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ヒレンジャク

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So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)

Ryzen 7

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

8GB absolute minimum

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

256GB SSD

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

14" Lenovo - $670 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD

15.6" HP - $540 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

14" Dell - $710 - 12th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

SFF HP - $620 - 10th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

SFF Lenovo - $560 - Ryzen 7 5000 series, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Dell Tower - $800 - 10th-gen i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.

#find later

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genuinely mystified by the kind of person that would produce this image and not realize "oh, I'm being fucking ridiculous"

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Give him….. a smooch….

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This was published yesterday, which is the same day Israel had struck a school, a mosque, a marketplace, multiple residential areas, some within refugee camps, killing over 60 Palestinians. This was posted one day after Israel had assassinated 3 sons of Hamas leader Hanyeh and killed four of their children in the same attack.

So by "low intensity" do they mean ~100 Palestinians killed a day? How do I tell you that even 1 Palestinian killed is one too many and that, if this so called low intensity scale of killing continues for just 10 days, we will have ~1000 Palestinians killed by the end of it?

It's sickening to see how the continuous killing and genocide has been normalised with language that is so dehumanising. Not only are people not shying away from stating that they do not view Palestinian lives to be as equal as other lives, they're also publishing articles about it.

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"The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the massacre at al-Shifa was one of the largest in Palestinian history, estimating that at least 1,500 people had been killed, injured, or reported missing, “with women and children making up half of the casualties.”* The organization also confirms that at least 22 patients were shot while in their hospital beds, while the number of displaced persons sheltering at the hospital who were forced to evacuate southward was estimated to include 25,000 people. Moreover, 1,200 housing units in the vicinity of al-Shifa were destroyed.

Despite the army’s claims about the al-Shifa operation’s strategic and military importance and the number of alleged Hamas and PIJ members it had arrested and killed, it obfuscated the real intended purpose of the operation, which was to destroy the health system in northern Gaza and worsen the already disastrous humanitarian conditions. The entire compound is now unfit for use. Even the morgue, containing countless bodies of the slain, was burned down."

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Another aspect of the Gaza Genocide that I want to talk about is the complicity of Internet banking and crowdfunding websites like GoFundMe.

I have seen multiple Gazans raise enough money to leave for Egypt, but the banks and the crowdfunding websites freeze their money or cancel their funds for "suspicious activity" or whatever. Every day that passes in Gaza supplies get more scarce, conditions get more deadly, and the price to cross into Egypt gets more expensive. I've seen people, like ghost-90 here on Tumblr, raise the full amount to get their entire family out of Gaza, but their money gets frozen for so long that the original goal is only a fraction of the price now needed to cross the boarder.

These financial institutions should not be allowed to get away with contributing to the death toll in Gaza. They are intentionally keeping people trapped in a kill zone by withholding money that is rightfully theirs.

I'm so pissed and angry that every avenue for relief for Palestinians is being cut of left and right. It is vile that Gazans are being extorted for 10s of thousands of dollars by the Egyptian gov just to save their family's lives, but even when they play by this corrupt game, the world still finds a way to make them suffer.

My heart is with every Palestinian for the rest of time, from river to sea you will all be free. 🇵🇸❤️

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Fundraiser masterpost

This is a masterpost for the evacuation fundraisers I've vetted so far, a few other fundraisers I find trustworthy but have not been able to vet (inability to communicate with the organizer), and a few semi-completed fundraisers or fundraisers for a different purpose (like house rebuilding, or aid distribution). The numbers next to the names have no significance beyond ease of navigation for me for when I check their progress in the future. You should look at the disclaimers instead and focus on those. Occasionally I will update these with new info, including new fundraisers, and the amount of cash that's been raised. Check in regularly on the original post when you see it being reblogged. In all likelihood once its reached you it's already outdated. Also please don't overlook the Sustainable Aid options near the bottom! The brain drain is already creating problems but having another way of keeping or creating new knowledge and key members of a functioning society is important.

VETTED FAMILY ESCAPE FUNDRAISERS

Walaa Abusamra (1). 10 family members. 18.5k out of 80k €.

Ezzideen Shehab (2). 6 family members. 5.2k out of 32.5k €.

Madleen Abu Jayyab (3). 4 family members. 5.6k out of 70k USD.

Jehad Shehada (4). 1 individual. 2.8k out of 15k CAD.

Aser Alassar (5). 5 family members. 258k out of 550k SEK. Or 33k out of 51k USD.

My friend Mona Abu Hamda (6). 9 family members. 54k out of 75k USD.

Mohammed Shamia (7). 7 family members. 1.9k out of 35k USD.

Abdullah Al-Saghir (8). 9 family members. 65k out of 100k €.

Randa Abubakr (9). 6 family members. 10.2k out of 14k €.

Fadi Alshrafi (10). 9 family members. 40k out of 85k USD.

Osama Abdelrahman. (11). 9 family members. 27k out of 45k €.

