Photos Latest Purchases Thread: v2.0

Took a sneaky trip to WEX whilst I was in Glasgow over the weekend and picked up a Sony 28-70 F2

 

Antec M1 ITX Case .



https://www.scan.co.uk/products/ant...DoUlTy7jT90Yp2LcOzK2AcS4L4wSMT1kaAiVbEALw_wcB

Only just opened it up to have a look and I'm very impressed. £49.99 on Scan ATM is a bargain.

 

A PCIe 5 riser for my NCase T1… which probably means I’m going to have to completely dismantle the build to swap it out.

Riser by BeauchN posted 5 Sep 2026 at 09:37

 

A PCIe 5 riser for my SSUPD Meshroom S V2... which means I'm going to have to completely dismantle my 5000D to swap it over.

 

Never seen a riser like that, interesting.

 

Samsung S90F 55” OLED - specifically the QE55S90F



Replaces my LG 65” LCD that recently went pop. Which I was never particularly happy with, if I’m honest. Backlight dimming was absolutely terrible on it and it had pretty poor viewing angles. Oh, and it was also spying on me and reporting back almost everything that was ever displayed on it for the best part of 5 years.

I have no intention of connecting the Samsung to my network, if I can avoid it. I have no need of “smart” bollocks in my TV, the only thing I could possibly want an internet connection for is firmware updates. I’m going to do some digging and see if I can update the Samsung offline - if that’s not possible then… oh no… how terrible… how will I ever cope…

 

I haven't played around with the newer Samsungs but it was certainly possible to do firmware updates over USB on older Samsung TVs, no idea if that feature still exists though.

 

Yep, there’s a 2.something GB firmware download on their support site, along with instructions for updating via USB

Most those firmware updates are going to be all the “smart” rubbish that I’m not interested in, but there’s a small chance that things like image processing, upscaling, colour handling, etc, could have had improvements since the TV launched.

 

Yes there are often updates to the image processing ML algos, so can be worthwhile, also sometimes missed/broken features last I recall was the missing 144hz support on mine but really everything is watching your internet usage and it's all stored by your ISP, there is no privacy.

 

You have privacy by dint of simply existing as a human being. Our societies have only been conditioned into accepting otherwise through decades of abuse by those with unfathomable wealth, those who do not even acknowledge us as real people.

There are plenty of relatively simple things I can do to push back. DNS-over-HTTPS, network-level blocklists, owning & hosting my data myself, isolated & segregated networks, not connecting devices to the network unnecessarily, reducing dependence on apps, ditching Microsoft, ditching social media, ditching the Glass Slab Of Nightmare & Enshittification…

None of these measures are beyond the reach of the average bit-tech user. I can only speak for myself; however, I feel a duty to not only push back against the abuse wherever I can, but to also help others to do the same.

 

My Samsung keeps trying to push the latest update.

I've not done it yet as it can't be rolled back and from what I've seen it's mainly just AI the gubbins out of it to push ads and mess the interface about.

 

Even if it is useless as a knife, thats a wonderful looking thing.

 

got some mighty plans for this little bugger

 

And just like that you talk about vehicle fob batteries crapping out, karma chuckles and says "surprise"

 

At least you can get away with easily-available CR2032, and don’t have to hunt down a chonk-tastic CR2450…

 

True enough, although it didn't help that it died in the middle of an MOT with no warning, que much frantic scrambling trying to remember how to disable the alarm and get the bike started using the PIN which I haven't used since I bought the bike many moons ago.

 

Thanks for the reminder, I should replace the cells in each of our car fobs, not done it since we got the car and I have no idea how old they are.

 

I already had a load as my welding mask takes them. Could I find them? Could I ****