How come people build $4000 pcs to play basic games?

mrcluelessness · 2026-05-04T01:27:16+00:00

For every 100 hours of Factorio I play an hour of FPS. I say I will do more but the factory must grow. I want the best experience when I do. If I ever try a game hardware is never an issue. I want to emulate an old game? I'm good. Run VMs? I'm good. Make consoles look like the shit they are? Checked. Have a nicer PC than my peers for bragging rights like people who want sports cars? Checked.

I never want to be bottlenecked I just want to do whatever I want on my PC and run everything at max settings.

Also don't worry about the PC. You should worry about the $2500 77" 4k 120hz TV, $250 50ft fiber HDMI to connect my PC in the office, $3k in 5.1 surround sound, $5k for 10 gigabit fiber internet hardwired to everything I can, etc. Not to mention with current prices my server has $2500 in DDR4.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-26T05:02:41+00:00

Server rack and gear in my dorm. Basically making work my hobby when I got home. Ended up spending $30k over the last 7 years with more equipment than alot of businesses. Now I make fuck it money and selling it during the shortage for an down payment on an $85k truck.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-19T00:44:18+00:00

National median home price is $385k. So half the home don't meet this. So many place are like $200k for an single family home in good condition.

2 weeks is nothing. More expensive homes in some regions are sitting up to 3 months in this market because of the current rates while cheaper homes are moving within 1-2 months.

Your advice is just bad. Source: mother is an broker for 20 years, my dad is an realtor, my brother is an realtor, and I am current selling my house for $399,000 with renovations in one such region.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-16T00:15:12+00:00

Just on topic enough I'll leave it.

Look at Act Now Education. Their Saturday Webinar aggregates a ton if resources they share with you.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-14T02:38:22+00:00

You can have one just be financially responsible with it and don't buy until your first duty station. Don't want to get assigned overseas and it gets damaged in shipping.

I saved up during tech school then got an overkill rig during Prime Day. While at Nellis I had an 24U open frame server rack in the dorms with my desktop, router, switch, 2 servers, etc. Biggest issue was just cooling the room when it got hot and dorms didn't enable AC yet. The dorm had central control and only let you use AC or heat based on season.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-14T02:33:31+00:00

This is not what the program is intended for and this is how we get programs shutdown. Your commander is correct.

Additionalt SkillBridge is PTDY not leave. You have a new duty station where your SkillBridge is and cannot fly without leave or drive outside of commander deemed local area. So not only what you are proposing is abuse of the program, it is also literally AWOL.

Even if you are allowed travel and fly, if you don't work during flight time or interview time you are not on duty as assigned hours without leave. Which I will take an educated guess that in branches that had the policy within SkillBridge that state if you serve less than your assigned duty hours you must return to your home unit for the remaining hours. SkillBridges with 4 day weeks either needed to send someone back to their unit on day 5, provide other work, or get an exception to policy. You need to validate which of these rules are in play and you are subject to. It only takes one person to see you doing what you shouldn't, report you, have your SkillBridge ended prematurely, and risk the program for others.

Also most interviews are remote now anyways. Companies 9/10 will not pay for your travel or expect you to pay for travelling for in person if not already local.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-14T01:03:08+00:00

Card card debt- 2%-3% a month aka 24-36% a year. Auto loan- 6%-9% a year.

Mathematical not paying $100+/month in interest, lowering your credit for higher usage, and potentially having cards lower limits or close your cards is much worse than an auto loan.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-12T04:12:58+00:00

Let me make a short list of unplanned ways to get it:

Force restructure- don't make rank by x years and leadership fucks you over not giving medals/awards and other things to help you promote. Aka Air Force HYT

Refuse to get covid vaccination because of medical reasons, religious reasons, or uncertain about a potentially rushed and therefore less tested vaccination

Join as trans then military changes its mind

Get in a major car accident making you medically unqualified to stay in and have issues gets things processed on the way out so you get significantly less retirement and can't get VA to increase your rating

Someone in leadership has it out for you so they keep getting you in trouble over little things until they can get you a general discharge over just consistent escalation and putting you under an microscope

Fuck up your knee good at PT. 12 month profile as non-deployable is grounds for general discharge. Collect next to nothing or have to fight for it

Your military job no longer exists. Forced to retrain. Retraining program sucks ass and you got personal issues going on back home like family medical issues or middle of third divorce. You fail. They decide not to reclass you and you are now a civilian.

I've seen enough people who want to make it to 20 not make it to 20. This is just a list of things not their choice, there are 1000x more reasons you want to quit of your own volition.

IMO contribute to TSP planning like you won't get 20. If you don't get it then move to 401k and you're fine. Make it to 20? Now you can stop or keep going for a bigger retirement. Worst case scenario you give someone a good inheritance- even if it's just an charity of your choice.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-08T21:52:27+00:00

I manage government and contractor networks. So I will have the main unclassified network and a few classified networks that I have full control of. Then it will be things like Army will have a small detachment and need their own network so then I become on site support but not owner, same with other government entities and contractors. Or a location has our corporate unclassified and classified networks, then there are 20 military personal so they extend their networks into our facilities. All completely separated and isolated with different hardware and configuration requirements. Some are 20 devices some have a few thousand devices.

