{"id":145,"date":"2002-10-30T21:30:08","date_gmt":"2002-10-31T02:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/wordpress\/cheapskate_older_brother"},"modified":"2002-10-30T21:30:08","modified_gmt":"2002-10-31T02:30:08","slug":"cheapskate_older_brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/2002\/10\/cheapskate_older_brother.html","title":{"rendered":"Cheapskate Older Brother"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I still can&#8217;t help myself&#8230; I still read Slashdot, mostly just to get a laugh from the comments on the <a href=\"http:\/\/science.slashdot.org\/science\/02\/10\/29\/2310247.shtml?tid=134\" title=\"Multiple Universes!  Discuss!\">physics<\/a> articles.  Man, I really need to grow up. Although even I have to admit that every once in a while, a poster rises above the usual level of inanity:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><code>mccalli<\/code> (commenting on the phrase, &#8220;multiple universes&#8221;): This is one of my pet hates. By the very definition of the word, there can only be one <em>uni<\/em>verse. Or are the definitions now being changed?<\/p>\n<p><code>SEWilco<\/code> (in response to <code>mccalli<\/code>&#8216;s comment):   Note to God: <em>Remember to make English better in next universe<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So, Sarah&#8217;s computer is looking decent now.  At first the system refused to boot into Windows 2000 &#8212; it would <em>almost<\/em> launch the desktop, but then the screen would go blue spit hexadecimal gibberish at me.  So I booted off the CD, planning to reinstall the OS, when Windows gave me an option:  do you want to <em>repair<\/em> the OS, or do a clean install?  Well, what the hell, I thought.  I asked for a repair&#8230; and to my great shock, it worked.  There&#8217;s my old desktop (&#8220;Spenser&#8221;), perfectly preserved.  I&#8217;m probably going to wipe it clean anyway, but I feel kind of sad and nostalgic looking at it.  I can&#8217;t bring myself to kill it now.  I should feel glee, or righteous vengeance, or <em>something<\/em>.  (Yes!  <code>format c:<\/code>!  Take that, you bastard!)  But no&#8230; after all these months, my rage has faded.  Ol&#8217; Spenser and I have finally made our peace.  If only it could have happened under better circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"\/Journal\/2002\/Oct\/#21\" title=\"'Angry Beeps'\">mentioned earlier<\/a>, Sarah&#8217;s new motherboard will likely go snap-crackle-pop if I plug in an old 2X AGP video card.  Fortunately, I was able to borrow an old PCI video card from Dave (a Matrox Millennium) in order to just get the system working.  The thing is, the Millennium is working like a champ.  I just plugged it in and it worked, with good resolution, plenty of colors and, most importantly, with no futzing around.  <\/p>\n<p>Now Sarah really only wants to write reports, do email, web surf, and so on.  She&#8217;s not going to be playing Doom III or anything like that.  So now I&#8217;m thinking&#8230; hmmmm&#8230; if I go buy a low-end graphics card, the <em>best-case scenario<\/em> is that I&#8217;ll be out $30-40, and everything else will be the same as far as Sarah is concerned.  So really, what&#8217;s the downside of leaving in the Millennium?  The only negative that I can think of is if, when Sarah goes to college next year, she falls in with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.planetquake.com\/turkey\/l33t_a.htm\" title=\"It's l33t week!\">l33t overclocking hax0r<\/a> crowd.  Then they&#8217;ll make fun of her for her crappy old PCI card.  God forbid such a fate should befall my baby sister, but when it comes to college, you have to be prepared for even the <em>worst<\/em> eventualities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The only negative that I can think of is if, when Sarah goes to college next year, she falls in with the l33t overclocking hax0r crowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}