the new retro is 2012
Retro needs an update, and it's 2012.
It's safe to say at this point that "retro" as a whole is very played out. For electronics, games and computers, every single thing from the 1960s to the 2000s has been covered. All it takes is a search of YouTube for anything computer/game/whatever from the 40-year span of 1969 to 2009, and yeah, there's a video on it.
Every electronic, every game, all of it. Think there's something that hasn't been covered? You're wrong. Somebody has made a video. There's nothing left, nothing to be discovered, and it's all been done.
Things are played out to the point where the majority of well-established YouTube channels revolving around retro have resorted to covering industrial equipment. I'm talking about the stuff nobody ever had in their homes, such as highly specific scientific testing equipment, refrigerator-sized computers, and so on. The well has completely dried up for all the consumer grade stuff, so the industrial crap is all the retro content creators have left to cover. They purposely buy broken old industrial gear, make as many videos as they can about repairing it, then the very last video of the series shows the thing turning on, "How cool is this?" (it's not), and... that's it. Not exactly riveting content.
But then there's 2012. More specifically, 2012 to 2018. This is the new retro, but in a different flavor in that the tech is actually usable now.
For example, I have a whole pile of Garmin GPSes from that era, and they all still work just fine - and I'm able to load up modern maps using OpenStreetMap data, making them actually usable as daily drivers.
Then there's the giant swath of Linux users (and I'm one of them) who use laptops made in that 2012-2018 era. The old spinning hard drive was junked for a new SSD, the RAM maxed out with a couple of new sticks, a new/current Linux distro is installed, and guess what? Usable and quick since the bottleneck was the RAM and hard drive in the first place. Have refurbished Dell Latitude, will travel - for cheap.
Old retro is all about getting a nostalgia fix. This is why I'm very happy letting arcade machines be somebody else's problem. To use another example, sure, you could buy a big tube-type refurbished television (not cheap) for that "proper" retro gaming experience. Should you? No. Not worth it. It's a big heavy box in your living space that solely exists for a nostalgia fix that wears off real fast.
New retro is about actually using older stuff to get things done today. Not just with computers and gaming consoles but also with cars, tools, appliances, whatever. Take the old-but-not-too-old stuff, refurb/upgrade as best you can, use it.
It's not about getting a nostalgia fix anymore, because we've already done all that. It's about using older stuff to improve your life without going to the poorhouse in the process.
New retro is your thing if you consider modern stuff to be overpriced crap.
People are totally willing to pay for cheap crap, just by virtue that it's cheap. So if you buy a box of cheap pens at a dollar store and a few of them don't work, you're not too angry about that, if at all.
It's when you put real money into something modern and it either doesn't work and/or breaks quickly that gets you angry. If that sounds like you, start looking at the 2012-2018 stuff. What stuff, specifically? Start with the electronics. I mentioned laptops, but refurb mini PCs are worth a look. Also look into appliance repair. There are many big books on that. More often than not, most broken appliances can be fixed with under $100 worth of parts once you know how to install them.
The happy happens any time you can use an older thing to make your life better. Money is saved and you get your stuff done. I'd argue that's better than any nostalgia fix.
windows 10 panic setting in?
I talked about this at the beginning of the year but want to revisit it. At the time I write this, Microsoft Windows 10 is almost 10 years old, and the time is drawing closer to where 10 will become officially unsupported.
And oh yeah, I'm seeing some panic.
In mid-2023, I had the thought of, I'd better switch to Linux now, and did. Been using it ever since as my daily driver. But I still read forums where people talk about Windows 10. Why? I was waiting to see when The Panic would set in.
It's been well known for a long while that official Windows 10 support ends on 14-Oct-2025. When this was first announced, of course there were people all over saying they would "stay on 10 forever". Yeah. Well... back when 10 was first released, people said they would stay on Windows 7 forever. And before that when 7 was first released, people said they would stay on XP forever. We all know how that turned out.
At the beginning of '25, people thought.. for some reason.. that 10 could somehow be "saved". I don't know why anybody thought this, but they did. Now it's to the point where the boom is going to be dropped in 6 months for 10, and oh yes, The Panic is now setting in. Talk is going on of, "Uh-oh.. what happens in 6 months?" Truly not that far away from now.
