Why Girls Don't Put Their Specs In Their Sigs (And Other Semi-Random Ponderings)

My fellow Hexites, as you may be aware, I owned (and if you want to split hairs, still do own) until recently a gaming rig of large, nay unlimited power, a system capable of taking Half Life II on 1600x1200 with all the settings on max, and punching it in the neck. A system capable of taking 3DMark 2003 and pulling its pants down in-front of the whole school. A system capable of playing Doom III on Ultra settings, and throwing its bag on the roof. A system... well, you get the idea.

But to be honest, its all male organ waving all this stuff, isn't it? I mean, so I've got an X800XT, and yes, it’s even the Platinum version, and yes, I've overclocked it beyond the stock speeds, but really at the end of the day, apart from us tech geeks, who really gives a monkies? The chavs are quite happy playing on their 0.001mhz powered Playstation 2, the studenty geeks who can't afford a proper PC are happy to use the crap one that has been squeezed into the X-Box and pretending, and, most contented of all, the GameCube owners are happy playing good games, on a good system, that they paid almost nothing for, because they know where the quality is.

Then there's me... since I completed the final few (dire) levels of Half Life II, I've not played a single second of a single game that required 1\50th of the pixel pushing, polygon crunching power at my disposal, and yet, when a few days ago, in the bath, I suddenly realized this, I was still loathed to sell. Not because I didn't think it was the best idea, but because I wouldn't be able to put all that nonsense in my sig and then point and laugh at other people. It was a status thing, but a status thing amongst a group of people of whom at least 60%+ wear nation health spectacles, wear cords and watch Hard Spell.

Then I thought – you wouldn’t get the ladies doing this. Of the few women we have on HEXUS, none of them put their specs in their sigs; now I realize, bless their pretty little heads, that they probably have not the slightest clue what their specs are, or in fact anything about their computer at all, apart from if the delivery man who helped carry it up the stairs was dishy or where the closest branch of Dorothy Perkins was to the PC World store where the brought it (or, to be more realistic, got the plain boy from a few doors down who seems to know about these things, to go and buy it for them). However, I think I’m correct in saying that even if a woman did, by some miracle of the Lord, know what computer parts she owned, the miracle woman in question would not put them on display for the world to see. *1

So, why do we? We can be all grown-up and say that its because we want others to know what we’ve purchased, perhaps by way as a guide, but lets be honest, those of use with power gaming systems list our specs in a (feeble) attempt at tech-boasting. Look at my overclock, it’s so fast, and my CPU is so hot, I can’t get near my PC without a full radiation suit to turn it off! And I stole the heat sink!

We really must think others are impressed by all this, as why else would we do it? What’s wrong with using the sig space for a brief but heartfelt plea for world peace, or perhaps an unfunny quote from Peter Kay that we think is hilarious? It could even be used as protest space against fascist regimes from around the world, brutal dictators, or eBuyer delivery times.

After all, it’s all image isn’t it? I mean, all this ‘Amd Althon64bit ‘I’ve got quite a lot more money than you’ edition @ 99.87thz, who cares, apart from the person who reduced their chips lifetime to 3 days and a few other stary-eyed ogling geeks wishing they were l33t enough to change settings in a BIOS.

It’s all done for effect, and that is easily faked. For instance, lets say you get invited to Buckingham Palace for some function and you turn up with a towel on your head, and flip-flops on, drying your hair and putting your lippy on… the Queen would think you are going somewhere *really* important afterwards, but in reality, you just couldn’t be arsed going to Top Shop.

Anyway, point being, I’ve awoken from the geek induced slumber, and must now pursue that other most important of pointless tech pursuits – image! Yes, from now on I will not be pointlessly throwing money at my rig, in a failed attempt to make me look hard, I will from now on, be much more sensible, and start pointlessly throwing money at my rig in a failed attempt to look stylish and sexy.

From now on my officey type stuff, email, surfing the net, etc, will be done on a Mac Mini, with wireless keyboard and mouse, 19” TFT (color coordinated of course), and a few well chosen extras, and my gaming will be confined to the ultra sexy PSP, or at least, will be when its out. Nowhere near as powerful as my all conquering X800XT-PE powered behemoth, but much better looking, each perfectly suited to the task, and… a ton more fun to own, I reckon.

To be honest, it’s reached the stage now where I better think of a point to this thread…

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Right, given the choice of a powerhouse rig that was as ugly as sin or a standard office spec rig that was, shall we say, Vaulesque in its beauty, which would you go for and why? I want men and women to reply please, as I have a secret prediction as to what will happen that I bet none of you can guess! (What do you mean, ‘it’s obvious Vaul, you complete nob head!’, I thought I was being clever and insightful. :( )

Also, to everyone who puts their system specs in their sig; why? And I want to know honestly. Don’t be shy, no-one will judge you in the slightest. Again I am interested to know. I did it myself, and the reason… to show off my ninaristic rig to my fellow tech-geeks of course! This is a big step as anyone will tell you, the most important thing an alcoholic or Geordie can do is admit their illness to themselves, so they can begin to get treatment.

