So I kind of impulsively bought a Steam Deck OLED this weekend, I hadn’t really done much research and I haven’t really played any games in about 15 years.
Now I have to wait for it to be delivered and, I’m worried this is something I’ll use a few times and forget about it.
What’s something you impulsively bought and fell in love with?
I bought an E-Bike, the impulsive bit was not getting a normal bike.
I kinda just figured it would be fun, and probably useful for some longer trips through the city. It ended up being one of the most empowering things I’ve ever owned, I have a pretty nasty health condition with lots of really bad fatigue and I live in a hilly area. I was able to look after myself to a whole new level, it was in almost every way a mobility aid for me, it made it possible for me to get supplies and meds on bad days it was a game changer.
Anyway it got stolen a couple of weeks ago so that’s cool
Sounds awesome (except the stealing part)!
My local government is pushing for people to bike more instead of driving, but if you have a decent-looking bike it will be stolen. Bike theft is so bad that there is a satirical movement to oppose biking until the bike theft situation has been dealt with.
Yeah my current bike is literally just an abandoned bike that I repaired, so I doubt anyone’s gonna want to steal it. If I get another E-Bike I’ll be a lot more particular about where and when I leave it, and use multiple locks
My HP ProLiant DL380 Gen8 (awesome name, ik)
Was randomly scrolling through a local 2nd hand marketplace and saw it for an absolutely killer price and just bought it.
Thing’s been great as a homelab/VM server/ Local dev server/NAS.
I went from DL380g6 to DL380g9 they are quite powerful for what you get. Also very noisy though. I have installed two p40s. I love it.
A donation to PragerU
Eww
This is a parody account. Do not feed.
I have power tools. I had like 7 batteries for them. I saw that they offered a USB adapter so I could charge my cell phones. $20. I quickly stopped using wall warts and standard battery packs. 5 amp hours, hot swappable, always a battery in the charger so I could never run out of power. Power tool batteries are built to higher specs than typical cell phone chargers so they didn’t die after 10 chargers. The batteries are rugged so a drop doesn’t destroy them.
My tools were stolen. I replaced all my Makita with Harbor Freight Hercules brand, their premium brand. Half the cost of Makita and actually better designed in a lot of areas. I quickly bought the USB adapter because I could never live without it again.
If you have power tools and always use them, I’m a handyman, then a USB adapter is a must.
Steam deck.
A cheap beginner bass guitar. I was like man will I play bass even? I’m a drummer mainly but I also play a decent amount of piano bc my main drum things are drum set and marimba and I played synth for 1 season in drum corp. I got a bass because I wanted to actually try playing bass parts for songs instead of clicking them in. It does sound better (well, eventually it did) but it’s just really fun to play. Like I had also bought a $100 used guitar and I just find playing that a chore. I can play a few songs but I’m a permanent beginner and have no real interest in growing. The bass though? I play that like an hour a day and it’s actually cutting into my drum and piano time
What bass did you end up buying? I’m thinking about getting an inexpensive one to add variety to my beginner/intermediate guitar skills. Some days I just want to play quarter notes along with songs I like.
I’d recommend a P-bass clone. If you get serious enough about it you could drop in a legitimate pickup, which are passive – no 9v.
Ibanez gsr200. Got it used locally for $150 in really good shape, basically never played. But new they’re like $200. Yamaha tsr/trbx was the other option I was looking at, similar price range. Both had pretty excellent reviews as long as you kept in mind they’re beginner basses but they’re very solid.
I did go to a shop and played them both before buying. Pretty comparable. Main differences were Yamaha was a bit heavier and Yamaha has 24 frets vs 22 on the Ibanez. The Ibanez is also not a passive bass, it has a bass boost circuit. It’s the smaller 4th knob on the front of the bass. This means the bass needs a 9v battery which some people may not like. Also means you can give the sound a bit of texture/growl when you want, or you can just leave it off for a clean tone.
I do like Yamaha gear a lot, my primary workstation/synth is a Yamaha and it’s been a workhorse for me since literally 2007, played almost daily and been on several tours. I also have a Yamaha marimba I got cheap from one of the corps I marched in like 09 or so and it’s held up great despite the fact that it was certainly abused in its former life, played hard, and toured constantly (plus I still play it regularly). But the Ibanez was a sweet deal and I didn’t want to spend too much (as you can see I’ve already spent way too goddamn much on music gear in my life)
Also shoutout to rocksmith, which has been so awesome
As someone who has taught a lot of beginner students, Ive seen more kids quit due to having a crappy instrument than due to any lack of desire or ability.
