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The Ultimate PC Case - Continued
chrisd writes " While surfing, I found a link to the PCMODS site which sells all kinds of cool stuff to trick out your PC. I'm talking big plexiglass windows. Neon! Aluminum cases! Lights! I see a link to thinkgeek but I guess TG doesn't carry thier stuff yet. Way cool though. But, a company called Plycon has their stuff and other cool stuff. So go accessorize that case cowboy!" Ant also sent in a story on the creation of a portable desktop - inside of an aluminum briefcase. Supercool as well.
The people who buy this crap are probably the same people who cut the springs on their Honda, bolt on an angry-beehive exhaust, slap on some stickers, light up their dash with neon, put on big shiny chrome wheels that weight 30lbs a piece and then try to drag race me from every damn traffic light!
JUST SAY NO!
Before anyone buys any of this stuff, think about the terrible habit you're starting. Take up crack or heroin, or extacy. There are rehab centers to help you get off of that, but nothing can cure bad taste! Look at this site and you can see how bad this addiction can really become! A five inch tailpipe can't make your car faster or look better, and a hole in your computer case won't either!
I think Jon Katz needs to write a series on it, Stories from the World of No Taste.
I think part of the urge to mod-up cases and the like is the inevitable reaction to the sheer cheapness of hardware today. Once upon a time (up to a year or so ago!), the way to show off your "cool hardware-god-ness" was to trick out your PC with an overclocked processor, state-of-the-art cooling, an overdriven chipset, video card, etc. An overclocked box was a way to make a statement about your skills and save money, too (for some).
Nowadays a 1GHz Athlon processor costs less than $250 - and that RAM that would help kickstart a machine's performance costs about $60 for 128MB worth. Disk storage is cheap, too. When a killer machine costs well under $1000, about the only thing left to differentiate yourself is the case mod. Sure, you and I both have a 1 GHz Athlon, but I have a cool neon-lit window on my case - how about you? (for the record - I haven't done any case mods other than adding fans, and they don't count)
People laughed at Steve Jobs when he started selling iMacs (who'd ever want a fruity-looking computer?), but the success of Apple's line of systems makes the point: when all things are relatively equal (as they were until the latest Wintel price plunges re-opened the gap), people will go for style. If a cool-looking iMac is selling for about the same money a good consumer PC sells for, a lot of people will choose the iMac because of looks.
Case Modding is really just a variation on this theme.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
While I think the window looks cool, esepcially with the light, wouldn't chopping a huge chunk of metal from the side of the case and replacing it with glass leave a gap for electronic emissions? I thought the idea was to create a faraday cage to restrict this? Anyone know what affect this would have?
More neon lights and bizarre cases than you're ever likely to see
http://www.virtualhideout.net/cool_case/