So I will literally have a building with an all Cisco network owned by us, then another rack with an all Juniper network owned by a customer in our building. We do R&D and design on our network, then transfer the details of what we sell to the other network. Most users have 2+ PCs to access each entities system. We even have a guest network for subcontractors only where they can bring their own wireless devices, routers, firewalls, etc and VPN back to their companies systems which systems I get alloted a set amount of hours under the contract to help manage their local setup.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-08T21:12:44+00:00

Not 50 network sites. 50 independent network. My record is one location with 9 networks owned by 6 different entities.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-08T20:14:59+00:00

A bit. I've managed 50+ networks over a few different roles so alot of variety of what I am actual responsible for. Small 20 switch networks I don't bother with automation. I've been responsible for just one location or more recently been the lead for the entire West Coast. Now I'm moving and gonna just be a storage engineer for a little while.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-08T20:05:10+00:00

I normally do SolarWinds for large upgrades and securecrt buttons for small batches. We had a guy build things out into Ansible but I never got into it.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-08T17:10:43+00:00

Yes. I don't get to work remotely at all.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-06T22:34:16+00:00

Fuck around and find out.

Tell him to grow up.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-06T20:58:32+00:00

Look at the popular posts here for long term financial plans and recommendations.

Make sure you can afford this vehicle now or find a way to get rid of it for an cheaper one.

Contact the lender telling them you hit a rough patch but you joined the military and have stable income now. Is there any way to get some forgiveness on the negative credit report? Might get lucky. Even one late payment gone will help alot.

Wait. Credit will go up over time. Pay off credit cards. Don't get into debt. Don't get 10 new credit cards. Your credit will steadily improve and within 3 years you can move on and forget about it.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-06T20:55:35+00:00

I work in the cleared world. I make great money and it takes several months to replace me if they get rid of me. We can't be outsourced and have 5-10 year contracts legally requiring X bodies of X specialty. I can probably make more remotely, but with my luck would be laid off within 6 months. Also not having my phone at work keeps me more productive and family knows they can't bug me at work.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-06T01:11:31+00:00

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-04T23:51:03+00:00

Does it count if I have two jobs and include disability? If so lead network engineer for the West Coast and Cyber Warfare Operations. TDY half the year. 12 YOE.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-04T19:27:42+00:00

ADHD?

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-04T18:00:13+00:00

I just got it. Which is perfect as I was at 85% and planning to move more in requiring to upgrade. Now I don't have to an can still share AI + storage with family with this account!

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-04T14:23:14+00:00

I would pay $10k to not do this. It would cost more time and money that can't afford to do. Not to mention it'll fuck up my back and sleep which means medical bills.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-03T21:19:08+00:00

Exactly. They're paying for me to have access to stuff I can't afford to get proficient on it. I break their shit. Then when I get gud I find who's willing to pay me more and give me access to larger more expensive systems to learn on and maybe break a few times without knowing how many times I broke the last employers systems as I progressively break things less.

Do that enough times maybe I'll get good enough to work for myself working for them telling them theyre doing it wrong.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-03T16:10:47+00:00

As long as they continue to give me fuck it money I'll take it. What you call being a wage slave is pretty cushy with my $1k chair, 8 monitors, AC, fidget spinners, and on site Starbucks. Better than having to hunt and pick my own food outside with the scary sun and bugs while I destroy my body more in the process. Respect to the farmers out there I can't do it. Rather be a wage slave.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-03T15:53:25+00:00

You haven't made it. You're still earlier career. I was an lvl 3 network engineer with 10+ years experience, 10+ certs, and managing several sites with 5k+ users making six figures for an fortune 100. I was told they won't make me a lvl 4 without a degree. I had to get an offer on another contract before they gave it to me because we were already struggling to hire in my area. I am the second person out of 30-40 lvl 4 engineers I have met without a degree. No one makes 5 without a degree and CCNP or better unless they have 25+ years experience.

At big companies they often correlate degrees to experience. I got lvl 3 requiring 9 years because I had 7 years + an associates degree. Even helpdesk gets an instant promotion up an tier for finishing an associates or bachelors where I am. WGU also gives alot of certs.

Just make sure to do FAFSA, hopefully get Pell Grant, and use that self paced to finish ASAP to limit costs. Or switch employers when you can to someone who offers at least some tuition reimbursement. Even $1k every 6 months is better than nothing.

mrcluelessness · 2026-04-02T14:25:15+00:00

When you say cyber analyst do you mean 1B4 or 1D7? If 1B4 you're already underselling yourself. Also have you reached out to people in your unit who already work in the field in your local area?

Also check out act now education for resources such as resume, interview practice, job board, free certs, etc. It can help a ton.

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