I did check the status of my IRA RMD's, to make sure they were scheduled by end of year, and feeling the need for some fresh air, went out and lopped a lot of mostly dead brush that was hiding a magnificent 30 foot tall (or more) Manzanita tree's trunk.
I sent some photos to my family.
I don't like crowds, in person or online. My mom introduced me to "Walden" by Thoreau at an early age, and hence to Transcendentalism. Thoreau wrote a translation of the Lotus Sutra, I later found out.
Sometimes, the best things are already there, just hidden.
Samsung frame TV, they're about 33% off this week from the typical price.
I know it has mixed reviews with the tech crowd but everyone I know that's gotten one for primarily aesthetic reasons loves it. I have an open floor plan apartment with not a ton of wall space, so I'm optimistic it will be a good way to have a TV when needed without making the TV such a focal point of the room. I'm also looking forward to getting exposed to new artwork in the shuffle mode.
Our living room is made of windows and direct sunlight is a nightmare for most TVs. We don't wish to cover our windows every time we watch a show or kick on the nintendo switch, as we like having a house with tons of light and windows :)
We LOVE our frame TV. Its anti-glare is awesome. The samsung nagware and UI suck, but I've not found anything nearly as good.
it's a nice TV, though I prefer the video quality of LG screens. Samsung's tv OS though is better than LG's in general, although it could be much better. Enjoy it :-)
I went on slickdeals.net to see if there was anything worth picking up and I was interested to see that a lot of the “most popular deals” were actually various discounts for services or digital goods. The rest were deals for smallish electronics accessories (chargers and such). It’s possible that website has built a profile on me and was showing me what it thinks I’m already interested in, but nonetheless it struck me that people don’t really go after material goods the same way they used to. Perhaps “Black Friday” doesn’t really work when there isn’t the opportunity to upsell on other items after the person is already at the physical store.
I also went to Costco to pick up regular food type stuff and was surprised to see it relatively empty (I expected to have to do battle over my 2 dozen eggs and etc). Even employees seemed to be surprised at the low turnout. Free alpha on consumer sentiment I guess?
Black Friday is a stupid "holiday" that only drives people to buy more shit that they don't need. So nothing.
Apologies for the harsh response. It's not directed towards you. I went on walks around a suburb I live in for two years, and the number of garages PACKED FULL of absolute crap was astounding (usually while having two cars parked right in front of it, usually partially or entirely blocking the sidewalk). When I think of Black Friday, I think of that.
Nice looking case! I got the OEM starlink travel case ($250) and was quite pleased with it. Even has backpack straps, though I'm not going far from the vehicle with starlink.
Nearly bought a portable monitor for cafe coding; it's just so great that there's a huge variety of panels being packaged & made available at decent prices now! 2k 16" 500 nit >60Hz HDR was my goal, and it was hard finding parametric matches. Just gonna put that idea on the shelf again, but it's excellent to see how much more is available.
Almost bought a "solar generator" to run some electronics off & feel good about, but sizing feels off. I need a signficant power station to feel ok running a potentially 600w+ computer, but then the station could handle more solar, but then I don't have enough ways to use all that power day to day. It feels weird. I wish I had the years to artisinally handcraft power systems for this all. It bugs me that 48v or wide-Vin DC power supplies aren't available to consumers; everything would be so much cooler if they were.
I did end up buying a couple hundred feet of cheap st38 string lights for patio space. And some small cheap 20w Neewer lights (rgb62), with their app control, to complement some bigger lights I use. And some better videography clamp mounts and magic ball arms, which among other things I want to use to mount my 360-degree camera onto my bicycle with, on a very extended arm for some spacy floaty ride around the city videos with. Bought a 512GB Samsung Pro Ultimate SD card for said camera. Finally bought the Premio Apagard toothpaste (nano hydroxyapatite) that I've been idling about. Bought some chai and some tea candles. Bought a Matter smart plug to dabble with.
* Pixel 8 to replace my Pixel 3, which doesn't get security updates. I was happy with my Pixel 3, but trading in my Pixel 3 gave a 50% discount, on top of the Pixel 8 discount. I figure Pixel 3 trade ins won't be so generous in future, and Pixel 8 is an outlier in Android update support (2030!). 570 AUD.
* Thinkpad t480s from EBay, who had a November discount. I had no laptop! 300 AUD.
* Electronics tools/consumables from Aliexpress. 100 AUD?
No video games. I'm having fun playing my backlog on the Steam Deck.
I tried looking and comparing deals on budget battery powered lawn tools (mower, string trimmer). Greenworks looked to be the most affordable but there was just so many different models that the choice overload made me give up. I didn’t want my entire holiday eaten up by shopping.
(If anyone has recommendations on what features actually matter on these things and what to get, I’m all ears.)
I bought a Beelink mini PC to replace the cloud VM that hosts a few things for me. I'm tired of resizing my little EBS volumes, and want to store more data. At the discounted price, I should be saving money in about a year with substantially better specs... not including the cost of my time in figuring out backups and all that nonsense.
Do you roof mount them? How do things go this time of the year, assuming you're in a winter hemisphere, regarding portable-tier solar?
I did this maybe 12 years ago in a very small RV for 18 months. I found during winter I needed to be sure I drove around a bit more to charge up my batteries.
Nothing. Thanksgiving weekend is my favorite holiday time because the focus is on hanging out with family and not buying anything except food and maybe experiences.
In the spirit of the original post, though, there are a few items on my list of things to consider buying because I want them, but nothing pressing.
My shoes were worn out so I bought new shoes. And my left mouse button wore out so I bought a new mouse. And my legs are worn out so I bought a theragun. (Those were bought earlier this week, actually, but 2/3 were on sale). Today I bought some groceries.
