Journals

From Romania, with love.

0010 0011 . 0000 0010 . 0010 0000 0000 0010
0010 0011 . 0000 0010 . 0010 0000 0001 1000

or

10111.10.11111010010
10111.10.11111100010

or if you will

17.02.7D2
17.02.7E2

10 (used to be 0F until today)

(have some respect, I did the conversions mostly in my head, rest in Notepad :P)

As a follow up to my recent journal, here's what I'm arriving at.

I decided I will acquire new equipment soon. Some people suggested I go for AMD setup but it appears to be less available than Intel gear. So after considering my options and seeing what's available near me, I am considering the following setup:

Processor: Intel i5-7400 3.0GHz (7th gen/Kaby Lake) socket 1151
I might go for an i7-7700/4.2GHz but I believe I read somewhere it's generally not worth it. I don't remember what how where or why, so if anyone can point me in the right direction that'd be great because I couldn't find it.

Mobo: ASRock B250M Pro4
(I was offered the other two, but from what I read on several sites this appears to be a better option and it's also available)
Downside: Neither seem to be compatible with 8th gen processors.

RAM: 2x ADATA U-Dimm DDR4 8GB 2400 (for a total of 16GB)
I kept getting offered fancy "gamer" models that cost twice as much just because they're red and have speed stripes and wings and headlights. Thank you, it's a computer not a race car.

Storage: Probably a 1TB WD Blue + a 250GB SSD. "Possibly" a second 1TB drive.

GPU: I haven't yet decided. Suggestions more than welcome. I am also considering dual screens, so anything with two outputs sounds like a good idea. Considering. Depending on whether I can afford it on top of the already crazy number I'm going to spend.
EDIT! I'm leaning towards a GTX1050 because it's the least stupidly-expensive card. FFS graphics cards didn't cost this much the last time I got one!

Power supply: From what I've read this setup should do well with 450-600W.

Case, while I'm at it: Whatever that doesn't have windows and neon lights inside. It's a computer not a strip club FFS

For those knowledged enough in the subject: Does this setup look right? Is there anything that looks blaringly wrong and I should change course ASAP? Do you have any suggestions or alternatives I might have overlooked? Can you help fill in the blanks where I don't know what to get yet?

Please help me spread the word for this crowd funding project.

Thank you!

The beginning of next semester is getting closer, my break ends at upcoming Monday. I need to vent...

I've been working my ass off as usually when getting back home. I always helped my parents and family overall as much as I could. I'm one of the rare cases of college students that instead of taking money, bring it back home to help out family. It's been tough after my father's surgical operation, but I'm used to much more work, I'm only a bit tired.

However, my gradnma had an effusion today, several hours ago, and it was a really heavy blow. Thank God I'm still on break and was there to help before an ambulance arrived. It was only a weak effusion, but it really scared the shit out of us, especially that my grandma is 86 years old. She's much better now, most of examination turned out great results for her age (which is not weird, she was always active, never needed any medicine and never even stayed in hospital!), but it's not certain whether she'll be alright.

Overtly worrying is really bad for my health (especially stomach), but sometimes it feels like the whole house would fall apart without me...

Got roped into being the sound operator for an amdram show about 3 days before the dress run, I'm only doing it to save face for the society putting the show on but sorta regretting having to do a mediocre job for the next week and getting paid a sweet, phat sum of £0

At what point does one consider themself good enough at a certain thing to start charging a decent amount of money without being overbearing? I've exactly this same issue when doing posters / graphic for folk, as well as DJing. I know enough to gauge that I'm absolutely not the best at a certain field, so continuously undersell myself because I'm completely unaware of the limit of my abilities and what I'm actually worth / valued at

This was Scott eliminating the entire team the other day playing Overwatch.

That makes me a proud daddy!

Hey guys, remember the good ol' web designs from the 2000's? Yeah me neither or at least not in the way I would like to anyway.

Flashy gifs and horrible color matching aside what I like about the old way of doing things is that everything was small, font, buttons etc... I don't know if that was a result of low resolution 4:3 CRT's that everyone had those days or what, but it somehow leaves me something to desire in today's web designs where everything is blown out of proportion. I understand that mobile exists today and that sort of requires that everything is big.

TWHL is probably the only website I know and visit that still rocks the old design style, but that will change with v4. It's all fine and dandy I'm not here to cry over that times change and you need to as well.

