Curb that enthusiasm.

~Darkseeker~

Fully Optimized
Messages
2,494
Location
Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
i dont get why people are so keen to curb enthusiasm. parents of teenagers for example (im an angsty teen myself). my dad had a moan at me for spilling £60 on a small external HDD for backing up media files, apparently i spend 'too much' (this was the only thing ive bought since my ipod, like summer last year).

being moaned at regarding little things i buy really curbs my enthusiasm for buying and trying new things. for these reasons ive yet to try alot of things people have recommended to me, simply because i dont think i can be arsed with this computer stuff anymore.

restore my enthusiasm plz?
 
My parents did the same thing. Between my network enclosure, my windows Home server (I built one for them too out of my own pocket) and my RAID setup I have easily $1000 invested in backing data up. I was hearing about it all the time (even months after I purchased it) because I could have saved the money. Then my laptop's hard drive died right before xmas with three new, semi-completed school projects on it that took me at least 30 hours to get to that point. Suddenly it was the best thing I've ever spent my money on.

I think with parents they just don't want you wasting what you've earned. While I hope you never have a hard drive fail, that might just be what it takes to show your parents it was well worth your money.
 
same here, my parents always moan about me spending money on electronics. When i bought my ipod touch they were saying that i could have stuck with my nano and then all of a sudden all my mom wanted to do was to play games on it. they were also saying that i didnt need a new computer when i was saving up to buy my current one and now my dad wants to use it for work.

I'd recommend trying to make your parents happier by opening a savings account and putting some money into it every month. then they'll see that you're not spending all of your money as soon as you get it. you might even be able to convince them to match what you put into your account. Then not only will they stop complaining about you spending so much but you'll also have some money for a down payment on a car once you go to university.
 
well my dad is a computer tech, but a devoted follower of just re-installing.

he doesnt seem to realise he has like 3GB of data, which isnt that important if he loses it

but im a DJ, and have about 10,000 MP3 files that i need on a regular basis (at least half of them paid for on iTunes) many pictures, tonnes of emails and probably most importantly, several dozen school projects and documents.

to him, its a case of reinstalling XP and installing drivers

for me it would cost several hundred to regain my music files, atleast a month of dedicated time to re-do coursework.
 
^ So you paid over $5,000 for downloaded songs from iTunes? I find that somewhat hard to believe.
 
You'd be surprised. My mom has easily spent 3 G's on music for her Itunes that she never listens to :|

I'm like...Pandora ftw?

And on the subject of the thread:
My parents aren't techies, but they are highly intrigued when I buy stuff for my rig. I almost think my dad was more excited than I was when i bought the liquid cooling. But he got all upset when I screwed up the window for the CM690. Mostly because he is a contractor and builds houses for a living. So the unclean lines and bent up metal made him like "son...I am dissapoint"
 
^ So you paid over $5,000 for downloaded songs from iTunes? I find that somewhat hard to believe.

split between me and a few friends, over several years.

about half my collection is bought from itunes or ripped from CD. to be honest, im not sure if that makes me a noob for paying for music, or on sone kind of moral high ground for not stealing it.
 
It depends how good you are with money management. If you know what you are doing and don't spend more than you have, I think you have the right to spend when you want and need something.

Then again there are other people who work themselves into debt, because they don't have a clue about how to handle money.
 
To a certain extent I agree with the majority here - things like external hard drives, pen drives and backup material are in my mind a sensible use of cash - especially if you've got lots of data that'd cost you (in time, money or both) if it went missing.

However, I do agree somewhat with the common parental attitude, and I think stating that it's always to curb enthusiasm is a tad harsh. Would I want my (hopefully future!) kids spending hundreds whenever a new piece of technology came out just so they could have a play? Nope. Would it rob them of the chance to have the latest toy? May well do. But is this always a bad thing? I wouldn't say so.

I can't say I wasn't the same when I was younger - but I did actually buy very little on the computing front. I've always been interested in computing in one form or another so it most definitely wasn't because I didn't want the latest stuff! It was for a couple of reasons - a) because looking back a decade or so ago things weren't as cheap as they are now and b) because I took my parent's advice and tried to save rather than spend where I could.

I might've moaned at the time, but looking at things now I'm glad I didn't spend spend spend. Far from curbing my enthusiasm it kept it going - you don't always need the latest and greatest to research and look at your interests. If you only get new kit once every few years rather than every other month it's a much more exciting occasion when you do!

I don't want to turn this into another boring lecture, and I'm not saying never spend anything on new kit - there's nothing wrong with treating yourself once in a while. But to the younger members especially, it might be worth taking your parents' advice on board rather than dismissing it!
 
Back
Top Bottom