gets cash and adds leverage for advantageous leave use

Four days leave atop thirty days normal leave per year plus whatever specialty bonus is basically a tip. Wise troops would delay taking leave until their final enlistment is up so I did. The more I had to carry forward the better.

Not everyone gives a shit about long deployments, self for example. Troops who simply don't care about long deployments (there are more than a few of us!) but do want to accrue leave as leverage to take leave (so their unit doesn't look like ass for not permitting it) in large chunks can use the additional days to their advantage.

My objective from the day I enlisted was always to accrue as much leave as practical (normally 90 days/year) to carry forward to the end of my career so I could bolt three months early (plus the custom of "commanders days" where G.I.s were allowed to disappear then show up to out process than take formal leave).

I also used it accrued leave in conjunction with offering to take long leave outside the holiday season so others in my work center could spend time with their kids. These customs go back to long before I enlisted.

I do STRONGLY suggest that anyone who considers themselves at all sensitive not join the armed forces because that's stress they don't need.
Sensitivity and war do not go together and never did. Not everyone is suited to every career civil or military and there's no shame in not fitting, just wisdom in
choosing wisely!

It's not that sensitivity is a fault, it's that it's simply not optimal and opens the door to stress-induced discomfort and emotional damage. I knew in childhood I'd fit the Air Force which I did with the goal of retiring young and debt-free which I also did, but it's not for everyone. The fewer young people who enlist the better for all concerned because ONLY enlistment and retention create meaningful institutional pressure to raise pay and benefits!

When you serve whatever cretinous hack our dimwit (intelligence is not a choice and is, arguably neuro-divergent!) voters self-inflict you are doing other taxpayers a favor for which you should be compensated! Uncle Sugar will get his use out of you so get your use out of him! There aren't many "idealistic" reasons to fight for a nation (which means people) this contemptibly stupid. The price of not having (even more expensive and like the last time a social disaster) an active draft is to pay the fucking troops.

The USA really is a business, not a country. That's just human nature.

Same here except my server is a Supermicro of similar vintage.
"Want" and "require" are not the same.

If someone needs a PC to make money then like other business equipment they can spend accordingly.

Capacitors can often be replaced and board level repair is not beyond small shops and dedicated enthusiasts. I remember the capacitor plague and some motivated enthusiasts recapping their boards. That's not terribly difficult, proof being many enthusiasts and professionals who do board level repairs.

Many vintage PCs including mine work fine. I only demote them to backups when I get bored and feel like a hardware refresh. The retro computing community deliberately run ancient hardware of which millions of computers remain.

For example I've a healthy pile of X and T-series Thinkpads from the 2008 era that function fine despite being assembled from wrecks, and desktops dating to the early oughts.

AI hardware doesn't use conventional RAM modules.

CDs are ancient history and you likely (notes UID) came of age when driving (and license testing) was taken a bit more seriously.

Utility computing can go many years without a hardware refresh, and intensive tasks need not be shared where they degrade performance on a main machine.

Gaming is completely discretionary and parts may be bought at leisure if one already owns a usable machine.

I buy multiple business class PC cheap after liquidations push them onto Ebay. Linux frees me from needing Windows, a few applications excepted which can run in VMs on Linux hosts or on a cheap secondary PC I remote into (KVM switches are also an option).

Owning multiple used PCs (because ever being one-deep on hardware invites downtime) and not discarding working hardware makes life easy. They take up little space hung on walls (my server hangs on a few cents worth of lag hooks) or stacked on shelves or hung from them to leave shelves free for other use.

Home lab enthusiasts solve the business hardware use and space problems with trivial effort making their systems worth a look. They're a friendly supportive community.

Other strategies include not caring about cosmetics where a few scratches or replaceable minor hardware usefully lower prices. Thinkpad enthusiasts were building notebooks from wrecks back when new ones were too expensive. My first A31 was assembled from bartered ewaste along with two old HP servers reused as desktops.

When you have a techy problem, respond techfully! If you really do need a peformant machine to make a living be glad they're still cheap compared to gearing up for vehicle mechanics, serious woodwork, welding professionally etc.

Those days are over.

Being so utterly tech-ignorant in 2026 should be shameful, but the adult choice to be incompetent is completely normalized.

The death of competence was inevitable because the majority of humanity are not intelligent and intelligence is not a choice.

People don't know what right looks like, and PBS is a bastion of old people who should be removed from the levers of power because they're unable to learn.

Failure to ignore that has never not been idiotic.
If your data matters own at least two copies and verify them.
Not hard.