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atxcyclist

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Everything posted by atxcyclist

  1. atxcyclist
    Maybe these count as retro parts? The Altec Lansing 2.1 system I’ve been using since about 2009 suffered an amplifier failure the other day, leaving me speaker-less on my main machine. So after looking around on Amazon and whatnot for something OK, I remembered this system was sitting in a box at work. Now I work for family, and know these were purchased by a family member in 1995, and with a little cleaning of the adjustment potentiometers, and cleaning the connectors, they’re back up and going. It’s too late at night to really crank them, but they are truly exceptional for computer speakers. They do pick-up a slight bit of interference, not nearly as many high-frequency transmissions back then, but I think I can solve that with shielding the input cable with sleeving.
  2. atxcyclist
    The new Series X|S consoles are awesome, and though I thought nothing of this when I purchased a Series X last month, beyond gaming it has replaced all of the smart TV functionality in my display; It’s so much better than the versions of players/apps natively in my TV.
  3. atxcyclist
    Things to keep in mind: Torque converters in modern vehicles have a ‘lockup’ at higher engine RPM, so the driveline losses are as little as possible on the highway and at cruising speeds. 2002 vehicles are getting old, so there’s likely other wear in your clutch packs, possibly buildup in the valve body, or pressure drop through your filter. I’ve driven a few Ford Rangers, both 4-cylinder and V6, automatic and manual, and the 4-cyl automatic ones are really being asked to do a lot; The torque converter is going to be really ‘loose’ because it has to leave enough driveline cushion in low revs to not load the engine too much.
  4. atxcyclist
    A lot of old systems are plenty good, it’s just the security requirements for Windows 11 that will be an issue. The good news is that’s still nearly two years away, and the oldest compatible platforms will be even cheaper by then. None of the people that will need builds are gamers, as long as their hardware will be supported for a while it’s all good.
  5. atxcyclist
    Almost had something to post pictures of, but I foolishly let a good deal on some 7.65x53 surplus pass me by, totally forgot to set a reminder to check the auction before it ended. Hopefully I can procure some more brass, I think Privi Partisan in Serbia is the last company that makes it and it’s only in smallish batches.
  6. atxcyclist
    The market here in the U.S. is similar, though for most of the foreseeable builds, an 8th or 9th gen Intel or say a 3400g would be good enough; Most of these people do very basic computing tasks, but they’re also less savvy and so the need for a modern OS with protections is the most important thing rather than the newest platform. For reference, one of the builds has a triple-core Phenom II chip in it, and another has a 4th gen Xeon, something like a 3400g or 8400 would be a good upgrade in performance too, especially since NVMe storage even good DRAM drives are relatively cheap, same with reasonably-quick DDR4 2x8gb kits.
  7. atxcyclist
    Best bet is to get a hairdryer and gradually warm everything up, the drain line will be difficult unless you have access to all of the frozen parts.
  8. atxcyclist
    I have crammed a bunch of newer hardware into an old Dell case, and it has a top-mount PSU which I've replaced with a newer EVGA unit. This seems to work fine, thankfully there was a decent period of time when Dell was shipping 100% standard-compatible mATX cases including the power supply and panel connectors, but the fan arrangement it not great with a 92mm exhaust and nothing else, so the power supply fan is very welcome.
  9. atxcyclist
    I need to start getting some 2000-series Ryzen, motherboards, and ram. 8th gen and newer Intel stuff is still a bit expensive and also weaker, though getting an Intel chip with integrated graphics is much cheaper than a cheap Ryzen and a discrete Windows 11-compatible GPU.
  10. atxcyclist
    I was somewhat considering buying an Apple Watch, I don't need this O2 feature but if they're not going to be importing them... I guess their availability is going to be quite poor.
  11. atxcyclist
    I have a family member that was running an older Windows 7 machine, and I was so sketched-out that they would get some sort of malware that I built them a newer system with Windows 10. I would never daily a machine that wasn't getting routine security updates. When Windows 10 drops out of support, I am going to have a lot of work to do on the computers of family around me, several new builds will be necessary for Windows 11 support.
  12. atxcyclist
    Knowing nothing about the motorcycle market there, is something like a Yamaha TW200 or Suzuki VanVan 200 sold there? Not as flashy as a Duke 390 for sure, but the TW200 has been made a long time and you might be able to get an even better deal, and that could free some money for a laptop. If my metro area here in Texas wasn’t full of 100+ kph highways, I’d be on my Grom/MSX125 a lot more than my larger motorcycle, but even here the used market for Groms/MSX125 is crazy; Getting a good deal on a used one can be difficult.
