The best VR headsets in 2024

Those are the kind of “games” I play on my laptop. LOL

Good for you! I would remind you however that any project or investment can be justified by tweaking the numbers, the data you choose to input, and/or just ignoring other factors that you don't want to consider.

Although I greatly admire your number crunching prowess, that has very little to do with your computing hardware and everything to do with utilizing the clever grey matter between your ears. I hate to tell you... but all you need to use Microsoft SQL Server is just about any X64 processor and anything over about 2GBs of RAM.

I remember writing programs in Lotus 123’s advanced macro programming language about 40 years ago and running them on an IBM AT compatible computer. Lotus 123 and a vintage computer that could handle most of what you describe fairly efficiently. And it was very easy to program.

“That's for an all-electric house, and charging an EV to drive it on average 1,200 miles per month (home charged miles, not counting road-side charger miles if we take it on a trip).”

EVs have their uses... taking them on a trip is not one of them. You are no doubt aware that if you want to take a trip of more than a few hundred miles and all you have is an EV... you would be better off renting an ICE vehicle about 90% of the time.

Now don't get me wrong... I have put together several electric and gas-powered bicycles and have a capable folding electric bike that we stow in our airplane, so I have taken advantage of vehicles using alternative energy on many occasions. It is just that with rapid depreciation, the limitations, and unpredictable long term battery longevity they are not a good solution for most people's needs.

As a long-term user of lithium based rechargeable batteries I would advise you never to go below 20% of EV's battery capacity and do not leave them charged above 80% unless you plan on using them in the next few days. If you do not follow these guidelines, you will be lucky to get 5 good years out of them let alone 10.

I do appreciate you sharing your insight and accomplishments.

I hate to tell you... but all you need to use Microsoft SQL Server is just about any X64 processor and anything over about 2GBs of RAM.

I respectfully disagree. I was running MSSQL on a 4GB laptop and it was slow as Christmas. Especially when calculating SMA' and EMA's of ETF prices based on intraday and closing prices across thousands of ticker symbols. It's a world of difference running on a 32GB RAM (32MHz clock speed), 4-core/8 thread 2.8GHz processor with a SSD having a 500 KB/s transfer rate.

It depends on many factors. If your wife wants to stop every 200 miles and walk around for 10-15 minutes, taking an EV takes no more time than taking a gas car. LOL At least if you travel in the areas we have. There are couple of places we have our eye on that we'll take the gas pickup (because those areas have few fast charging options).

As far as cost goes, again it depends. If we rent a cabin over 200 miles away (call it a 500-mile round trip), the first half of the trip is free from our home charge. If it's a cabin with a NEMA 14-50 outlet by the driveway (advertising to EV owners), then we charge enough to make it home. No cost for our miles.

Obviously, that changes if it's a much longer trip, no free chargers at hotels we stop at along the way, and no free charger at our destination. On a long trip like that, the only free miles we get are the ones we charged from home. Last year's road trip from Alabama to New Brunswick, Canada and back was cheaper to have the EV only because we stayed there for 2 months and had very cheap charging at our destination.

But I read that road-side charging costs in California cost even more than their gas does. So driving 1,000 miles there might cost a lot more in an EV than in a gas car. If we did road trips there we'd probably use the gas pickup instead of the EV car.

I respectfully disagree. I was running MSSQL on a 4GB laptop and it was slow as Christmas. Especially when calculating SMA’ and EMA’s of ETF prices based on intraday and closing prices across thousands of ticker symbols. It's a world of difference running on a 32GB RAM (32MHz clock speed), 4-core/8 thread 2.8GHz processor with a SSD having a 500 KB/s transfer rate.

Actually, we don't disagree. I was merely making the observation that number crunching in the way that you mentioned does not take a lot of processing power or memory. This is not to say that the experience of using an outdated underpowered computer with inadequate memory and a standard hard drive is anywhere near as pleasant as using an up-to-date computer.

I purchased a gaming laptop at Costco for $999 last month. It is still on sale for $400 off. It is an HP Victus 16.1” Gaming Laptop with a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700HX, GeForce RTX 4060 GPU and 32GB of RAM. It came with a fast 1TB Gen4 NVME SSD, and I installed an additional 4TB Gen4 NVME SSD. I purchased this computer primarily for Flight Simulation and Video Processing.

My primary laptop is still my 5-year-old Ryzen 5 2500u based convertible HP Envy x360 touch screen laptop/tablet with 32GB of RAM 1TB NVME SSD and additional 2TB hard drive. It is much lighter, and uses a fraction of the electricity while still having enough oomph to handle everything other than GPU intensive games and video processing very well. It actually could handle MSFS 2020 albeit with very long loading times, reduced settings, a cooling pad, and some stability issues. And of course, the Quest 2 VR headset has 1832 x 1920 resolution on each eye which is essentially like adding two additional high-resolution monitors, so this was of course not possible to use with the flight simulators.

I have upgraded lots of old laptops over the years to extend their usefulness for myself and friends and family on many occasions. Many of them used to come with their processors in sockets and GPUs in slots so even those could be upgraded sometimes for better results. And of course, nearly all desktops have worthwhile upgrade paths.

But I want you to know that I salute your efforts to utilize MSSQL for useful purposes. It is also great that you are able to generate enough electricity to someday pay off your initial investment along with utilizing the advantages of an electric vehicle to save money on your fuel consumption.

I would point out only that for most people the limitations of solar cells and electric vehicles make each impractical for their situations. My wife and I live in an area that is far North where it is cloudy most of the time and we are surrounded by tall trees that block our view of the Southern sky. Solar cells even with heavy subsidies that have been offered are not practical for us.

The range and charging time along with our propensity for taking longer trips makes an EV impractical especially if you figure in their rapid depreciation and limited time before the expensive battery needs to be replaced. We recently purchased a 13-year-old Ford Explorer. It is a great improvement over our 23-year-old Chevy Astro Van that currently has 250,000 miles on it. The vast majority of electric vehicles will need a new battery by the time they are 13 years old which essentially means that they will have no market value, while our Explorer is still worth a tidy sum and even the high milage 23-year-old Chevy Astro is still worth several thousand dollars.

Electric vehicles are all essentially disposable at this time, while legacy vehicles can go on and on. An even more extreme example is our 55-year-old general aviation airplane. It is still worth $30,000 to $40,000 and we paid only $17,000 for it 27 years ago.

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