I have spent the better part of the day fighting my computer, installing drivers and dealing with an crash loop caused by the Asus Rog Armoury Crate which is so fucking awful I am betting Adobe is jealous they did not release it. It got so bad that at three I called Gerald to get some clothes on and grab Breyana because we are going for Mexican before I fucking lost it.
I think I have it fixed, but I am officially done with anything Asus except monitors.
Starfish
Are gamers still building custom computers?
I have been trying to decide on a keyboard for an embarrassing long amount of time. Do I want a gamer keyboard or something else? Do all the keyboards need all these LEDs?
I am sorry that you spent all day fighting with broken technology.
HeleninEire
LOL. The only thing I understand about this post is Gerald grabbing Breyana and y’all getting Mexican.
J R in WV
OK, this is really funny!!!!!
I quit buying Asus decks back when I realized that purpose built decks for Linux were a wiser decision. A box built to run windoze is likely a piece of shite. A box with Linux installed is sweet from the get-go.
zhena gogolia
@HeleninEire: Me too.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
It’s not like this for Macs.
MattF
You should get someone to fix you up with Barbara Kruger.
The Pale Scot
Belarusian dictator calls on Russia to move nuclear arms to Polish border
Cause yeh. For for decades I’ve wanted the West to give Poland 50 or so nuc tipped cruise missiles with the guidance systems modified to only go east. That’d give Vlad a big case of the yipps.
Polish meme (or Ukrainian, probably every EE country)
Keith P.
I tried to see what Asus Armoury Crate even is, but after waiting a few seconds for the page to shift from white screen to whatever it is and another 5 as it showed content and abruptly hid it behind some kind of full-screen logo, I said “fuckit, I have a life to live”. (PS I’m a web developer, and I fucking HATE the web – it is a broken, steaming pile of shit infected by a bunch of people who need their coding privileges reduced to pure HTML)
mrmoshpotato
We need some details. :)
And I need a burrito!
Starfish
@J R in WV: Are you like my coworker who praises Arch Linux every day?
Am I allowed to tease you about your love of Linux if I am wearing an OpenBSD hoodie right now?
Tony Jay
@zhena gogolia:
Me three.
Could really go some Mexican now myself.
dmsilev
@debbie: Very true, but Apple has its own set of pathologies they inflict on their users. ‘You’ll have a butterfly keyboard, and you’ll like it!’, to give one reasonably recent example that I suffered through.
Brachiator
My next door neighbor died very recently.
The police knocked on my door and asked if I had seen him recently. They were doing a welfare check because he had not reported to work in several days. He lived alone.
The police entered his apartment through a patio door and found his body.
He was a very nice guy. We used to sit and talk and be mutually appalled at the rise of Trump.
A sad day. A bit unnerving. I also live alone. I think someone is still trying to notify his family, who may live in another state, so I am being deliberately terse on details.
Lyrebird
@Brachiator: That’s a sad loss indeed, sorry to hear!
sab
Gaming. I cannot imagine going to a computer for fun, simce they mostly make me want to nang my head on my desk.
Lyrebird
I have been wrestling with computers as well. If I could get a John Cole/ BJ consult, I would like to ask about letting a minor use a Discord account.
The minor has gotten to do as much of the build and battle game online as he has partly bc I have read so many times about JC having his original guild…
Minor has pretty good judgement, not the greatest social skills, and some trouble with anxiety.
Starfish
@Lyrebird: It depends on which Discord community it is, how knowledgeable the minor is, and how old the minor is.
Benw
GA Tech down 7 and trying to drive with 11 min left. We’re ordering Indian. Our fav Indian joint has upped its delivery time from 60-70 min to 80-90 min. First world problems
Leto
@Starfish: yes we do. I’ve built ours for the past twenty years. Regarding keyboards: if you game, you probably want a mechanical switch keyboard. Faster, more accurate response to inputs. They come in different flavors, mainly around tactile feel and how loud the switch is. If you have a Best Buy near you, I’d suggest going there and testing out the wide array they have, then make a decision.
Edit: regarding LEDs, when you load the software/drivers for the keyboard you can turn them all off. Or match the color to the rest of your system. Or set up the WASD keys to illuminate a different color than the rest. Basically you can do whatever you want.
Jay
@Brachiator:
sorry to hear that.
I give my co-workers a half hour window to show up or call in, before I get Mgmt to do a phone “welfare check”, and they keep calling until the worker shows up or answers the phone.
raven
Go Dawgs!
Ken
@dmsilev: Don’t forget “You should never buy any non-Apple product, and to help ensure that, we only use our proprietary connectors.” I swear if they thought they could get away with requiring the wall-socket power to be 97VAC at 273Hz with some bizarre oval seven-prong connector that even the Eastern Europeans wouldn’t recognize, they would.