Sooo whats this all about then?! I have a little personal/work project I'm working on that could benefit from the "old style" web design, specifically an admin page where you could fit a lot of information w/o having the need to scroll down as much for more. I've seen people using CRM software that looked like it was made in the 90's, tree menus, 12px font everywhere etc.. And it struck me that you can fit a lot of data on a 1080p resolution screen. And you can probably see where I am going with this, if not here's a little hint:I'm having a hard time finding inspiration for it and hoping some of you could help me? (pretty please )

This also serves as a discussion on web design. Now vs then, likes and dislikes.

Everything have got solution in life, less two things:

The death and download cs_canbunk ;(

I guess I've entered the "2 monitors" club.

After realising that my "new" PC was practically worthless except for games in Software mode (until I buy a GT 710 or something for it):

... I decided to utilise the monitor somehow. I connected the monitor to my laptop via a VGA cable.

This is so, so good. I wish I had the pleasure of working with 2 monitors before. :]

Honestly, a friend of mine was right: "Once you start using 2 monitors, you can't go back."
Now I see why.

There's a good chance I may have made another person. Sorry.

Specifically, Jude Morris, my son. Born on the 17th at 06:07 and weighing eight pounds and three ounces after only 32 minutes of labour.

For those not yet making babies, my daughter took nearly 16 hours to appear. 32 minutes is crazy fast...

I just got my son Overwatch, and to my surprise, he picked it up right away, and he's mopping the floor with my dead body in no time.

My comment to Captain P's last journal entry, back in 2007.

---

I know this is ten years late, but I am sorry about your loss.

You may not remember me, but I sure remember you. You were one of my first mapping mentors, patiently going over my level designs and giving me constructive criticisms.

As one life ends, another begins. It was right around the time your mother died when my son was born. Now that he's almost 11 years old.

Anyways, I hope you can come back and visit us sometimes.

I'm fairly disappointed. (as always, short content for TL;DR'ers at the end)

In 2013, I told my parents how I decided that I needed to build a new PC. They advised me to have a laptop instead because I can take it anywhere I go. I agreed and we bought a 2012 Fujitsu A512, which is now my brother's laptop.

In 2014, my old PC died (the one with the Ati Radeon HD 4650). It was a bad day for me when I returned home. We got the Fujitsu S7210 after exchanging hardware with a local Internet café owner. I gave it to my brother as a punishment.

In 2015, when I was in 7th grade, my parents promised me a new PC if my GPA is 4.75 or higher. I studied and basically improved in grades a lot compared to 6th grade. My parents were amazed. No new PC, still. I had an R7 250 + AMD A4-6300 machine in mind with 4 GB of DDR3 RAM - something I considered "high end" because it was sooo superior to the laptop I already had (still on the A512 until July).

In the first half of 2016 (8th grade), my parents promised me the new PC if my GPA was just as good as the one last year. It was even better, actually. 4.85
But still, no new PC! Then I had an Nvidia GT 730 in mind, then the RX 460 as the year was ending.

In 9th grade, they promised me (and swore to God, which is a HUGE deal here) that they would buy the new parts if my GPA was 5 point FREAKING 0. I was surprised and a bit overwhelmed at first, but as soon as the second semester came in, things were easy as cake and I knew I'll have that sweet, perfect GPA of 5.0. And I did. My mum cried when she saw the grades report and nothing but 5's (A's) on it. "General success - excellent (average 5.0)"
I was even part of the "School's Pride" group of students.
Guess what. Nothing happened. However, I did collect about 70% of the budget for the PC, even after my parents "borrowed" half of my money that year.

In my 1st year of high school and first semester, my parents promised me the new PC if my GPA is at least 4.5 (which is the lower limit for the "excellent" status).

And I did. I even did a bit better, with a GPA of 4.57. I mean, it's high school, of course they were expecting me to drop in grades like this.

And then, I had about 90% of the budget and I decided to buy whatever percentage of the parts I can, but then... they borrowed yet another 200 KM from me.

4 promises. 4 big promises. 2 of which had relatively extreme conditions.
All broken.

And then my aunt came to a visit and mentioned me that I'll get a PC for free which she bought in 2012 for 2000 KM (1000€). I was super excited, thinking it would have a GTX 660 and an Intel Core i5 4th gen CPU.
But, instead it was an HP Compaq dc7600C Convertible Minitower equipped with a Pentium 4 640, Ati Radeon X1050/600/300 (one of those), 512MB RAM and a whopping 80GB Western Digital hard drive. It also has 2 DVD drives and a floppy drive.

