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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.
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Originally Posted by Vaul
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