Actually wal-mart isn't that bad, so far working there has paid for one year of college, one year of payments on my car, two years of insurance, gas money in both an suv and now my new car, and not to mention my psp and tons of games for it. And i still have plenty of money left to spare.

its fine if you don't have to support a family or rent an apartment on your own

DShiznit;

I dont have an xbox... I emulate everything, or fire up a dreamcast I got on ebay (which I love btw). I think I speak for many people when I say that most people get by on their means; its just a matter of finding good deals. No money? boohoo. Are you employed? If not, shut up. otherwise, get a new job. Or better yet, work as an intern in hopes of an even better job in the future...

You have an insatiable need for attention. Unable to garner enough from your local surroundings, you turn to forums where you spread your sob stories seeking pity... frankly I dislike people like you.

At least you have something, DShiznit. There are certainly other less fortunate then even you. (Although, you're illness must certainly suck...)

By the way, I bought a minifridge at a yard sale for ten bucks. Actually, I buy all my nonessential stuff at yard sales. For $1 each, I can think of... a playstation, a "virtual reality" headset, numerous computers (throw a lightweight linux distro on 'em and they're good as new!), TVs (from 12 inches down to pocket sized), game controllers, etc.

Ok, so yes, now I am bragging about my bargain finding ability, but you get the idea. I just think you could be putting some energy into satisfying your desires for material wealth through creative solutions.

At least I'm not picking on you... I don't need to bully people online because I don't feel "powerful" enough IRL.

DShiznit, if Kllrnohj's setup bothers you that much, you're going to want to punch me in the face when you see what my desk looks like these days.

That's like, your job though isn't it? Having a messy desk, I mean.

It's my scholarly occupation. I meant the part where I have four computers, two laptops, and six LCDs in three tiers on my desk.

Are all those actually yours, though? All the crap in my room I actually own, its not on loan from the school or anything.

That said, you only beat me by 4 LCDs

Lets see, I've got:
Gaming rig: 3.0ghz AthlonX2, 4gb RAM, ATI 4850 512MB, 2.3TB hdd space
HP Server: 600mhz P3, 128mb RAM, 160 GB hdd
IBM Rackmount: 2x ~800mhz P3, 1GB RAM, 3x15gb 10k RPM SCSI drives (RAID 5, naturally)
Asus Laptop: 2.2ghz C2D, 2GB RAM, 160GB hdd (5400rpm)
Lenovo Laptop: 2.33ghz C2D, 2GB RAM, 100GB hdd (7200rpm)

Oh, and back home I have an AthlonXP 2500+, 2GB RAM, ~300GB hdd, and an ATI 9700 Pro, along with 2 old CRTs

Nice. I'm liking that IBM setup with the 10000RPM drives a lot, for some reason.

Did you buy all that stuff new, though? I mean, half of my crappiest PCs put together couldn't even rival the most underpowered machine of your lot, but when they were virtually free, I find that I don't really care

What I should really do is use all my monitors to make a video wall type thing...

I bought two of those systems (the two gaming rigs - the AthlonX2 and AthlonXP). One laptop was a gift from my parents and the other is a school laptop (it is mine, though, I get to keep it). The IBM rackmount was free (friend's mom was throwing it out), and so was the HP system (highschool was throwing them out)

Mine is 3x 22" LCDs, a 19" LCD, a 13" docked tablet CP, a 12" docked tablet PC, a core 2 quad desktop, three P4s for VM, Media, and Simms respectively; two keyboards and two mice, one for the 6 synergied PCs, the other for my KVM connected to an 8-node cluster next to my desk.

Dang, I have sucky computers. Whatever. I'll get a good one when I go to college. Anyhoo, that looks pretty sweet there Kllrnohj, I really like your minifridge, and at the same time think it is incredibly cheesy... I'm trying to decide which.

Well, when your career depends on having good systems (along with servers to mess around with), it kind of becomes a priority

Sure, you CAN program with just one crappy laptop, but thats not how a real developer rolls

True story. Work goes so much more quickly with SSH and FTP on their own monitors above you, and your three eye-level monitors with code on one, your browser(s) or SSH or executable on another (depending on what kind of coding you're doing) and a handy TV show on the third.

I one time saw a homeless guy running an xbox off a car battery...

And have any of you tried Red Baron pizzas? They are the shit.

I really shouldn't bitch 'cause if I had 4 Screens and a gazillion computers I didn't really need I'd probably brag about it too.



But if you're lucky you only have to pay $80 for every minor doctor's appointment... and don't even think about x-raying a broken limb...

I definitely wouldn't consider me and Kerm bragging - we are more comparing to each other, not rubbing it in peoples faces.

That said, head over to the [H] forums or Xtreme systems and you'll see people spend $1500 on video cards for a single system, and $1000 just to cool their $1200 CPU with a $400 motherboard.

I know, one of my classmates was one of those assholes that got banned for lighting a brand-new top of the line $400+ motherboard on fire.

Exactly. I earn all my money for technology by the sweat of my own brow, not from my parents, and I supplement the technology on my desk (which is purchased by my lab) with my own computing technology. Since the computers and monitors aren't mine per se, it's a bit hollow, but I still find it a very productive workstation. And indeed, it seems to me we are weighing the relative merits of each other's setups, especially useability, comfort, and state-of-the-artness, rather than trying to make others feel bad that they have different or less.

Over the summer, I switched back to 1 monitor to try to save on my electric bill. Once I got some programming assignments for class, though, I remembered how much that sucks to have to keep switching between windows with your ssh, header files, implementation files, and driver files. I'm bringing my second monitor back this weekend. I'm also looking for a cheap second one for my laptop. Screen real estate is hard to find when you're coding...

Agreed. For now, I'm only on the one 22" LCD, but I don't have enough desk space for another monitor. There is just enough for my (tiny) laptop on one corner, though, so it can hold something.