NotMax
Crate is an app – optional software. It is not hardware. If you don’t like Crate, uninstall it. Asus has been putting out some kickin’ laptops.
debbie
@dmsilev:
Yeah, I think that’s Tim Cook shining through. Sadly.
zhena gogolia
@Tony Jay: I’m glad you saw germy’s tweet down below. I had to explain it to my husband.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator: I’m sorry, that is upsetting.
HeleninEire
@Brachiator: So sorry. My former neighbor (before I moved to Dublin) asked me to be her emergency contact. I said yes. I’m only just across the street now. But it recently occurred to me that I have no clue who to call if something happens. She has no children but a few nieces. I’ve got to get their names and numbers next time I see her.
zhena gogolia
@sab: Well, we use our computer for all our entertainment now. We never turn on the television, we just watch streaming in bed on my laptop. I love it.
I just finished watching The Souvenir on Prime (disappears tomorrow). I adored it, but I can see it’s the kind of movie you either love or hate.
Leto
@sab: computer gaming has been a thing for the past 40 years, at least. I was a console kid (Atari, Nintendo, PlayStation) but the PC is 1) infinitely more powerful/adaptable and 2) consoles have grown closer to PCs over the years, but still not quite there.
Leto
@zhena gogolia: yeah, everything is moving to be computer based. “Smart” TVs have computers in them, the latest Gen consoles (Xbox and PlayStation) are integrating tv, internet, and gaming functions to be an all-in-one entertainment hub. Smart phones, tablets, laptops… it’s how we consume media/entertainment now.
Southern Goth
@NotMax:
But then he would have to run the PC without support for the flux capacitor he paid for.
delk
My PlayStation 5 arrived today.
Ohio Mom
@Brachiator: I lived alone for around fifteen years (before I met Ohio Dad) and after the novelty of complete independence wore off, the idea that I could disappear and it would take a good long while for anyone to figure that out unnerved me constantly.
gwangung
Running a 24 hour play festival online. Opening at 8 pm, PST.
Normally, I’d be running around with my hair on fire, but I now have minions doing all that. Minions are very nice…..
You can still buy tickets at https://pork-filled.ticketleap.com/resilience2021/
tom
@Brachiator:
A friend of mine had a sister who lived alone in another state to whom he was not particularly close. Weeks or months could go by without any contact between them.
Last March, a neighbor of hers tracked my friend down to ask if he knew what was going on with her, since mail and packages had been piling up on her porch. My friend’s calls and texts went unanswered. The police were called and they found her body in the house. She’d been dead since at least last November, judging by the mail and packages that had been accumulating.
I can’t imaging being so disconnected that you could be dead for that long and no one knows.
Walker
I recently had to buy a new windows laptop because the secure coprocessor failed on my old one. This meant I could not do anything that required encryption. You might think this is something you could live without, but it meant that Microsoft SmartDefender refused to allow me to install any software at all.
The machine was effectively bricked.
raven
@HeleninEire: My brother is in Dublin as a contestant on “Name that Tune”!
Yutsano
@HeleninEire: It just hit me that I don’t need to change my SIM card if I need to move to Europe. Last time I checked T-Mobile was still a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekomm.
Rob
@debbie:
Seconding
Kalakal
@Brachiator: How very sad. That’s always been a worry. of mine
Rob
@dmsilev:
I’ve so far escaped this on my MacBook Pros
tom
@Keith P.:
I am a web developer too, and I completely agree that it’s completely broken. All the popups, trackers, horrible UX, bad layout, etc., drives me nuts.
Yutsano
@Brachiator: Oh no good sir. That’s a terrible loss to you and the world. I’ll keep you in my thoughts.
Rob
@Brachiator:
I’m sorry to hear this.
hells littlest angel
Josh Hawley weeps for what liberalism has reduced you to.
Eunicecycle
@tom: I can’t believe the mail carrier and delivery people continued to leave mail and packages that accumulated like that and no one called the police? That’s so sad.
HeleninEire
@Yutsano: Yes. T Mobile is one of the few carriers that let you use their service all over Europe. They even send you a text when you land. “Welcome to Ireland..you’re covered. No worries.” And then another text when you land here “Welcome home”
tom
@Eunicecycle:
that the mail carriers just let things pile up without any followup shocked me too.
CaseyL
@Brachiator: I’m so sorry!
I live in a townhouse complex, and we more or less look out for each other – or did: now there’s been a fair bit of turnover, and we’re not as close knit as once upon a time. I’ve had two neighbors die over the last 10 years: one lost to cancer, another to old age, and they absolutely left gaps.
