What was your last “impulse buy” and was it worth it?
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A pair of GMRS walkie-talkies (~$70) an associated license (~$35) a better whip antenna for the first (~$12) and a magnetic mount antenna (~$35) that I threw on a high shelf in a closet or could move to a vehicle if desired.
They can hit a publicly open but privately owned repeater about 20 miles away, which has been interesting. Means that I can radio contact over about a 50 mile radius which covers my city pretty well.
There’s a lot of chatter on the repeater, mostly from “prepper” types who want to be prepared if the cell system crashes. They’re kind of politically right leaning, which sucks but hey, it’s their repeater so I don’t participate a lot.
The radios I got have GPS sharing so they’re nice for any backwoods hikes as you can pinpoint each other and that’s a nice safety feature.
Are they worth it? I guess so. $150 to get fairly deep into a new hobby isnt budget breaking for me, but the actual usefulness is kinda limited when cell towers are most everywhere, even in places like campgrounds of most major cities
I've gotten really into radio over the past year or so. The most practical usage I've gotten is a few FRS radios (licence free walkie talkies, like what we used as kids basically) at a renn fest that has no cell service and at a pride event when someone didn't wanna take their phone to a porta potty (better to risk accidentally drop a $10 radio into the toilet than an expensive smart phone with all your pictures).
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
Made a lateral upgrade from GTX 1080 to 6600XT. The performance is more or less the same but compatibility with Linux is much better for gaming. Games finally "just work" and was totally worth it for me
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If I didn't do it as an impulse, I would not have done it. I hated my set up for quite some time and I always was like: "some day but not today." For 2 years I was like next time... Until a night a few weeks ago I went to my room with a measuring tape and ordered everything I felt needed change. I started at 10pm and was done by 2 am. I had forgotten to order a new mousepad and now I'm once again in the mode: "next time I'll order it for sure."
Get a trackball and you won't even need a mousepad!
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
A New! Nintendo 3DS XL because I did not like the form factor of my Nintendo 2DS (also an impulse buy). I bought a bunch of cheap games and I’ve been playing Pokemon Sun a bit.
Also bought an e-bike. I haven’t had a bike in a while and I used to walk around the neighborhood or to the store all the time. I moved to an area that the grocery store is pretty far to walk to and it’s very hilly. The e-bike is great for going up those hills. It’s a pedal assist (no throttle acceleration) and I try to minimize how much I use the actual assist so I can get a workout too. It’s been great and I’ve taken it to the grocery store and library a few times. I bought it when I did because I knew tariffs were going to affect the pricing. The company recently said they are raising prices due to tariffs, so I think it was a wise decision.
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Hairband. It's fine
So did you choose Motley Crüe, Poison, maybe Cinderella?
What are their care and feeding habits?
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
I instantly and impulsively pre-ordered a special superduper collector's edition of Lake Mungo for ~£80. I probably shouldn't have done that. I love the film and will no doubt love the goodies and bonus features, but 80 fucking quid...
https://shop.umbrellaent.com.au/products/lake-mungo-2008-4k-blu-ray-collectors-edition
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Made a lateral upgrade from GTX 1080 to 6600XT. The performance is more or less the same but compatibility with Linux is much better for gaming. Games finally "just work" and was totally worth it for me
Mildly interesting, as I just did nearly the same, going from a GTX970 to a Radeon 8570. Did not have the same "it just works" experience however. But I blame that more on my lack of Linux knowledge than the video card.
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
Mini Cheetos in a tube and god fucking yes it was worth it, first time I've ever eaten Cheetos and had clean hands.
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
Telepathic Orchid. Jury is still out but the cons should be fixable via firmware updates.
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
A small 8 inch laptop that can fit in my everyday bag. It hasn't arrived yet, so I'm not sure if it'll be worth it.
It's my usual birthday purchase impulse, the one time I allow myself to splurge for something for no other reason than "I want"
I hope to use it to wean myself off of phone apps and have something that is more under my control while I'm outside.
