You know, kids buy 500-1000$ graphics cards, just for gaming. So to me, this isn't that far fetched. But of course you're right if we're talking about the Hendersons (Regular office Joe and Jenny Surf)...it would make NO sense for them to purchase an Alienware monster or similar.

...then it's actually a GREAT way to forget bad things in the past. The best thing in the world you can do for the wounded mind is to occupy it with something interesting and challenging to do, at least something pleasing and rewarding.

I've built one of the biggest electronics labs I've personally ever seen, not even the technical schools I've visited can match it, and I have to admit...just the building process itself (you know, getting the parts off eBay, the local flea markets, ham-fest, local radio amateurs and electronics stores that are closing down and selling out) is a lot of fun, in fact - to me...it's downright addictive.

I've had some seriously though times in my life, more than I care to mention here - and I think both the electronics lab (and being a Christian) has literally saved my life many times over. There is nothing so soothing to my mind than to be able to safely close my lab-doors, sit down in front of my huge stash of millions and millions of brand new components acquired for pocket-cash (really petty cash!) - knowing...I could literally build a time machine in there.

Away from people, away from messy interfering thoughts, away from everything that's bad. Just ME and pure science. I love it. Nothing like it in this world (to me).
So yes, by ALL means get into electronics, it is SO rewarding.

I remember 8-16 cores being announced YEARS ago, but they never ever appeared in regular desktop computers (well, not at your cheap online stores or mainstream street stores either).

As a hobbyist 3D modeller, the more cores the merrier (and more memory + cache of course). But I'm kind of disappointed about where we're headed. Announcements of new processor with an astonishing amount of cores appear all the time, but they never appear in the actual stores, are they too expensive or something?

I remember the good times when I built my own computers, just going to the local computer shop and purchasing the needed components, aahh...the times we could overclock our cheapo AMD and then Intel came back with a much more overclock-able CPU etc. I've been stuck with my 4 core cpu for the last 6-7 years now and the only thing that has improved my rendering is the NVIDIA GPUs...but they do have their limitations, you can't render everything at improved speeds with these, some things just have to be done with a regular CPU.

What's up with that?

Man that brings back memories...

...Picture this: A bright young student with plans to take over the (animation) world, follows the "hip kids" word of Quake II-Lithium (until then I had no clue what the Quake games where all about)...it's like Barney Gumble from the Simpsons, he was a decent guy and a heck of a helicopter pilot before he met the brown bottles with ice cold Duff. That's me and Quake. I bought the darned CD, put it in - and was lost forever...

I ended up using all my school money on investing in an ISDN Line (that was the *SHIT* back then when everyone else where on 14.4K dialup), found out that it still lagged more than a donkeys behind sunday mornings so I Invested in a DUAL ISDN line (that's a 64 x 2 = 128k line) and pinged the bejeezus outta the competition. That stuff cost 700$ a month + lost childhood + no school buddies + no school basically (see what it did to me? I have to write stuff like + in between words to substitute for bad grammar and such).

So kids! Let that be a lesson for you, stay in SCHOOL! And don't let the QUAKE get you!

If I'm not entirely mistaken, volcano ash eruptions like that also affects the weather.

We had an ICE-COLD 2010 winter with record breaking low temperatures that year. I'd rather not have another wolf-winter.
Guess it's not my call.

...anyone who seriously store sensitive information on a cloud service like free-email, should be spanked with a trout over and over again.

here goes:

My good old trusty Data I/O 29A with UniPak (it's an Eprom programming station from the 80's) that I just love too much as I can edit Eproms-on-the-fly and enter manual data on it, copy eproms, and it's compatible with the weirdest stuff on the planet.

Commodore SX-64, it's sort of a portable commodore 64 with built in 5.5 inch color screen & floppy disk...all in one practical unit, I have an assembler cartridge for it, and it's actually quite practical for coding 65xx series code on, and quick & dirty electronics projects I just connect to the I/O port (User Port), even in Basic.