Lyrebird
@Starfish: Thanks for your comment! And since you are probably over middle-school age, unlike the person I was talking about, you might not have such a huge need for glowing lights and extra loud clicking sounds to make you feel like a real gamer.
Now that you know how skewed my polls are on this, I will share that both NPET and Langtu keyboards have served well here.
Woodrow/asim
I’m barely a gamer (maybe 10 hours a year), and I’ve built not only my main desktop, but a number of servers. If you can build it, it’s usually been a great way to save money+customize it in ways that improve productivity. Heck, my prior desktop was in-service for nearly a decade, before my motherboard was just too old for the CPUs I needed for the work I do at home. And even then, I only moved to a new case because I wanted more room for a new GPU+cooler. If I didn’t want that, I’d have upgraded for a lot less, and that’s a major reason to built yourself, or at least get a PC that allows you to upgrade.
I always recommend The Wirecutter (the second-best thing coming out of the NYTimes) for reviews; they have people who do reviews as their primary job, and explain in some detail why they recommend a product. I linked you right into the “keyboard” keyword search on the site so that you can see the articles on the various types; you aren’t “stuck” with light-up keyboards to get a good one.
Basically: there are still a ton of quality keyboards being made, today, meant for business work, including writing. You’ll want to look in that direction, keeping in mind all these colorful keyboards usually can just have the lights turned off.
Tony Jay
@zhena gogolia:
It takes a few seconds as you go through the mental motions of “but the Tories are a dangerous cu…” then it hits you, and you smile.
mvr
@Brachiator: I’m sorry. A good neighbor is a real loss and this sounds like one of those. Those outside hanging out conversations can be something you don’t think about until they are gone.
Nelle
@tom: When I was in grad school, four of us met every Monday for a light lunch on the hope that none of us would be more than a week dead before a body would be discovered. Once a week check in.
My neighbor across the street in New Zealand was really struggling after her husband died suddenly. Our deal was that if her front curtain was not open by 9, I was to come over and check. She said it was a comfort to know someone was aware of her.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Brachiator: That is unnerving
Ruckus
I still have an Asus Eee PC 1000H computer from 2008. Works fine, except that it is a winders based thing and of course hasn’t been updated past xp which means it’s for sale! With a 19in Dell flat screen monitor.
Anyone want it? Cheap!
Anyone?
satby
Well, I had a Mexican adjacent dinner: enchilada casserole leftovers, and for dessert, maple-bourbon flan. I made it yesterday and it tastes even better today. I do need to get out and have a real Mexican meal soon though.
satby
@Brachiator: sorry Brachiator.
SiubhanDuinne
@Lyrebird:
Totally unrelated topic, but I wanted to catch you when I saw your nym! You asked a day or two ago whether there are any plans for Black pastors from Georgia to go support the Ahmaud Arbery family.
The answer in YES!! I understand 100+ plan to descend on the Glynn County courthouse next Thursday, November 18. I hope actually that it ends up being a lot more than that! Don’t know who’s organising it, but I know there are folks here who follow Black Twitter and I’ll bet they could find out.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Lived in an apartment building where that happened to a nice man in his 60s that lived downstairs. He also lived by himself and we wouldn’t see him for a few days at a time so when we didn’t see him for a while, no one thought anything of it. I won’t explain how it came to be that the manager knocked, unlocked and found him, that’s too much information.
I also live alone and this is something that I have thought about on rare occasions. Oh well, we do the best we can for as long as we can, and then we can’t.
Tony Jay
@Brachiator:
Happened to us a few months ago. The neighbour was a weathered old sort but nice and chatty, always on the step with a rolled-up cigarette and a jaundiced eye. Never took his medication properly, lost half a foot to diabetes while I knew him.
Opened the door to his sister looking stressed. She was asking for some kind of tool to force the window because he hadn’t answered his phone for a few days and, well, you can guess the rest.
Always that little niggle in the back of the brain. “Could I have paid more attention? Should I have knocked?” It’s a sad thing.
Starfish
@SiubhanDuinne: This looks like it is coming from politically connected leadership.
Starfish
@Starfish:
Anyway, April Ryan, Sharpton and Crump are all talking about it.
Starfish
I hit the spam filter for too many links. Please free me.
Dan B
@SiubhanDuinne: That sounds great. The description of the videos they’ve shown is disturbing. Watching your son being hunted by three men must be about as horrifying as it could be.
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: Maple-bourbon flan sounds awesome. Recipe?
NotMax
@Starfish
As always, YMMV.
Am quite enamored of this sturdy little mechanical keyboard from Havit. No RGB foofaraw on this unit, just a calming backlight when needed. I have no particular uses for a number pad, but they do make others which include it. And the deck is aluminum, not plastic. There’s also a separately downloadable program which allows you to easily customize keys and do other stuff.
