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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • My wife’s old 2004 Honda Civic. It was the worst piece of shit I’ve ever had the displeasure of driving. And it was super unreliable to boot!

    It was dangerously slow. Getting on the freeway always required full throttle to get up to speed in time, which was never enough. Some cars egg you on, “Go faster! Let me rev! I love revs! Speeeeeed! Power!” This thing was like Eeyore on Adavan, “Huh? Power? If I have to. Ththrhtbbt. That’s the best I can do.”

    The “top rated” Goodyear tires we put on it were fucking awful as well. The tire compound was super hard, so despite the pitiful power, you could always spin the front tires in the dry. Despite the hard tire compound, they wore out 20,000 miles before their warranty was up. One time while exiting the freeway, the shit box decided it wanted to oversteer (the tail slid out) as I went around a corner at a very reasonable speed. Luckily, I was able to hold the slide and correct it (which was pretty cool). I like to push cars and to go fast, but I’ve never ever had a front wheel drive car oversteer on me before, especially at super low speeds. This isn’t really the car’s fault, but the shit tires come with the shit territory.

    It had no safety features other than seatbelts and a couple airbags. No anti-lock brakes. No traction control. It had manual windows (fine, I guess), manual mirrors (eww), and manual door locks (gag me with a spoon!).

    Despite all these omissions, it had alloy wheels and a spoiler from the factory! Oh, but it’s ok, it’s the fucking “value package” so all my friends won’t know I cheaped out on a car until they have to wait for me to get in the car to unlock their doors!

    In the 4 years she had it, the following broke:

    • The thermostat got stuck closed, which caused it to overheat which required the head gasket to be replaced
    • The alternator failed catastrophically. Forget not charging the battery, try shorting out, discharging the battery and killing the engine in seconds.
    • The tie rod snapped, causing the front wheels to be pointed in opposite directions (luckily this was in a parking lot so we didn’t die)
    • The steering rack had to be replaced to fix the steering wheel that was 30 degrees off center to go straight.
    • Something was wrong with the brake booster, it hissed when you held the pedal down in a certain position, which really inspired confidence.

    What an awful car. Still, at least the previous owner left a new condom in the glove box when she bought it.






  • I can’t offer a specific recommendation, other than to get a used laptop instead of new. Since price is an issue for you, buying used will help a lot.

    Late last year, I bought a low spec Dell XPS 13 from 2019 for $300 USD from a local used electronics shop. New, this laptop would have been about $1,000. The battery isn’t great, but I can get a replacement from iFixit for $100 if I feel like it. The screen is excellent. The CPU is… fine for my use case. RAM is subpar (8 gigs) and soldered (gross), but on Linux it hasn’t a problem. I upgraded the NVMe SSD from 256 gig to 1 Tb for $60.

    eBay likely has a lot of decent options for used laptops. You can look for enterprise grade hardware too. Enterprise grade stuff tends to have replacement part support more than consumer grade stuff.

    Good luck!

    Edit: You can also look at factory refurbished stuff too! Just check frequently since availability changes rapidly.



  • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlAhhh my eyes
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    1 year ago

    For the most part, I agree. LEDs are not the problem. The problem is either moronic drivers, or poor implementation of LED lights. As a driver of a very low car, the vast majority of my complaints about bright lights boils down to lifted trucks with ridiculous light bars, LEDs bulbs in halogen housings, or dufoids driving with their highbeams on. It doesn’t matter if the highbeams are halogen or LED, they’re both blinding.

    That being said, there are cars with LED headlights that are blinding from the factory:

    • 2023+ Subaru Outback.
    • Jeep Wrangler/Gladiator (compounded by having a factory or aftermarket lift)
    • Hyundai Palisade

    Then there are the cars that are designed by morons that have all instruments in the center console. That makes it harder for drivers to see when their LED highbeams are on:

    • Toyota Prius
    • Tesla Model 3/Y

    But there are plenty of cars with LED headlights that I don’t have any issues with. In my experience, Mercedes and Audi seem to do a particularly good job of having bright lights for the driver without blinding anyone else.

    And there are plenty of other cars with halogen headlights that are blinding from the factory too:

    • Ford F-Series trucks with quad halogen headlamps
    • Dodge trucks
    • Chevy Cruze (or some other small to midsize American sedan, I can’t tell)

    The luddites who want to strap jam jars with glowworms in them to the front of new cars are being ridiculous. Properly aimed LEDs are so much safer.

    When I got my new car with LED headlights, I couldn’t believe how much more I could see. I could see fae down the road. Retroreflectors on lane markings far beyond the reach of my beams are visible. Pedestrians running across the street against the light wearing all black (true story) are visible! Despite clear lenses, new bulbs, and being correctly aimed, the halogen lights in my old Civic barely reached 100 feet down the road. My other halogen bulbed vehicle is better, but it’s still a far cry from what I’m used to now.