My extreme stash of millions and millions of NOS Discrete components from the 50s to the 90s, I can literally built a spaceship with those things, doc Emmet Browns time machine is next. Transistors, Linear Circuits, Cmos, Timers, PCBs, MCUs, Static ram, roms, pal & gals (pain in the *** to program), resistors, solar panels, mics, crystals, coil formers, oscillators, capacitors, reed relays, diode galore, tubes tubes and even more tubes.

All my PCs I've built over some time, gets hard to part with them because 1) I can't get any money form them. 2) I always bought the best stuff. 3) It's not worth the agony of erasing all the pr0n...err...strike that last thing. And they're terribly practical for running old test gear, burners, peripherals etc. that doesn't work with todays computers.

My lovely old test instrument park, oscilloscopes (got at least 5 of them), spectrum analyzer, multimeters galore, function generators, frequency counters, PSUs and whatnots.

I don't even do this stuff enough justice, but you know what a MAN CAVE is? I just love to go into my MAN CAVE and sit there for serenity for hours and hours, even if it's just to write some pointless post here on Slashdot, and surrounded by all this cool stuff make me feel so 1337 H4xx0r and all that (no seriously...) it's like I'm a prop taken out of the old wargames movie (acoustic modems anyone?)

It feels so lovely sitting there with those things, knowing that any second I could build any project I'd ever want. (And I do from time to time), but just because they're THERE...I don't know if anyone of you know this feeling, but it's very energizing. Whenever I feel completely depleted (either me or my batteries) I go there and start at endless wastelands of components. Luuuuuv it!

...FREE!

When I was a kid, I learned the signs of desperation...bad customer service and expiring food...the first sign of any store going south. All the companies that had success, treated their customers with respect and didn't do any pennypicking. The first sign is ALWAYS pennypicking, the second sign is worker efficiency followed by unhappy overworked workers. The third and last sign, is when they're lashing out on their customer base, trying to fault the customers instead of their products - simply because they can't afford to fix it (and basically because we wanted cheap stuff for free to begin with).

We probably do, I usually read the local newspapers online, plus the state wide newspapers...and the "free" tv-channels (also called PLAY channels) online, they all will notify you when you're turning Ad Blocker on. But hey...different worlds, right!?

Very true, and this has already been proven, here in Scandinavia - we are so "LUCKY" that we can Opt-Out of getting ads in the mail (we're talking snail-mail here), this would require a trip to the Post Office, and filling out some forms and finally...put a sticker on the good old mail box that says "No Ads please!".

While most companies respect that (because they're required by LAW to do this and risk hefty fines if they don't), they have (together WITH the actual ...now privatized...Postal Services) figured out a nifty way to circumvent this. The Postal Offices now deliver you something they would like to call a SERVICE. The "Service Folder" contains "useful" information, occasional crosswords, interview with someone etc. But always contains ADS as well, just mixed right in...with logos and special offers. They go to GREAT lengths to convince you that it's not an and...just INFORMATION...that you simply can't live without.

So yep, you're SPOT ON with your theory, it's proven in real life.

Been there, done that. I doesn't work quite so simple. While Lynx doesn't show the graphical content, it many times fail to filter out the code used to display the ads, and it includes the links anyway - so you'll have to fight endless links and navigate trough lots of garbage just to read a little content.

A lot of times AdBlock is completely useless as the various AD companies + their customers are working around the clock to find ways around it. When they don't find a way around it, on many sites you'll be met with messages such as: We've noticed that you have an Ad Blocker, as we're depending on advertisement revenue to provide you with free services - we will kindly ask you to turn your Ad Blocker off and reload the page to see your content.

Not sure how the 3rd world countries would do, but I can imagine it'd be okay with free AD-based internet for them, but for the rest of us who's just FED up with endless load times on our smartphones when it comes to Flash-Ads, or YouTube Ads etc. (yeah yeah, I know about adblocker, but consider that a lot of the sites refuse to work if you have one of those).

Didn't know that, thanks!