💾 Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space › ~visiblink › phlog › 20190823 captured on 2022-04-29 at 12:25:37.
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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My old Lenovo R500 runs perfectly. But
for some reason, I got it in my head
that I needed a new(er) laptop with an
IPS screen. I decided on the ThinkPad
L440, because it has a socketed CPU,
so upgrades are possible in the
future. But like I said, I really
didn't need it. So I'm being punished
for buying something I didn't need.
Karma. Sigh.
I should have known right away. The
first one I ordered was beautiful. It
was in pristine condition. I doubt
that it had ever been used. But it was
clearly corporate off-lease. It had a
supervisor password in the BIOS and
none of the settings could be changed,
including the setting to enable
virtualization. I frequently run
virtual machines, so I sent it back. I
should have stopped there.
But I didn't. I get these obsessions
that must be followed through. I
ordered another one, this time from
the U.S. It arrived in good shape.
There are a few light scratches on the
outside. The inside is pristine. No
wear at all, even on the keyboard.
So then I ordered an IPS screen from a
supplier in Vancouver. The screen
replacement was easy. ThinkPads are
great that way. Power it up. Beautiful
new IPS screen. Great colors.
Spectacular viewing angles.
And one. dead. pixel. Right in the
middle of the screen.
So I'm trying to arrange an exchange
with the merchant. New ThinkPad
sitting downstairs on the workbench
without a screen, as I type this on my
perfectly good, 10-year-old R500.
All of these transactions were
conducted through eBay. I try to avoid
Amazon as much as possible, but I live
in a small town, the old mail order
companies (Sears, Eatons, etc.) are
all gone, and there aren't a lot of
alternatives. I don't live anywhere
populous enough to have a good local
buy n' sell site, so it's hard to buy
locally.
In any case, I don't know if it's
just me, but eBay seems to be a fount
of bad replacement parts these days.
Perhaps they're factory rejects. I
don't know, but the parts I've
purchased for phones and computers
lately are really hit and miss, and
there's a lot of miss. It hasn't
always been that way.
I've also noticed that there are very
few private sellers on eBay anymore.
Almost every seller appears to be a
merchant. A for sale posting by a
buying-selling, small-feedback-count
regular human being is a rarity.
I kind of miss the way it used to be,
but I think the high fees really drove
individual sellers away.
* * *
I've noticed the conversation on
privacy going on lately. Interesting
stuff. I think that I might have
something to say about that later.