Alhaw family and the Albittar family (12). Between 18 and 12 family members. 4.5k out of 90k €. (EXTREMELY LOW, NEEDS FUNDS)

Verified Fundraiser by Palestine Asdiqa to help a malnourished baby with cerebral palsy. (13) 6.3k out of 31k USD.

Rana Abu Ahmed (14). 6 family members. COMPLETED ✅

Mohammed Abu Matar (15). 6 family members. 5k out of 34k CAD.

Moataz Abu Sakran (16). 3 family members. 12.4k out of 20k $.

Ayah Abu Sidu (17). 10 family members. 15.2k out of 50.4k USD.

Said Fadel (18). 7 family members. 19k out of 50k USD.

Tasneem Nabil Musa (19). 7 family members (ALL INJURED, NEED MEDICAL CARE.) 13.2k out of 50k USD

Belal Azmi Msallam (20). 14 family members. 7.1k out of 160k AUD.

Mortaja Family (21). 11 family members. 28k out of 70k €.

Abu Ramadan family (22). 14 family members. 10k out of 148k €.

Mai Rajab (23). 45k out of 50k USD (CLOSE TO COMPLETION)

Amal Abu Shammala (24). 4 family members. 33.1k out of 42k €.

Maryam & family (25). 29.5k out of 50k USD.

Haneem Abdelhalim (26). 8 family members. 31k out of 40k USD raised.

Ahmed Masoud (27). 12 family members. 8.3k out of 60k €.

Mohammed Fareed (28). 21.7k out of 60k CAD.

Lena Nofal (29). 34.7k out of 35k € (NEARLY COMPLETE)

Rasheda Alfaiomy (30). 6+ family members. 22.6k out of 65k USD.

Ula El Hindi (31). 1+ individuals. 8.2k out of 15k €.

Muhammad Safi (32). 5+ family members. 4k out of 30k BP.

Yazan Khalaf (33). 18 family members. 12.4k out of 40k USD.

Afaf Masoud (34). 5+ family members. 55.1k out of 75k €.

Motasem Khayal (35). 5 family members. 492 out of 43k € (26.5k needed for escape.) EXTREMELY LOW, NEEDS FUNDS.

Youseff Abu Saeed (36). 3 family members (1 is already out for treatment). 154k out of 200k USD.

Abdulaziz & Abdullah, escape & surgery (37). 2+ family members (1 has already been treated, 1 NEEDS TREATMENT). 95k out of 150k BP.

Nadine Abdullatif (38). 8 family members. 103k out of 130k AUD.

Sami Salhab (39). 6 family members (5 already evacuated). 13.1k out of 26k €.

Jehad Al Ghandour (40). 5 family members (1 already evacuated). 30.6k out of 100k USD.

MORE VETTED FAMILY ESCAPE FUNDRAISERS (tumblr has a character-per-block limit, there's no difference between the following fundraisers and the previous ones).

Mahmoud Algharabli (41). 16 family members (4 already evacuated). 48k out of 57.6k USD.

Dr. Marah & family (42). 2+ family members. 5.1k out of 40k USD.

Khaled Alshabrawi (43). 5 family members. 1.4k out of 35k € (25k needed for escape, but will begin with 10k for stable housing).

Muhammad Osama Alzaq (44). 5 family members. 2.1k out of 60k BP.

Mohammed Wishah (45). 7 family members + 1 pet. 2.3k out of 71.5k €.

Muhe Ayman (46). 5+ family members. 3.6k out of 60k €. (CAUTION: If you scroll down in the GFM there are photos of mutilated and dead babies.)

Abdallah Animal Rescue (47). 1 individual + lots of pets. 30.4k out of 40k USD.

Haya Orouq (48). 5 family members (1 injured, NEEDS TREATMENT). 29.5k out of 50k.

Retaj Abu Abdo (49). 8 family members. 7.8k out of 80k USD.

Mohammed Zyad (50). 9 family members (1 MISCARRIAGE). 4.7k out of 40k BP.

Souad Al-Kurdi (51). 5 family members (1 DIABETIC W/O INSULIN, CRITICAL, 1 INJURY). 1.2k out of 50k €.

Mahdy Zourob (52). 1 individual. 141 out of 20k €. LOW ON FUNDS.

Ahmed Alboji (53). 5 family members. 65.7k out of 75k USD. (TIME SENSITIVE)

Sama Lulu (54). 7 family members. 1k out of 80k USD. LOW ON FUNDS.

Fadel Moghrabi (55). 4 family members. 15k out of 25k USD.

Qosai Hani (56). 2(+?) family members. 23.3k out of 40k USD.

Khaled Khraizim (57). 14 family members. 28k out of 100k €.

Ahmed Raida (58). 3 family members (1 INJURED, NEEDS TREATMENT). 19.7k out of 20k €. (NEARLY COMPLETE)

Rozan family (59). 6 family members. 1.6k out of 38k €. LOW ON FUNDS.

Samah Oudh (60). 5 family members. 27.4k out of 35k USD.