Desktops been acting weird lately. Built it in 2017 so bought a new nvme drive with enclosure. Gonna clone and swap it out, hopefully the odd issues get sorted out
HP G9 600 mini to run proxmox in my pretend homelab. You can add non heterogenous memory and add in a second 10gbe nic. Then upgrade the nvmes.
They’re really discounted on the hp site right now. Tempting…
[+] [-] k310|2 years ago|reply
I did check the status of my IRA RMD's, to make sure they were scheduled by end of year, and feeling the need for some fresh air, went out and lopped a lot of mostly dead brush that was hiding a magnificent 30 foot tall (or more) Manzanita tree's trunk. I sent some photos to my family.
I don't like crowds, in person or online. My mom introduced me to "Walden" by Thoreau at an early age, and hence to Transcendentalism. Thoreau wrote a translation of the Lotus Sutra, I later found out.
Sometimes, the best things are already there, just hidden.
[+] [-] Animats|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reustle|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw0101b|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vinniepukh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caddemon|2 years ago|reply
I know it has mixed reviews with the tech crowd but everyone I know that's gotten one for primarily aesthetic reasons loves it. I have an open floor plan apartment with not a ton of wall space, so I'm optimistic it will be a good way to have a TV when needed without making the TV such a focal point of the room. I'm also looking forward to getting exposed to new artwork in the shuffle mode.
[+] [-] schmookeeg|2 years ago|reply
We LOVE our frame TV. Its anti-glare is awesome. The samsung nagware and UI suck, but I've not found anything nearly as good.
[+] [-] thund|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bosch_mind|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] extr|2 years ago|reply
I also went to Costco to pick up regular food type stuff and was surprised to see it relatively empty (I expected to have to do battle over my 2 dozen eggs and etc). Even employees seemed to be surprised at the low turnout. Free alpha on consumer sentiment I guess?
[+] [-] nunez|2 years ago|reply
Apologies for the harsh response. It's not directed towards you. I went on walks around a suburb I live in for two years, and the number of garages PACKED FULL of absolute crap was astounding (usually while having two cars parked right in front of it, usually partially or entirely blocking the sidewalk). When I think of Black Friday, I think of that.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|2 years ago|reply
https://nanuk.com/products/nanuk-960 ($100 off for Black Friday)
Special edition coffee from a roaster I was introduced to.
https://www.modest.coffee/product/2023-special-collector/
(just happy with these products, no affiliation, not compensated in any way)
[+] [-] drewnick|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jauntywundrkind|2 years ago|reply
Nearly bought a portable monitor for cafe coding; it's just so great that there's a huge variety of panels being packaged & made available at decent prices now! 2k 16" 500 nit >60Hz HDR was my goal, and it was hard finding parametric matches. Just gonna put that idea on the shelf again, but it's excellent to see how much more is available.
Almost bought a "solar generator" to run some electronics off & feel good about, but sizing feels off. I need a signficant power station to feel ok running a potentially 600w+ computer, but then the station could handle more solar, but then I don't have enough ways to use all that power day to day. It feels weird. I wish I had the years to artisinally handcraft power systems for this all. It bugs me that 48v or wide-Vin DC power supplies aren't available to consumers; everything would be so much cooler if they were.
I did end up buying a couple hundred feet of cheap st38 string lights for patio space. And some small cheap 20w Neewer lights (rgb62), with their app control, to complement some bigger lights I use. And some better videography clamp mounts and magic ball arms, which among other things I want to use to mount my 360-degree camera onto my bicycle with, on a very extended arm for some spacy floaty ride around the city videos with. Bought a 512GB Samsung Pro Ultimate SD card for said camera. Finally bought the Premio Apagard toothpaste (nano hydroxyapatite) that I've been idling about. Bought some chai and some tea candles. Bought a Matter smart plug to dabble with.
[+] [-] christofi|2 years ago|reply
* Thinkpad t480s from EBay, who had a November discount. I had no laptop! 300 AUD.
* Electronics tools/consumables from Aliexpress. 100 AUD?
No video games. I'm having fun playing my backlog on the Steam Deck.
[+] [-] mac-attack|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnicholas|2 years ago|reply
I made this jump when the M2 MBA came out. It’s amazing. The only thing you’ll miss about the Intel MBP is the built-in white noise generator.
This year, I bought some GaN bricks and USB-C cables. Prices were somewhat better than normal but not amazing.
One trick for getting more out of Black Friday is stacking an Amex offer (I used a $20 off $100 at Untuckit) with retailers’ sale pricing.
[+] [-] kylehotchkiss|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BMc2020|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vinniepukh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hysan|2 years ago|reply
(If anyone has recommendations on what features actually matter on these things and what to get, I’m all ears.)
[+] [-] ioddly|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bicx|2 years ago|reply
And then some Lectric e-bikes, to use up all that extra electricity.
[+] [-] joe_guy|2 years ago|reply
I did this maybe 12 years ago in a very small RV for 18 months. I found during winter I needed to be sure I drove around a bit more to charge up my batteries.
[+] [-] meristohm|2 years ago|reply
In the spirit of the original post, though, there are a few items on my list of things to consider buying because I want them, but nothing pressing.
[+] [-] ksherlock|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evbogue|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnicholas|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewstuart|2 years ago|reply
It's like the Force.
[+] [-] labster|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vinniepukh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhickey|2 years ago|reply
* Glasses. Earlier in the week I broke one pair and then another pair spontaneously broke last night.
[+] [-] cityguy33|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigmattystyles|2 years ago|reply
https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-elite-mini-600-g9-deskt...