#cheap gaming mouse and keyboard

[kulvefaggoth]

I need to become a niche microcelebrity and leverage that to obtain boons from online strangers. or something

[easyshoppii]

Shop the Best Gaming Keyboards Online at Low Prices in India

The best gaming keyboards offer a combination of performance, features, and value. Whether you're a casual gamer or a hardcore pro, there's a gaming keyboard out there that's perfect for you.

Visit Easyshoppi to shop for RGB gaming keyboards, and wired or wireless gaming keyboard online at the lowest price. Explore our extensive collection of top brands and find the perfect keyboard to enhance your gaming experience.

Shop Now: https://www.easyshoppi.com/product-category/gaming-accesrioes/gaming-keyboard/

[blubberquark]

I can't tell you which laptop to buy

Over the years, I have been asked "Which laptop should I buy?" many, many times. We have now arrived at a point where I can no longer meaningfully answer this question.

In the past, I would have said something like "Get a laptop with enough RAM, and make sure the keyboard, trackpad, and display all work for you. You can't swap out the keyboard, mouse and display like you can in a desktop."

In the past, I would have said something like "Are you just using it for e-mail, Facebook, and Netflix? Are you doing a lot of office productivity stuff? Will you be giving slide presentations? Do you also want to do some light gaming? Do you need an SD card slot for your digital camera? Are you doing video editing/CAD modelling/cinematic 3D rendering?"

It really depends on what kind of laptop you want. You could want a desktop replacement, because you don't have the space for PC. You could want a "luggable" machine that you take from your office to the meeting room or the lecture hall, and back and occasionally to a different location in the trunk of your car. You could want a portable laptop that you keep in a laptop bag, backpack, or briefcase, and sometimes use on your lap or in a café if you are one of these people. You could want a "light" laptop that you carry with you at all times.

I still couldn't tell you which laptop to buy. So many people these days use their phone or a tablet for e-mail, facebook, and netflix that it doesn't really make sense to recommend a small and light laptop. You'd want to be a step above that. So many people use the "cloud" for all their documents and data, so it doesn't make sense for them to think about having a large HDD. If you own a gaming a console and a desktop PC, and you write your e-mails on a tablet, it doesn't really make sense to have a cheap laptop, but it also doesn't make sense to have a big laptop, unless you change your workflow.

Some people still need a CD drive, a large hard disk, or VGA-out, but usually there's a USB-C dock for that use case.

If you never use your laptop anyway, you may as well give Ubuntu a chance. It even runs Steam!

[autolenaphilia]

I got a Steam Deck last year, and it’s such a great machine. It’s obviously inspired by Nintendo Switch, but it’s a lot better than a Switch.

The most important part is that it runs PC games. It’s fundamentally a Linux gaming PC in the form of a handheld console. There are a lot more games available than any console and and PC games both on Steam and GOG are a lot cheaper than console ones. You can get old or indie games for as cheap as 1-3 euro during sales. It’s a tremendous advantage for the deck over its console competitors.

And while the obvious intent of the deck is to get more people to buy games from Steam, it isn’t a walled garden at all. The deck launches into Steam when you boot it up, but you can go into desktop mode, and then it functions as a normal PC running a Linux distro. From there you can install Lutris or Heroic Games Launcher, and use it to easily install games you bought from GOG and Itch.io.

You can also do things like use the official dock or an unofficial usb-c hub to hook the deck up to a monitor, mouse and keyboard to use it as a desktop PC. Or you can hook it up to a tv to use it as home console.

The hardware is also a lot more powerful than a switch, the demanding triple-a games it can play is actually impressive. Although this comes with the natural disadvantage that it’s bulkier too. Putting more powerful PC parts demands more space for them. The deck is not something I bring with me outside. But then again I didn’t even do that with the 3DS, which was actually of a practical size to do that. The deck is portable enough that I can comfortably play lying in bed, which is how I always used my handheld consoles. So it’s perfect for me, but maybe not if you want to play it on the bus or something. It can probably be a fun addition to your luggage on longer trips though.

Of course, as mentioned, the Steam Deck uses Linux. This has both advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that it allows Valve to customize the operating system to make it fit with the machine it’s running on. The Deck’s SteamOS feels really well-integrated into the hardware, like how a proper console OS should be like. It’s not that dissimilar to how Sony used FreeBSD to make Playstation’s OS. Windows would not allow for this amount of customization and would not integrate as well.

