star wars - Why did the Lars family need an astromech droid?

It was very clear why Owen decided to buy C-3PO:

OWEN: What I really need is a droid who understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.

But they appeared to be really interested in acquiring an astromech droid since when the first one (R5-D4) blew up because of a bad motivator, they decided to get R2-D2.

What use would they have for an astromech droid?

Answer

I agree it seems strange. R2 droids are specifically engineered to work on starfighters

this rounded, waist-high droid was made specifically to fit in military starfighter astromech slots

However, it probably retains the general purpose of an astromech droid:

a type of droid that served as an automated mechanic, performing a variety of repair duties

which means it would be handy to have around in a semi industrialized agricultural environment. We also see that R2 series is very high quality.

So this is a bit like buying the highest quality Swiss Army Knife -- sure it's engineered for military use, but it is handy in many other situations. Or maybe imagine buying a Humvee -- could be handy for some kinds of rural work.

Update: as @SQB pointed out above, Owen originally went for an R5 unit, which is the low cost budget version of the R2. Perhaps he gravitated to the R5 first out of frugal farmer instincts, but R2D2 (as a used unit) was a tolerable price.

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harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

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In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

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