What first world problem did you have today?

[Dr. Zaus]

My 20 yo binoculars are delaminating so I'm in the market for new. I'm torn between cheap/light and good glass/expensive. I'm over-analyzing the crap out of it.

I always over buy in that situation... I never appreciate higher quality as much in use as I do in buying.

 

[IronWing]

I always over buy in that situation... I never appreciate higher quality as much in use as I do in buying.

In favor of good glass:

• We bought a really nice spotting scope a few months ago and are using/enjoying the heck out of it. Alternating between taking pics and just looking through it is fun. The pics are coming out very nicely but the view with naked eye is mind blowing.
• We are planning a vacation that will include whale watching and birding where binoculars with good glass would be awesome.
• Short minimum focusing for looking at bugs and hummers at the feeders.

In favor of cheap/light:

• Cheap (not a huge factor but I'm not quite ready to drop stupid money like I did for the scope)
• Light and compact for carrying in backpack (a far more common use than whale watching for us)
• Much more likely to use them more often with lower weight
• Our current binoculars (Nikon Travelite IV 10x25) are twenty years behind the current tech so almost anything should be an improvement.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This is an ongoing FWP:

Car power windows are too slow. When I want to air out the car to quickly cool it off in summer I like to bring down all the windows. I do this before I take off, so I hold down all 4 buttons and let the windows go down, then take off.

Once the AC starts to work better while I'm driving I want to bring the windows back up and let the AC take over but because I'm driving it's awkward to hold down the 4 buttons at once, and if I have any turns to make I need to let go the buttons so I can steer with both hands. It ends up taking me several goes before I can finally get all 4 windows back up. Why don't they just have a button you can press to bring them all down/up without having to hold it? This should be a standard feature in all cars!

 

[Charmonium]

My 2008 Honda Civic does that for the driver's window but not the passenger - it's a coupe so only 2 windows that open.

On the drivers side, if I press the button, it will send the window down all of the way unless I pull up on the button. I think it works in the reverse on the way up but I'm not positive about that.

On the passenger's side, I have to hold the button down or up to get the window all the way down or up.

 

[Charmonium]

My FWP is f***ing Logitech. For some reason Setpoint keeps flaking out and I keep losing my programmed mouse keys. I go to try to reset them and the entire menu system for doing it is gone. Just . . . gone . . . poof. This has happened a few times now. I keep deleting and reinstalling Setpoint which seems to fix the problem for a while, until it doesn't.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

FWP: Had to change the tires on my Nissan Leaf - the leaf has so much instant torque that I accelerate much too fast and blow through my tires about 20% faster than I should.

In favor of good glass:

• We bought a really nice spotting scope a few months ago and are using/enjoying the heck out of it. Alternating between taking pics and just looking through it is fun. The pics are coming out very nicely but the view with naked eye is mind blowing.
• We are planning a vacation that will include whale watching and birding where binoculars with good glass would be awesome.
• Short minimum focusing for looking at bugs and hummers at the feeders.

In favor of cheap/light:

• Cheap (not a huge factor but I'm not quite ready to drop stupid money like I did for the scope)
• Light and compact for carrying in backpack (a far more common use than whale watching for us)
• Much more likely to use them more often with lower weight
• Our current binoculars (Nikon Travelite IV 10x25) are twenty years behind the current tech so almost anything should be an improvement.

Hmm... Honestly, if it's no more than a happy-meal difference to you (i.e. .05% of your income), I would do both. Supposing your backpacking involves a decent hike I would much prefer the reduced weight - but I would definitely want to great performance for the whale watching.

 

[AMD64Blondie]

Dealing with this bizzare heat wave here in Portland,OR.
(the KGW forecast is for 94 degrees F today,101 degrees F on Saturday,and 98 on Sunday.)

(I do have a window-vented portable A/C hooked up,but it's still warm in my apartment atm.)

Currrently,it's 68 degrees F @ 1:00 AM.FML.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's nasty. Could be worse though, some places hit like 120F. That's like 50C. Insane that it even gets that hot anywhere.

14C here, that's 57F.

 

[Charmonium]

off topic but potentially useful. You can convert from C to F pretty accurately by
1. double the C temp
2. subtract 10% (or just lop off the last digit)
3. add 32.

 

[KMFJD]

it rained the last 16 days of my road trip, didn't matter which way i went it rained...

17,578 km's driven in 23 days, no idea what that is in freedom miles,
avg 8.4 litres per 100 km
i think i'm done driving/traveling for a while

 

[VRex7]

Literally, something I complained about today -- My legs burned due to the heat and my leather seats because I forgot to use the app on my phone to turn on my car. -___- ugh.

 

[Red Squirrel]

off topic but potentially useful. You can convert from C to F pretty accurately by
1. double the C temp
2. subtract 10% (or just lop off the last digit)
3. add 32.

I just put it in google, faster.

 

[Charmonium]

Yeah, but it always pisses me off when I have to do that. I feel like I should have a sense for what the difference between 20 and 30C is. Also there are times when I watching international news and they mention a temperature of like 50C and I'm like, brrrrr that's cold. Ha!

