Refurbishers on eBay

Ah, well, that limits things a bit then.

I have refined tastes when it comes to laptops, but I’m also cheap, so lightly used high end models are right up my alley. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any I would stand behind that are in that price range other than maybe a Macbook Neo, but you specifically ruled out ARM (they’re also not supported by Ashai Linux yet, either).

Sorry.

Are you married to a new one?

I pretty much exclusively buy used ~3 year old Thinkpads which meet all of your specs and then some. My last two were X1 carbons (7th gen and now a 9th gen). Each cost me about $450.

Interesting or useful?

I don’t think I have any really interesting ones, but the most useful one I have for people is “Always On”.

Basically when I see that tag, I can mentally prepare myself and roll my eyes before reading. Basically it’s for people who just do nothing but preach at you regardless of the topic being discussed. It’s…pretty useful.

Ever lived in a small town? Drama and gossip is fun

Yes, I have, and no it’s not. It’s just all there is except for high school football, making more kids, and the same drama and gossip but on Facebook. IMO that’s why small towns are so toxic once you get past the thin veneer of “small town charm”. Couldn’t wait to leave the one I grew up in.

And after re-reading OP’s opinion, I starting to see the parallels.

Hank Hill, apparently.

I don’t use Facebook and use all the ad blockers, but apparently I’m still tracked by IP.

When my SO and I started dating, he hooked to my wifi one day and immediately started getting ads on Facebook for various lawn care products. He’d never had those come up before, lived in an apartment all his adult life, and has never searched for any kind of gardening supplies.

I, on the other hand, do have a lawn that I take care of and frequently shop for various landscaping stuff. But he gets the ads for them.

I feel like this is the kind of joke Frasier would have told Freddy when he was a kid.

Literally this.

Twice a year I fill in as DBA when our lady graybeard Oracle DBA takes vacation. This month is one of those times. Yay me.

For my org, it’s just the massive in-house developed line-of-business application that’s tightly coupled to Oracle that keeps us chained to it. It’s technical debt from top to bottom, and has been accumulating steadily since the early 2010s, but no one seems willing to start replacing it.

The new projects typically go with Postgres, MariaDB, or if all else fails, MSSQL. But the Oracle monster in the closet isn’t likely to leave any time soon.

Check this out: https://hackaday.com/2026/07/20/old-ssds-find-new-life-as-game-cartridges/

Just saw it on Hack a Day and remembered this post. It’s using old SSDs instead of SD cards but is basically what you’re describing.

And they’re using auto launch scripts like I mentioned in my first comment and a whitelist to address security.

It’s delicious.

I like to mix whipped cream vodka with strawberry-watermelon flavored Mio, and it’s distinctively red. I’m gonna start calling it “Health Potion”.

Ask your doctor if it’s right for you.

Ugh, I wish I could add “reasons” for my user blocks as well as have the dates I blocked them available. Would make this easier. But yeah, Striker is in there.

I’m inclined to believe it’s part of the “group”. Every post I can see of it’s is a question which is the same thing seen with the others in the list here; none of them have a single post that uses a declarative statement as the post title. That’s more than a little sus given the context here.

Regardless, I tend to block accounts that I feel camp out and/or abuse the “ask” communities.

Ah, the War5oldier account is banned on its home instance and I guess they just didn’t re-use the name with another alt.

The only one of those that wasn’t in my blocks was raptor, but I guess I didn’t notice them as much. Comparing raptor to one of the others in that list, yeah, the posting is pretty similar.

Yep, I recall blocking at least Dan for the same reason as the other two. Not sure about the other one but can’t recall seeing posts from them anytime recently so probably did.

Are two of them “commander graves” and “war soldier”?

Because I noticed similar and blocked them ages ago

Oh, yeah. SSH from laptop or Termux on my phone.

Not sure if there’s a CLI way to deal with captive portals or not. Maybe a text-based browser like Lynx/Links2 if the portal isn’t super fancy, but I’ve used the MAC cloning method for ages and it’s just my “go to” for dealing with that. Honestly, I don’t deal with them very often since I just use a hotspot much of the time with it.

I’ve only had to go through a captive portal once with it but MAC cloning was sufficient

Photovoltaic / Solar power installation.

“Solar system” just sounds weird when I say it.

I finally pulled the trigger and bought/installed the PV system I’ve been wanting for 10+ years.

It was a good chunk of upfront money for something I feared would end up being a midlife crisis purchase*. I only have it partially installed (all DIY as time allows) but we’ve been running the whole house from it several days a week and have already seen significant savings on the electric bill (especially since the first week I had it hooked in was a heat wave).

*It’s not not a midlife crisis purchase, lol, but it’s also more useful than a sports car.