Qasim Al-Kafarneh (alternatively: gfm) (61). 33 family members. 1st one, 5.7k out of 80k AUD. 2nd one 64k out of 94k USD.

Mahmoud Qassas (62). 42 family members. 6.9k out of 200k CAD. (ONE CHRONICALLY ILL, NEEDS TREATMENT)

Ottawa4Palestine’s vetted fundraiser spreadsheet (76 different families with listed fundraisers)

UNVETTED, BUT HIGHLY LIKELY LEGITIMATE ESCAPE FUNDRAISERS:

Rasha family (1). 5 family members. 811 out of 15k € (EXTREMELY LOW, NEED FUNDS)

Natasha Matar (2). 14 family members. 18.1k out of 200k CAD (140k needed for escape).

Islam Daher (3). 6 family members. 2.3k out of 50k CAD.

Ahmed M. Saleh (4). 4 family members. 7.8k out of 35k €.

Salwa Zarifa (5). 4 family members. 1.6k out of 50k €.

Moutasem Quffa (6). 6+ family members. 7k out of 65k €.

Alaa Nidal (7). 4 family members (2 already evacuated). 5.4k out of 12k $.

Zeina and her family (8). 3 family members (1 evacuated, 2 NEED TREATMENT). 5.3k out of 90k $.

Jamila Begum (9). 7 family members. 35k needed. UNKNOWN STARTING AMOUNT. Zelle 347-738-0257, and Venmo @/merilm

OTHER FUNDRAISERS:

Mohammad Qadas. NEEDS TREATMENT + FOOD.

Help Yousef Replant Family Farm & Greenhouse. 2k out of 50k BP. SUSTAINABLE AID.

Rebuilding Developers Plus and Gaza’s community. 2.4k out of 47k €. SUSTAINABLE AID.

Samar Elrayih Hydoub. It seems that most family members have been evacuated, but they need an emergency 1.5k for medical expenses.

Eman Abdel Rahman. Need help rebuilding home and access to food. 7.1k out of 42.6k USD.

Ibrahim Adil Osman. All intended beneficiaries have escaped, they just need some financial support to start being stable enough to make money to get more family members to escape.

Anonymous Palestinian-Canadian woman. She was doxxed and harassed by zionists until she got fired. She's in a very precarious situation and needs funds to survive daily life. NEEDS FUNDS.

Abd Al Karim Adnan Alakklouk. Most intended beneficiaries have escaped, they just need some financial support to start a new life and send more family members money to survive.

Bana AZ. All intended beneficiaries have escaped, they just need a bit of support in establishing a new life. (only 866 € left to meet goal)

Kareem Abu Samra. All intended beneficiaries have been able to escape. They just need support to establish a new life.

Al Hitana Omdurman soup kitchen.

Helping the People of Gaza – Mutual Aid Fund (run by my friend Mona)

Supporting Displaced Families in Gaza (CareForGaza)

Emergency Medical Relief for Gaza Refugees.

Help Sudan Tarada Initiative.

Amer Qudaih’s Relief efforts in Gaza.

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Drop whatever you are doing and watch Oriented (2015) on Netflix. Possibly the most un-pinkwashed piece about queer Palestinian youth I have ever seen. 

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what's going on in the congo since there's also a genocide happening over there as well:

to sum it up, people in the congo are literally being worked as slaves to mine for this material called coltan, which is very valuable as its used for things like phones, laptops, just electronics in general. Congo is the number 1 producer for this material and the places behind this genocide is America, Britain, France, and Israel, wow what an absolute shocker. The worst places probably to ever exist benefit from a genocide. These places are funding Rwanda and Uganda military groups, to go into the Congo and kill MILLIONS of people. This has also been going on for YEARS. Many women have been SA'd and men are forced to work in INHUMAN conditions, resulting in their death and the colonizers are absolutely benefitting from this. 6 MILLION people have been killed and half of them are literally kids. Many of the Congolese people have also been displaced.

Please speak out about and raise your voice

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After Germany kidnapped the plastic surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta, who survived the Al-Shifa massacre, where 1500 Palestinian bodies were found murdered by zionazi occupation and siege - many of whom were mutilated beyond recognition - Palestinian and Jewish-led protests flooded the streets of Berlin, wherein zionazi German police began attacking, brutalizing, and arresting protestors.

April 13th 2024.

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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tall bean

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workin hard or hardly workin

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Now, researchers have put a nail in the coffin of porn addiction. Josh Grubbs, Samuel Perry and Joshua Wilt are some of the leading researchers on America’s struggles with porn, having published numerous studies examining the impact of porn use, belief in porn addiction, and the effect of porn on marriages. And Rory Reid is a UCLA researcher who was a leading proponent gathering information about the concept of hypersexual disorder for the DSM-5. These four researchers, all of whom have history of neutrality, if not outright support of the concepts of porn addiction, have conducted a meta-analysis of research on pornography and concluded that porn use does not predict problems with porn, but that religiosity does