They also make other keyboards more geared to serious gamers.
Yarrow
@Brachiator: Sorry to hear that. Quite unnerving.
@tom:
I can. The only thing notable in that story is that the mail and packages stacked up. It’s a bit surprising the neighbors or mail delivery person didn’t notify authorities at some point but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary.
As for the person being disconnected, it’s far more common than you think. Many people have no one and no one cares about them. Even when people think they have friends and family who care they may learn the hard way they are more alone than they know. No one is coming to help.
dopey-o
Speaking as someone whose PC triple-boots Win / Linux / Hackintosh, I have to speak up in defense of Apple.
Apple serves a different market, and designs their systems to be idiot-proof. You can’t plug the wrong accessory in and fry your expensive toy. Recently, Apple drew heat for refusing to accommodate “side loading.” (Installing apps not vetted by their App Store, apps which may turn out to be malicious.)
Never got into gaming. Too much fun out there to waste on “pew-pew-boom”. Biggest challenge: getting the magic smoke back into the CPU.
Starfish
@NotMax: Ooh. That looks nice. I was looking at this.
Ruckus
@dopey-o:
My first computer, in the late 1970s was an Apple II. From then on it was windows crap and one Unix box till 2012 and that was because the manufacturing and sales software I needed was all on windows, other than the Unix stuff. Which the software was the definition of crap and I got my money back. Funny story, a few years later I met the fella who was the foreman for the production shop that built the Unix box. Anyway in 2012 I bought an iMac and have been extremely satisfied ever since. Everything works. Full Stop. I get what I paid for, without all the extraneous BS that is/was windows and a bunch of different bits and pieces in the hardware chain.
J R in WV
@Starfish:
Sure. You know Apple has BSD inside, right?
Lyrebird
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks!!! And GOOD!!!
NYCMT
I’ve been building my own for 20 years, but also, because by and large I do *not* game, I have not had to build very often. The rig I assembled in 2011 is working in 2021, with a CPU and RAM upgrade, and two replaced power supplies, and my 2004 era pro digital audio cards and video capture cards are in the thing.
I have a 2016 rig based on a Lenovo Thinkserver chassis, but I tricked it out, and it’s been working without any problems since assembly.
I’m pretty happy excluding gaming from my life.
dopey-o
@Ruckus: Had me a work box running Windows 3. Went home and bought a Mac.
Yes, i said Windows 3. Not 3.2. I’m so old I remember the sound of our Decwriter.
Anyway, Apple and NextStep were a revelation, and so much more productive.
wetzel
I’m ten computers deep at a company called Macofalltrades. They used to be near Ga Tech, but now they’re down in Tampa. I bought my last new Mac in 1998, and it’s been a computer every two or three years. Today’s Mac’s best years are 4 to 7 years old. A 2016 Macbook Pro ordered with at least 8GB of memory if you want to be able to use that Adobe Creative Suite full out. You can get a Macbook Air from 2014 for $300 that out of the box will make you think about that Asus, how did I ever give that creaky piece of crap any role in my life. You get a 90 day warranty, and if you give yourself over the Icloud, when you spill your coffee across it next year, just order another one. Time Machine and Icloud put you back together and it’s just like it was, except now your MacBook is only four years old and it’s got a scratch in a different place. That’s how I manage the computer. Strangely enough the 2nd hand Mac Mini’s don’t have the durability of the Mac Laptops (By the way if you spill coffee onto your keyboard; power off immediately and turn it over to keep it away from mother board and battery; unscrew the back panel and let it dry. You might be okay).
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I built myself a new computer last New Year’s; most of it was parts I acquired in online Black Friday sales (yes, they have Black Friday in Greece for some incomprehensible reason), while the last part was a mid-range current-gen graphics card I was extraordinarily lucky to find in stock at a local retailer for only about thirty percent over MSRP.
I concur that ASUS’s Armoury Crate is better avoided if possible.
As for keyboards, I’ve been trying various things before settling on a Logitech MX Keys (the full-size one, not the mini one). It’s a nice low-profile keyboard with a good feel to its keys, that with a press of a button can switch over from my personal computer to my work computer or back.
LED’s? Meh. I can see use cases, say for marking what keys do what tasks (any gamers remember when you got a card in the box showing how they’d mapped out the controls on the keyboard?), but as for the laser light show type of LED setups? I live alone in a bachelor apartment. Who the heck am I supposed to be impressing with all the blinking fireworks?
glc
Re: keyboards
I’ll just toss this in here
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/11/12/clackety-clackety-clack/
(for the post and the comments).