Captain Aggravated

I understand it just fine, but as implemented it’s useless for the purpose its supposed to serve.

Mine is a cat toaster. It sits next to my desk and Izzy will sit on it sometimes. It’s got the amp in it, so it gets a little warm.

I think I can give a list of things to think about. I’m a mod over at !woodworking@lemmy.ca, I might start a thread over there to gather more if there’s interest. But here are some things I’ve noticed over the years of computering at a desk:

1. Avoid particle board. Particle board is almost synonymous with flat packed furniture like most computer desks are, but…it sags. I had an entire desk that bowed under the weight of a CRT monitor. The desk was on castering wheels, so the weight of the monitor wasn’t directly supported. Plus, on any surface that is touched a lot, the veneer will chip, peel, bubble, and then it looks and feels like crap. Plywood might be acceptable for internal framing but anywhere that hands frequent I would go with solid lumber.

2. Computer components are larger and more numerous than the manufacturers seem to think. I’ve never seen a computer desk that was designed with power strips let alone UPSes, subwoofers, or network gear. I’ve found so many marketing photos like this with a single 4:3 monitor, a nook for the PC tower that a relatively small mid-tower barely fits in; four books, an old kettle, and a Venus Fly Trap of the Year award. This desk, which looks like it was designed with 2004 era PCs in mind, is for sale right now in the space year 2025 for $3,078, discounted from $4,189. Meanwhile, a computer desk would end up looking like this Cluttered with crap, there’s multiple monitors, multiple computers, two sets of speakers, stuff on the floor, stuff on an upper shelf, more cables than AT&T.

3. Wires are a thing. I see so many ads for desks like this that look like they’re AI generated. They’ve always got an Apple computer on them, turned on even though there’s no evidence of even a power cable. Granted, wireless mice and keyboards are a thing, but not so much with the desk lamps, printers, computers, monitors and mismatched speakers. A lot of desks feature upper shelves or hutches, often marketed as somewhere to put a printer or speakers, I’ve NEVER seen one that offers any kind of cable routing or management so you get random dangly cables visible down the wall. A trend in modern PC cases is to widen the case to allow a compartment behind the motherboard tray for cable management, computer desks kind of need that.

4. Wires are bastards. It needs to not only make sense when assembled, but it needs to be maintainable. Sometimes you need to plug something into the back of the computer, or to unplug something. Maybe you need to pull the computer forward a bit to get to it, and then you hear a pop crackle louder than god because the speaker wire was the shortest and you just pulled it free. I had a goddamn video cable with a bigass ferrite on it. There needs to be provisions for cable retention so that, if you need to temporarily unplug the computer, the mouse cable doesn’t slide off the shelf back behind the desk where no mortal hand can reach.

5. The foot well is for feet. I’ve had to do it myself, put some big box like the tower itself or a subwoofer in the footwell. A lot of desks have this shelf at the back of the footwell? My current desk has one that the assembly instructions referred to as a “bookshelf.” Which, if you ever need to read those books, it’s a pain in the ass to get to them there.

6. A lot of manufacturers seem to approach computer desks as “office furniture.” As if every single computer user is going to sit in front of it bolt upright and cross ankled like a secretary in a pencil skirt typing memos like it’s 1974. For a lot of people, their computer desk is living room or bedroom furniture. It’s a recreational and/or social space. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a computer desk that tried to be cozy.

7. Don’t try to pretend a computer desk is some other piece of furniture. An executive pillar desk? I mean, okay. A cross between a pillar desk and a dining room cupboard, with the upper hutch? Well, maybe. An armoire? Why? There was a big trend of "It looks like an armoire, but if you swing open these doors and pull out the keyboard tray, it’s a computer desk! That doesn’t really give you much room to move your legs around wtihout banging into the lower shelves/printer. What do you do with your office chair when you close it up? Yeah, it is a pain that the floor isn’t quite level and it leans such that the left-hand door keeps trying to close on you. Of course they didn’t provide any means of latching it open. Yes it is only 40 inches wide, so there’s not a lot of space for accessories, documents, decorations, tools or toys. Yeah, being entirely enclosed means cable management is an even bigger bitch than normal. Oh this one has a work surface that folds out for more space. What are the odds that that’s going to get permanently cluttered and this thing is never going to get closed up, so you’ve got this permanently messy cabinet looking thing with doors that are constantly flapping around in the walkway? Nobody folds up their computer desks every time they log off. Stop trying to make computer desks look like shitty armoires and make them look like great computer desks.

There was a time when Steam did that like four times.

Further evidence that the rating system is bullshit.

And Disney owns 20th Century Fox. Granted they didn’t when the movie was released.

There’s one problem that frustrates me about it: horizontal computer cases are kind of difficult to find. There’s a space in my desk where you’d think a top drawer would go, it’s about 18cm high, 36cm wide and 56cm deep. It should be a cinch to fit a PC in that volume, my mini-tower almost would, and it’s bulkier than strictly necessary, lot of room behind the motherboard tray for wiring, etc. You could definitely make a m-ITX small form factor build fit. Because I did. A Fractal Node 202 just barely fits, but the case is so narrow that cooling is WAY compromised, and few other cases make sense.

