Slashdot Mirror
Couple Bonding Through PC Building
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.)"
Person puts computer together while boyfriend watches. Why is this on the front page of slashdot?
Waffles rock.
...posting my vacation picturez.
http://www.extremetech.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205 ,l=&s=25680&a=212921&po=13,00.asp
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.
This article doesn't read so much as "hey guys, it's possible for a girl to put together a PC", so much as it reads "Hey guys, look at my girlfriend. No, really, I have one. Let me show you her."
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Geek has girlfriend. Film at 11.
Look, I'm sure this was fun, and all, but seriously... When did "Stuff that matters" become "Some guy's holiday snaps."
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
This guy was clearly spying on her...Why a girl would try to build a computer out of curiosity is still a mystery.
MY GIRLFRIEND
This is the sort of thing that should have been introduced in schools ages ago. Especially with the number of outdated computers they've gotten rid of. These would be perfect fodder for hardware classes.
And it really doesn't take more than a couple hours for all the kids to get a hands on experience with it.
while i have to agree with those that kinda wonder why this is on the front page
at least it isn't a iPhone story
my g/f needed a new computer a bit ago...I did try to get her to build it with me...(you know me show her how to do it and what not)
zero interest on her part...she just didn't care..she just wanted me to do it and tell me when it was done..... which is fine and all.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Look at his girl! Come on. This fake as can be. Notice the well exposed photos too. Is her Boyfriend an expert at photography too?
HOT CHICK was a dead give away. FAKE.
She's using a power-screwdriver on a computer????
For crying out loud, it's a computer case, not a swingset and not furniture... The point of the screw is to hold things in place, not to fix them so fast that they are going to be resistant to coming out.
I was taught that you _ALWAYS_ hand-tighten screws on a computer case, and even then only just to the point that it just stops turning freely, because that way you won't accidentally strip the threads.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
he made her install Vista. Shame to build such a nice box, and put the worst possible OS on it.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
I'm a girl. I build and rip apart computers all the time. And every time I do, MY girlfriend is always bugging me to let her get in there with the screwdriver! Maybe I should write up a story and take some pictures: "The lesbian geek couple mess with computer innards!" Oooohhh.
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. - Krishnamurti
I wonder if Slash dot will publish a expose on me walking my dog? Perhaps me grocery shopping?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
For the sake of humanity can the editors please get a grip (sound of karma evapourating) - while this might be a nice fluffy story for the middle pages of a red-top tabloid (just by the agony aunt letters) wtf is it doing as a /. story???
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
This is the new kind of porn - geek girls with screwdrivers
Go to the Firehose and bury inconsequential stories.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
Give it time; eventually, Slashdot will be just like Cinemax. Respectably lowbrow during the day, soft-core porn at night, infomercials when everyone's passed out already.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Having seen this screen shot I had to ask, what is a Windows Experience Index? It seems this machine has a score of 5.6. Great, what's that out of Microsoft? 10? That's pretty crappy. Maybe it's out of six?
So I googled for a bit and eventually found this page. 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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Heavy Internet surfing (multiple windows)
Store and play plenty of music
Store and manage big digital art files, including many-layered Photoshop files
Operate quietly
Play the latest games without turning details way down Dropping $400 on a GPU when gaming is at the bottom of her list then skimping on $100 of memory when she's trying to run large PSDs on Vista screams of a gamer who once again ignored what he was being asked to get in favor of what he thought was cool.
2GB of ram will just about get Vista running with a little left over for smaller PSDs. The size PSDs she's talking about will be thrashing the hard drive to run. Doubling that ram up to 4GB, what's generally regarded as the sweet spot for Vista anyway, and dropping to a $300 graphics card would serve her far better for her main needs and let her still run pretty much any modern game with pretty decent quality settings.
But, hey, he gets to reassure himself it's a sweet gaming rig with that quad core processor and the 8800. Just a shame that was lowest on her list of requirements and likely added after a few rounds of, "Are you sure you wouldn't like to play games? I know they're not your main focus. But surely you'd like the option, right?"
