Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the great-titles-from-non-native-english-speakers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "On the german Thinknerd-website i found some funny pictures from rooms where geeks and nerds are at home (hardware, hardware, hardware). Check out the pictures and tell us how your room looks like. :-)"
Pah-leeze... when they can compete with my basement, then maybe they can be linked to on slashdot...:-)
Re:Amatures
by
ocelotbob
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You've done it. Now, once I get all the non-computer stuff ready for moving, I'm going to have to get all my computer crap arranged, and photographed. I will be the first to admit that I am in awe of your quantity - that is a metric fuckton of computers. However, it seems to be pretty homgeneous. Where are the macs, and the suns, and the SGIs? I've got to get a pic of it, but here is my current line of crap -
Sun - Ultra 2, SS4, SS10, IPC (2), IPX, Classic, LX, SS 1+ (3), ELC, SLC, 3/80, 3/60
SGI - Indy (3)
Dec - Vaxstation 3100 (2)
Apple - Duo 280, Duodock, Powermac 7200, Quadra 840, LC III, IICX
PowerComputing Powerbase 180
HP - Apollo 715/75, Visualize B132L, Envisex (xterm)
IBM - 7006, 7011
NeXT - Nextstation
3 PCs, generic - 1 Duron, 1 K6-2, 1 Pentium
Plus a shitload of old laser printers, monitors, keyboards, mice, drives, etc.
Before anyone asks:
Yes, I have imagined a beowulf cluster of those - I just can't do it because the wiring in my current apartment is 70 years old
I do get action - my boyfriend is a real sweetie, thankyouverymuch. Long distance relationships are hell, though.
and finally, the most important answer, why not?
--
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Apparently I'm not a true geek...
by
danamania
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Supposedly I'm partway there - but after putting a pic online - I'm told my room is just too tidy, and I have to redo Geek101: Coke cans and sticky notes.
damn.
I used to have a geek room...
by
RobertB-DC
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· Score: 5, Interesting
... then I got married. It was an efficiency apartment, and all available horizontal areas were covered either with clothes (the floor and dresser), dishes (the kitchen), or breadboards, chips, and discrete components. My last project was a little quickie 555 circuit. I hooked it up to a counter and some LED's to make a simple bounce back-and-forth effect.
My new wife wanted me to make something blinky that would go around a license plate frame. I started getting nervous... that would be a Real World design! Then, we needed the table for dinner (what was wrong with sitting on the bed, I wondered?). And within a couple of weeks, I realized that having more than one room is a Good Thing... when we moved to a one-bedroom apartment, the Geek Room was no more.
But there's hope for the next generation... my 12-year-old daughter just wrote her first Visual Basic program today. You click the button and a MsgBox pops up that says "THIS IS BORING".
-- Stressed? Me?
Of course not.
Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Geeks grow up...
by
kzinti
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· Score: 5, Interesting
A room full of computers and related stuff is a lot of fun... for a while. I got tired of the clutter, the boxes of CDs, the old disk drives, tape drives, power supplies, all the crap lying around all the time. All the junk just got in the way. But above and beyond all that, I got tired of my room looking like a geek's room - I wanted something a little bit more... tasteful.
(When did I get a sense of "taste"? I don't know it just happened to me - I didn't mean for it to... honest.)
So last year, when we bought a new house, I claimed the large upstairs bedroom and turned it into my study/library/computer room. I put up shelves to neatly store all my books - not just the computer manuals, but also the sci-fi novels, the old textbooks, the old albums, the artsy-fartsy books, the Edward Gorey books, and all the other books in my "collection".
I put a black leather couch by the windows, with a nice wood-and-glass coffee table set in front. I bought a bunch of Ikea bookshelf modules with internal lighting, some glass doors, some opaque doors, and built a wall of cubbies to hold the stuff I need near me. I set out a bunch of knick-knacks, plants, vases, even a couple of antique radios. I painted the walls a warm brown color. I bought and set out a couple of nice lamps. I even bought an on-stage stand for my Ibanez six-string.
Best of all: the room has a big walk-in closet. In there I put the nasty old bookshelves that used to sit out in the room. On them are all the computer manuals, the archive CDs, the stuff I don't need on a daily basis. On the other shelves are all the office supplies: printer paper, spare ink cartridges, backup tapes, and all that kind of stuff. In there I keep the crappy old stuff I don't use any more, but can't bring myself to throw away: old video cards, old disk drives, old cables, wires, etc., etc. The closet contains the ancient 233-MHz pentium system that serves as my Internet gateway. It also has the two filing cabinets that keep all the family papers. In short: all the ugly stuff is hidden away in the closet.
I still have some computer stuff in the room, but it's just what I need and as neatly arranged as I can get it. The full tower PC sits pretty much hidden behind the antique library table that serves as my desk. My trusty old HP 5L printer sits by it on the Ikea modules. On the desk are just the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and telephone. I have enough room to open up a couple of books without having to move a bunch of computer crap out of the way.
