ir0×0r

I remember back in the day the classic forum post- Intel sucks. Good grief, posters would come out of the woodwork to sound off. Accounts would be created just to respond and 50 pages later the thread would get locked when things turned into nothing more than epenis rambling.

Now I’m not suggesting we go back to that nonsense, but you don’t see stuff like anymore really. Oh people will start trading jabs about specs or overclocking potential but the conversation just dwindles away with a pffft.

There’s a reason for that and it’s a shame. The passion is slowly being leeched out of the PC industry by console players and pro gamers; by people downloading the .vob files rather than downloading the Xvid and converting it themselves.

The PC industry as a whole has spent untold sums of money trying to educate the tech elite so they could carry the message on to those less savvy and empower them to make better decisions.

Now why would those gurus do that? They aren’t getting paid and they don’t get a ton of free parts. The simple answer is passion. Tech is everything to an enthusiast. Teaching tech to non-enthusiasts takes real passion because you usually have to drag them kicking and screaming to the knowledge trough. It takes real patience.

Enter John Taylor at AMD. Take a second to go check out his blog, http://budurl.com/f8ef. This guy could have been sitting next to me playing UT99 at a LAN party a few years ago. Well, maybe not. He was probably doing the stuff that got him to his current position of Director, Global Platform & Product Communications at AMD.

The point is, the guy is a total geek and represents a direct path toward getting PC enthusiasts around the world spun back up to their former glory. Simply put, John has passion. Real passion. Read the blog. Feel the blog.

So ya, it’s self serving and places AMD in a leadership position. Duh, he works there. But instead of just examining the facts of his blog, listen to HOW he’s saying it.

Let me spin you a mental image. John is sitting in front of his PC reading the generic disclaimer at the bottom of his last post. “His postings are his own opinions and may not represent…” yada yada yada. He’s reflecting on Intel’s recent launch of their new AMD-based product and grinding the last bit of enamel off his teeth. He’s read the (lack of) press coverage and knows firsthand Intel has (finally) plucked their collective heads from their asses because they had to and he knows that AMD is really the one responsible for Intel’s actions.

What’s important is WHY. WHY is he grinding his teeth? Why did he hit the backspace key about a million times while he penned that post? Aside from the fact the legal Nazis would have fired him on the spot, why is he so OBVIOUSLY pissed off? He’s just an employee. He gets told to do a job, he does the job, he gets paid, he goes boating on the weekend.

Go back and actually LISTEN to his post. If you can’t tell he’s pissed you must be an idiot.

Here’s the part I like. He is passionate about what he’s doing. I don’t mean his job doesn’t suck so he puts in a little extra effort, I mean he sees stuff happening to HIS company that just ain’t right and it really bothers him.

He gets grief from his wife when he’s supposed to be watching a movie and he’s thinking about work. He misses his kids’ t-ball game because he needs to get just a little bit more accomplished. AMD doesn’t base his salary on those things and, all too often, doesn’t base his pay on how well he does what they ask him to do.

John Taylor does what he does because he is driven to do it. No, I’ve never met John in my life and I don’t know if he even has kids to miss a t-ball game. But I can see his passion.

And it’s a good thing for us that he has it. If it wasn’t for people like John Taylor, we would not have gone to the moon. Bet you were wondering when the moon bit would come around. Thanks for sticking around.

We went to the moon because the USA, as a whole, got passionate about not being outdone by the Ruskies. Times change and we’ve all learned a lot since then but the fact of the matter is, we were passionate about getting to the moon so we went.

John has this kind of passion and we would all do well to follow in his example. You can get passionate about Intel if you like (not that there’s anything wrong with that http://budurl.com/lneg). You can get passionate about the best graphics solution. You can get passionate about anything tech you want as long as you get that way soon.

Here’s what happens if you don’t. Within five years your PC will be nothing more than a console. If you want to upgrade one or more components when it’s a year old to play a new game you can go get bent- buy a new one. You won’t be able to OC anything, swap out a video card or any of the other things that make you a geek.

If you don’t find John’s passion and start posting in forums you will let people with ties decide what is best for you to own. You won’t be downloading that show from a torrent because the encryption will be hard coded into the hardware that you don’t have access to. Just bend over and take it.

So, John Taylor, I salute you. I hope you stay pissed and I hope you keep posting. I, for one, will read what you have to say and, when I agree with it, and shout it from every platform I can find lest a bunch of sniveling CS nitwits wind up controlling what goes into my PC. Rock on man.

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