The Extremely Lazy Person's Case for Building Your Own Computer
It happened to me: my computer exploded
Hello readers!
This newsletter comes a little bit later in the month than I anticipated, due to no fault of my own. But more on that later. Firstly: here’s what I was up to last month.
Last month I wrote about the novel Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which is a wonderful book about the game industry that unfortunately mirrors some of the gender based issues of that industry.
The renowned developer Brenda Romero has taken issue with an early plot point in the book, which depicts Sadie making a game called Solution. The game bears a striking resemblance to Romero’s board game Train. Crucially, both games depend on a harrowing twist: The player does not know that they are working for the Nazis until their work is complete.
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To say that Romero takes issue with these comments would be an understatement. In a Google Meet call, she seems flabbergasted by the publisher’s refusal to credit her work and resolute in her desire to see this rectified.
“Through a representative, I’m talking with their team,” Romero said. “I’ve let them know very clearly that I don't want any money. I’m not interested in any pieces of their pie. I strongly suggested that they donate money to a Holocaust charity. I just want acknowledgement.”
I also voice acted for an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark Universe, a very fun podcast that takes the very silly, canceled Universal Studios shared “Dark Universe” concept and takes it (kind of) seriously. I played Evelyn O’Connell — yes, the one from The Mummy — and I hope my english accent was at least okay. It’s available on all your podcast apps, and also on YouTube.
If everything goes the way I expect it to (it rarely does) this newsletter will be hitting your inboxes before my Baldur’s Gate 3 review goes live on Polygon. The reason for both the delay of my review and the delay of this newsletter is that my computer exploded.
Exploded is a pretty dramatic term, but it also feels the most accurate. When I finally got my Baldur’s Gate code, I loaded it up and made a character, only for my machine to overheat and shut off, and then not turn on again. I was forced to disassemble it in its entirety and then rebuild it. I’ve never done this kind of thing before because I am extremely lazy.
I like it when technology just works. My dad was a PC Specialist in the IT department of a college up until he retired a few years ago, and while I’ve followed in his footsteps in some ways, building computers never quite appealed to me. They are, in a word, extremely fiddly. I get bored easily, and also very frustrated when things don’t go my way. Building a computer involves at the very least becoming frustrated, and I prefer it when machines follow my commands without question. But without a computer—and being both broke and on deadline—I found myself without any other choice but to fix the machine myself.
Diagnosing the problem wasn’t a huge issue for me. My machine was hot enough that I could feel heat radiating out from it whenever I turned it on. After consulting with my brain trust (Tyler Colp from PC Gamer, mainly, but also Nico Deyo and Maddy Myers, who are all in a group chat with me), we all decided that it was extremely likely that my water cooled CPU cooler was probably not doing enough work to keep my machine running. What really frightened me was taking everything apart and then assembling everything in the correct order and hoping against hope that it would turn on when I pressed the power button.
The computer I have now is a gift from a very generous friend who knew at the time I wouldn’t accept it unless he framed it as him loaning it to me (thank you Max!). At the time, in 2016, it was a pretty advanced machine. This was also a period where pre-built gaming PCs were more console-like black boxes rather than fancy rigs meant to be opened up and upgraded over time. To say that I was terrified of losing everything on my machine and fucking it up by accident would be an understatement. I never opened the case before—I wasn’t suppose to have to. But now that I’m thankfully on the other side, I’m grateful for the experience.
Being forced under pressure to fix my computer taught me so much more about my computer than watching a series of YouTube videos or reading blogs about it. Was it extremely scary? Yes. But I have gone from not knowing a single thing about my computer to being able to identify each component in my case. I know, for instance, that the pre-built my friend gave me has a ITX size X99 motherboard, a fact that caused me considerable frustration with my build because a very small number of CPU coolers actually fit on the thing. But troubleshooting these issues activated the same part of my brain that sighs in relief I’ve checked things off my to do list. In a post on Bluesky, my former colleague Jason Schreier called it “forbidden legos,” and that’s pretty much the vibe.
As I talked it over with my older brother, another computer nerd I called for a pep talk as I plugged all my components into my teeny tiny motherboard, I told him how satisfying it felt to have an opportunity to think in binary states. While there’s an infinite amount of things that can go wrong with your computer, it either works or it doesn’t. Once I felt that I had bought all the right parts and put them in the right places, it would either turn on or it wouldn’t turn on. There was a finite amount of things to try, and as I tried them all, I learned more about the pieces of machinery that allow me to talk to my friends and play video games. My brother assured me it wouldn’t work the first time I tried to turn it on, and he was right. I smiled, sweating profusely in my stuffy office. I felt like I finally understood a joke, and a funny one too.
Maddy is delighted that I am now, in her words, a PC gremlin now, and I am too. I know I’ve unlocked a massive, never ending project, but it also could be like chipping away at a short story over a couple of years. When you revise a draft, you learn more about what you’ve created.
Thank you for reading! Last month I was also working on a few podcast projects that haven’t debuted yet. I’m really excited about them both.
I also wanted to shout all the paid subscribers who joined since I turned on payments last month. I appreciate your patience in waiting for this newsletter, but I hope this is explanation enough.
Best,
Gita
Reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was a trip.
These comments aren't meant to reflect on the review or other people's enjoyment of the book. However, my personal journey reading this book was bizarre.
I joined my first game studio in October 2001, so the characters are the same age as my slightly older peers.
It would be petty to judge a piece of art solely on its accuracy, yet I couldn't recognize my own journey in any part of this book. More than that, as the proceedings seemed to become more and more unmoored from reality I could not believe in the novel anymore.