I once asked my dad if he’d ever buy a boat. He asked me why he would want to buy “a hole in the water to throw money into.”

Vehicles are notoriously not investments except for some incredibly exceptional cases. Glad you enjoyed your time with it. That's the best you can hope for.

Would you play a game over the internet?

That's not a conservative upbringing/mentality.... That's a capitalist mentality.

The only thing I can really say about capitalists is that they're some of the worst people I've ever known, and I've known a few of them.

Very religious people (usually conservatives) are generally quite kind and generous. If they follow their religious book, that tracks. Since most religions teach about tolerance, acceptance, and understanding. Like the legend Fred Rogers; May he rest in peace.

Usually very liberal people are about basic social services for everyone, and programmes that support DEI. They want everyone to be on an equal playing field and they want that playing field to be, at a minimum, allowing all people to independently be able to live, have reasonably good health, food to eat, and somewhere to live.

Meanwhile capitalists always focus on the money. Who is paying for all of this? They don't want their money (via taxes) to go to people that are less than them. Anyone who makes less or has less is "losing", and they're "winning". All capitalists want to be on top, and they don't care who they have to trample to achieve that.

There are exceptions of course, on every one of these groups. For example, Bill Gates who donates a lot of money for good causes. He still has plenty of money, but honestly, he gives away a lot. By no means do I mean to imply that any billionaire is good; in this case Bill is just using the wealth he has to do good. He's clearly someone that made a lot of money doing capitalism things, and yet he believes in helping others.

The capitalists I have met are some of the most argumentative, vocal, and toxic people I've ever met.

Good on you for getting away from that mentality and finding enjoyment.

I really enjoy Ramit Sethi's take on this; he encourages what he calls living a rich life. Yeah you should look to your financial future but you have to balance it with your life now. It's sad when you're limiting yourself out of fear. He's an advocate for spending where it brings you value (and only you can decide that), and aggressively cutting out the things that don't.

You can't like connect them together and make an AI server with them?

Six years later, at least I know how to weld now. Sort of.

The most important part of the Dunning Kruger curve! And welding is a fantastic example. You go from "this hot melty thing is scary" to "dang, I can make metal stick to itself!" to "that weld looks kinda professional" to "holy crap there's a whole science and art to this I will never have the time to fully learn".

Is your school bus now something usable? Would love to hear about a successful impulse buy!

Hey, I don't know if that's an option for you but here (GER) we have non-profit organisations which provide PCs and laptops for people who need them. Maybe there's one in you area, too.

Alternatively many IT companies take client PCs back when customer companies get a new generation. Maybe you can save one before they get thrown out vor get one for cheap.

Just my 2 cents. Best of luck!

Eat the healthier slop.

Add leaves to it, eat a fruit sometimes.

I have a few more: A solar battery called blue wave that does not charge from the sun. The panels must be fake!

A solar lamp with the same problem, a working portable solar panel that is only useful for battery packs/mobile devices and I never have the time to actually use (although it will be good in emergencies).

A plastic bike helmet that would probably increase injuries due to awful design.

Bought a small fridge with no freezer compartment when there was one of the same size, with a freezer compartment that was just objectively better for the samepeice.

Gmod, years after it was no longer popular, just because I finally could.

So now, all my money is devoted to basically pleasing my brother, and bailing out my mother. After that, I will hoard like a dragon, after he has his PC (not buying alat after), and her debt is settled (plus a few small things to make life easier).

That's a rabbit hole I managed to avoid. I lived in Shanghai in the 00's when you could still get nice counterfeit mechanical watches there. Then I got a nice Seiko mechanical watch but no matter what I did, I just didn't love the auto-winding function. Then came the solar watches from Seiko and Citizen which were relatively cheap. Now I'm here with a smart watch and never looking back.

Edit: also an engineer.

My co-worker has something similar. I wonder when he will figure it out?

me sitting here with five Casios, a Ball, a spring drive Seiko, a Bulova Precisionist, a Brew, and probably one or two I'm forgetting about: yepppppppppp