I did check the status of my IRA RMD's, to make sure they were scheduled by end of year, and feeling the need for some fresh air, went out and lopped a lot of mostly dead brush that was hiding a magnificent 30 foot tall (or more) Manzanita tree's trunk. I sent some photos to my family.
I don't like crowds, in person or online. My mom introduced me to "Walden" by Thoreau at an early age, and hence to Transcendentalism. Thoreau wrote a translation of the Lotus Sutra, I later found out.
Sometimes, the best things are already there, just hidden.
I know it has mixed reviews with the tech crowd but everyone I know that's gotten one for primarily aesthetic reasons loves it. I have an open floor plan apartment with not a ton of wall space, so I'm optimistic it will be a good way to have a TV when needed without making the TV such a focal point of the room. I'm also looking forward to getting exposed to new artwork in the shuffle mode.
I also went to Costco to pick up regular food type stuff and was surprised to see it relatively empty (I expected to have to do battle over my 2 dozen eggs and etc). Even employees seemed to be surprised at the low turnout. Free alpha on consumer sentiment I guess?
Apologies for the harsh response. It's not directed towards you. I went on walks around a suburb I live in for two years, and the number of garages PACKED FULL of absolute crap was astounding (usually while having two cars parked right in front of it, usually partially or entirely blocking the sidewalk). When I think of Black Friday, I think of that.
https://nanuk.com/products/nanuk-960 ($100 off for Black Friday)
Special edition coffee from a roaster I was introduced to.
https://www.modest.coffee/product/2023-special-collector/
(just happy with these products, no affiliation, not compensated in any way)
Nearly bought a portable monitor for cafe coding; it's just so great that there's a huge variety of panels being packaged & made available at decent prices now! 2k 16" 500 nit >60Hz HDR was my goal, and it was hard finding parametric matches. Just gonna put that idea on the shelf again, but it's excellent to see how much more is available.
Almost bought a "solar generator" to run some electronics off & feel good about, but sizing feels off. I need a signficant power station to feel ok running a potentially 600w+ computer, but then the station could handle more solar, but then I don't have enough ways to use all that power day to day. It feels weird. I wish I had the years to artisinally handcraft power systems for this all. It bugs me that 48v or wide-Vin DC power supplies aren't available to consumers; everything would be so much cooler if they were.
I did end up buying a couple hundred feet of cheap st38 string lights for patio space. And some small cheap 20w Neewer lights (rgb62), with their app control, to complement some bigger lights I use. And some better videography clamp mounts and magic ball arms, which among other things I want to use to mount my 360-degree camera onto my bicycle with, on a very extended arm for some spacy floaty ride around the city videos with. Bought a 512GB Samsung Pro Ultimate SD card for said camera. Finally bought the Premio Apagard toothpaste (nano hydroxyapatite) that I've been idling about. Bought some chai and some tea candles. Bought a Matter smart plug to dabble with.
* Thinkpad t480s from EBay, who had a November discount. I had no laptop! 300 AUD.
* Electronics tools/consumables from Aliexpress. 100 AUD?
No video games. I'm having fun playing my backlog on the Steam Deck.
I made this jump when the M2 MBA came out. It’s amazing. The only thing you’ll miss about the Intel MBP is the built-in white noise generator.
This year, I bought some GaN bricks and USB-C cables. Prices were somewhat better than normal but not amazing.
One trick for getting more out of Black Friday is stacking an Amex offer (I used a $20 off $100 at Untuckit) with retailers’ sale pricing.
(If anyone has recommendations on what features actually matter on these things and what to get, I’m all ears.)
And then some Lectric e-bikes, to use up all that extra electricity.
In the spirit of the original post, though, there are a few items on my list of things to consider buying because I want them, but nothing pressing.
It's like the Force.
* Glasses. Earlier in the week I broke one pair and then another pair spontaneously broke last night.
https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-elite-mini-600-g9-deskt...
We in my house have enough stuff and nothing is needed. My kid went to the mall and got some perfumes and the like, but she complains that the “deals” this year are not deals; they’re just markdowns on markups.
Most of the stuff, I'd like for myself never gets discounted to what I would consider affordable :/
I did buy something last year on Black Friday, a Fender CC-140SCE guitar, but it had problems and I returned it. After I sent it back I realized that one of the problems it has should be, as far as I can tell, actually impossible and regretted not noticing that earlier so I could have examined it closely to see what the hell was going on.
Here is the seemingly impossible problem. Maybe someone here can figure out how this could happen.
On the first string all the notes were right except at the 13th fret. Here's what you are supposed to get at the 12th-15th frets and what you actually got:
12 13 14 15
E F F# G <-- should be this
E G F# G <-- this is what it actually was
If the fret is too low or another fret between that fret and the saddle is too high the string might end up suspended on a fret closer to the saddle, and so you get the note for that closer fret instead which will be higher.
Here's a diagram showing why I think this should be impossible for it to do what mine was doing [2].
Ignore fret 14 for a moment. For fret 13 to play a G it has to be below the dotted line labeled "G Line".
Now look at fret 14. It plays the correct note, F#. To do so it must be above the G Line.
But then when you play fret 13 the string necessarily has to go above the G Line to get over fret 14, and from there should pass above fret 15. It should play fret 14's note, F#, not fret 15's G.
We should then get on 12-15 E F# F# G.
If fret 14 were low enough for 13 to play G, 14 would have to be below the G Line, and so 14 would also play G, giving is E G G G on 12-15.
In general, no matter what is going on with fret heights, moving one fret closer to the saddle should never result in a lower note, and moving one step away from the saddle should never result in a higher note.
And thus I'm completely baffled by that guitar.
Edit: And some durable medical equipment for my mom.