And the open source nature of most Linux development allows Valve and the user to use existing open-source Linux software to their advantage. For example, the desktop mode is largely not a Valve creation, it’s an existing desktop environment for Linux, KDE Plasma. Yet it extends what the user can do with the deck to a great extent, like for installing non-steam games.

The main disadvantage to the Deck using Linux is that most PC games are built for Windows and don’t run natively under Linux. To run games built for Windows, the Deck has to run it through Proton, a compatibility layer which is Valve’s own gaming-focused version of Wine. Wine/Proton is far from perfect, sometimes games require extensive tinkering to work, or only run with serious issues, or don’t run at all, no matter what you do. Sometimes a game not working with Wine due to some random but serious issue that comes naturally from running a Windows executable on a Linux system via a compatibility layer. Sometimes it’s due to things like a multiplayer’s game anti-cheat system requiring access to the Windows kernel, and it will block a Linux pc from running the game because it has no Windows kernel.

This is however not as big a problem as it might otherwise be. Most games work, more or less. Valve has put a lot of work and money into both their own Proton and the Wine project as a whole, and they work a lot better than they did 10 years ago. Many run perfectly out of the box, because they are native, or play nice with Proton. Some require mere minor tinkering, like using a different version of Proton. And I generally don’t play multiplayer games, or if I do they don’t have draconian anti-cheats, so the games that are blocked because of anti-cheat are no big loss to me. The Steam Deck not running Fortnite is a plus in my book.

And we shouldn’t forget the Steam Deck verified system. Basically Valve employees check if the game runs out of the box with no issues on the Deck. They get a verified rating if they work with no issue, including both proton compatibility but also things like the controls working nice and the text being legible on the deck’s small screen. They also get a “playable” rating if the game runs to an acceptable standard but with tinkering required or other minor issues.

This is a good system. If you dislike tinkering, you can just buy and play games on steam with a verified rating, and the deck will work like a normal console for you, but with a lot cheaper games. It’s a good way to get people used to consoles into PC gaming, which is probably the point of the Deck.

And if you want more than deck verified games from Steam on the Deck, you are given the freedom to do it. I’ve gotten officially non-supported steam games to run on the deck by installing and using proton-GE and I’ve installed and played games from GOG.

The Steam Deck is really how a Linux PC for the common people should work. An easy and slick experience for casual users, but freedom and customization given to those that want it.

[andmaybegayer]

Hello. So what's the deal with computer chips? Let's say, for example, that I wanted to build a brand new Sega Genesis. Ignoring firmware and software, what's stopping me from dissecting their proprietary chips and reverse-engineering them to make new ones? It's just electric connections and such inside, isn't it? If I match the pin ins and outs, shouldn't it be easy? So why don't people do it?

The answer is that people totally used to do this, there's several examples of chips being cloned and used to build compatible third-party hardware, the most famous two examples being famiclones/NESclones and Intel 808X clones.

AMD is now a major processor manufacturer, but they took off in the 70's by reverse-engineering Intel's 8080 processor. Eventually they were called in to officially produce additional 8086 chips under license to meet burgeoning demand for IBM PC's, but that was almost a decade later if I remember correctly.

There were a ton of other 808X clones, like the Soviet-made pin-compatible K1810VM86. Almost anyone with a chip fab was cloning Intel chips back in the 80's, a lot of it was in the grey area of reverse engineering the chips.

Companies kept cloning Intel processors well into the 386 days, but eventually the processors got too complicated to easily clone, and so only companies who licensed designs could make them, slowly reducing the field down to Intel, AMD, and Via, who still exist! Via's CPU division currently works on the Zhaoxin x86_64 processors as part of the ongoing attempts to homebrew a Chinese-only x86 processor.

I wrote about NES clones a while ago, in less detail, so here's that if you want to read it:

Early famiclones worked by essentially reverse-engineering or otherwise cloning the individual chips inside an NES/famicom, and just reconstructing a compatible device from there. Those usually lacked any of the DRM lockout chips built into the original NES, and were often very deeply strange, with integrated clones of official peripherals like the keyboard and mouse simply hardwired directly into the system.

These were sold all over the world, but mostly in developing economies or behind the Iron Curtain where official Nintendo stuff was harder to find. I had a Golden China brand Famiclone growing up, which was a common famiclone brand around South Africa.

Eventually the cost of chip fabbing came down and all those individual chips from the NES were crammed onto one cheap piece of silicon and mass produced for pennies each, the NES-on-a-chip. With this you could turn anything into an NES, and now you could buy a handheld console that ran pirated NES game for twenty dollars in a corner store. In 2002. Lots of edutainment mini-PC's for children were powered by these, although now those are losing out to Linux (and now Android) powered tablets a la Leapfrog.

