Tech treats for Christmas or anytime.

[goretsky]

Hello,

I was hoping to get one of the new Nvidia RTX 3080 series video cards for the holidays.  None have been available—they have only been shipping in small quantities and quickly bought out by scalpers who are selling them for 2-2.5× the price, and that is not behavior I am supporting.  I am not a huge gamer, but I have had a 4K monitor for a while and I thought it would be a nice upgrade to see some of the games I play with friends in more detail.

 

I ended up purchasing a television stand. 

 

I have not had a television (or cable TV service) for a number of years now, and the last time I bought a TV was 15 years ago, when CRTs were still common.  Having been home full-time for the past year, I thought it would be nice to rebuild my home entertainment system, and that means getting a new TV.  I am kind of on the fence about getting cable TV service, but I figure between OTA, Netflix and Amazon Prime and my DVD and blu-ray discs I should have enough content to keep myself entertained.

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[securitybreach]

The 3080s should be going down in price soon (after the holidays). As far as getting cable, don't do it. There are way too many ways to stream what you want versus paying for thousands of channels you won't watch.

[goretsky]

Hello,

It took 406 days from the time I entered EVGA's queue, but I did get the RTX 3080 video card and they mostly honored the MSRP pricing due to the length of time spend in the queue.  Of course, now the prices on those are going back to MSRP and there's availability.  I visited the local (well, 100 km away) Micro Center computer store a couple of months ago, and was amazed to see the video card shelves filled.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[sunrat]

It's good to see the crypto craze dying down. It contributes a massive amount of CO2 to the atmosphere from electricity consumption (about the same as the whole country of the Netherlands), and has lost more fortunes for people than gained. Also crippled the availability of graphics cards for people who wanted to use them for graphics.

It's a giant ponzi scheme IMO. I heard someone say investing in crypto is just betting that someone else is more stupid than you!