Anything else… oh yes, how much style over substance do we think Apple products are? I mean, they do all look great, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but do you think Apple sometimes rely on this as a way of pushing out whatever product they have at the time, regardless of real world performance and the like, so long as it looks nice?

Talk about these things. Now.



*1 - These opinions are not mine, they are simply being relayed from an MSN conversation I had with Kez yesterday, and the vast majority of the claims are his and his alone. Therefore any complaints about the mindless, sexist nature of them should be directly completely, solely and totally at him, and him alone. And my I take this opportunity to apologize in advance for his frankly unacceptable views.

i just recently added my specs to my sig.. Because a) I finally had something that wasn't cobbled together from old parts and b) I installed gentoo linux on the bad boy to get the fun of a 64 bit Operating system.

My reason for adding to the sig ? Simply that if i ever need to trouble shoot the information contained therein could prove useful. This is generally only applicable to the gentoo forums i admit. But i only post in the two and keep both profiles fairly similar.

I would take the hideous behemoth computer.. Because my case is hidden under a desk .. So i don't see it anyway.

Apple makes rubbish ! Stylish rubbish. Then, they made the ipod. The 'gayest' thing ever. Because it IS apples business at the moment. It, at one stroke, out dated all mp3 players from the sheer amount of storage, and the fact it doesn't look like a soviet experiment. Apple makes computers for film sets and people that live in ikea show rooms. You pay a hefty premium for those looks though...

No specs in my sig, if u wanna know what I got come ask ;)

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Originally Posted by Vaul

Also, to everyone who puts their system specs in their sig; why?

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If I am ever looking for tech help on a forum it helps if other people can see what components are in use. You then get into the habit of including your specs in your sig elsewhere (I just cut & paste as a matter of course).

If someone is looking to build a system they can see what other people are running & the sort of results that they are getting.

Hmm.. mine are there becasue i played with phootoshop and just need to fill up space.. and my computer *was* better than alot of my friends who are on another forum so i was using it as a braging thing..

But not I think about what you have said.. I dont know if I want it anymore :( Ive payed almost all of my spare money into it... And its not even 1337 anymore :(
I play CS Source maxxed out at 1024 * 786 which looks beautiful.. But then I get owned by a dude that plays it with everything at the min settings and you wonder, is the prettyness worth it??

But as for going over to consoles, I could NEVER bring myself to do that... I think they just plain suck...

I couldn't agree more with you Vaul. Over the years I've poured insane amounts of money into computers, so much so that it's one of those things I put in a dark corner of my mind and try not to think about lest I actually feel physically sick because of it. And yes, it was the same illness, one-upmanship. Always having the bleeding edge latest super duper framerate barfing 3dmark spanking ultra rig....and so much the better if it had a GT or Ultra etc on the end.

And what did my ultra megatron overclocked water cooled "it's so powerful it can warp the fabric of time and space" machine actually do? That's right, play a few games here and there and browse the intarweb. Sure, it's cycles got donated to whatever worthy distributed computing project was on the go but really it was just a halfassed way of justifying the need for so much unused power.

Its probably an age thing, I'm getting older and other things take the forefront in your mind. I've been hoarding/buying/building computers of all types since the early 80's and have I got a button to show for it? Bah.

These days I have the same rig I've had for the last two years, granted she was top of the line at the time and then some so it's still got the legs. But will I be upgrading the old girl to the latest super srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy whatever the hell socket is all the rage now? Will I be paying four times my TV license/equivelant annual gas bill/2 weeks mortgage etc etc on the latest graphics card just so I can fire up a game and go, "Well I think it looks faster...nah it must do it cost me a bomb. Quick fire up 3DMark and see if it scores better that'll tell me decisively that it was worth the money!"

Will I b*ggery. When she gets too long in the tooth to play the latest games at 1280x1024 then I'll think about ripping it's guts out and replacing it with something a little more up to date....perhaps.

And as for specs in sigs? pfff. I've never got to the end of someone's sig-specs, as if I'm interested. Christ some people even put what coloured fans they've got and the amount of cathodes etc! LoL give me a break.

/rantoff :rant:

Ahh that feels better. Nice one Vaul, decent thread.

I've spent too much damn money on this computer, and not much else. How the heck else do I show it off? :P :D

I'm not actually sure why my sig doens't contain it at the moment :o


Besides, this is a computer enthusiast's forum, where that sort of stuff is what this place is all about. Go onto a car forum and you'll probably see people's cars and a list of modifications in their sig. Go to an AV forum and you'll see lists of people's kit. Go to an astronomy forum..... And so forth..

:)


Back to your earlier paragraph, once I finished HL2 (what a game) I don't really play anything that requires a quarter of the power my PC has to offer.
I'm addicted to Unreal Tournament. But it requires a 200MHz processor, 32MB of RAM and a graphics card with 16MB of memory. My computer has more than 10 times that power :)

Oh well... I'm sure some other gem of a game will come along and capture my heart, like Far Cry and HL2 did, among the dross like Doom3 and Halo, etc

My pc's been the same spec for the last 2 years pretty much, used to have it in my sig but i cba anymore, besides, its out of action atm and instead im using an old 500mhz P3 system that i got given a couple of months ago for building a new system, its bought me to the conclusion that people that say you need anything more powerful than this for internet/email/general office use are either trying to sell you something or havn't tried to find out what'll run on one of these little machines.

