Baciere

Ah, y'know, now that I have the word, that is exactly the word, thank you.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Not necessarily a brand, per say, but a circuitry styled background, with things that look distinctly like circuit traces on the old green and copper boards we used in Highschool soldering class. 

Also, a hexagonal themed wallpaper, in 3 colours (red, green, blue, common internals colours) that's simple, yet still feels 'futuristic'. Kinda like the stock wallpaper on old Alienwares.  

EDIT: The hexagonal bit should be used as a background for various logos (It actually make's corsair's new logo look not like crud... kinda. )

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Alright, so something in the 3D Printer video caught me off guard, that seemed like Luke and the boys forgot to follow a few steps when setting up their printer, though, all printers aren't the same and not all of them come with instruction manuals.

PART ONE - THE TYPES
Shameless Tomska reference. 

I only have experience with FDM printing, but there are 3 major types that are used and are available for home purchase.
Fused Deposition Modeling - Fancy dandy printing plastic, just like your regular, printer that just lays down layers of hot plastic.  Stereolithography - Fancy dandy laser that again prints in plastic - it shoots UV light at a bathtub full of liquid plastic that sets in UV light. Selective Laser Sintering - Another laser printer, but this time it sinters (melts) a metal powder, usually an aluminum based one, and wow is it messy. You can pick up home based of all 3, though, price for performance, FDM is cheapest for the base, but medium in expensive for it's 'ink'. SLS is impractical unless you /need/ it to be made of metal, and Stereolithography is actually the middle route here, though the liquid can be messy. 

PART TWO - THE INK
 
Now, this is a big thing. Some printers, like the Ultimaker 2 (video to hit youtube soon) only have 1 ink cartridge, allowing you to only print in one color, while others have up to 4 colors and 2 different support material cartridges allowing you to print in multiple colors at the same time. 

Something that cropped up in the video was that he complained about changing ink - you need to slice the tip at an angle and ensure that you tell the printer you're changing inks. A lot of printers have a manual on how to do this, and it needs to calibrate itself (extrude the last bit of the last color and extrude a bit of the next color to make sure the print head is printing the right thickness).

I hear you going "Well then what's this support material!?". Well if you cool your jets for a moment, I'll tell you - the support material allows you to make either break away or solvable with water or acid (warning, the acid burns if you leave it on over time, don't do that, but you won't melt your hands away just touching it). This allows you to do some crazy things, like print an entire toy car with the axles and everything moving, or print a gearbox with the entirety of it working fresh out of the printer (after it's cooled, acid bathed, and dried off... so not really fresh out of the printer but you get the point). 

PART THREE - THE USE
Something interesting about these printers, FDM in particular, is the rapid print times. You may wonder why you would do this and purchase one over anything else. 

Well, for home users who don't have things break frequently, not a whole lot, and you do have to be wary of those applications where high temperature is of severe concern. The primary use of 3D printers was for an industry application called "Rapid Prototyping" - the name is exactly as it sounds, an application where you need a rapidly built part just to test how it fits in constraints of a project. It's primarily what was printed, where I used the 2 tower FDM printers ( 24x24x48 for the first, and 30x30x60 for the second, inches for all measurements) to allow us to rapidly make and test parts of various machines to see if the tolerances were close enough (there is a margin of error on the printer's side). 

Some foreseeable uses of FDM printers in the home include, but aren't limited to - custom keycaps for your keyboard (assuming you know how to read a caliper), custom figurines you can paint (yes, you can paint FDM printed parts. It's actually rather common), rebuild a mouse housing to one that fits your hand because travel mice are all your family ever purchases and you hate getting the hand me downs (er, that's a touch specific...), custom wrist rests (say, for your Orion Spark with the crummy wrist rest... Logitech I'm looking at you), custom router casings to personalize your gear, small plastic parts for repairs, and a half dozen other things. The only limiting factors are how much plastic ink you have, and how big your workspace is. 


PART FOUR - THE FUTURE 
It's spooky isn't it?
 
So, now we're here, we've got the technology as it sits right now. But what about the future of this? Well, as we figure out how to get more and more detailed and precise in FDM printers for lower cost, we'll eventually be able to make pretty wicked 3D printed things.

There's a company that has made a completely food safe 3D printer that prints using SLS technologies in melted sugar to turn it into caramel, there is a team researching how to 3D print biological constructs, there are a couple of companies looking into 'flexible' 3D printing techniques that allow a printer to rapidly switch between two printing types to allow more flexibility (as each type has it's strengths and weaknesses as far as accuracy, printing size, cost, time and the like go), and a half dozen other fancy things, like 3D printing electronics directly into a prototype part using a tin/copper twisted thread that's 'glued' into place with an insulating semi-melting rubber, and more. 

This stuff is amazing, and supporting it ensures we get all of these cool features to play with.

Now go, be free, and art, tech, and geek up the world with your 3d printed creations. 

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.

Parents, grandparents, and siblings galore.
The only technically inclined individual in the house, sans my father (he doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to game when his work allows and is actually pretty good at TF2 and America's Army style games)

Two new computers due to siblings in online school. Within HOURS of them arriving in the house, my two youngest siblings managed to install ~40 different spy, ad, and bloatwares across the two while trying to install games. I was tasked with scrubbing it. Weekly. I eventually forced them over to a Ubuntu install just so they couldn't get the virus's to function anymore. They didn't like the "bubble windows because they can't have all their funny programs" ... >->

Grandmother has a biig book of all her passwords and all of the info I've given her on how to do things, still calls me every week to figure out a problem she's done 80 times before >-> She then sells me out to all the members of her gated community as cheap tech support. So now I'm stuck doing antivirus updates and full purges for nickles. >~>

My mothers Vista machine was being bogged down, I took a look at it, and found 18 different auto-update apps running in the background for almost any software you can find...

I'm in the computer room at my (other) grandmother's house, and, me not realizing where I am, was asked to come help in the kitchen. I blurt out "I'm just looking at Hardware porn" Nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack, as she rushed into the room to find me staring at liquid cooling setups and LED Fans. Still doesn't trust me alone in the computer room.

Back in the day (Like, 512Mhz CPU, 512Megs DDR2 days, with a 128Mhz GPU kinda dinosaur days) I would frequently talk to my parents about getting a more powerful computer, and while they understood it, my friends couldn't figure out why I'd need a more powerful computer, thinking the case was what really made the computer better.

IT In school - Some kid thinks he's tough crap in tech in 8th grade, showing the teacher how to connect things up. I snicker under my breath as I watch him create 4 different network loops in the computer lab. Ahh, the beauty of that moment.

Debating consoles with friends was another good one, we were talking about the hardware specs of the PS3/Xbox360 to modern PC's. Mind you, these guys never /really/ played on a good PC, mostly just played on older rigs that cost about as much (4~6 years older than the consoles) and that was their argument, that the console would still play games as well as it does now, but the PC can't, even after the time. I retorted with the price changes in electronics and the improvements in them in recent years. They still don't believe me, despite me showing them the glory of massive Planetside 2 battles on Med at 60FPS on a 125ish USD GPU. 

A cousin trying to upgrade her system put the new 16GB QuCK in her hard-disk drive bays... couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work...

Teacher thinking that turning off her monitor would activate the smart-board system in the new school, A teacher blatantly blaming computers for the poor test grades, and so many other wonderfully naive individuals I've ran across... 

I'd love to open a tech support shop, but I couldn't hold a professional face or tone of voice in front of some of these people. I applaud those who actually know things and don't merely read off of pre-scripted cards.