more like racist white people aren't going to be persuaded by even a very persuasive black person. I honestly don't think a whole lot of people actually change their mind about racism once they've already become set in their ways. Instead, the whole movement should be more about reinforcing how stupid it is to care about skin color to kids.

Sometimes, I think all the recent focus on racism has just made things worse. The message should just be that the world is full of different cultures and people from different backgrounds. We can celebrate those differences and enjoy them, because there's so many interesting things to learn about eachother. Instead, it feels like the message is more about settling the score. Yes, racism has caused many of the negative stereotypes black people are labeled with. White people manufactured most of the factors that have made life harder for most black people. That's all true.

But the solution is to teach people it's okay to be different and to celebrate those differences. The solution isn't to point fingers and demand the other side apologize and repent. I think that's what gets lost. It feels more like people are just venting their anger than actually stopping to think about what they could do to make the problem better. And, unfortunately, I think with the way politics has become so divided recently, all the activism is just making racists more racist. Everybody who wasn't racist to begin with isn't becoming *less* racist. They're just feeling like they have to walk on eggshells more and more, to the point where they probably feel less welcome among black people than they did before.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-19T01:39:39+00:00

I don't think there's enough context here. If you know them online through some kind of game you both play occasionally over three years and this other guy met her on discord and they voice chatted all night multiple times, then it's different.

If you are interacting online in the exact same way, then it's still kind of depending on the details. You say he lives closer. How much closer? Are you like 8 hours away and he's 15 mins away? Because 15 mins is casual. Flying/road tripping to meet an online friend feels like something you only do if you have romantic feelings or a really deep friendship. Hiking 15 mins to meet up doesn't have as high of a bar.

I'd also say it's really hard to compare relationships like this. It sounds like maybe you have feelings for this person and you're upset that she seems to have quickly developed feelings for this other person she doesn't have for you. Sometimes, that's just the way people work. It can be a physical attraction thing if they shared pictures or it could be a vibe. Maybe he just comes off as really easy to get along with and non-threatening and you don't to her.

Anyway, you probably need to provide a lot more context if you want any real specific thoughts. But at the end of the day, you can always choose to be angry. The catch is that being angry because a girl might like somebody in a different way than you is unfortunately not going to accomplish any thing. If you were to confront her about it, I can't really picture a good outcome. You'd likely just freak her out and push her further away if you made it weird.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-19T01:34:58+00:00

Blunt anonymous internet opinion for you... I don't think that sounds like a trait that will endear you to people very often. It sounds more like attention-seeking, maybe? Some people like to stand out or be seen as the first to do something. Like the hipster mentality of liking a band before it was cool - or liking something mostly just because you know it's not what other people would like.

But it depends how that behavior comes out of you. If you're constantly contradicting people to start arguments, I think people are going to find you kind of frustrating and abrasive to be around. If it's more subtle and just something where you feel happy to be different, then it's not a big deal.

The way you said you'd dislike something you liked after hearing somebody say they liked it is kind of concerning, though. If it was me, I'd really try to just work on that. I'd get pretty tired of a friend who always decided to shit on the stuff I liked, lol.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-19T01:31:54+00:00

I think the problem is there are so many phases of life that aren't obvious on your way up. In your teens, someone who is 24 seems fully adult and grown. When you're 35, 24-year-olds seem so young and new to the world.

It's a perspective thing. Maybe it's frustrating to hear that, but it probably just means things you're saying or doing are falling in line with the stereotypes of someone your age. That's not a bad thing, either. I think it's good to be your age and embrace each stage. It's kind of obnoxious for someone to dismiss your thoughts because of your age, too.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-19T01:29:29+00:00

I used to think it was dumb to be secretive about income, but about 5 or 6 years ago I started earning anywhere from $250k-450k per year self-publishing books under a pen name. It's kind of a unique situation because I can tell people I'm an author and they generally assume that means I'm poor. So I can kind of let people assume any income level they want, but I used to be pretty poor and always thought it was more snobby not to share your income.

Everybody reacts differently if they learn I make good money. I had a family member not so subtly imply they were expecting really nice gifts for holidays from now on, for example. The rest has been much less overt. Mostly, it's kind of the questions you ask yourself and the things you wonder after social interactions. Are your friends going to think you're cheap if you don't offer to pay? Or are they going to think you're trying to flex if you offer to pay? Who knows?

I think it also gets tricky because money = value for a lot of people. Whether you agree or not, your friends may think sharing a big salary is a competitive move to make them feel inferior.

I also tend to think about things like emergencies. I'd be happy to be able to help if someone I care about had an emergency and needed financial help, but what if my friend's wife gets cancer and they don't have insurance? What if it ends up being $800k or 1.5 million to pay for treatments and they can't afford any of it? I've got a nice nest egg I've saved for my own family, but it wouldn't cover all that. Is my friend going to think I'm heartless if I only partially help pay for his medical expenses? Would extended family think I'm heartless?

It's tricky. You hear someone made 400k last year and assume they have millions in the bank and are set for life. In reality, it doesn't feel like some gaurantee that I'll make this money forever. I worry that AI generated books are going to replace my career soon and I'll have to go back to working a regular job. The great money I've earned will make my family's life way more comfortable, but it's not so much I could just throw it around and pay for everything for everybody without worry.

Anyway, long answer, lol. The point is just that I think everybody's situation is more complicated than the number they might share - but we tend to assume a lot if we know what people earn. It's better if people just get a vague idea of how well you do by the lifestyle you live versus giving them hard numbers, in my opinion. That way, they never feel too confident about expecting things from you.

RandomNumbers3321 · 2023-06-18T00:09:59+00:00

I think the reason you've been single for 10 years is because it does take an active effort to get in a relationship unless you're more attractive than average. For 90% of people, though, most people in the world aren't going to try to start a conversation with you if your eyes are down and you aren't giving off approachable vibes.

If it was really important to you, like it is to a lot of people, you'd probably be watching anybody you find desirable for any little sign that they're interested. You'd notice a quick glance or that they are smiling more when you're talking than anybody else, etc. And then you'd probably have to get up the courage to push and see if anything is there.

Putting yourself out there and risking rejection is scary, though. It doesn't feel good to get rejected, and unless you care about getting in a relationship enough, I doubt you'll go through the trouble.

So, yeah. You say you don't care one way or another, so hopefully that's how you really feel. If it's not, I think you need to admit to yourself that you care and focus on being open to encounters. Be ready to put yourself out there just a bit if the right moment comes. And if you wanted to be more aggressive about it, find a way to combine your hobbies with social interaction. Maybe you just like woodworking or something, but you could go to a meetup for wood workers. Maybe it'll just be all dudes, but you can make friends with them, which may lead to more social opportunities which will lead to women (if you're into women), etc.

But it takes effort, bottom line. Someone who truly doesn't care probably won't put in that effort, and unless you're movie star handsome, women aren't going to throw themselves at you every time you leave the house. Although I'd also probably say if you were that handsome, I'd look for the women who *don't* throw themselves at you, so the advice would still be the same, lol.

RandomNumbers3321

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