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
My last impulse buy was chocolate cover caramel popcorn, very tasty. Food is the only thing I impulse buy.
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Mildly interesting, as I just did nearly the same, going from a GTX970 to a Radeon 8570. Did not have the same "it just works" experience however. But I blame that more on my lack of Linux knowledge than the video card.
I have a GTX970 but upgrading it would mean I have to upgrade the motherboard, the rams, etc etc etc
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
5 dollar jar of pickles. Damn good
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I have a GTX970 but upgrading it would mean I have to upgrade the motherboard, the rams, etc etc etc
You dont really have to, but you would probably bottleneck a new card pretty badly if the cpu is from around the same timeframe as the 970
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A small 8 inch laptop that can fit in my everyday bag. It hasn't arrived yet, so I'm not sure if it'll be worth it.
It's my usual birthday purchase impulse, the one time I allow myself to splurge for something for no other reason than "I want"I hope to use it to wean myself off of phone apps and have something that is more under my control while I'm outside.
may i ask which model it is? im looking for something similar lol
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You dont really have to, but you would probably bottleneck a new card pretty badly if the cpu is from around the same timeframe as the 970
it was all pretty sweet back in 2013
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 260. Stuck Linux mint on it (because I'm a Linux noob). £170, cheap.
It's pretty great. I just wish I could get a consistent touchscreen experience because I like to fold the keyboard back and use it like a tablet in bed. It works like a charm on Firefox, but outside of that, the touchscreen is hit or miss. I just want it to work like an iPad or Android tablet in terms of navigation (swipes, long presses, etc.)
Overall though I'm pretty happy with it. Excellent for torrenting and file management and mostly lightweight shit.
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Fancy jar of honey from the grocery store for me. Tasted pretty good.
I bought a pint for an acquaintance at my philosophy discussion group because he was moving away and this was his last session. I'm pretty poor at the moment, so even a small purchase like this was a lot. It was definitely worth it though, because it convinced him to stay for a while longer than he would have (the group session is held upstairs in a pub, but afterwards there's usually informal discussions that continue downstairs in the main pub).
It felt very much like I was performing human socialisation in a deliberate, but nice way. I already told the dude that I would miss his presence at the group, but buying a farewell drink for him was a way of reiterating that sentiment.
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Made a lateral upgrade from GTX 1080 to 6600XT. The performance is more or less the same but compatibility with Linux is much better for gaming. Games finally "just work" and was totally worth it for me
My current computer is the one that I helped my late best friend build, and I'm so glad that we ended up going for an AMD GPU. I wasn't using Linux back then (and neither was he), so it was just a lucky fluke. My switch to running Linux as my main operating system would've been far more stressful with a Nvidia GPU, it seems.
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A pair of GMRS walkie-talkies (~$70) an associated license (~$35) a better whip antenna for the first (~$12) and a magnetic mount antenna (~$35) that I threw on a high shelf in a closet or could move to a vehicle if desired.
They can hit a publicly open but privately owned repeater about 20 miles away, which has been interesting. Means that I can radio contact over about a 50 mile radius which covers my city pretty well.
There’s a lot of chatter on the repeater, mostly from “prepper” types who want to be prepared if the cell system crashes. They’re kind of politically right leaning, which sucks but hey, it’s their repeater so I don’t participate a lot.
The radios I got have GPS sharing so they’re nice for any backwoods hikes as you can pinpoint each other and that’s a nice safety feature.
Are they worth it? I guess so. $150 to get fairly deep into a new hobby isnt budget breaking for me, but the actual usefulness is kinda limited when cell towers are most everywhere, even in places like campgrounds of most major cities
Oh buddy, let me tell you about amateur radio... If you're having a good time on gmrs, consider exploring the ham hobby. So much fun. There's a lot more landscape to explore than just gmrs gives you. And welcome to the world of RF!
