The days of earning my keep as the computer nerd are fading. These days computers mostly take care of themselves, wifi self-configures, and you upgrade a computer by buying a new one. From time to time I help 'get better at Facebook', get photos off a phone, or tell people "Nonono! Wait until next week to but an iPad!" (Seriously wait)
Anyways, Mrs. Chaos' car battery has been slowly going. The last two oil changes they've mentioned it's getting to its end and it has a lot of corrosive buildup. The last time they offered to replace it, but Mrs. Chaos tells me not to pay for stuff we can do. This past week it finally died. It was kind enough not to die when we were in SF, but wait for us to return home.
Husbandly duties include basic car maintainence, so I whipped out my toolkit (a computer repair toolkit) and went at it. All of the screws and bolts were massively corrodid, by attacked it with my socket screw driver and elbow grease. Too much! The battery cable terminal broke apart in my hands. "No problem," I thought and went to unscrew the cable terminal. I had no luck at all. The screw was crudded on and I had no overage against the dangly cable. Try and fail. Try and fail.
The only choice left is to repair it like I would repair a Mac: throw it out and buy a new one.