The clutter and crap that I do need on a daily basis is hidden behind the opaque doors of the Ikea modules, so I can close the doors and hide it most of the time. I have to make an effort not to let the Dr Pepper cans stack up, but aside from that it's pretty easy to keep my room neat and clutter-free. I know this is the opposite of the geek ideal, but I like it much better than piles of computer crap and clutter. My study is a pleasant, even peaceful, place to sit and hack, watch TV, listen to music, strum the guitar, or just sit and read. Highly recommended, if you've got the room for it.
--Jim
here's my room in QTVR
by
adpowers
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Forget pictures, real geeks use QuickTime VR! Anyway, here is my room. It is a fairly old picture, but not too much has changed.
pics of another geek room
by
leftyfb
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Just thought i'd post pics of my room that people have found amusing since the current pics were/.'d, as will be mine, but oh well.
http://www.mikerosoft.net/~leftyfb/computers/
Why do we do this?
by
Average
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· Score: 5, Interesting
It's in me to be this kind of packrat. It runs in the family. But I've fought it like no other. Life ruled by your stuff is no way to live. You have to think about it, store it, fix it, trip over it... etc. MINIMIZE!
Computing is pretty central to my life, so it's reasonable that it's front and center in my space. BUT, it doesn't overwhelm everything else in life, so it doesn't overwhelm my space.
I had the 10 monitors, 20 cases, 286 in the corner life. Eventually, I said "WHY??". Couldn't quite throw it out, but I stuck the approx 100 kilos of crap in the basement of my office building with a note saying "FREE. TAKE.".
Down to one desktop PC (dual-boots) and a BSD nat and filestorehouse server. That's it. Not keeping and buying crud means I can have good components. I don't need 5 keyboards "just in case". I have a Kinesis, and it's bulletproof. I don't have a parallel printer. Don't think I'll ever have another. Well then, I don't need to keep parallel cables, do I?
I think a lot of people, geeks and non geeks, could learn a lot from backpacking or bicycle touring. 25 pounds of stuff is usually enough. Really. Buy less junk, live smaller, and be happier, guaranteed!
Amatures ... indeed!
by
ackthpt
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· Score: 3, Interesting
That's nothing. Honestly. My dad's been an amature radio operator for about 60 years and his entire basement is loaded with O-scopes, radio receivers, parts of analog computers, early digital computers, and manuals. Shelves and shelves of manuals. At least 4 workbenches and more boxes of electronic parts than you could shake a Weller soldering gun at.
I just attended the Findlay, OH hamfest for the 30th time (only coming away with a few odd bits and a working Elsa Gloria XL and a non-winmodem 56k) I think we financed Heath for a few years, as he's got several nice powersupplies, etc. and... we had one of the first microwave ovens in town, he put it together as a Heathkit.:-)
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:Second post and...
by
killthiskid
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Or on top of a warm laptop.
Side note, and definately OT... we currently have 3 cats in the house. Two are a few years old, but this year we adopted a kitten... and my girlfriend taught the damn cat how to fetch. I'm doing this as I type... with pipe-cleaners. Toss the pipe cleaner (I wrap it into a helix around my finger so I can get more distance) and the cat runs, graps it, and immediately comes back. A fetching cat. I'd be curious to see if anyone else has a cat that will fetch?
Anyone? Hello? Fetching cats?
Inside my geekroom...
by
jht
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I have an old 3-bedroom house, but with 200 amp electrical service. Which is good, because 1 bedroom is for my wife and I, one is for our baby, and the third is my geekroom. I used to put photos of it on my website, but they're really out-of-date. Guests to our house either get a fold-out sofa or go to a hotel nearby that a friend of ours manages - they get a real cheap rate. We used to have a guest room but that's where the baby lives now.
The geekroom has two desks, two bookcases (tech stuff only - other bookcases in the house handle "real" books), and a big old metal shelving unit that holds a 16-port switch, three UPS units, a monitor, my Epson Stylus Photo, my current server (a little FlexATX box running e-Smith), a monitor, and a second PC that runs Mandrake and usually sits open because I'm always swapping stuff in and out of it. There's also a third PC on the rack that I just got - a Mini-ITX box that I'm going to run my server on because it's even smaller and quieter than the existing server. They're all on a 4-port KVM switch.
Then on the first desk, next to the rack, I keep my PowerBook G4, along with all it's gadgets (Palm cradle, Griffin powerMate, CF/Smartmedia reader, Keyspan serial port, iPod). I've got a Newton 2100 on the desk, too - I'm turning it into a web server soon and when I do it goes on the rack. My HP laser is on a stand next to the desk.
The next desk over holds my P4 system - I run XP on it and use it for gaming. I built this one over the summer. Wedged between the two desks are about 200 CD's that contain either software or backups of some sort or another.
In the corner of the room is an Athlon 700 that's currently semi-disassembled (I had to grab a couple of parts out of it for the P4), but used to be my gaming rig. Finally, the geekroom has some space allocated for short-term comic book storage. My workbench is in the cellar, along with virtually all my tools and the bulk of my comics (I built a moisture-controlled storage closet down there).
