Sarex

Ended up running the Windows 10 upgrade tool as the update that was failing was trying to install every other restart... Seriously MS...

Allegedly it was too sexist and too much boobs...

For my family, currently my sister is using it. But what I haven't mentioned is that it's a heavy ass thing (especially with that battery), so not much for mobility. I suspect it will soon be left to my parents as she gets a sleek aluminum Macbook wannabe.

Free market as long as it's dollar based.

I would think it's more due to the Chip manufacturing that China is doing on it's own and the fear of what would happen when they hit a level that starts to rival that of the US companies. They are doing the smart thing and preparing for the future, I really doubt it has anything to do with supporting the local economy.

An unusual build from me this time around, a laptop. An old Toshiba (now 10 years old), that I got because it wasn't being used. The biggest issue it had was that its battery was borked as it wasn't being used for years and so some of the cells went kaput as they they were completely discharged. I got a new battery double the capacity of the OEM (8800mAh) with the added benefit that it lifts the back of the laptop and provides better cooling. Next on the block was the CPU, it had a i5-2430M (2 cores/4 threads) which I replaced with a i7-2670QM (4 cores/8 threads). There wasn't anything better that was priced reasonably, the extreme versions were too expensive and for the 3xxx series I wasn't sure the MB bios would support it, although the socket was the same. Now came the issue of CPU throttling, it would lock the CPU to its lowest frequency at random times and would not unlock it until a reboot. I could not figure out the reason why apart from the driver support on Win10. I got a new cooler to eliminate thermals (it wasn't it) and searched the whole net to find a solution. What I settled on was installing ThrottleStop and that remedied that issue. Next on the agenda was the cracked plastic on the base around the cooler as is usually the case with laptops, I thought I lucked out with an ebay find of new old stock for the same model, but upon arrival and attempted assembly some of the MB screw holes were in a different position, I would have had to modify it to a point were the old case would be better. I was out of pocket on shipping both ways for that. What caught my eye next was the wifi card. It had an old Qualcomm/Atheros wifi/bluetooth card that couldn't even connect to a 5ghz network (got 30-40mb max), took ages on startup to connect to a network (again old laptop with old drives and Windows 10) and bluetooth that not all my devices could connect to. Upon researcher I found that intel wifi chips AX210 are being sold with the newest wifi 6e and bluetooth 5.2 (there are older intel chip versions available too). I first started looking in the US, but all that was available were AX200 and with the wrong antenna sockets. Looking further I found a reddit thread that said aliexpress had cards that worked, the biggest trouble was finding a mini PCI e card with the right antenna socket as recently aliexpress shipping to my country has become an issue so there aren't that many products that are available anymore. Luckily I found a supplier that had good reviews and a manufacturer that I was looking for. In a couple of weeks I got the card, installed it in the laptop downloaded the drivers from Intel and so far it works perfectly, I can even cast to another display now. So if you guys want the latest wifi/bluetooth standard on your laptop there is an easy and cheap way to do it. One more thing I tried was getting a 1080p display for it, but I figured out that the flat cable connector the MB has doesn't support it. Which sucks as it has a HDMI connector that can do 1080p and many other laptops from that time period had MBs with a connector that could connect to a 1080p display... The only issue the laptop has right now is a sound card that doesn't work due to driver support, thank you Conexant. I was able to find a driver which would install on win10 but the speakers still crackle when over 40% and the sound dies for a short time because the sound card overheats. There is a "solution" where you can install a copper plate over it which stops it from overheating, but I didn't bother with that as laptop speakers suck anyways. I have a good bluetooth speaker and headphone can easily be connected. For now that is pretty much it, still looking (not really) for a plastic base to replace my cracked one (which is really not that cracked) and will maybe get a 4gb ram stick to replace the 2gb that is in there for a total of 8gb. Oh yeah and **** MS, their latest Cumulative update fails to install for some reason so I will more then likely have to reinstall windows unless the next months update fixes it. edit: oh yeah and it has an SSD, but that was done before I got it. edit2: word of caution on the wifi card upgrade, Lenovo and HP (only for a certain time period for HP) laptops have a whitelist in bios that will only let their own cards work. So you would need to install a modified version of the bios to get around that. This goes for LTE modems too and in this case the whitelist exists on newer HP laptops too.

Stupid things happen, don't beat yourself up for it. It's the confidence that gets you, a perfect example being my colleague, regarded as a PC expert, who was in a process of RMAing a PSU because he figured that it was the culprit for his newly built PC not starting up. What ended up being the case was he didn't plug in the CPU power connectors... Still chuckle to this day when I remember that story.

Your company and mine may have done some business if that's the case.

The man doesn't have an ounce of QA in him.

Straight pipe?

I didn't get that one at all, maybe I'm just too stupid for it.

Ice, Pop Squad and the Christmas story were the best of the bunch for me.

Want to get in to that too, lots of dull knives in the house... What stones did he go for, what grade?

Last I hear they bombed a news outlet building which also housed a lot of their internet infrastructure, thou they gave warning beforehand for what's that worth.

Damn...Israel is really going to finish this thing. They are really going all out this time.

Riot Games has arguably the biggest budget in the world but still do it:

Finished Love, Death & Robots vol.2. While vol.1 remains my favorite media produced by Netflix, vol.2 is merely interesting. There are 8 episodes instead of 18, the animation is less varied and some of it is of lower quality. The story is ok at best, they dialed down on the intensity and weirdness. All in all, in my opinion, a lesser successor of the extraordinary original. Guess the writing was on the wall when they brought in Jennifer Yuh Nelson to dial down the series.

At least they made you feel wanted.

What do you mean by that, lol?

Fire/Fired either works.

You never know, someone could have burned down the building...Unless you are working from home, then I don't know...Maybe burn down your home?

Get with the times, nowadays everything's a comedy.