Even ignoring that she plays Civ IV and Oblivion (both of which will run just fine on much cheaper hardware), he commits a cardinal sin amongst gamers too: He bought what he figured would be great for running a game in the future (Spore), not what was needed for her level of gaming now. Spore won't be out until sometime next year and probably late spring at the earliest from what they're saying. That $100 off the GPU now wouldn't cost her much right now, would get her the memory that would really aid her, and she'll likely want to upgrade to whatever the latest and greatest GPU is in a year's time for Spore anyway. At that point, it'll be pretty much guaranteed that $300 on nVidia's 9xxx series will beat $400 on the 8xxx series now and have whatever fun and exciting new features the 9xxx series has that nVidia worked with Maxis to get in to Spore.
It's cool to share building their PC with your girlfriend/wife/mother/friend/anyone who wouldn't normally build one, giving them a real sense of ownership and achievement with their new PC. But fooling yourself in to believing they need what you think is cool, rather than actually listening to their needs, is a great way to undo a lot of that when they realize they got you something cool rather than built what was right for them.
And, yes, this comes from a guy who sat there while his wife tapped on dozens of keyboards because she figured I'd make sure it simply worked and so the most important thing to her was the keyboard felt right. To me, that was crazy. To her, it was what mattered. So, crazy or not, I listened and made sure she got what felt perfect to her.
how to assemble a girlfriend...
Can someone explain to me, WHY OH WHY, does is the article split into not two, not three, but ten, TEN!! tiny chunks of text?
And no, there is no AJAX-shmajax or any other of that fancy stuff...
- Which means that every time I go to the new slice, the WHOLE page needs to reload.
- Tons of garbage served on each instance reduce the readable text to 20% of the overall page content.
- The time to click on "next", wait for the page to reload, and then find where I left off the last page, exceeds the time it took me to read the tiny slice of text.
- I can live with wasted bandwidth (even though many dialupers can't), but can the server, with thousands of readers? EXACTLY the same headers, RSS feeds, ads, etc. were loaded each page, so it's not like they even "won" by serving me more different advertisements.
Seriously, WHY do sites like doing this crap? Do they think it makes me more attached to the site? Do they think they can imprint an extra layer of "corporate image" (read bullshit waste of space) on top of the actual article? Heck, yea, they did achieve a lasting impression... Just not the kind they'd hope for.
Sorry, I know this is not on the topic of the subject matter of the article, but since you link it to this site, I'd at least like to know what's the motivation for the site webmasters of being a pain in the ass to both the readers and their own stupid selves.
Either these guys (webmasters, not actual people who made the computer in the article) learn the KISS principle, or they can just KISS MY ASS because I'm not coming back.
... and we do 'other' activities together while we are not putting together the computer and *more importantly* while we are not installing windows.
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!
Insert `fortune -o` here
Bloody right. I've always wondered what the Dow goes up to, as well. While you're at it, clue me in on the maximum limits of Moh's scale, Scovilles, pH and Degrees Celsius too.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
He let her install Vista on her shiny new PC! :(
Friends don't let friends install Vista.
But does she run Linux?
Let us hope that isn't Glenda _Adams_.
I'm usually not one that compares slashdot with the digg, but seeing TFA I have to wonder whether this might have something to do with the firehose being recently opened to the everyone? As we know from all sorts of media, be it TV (24h "news" networks), digg, youtube etc. the most popular story isn't necessarily the most informative story (unfortunately quite the contrary).
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
My girl friend is building a new machine(Intel Q6600, evga T1, XFX 8800 GTS 640, OCZ 2gig) next week and then putting Gentoo stage 1(we know its unsupported, that makes it more fun) on it. Shes going to do this while I play with her Wii. I guess I should post a story on it?