  13. atxcyclist
    As both a gamer and a motorcycle rider, I’d take the Duke 390 over a laptop.
  14. atxcyclist
    The scariest thing about this situation, is that it’s actually better than what people will be doing 30 years from now; At least there are physical master tapes/storage media from shows at that time. With many things being streamed exclusively now, and the small incentive a studio has to store that data for smaller shows and movies, there will be a lot of things lost.
  15. atxcyclist
    They also joined within a minute of making that comment as well.
  16. atxcyclist
    I cannot remember a single time a customs sticker on a box from China, accurately described the contents. The last package I received claimed it was a 'kitchen tool' or similar, and it was actually a motorcycle accessory.
  17. atxcyclist
    It sucks that many MacOS games simply don't work anymore. Rosetta 2 doesn't have any compatibility for 32-bit programs, so that's out. Valve is refusing to update old software to 64-bit (which is silly since CS:GO had it so all Source-based games could be patched), and AFAIK they removed Apple Silicon compatibility with Counter Strike 2. Bethesda just decided that they wouldn't support Elder Scrolls Online on Apple Silicon even though older versions were. It's clear that 32-bit computing isn't coming back, so... why are companies actively removing compatibility, or refusing to update software with working 64-bit engines they've deployed previously; It's all nonsensical. It could be translation-layered to all hell and back and I could run TF2 or Half-Life 2 in macOS on a modern Apple Silicon machine, there's just no way to do it without buying Parallels and a Win 11 key, or using some fairly janky WINE-ish software under MacOS.
  18. atxcyclist
    Whatever the case may be, it needed better engineering or they should have scrapped it. Clearly it has a bunch of failure points and the old standard was working just fine.
  19. atxcyclist
    Or NVIDIA should have just kept using the standard PCIe power connectors. The proprietary connectors team green have been coming up with are just over-engineering for no good reason. These top-tier GPUs are huge, having three or four 8-pin PCIe connectors running to them isn’t a big deal. I really want a 4070 Ti, but I’m not going to buy something with one of these problematic connectors. I’d go with a 4070 instead since most use 8-pin standard connectors.
  20. atxcyclist
    It sucks that 26” MTB is basically gone, the last bicycle I built was a 26” full rigid with discs and slicks, I am convinced that is the best commuter. Absolutely bombproof and I have a short inseam, so even a 27.5” gets funky geometry if it’s small enough for my legs.
  21. atxcyclist
    Best Buy was running a crazy deal on XBOX Series X consoles, and since I've been mulling-over a purchase for a few years, I finally took the plunge. $339 US with free shipping, cannot beat that deal.
  22. atxcyclist
    I love watching these manufacturers getting called-out, when I put together my two-channel setup years ago I needed chest-waders to get through all the BS around audio equipment. It has to be one of the most scam-heavy industries out there.
  23. atxcyclist
    I ride a motorcycle most days, we have plenty of brodozers and etc. here in Texas but I don't want to drive one. I am hanging-on to a nearly twenty-year-old small hatchback and some day I will probably have to replace it, but there's just not anything new on the market I'd truly want for basic vehicle duty.
  24. atxcyclist
    Just a general car grievance as I think this is a good place to pose this question: Why are all the inexpensive small cars going away in the United States? There are no longer any objectively small cars here, it's actually really stupid to me. Many people (myself included), don't need or want some bloated SUV to commute to work or buy groceries, so why is this segment almost completely gone? I guess I missed it, but the Fiat 500 is gone, the Honda Fit is gone, the Toyota Yaris is gone, and basically anything else in that class has just vanished. I realize EPA mileage requirements are a thing, and there is a curve that makes small cars more difficult to get into the required range, but some people actually just don't want a larger car; Even something like a Corolla or Civic is quite large these days, compared to a three-door hatch from the early 2000's. We're going backwards, smaller vehicles take up less space to park and in lines of traffic, we should be moving to smaller vehicles for city commuting/living.
  25. atxcyclist
    Yep, and the thing about internet humor from that timeframe (including Maddox’s work), is that a lot of it was brain food for edgelords, like people that exclusively listened to Rage Against the Machine. I knew a lot of people that read his site and Maddox always seemed unstable.
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