When Windows 10 was first released, forum nerds hated it. And I mean really hated it, swearing up and down they'd never use it as their daily driver. Fast-forward to now, and those same nerds did a complete 180, use it all the time, and say they not only like 10 but want to stay with it.
So... did 10 just magically get better? Not really. Yes, many bugfixes and patches have been released in the decade 10 has existed. But if you install a bone stock 10 even now, it's basically still the same experience as it was in 2015.
Since history has a tendency to repeat itself, here's what I'm pretty sure is going to happen:
It's going to be just like what happened with 7. The no-more-support date will hit, forum nerds will be loud and proud about staying with 10 forever, and say, "Ha! See? My PC still works fine!"
I give that about 6 months. Maybe a year. Then they'll switch to Windows 11. It will most likely be because some new PC game "requires" 11. Or maybe their old clunker PC will finally give up the ghost, they'll buy a new one, 11 will be on it and they'll just begrudgingly keep it just because 10 won't work on that computer properly since it wasn't designed for it.
It's real easy to be on the "stay on X version of OS forever" wagon when everything is working. But once stuff stops working, be it hardware or software or both, that's when your tune changes.
If you're using 10 now, you'll soon either go with Win11 or Linux, your choice. And I suppose Mac is also an option if you like spending money.
plain vs. tpms vs. metal valve stem caps
I just talked about getting new tires, and it's worth talking about these little things, valve stem caps (a.k.a. valve stem covers).
There are several different types of caps out there, and they all fall into one of three categories: Plain, TPMS or metal. Which is the best?
I'll answer that question, but before I do, "plain" usually refers to short, stubby plastic caps, "TPMS" usually means plastic caps that are supposedly better for cars with a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (which is pretty much all cars since 2000, and yes, sometimes those sensors need to be replaced), and "metal" means the cap is literally made of metal (usually aluminum) instead of plastic.
Metal is the worst type of cap to use for one simple reason. It's the most difficult to grip. It doesn't matter if the cap has knurling on it or not. Over time, that cap is going to accumulate dirt and road grime. When the time comes (and it will) that you have to take off the cap to add air or even just check the tire pressure with a gauge, you'll fingers will slip on the stupid cap when trying to grip it. This means you'll have to grip the cap harder both for taking it off and putting it back on.
You will immediately notice that plastic caps have much deeper grooves on the outside. And guess what? Your fingers will find that much easier to grip and turn.
Does a plastic cap labeled as TPMS actually affect the performance of the TPMS at all? No, because the TPMS is inside the wheel. However, caps labeled as TPMS are physically longer.
Whether to use plain short stubby caps or the longer TPMS caps depends on your personal preference.
I prefer the TPMS cap and think it's the best because it's longer and easiest for my fingers to grip.
If you like the longer caps with easier grip, get TPMS caps. However, if you think the longer caps look dumb (they do stick out more, after all), get the short stubby ones instead.
What about decorative caps?
An example of a decorative valve stem cover is the dice style cap. They literally look like dice and come in white, black, red, yellow, green and blue, your choice.
Another example is the 8 ball valve stem cap, which obviously looks like an 8 ball from a pool game.
Yes, these look cool, but I wouldn't keep them on my valve stems all the time due to the extra weight and nonstandard shape. If for example you have a classic car or truck and wanted to throw on a set of these for a car show, sure, go ahead. But after the show, put regular sized caps back on.
If you want a decorative cap you can keep on the stem all the time that acts normally, luminous caps are what you want. What are they? Glow-in-the-dark caps. Standard shape, gets its charge from sunlight, glows at night. How well do they work? I have no idea, but again, it's a standard shape, so you can leave them on the stems all the time. And yes, there are caps with LEDs in them also. I've no idea how well those work either.
Can you skip the caps entirely and just leave the end of the stem uncovered?
Yes, but it's not smart for regular passenger cars, trucks and SUVs. Road grime will collect in there over time, and that means two things. First, when you use a tire pressure gauge, that grime will be sprayed directly into it, and possibly wreck the thing. Second, when you add air to the tire, it can damage your air pump and the stem itself from grime being pushed through, and possibly cause the stem to fail outright.