Geeky, but non-tech items in the geekroom include all my photo gear and slides, a small collection of stuffed toys, a 30-year-old (but still working) shortwave receiver, and a bass guitar.
Currently out on loan to my office is my Athlon 650 that I run Solaris X86 on. I'm testing some stuff for work on it, and it was handy to grab. We also have two other computers in the house - my wife has an iMac widescreen that she keeps on a small desk in our bedroom, and I have a hacked iOpener that we keep in the basement. Also in the basement are the DSL modem and my router.
This sounds worse than it is, though - my one geekroom is a disaster, admittedly, but the rest of the house looks like Martha freaking Stewart had her way with it. It's a good arrangement. I don't interfere with the rest of the house, and I'm allowed my one room to do as I see fit.
Unless, of course, we have another child, in which case my butt is banished to the basement. Good thing we had it finished this past winter...
--
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Re:Beam me up!
by
Polyphemis
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Want to see a Star Trek motif? Try and arrange a tour of Ensemble Studios in Dallas, Texas. (Ensemble Studios are the developers of the Age of Empires series and Age of Mythology.) I hear one of the presidents is a huge Trekkie, and that's why the both of the floors for the offices are decorated and designed Star Trek-style. Not just decorated and lit but the entire office spaces were built to those specifications. I mean, they even have a Holodeck! (which, sadly, wasn't fully functional when I visited.)
Seriously though, totally awesome place, incredible offices. They even have their own futuristic elevator and all this awesome mood lighting in these super-cool futuristic little light fixtures. Great big arches, huge circular swooping desks, TV walls, etc. Walking in the first time felt like I stepped onto a spaceship. Totally outstanding atmosphere.
I don't really know how to get in other than either knowing someone there (which I did) or going on a tour of there with the Art Institute of Dallas as a prospective student (which I did again three days later). Awesome bunch of people, great offices, great games, worth checking out if you can.:)
List of my stuff & gratuitous link to bikini p
by
phillymjs
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· Score: 3, Interesting
My bedroom: Beige Power Mac G3, upgraded to G4/400, with 17" and 14" CRT monitors. iBook 500MHz Home-built Duron 850 tower dual-booting XP Pro.and 98SE (shares keyboard, mouse and 17" monitor with the Mac via KVM). Apple LaserWriter Select 360. MicroTek ScanMaker IISP. Series 1 TiVo with 120GB HDD upgrade.
My server room: Two Power Mac 7600s, both with G3/400 upgrades-- one handles routing/firewall/mail/file/web/DNS/print, and the other runs the house via all those wonderful X10 modules and other things. They're named "Guardian" and "Colossus," respectively. Cobalt Qube2, hosting the site of my friend the aspiring model (you might have seen her on Blind Date the other night). NeXTStation Turbo with 17" black & white display. AirPort Base Station.
Also in the server room, all functional but not part of the LAN: Macintosh 128K. IBM PCjr. Macintosh Color Classic. TRS-80 Model 102 laptop. Newton Original MessagePad. Newton MessagePad 2000.
Basement: Power Mac G4/733/1.12GB RAM/40GB & 120GB HDD/SuperDrive (being prepped to replace the old G3 in my bedroom in January, when my bonus check buys the two huge LCDs to go with it). Power Mac 6360, being prepped to be the backup server for everything in the server room. Sony external SCSI AIT2 drive, to be hooked up to the backup server. Homebuilt Athlon 750, used to test various equipment. Two whiteboxes in slightly less than operational condition. Two PowerBook 170s (one for my collection, and one to sell as a collectible). PowerBook G3 Lombard, semi-operable, soon to be sold on eBay as a parts machine. PowerBook Duo 270c, for my collection. Two 'platinum' Commodore 64s with 1541 floppy drives & 1 1702 RGB monitor. Two 3Com Audreys destined to become the control panels for the web interface of my home-automation setup. Coleco ADAM. Vectrex + shitload of games. Sega Genesis + shitload of games. Sega Saturn + shitload of games. Atari 5200 + shitload of games. Atari 2600 + shitload of games. ColecoVision + shitload of games. NES + shitload of games. Panasonic 3DO + shitload of games. GE DVD/CD/MP3CD/VCD player with region-selection mod. Arkanoid II: Revenge of Doh coin-op. Zookeeper coin-op.
On loan to aspiring model friend until she can afford a computer: Netpliance i-Opener hacked to run Win98SE with an internal 20GB HD and cooling fan.
~Philly
Be careful... Computers are a deadly fire hazard!
by
SexyKellyOsbourne
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· Score: 5, Interesting
One of my computer science professors, whom I will not name, had a collection much similar to that in his shed -- it was something like 30 lousy computers with monitors, all from the 386/486 era, that he had absolutely no use for and just had to have.
Then, on a stormy night, the ungrounded shed was hit by lightning, and it caught fire. While he was asleep, the computers began melting under the heat and released some very toxic gas -- which blew through the neighborhood, and killed the professor's dog along with a few other animals, and made a few residents hospital-bound.