Nintendo's patents on their hardware designs expired throughout the early 2000's and so now the hardware design was legally above board, even if the pirated games weren't. You can still find companies making systems that rely on these NES chips, and there are still software houses specializing in novel NES games.

Why doesn't this really happen anymore? Well, mostly CPU's and their accoutrements are too complicated. Companies still regularly clone their competitors simpler chips all the time, and I actually don't know if Genesis clones exist, it's only a Motorola 68000k, but absolutely no one is cloning a modern Intel or AMD processor.

The die of a Motorola 68000 (1979)

A classic Intel 8080 is basically the kind of chip you learn about in entry level electrical engineering, a box with logic gates that may be complicated, but pretty straightforwardly fetches things from memory, decodes, executes, and stores. A modern processor is a magic pinball machine that does things backwards and out of order if it'll get you even a little speedup, as Mickens puts it in The Slow Winter:

I think that it used to be fun to be a hardware architect. Anything that you invented would be amazing, and the laws of physics were actively trying to help you succeed. Your friend would say, “I wish that we could predict branches more accurately,” and you’d think, “maybe we can leverage three bits of state per branch to implement a simple saturating counter,” and you’d laugh and declare that such a stupid scheme would never work, but then you’d test it and it would be 94% accurate, and the branches would wake up the next morning and read their newspapers and the headlines would say OUR WORLD HAS BEEN SET ON FIRE. You’d give your buddy a high-five and go celebrate at the bar, and then you’d think, “I wonder if we can make branch predictors even more accurate,” and the next day you’d start XOR’ing the branch’s PC address with a shift register containing the branch’s recent branching history, because in those days, you could XOR anything with anything and get something useful, and you test the new branch predictor, and now you’re up to 96% accuracy, and the branches call you on the phone and say OK, WE GET IT, YOU DO NOT LIKE BRANCHES, but the phone call goes to your voicemail because you’re too busy driving the speed boats and wearing the monocles that you purchased after your promotion at work. You go to work hung-over, and you realize that, during a drunken conference call, you told your boss that your processor has 32 registers when it only has 8, but then you realize THAT YOU CAN TOTALLY LIE ABOUT THE NUMBER OF PHYSICAL REGISTERS, and you invent a crazy hardware mapping scheme from virtual registers to physical ones, and at this point, you start seducing the spouses of the compiler team, because it’s pretty clear that compilers are a thing of the past, and the next generation of processors will run English-level pseudocode directly.

Die shot of a Ryzen 5 2600 core complex (2019)

Nowadays to meet performance parity you can't just be pin-compatible and run at the right frequency, you have to really do a ton of internal logical optimization that is extremely opaque to the reverse engineer. As mentioned, Via is making the Zhaoxin stuff, they are licensed, they have access to all the documentation needed to make an x86_64 processor, and their performance is still barely half of what Intel and AMD can do.

Companies still frequently clone each others simpler chips, charge controllers, sensor filters, etc. but the big stuff is just too complicated.

[brighan]

I don't have much time lately so I'll be playing the new Warframe update on the treadmill.

I already manage to game on it by configuring my mouse and using a cheap bluetooth keyboard I bought but y'know. I'll just be using the safety clip this time 🤣

[sexiest-objects-tournament]

speaking of computer gore.

my laptop was custom built but for pretty cheap, not a gaming laptop, no special bells or whistles, starts huffing when i boot up minecraft. she freezes once a day on a good day. completely. can't even move the mouse or use the keyboard to open the start menu.

and today she froze, and i shut her down, but as i'm doing so i to my dad and say "i like that the power button needs a long-press to shut down (instead of just sleeping) because it feels like i'm mercifully smothering her with a pillow after she's had a seizure."

once he gets over the laughing fit, he says "i'd say there's other ways but since it's your OS freezing, there are no other ways-.. well i guess you could unplug it and take out the battery."

"that feels like snapping her neck!" i reply, distraught.

