The Brony Talk

Hey, internet. It’s time we had a chat. It’s about ponies. No, no, this isn’t some birds-and-the-bees talk where I show you that mrhands video. It’s about smaller ponies. Little ponies.

Halloween Retrospective and Prospective

Since All Hallows’ Eve is nigh upon us, I've been preparing this year's outfit. I don't have it quite finished just yet, so pictures will have to wait. This year, I will be going as Vincent from the game Catherine, specifically his nightmare form.

Warning: this is an image heavy post!

New PC: retrospective

It's been about three months since I completed putting together my new PC. How has it served me? Do I have any regrets or complaints?

Nerdy paraphrasing

On the drive home from seeing Tangled (in 3D!) today*, Crystal and I had a pretty lengthy discussion which I realized could be summarized as this:

Men’s brains are overclocked 5Ghz single cores and women’s brains are stock 3.2Ghz hexa-cores.

* We saw it at the local dollar theater, which explains why we're four months late seeing it.

New PC assembly: it’s LEGO for adults

I’ve always enjoyed putting together computers. As a geek, cars were never really my area of expertise and it was nice to have something “hands-on” that I felt confident about. So when deciding on my new PC, I looked forward to getting to build it up. Really, though, it’s nothing to be too proud of: as Jeff said, “It's dead easy, like snapping together so many LEGO bricks.”

Manufacturers make it really simple and just about everything is color-coded these days. But it’s been fairly straightforward for as long as I can remember, even back in the Windows 95/Pentium days.

New PC specs: wedding performance with practicality

Computers can fill many roles in our lives, and their flexibility and adaptability is part of what makes them so ubiquitous. The basic design hasn’t changed much since von Neumann and the market has simply grown and grown meeting every conceivable need. You’ve got ultra-portable netbooks, home and office laptops, family desktops, power gaming rigs, and various flavors of file and web servers.

In my case, we had just about all the good stuff already. A decent laptop to use on the couch, a slightly aged performance desktop for gaming use, and a Windows Home Server for backups and media storage. I set out to build a gaming and developer machine that would last for many years to come, plus so I and the missus would both have a full desktop to use. As such, I did not attempt to skimp on quality, but I was practical and wise where necessary.

Welcoming a new family member

Isn’t it adorable?

In my many years of using computers, I’ve never truly gotten to build a “dream machine”. I’ve always made do with Frankenstein monsters that I’ve cobbled together with a part bought here or there to keep going as the technology progressed. Or the dreaded “family computer” that’s shared and was purchased by parents without so much as a keen eye for specific hardware.

Mostly it has been a matter of money, which I did not have previously at my disposal. Even after getting a job, necessities took priority like mattresses, furniture, appliances, etc., and before you know it I’m still without a decent home computer of my own.

Well, this Christmas, I decided to change that finally. I would build exactly what I wanted, with little compromising.

My goal, as you’ll soon see, was future-proofing. I intend to spend well, but wisely, in order that this last for many years to come by anticipating future upgrades.

In the next few posts, I’ll cover both the specs and why I picked what as well as a fun adventure with photos as I put ‘er all together.