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image /16/0,1425,sz=1&i=166358,00.jpg
You're welcome
"And then I visited Wikipedia
I for one would like to watch two women putting a PC together...
Who the fuck cares? Sure there is some humor element in the GF / Slashdot thing but really, who gives a fuck? I rarely verge on trolling but coming to slashdot to read news like this = lame.
Is your geek girlfriend super into games or something? She would've benefited more from Ubuntu or OS X, which can be had of course... :P At the very least, get her the performance enhancement of XP!! VISTA!??! I bet you guys break up in a week.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Since I'm on the road much of the time these days, rarely get the opportunity (or inclination) to post anything on /.
Rarely have I EVER been even close to tempted, to stop what I'm doing and reply to a post.
This really is the most pointless and ridiculous article I've seen on the front page for a long time, and I've seen some ridiculous articles believe me...
Love the picture on the front page though.
Only goes to show a girl CAN take it from behind and build a PC at the same time. GO GIRLS. Next, perhaps we should give them the vote and let them out of the kitchen once in a while. Who knew how much we'd underestimated them all these years...
I think the price tag is a bit funny. Apart from the gaming, I have more or less the same requirements, but I only spent 65 Euro to upgrade my five year old Athlon XP. Maybe it helps that I am using Linux?
Anyway, I reused an Athlon64 3000+ from a previous upgrade, and for single threaded applications it is still very close to the top performing CPUs. In the end I only had to buy a new main board (45 Euro) and a new memory module (15 Euro on ebay), and the rest found itself.
Sigh. Not an anti-static strap in sight.
...or are such things not necessary any more?
I hope you told her to keep grounding herself, else you're likely to get a somewhat unreliable computer or shorten it's life a bit.
Max.
From the article:
Fine, she likes Vista. But why Vista Ultimate? According to Microsoft's own comparison chart, ultimate just gives additional backup, encryption, remote desktop, and fax & scan capabilities... none of which are apparently needed from her list of needs.
PEOPLE! Are you reading the same front page I am? Because the one I see is just a bunch of headlines with short summaries.
Amazingly, they are NOT ALL INTERESTING TO ME!!
And yet, somehow, I'm able to move on to the next story.
Please save the crap flood of whining in the comments for your blog or somewhere (yes I am aware of the ironic nature of this rant, thanks). I really do enjoy the comments as much as the stories though. And I did like this "story". Both myself and my girlfriend work in IT, both have assembled hardware, I've even been paid to do so. Am I not geek enough, or does my opinion count less? Is my UID too high?
If you disagree and wish to flame me, well whatever, just a random rant... at least I didn't post AC.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
You fool. Now she'll just throw you away! Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
Building a computer is the best inter-gender activity this guy came up with? He is a true geek.
Didn't the title explain why it was on slashdot? Didn't the dept also hint that this isn't about gender issues or capability or some geeky guy showing off his girlfriend... it's just a tech-based human interest story about how something that is socially considered moderately anti-social (if not obvious, this is evident in the immediate assumption, if even in jest, of forum posters about how a geek would need to show off a girlfriend) can actually do something like bring two people together and enhance a relationship.
I've always thought a key component of a healthy relationship is an active involvement of each other in what separately interests you, if only to gain an understanding rather than grow a resentment of differing passions. it's pretty cute to see them bond.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
"Go way, bating"
I reserve the write to mangle english.
"Building" a computer this is not. It is "assembling" a computer. Go get blank chips, resistors, capacitors, boards, volt meter, and use your soldering iron to "Build" a system. If you have a bunch of cards and an empty case, that is "assembling."
Until systems are cheap enough and treated like a cell phone, I guess this qualifies as 'building' for most folks.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1in67_princesse- rotative-live-in-istanbul
Why install vista, when your girlfriend's name is Glenda?
--> Insert Funny Sig Here
This reminds me of when I got my girlfriend to help me install my new mobo (which basically meant re-assembling the whole computer in a new case) for my birthday last year...our relationship was never stronger. :)
I love NetHack.