You probably got a good beginner, and a crappy guitar that makes it a chore.
A good setup MIGHT be able to save the guitar.
My guess is that if you are comfortable learning bass and marimba, you can handle guitar. You just need one thats playable!
I genuinely think I just can’t get into guitar. I played piano from 4 years old, I played drums from 4th grade, i played marimba and synth in wgi and dci, so playing for long hours and practicing hours on end is not something I’m not accustomed to, but for whatever reason I just can’t get into guitar.
For posterity my guitar is an epiphone les Paul clone. I don’t remember the exact model off hand. You are certainly correct that it’s crappy, it literally cost me $100 (back in like 2014 or so), but I think it’s serviceable, at least
Portable projector. I don’t have a TV in my room, but I use the projector all the time. I can point it on the ceiling or the walls. I can connect my hard drive to it, or stream to it. It even has access to apps so I can log into, say, YouTube directly on the device. I love it. It’s was something I kept saying I didn’t need (and it’s true, I would have survived), but it’s been a swell experience.
There are so many you have to tell us which one you like.
Meta Quest 3. I had been saving for a Valve Index but I was getting impatient. Turns out it was an amazing buy and (for me personally) having an untethered headset was more important than I realized. My computer room is small but my living room has plenty of space. Plus the Steam Link app works so well nowadays I can still play Steam VR games but wirelessly anywhere in my house. Pretty awesome deal for something that costed half the price.
Hi-Point .45 carbine, total impulse buy but it scratched several itches.
For those that don’t know, Hi-Points are stupid cheap and stupid looking guns. But everyone says they work great, so I was Hi-curious, if you will. The design makes me think they took a gang of skilled engineers, showed them pictures of guns, and said, “Make one.” Everything about the assembly is bizarre, no idea how to take it apart.
Stumbled on this thing for $300. Love me some .45, wanted a PCC (short rifle that shoots pistol rounds) and it’s white, looks like a Stormtrooper rifle! True to their rep, it won’t misfire, even with the cheapest remanufactured ammo. Taking it out today, it’s a hoot. God help me if it ever needs cleaned.
I bought their 9 mil a while back and when I got it I took it out to the range to test fire it. Some decent Winchester ammo, fired through the first clip fine.
Loaded up the second clip fired five shots, misfire, turned the gun to the side about 30° and downward with my finger off the trigger and the gun clicked and fired at the ground.
That was the scariest shit. If I hadn’t had the small modicum of trigger and pointing discipline that I have I could have shot someone without pulling the trigger.
I never fired that gun again, and I am now radically against hipoint weaponry
7 watt blue laser I bought for shits and giggles. Didn’t realize just how stupid powerful that is. Now I feel like I have a highly effective long range weapon in a country that bans almost all kinds of weapons. It won’t blast through skin but I guarantee if someone points it at you and keeps it on you’re going to run, and FAST.
If I ever get bothered by illegal drones, I can also use it to destroy the camera from far away. One fraction of a second and any optical sensor is 100% toast.
One concern I have with those things is people casually using them outside. I mean, I’m not a big fan of heavy regulation in general, and I also think that lasers are cool devices, but even if someone’s got eye protection – which I would be using if messing around with something at that kind of power – and is not trying to aim at someone, it’s damned easy to flash that across someone else’s eyes, and that’s way outside of the range where your blink reflex is fast enough to avoid permanent eye damage.
I mean, most people won’t take a firearm and go blasting the thing randomly in a city or something. They register that they can mess up whoever the thing is being aimed at. But there are people who will be dicking around with seriously souped up lasers without regard for who might be downrange.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety
A Class 2 laser is considered to be safe because the blink reflex (glare aversion response to bright lights) will limit the exposure to no more than 0.25 seconds. It only applies to visible-light lasers (400–700 nm). Class 2 lasers are limited to 1 mW continuous wave, or more if the emission time is less than 0.25 seconds or if the light is not spatially coherent. Intentional suppression of the blink reflex could lead to eye injury. Some laser pointers and measuring instruments are class 2.
Like, that’s 1 mW that’s listed as the max for safe exposure before the blink reflex is no longer able to protect a human eye against permanent damage. You’re talking about a 7,000 mW laser, almost five orders of magnitude up the scale.
And that’s not even considering the fact that there are various reflective surfaces that can be hit, can be riccocheting the thing all over.