Well, there are ATX standards. I have noticed a fairly recent trend for making computer cases oddly wide as part of the “fish tank” aesthetic. But again, with the exception of an ITX build I did, most of my computers have been ATX mid- or mini-tower size

5 feet off the ground and full of stuff that’s not hers?

A booty like a long haul truck…so, rectangular and for hire?

same with the 80s.

In my experience, it’s the monitors that have changed the most. In 2005, I had a ~mATX mid tower sized PC (in fact it’s still in my possession) with a 2.1 speaker system (also still in my possession) , a keyboard and trackpad, a UPS, and an inkjet printer, with a single 19" CRT monitor. Now, I’ve got an mATX mid tower PC, a keyboard and mouse, an inkjet printer, 2.1 speakers, a 34" ultrawide flat panel, and a 1080p panel.

Norm Abram built a computer desk on the New Yankee Workshop, which was basically a pillar desk with false drawers that house the PC tower itself on one side and a printer/scanner on the other, with the monitor and speakers on the desktop, and the keyboard and mouse in the false center drawer as a keyboard tray. That design would hold up as you could span a large flat panel or two across that desk, but I still think cable management is a nightmare, there’s no room for a UPS, subwoofer, a switch or router, etc. Plus it’s kind of a bad idea to put the computer in an enclosed space like that, electronics get hot.

It’s a pillar desk bent around a computer not unlike a Honda Civic bent around a pine tree.

I can say this from experience, these desks that close up to look like some other, older kind of furniture but open up to be a computer workstation stop getting closed up, and then they look kind of trashy because they’re always hanging open.

I also find the idea of hiding the electronics to be kind of wrong-headed. Apple is as much a jewelry company as they are a tech company; their users don’t want to hide their hardware, they want to be seen with it. Gaming PC enthusiasts often build PCs to be seen, in styled cases with glass side panels, showy lighting, you can get designer PCIe cables and dye for the water in your cooling loop. A gaming PC can be an art project in and of itself, its owner doesn’t want to hide it in a cubby.

My point is, the comedy movie that features nudity and consentual sex acts is considered less acceptable for young people than the movie with graphic violence, murder and body horror.

But what does he know? did he see anything?

This may take a minute to articulate.

I’m a woodworker. My biggest ongoing project, the thing I’m probably going to write a book about, is the design of computer desks. Because I’m not convinced we’ve ever gotten it right as a species. The art and craft of furniture hasn’t really embraced electronics. Like 2 centuries ago they made writing desks where the geometry of the desk was designed specifically for the process of handwriting, but with computer desks or TV stands etc. you get It’s a pillar desk crossed with a dining room cabinet, and I guess we’ll drill some holes for wires."

Researching this, google image searching for “computer desk” returns the following results:

• video game streamer setups with thick tops, metal tube frames, all dark and l it by magenta and blue LEDs
• Hip trendy Cupertino shit where the desk has a Mac that is turned on despite not being plugged into anything, a potted plant, and little else
• a slab of wood on T-shaped legs, this is what gamers buy to put their computers and mice on now because we’ve given up.
• old photos of people’s actual desks from the late 90’s and 2000’s, as lived in. Those Staples brand particle board and/or metal tube desks allegedly designed for computers but invariably there’s not enough room for all the stuff people want around their desks, so they’re crammed with too many monitors, computers, speakers…to this day they make “two speakers and a subwoofer” systems for PCs, and no one in the history of the world has ever had a good place to put that subwoofer. And that’s before all the personal clutter that ends up on the desktop. The keyboard and mouse end up crammed wherever they’ll fit, probably not in ergonomic or easy to use places, yet everyone made it work.

Having grown up in the 90’s and 2000’s, having had a desk just like that myself, I find a certain coziness in that that isn’t in the carefully arranged marketing photos that look cleaner and sleeker. This is someone’s personal space. This is where they played through Riven and Day of the Tentacle. I’m a member of a generation of people who all have weird personal touch typing techniques because we really learned to type so we could chat with friends on AIM or MSN messenger, and it’s places like that where it happened. And the focal point of those spaces? A big ol vacuum tube. VGA CRT. They’re not really nice to be around, but are flat panels?

Movie ratings are kinda bullshit anyway.

Airport, one of the movies Airplane! spoofs, features an almost explicit scene of a suicide bombing aboard an airliner in flight. A pregnant woman is injured in the explosion, and a plane load of people spend the entire third act in immediate mortal danger. This movie is rated G.

Ice Age, the Disney (somehow not Pixar) movie whose plot boils down to “Three Men And A Baby, Except Animals” is rated PG for “Mild Peril.”

Raiders of the Lost Ark features explicit scenes of people being shot including blood flowing from a bullet hole, and the climax of the film features a shot of three characters’ faces melting. This movie is also PG.

Caddyshack is a comedy movie about wacky characters around a golf course. A couple women get topless, so this movie is rated R.

Yeah the obvious joke is “United Kingdom: DNF”

That checks out for Quebec as well.

Few octopi live to the age of 35.

Dead meme.