The caps are there to keep road grime out of the stem. Use them.
things i've learned so i don't get screwed buying tires
Every time I have to get new tires, I hate it because there are a thousand different ways to get screwed buying these things. I've been buying tires for close to 30 years, both for cars and trucks I've owned. In that time, I've come up with a few ways to get screwed less.
Yes, I said less. I just replaced a set on my car, but for the last set, I got slightly screwed even knowing what I know. The shop that sold me the set did a switcheroo at the last second and said, "Well, we couldn't get the tire you wanted, but hey, look at these! It's only $50 more for this set!" Like an idiot, I said yes, and they ended up being one of the worst set of tires I ever put on my car. THIS time around, I went back to what I know works and got exactly what I wanted.
This is what I do to get screwed less when buying tires:
I only buy from tire-only shops or a car dealership
I know some will say, "The DEALERSHIP?! Are you INSANE?!" It's not as insane as you think. In my experience, dealerships upsell less when it comes to tires, and they pretty much always have a buy-3-get-1-free sale.
Toyota dealerships do this all the time. With Toyota brand cars, sometimes the dealership will in fact have the best deal. Of course, this depends which brand tire is bought, and how good your ability is to say "NO" for all upsell attempts.
Other brands do the same thing. For General Motors, Chevrolet has 30-day price matching after the sale (or you can present the lower price at time of purchase) for BFGoodrich, Bridgestone, Continental, Dunlop, Firestone, General, Goodyear, Hankook, Kelly, Michelin, Pirelli and Uniroyal tires. This means if another shop is found selling the tire desired at a lower price, the Chevy dealer will match it - as a rebate. Yes, that means a rebate process is involved, but still, it's a way to lower the price.
The dealership is never my first choice, but isn't totally terrible as a second choice. My point is that the deals at the dealership are there if you know how to find them.
Tire-only shops are my first choice, and for very specific reasons. They don't do oil changes or any other mechanical stuff a regular garage does. Tire sales/installation and some suspension (meaning alignments) stuff is what they do and only do. This means the only upselling that will occur will be just for tire stuff.
There is a very specific upsell automatically added in that can only be avoided if you know how to do it, which leads me to...
Tire warranties and "protection plans" are totally worthless
With the tire set I just bought, what I did prior was calculate the price online since the shop has a web site. I did the add-to-cart thing, installation/disposal fees and sales tax were all added in, and right at the end, an option was automatically enabled for some worthless protection plan. I unchecked that option, and the total price was $40 less. That may not sound like much, but it's a way to knock down the price, and I'll take it.
Armed with this knowledge, I went to the tire shop knowing in advance what the final price was. And SURE ENOUGH, right near the end of the purchase process, that stupid protection plan was automatically tacked on. All I said was, "No protection plan, please", and then I got the $40-less price I wanted.
You have to KNOW to do this, else that stupid plan is always added in at the particular shop I bought from.
I said protection plans are worthless. Here's why:
If you read over any tire protection plan or road hazard protection plan, oh yeah, sounds good at first. But read into it, then read about the process involved to actually use such a plan, and I guarantee you won't bother buying one.
Tire shops only offer basic protection, and only for the tread portion of a tire. If you get tire sidewall damage, you're screwed, the plan doesn't cover that and you absolutely have to BUY a new tire with no discount. If however you run over a nail and it's within the tread area of the tire, yes, that can be repaired and the plan will cover that. But why bother when that type of repair is either dirt cheap or FREE?
Road hazard protection covers more. Namely, both the tire and wheel.
If the tire gets punctured by a nail, or glass, or you hit a pothole really hard, the plan covers the repair. But again, ONLY within the tread area of the tire. If there's sidewall damage, nope, screwed again, you have to buy a new tire.
If the wheel gets damaged, such as getting bent to the point where no tire installed on it will hold air, the wheel can get replaced under the plan if you can prove it. And that's where a plan of this type gets worthless real fast.
If it happens you slam into a pothole where both the tire and wheel get wrecked, what must occur is that a claim has to be made per the terms of the hazard protection plan you have. Photo proof and all sorts of paperwork has to be submitted. Once submitted, the plan provider will DECIDE whether to cover the claim or not. And if they actually do DECIDE in your favor, it could take weeks to months to get reimbursed for what you had to spend to replace the tire and wheel. Oh, you thought you could just send a bill and not pay anything out-of-pocket? HAHAHAHAHA, no... that's not the way it works, you silly goose.