Like, at that kind of power, if a laser isn’t in some kind of confined case or something, that’s something where I’d want someone using it a room with eye protection on everyone in the room, only adults present (so some kid doesn’t yank off their eye protection or something), an access-restricted door, and a warning sign on that door telling people that high-power lasers may be in use.
Here’s a laser engraver that uses less than half of the power of that laser:
https://www.amazon.com/Bisofice-Engraving-Accuracy-Household-Woodwork/dp/B0BVVRFN5L/
You’re absolutely right. I don’t play around with that thing lightly - it actually requires a physical key to unlock before use. I also don’t intend to mess with wildlife or whatever, or risk any kind of fires. It’ll be used indoors, in a shielded basement, while wearing the appropriate safety gear.
Many years ago, some guy was trying to impress my girlfriend with his super powerful laser pointer by shining it on a building a few miles away. He shoved it in his pocket very fast when she told him he was shining it at a hospital.
An unkind part of me was pleased when less than 30 seconds later it was revealed that he forgot to do whatever he needed to do to prevent it from turning on accidentally, and bumped it, burning his pocket/pants slightly, and getting soot inside the lens.
An electric keyboard (Casio Privia s1100). I played the trumpet in high school and wanted to get back to it but trumpets agent exactly the kind of thing you can practice regularly when living in an apartment. One weekend I decided I was just going to switch instruments and picked up a keyboard I could play with headphones on. Its been almost two years now and I love it.
Honestly, steam deck lol
It’s an odd form factor that people don’t really have much experience with, hence they don’t really know how useful it’ll be to them. To be fair to myself, I had been holding back on purchasing one until maybe a year after the initial launch, so I think I would personally describe my experience as a leap of faith.
In any case, it turns out to be a great little thing. There’s a lot of games in my backlog that don’t feel “desktop-y,” and therefore I’ve never played them, if that makes sense. But with a handheld form factor, now I have more motivation to go through those games. Emulation on the steam deck has also been great, for a similar reason. And sometimes I just want to be in bed than on my desktop. Or sometimes I’m just on the bus or waiting for something.
I think SteamOS also taught me how usable Linux was, and that’s been pretty instrumental in getting me to minimize my Windows dependence
Same, it’s the holy grail of gaming, such a great device that keeps getting better.
This makes me feel so much better! Its kind of one of my thoughts, playing the steam deck in bed, those evenings where you don’t really want to do much but also aren’t fully ready to go to sleep!
You’ve definitely given me some reassurance 🙂
Steam Deck is definitely one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. And I don’t play a ton of games these days.
My wife and I have our own separate ones. It’s such a blast and we also got gog/itch working on them.
Emudeck is fun too.
Are you using a controller friendly front end for gog/itch? I haven’t found anything that’s comfortable for using them
My collection is small enough that I just hook into steam. You can add non steam executables so then you can use your controller. You can even set up mappings. If you find a more all in one setup let me know.
Heroic launcher supports gog
I got a robot vaccuum cleaner (Samsung Jet Bot), and while pricey it’s saved me so much time and effort keeping my apartment clean. Definitely worth the money.
A $1 grand piano off of eBay. I had been looking around on stuff like FB Marketplace for a “real” piano after learning with a really basic keyboard for a while, and happened across a gorgeous 6’1" grand piano on eBay. It was reasonably close, the ad said it was in good working order, and they took very detailed pictures of basically every single flaw in the case. I called up a piano mover, and had them pick it up from the church, sight unseen. I was so worried that I’d made a mistake, given that the moving was still about $400, but I got insanely lucky, with a beautiful looking and sounding piano worth about $5k for basically just the cost of moving it.
Haunted piano?
So far, no ghosts yet! Only haunted by the vague odor of the church it was in before, so it kind of smells like an old lady’s house, but it’s going away pretty quickly.
Even $5k is extremely cheap for a good 6’1" grand piano in good condition.
I went on the low side since it’s not in perfect shape and is an older (1985) Young-Chang built Wurlitzer. It was a church piano so it has some bushing wear in the keys, but still very playable, and had a broken string on D2 that was an easy $50 fix. I think after moving, tuning, the string, and eventually rebushing it in the next year or so, I’ll have about $900-1000 into it all said and done. Still definitely a pretty inexpensive piano overall, but understandable why they might not have wanted to put money into something that was probably a donation to begin with.
What an amazing story! Its always amazing the stuff you can find second hand 😁
A bed, and now I’m having gooood sleep
Never underestimate the importance of having a good sleep! ❤️
Now get a thick memory foam mattress topper and never want to leave bed again!