....needless to say he's getting me a new computer

[g-xix]

Dating + Cat Dad HC's  | King Kenny

Getting the first pet -He lives with his friend and you semi-permanently live there (you have your own flat) -You and his friend agreed to surprise him with a little kitty for his birthday -Vlogged getting the cat that morning -Got so many little treats and climbing frames and stuff for little guy -Came home when Kenny was groggily waking up -Snuck the cat into friend's room and watched as the cat began gently pawing at mattress + smacking the duvet corner around -Waited for rest of Kenny's friends to arrive at flat (birthday lunch was happening at his flat) -At the end of lunch you and friend got the cat out. -AJ, Chunkz and Sharky were surprised but laughed and smiled as they saw Kenny react -Kenny had his hands over his mouth and was "Oh!"-ing in surprise -Heart absolutely melted at the sight of the little guy -As soon as you handed Kenny the pet he was so soft with him -Gently stroked cat's head like he was fragile china -Baby talking to the cat and acting like nobody else was there -Niko loves and always wanted a cat as well and was a mixture of sad, surprised and happy for Kenny as it reminded him of litte Reng -Kenny said he'll call it Samurai -Everyone laughed at the name bc the cat looked anything BUT aggressive -Over the next few days Kenny ignores EVERYONE but Samurai -Litr comes home from training and finds Samurai before greeting you or anyone else -Samurai prefers your company because he's used to you working from home and seeing your more -Samurai literally follows + walks after people -You want privacy from Samurai when you're using the bathroom or whatevs but feel bad closing the door on his little face -Whatever Kenny does he tries to have Samurai near him though -When sat watching a film, he's got your legs across his lap and Samurai resting on your shins so he can stroke him -While sat editing with you in his lap on the gaming chair, Samurai is besides the keyboard smacking a mouse across the desk -Kenny realised early on that Samurai loved sitting at his desk and hitting the mouse -So Kenny bought Samurai his own cheap mouse to play with -We all know Kenny has a rly loud explosive sort of laugh -Like, he laughs like he's been holding it in since 17461BC -Every time he lets out one of those laughs, Samurai does a little jump and rapidly spins around to see Kenny whilst he laughs -Every time Samurai reacts Kenny just laughs more -Kenny would be SUCH a proud cat dad asw -Takes mountains of photos & videos of Samurai just doing little things or sitting somewhere unconventional -Always shows his cat pictures to his friends excitedly saying "Look at what my cat did!" -Kenny spoils that mf with toys as well -Goes to pet shop every so often just to see if they have something new that Samurai might like -At one point was even considering adopting another cat so Samurai would have a friend -You stopped him because you knew that you'd be the one feeding, cleaning and caring for that cat whilst Kenny was working -Big Gibber and JJ also have cats though, and one night just before bed, Kenny let it slip that they'd all sorta been talking about their cats together... -Kenny had said they could both come 'round tomorrow so all their cats could "meet". -Next morning at the ass-crack of dawn, JJ was knocking at your door, and you could hear his bald ass cat meowing from outside too.   -Let him in (and Gib an hour later) and you have breakfast + pet Samurai whilst Kenny and JJ avidly talk about their cats and all their little quirks. -Whilst you're petting Samurai, you have Buu trying to climb up the island stool next to you -Wallace (Gib's cat) is a bit older and just finds purchase on the sofa and goes to sleep/smacks the other cats when they get too close -Kenny's proper happy to see all the cats together though -Every single cat jumps whenever Kenny laughs. Also whenever JJ laughs they all jump before meowing frustratedly at the sheer MAGNITUDE of their laughs -For some reason Niko also came at one point despite not having a cat. -Niko just wanted to play and watch all the cats tbh, he doesn't really care if he doesn't have a cat to bring to the meetup -That night once Buu and Wallace were gone, Kenny couldn't get a smile off of his face bc he feels like a proud dad having introduced his cat to the "community" -Cute HC but Kenny's so protective over everyone he cares about -Like, when he called you once and heard you with a stuffy voice and sneezing, he Uber-ed his way to your house with noodle and a much of medicine -Told you to lie your ass down and rest whilst he did all your house-jobs -It was just a three-day cold or whatever, but Kenny still didn't want you overworking yourself when you were sick -Same vibe- when Samurai first got ill, Kenny dropped EEEEVERYTHING to look after his guy. -Literally got Samurai a whole new blanket just to swaddle him up so Samurai didn't get any colder -Kenny's a constant mix of dying-from-cuteness and concerned for Samurai whenever he hears him sneeze -Carries Samurai around with him everywhere when he's sick- swaddles him up like a baby and j carries him wherever Kenny goes -In the lead up to a fight, Samurai got ill and you were on work abroad, so Kenny took Samurai to camp -Put Samurai in the cup-holder, outer section of the backpack (iykyk) -Sent you a video of all the tough muscly guys at camp passing Samurai around, cooing and stroking his head when he first showed Samurai -Kenny puts his backpack + Samurai on the bench and tells whoever's resting there to make sure Samurai is all good -Whenever Kenny gets rest break, he goes and sips water to the side with Samurai on his lap, just talking nonsense to himself and the cat whilst he's recovering -Coming home and seeing Kenny tryna bathe/wash Samurai would be so funny asw -Samurai HATES baths with like, a BURNING passion, and Kenny hates getting splashed by the water -Kenny's shirtless and complaining at the cat to just " 'low it and let me scrub you!" whilst Samurai is meowing unhappily and dodging his hands in the tub -You're laughing and filming clips from the doorway before eventually giving a helping hand -Kenny's mood brightens again at the end though as he takes pictures of his cat, now skinny as all his fur sticks to his body post-bath -I reckon Kenny uses proper cute little names for Samurai other than his acc name as well though -Namely either calls his cat "big guy" or "little guy" -Samurai's very small but for some reason there's some irony in Kenny saying "Oi big guy come here", before bicep-curling Samurai -Yeah, also uses Samurai like a dumbell sometimes? -Samurai seems to enjoy it so you have no problem, but it is j kinda funny seeing Kenny curling Samurai sometimes -Also Kenny does air-jail with Samurai -If Samurai's too hyper or starts trying to bat the mouse from the computer when Kenny's using it, Kenny will put Samurai up in air-jail and type one-handed instead. -Therefore in conclusion:

[instantpansies]

yippiee!! i found a horribly clunky and slightly sticky xbox controller at the thrift store today for three dollars! it is new york jets themed and the cord is very long and the start button seems to be attempting to dissolve itself, but i now have an actual controller for pc gameplay yayayy

context bc realizing this sounds sad: i grew up with a wii and a wii only. i do not want to set up a wii remote with my laptop. that is way too much trouble. also, my sibling still uses the wii and i don't want to take a controller from them. i don't play many games, but up to this point i've just made do with keyboard and mouse (tho not always even a mouse, since i don't play on a desk so i don't have space for one). this works for most of the relatively simple games i usually play, but i'm getting into sonic and it's a little harder to play a speed/racing game on pc with just keyboard. in my opinion. so i found this!!!

anywayyyys got it running got it mapped to sa2 on flycast emulator and it works!!! has some issues with right joystick inputs, you have to press it quite forcefully, but i'm pretty hard on remotes especially in this sort of game so i didn't really notice it. i'm more used to nintendo controllers, and generally prefer those, but i will - and i can't stress this enough - take whatever i can get. i love hodgepodging together random cheap stuff into a fun and personalized experience, and tech is no exception. my whole computer at this point is a whole bunch of open-source programs and applications i think are neat, all glommed into a vaguely windows 10-shaped mass a la caddisfly.

proud to announce i have now passed one level of sonic adventure 2 👍wowzers. still figuring out the mechanics, it's definitely not the smoothest game to run on my pc esp with this remote, and there are probably some things i'll do to optimize my experience and get it running better, but it's fun! and i'm making progress! and this is a very easy and accessible option for me to actually enjoy playing games on my computer.

[dragongirltail]

I hear that you like Microsoft Surface tablets. I'm currently setting one up for my friend, and I'm wondering what it is that draws you to them? I know it's Microsoft's "answer" to the iPad but haven't paid much attention to it since it's release

Oooo, loaded question that one! In truth, it's less that I like Surface tablets and more that there's nothing that does it like them.

The windows tablet market is a hellscape where most of what people use them for is lightweight chromebook note block stuff that requires little to no computing power, so most of what's available from most companies is just kinda meh.

You have tons of Lenovo/Thinkpad stuff that tends to run on pentiums and low power i3s and whatnot, it'll be able to play a youtube video but that's about it.

For higher performance there's like two or three models by lenovo, Dell has a few good ones, you can go the gamer route and buy an asus ROG thingie that looks gaudy and like it's made for 15 year olds, but either way you're gonna be running short on something if you just want something basic.

Gaming tablets are high in power but at that point you might aswell buy a laptop since the battery life is atrocious, the lenovo ones are alright but quite new and hard to get used, and I just dislike dell out of principle because they're a terrible company.

So that means generally the only real answer lies in Microsoft's lineup since they offer sleek but pleasant designs, and their performance isn't so through the roof that you can't use them without wall power, but still good enough to do general tasks and basic gaming which is exactly the sweet spot I'm looking for!

The personal answer here is that the surface Pro series specifically covers a large area of specific things I'd like in my secondary device: Portable, decently long battery life, good performance for how long it lasts.