Before getting into tire warranties, the only "plan" that actually works is one you make up yourself. Specifically, buy two or four plain steel wheels that fit your car. You don't have to install tires on them. If it ever happens that you slam into a pothole and a wheel gets wrecked, you have a replacement wheel that you can take to a tire shop, have one tire installed and you're good to go. You can optionally have one tire installed on a spare wheel sooner so you have a full size spare at-the-ready.
I can absolutely assure you that you're far better off having a spare wheel or two rather than depend on some worthless protection or road hazard plan to actually reimburse you for tire/wheel damage.
Where standard tire warranties are concerned, they are, like with protection and road hazard plans, largely worthless.
Let's say you have a tire with a 50,000 mile tread life warranty, and the tire wears out at 40,000 miles. Now let's say you've done the tread measurements and can prove easily that yes, the tire did in fact wear out well before 50K miles were on it. All this being true, you should get a new replacement tire free or your money back per the terms of the warranty, right? Wrong. In an absolute best case scenario, maybe you'll get a check for 10% to 20% of the original purchase price. And that's ONLY if everything goes well with your claim, which could takes weeks to months to process. Will everything go well? No. You'll be nickel-and-dimed or outright denied your claim, you will not get any money back and will have wasted your time.
If you want a tire to last, do two things. Have a tire shop or dealership rotate them every 6,000 miles, and keep them inflated to the PSI (as in pounds per square inch of air pressure) stated on your car's sticker. This sticker is usually located in the door jamb. Open the driver's door, look for the sticker, and the tire PSI numbers will be listed there.
And to answer the question of "What is a tire rotation service?", this is when a garage takes the wheels off and moves the fronts to the rears or left front to right rear and right front to left rear (most car manuals state what the rotation pattern is supposed to be). Why rotate tires? To promote even tread wear. Your front wheels turn left and right from you steering regularly while the rears don't, so the fronts wear out faster. Rotate at regular intervals, and the tread across all 4 tires wears evenly. If you don't rotate every 6,000 miles, you get uneven tread wear and your tires wear out faster.
I do pay attention to rotations and tire pressure
Tire rotations are something I schedule by time instead of miles just because it's easier to manage. My tires are rotated once every 6 months regardless of how many or how little miles I put on in that span of time. If I were piling on many miles, then it would be once every 3 months.
Ordinarily, one or more of my tires will gain or lose a few pounds of air pressure from a seasonal change due to significant shift in outdoor temperature. This is completely normal. If the tire air pressure is +/- 3 PSI, I inflate or deflate the tire accordingly.
Also, I periodically look at my tires. If any of them look low, I check the pressure and inflate if necessary.
I do own a tire inflator, and it has paid for itself easily. If my car didn't have a place to plug one of those in, I'd buy an air compressor. And I also own a few tire pressure gauges since they're cheap.
It's true that on my car, I could drive around with the PSI off by as much as 9 pounds and be fine. In fact, my TPMS sensors don't trip a warning light on my dashboard until 10 PSI is gained or lost from the factory recommended PSI for a tire at any wheel. Even so, I periodically check the pressure anyway and adjust if the PSI is off by more than 3 for any tire.
I understand how long tires realistically last for
It is possible to eke out 60K or even up to 80K miles out of a set of tires. Years ago, the most I ever got out of a set was about 65K miles. I could have ran them longer, but didn't want to tempt fate and replaced the set. Bear in mind this was at a time in my driving life where I was putting on tons of miles every year.
These days, I switch out a set when they get up to 40K miles or slightly over. And the main reason for that is wet weather driving. If I lived somewhere where it was dry most of the time, I'd run a set to 60K and wouldn't think twice about it. But for rainy weather, running a set with over 40K miles is a bad idea. All it takes is a day when it just begins to rain when all the oils in the road wash up and my tire traction is gone.