Turns out someone posted the article on Pik (take it as a Bosnian eBay) back in the day and wrote the original price from the time the PC was manufactured (2005).

I seriously need to do something as I keep getting more excited and excited every time they mention the new PC, and then I get disappointed because it never happens. I'm convinced it's my own fault because I hardly ever speak to my parents about the PC, because I believe I'd annoy them that way. Oh boy, that needs to change.

Also, don't post "Get a job" because it's not going to help. I collect and save money over the years, and for all these 5 years of waiting and getting money for my new PC, my parents just "borrowed" (more like took) most of it.

At the moment, I have a bit more than 700 KM, which should be enough for the CPU and the GPU, though I'd rather wait and buy the GPU much later, since there was a jump in prices recently. I guess I could get the processor for 360 KM, the PSU for 60-80, the motherboard for 230 KM I believe, and let my parents "borrow" the rest of the money there's left.

Of course, I know that my parents will pay their little debt off someday. I can understand their situation right now. They have their own needs and problems. I'm not mad or anything, but I consider this a bit unfair.

Though, at they don't owe me nearly as much as they used to.
I mean, it's just 300 KM, I'm sure they will return it someday. I just don't like this concept of an "ATM machine son" which I'm currently being treated as. I'm wondering if I should just stop letting them borrow money from me because when they do, it's quite literally always at the worst possible moment.

sigh
My Nazi classmate was right. I should've taken most of the PC right when I collected 90% of the budget, and then collect some more and buy the remaining part or two... I had a chance, but I missed it just because my parents asked me "Isn't it too early to get one, though?"

And then my dad believes it's not worth spending money on new computer cases. He surely knows about computer hardware, but nothing past 2007, LOL. He believes there's also no need to get a PSU since it already comes with the case. Pfft. Be glad I'm not applying interest rates for your credit.

Oh well, I guess I should be more of a rebel next time I have the chance. My passiveness ruined a lot of chances I had before. Only now it started to hurt.
Worst of all, my parents just keep asking me "Why not a laptop instead of a desktop computer?" BECAUSE A LAPTOP WITH THE SAME SPECS WILL COST 2.5X MORE THAN THE DESKTOP PC IN THIS SHITHOLE OF A COUNTRY AND FOR THE SAME PRICE THE LAPTOP WOULD HAVE 33% OF THE PERFORMANCE THE PC CAN HAVE and I don't need that much power while I'm on the move. A PC is also more upgradeable than a laptop and modern laptops tend to break after a few years, unlike my trusty, 11-year-old Fujitsu S7210.

(sorry for all-caps, that question just drives me crazy. I'm going to tell the same answer but in a very calm tone if my parents ask me that)

Well, I guess I'll just sleep now. I wrote more than enough already. Oh hey, TL;DR:

• I've been waiting to build my 'dream' PC for 5 years already
• my parents have promised it 4 times (2 of which had relatively extreme conditions, like getting absolutely perfect grades), broke the promise every time
• I've collected enough money, but didn't buy the PC when I should've, as my parents asked me if it's too early to buy it
• over the next few months, my parents treated me as a living ATM machine
• my aunt gives me her HP Compaq dc7600 for free, but having told me it's from 2012 and that it costed 2000 KM back then
• I'm quite disappointed because I didn't buy the PC on time (and by my aunt's PC, but I can't blame her, as she wasted lots of money on a somewhat worthless rustbucket and didn't know) and now I'm looking forward to change from passive to active mode

Worst of all, the computer's graphics card is pretty much dying, as there are visual artifacts on the screen before freezing the computer.
Lol, I guess I should ask my classmate to give me some of that DDR2 RAM he saved from his old PC, and that Ati Radeon HD 3650 which he also had (pfft, now he's got a GTX 1060 3GB + AMD R5 1500X PC, so he doesn't care).
2018 started in an interesting way. We'll see how it goes.

I'm just afraid the HD 3650 won't work well with it. Eh, it's good to have it around, in any case. Alternatively, I'll probably get a low-end Nvidia GT 610 or 710 because that's all this thing needs. A nice, little GPU which doesn't need a great PSU. x3