I build home systems sometimes for clients, and the Wife Factor is frequently the most critical aspect. This has been true since I started in 1985, but is more true now as computers have become essential to so many households.

In my experience, the Fractal Design cases (e.g, the Define R4) have two wife-pleasing qualities:
(1) They are simple, elegant, unadorned museum quality sculpture-like mini-monoliths; and
(2) They are literally almost completely silent. I don't mean merely quiet, I mean you cannot tell whether the system is on or off. This is with fans, not water cooling.

Understand that this may not solve your real problem, which may be the mere presence of the machine in the living room. What it will do is force an honest exposure of the real issue, and besides that you'll still have a great case you can migrate components into and out of for years and years. Also it means you don't need a new rig, just new clothes for for the rig you already have.

Note that I do not have any relationship with that company aside from buying their cases for some system builds where they fit best. I will say that they are superbly designed inside, and the designers obviously build systems themselves. You'll know what I mean if you get one.

Kindred soul.

I have an Osbourne, the 801st IBM PC ever built, a Compaq III lunchbox... you get the idea. Clones I built around XT-grade and AT-grade components. Old oscilloscopes used to see if we could detect emissions from nuclear weapons carried on USSR navy ships docked in ports, later adapted for saner uses.

Sitting amongst those piles of what to anyone else would be junk, knowing you built all of it and set it to useful purpose during its time, is ... well. The feeling you describe.

I used to be able to read Just-O-Writer paper tape and make corrections for lines in a news story, bypassing regular procedure and cutting in common words with scissors and tape from other stories. This was yellow paper tape about an inch wide with holes punched in each line for one character.

Paper tape would be very difficult for NSA et al to infiltrate ;-)

RBBS!
PCBoard!
Wildcat!!

PC Pursuit!

*Three* entire .GIF pr0n images in a *single night* of 2400 baud wondrousness!

The Cloud!

Vaporize *your* data *today*!!!

It is stark evidence of regression mentality that IRC got included in this 'list' in the first place.

Those who use it, in channels that are useful to them, know and understand that IRC remains wheel-like in terms of usefulness that need not be reinvented.

Freenode is an excellent example.

I suspect that those who disparage IRC haven't even the wherewithal to buy clues to understand how so much of the infrastructure and applications built using it, and upon which they depend in the same way that we depend upon breathable air, rely upon IRC channels to develop and maintain those underpinnings.

See my reply to 'IBM Model M'. You might be interested. ... and nano rules

I do this too.

Some of them actually do have use, for example, if I add a NIC or three and put ClearOS on them to make an actual gateway/firewall/etc so I can put the client's compromised, obsolete, data-theft-oriented, crippled, piece of crap, 'free' end user 'router' (i.e., router-like device in the same sense as a Chicken McNugget bears relation to an actual Chicken) in Bridged Ethernet mode and protect them from an incredible percentage of malware.

It doesn't matter that they 'run like crap'. It isn't possible for the overwhelming majority of end users to ever make those old PCs even break a sweat when the PCs are replacing their 'routers'.

This solution becomes problematic basically in three cases: (1) physical space is at a premium; (2) noise is a problem in living space; and/or (3) power consumption is a huge issue.

Mine certainly will. I have thirteen of them, and ten still work.

That said, and as a former typesetter (you may know what that is, but most here won't) who cruised at 120 wpm on a 16-character LED 'display' on typesetting machines, and who loved the Model M as the most perfect approximation of industry-level typesetting keyboard feel and responsiveness... ... try a Logitech K800.

It's a completely different kettle of fish. But I haven't been this pleased with a single component since ... well, I don't remember. The Fractal Design cases are a recent competitor in this category, but before that I can't remember a component that elicited 'pry it loose from my cold dead fingers' lust like the K800 keyboard.

The Cloud! Vaporize *your* data *today*!!!

I didn't realize I was signed out -- damn you, incessant firefox crashes -- but I posted the above as AC and that was not my intention.

You could do worse than take a look at http://www.clearfoundation.com/ and the community edition of ClearOS.

In my opinion it provides Cisco-like capability on any old PC you have lying around. That old PC almost certainly has more power and capability than any typical end-user-grade router in the $30 to $120 market.

Disclaimer: I have no relationship with ClearFoundation except that of a user since 2003.

I *always* research it carefully. My nick is one example, though /. truncated it from 'Lacrocivious Acrophosist'. That said, I would love it if I goofed and someone caught me with my etymology hanging out, as it were.

I use a made-up word that suggests latin and/or greek roots but actually has no meaning whatsoever. It's amazing how simple it is to create such words and discover that people who should know better will pretend to be familiar with them in conversational context, lest they appear ignorant of something they suspect they should have learned in school.