On my way in to work today, I was passed by a small blue Honda Civic. It raced and weaved through traffic, sporting a bolt-on spoiler, and an exhaut pipe that made it sound more like a go-cart than a legitimate driving machine. I allowed myself my moment of sarcstic thoughts. "Really? Your Honda Civic gets around with such great velocity that you need a spoiler to keep your rear axle firmly planted??" Maybe I'm just getting old, but I looked at that vehicle and I didn't see the style and power the installer may have intended. I saw immaturity and insecurity. This driver self-identified with performance and power. He didn't have the right tool for the job, so he bolted on the parts.
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| Is that a heatpipe or a spoiler? |
My thinking quickly turned to the PC industry. Does the PC industry do the equivalent of putting spoliers on our Civics? Absolutely. All the time. We have lights and windows and liquid cooling and LEDs and skulls and overclocking. There are huge heatsinks literally attached to memory with tape. There are exotic looking fans that perform worse than the cheap plain ones. A big part of what we do here at Puget Systems is test all this hardware, and separate the substance from the hype. There is a lot of hype in our industry.
Now, I'm not judging you if you like LEDs, exotic fans and overclocking. There is a time and a place for that. There is a time and a place for a spoiler. As a custom PC builder, we can build what you like, and we often do build with these things. When we do use these more exotic parts, we ensure they are done tastefully and are built on top of hardware that deserves that kind of treatment. But those aren't the products we get excited about, and those aren't the products we feel personify us at Puget Systems. We prefer our products to project a quiet confidence, and an understated strength. Those products better personify who we are here. That's also why you don't see us do much traditional advertising. It doesn't excite us, and we prefer to speak with our actions rather than our ad dollars.
I'm sure the PC and automotive industries aren't alone here. What about your industry? What are the "spoilers on a Civic" in your field?