Good news on the EV charging part, at least in North America. Most (if not all) manufacturers have agreed to switch to NACS, and most have adapters to work with either connector. There will be a long tail as the old connectors fade away, but the future is looking standardized.

This is highly dependent on what your needs are and how you plan to solve it. SATA-3 maxes at 6gbit, which SAS-2 had in 2009. Most cards are x8, and have at least 4 full speed SAS lanes (of whatever generation). That means 24 Gbit. PCIe x8 2.0 (from 2007) had 4 GB (32 Gbit). So if that meets your needs, you can run it on an ancient board.

However, if you need something more advanced, such as SAS-3, a SAS expander, or a card with more native lanes, then you would need to plan accordingly.

I’ve been running on an LSI 9211-4i4e, which is only a PCIe 2.0 card, for many years. I did notice my speeds dropped when I expanded the 4e to a 15-bay DAS (plus the 4 internal SATA drives), but it’s still enough to meet my needs.

It’s not really about 24/7, but it is about quality of components. Enterprise gear is made using slightly better parts and tighter tolerances. Things like more expensive capacitors rated for more hours/cycles, better power filters, things like that.

The end result (and this is easily verified) is the failure rate is much, much lower than comparable consumer-grade equipment.

There is sometimes a blurry line between what counts as enterprise vs pro-sumer vs consumer gear, though.

If you can use SAS (you’ll need a SAS PCIe card, roughly $50 used), get SAS drives. They are enterprise-grade exclusively, there is a massive supply of used drives as servers get refreshed, and a very limited secondhand market because most people can’t use SAS drives.

You won’t get the latest or largest drives, but you’ll get something that works perfectly fine for home use.

I recommend against Go Hard Drives. They get drives that previously failed but currently test ok, then wipe the SMART data. I had a whopping 133% failure rate (all 3 original, plus 1 replacement) before I returned the whole thing.

If you insist on using them, do the most extensive burn-in testing you possibly can. I would use at least a full week, to make sure it’s actually (semi-) reliable.

They introduced the Sacagawea dollar coins a while back with the expectations that people would use them for daily transactions. After an initial brief interest, they quickly fell off. Turns out that people in the US don’t really care to use coins, and used the paper $1 bills at every opportunity.

Uh oh, it’s caught in a loop.

You are correct about what you’re seeing on Amazon. It’s been described as AliExpress, but with faster shipping. There is a ton of worthless crap on there.

Where you’re going wrong is that it shouldn’t be your baseline for quality. There are plenty of other, more trustworthy sources that are a better option. Some of them are even online sources that will ship directly to your door. Since you mentioned prices in euros, I can’t help you directly. But in the US, Micro Center and Newegg (yes, even knowing about GN) would be viable alternatives. Just be sure to avoid any “marketplace” sellers that might be there.

So a full Stacy’s Mom situation, except it worked out for the protagonist.

TVs are often designed to impress you when they’re on display at the store, leading to your purchase. It should come as no surprise that this is completely different from your home viewing environment.

Glossy screens, vivid and oversaturated colors, etc are a perfect example of this.

If this was the answer for them, they wouldn’t have made this post

Adding to the tracking idea, log it BEFORE you eat it (or buy it, depending). You’ll find that a lot of items aren’t worth it, and you’ll put it back.

If Wikipedia is to be believed, the Backstreet Girls are a Norwegian rock band formed in 1984. Which means they predate the Backstreet Boys by a long time.

But I have to take Wikipedia at its word, since most sources are in Norwegian.

I can assure you, with absolute certainty, there will be an election. All of the most brutal dictatorships have elections, usually with the dictator (and his cronies) getting 90+%. They do not have any meaningful opposition on the ballot.

It will happen, but it may not be real. And that’s exactly what we need to watch for, and be outraged over, because it is happening TODAY.

Can confirm. Similarly, pork and noodles is amazing

Yes, but there’s an implied meaning (still used) that doesn’t translate to legal meaning.

Many years ago, organic required a few details on how it was grown/processed. Only the more expensive (and higher quality) items followed this, and were labeled organic. As such, people quickly associated ‘organic’ with ‘high quality’, and would pay the higher prices.

Then Walmart saw the higher prices, and wanted to know the bare minimum needed to use the label. It was restricted by law, so they needed to meet the definition. And it turns out the definition is really easy to meet. So Walmart flooded the market with “organic” crap.

Some people still pay a premium for it, partly because there’s no better indicator of quality.

I know it’s his brand, but it’s mostly useless stuff that you learn. His recent video about 8-tracks was fascinating, but I can’t imagine a single scenario where that info will be useful.

That said, I still recommend it to everyone.

In my experience, nope. Assuming it works as promised, the situation (usually) gets viewed as a skill gap. You think their code is bad, because you don’t understand it well enough. Unless you are personally willing to redevelop it, of course.

If you are a complete hard-liner, you’re going to run into one very particular, and peripheral, obstacle: your employer will almost certainly issue you a Windows laptop. It may not be a large part of your job, but it will be there. Very few companies will offer a Mac, and even fewer will offer Linux.

You might have to work as a freelancer, taking on tasks that can be done without Windows. But even something like web dev will require testing on Windows.

There was also the related claim that the British pilots ate so many carrots it was turning their skin orange.