Ok, hanvent read all the post, got to the "mindless senseless sexist" part and stopped OUTRAGED! (also read the disclaimer.... still not an excuse tbh)

I know all the specs of my 2 PCs and my Laptop, i made one of my PCs myself and have unbuilt and rebuilt my other one. I used to do the whole benchmark thing, but found it pointless, cos i dont play games *anymore* and i dont actually CARE, as long as it does what i want it to do then i'm happy.

I totally resent the comments in the above post. I dont care who it was that said them, they shouldnt have been said.

<edit> right finished reading it now, so i'll reply to the rest of it :p

I dont have my specs in my sig cos they're nothing to rave about, as i said above, my PC does what i want and that does me fine.

I apple products are DEFINITELY all about the style. Look at the latest products to come out:
the ipod- pure white, sleek, STYLISH,
ipod mini - metalic colour, small, STYLISH
apple mini thing - TINY, would fit in someones (very big) pocket, yet still amazingly stylish
ibook - crisp, white, sleek and smooth just like the ipod, bloody godamn stylish innit.

Although all these things do the job and well, they're mainly selling due to what they look like and, in the case of ipods, how many people have them and not, in a lot of cases, what they do (i.e people asking for ipods for xmas when they dont have a PC or laptop....HELLO!)

As for the question about the 2 computers, i'm a bit stuck on this one lol, i have 3 modded cases (one's empty and being donated to my uncle) and i dont know why lol. I did one of them myself, to see if i could, cos thats how i do things, i try new things to prove i can do them, fair enough. The other 2 i bought....cos they were cheap.... and i like funky things :p is that an excuse? well its mine.
But at the same time, going by the spec of my mum's office computer, or the computers we've got in uni (even the new ones) they're horrendously slow and i cant stand them.... so i'd prolly go for the faster one, depending on how fast the office one was.....

that is all :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vaul

However, I think I’m correct in saying that even if a woman did, by some miracle of the Lord, know what computer parts she owned, the miracle woman in question would not put them on display for the world to see. *1

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That is the funniest thing you've ever posted. I'm actually struggling to post a reply for the laughter. :rockon: .

Elmo - what's the problem, you've been described as a miracle woman. I've never quite understood why women who are the exception to the rule through their own hard work feel the need to defend the rest of their gender, who haven't - if this was a thread about men for the most part not being able to cook/do housework I seriously would not be bothered, because I know it's true, whilst also being in a position where it's not true about me.

There will always be a market for Apple's products so long as your average consumer cares as much (or more) about aesthetics as they do about functionality or performance (so that word always is fairly accurate) - I'm not including minimac in this though, that could actually be fairly functional. I'm only surprised that mainstream pc places such as PC world haven't started making smaller, sexier, quieter machines for your basic word processing user.

Personally I'd take the hideous behemoth and then spend some time transforming into something slightly more agreeable.

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Originally Posted by Byatt

<snip>
if this was a thread about men for the most part not being able to cook/do housework
<snip>

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LMAO! Worst stereotype evar

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Byatt

<cut>

Elmo - what's the problem, you've been described as a miracle woman. I've never quite understood why women who are the exception to the rule through their own hard work feel the need to defend the rest of their gender, who haven't - if this was a thread about men for the most part not being able to cook/do housework I seriously would not be bothered, because I know it's true, whilst also being in a position where it's not true about me.

<cut>

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I hear what u're saying etc, but it was the patronising way in which it was said. Some of the females on this forum are here cos they know others, yet probably, more of them are here cos they actually know something about PCs. I know there are females in the world who dont know the first thing about PCs, i know of quite a few, but then i also know a lot of blokes in the same boat.

I used to have my system specs in mysig, but when we had a power surge and i lost my CPU and motherboard i removed them. When i replaced both items (for a grand total of £10) i decided "whats the point in putting my specs back in?"....so i havn't.

Thing is i do need some more RAM, my computer crawls when i have winamp, word, access, propellerhead reason and photoshop open.

Ben

/me looks at sig..

/me looks at hardware..

/me shrugs..

That about sums it up :)

(In summary: I've got a pretty decent system, but I really don't feel the need to shout it to the hills, because quite frankly, it doesn't really matter.)

We have 500 x 100 pixels for a sig, why waste it on PC specs when you can use the space better with something else

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vaul

*1 - These opinions are not mine, they are simply being relayed from an MSN conversation I had with Kez yesterday, and the vast majority of the claims are his and his alone. Therefore any complaints about the mindless, sexist nature of them should be directly completely, solely and totally at him, and him alone. And my I take this opportunity to apologize in advance for his frankly unacceptable views.

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:( :inquisiti