Some geek posts pictures of his girlfriend in a see-thru blouse along side some gear, and it becomes news on /.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Not sure if this is ok How to use a screwdriver as a girl? Look for it on google :)
On the lesbian couple, "she constantly bugs me because she wants to go at it and insert the screwdriver" (or perhaps I might have quoted a bit wrong, still mostly right imho)
Also, imagine a beowulf cluster of those girlfriends
In sovjet russia computer builds girlfriend for you!
Hardly news. I did this with my girlfriend (now wife) over 9 years ago.
So.... I've got some mod points, is it possible for me to mod the article down?
If I read the label right. I have had one DoA Segate from China and one that failed after some weeks. Both the the ES (Enterprise Storage, what a joke!) variant. My impression is that the Seagates from China are currently the worst drives on the market and are the reason I am not going to buy Seagate until they have cleaned up the mess they made.
The DoA drive had mechanical damage, obviously done before packaging. Seagate never answerd my RMA request, which iis another huge black marl for them.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Jeez, what is this 1986? Ahhh a woman in the room, run away!! That was a suitably chauvanistic article and you wonder why more women won't pick up IT as a career choice?!
My missus always does her own hardware mods and often wants another one of any gadget I end of buying! She says it's independence, but I think it's more likely that she doesn't want me fscking up her carefully crafted "rig"!
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
When I started building PC's, i386 was still new, and in a pretty big area of texas there were maybe 100 people that could decently build a PC. I spent my time trying to learn all I could, because hardware was were the real money was.... Then plug and play came out, and any monkey can build a pc, wether they do it well or not. It's nice to see a geek getting his other involved, done this twice in the past and was a disaster both times, but I want to see the story were the geek got his other coding with him, or compiling thier own lovebird kernel, not throwing parts together.
An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
Wasn't Glenda the good witch from the Wizard of OZ?
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.
I built your mom's PC and after we had crazy wild new PC sex and she made me a pie. Much better story.
Really, I would think any person, regardless of gender, could put together a computer if they were interested. It's not that hard. Next week, an illustrated article about my fiance doing the dishes...
why is this news for nerds, stuff that matters...? Slashdot should fire a lot of these would be reporters really. they suck.
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Tell a geek he has to screw with his girlfriend and this is what happens. How do these people procreate??!!
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Awww... feminism, isn't that cute!!
Good lord, what next, "Female ties shoes! Film at 11!" My wife is fully capable of building a computer (and has in the past out of necessity). It's not that hard, I've seen Lego sets that are more involved. This isn't news.
When my son was 14/15, I upgraded my own system, and got my son to help. A couple of months later, I got tired of fighting over who got to be on the computer, we went out and got parts, and this time he put it together, with my support.
...and now, years later, he's working on his A+.)
The result? It was *his* system, not a toy his daddy got him. (A year or so later, he earned money for upgrading computers for a teacher, and the friend of a teacher, and
So, hell, yes: everyone should do it. Keep 'em from being scared of hardware.
mark
A powerpoint presentation about someone's girlfriend making a powerpoint presentation?
Some time ago we had an article about a gal who reverse engineered c64 hardware, and now this. That's low.
I think this is a great idea. If everyone who owned a PC was required to assemble it, we might have a more tech-savvy computer user base. Obviously this wouldn't work for large businesses, but for home?
There's a huge amount of learning that goes on when just assembling a PC for the first time, let alone picking parts. The first thing to go is the "Where's the hard drive again? That big box under my desk?" type of questions. The next thing that goes is the "I can't do it! You click the mouse for me and make it work" mentality. Computers are not rockets (anymore). They're commodity parts thrown together in a case, running (for most systems sold today anyway) a crappy OS that most ppl find "ok". And assembling the system by hand would give most people the vocabulary to talk intelligently about their systems.