The main purpose for wanting one is so I can use it to watch videos in bed before sleep on a larger screen, to be able to play basic games when I'm away from home, and as an auxilliary screen to put somewhere on my desk when I need it for other stuff like reference pictures or whatnot.

Having a touchscreen is a godsend there since it's so much easier to operate something with just bapping it with your fingers instead of operating a trackpad, keyboard, or mouse so it's the easiest choice for that kind of "no brain" use to me.

The other issue is price, since most of the other companies only recently jumped on the windows tablet bandwagon they're hard to get used, but surfaces are available online for cheap the further back in generation you go.

Currently I've got a Pro 7+ with an i7-1165G7, 16GB of ram, and 512GB of storage + a 128GB micro sd card installed. The i7 is an 11th gen intel model which means it has the blazing fast iris Xe integrated graphics and anything I can really see myself playing on this thing it handles swimmingly (minecraft, warframe, any game from like 6+ years ago).

Bought it for about 500€ last winter, which is extremely good value for what it is, seriously!

TL;DR: Surfaces are the least bad choice in the tablet/convertible market, they're expensive but previous gen models will still do all you'd ask from one without much issue.

[nothing0fnothing]

Hey! So I have some lived experience in being poor and mentally ill I had to learn the hard way in my adulthood after growing up with abusive neglectful narcissistic parents. Maybe it will help someone else.

1. Instant pot. Crock pot. Rice cooker. You only need one, but all 3 are versatile, can use very little electricity to run, and are perfect to dump ingredients into and come back later to a healthy, cooked dinner.

You can research which is best for you by looking up "crock pot recipes" "rice cooker meals" to get a feel for what types of meals you can prepare in each and how it's purposes can best fit your cooking style.

2. Get your electronics secondhand. Phone companies make so much off of poor people bc they contract us into pay plans that mean that by the time our phones are needing replacing, we've paid for it 2 or more times over. Consider going Sim only and getting your phone secondhand.

Websites like backmarket and envirophone sell refurbished phones, tablets, laptops, smart watches, TVs, consoles, headphones, all sorts like new and for a fraction of the price point you'd usually get them at. I've not bought an electronic new since 2015 and the products I get refurbished last just as long as if I'd bought them new. Plus it's better for the environment. Even if I had money I don't think I'd go back to buying new honestly.

3. Static charger. If you're Autistic and can't sit still, like me you might be finding that the first thing to go on your electronics is your charge port. It's really annoying because it's not a cheap fix and I have had to replace phones early when they won't charge any more.

Last year my girlfriend and I got static chargers. It's an adapter that sits in your phone/tablets charger slot that magnetically connects to a universal charger. Its great for us because now everything rechargeable (phones/tablets, but also headphones, game controllers, keyboards/mouses) takes the same cable. It's really handy, but for me the best part is that the adapter doesn't move. So even if I'm fidgeting with my phone on charge it won't wear down the charger pins over time. We paid £20 for 3 and it's paid for itself because I've not had to take my phone for it's yearly fix since I got it.

4. Make a cozy space outside of bed. As a bedrotting girlie I know the allure of just saying "fuck it" and curling up in bed is so strong. I also know that when I do it for days at a time my sleep quality gets worse, my days blur together and my mental health gets so much worse. Especially if I'm working, watching TV, eating all my meals and doing my hobbies all from my bed.

One thing that helps me break up the bedrotting and at least helps me get some decent sleep so I might wake up feeling better tomorrow, is having a cozy spot that isn't in bed I can spend at least some of my day in.

For me, it's the couch in my living room. I've furnished it with pillows, blankets, and a little coffee table I can rest my stuff on so I can feel as comfy as I do in bed, but not actually be in bed most of the day. For You it could be a book nook, or a floor bed, or a desk with a chair in your bedroom.

5. Giant water bottle. This one is really simple. We need 8 glasses of water a day to be healthy and hydrated. Basically nobody depressed has the energy to fill up a glass of water 8 times a day. If you can get a water bottle that holds 2 litres (65oz) of water, now you only need to fill one drinking vessel once a day to be healthy and hydrated.

It's really simple and sill but it honestly saved my life. I buy those drink flavor packets because I drink more when it tastes nice. Is it as healthy as plain water? No. Is it healthier than no water? Yes. Easy peasy.

My bottle is from Meoky, its the 64oz stainless steel camping bottle with a flip straw I got for under £20. I like it because it keeps my water cold and I'd rather walk on hot coals than take a sip without a straw, but I've bought same size BPA free plastic bottles for like £3 and they have lasted me 2-3 years too so the budget options are absolutely worth it too.