Because of it, he was sued for quite a hefty bit, though he avoided jail -- so rethink stockpiling all those useless computers for itself, and give them away to charity.
When people ask about heating in the winter, I just laugh.
I have to laugh at this one because I have the same situation (luxery?). With 11 computers in my extra "server" room and a nice PC with two monitors in my own bedroom, it's always nice and toasty.
I'm just glad to know I'm not the only one with a server farm in their house. And you know what, despite what everyone may say about being a geek or having a life, I love it!:)
-- Who said Freedom was Fair?
Linked to before...
by
singularity
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I linked to my bedroom before, but this is probably the best place for me to post the link again.
Harware in the bedroom: G4/933 hooked up to a 17" Studio Display, a 15" NEC LCD, and a 14" VGA CRT. Apple PowerBook Duo 2300c with DuoDock II. Headless at the moment. These two are hooked into a 5 port 100Base-T switch. The G4 is hooked (via another port) to a 100Base-T Internet connection. Also hooked up to the G4: CompactFlash drive, MemoryStick drive, Cambridge Soundworks speaker system, a Sony Clie T665c, a Canon S200 digital camera, and a Keyspan Digital Remote Control.
In the closet, I have an Apple//gs with monitor. At one time I had a UMAX S900/200DP hooked up as well That is loaned out, as is a Macintosh Centris 610.
I am looking to add a Athlon-based PC to the mix (via KVM switch to the keyboard and the NEC monitor) to learn FreeBSD on. I am also looking at buying one of the new iBooks to replace the very aging PowerBook Duo.
-- - (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Re:Linked to before...
by
goatgirl
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I haven't gotten any spill over into the bedroom yet, but I did build my husband a computer desk for both of our equipment. Here I am with some of our stuff. We have an old hand-me-down in the living room powering our webcams, and another in a closet waiting for a new motherboard, and we took the other bits and just handed them down to his folks. This doesn't even include our roomates stuff! I admit we are baby geeks in regard to equipment, but the house is still decorated in early network.
-- -Nothing hides evidence like a stew. -Gus Pratt
Re:Actually...
by
penguin_punk
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I live in Whistler, BC, Canada (Home of the namesakes Whistler/Blackcomb/Longhorn) and it gets DAMN cold, but my heater in my room is constantly off and my equipment heats it to above room temperature throughout the year. In the summer I even have to keep my window cranked open (2 1/2' x 3') I think I'm turning deaf because of the noise, but I only seem to use my hearing for answering phones, and I don't even like doing that.
p133 - Slackware 8.0 - adsl router/dhcpd/irc server (irc. l uddite s. ca) pII 450 - Win2kserver - mp3 server celery 1.2 Slack 8.1 - Desktop #1 celery 1.2 Win2kpro - Desktop #2 (yes, I have two of these, no dual-boot) p74 - slack 8.1 - ISDN gateway & print server pIII 750 - slack8.0 (& bleeding kernel) - Laptop (& wlan finder)
I can't hear a damn thing. My room's right next to the kitchen and I have 5 non-geek roomates. They're allways walking past my room and hearing a "hhhHHHHUUUUUUUUUMMMMMmmmm" coming from inside the door, but to tell you the truth, I don't really notice it any more./rant
-- HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
Aren't most geeks cat people?
by
bluethundr
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Many in this community are dog people, but is it my imagination that a higher percentage of geeks are cat people? It's either a startling coincidence or my life represents a real Nielsen-style rating as to the percentage of computer volken who like the furry little beasts...
This observation began for me when once I lived in an apartment complex with an exclusive population of nerds. It was the mid 90s at that time. Before I got there it was just a couple of Mac II-Ci's with phone-net (!!!) flowing out of the windows. I'm pretty sure we had the first network in the little beach-town of Seaside Park, NJ.
Eventually, there were 7 units each with Ethernet dangling from window-sill to window-sill. And only 500 feet from the beach! With a tremendous view of the Ocean from a kickin' deck upon which we would regularly grill mahi-mahi and the like whilst imbibing on food-breaks from endless network gaming and hacken (and more imbibing). It was bloody Nirvana!...but I digress.
All were tiny little cracker box apartments (we were beginning our tech careers at that point) that at the peak of geek occupancy housed a motley collection of Macintoshen, NT boxen, 1 NeXT machine (mine, a slab serving a 400dpi laser printer and also playing the part of a shuh-WEETNIS server), a couple of Linux box0rz and an Amiga 2000. PowerBooks galore. All nic'd and sharing the the love.
Nearly every apartment was populated with at least one cat, and in one case at least a bloody-stinkin' (emphasis on the "stinkin'" pheeeyew!) cat colony! I, resident mac-geek with a love of code and 3-d, had two...Lumpy and Jake. Neighbor James, who was an NT tech with a penchant for work-related travels to Kazakhstan on occasion, had two as well...Simba (a 22 pound orange basketball with legs and a tail) and Mim (tiny little fucker, even as a full-grown feline).