Not to mention the social (gasp!) aspect of putting a computer together. You can learn a lot from someone just having them help you - and that help makes a bond. Maybe we geeks could benefit socially as a group if we all had manditory "help the neighbor assemble his/her computer" day.
As a girl, I'd have to say "so what" about this posting. I built my own Hack-intosh from spare parts and I'm in the process of doing it again for a friend. I'm the network administrator for a hospital. Shock! Horror! She knows how to build computers. Please, can everyone just get over it. It makes my blood boil when I see a tech story on girls being able to do to same tech work as men. Guys can claim hard physical labor, but women are very suited for tech work. Tests show we're better at logic problems, our hands are normally slimmer, so we can reach into small places, and women are statistically better team players.
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.
I'm afraid you must assemble any 133t box naked. The components are too 133t to be handled while dressed in frilly g1rlz cl0thz. Too much teh >static, too much teh d4m4g3. Must be m@k1ng teh n3kk1d n0wz.
This is all well and good until she starts to equate the computer they built together as a sign of their love. Upon its first crash, she interprets that as a their relationship crashing down around her and leaves him for some guy with a unix box.
The oldest and saddest story in the lands of computer love.
Technology's a battle between companies producing more idiot-proof systems and nature producing bigger and better idiots
...but I will not be lured into the naive and stupidly romantic gesture of telling everyone this will be "forever".
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.
So buying from ExtremeTech is supposed to get me laid or something?
Something tells me that the hard drive wasn't DOA, but Dead After Opening.
http://outcampaign.org/
Yea man. The documentation on those care tags sucks!
excuse my ignorance, but wich wires can one mis-connect?
AFAIK allmost everything is fool-proof nowdays.
also excuse my english.
[shitty BF] made her install Vista
The only thing that could require that would be her to do that is that she's an "avid gamer". Even that's a questionable reason now because of driver problems, but the rest is a clear call for gnu/linux:
The real clincher is that her four year old computer is no longer adequate because it needs a new fan and is malwared out. That's only a good reason to replace a computer when you are using Windoze. Work computers should run an OS that does not have malware problems and that makes it easy to transfer the data in the case of real hardware problems. Vista is going to blow out all of her favorite settings and programs, causing her all sorts of grief while she struggles to become productive again. In the case of GNU/Linux, data backups are easy, any computer will do, and all your settings stay the same.
Gaming and work should be separate issues and they would have had a lot more options if they had kept an open mind. Vista is going to be a dissapointment for both.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
.....HAD a girlfriend.
/. /. and just ogled her online
A) I wonder if she knows that her photo has been posed to
B) I wonder if she realizes how many people read
I would say either she would be flattered and excited or very pissed and upset, which state it is probably determines the likelihood that he still has a girlfriend in the end.
This is crap.
...I mean c'mon, if you're going to try and tweak everyone, go all the way...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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?"
Something tells me that the Amish aren't really all that into blogging.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
First thing that popped into my mind was Megatokyo's series of strips in which Largo teaches Erika the dangers of static electricity, and why computers should be assembled while minimally clothed:
Starting here: Megatokyo #653
You do realize that your first two sentences raised the hopes of geeks everywhere, only to leave them shattered with the third, and somewhat revived with the possibility of pictures in the fourth :-)
I don't think the problem is half so much that women are technically inept as that socially inept men make the technical environment unpleasant to work in...
Heck, I setup a wiki so that my girlfriend and I could swap notes (we're currently at distance and see each other irregularly during the year until I find a new job closer to her). She ended up using it quite a bit, and not minding at all that it was rather geeky of me to set it up in the first place. It's actually one of the things I love about her most, I do something quite geeky without realizing it, and she's interested in it anyhow. She's not a techno-geek either, but rather works in marketing,and has little of the fear of technology that most people on here seem to believe is implicit in the female gender. You don't always have to be a geek yourself to enjoy a little tinkering or semi-geeklike activities, and that applies to both men and women.