6. Reconsider what's worth getting second hand. Generally when thinking about buying secondhand we mean clothes at the thrift, and that's great, but buying pre loved can be anything, and you can buy some high ticket items at an affordable price point that way.

If I ever want an appliance I always look second hand first. My rice cooker is secondhand and it is my favourite appliance. I've also bought a popcorn maker for a fraction of the price I'd buy it new, and I'm looking for a Kitchen Aid mixer for no more than a third the price they usually sell at. My vanity houses my shark air styler, I got it refurbished second hand and it was like new when I bought it. I use it every day and it still has so much wear in it.

Generally, the bigger and heavier something is, the closer to free you can get it, because the people getting rid of it just want it gone. If you ever need a washing machine or some furniture, look on gumtree or local no buy groups first. Type "free ___" followed by where you live into Google to get an idea whats available. If you're furnishing a space it's very likely you can get everything you need for the cost of the van you hired to collect it all.

7. Frozen vegetables. Fresh produce is getting more expensive and because we neurodivergent and mentally ill people can have a habit of letting fresh produce rot in the fridge, wasting money and making more mess to clean up, it's usually not worth it. The thing is, frozen produce is cheaper because it is picked in season, healther because it is frozen at optimum ripeness, and can be safely stored in your freezer for months, it's so worth doing.

They're usually pre-cut and can generally just be chucked into your dish frozen to defrost while cooking, making them easy and accessible. You can buy mixed vegetable packs (in the UK the most common is sweetcorn/peas/carrots and broccoli/cauliflower/) for some variety too, which I like to just dump a portion into soups or broths for some added vitamins.

8. Medication delivery. I've been medicated for mental illness for years, and a regular problem I used to have was I would neglect going to pick up my meds because I was depressed, then I'd run out and be unable to collect them because the lack of meds was making me more depressed.

Now however, I'm signed up with an online pharmacy. They processes my prescriptions exactly the same way any other pharmacy would and dispense them through the post in a box that fits through my letterbox. I never have to leave the house for meds again which is actually a lifesaver, the shipping is super cheap, like free for 3 day delivery and £2.99 for next day, and it's all processed through a super simple app that I only have to use like one a month when I request my refill.

It's so worth it and if you struggle to get out like me I absolutely recommend it. In the UK it's called Lloyd's Direct Pharmacy, but I'm sure it's a service you can find in other places of the world too.

9. Laundry separation is a lie. Which isn't a big deal for people who don't care about throwing money away on extra loads or people who have the spoons to faff around separating their clothes arbitrarily, but for poor neurodivergent people, it is.

So here's the thing, the rules of separating laundry by colour came about when clothes were made of all natural materials that would stick to each other when agitated and natural dyes that would run in water. Nowadays, clothes are made of synthetic or blended materials that can handle the friction of a modern machine and synthetic dyes that hold up to basically anything. 99% of clothes on the market, and therefore probably 99% of your wardrobe, is polycotton or some other poly-blend. So generally, everything you have can just all go in together on a warm wash.

Now, if you have woolen, linen or cashmere pieces, you should be separating them and following the care instructions on the label, but everything else, just shove it in mate, nothing bad will happen.

10. Protein powder. Protein powder is cheap, it's stored dry to it basically never goes bad, it's obviously protein so it's a really good addition to your diet, it tastes of whatever flavour you buy it in so it's a good meal substitute if you're depressed and your appetite is low, and it comes together really easily.

I usually get it in big tubs because they're cheaper per gram that way and I just add them to my coffee/hot chocolate for a boost or stir it into some Greek yogurt for a quick healthy snack. Thats actually my favourite way to get protein in because it's like 2 minutes and it covers up that sour taste yogurt has. I've also stirred it into milk for my cereal to varying success but it's good because the fat in the milk and the carbs and fortified vitamins in the cereal make it basically a meal. If I'm struggling for breakfast I usually add a scoop or two to an instant porridge pot and I have a ready to eat nutritional meal ready in the time it takes to boil the kettle.

[hyliasblade]

//finally bit the bullet and bought a like. cheap but weirdly decent external bluetooth keyboard for my laptop and thank god no more weird stick or unregistered inputs

but on the other hand it is like. awkward as fuck to type with this

like ideally i would put it on top of the laptop keyboard and type liek that but there's no easy way to disable the keyboard like there is the touchpad so that's not really an option

gonna have to find a comfortable position for this or maybe i''ll only use it for like gaming or longer typing projects

then again gaming with it would be awkward unless it's a keyboard only game because of the way i use my mouse on the empty part of my laptop

ughhhhhhhhh

but anyway feels good to be able to type without horrible hardware bullshit again at least lmao

[easyshoppii]

Buy Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Online at Low Price in India

Buy Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Online in India at the lowest price with Fast Delivery & Easy Returns. Choose from a variety of gaming keyboards from top brands like Logitech, HP, Asus, Razer, and Ant Esports. We stock over 250 different models from popular brands as well as new brands in the gaming space. So Find the best Gaming keyboard for you.

