[geeks] Re: [rescue] Re: Sad end to SGI Power Challenge XL story

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

> > A side note, this idiot:
> > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2010028842
> > needs to be severely beaten.
> 
> i thought the refrigerator project was made out of a gutted case from a 
> completely non-functional machine.  unless this guy is a copycat and had a
> working machine that he turned into a fridge.  asshole.

The original one was.  However, according to the auction: "This was a
COMPLETE and functional system prior to being dismantled..."  Clearly this
guy has killed a perfectly good (and quite nice) SGI to exhibit his
complete lack of both taste and creativity.

<rant mode="preaching-to-the-choir">
  <!-- I've been in a ranty mood lately.  You'd almost think I were a
       hothead, or recovering sysadmin. -->

I'm sorry, but I really have to ask, even though I -don't- want to know
the answer, and I -really- don't want to understand the mentality of these
lamebrained assholes, but...

What the FUCK possesses somebody to take a perfectly serviceable, working
piece of sought-after kit and GUT it for the $30 worth of plastic on the
outside?  Dammit, I'd -love- to have a Big (or even just big) SGI at home
right now.

I mean, I'm all for recycling.  If I weren't, I wouldn't be subscribing to
rescue and picking up old RS/6000s and Indys and such.  I can -use- these
things, if for nothing else, than for learning tools to make me a better
admin, a better programmer, and maybe fixing them up and giving them to
friends whose only Unix-like experience is PenguinDroppingOS.  Perhaps my
experience with this "recued" kit will make me better at helping someone
down the road.

And, by that notion, if the box is dead, scrap it for parts, pull the
74-series logic chips off the dead boards, and build cute computation toys
out of them.  Or at least practice your soldering skills before tossing
sending the kit to the dump (or recycler, if tech-recyclers exist in your
area) as a reward for its years of dedicated service.

And yeah, by that point, recycle the plastic bits into something "kewl" if
only to keep it out of the landfills.  Wrap your coffee machine, or your
CD player, or your fridge, or your damned toilet in plasticy SGI goodness
and brag to the world about how much free time you have.  Great.  We all
get a chuckle, and you've kept crap out of the landfills.  No problem
there.

But, dammit, if the shit still -works-, and it works well enough that you
-know- someone will be happy to buy it from you, especially to the point
og bidding against each other over it, and you -know- that the kit is
discontinued, and, thus, hard to get ahold-of, and of great value to
collectors.... WHY, how, where, what twisted malice possesses you take
that lovely bit of kit and tear it asunder, so that you can take its
exterior bits to house...

A fridge.  A fridge that is probably sitting in your perfectly spotless
stainless-steel kitchen in the house where you park your brand new
gas-guzzling only-veers-off-road-to-park-at-the-golf-course Ford SUV, in
your damned WASP neighborhood, so that you can tell all your techie
friends at your www.we-have-no-clue-but-haven't-run-out-of-venture-
capital-just-yet.com job that you've "got an SGI keeping [your] [lite]
beer cold" over your trendy diet-of-the-week granola and bean-sprout lunch
with Starbucks Frappaccino "coffee".

Or worse, a fridge parked in your dorm room so you can brag to all your
CompSci buddies about how big your dick is, and how they'd be cool if
they did it, too.  Yay for you, and I hope at least one of your friends
has the deceny to crack your head open with a ratchet.

"Hey, I just inherited a pristine 1971 Candy-apple Red Corvette Stingray
with only 800 miles on the clock from my uncle.  I bet it would make one
-fuck- of a flowerbed if I gutted out all that leather interior and
powertrain shit.  Then I could brag to all my friends about how -fast- my
petunias grow and what a pathetic fucking loser I am.  Huhuhuhuhuh."

Dammit but this -really- pisses me off, in case that point was missed in
the slightest.  Grr.

</rant>

And now I need therapy.  Thank God I'm heading out-of-state for some
long-overdue SO-induced recovery before I actually -have- to deal with
real-world lusers and "that there Internet" again.

--Jonathan