If you can be geeky and have fun with your girlfriend, why not? Not all women are just into shiny shoes and tupperware parties, ya know.
The amazement of technical capabilities of women is not what is driving the shortage of women in IT. The shortage of women in IT is driving the amazement of technical abilities of women.
It's not about condescension. It's about commenting on rarity.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
And people wonder, when they find out, why I don't tell them upfront that I have a fiancee, or that I am dating at all. Too many children on slashdot, apparently. *sigh*
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. - Krishnamurti
Cute girl, needs to condition her hair though; very dry looking. Other than that, what a fucking lame article. A new low...
Her computer was not really old.
What did she want to do with it? Run WorldsOfWarcraft?
The Video Card was $395.00!!!
All she needed to do with her old machine was get a new Hard Drive and replace some of the colling fans. Total spent would have been less than
$100.00
we calls dat a "lantern jaw". But I'm glad to see that trannies are being given equal time in geek circles these days. When does she go post-op?
Fine, she likes Vista. But why Vista Ultimate?
Because when you're not paying for it, why not get the top of the line?
Notice that all the other components in the slideshow are real pictures of the actual device, while Vista is a rendered marketing shot? Looks like they didn't get a box.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
In America, marriage doesn't signify "ownership" of your partner, but it DOES pretty much ensure ownership of the partner's assets, if you want to be vindictive about it.....
.... but those are only valid for 10 years. In so many cases, someone who is the type who would do this to another person they used to love/live with is also the type to dodge payment on such a judgment until it expires, too.)
One of the biggest reasons many people are against marriage in the U.S. today is the frightening lack of protection given to one's personal assets during a divorce.
Basically, a partner can get angry, run off with every last item of value in the home, sell it off, and there's little or nothing you can do about it. (Sure, when one finally gets up in front of a divorce court judge, about a year after the event, he/she can order a financial judgment against the partner
The police won't even get involved in any of it, in the meantime, because they say "Sorry... divorce is a civil matter!" You might be surprised how many laws a marriage partner can break and still get away with it, during a divorce which isn't finalized yet!
EG. One person could leave the other, and decide to burn their house down a week later. Since technically, it's still "shared property" and there's "no law against burning down your own place" - the police will shrug it off (assuming nobody was injured in the event, and the house was already paid off - meaning a bank isn't a 3rd. party involved).
As another example, a partner could take your car, illegally forge a signature on its title, and sell it to someone else. Again, you'd be very hard pressed to get anyone to do anything about it. (I've spoken to police about this exact scenario, and they say they've run across it a number of times. Used to be, they'd proceed with investigating the criminal action of title fraud -- but they gave up, because divorce court judges can often rule that the vehicle be turned over to the partner who took it anyway. (The divorce court judge has the authority to force you to sign over a title to the other partner, in his/her presence in the courtroom.) If they investigate the title fraud and then this ruling happens, they just wasted their time and have to scrap the investigation.
IMHO, they need to make it a criminal offense to dispose of any assets during a divorce, until a final divorce ruling is made, determining who gets what. Until that "loophole" is sealed, marriage is far more financially risky than any other type of legally binding contract between 2 parties.
Try doing that with a Mac.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like to play games? I know they're not your main focus. But surely you'd like the option, right?"
Actually, the list isn't in order of priority.
Games are one of my main focuses, if not the main focus. Right now I frequently play Civ IV, Rise of Legends, Galactic Civilizations, Sims2, SM's Pirates and several other games.
And I am really, really excited about Spore coming out (its going to be awesome).
But thanks for your advice, and you are right... listening is important.
Glenda
myspace.com/civaddict
Given her name, she oughta be running Plan 9.
with sexy girls putting together computers...this will sell to the /dot crowd..me included..who is with me?!
The only way to bust a doper--is when you yourself become a smoker!
The solution is simple. You don't have to have a penis, you just have to think like a man. That screwdriver doubles as a weapon.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
and my computer screw girls.