Just visit here: https://www.easyshoppi.com/product-category/keyboard/mechanical-gaming-kb/ or give us a call at +91 8360347878

[likeabxrdinflight]

so one of the keys on my keyboard broke and rather than paying to get it repaired I've instead bought a cheap bluetooth mouse and keyboard so I can just use my laptop like a desktop computer instead

this might be a game changer I'm not gonna lie. I did not realize how much I have missed using a real mouse to scroll instead of my laptop's trackpad, it's so much more ergonomic??

[trainsinanime]

The problem I have with Starfield: What do I play it on?

My current gaming machine is a 2017ish iMac that I boot into Windows for games, something that I do maybe once a year. It is hardly ideal for that, and Windows gaming is not the main reason why I bought it, but it worked well enough for quite a while. But it's definitely too old to play Starfield well.

So the options are buying a Windows gaming PC, or buying an Xbox.

XBox:

Pro: cheap, comparatively speaking

Pro: Don't have to deal with setting up Windows and keeping it up to date. I've spent way too much of my youth with that.

Pro: I can use it to play the few blu-rays and DVDs I still have, because I currently don't have a DVD or blu-ray player attached to my TV (though the fact that I don't have that should tell you how important this topic is to me)

Pro: Won't take up any additional space in my well-filled apartment

Gaming PC:

Pro: Can play Starfield with mods (I hope, I haven't checked whether they're keeping mod support)

Pro: Potentially better performance

Pro: Can play any and all PC games

Pro: Mouse and keyboard, a very important detail when playing a shooter

I am strongly leaning towards to the Xbox, because the difference in price can pay for a lot of model railroad stuff (that I won't know where to put). But part of me does keep going, "playing with a controller and no mods? Are you sure?"

[thegeminisage]

here's how it is. i bought a cheap-ass wireless pink LED keyboard and mouse set for like $20 on jeff bezos devils website. everyone says you shouldn't have a wireless LED keyboard and mouse set bc LED sets are for gamers and gamers like wires bc of the faster response time. true, but i game with my fucking ps4 controller. i put in my time gaming with a keyboard and mouse on ffxi and undertale and i'm over it.

at some point, the keyboard from set #1 stopped working (i feel like i remember spilling something on it or a cat puking on it) so i more or less rebought the exact same set from the exact same seller. last night, the mouse's scroll wheel from set #2 stopped working. in a perfect world, i would be able to use the keyboard from set #2 and the mouse from set #1, but the rang of these guys is incredibly shitty, so i'd have to find a second usb extension cord to plug into my tower and run over to where the keyboard and mouse actually sits, since one receiver won't work for two separate sets

i got out set #1 last night and to my surprise the keyboard did function! so i was like "damn i guess i'll use this for now." the scroll wheel from set #2 could potentially be fixed (i looked up a video) if i could FUCKING find the right size of screwdriver

come to realize TODAY that the keyboard from set #1 doesn't function as well as i thought. it frequently misses double letters and sometimes letters that aren't doubles :/ i could try taking it apart and cleaning it, but i feel like my time would be better spent trying to repair the mouse...but again i CANNOT find a compatible screwdriver and don't even know if i could repair the mouse if i could. although i should probably clean the keyboard from set #1 ANYWAY because it could use it and i don't actually if i did more than the cursory clean before i put it into storage

AND it seems silly that i have the same keyboard and mouse of the same brand with the same receiver and i can't somehow magic them together to use one receiver...it feels like given my circumstances there should be an easy fix for this that doesn't involve spending a ton of money (i actually can't even FIND a wireless* pink LED keyboard/mouse combo like this anymore) but possibly i am too stupid to figure it out!!!

*i could deal with a wired keyboard but NOT a wired mouse. i won't go back. which would mean buying higher-end ones separately, especially if i wanted pink LED ones, which i do because to go back to plain ones after all this would depress the shit out of me and i'm already really fucking depressed so i don't need any extra homework, but then i am back to spending a bajillion dollars that I DON'T HAVE on something that I DO HAVE right here in my house if i could just get it to WORK!!!