My friend Ian had a cat named Mr. Beau... Mr. Beau's special talent was vomiting on technology. Yup. If the thing flipped bits in some manner, and it was in Ian's apartment, that shit was getting vomited on. No negotiations. Also, beer was likely to have been spilled on said equipment at some point, but that I believe was (mostly)the fault of the humans about the place.
My friend Mark who also lived there was a 300lb pro wrestler who could lift full grown men over his head in addition to his impressive geek abilities. Adding to those formidable(and imposing)wrestling talents was a steady gig as Mac/NT/Network tech. The guy was also a 3-d rendering guru who made valuable additions to the old Ambrosia game Escape Velocity. He and his (then pre-) wife housed the afore mentioned (sHt1nKeN!) colony of kitties who (despite their numbers...and lovely odor!) managed to not vomit on the tech nearly so often. All the other guys had cats too. Not nearly as smelly.
Since those days, I've worked with a fair number of techs and the sampling of overlap between the cat-ownership and tech communities seemed to grow larger with the more tech-geeks I've met as time passed.
If I might posit a guess, I'd say it had something to do with the independant nature of both beasties. Here I speak of techie cr3tins (myself included) the race of kitt33z. Both seem to have a strongly independant sense of self. The solitary nature of bit-dribbling andromorphs is evinced most strongly by the the noticeable high percentage of said who also play musical instruments. When you think about it, in order to develop ability in either (music or tech), you have to spend a lot of time with yourself thinking, playing, experimenting. Cats, while not much on the thinking or tip seem to be quite competent at being on their own. Far more than dogs anyway in that respect...
Slashdot Mirror
Pah-leeze... when they can compete with my basement, then maybe they can be linked to on slashdot... :-)
Supposedly I'm partway there - but after putting a pic online - I'm told my room is just too tidy, and I have to redo Geek101: Coke cans and sticky notes.
damn.
... then I got married. It was an efficiency apartment, and all available horizontal areas were covered either with clothes (the floor and dresser), dishes (the kitchen), or breadboards, chips, and discrete components. My last project was a little quickie 555 circuit. I hooked it up to a counter and some LED's to make a simple bounce back-and-forth effect.
My new wife wanted me to make something blinky that would go around a license plate frame. I started getting nervous... that would be a Real World design! Then, we needed the table for dinner (what was wrong with sitting on the bed, I wondered?). And within a couple of weeks, I realized that having more than one room is a Good Thing... when we moved to a one-bedroom apartment, the Geek Room was no more.
But there's hope for the next generation... my 12-year-old daughter just wrote her first Visual Basic program today. You click the button and a MsgBox pops up that says "THIS IS BORING".
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
A room full of computers and related stuff is a lot of fun... for a while. I got tired of the clutter, the boxes of CDs, the old disk drives, tape drives, power supplies, all the crap lying around all the time. All the junk just got in the way. But above and beyond all that, I got tired of my room looking like a geek's room - I wanted something a little bit more... tasteful.
(When did I get a sense of "taste"? I don't know it just happened to me - I didn't mean for it to... honest.)
So last year, when we bought a new house, I claimed the large upstairs bedroom and turned it into my study/library/computer room. I put up shelves to neatly store all my books - not just the computer manuals, but also the sci-fi novels, the old textbooks, the old albums, the artsy-fartsy books, the Edward Gorey books, and all the other books in my "collection".
I put a black leather couch by the windows, with a nice wood-and-glass coffee table set in front. I bought a bunch of Ikea bookshelf modules with internal lighting, some glass doors, some opaque doors, and built a wall of cubbies to hold the stuff I need near me. I set out a bunch of knick-knacks, plants, vases, even a couple of antique radios. I painted the walls a warm brown color. I bought and set out a couple of nice lamps. I even bought an on-stage stand for my Ibanez six-string.
Best of all: the room has a big walk-in closet. In there I put the nasty old bookshelves that used to sit out in the room. On them are all the computer manuals, the archive CDs, the stuff I don't need on a daily basis. On the other shelves are all the office supplies: printer paper, spare ink cartridges, backup tapes, and all that kind of stuff. In there I keep the crappy old stuff I don't use any more, but can't bring myself to throw away: old video cards, old disk drives, old cables, wires, etc., etc. The closet contains the ancient 233-MHz pentium system that serves as my Internet gateway. It also has the two filing cabinets that keep all the family papers. In short: all the ugly stuff is hidden away in the closet.
I still have some computer stuff in the room, but it's just what I need and as neatly arranged as I can get it. The full tower PC sits pretty much hidden behind the antique library table that serves as my desk. My trusty old HP 5L printer sits by it on the Ikea modules. On the desk are just the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and telephone. I have enough room to open up a couple of books without having to move a bunch of computer crap out of the way.
