Now is not the time to buy a PC...

Normally, I'm a pretty big advocate of PC gaming - I would class myself as an enabler because I love technology, enjoy playing around with the hardware, but also using it to enjoy technologically advanced games. I spend time online helping people not only to build and buy PCs but also troubleshoot their issues in order to improve their experience with that technology.

 

However, as part of the moral and ethical framework I hold in my head I just can't advise people to buy a PC right now. Let's get into why...

Building a Home NAS...

What do we do in a time when certain component prices have gone through the roof? We make do with what we have and upgrade other aspects of our systems. Speaking of which, I've been meaning to sort out my data storage situation for a long time. So, let's take the plunge!

Do we really have things so much better now...?

 

 

You may have noticed that I'm a grumpy sort of person - easily annoyed into rolling my eyes and huffing when things are done which rub me the wrong way. You might even have seen a few tweets of mine on certain "trigger" topics, such as "inflation affecting the pricing of high technology products"*. Well, welcome to a new entry on that list: "modern buyers have it better".

On the face of it, this is a basic truism (or at least we hope so!) but on the other side of the coin, this is, in my opinion, a bad faith argument.  

 

Let's get into why I think that...

*It has negligible effect on the overall consumer price for high technology products. The forces which make a loaf of bread more expensive do NOT act on how much it costs to produce all the components and package a CPU/GPU... They are primarily priced based on COGS and how much the market will bear...

 

PC Building Advice... or How to buy a PC in 2026...

Hopefully, your PC will look a little better than this one did...

I spend a lot of time on Reddit giving advice on PC building and troubleshooting. I recently saw some build guides on YouTube that are great but don't address many of the common questions that new or inexperienced users have. 

Additionally, many websites and YouTube hardware enthusiasts focus purely on the theoretical performance per part and, in my opinion, while the scientist in me loves that data, it doesn't necessarily help these segments of the consumer base make legitimate purchasing decisions.

So, I've decided to put together my own little list of...

Looking back at 2025 and predictions for 2026...

Once again, the end of the year approaches and it's time to take stock of the follies I've so foolishly written down last year. Perhaps I'll also spend a bit of time attempting to prognosticate the future in this incredibly volatile world we currently live in, too...