Couple Bonding Through PC Building 465
mikemuch writes "When his lovely girlfriend Glenda needed a new PC, Jason Cross, who spends much of the week assembling PCs with the latest gear to test for ExtremeTech, decided he would let her build it herself. She gave him her list of needs, he came up with a part list, and then watched as she did all the screwdriver wielding herself. Despite a DOA hard drive and some mis-connected wires, everyone was smiling when it was all finished. (Slide show here.)"
How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I'm sure this was fun, and all, but seriously... When did "Stuff that matters" become "Some guy's holiday snaps."
Re:reality (Score:4, Insightful)
And the only reason it took so long is that we men did everything in our power not to let them.
Now, we're supposed to wonder that a woman used a screwdriver without impaling herself through the hand?
Pass.
what a shitty BF though.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting? Not really. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:reality (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure every time someone puts up a blog about how they raised a barn on the weekend (complete with happy snaps) the people in the developing world think "yeah, so what?"
It's not a question of capability..
Re:reality (Score:2, Insightful)
You really, really need to widen your social circle. The vast majority of men, and a vaster majority of women, are about as likely to build their own PCs as they are to build their own houses.
Let's all take this as a reminder to (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows Experience Index? (Score:4, Insightful)
So I googled for a bit and eventually found this page [microsoft.com]. Which says "The base scores currently range from 1 to 5.9." WTF? So it's out of 4.9 and you just add 1 for fun, is that it? I wonder if it's a linear scale or what.. maybe it's logarithmic.
If this is how broken the business rules of their software are, I can only imagine how broken the implementation must be.
Microsoft, you're a disgrace.
A slap in the face of gender equality (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just another way of saying: "Hey, World! Here on Slashdot, we consider women far inferior to men when it comes to technology. We can't imagine girls interested in computers, so we will make it a headline whenever a girl tries something techy."
Come on!
Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you any idea how difficult this is? We're all control freaks.
Re:How is this news? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. That person is female. Not that girls can't build computers, but rather that
2. A geek has a female SO.
3. Power tools.
4. Shiny new hardware.
5. Girl with power tools and shiny new hardware.
6. Quite attractive girl with power tools and shiny new hardware.
7. Quite attractive geek girl with... you know the rest.
I think it ain't so much that it's a computer or that she's female. It's a combination thereof. Oh, and, yeah, she built it or something. Did anyone actually read the article? Oh, suuure.
Re:How is this news? (Score:1, Insightful)
Diggified? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How is this news? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is IT missing females? Articles like this one! (Score:5, Insightful)
And you wonder why IT is so short on females. It's because of the condescending ... ooooh, look, they can even build computers ... attitudes. Try working around that atmosphere for a few weeks and you'll either quit or be arrested for going postal.
The only hard part about building a computer - for females - is having some guy who thinks that his dick is an essential tool for building anything try to take over. It's no harder than, say, sewing up something with 17 pattern pieces. The instructions on recent mobos are easy to follow ... easier than the care tags on some clothing.
Re:How is this news? (Score:1, Insightful)
I am a Dutch Atheist, you insensitive clod. You don't know me, so don't even try. But it might please you to hear there is not a drop of Jewish blood in my veins. Certainly also because (and this might interest you) Jewish blood does not exist.
Genetic research has long ago proven that our genes do not differentiate enough to call differently shaped humans "races". There is one "race", the human race. The rest are just minor adaptations to climate and diet.
My partner however, is Jewish (by faith) Israeli. She is *not* causing havoc in your "great" nation. It's imbeciles like you that do.
Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
I will not, however, partake in ceremonies that have their roots in organized religion. So no, I would not consider getting married.
Marriage went on for centuries (maybe millenia) without organized religion's involvement. The early Christian church had no marriage services, and did not keep records of who was married to whom. That was a civil job.
When the Roman Empire collapsed, the church took over registering of marriages and births because there was nobody else to do it. (That's also how the Pope ended up administering so much of Italy: the job needed to be done and no one else was around.)
The notion that Christianity (or Judaism, or whatever) invented marriage is silly. Marriage (at least here in the USA) serves explicit legal purposes that have nothing to do with religion. There has been more than one case wherein I have gotten a mindless paper-shuffling droid to shut up and do his job by saying "I'm her husband", which cuts through rubbish like nothing else.
I dunno what the legal situation is where you are, but I'd be astonished if there's a quicker way to establish in people's minds that two people go together than to say "We're married". Why do you think so many gay people want to get married? To get official recognition for their rights.
Re:How is this news? (Score:3, Insightful)
With a wise attitude like that, your odds are good she'll stay a very long time.
Clap... Clap... Clap (Score:4, Insightful)
Hogging the spotlight (Score:5, Insightful)
While I can appreciate Glenda's (the girlfriend) desire to experience this, I pity the pain she'll feel over the next two years and I hope she blames her boyfriend. Whenever something goes wrong, she'll question herself of whether or not she did something wrong. When she calls him to fix it, he'll likely push it off as "This is your computer; you built it." When it can no longer handle new applications or games since 2GB is the realistic minimum for Vista, she'll wonder why her boyfriend let her install it when she could have been appreciating the speed of this system on Linux or XP.
Good learning experience. Here are the lessons:
Congratulations to Glenda for completing this task. Now you'll know better to take the easier, same-price route the next time.
...Then it won't be (Score:3, Insightful)
Relationships are not easy. I think it's precisely the fact that I'm determined to stay married that will enable me to do so. If I said "I'm not making any promises," that would create insecurity for both of us ("Did I make him mad? Does he want to leave?"), thereby making it more likely that we'd fight and give up.
Genuine commitment is a self-fulfilling prophecy - and so is the lack thereof.
Re:How is this news? (Score:3, Insightful)
... which any woman should do anyway, even today, unless she's doing it on behalf of a corporation.
When you're married (and in the absence of a prenuptial agreement), all your assets are co-owned with your spouse, which means your creditors will come after both of you when the sh*t hits the fan. You have to be a pretty big asshole to get a loan without clearing it with your spouse first.