The clutter and crap that I do need on a daily basis is hidden behind the opaque doors of the Ikea modules, so I can close the doors and hide it most of the time. I have to make an effort not to let the Dr Pepper cans stack up, but aside from that it's pretty easy to keep my room neat and clutter-free. I know this is the opposite of the geek ideal, but I like it much better than piles of computer crap and clutter. My study is a pleasant, even peaceful, place to sit and hack, watch TV, listen to music, strum the guitar, or just sit and read. Highly recommended, if you've got the room for it.
--Jim
Forget pictures, real geeks use QuickTime VR! Anyway, here is my room. It is a fairly old picture, but not too much has changed.
Just thought i'd post pics of my room that people have found amusing since the current pics were /.'d, as will be mine, but oh well.
http://www.mikerosoft.net/~leftyfb/computers/
It's in me to be this kind of packrat. It runs in the family. But I've fought it like no other. Life ruled by your stuff is no way to live. You have to think about it, store it, fix it, trip over it... etc. MINIMIZE!
Computing is pretty central to my life, so it's reasonable that it's front and center in my space. BUT, it doesn't overwhelm everything else in life, so it doesn't overwhelm my space.
I had the 10 monitors, 20 cases, 286 in the corner life. Eventually, I said "WHY??". Couldn't quite throw it out, but I stuck the approx 100 kilos of crap in the basement of my office building with a note saying "FREE. TAKE.".
Down to one desktop PC (dual-boots) and a BSD nat and filestorehouse server. That's it. Not keeping and buying crud means I can have good components. I don't need 5 keyboards "just in case". I have a Kinesis, and it's bulletproof. I don't have a parallel printer. Don't think I'll ever have another. Well then, I don't need to keep parallel cables, do I?
I think a lot of people, geeks and non geeks, could learn a lot from backpacking or bicycle touring. 25 pounds of stuff is usually enough. Really. Buy less junk, live smaller, and be happier, guaranteed!
I just attended the Findlay, OH hamfest for the 30th time (only coming away with a few odd bits and a working Elsa Gloria XL and a non-winmodem 56k) I think we financed Heath for a few years, as he's got several nice powersupplies, etc. and... we had one of the first microwave ovens in town, he put it together as a Heathkit. :-)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Or on top of a warm laptop.
Side note, and definately OT... we currently have 3 cats in the house. Two are a few years old, but this year we adopted a kitten... and my girlfriend taught the damn cat how to fetch. I'm doing this as I type... with pipe-cleaners. Toss the pipe cleaner (I wrap it into a helix around my finger so I can get more distance) and the cat runs, graps it, and immediately comes back. A fetching cat. I'd be curious to see if anyone else has a cat that will fetch?
Anyone? Hello? Fetching cats?
I have an old 3-bedroom house, but with 200 amp electrical service. Which is good, because 1 bedroom is for my wife and I, one is for our baby, and the third is my geekroom. I used to put photos of it on my website, but they're really out-of-date. Guests to our house either get a fold-out sofa or go to a hotel nearby that a friend of ours manages - they get a real cheap rate. We used to have a guest room but that's where the baby lives now.
The geekroom has two desks, two bookcases (tech stuff only - other bookcases in the house handle "real" books), and a big old metal shelving unit that holds a 16-port switch, three UPS units, a monitor, my Epson Stylus Photo, my current server (a little FlexATX box running e-Smith), a monitor, and a second PC that runs Mandrake and usually sits open because I'm always swapping stuff in and out of it. There's also a third PC on the rack that I just got - a Mini-ITX box that I'm going to run my server on because it's even smaller and quieter than the existing server. They're all on a 4-port KVM switch.
Then on the first desk, next to the rack, I keep my PowerBook G4, along with all it's gadgets (Palm cradle, Griffin powerMate, CF/Smartmedia reader, Keyspan serial port, iPod). I've got a Newton 2100 on the desk, too - I'm turning it into a web server soon and when I do it goes on the rack. My HP laser is on a stand next to the desk.
The next desk over holds my P4 system - I run XP on it and use it for gaming. I built this one over the summer. Wedged between the two desks are about 200 CD's that contain either software or backups of some sort or another.
In the corner of the room is an Athlon 700 that's currently semi-disassembled (I had to grab a couple of parts out of it for the P4), but used to be my gaming rig. Finally, the geekroom has some space allocated for short-term comic book storage. My workbench is in the cellar, along with virtually all my tools and the bulk of my comics (I built a moisture-controlled storage closet down there).
Geeky, but non-tech items in the geekroom include all my photo gear and slides, a small collection of stuffed toys, a 30-year-old (but still working) shortwave receiver, and a bass guitar.
Currently out on loan to my office is my Athlon 650 that I run Solaris X86 on. I'm testing some stuff for work on it, and it was handy to grab. We also have two other computers in the house - my wife has an iMac widescreen that she keeps on a small desk in our bedroom, and I have a hacked iOpener that we keep in the basement. Also in the basement are the DSL modem and my router.
This sounds worse than it is, though - my one geekroom is a disaster, admittedly, but the rest of the house looks like Martha freaking Stewart had her way with it. It's a good arrangement. I don't interfere with the rest of the house, and I'm allowed my one room to do as I see fit.