 

[slowsociopath]

I would like to meet the sob that started that rumor leather seats don't heat up had a Honda s2000 with black leather upholstery and a titanium shift knob was really surprised I don't have the shift pattern branded into my hand

Sent from my P008 using Tapatalk

 

[lxskllr]

Mixed bag today, but more bad than good

the bad

My back hurt like a son of a bitch today. I thought it was getting better, but I thought wrong :^(

With my back sore, I had to layout a house that was a real pita. I had to use my machete. That's never a good day, and today was especially bad.

My rear blinker quit blinking in my truck. Not a huge deal, but just another hassle. Was debating between led or burning wire bulbs. I went with the burning wire. I don't quite trust led in automotive applications.

Ran over a black snake. I didn't see him til it was too late. He was on a shady section of road, with a lot of visually disruptive tree branch shadows, and he blended in. I feel terrible about it.

the good

I found a gas can witnout a cap. It's bigger than mine, and I have a cap that'll fit, so yay me.

Last week I was eating an apple while driving. When I stopped, I noticed I had two sprouted seeds in my lap. After getting home, I put them in some dirt, and I'm now the proud owner of two pink lady seedlings.

A deer ran out in front of me on the way home. I didn't hit it.

A squirrel on my back patio was especially entertaining tonight. It was acting like a real flake. More than usual :^D

 

[Red Squirrel]

Tent caterpillars are out in full force and it makes lot of spider web strands in the trees, some of which go straight down to the ground. I have an odd phobia to spider webs even if it's not a spider that made it, so it makes mowing the lawn a tad less fun. I go around with a broom to clear them all first but I did miss one and got it in the face. My neighbors probably think I'm weird for waving a broom in the air lol.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I put the AC on because I was hot after mowing the lawn, and now it's too cold in the house.

 

[IronWing]

Hmm... Honestly, if it's no more than a happy-meal difference to you (i.e. .05% of your income), I would do both. Supposing your backpacking involves a decent hike I would much prefer the reduced weight - but I would definitely want to great performance for the whale watching.

Ended up going with a mid-range pair (Nikon Monarch 7 8x42). The optics are decent with high enough eye relief to use with glasses, reasonable weight, waterproof, and a sixth the price of Leica, Zeiss, or Swarovski. I tried a high end pair of Leica Duovids and if money (and weight) were no object, mmm, nice glass. I tried to talk myself up to the Swarovski CL 10x30 but the eye relief just wasn't quite high enough to use comfortably with glasses but they are little and cute and feel great in the hand.

 

[Charmonium]

Just out of curiosity, why not get a really good telephoto lens instead? Then you could also have pix of what you see. I don't know what kind of magnification you get on telephotos but I would guess you can get up to 8 power w/out a lot of difficulty. For the amount of money they seem to want for Zeiss or Leica, you should be able to a really beautiful Canon or Nikon lens.

 

[lxskllr]

Japanese glass isn't close to Swiss or German. If I were going for quality, I'd definitely lick Leica or Zeiss.

 

[IronWing]

Just out of curiosity, why not get a really good telephoto lens instead? Then you could also have pix of what you see. I don't know what kind of magnification you get on telephotos but I would guess you can get up to 8 power w/out a lot of difficulty. For the amount of money they seem to want for Zeiss or Leica, you should be able to a really beautiful Canon or Nikon lens.

It's really a different use case for binoculars where weight, size, waterproofing, and ergonomics matter a lot more. For comparison though, 8x is ~= 400mm. The cheapest Nikon and Canon 400mm prime lens is $1150 as /f 5.6 and they go way up in price as the /f decreases. The human eye is just so much better at handling light than a camera that camera lens have to get huge to provide an equivalent image to a camera that an eye can get from a smaller lens.

For spotting scopes, the price for top line scopes with camera adapters is far lower than the closest super telephoto lenses. My scope provides an image equivalent to a 1250mm - 3000mm zoom. Canon's longest lens is 800mm at $13k and Nikon's 800mm at $16k. With the camera mount, I can attach a DSLR to the scope. I haven't played much with the DSLR mount yet so I'm not going to compare the results to a regular camera lens. I can hold a P&S up to the eyepiece on the scope and get very good photos.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Ended up going with a mid-range pair (Nikon Monarch 7 8x42). The optics are decent with high enough eye relief to use with glasses, reasonable weight, waterproof, and a sixth the price of Lica, Zeiss, or Swarovski. I tried a high end pair of Leica Duovids and if money (and weight) were no object, mmm, nice glass. I tried to talk myself up to the Swarovski CL 10x30 but the eye relief just wasn't quite high enough to use comfortably with glasses but they are little and cute and feel great in the hand.

Well, the deference between the two (2700 vs 400) is definitely more than happy meal for me! (I think this also answers @Charmonium's question.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

My parents had their cat put down today. (Cancer.)

It's also their anniversary today.

*mindfuck*

 

[Dr. Zaus]

My parents had their cat put down today. (Cancer.)

It's also their anniversary today.

*mindfuck*

I'm sorry for your family's loss.

 

[AMD64Blondie]

Fire alarm just went off in my apartment building.

(I just got back in my apartment,after the fire department said it was ok to go back inside..)

Who the fuck sets off the fire alarm at 1 AM on a Friday morning?

The worst part is,I have to be at work by 8 AM.

I know I probably won't sleep at all the rest of the night/morning.Going to be grumpy this morning....