Short story about that: At a supermarket in Florida, I had just finished shopping, got in the car and start driving to the parking lot exit. It was just beginning to rain. Nothing crazy. While heading to the lot exit, I had to stop for a reason (I don't remember exactly what for), and the car started sliding. No tire noise other than shhhhhhhh, and then, finally, I stopped. Nothing was hit and no accident happened, but this really stuck out to me because I had the brake pedal to the floor, the anti-lock did not kick in, and I had almost no traction. This was in Florida, on a warm day with very light rain, on a paved surface traveling at a speed of under 20mph. The surface got wet, oils in the pavement washed up, my tires were old, and my braking traction was gone. Yeah, I replaced my tires a few days later.
When people talk about tire traction issues, they think of major things like icy conditions, heavy snow, very heavy rain, hydroplaning and things like that. Consider the parking lot story I just told you. Again, it was a warm day, light rain, very slow speed of travel. You'd never consider that a hazardous driving situation, even for old tires. I certainly didn't. Now I know better.
I know most like-to-like tires act exactly the same
Like-to-like means "for same purpose". Obviously, a studded snow tire and a touring tire are significantly different from each other. Like-to-like tires however pretty much all act the same way, and there is no good reason to spend more money for something "better".
For example, take two all-season tires, the Pirelli P4 Persist AS Plus and Yokohama Avid Ascend LX. One is more expensive than the other.
Would I notice the difference on my car if I paid extra for the more expensive tire? I seriously doubt it.
Not only would I not notice any significant difference, but I'm also not afraid to jump between tire brands since consistency of tire quality basically doesn't exist.
I've bought tires that were great, and when they got to the point where they wore out, replaced them with the exact same brand, same size, same everything as the last set I had, and they've been total junk. I've also bought tires where user reviews said they were WORST TIRE EVER, bought them anyway, and they were great.
Again, there's no consistency with tire quality at all. There's also no point in being a tire brand loyalist.
You're just better off getting whatever is available at a decent price from a shop that won't screw you over. Get your tires, skip the protection/hazard plan crap, rotate tires at regular intervals, keep the air pressure close to what the sticker says on the driver's door jamb, and you're good.
how to encrypt and decrypt a tar, one-liner version
I do love one-liners that I can do on the command line in Linux, and this one has to do with TAR archives.
TAR, on its own, doesn't encrypt anything. This being true, a separate utility has to be used to encrypt it. The easiest one is GPG.
GPG is GNU Privacy Guard, and should already be installed on your Linux system. You can check this with which gpg. If you get a result of something like /usr/bin/gpg, it's already installed. If you get a blank result back, then you need to install it. Installing GPG should readily be in the main repository for your Linux distribution.
Let's say I have a folder called my-folder on the Desktop where I want to put all the files in that folder into a TAR and encrypt it with a password. I launch a Terminal and do this first:
cd ~/Desktop
After that, this:
tar -cvf - my-folder | gpg -c --batch --passphrase mypassword > my-folder.tar.gpg
The above will create the compressed archive my-folder.tar.gpg, and encrypt it using the password mypassword.
If you DO NOT want the archive compressed (which results in faster creation but a larger archive), --compress-algo none needs to be added in, like this:
tar -cvf - my-folder | gpg -c --compress-algo none --batch --passphrase mypassword > my-folder.tar.gpg
Obviously, change mypassword to a password of your choice.
To decrypt and extract the archive, put my-folder.tar.gpg on the Desktop and run this:
cd ~/Desktop;mkdir extract;cat my-folder.tar.gpg | gpg -d --batch --passphrase mypassword | tar -C extract -xvf -
A folder called extract will be created on the Desktop, and the contents of my-folder.tar.gpg will be decrypted and extracted to that folder.
Doing the same thing but with progress bars
When creating/encrypting, change -cvf to -cf and add --checkpoint=.1000 like this:
tar --checkpoint=.1000 -cf - my-folder | gpg -c --batch --passphrase mypassword > my-folder.tar.gpg
The result of this is that while the archive is being created, dots (as in periods) will show indicating progress until completed.
For extraction, pv will need to be installed, which means pipe viewer. This utility should be available in the main repository for your Linux distribution.
Change cat to pv and -xvf to -xf, like this:
cd ~/Desktop;mkdir extract;pv my-folder.tar.gpg | gpg -d --batch --passphrase mypassword | tar -C extract -xf -
During extraction, you'll see the progress bar.