Unless, of course, we have another child, in which case my butt is banished to the basement. Good thing we had it finished this past winter...
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Want to see a Star Trek motif? Try and arrange a tour of Ensemble Studios in Dallas, Texas. (Ensemble Studios are the developers of the Age of Empires series and Age of Mythology.) I hear one of the presidents is a huge Trekkie, and that's why the both of the floors for the offices are decorated and designed Star Trek-style. Not just decorated and lit but the entire office spaces were built to those specifications. I mean, they even have a Holodeck! (which, sadly, wasn't fully functional when I visited.)
Seriously though, totally awesome place, incredible offices. They even have their own futuristic elevator and all this awesome mood lighting in these super-cool futuristic little light fixtures. Great big arches, huge circular swooping desks, TV walls, etc. Walking in the first time felt like I stepped onto a spaceship. Totally outstanding atmosphere.
I don't really know how to get in other than either knowing someone there (which I did) or going on a tour of there with the Art Institute of Dallas as a prospective student (which I did again three days later). Awesome bunch of people, great offices, great games, worth checking out if you can. :)
My bedroom: .and 98SE (shares keyboard, mouse and 17" monitor with the Mac via KVM).
Beige Power Mac G3, upgraded to G4/400, with 17" and 14" CRT monitors.
iBook 500MHz
Home-built Duron 850 tower dual-booting XP Pro
Apple LaserWriter Select 360.
MicroTek ScanMaker IISP.
Series 1 TiVo with 120GB HDD upgrade.
My server room:
Two Power Mac 7600s, both with G3/400 upgrades-- one handles routing/firewall/mail/file/web/DNS/print, and the other runs the house via all those wonderful X10 modules and other things. They're named "Guardian" and "Colossus," respectively.
Cobalt Qube2, hosting the site of my friend the aspiring model (you might have seen her on Blind Date the other night).
NeXTStation Turbo with 17" black & white display.
AirPort Base Station.
Also in the server room, all functional but not part of the LAN:
Macintosh 128K.
IBM PCjr.
Macintosh Color Classic.
TRS-80 Model 102 laptop.
Newton Original MessagePad.
Newton MessagePad 2000.
Basement:
Power Mac G4/733/1.12GB RAM/40GB & 120GB HDD/SuperDrive (being prepped to replace the old G3 in my bedroom in January, when my bonus check buys the two huge LCDs to go with it).
Power Mac 6360, being prepped to be the backup server for everything in the server room.
Sony external SCSI AIT2 drive, to be hooked up to the backup server.
Homebuilt Athlon 750, used to test various equipment.
Two whiteboxes in slightly less than operational condition.
Two PowerBook 170s (one for my collection, and one to sell as a collectible).
PowerBook G3 Lombard, semi-operable, soon to be sold on eBay as a parts machine.
PowerBook Duo 270c, for my collection.
Two 'platinum' Commodore 64s with 1541 floppy drives & 1 1702 RGB monitor.
Two 3Com Audreys destined to become the control panels for the web interface of my home-automation setup.
Coleco ADAM.
Vectrex + shitload of games.
Sega Genesis + shitload of games.
Sega Saturn + shitload of games.
Atari 5200 + shitload of games.
Atari 2600 + shitload of games.
ColecoVision + shitload of games.
NES + shitload of games.
Panasonic 3DO + shitload of games.
GE DVD/CD/MP3CD/VCD player with region-selection mod.
Arkanoid II: Revenge of Doh coin-op.
Zookeeper coin-op.
On loan to aspiring model friend until she can afford a computer:
Netpliance i-Opener hacked to run Win98SE with an internal 20GB HD and cooling fan.
~Philly
One of my computer science professors, whom I will not name, had a collection much similar to that in his shed -- it was something like 30 lousy computers with monitors, all from the 386/486 era, that he had absolutely no use for and just had to have.
Then, on a stormy night, the ungrounded shed was hit by lightning, and it caught fire. While he was asleep, the computers began melting under the heat and released some very toxic gas -- which blew through the neighborhood, and killed the professor's dog along with a few other animals, and made a few residents hospital-bound.
Because of it, he was sued for quite a hefty bit, though he avoided jail -- so rethink stockpiling all those useless computers for itself, and give them away to charity.
When people ask about heating in the winter, I just laugh.
:)
I have to laugh at this one because I have the same situation (luxery?). With 11 computers in my extra "server" room and a nice PC with two monitors in my own bedroom, it's always nice and toasty.
I'm just glad to know I'm not the only one with a server farm in their house. And you know what, despite what everyone may say about being a geek or having a life, I love it!
Who said Freedom was Fair?
I linked to my bedroom before, but this is probably the best place for me to post the link again.
//gs with monitor. At one time I had a UMAX S900/200DP hooked up as well That is loaned out, as is a Macintosh Centris 610.
Harware in the bedroom:
G4/933 hooked up to a 17" Studio Display, a 15" NEC LCD, and a 14" VGA CRT.
Apple PowerBook Duo 2300c with DuoDock II. Headless at the moment.
These two are hooked into a 5 port 100Base-T switch. The G4 is hooked (via another port) to a 100Base-T Internet connection.
Also hooked up to the G4:
CompactFlash drive, MemoryStick drive, Cambridge Soundworks speaker system, a Sony Clie T665c, a Canon S200 digital camera, and a Keyspan Digital Remote Control.
In the closet, I have an Apple
I am looking to add a Athlon-based PC to the mix (via KVM switch to the keyboard and the NEC monitor) to learn FreeBSD on. I am also looking at buying one of the new iBooks to replace the very aging PowerBook Duo.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
I live in Whistler, BC, Canada (Home of the namesakes Whistler/Blackcomb/Longhorn) and it gets DAMN cold, but my heater in my room is constantly off and my equipment heats it to above room temperature throughout the year. In the summer I even have to keep my window cranked open (2 1/2' x 3') I think I'm turning deaf because of the noise, but I only seem to use my hearing for answering phones, and I don't even like doing that.
/rant
p133 - Slackware 8.0 - adsl router/dhcpd/irc server (irc. l uddite s. ca)
pII 450 - Win2kserver - mp3 server
celery 1.2 Slack 8.1 - Desktop #1
celery 1.2 Win2kpro - Desktop #2 (yes, I have two of these, no dual-boot)
p74 - slack 8.1 - ISDN gateway & print server
pIII 750 - slack8.0 (& bleeding kernel) - Laptop (& wlan finder)
I can't hear a damn thing. My room's right next to the kitchen and I have 5 non-geek roomates. They're allways walking past my room and hearing a "hhhHHHHUUUUUUUUUMMMMMmmmm" coming from inside the door, but to tell you the truth, I don't really notice it any more.
HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
Many in this community are dog people, but is it my imagination that a higher percentage of geeks are cat people? It's either a startling coincidence or my life represents a real Nielsen-style rating as to the percentage of computer volken who like the furry little beasts...
This observation began for me when once I lived in an apartment complex with an exclusive population of nerds. It was the mid 90s at that time. Before I got there it was just a couple of Mac II-Ci's with phone-net (!!!) flowing out of the windows. I'm pretty sure we had the first network in the little beach-town of Seaside Park, NJ.
Eventually, there were 7 units each with Ethernet dangling from window-sill to window-sill. And only 500 feet from the beach! With a tremendous view of the Ocean from a kickin' deck upon which we would regularly grill mahi-mahi and the like whilst imbibing on food-breaks from endless network gaming and hacken (and more imbibing). It was bloody Nirvana!...but I digress.
All were tiny little cracker box apartments (we were beginning our tech careers at that point) that at the peak of geek occupancy housed a motley collection of Macintoshen, NT boxen, 1 NeXT machine (mine, a slab serving a 400dpi laser printer and also playing the part of a shuh-WEET NIS server), a couple of Linux box0rz and an Amiga 2000. PowerBooks galore. All nic'd and sharing the the love.
Nearly every apartment was populated with at least one cat, and in one case at least a bloody-stinkin' (emphasis on the "stinkin'" pheeeyew!) cat colony! I, resident mac-geek with a love of code and 3-d, had two...Lumpy and Jake. Neighbor James, who was an NT tech with a penchant for work-related travels to Kazakhstan on occasion, had two as well...Simba (a 22 pound orange basketball with legs and a tail) and Mim (tiny little fucker, even as a full-grown feline).
My friend Ian had a cat named Mr. Beau... Mr. Beau's special talent was vomiting on technology. Yup. If the thing flipped bits in some manner, and it was in Ian's apartment, that shit was getting vomited on. No negotiations. Also, beer was likely to have been spilled on said equipment at some point, but that I believe was (mostly)the fault of the humans about the place.
My friend Mark who also lived there was a 300lb pro wrestler who could lift full grown men over his head in addition to his impressive geek abilities. Adding to those formidable(and imposing)wrestling talents was a steady gig as Mac/NT/Network tech. The guy was also a 3-d rendering guru who made valuable additions to the old Ambrosia game Escape Velocity. He and his (then pre-) wife housed the afore mentioned (sHt1nKeN!) colony of kitties who (despite their numbers...and lovely odor!) managed to not vomit on the tech nearly so often. All the other guys had cats too. Not nearly as smelly.
Since those days, I've worked with a fair number of techs and the sampling of overlap between the cat-ownership and tech communities seemed to grow larger with the more tech-geeks I've met as time passed.
If I might posit a guess, I'd say it had something to do with the independant nature of both beasties. Here I speak of techie cr3tins (myself included) the race of kitt33z. Both seem to have a strongly independant sense of self. The solitary nature of bit-dribbling andromorphs is evinced most strongly by the the noticeable high percentage of said who also play musical instruments. When you think about it, in order to develop ability in either (music or tech), you have to spend a lot of time with yourself thinking, playing, experimenting. Cats, while not much on the thinking or tip seem to be quite competent at being on their own. Far more than dogs anyway in that respect...
Quod scripsi, scripsi.