The GPU Catfish: Wide Bus, Narrow Expectations

Linux users flexing how their OS can run on literally anything with a circuit board. That rusty box with exposed wires from 1997? Perfect daily driver. Meanwhile, Windows users are checking if their $3000 gaming rig meets the minimum specs for the latest update.

Ah yes, the duality of tech compensation. Six-figure salary, sleeps on cardboard. The fancy ergonomic chair and RGB gaming PC suggest this dev can afford nice things... just not silly luxuries like "beds" or "plastered walls." Priorities straight as a binary digit. All money goes to the battlestation while living in what appears to be an abandoned storage closet. The true programmer lifestyle - where your computer has better living conditions than you do.

Ah yes, the mythical "Real Dev" – that legendary creature who apparently needs a NASA supercomputer to run VS Code. Nothing says "I'm a serious programmer" like convincing yourself you need specialized hardware for "heavy compiling" when cloud services have been handling this for years. The gatekeeping is strong with this one! "Real devs use different machines" – meanwhile the person who wrote this is probably compiling their Hello World program on a gaming rig they convinced their parents was "for school." Pro tip: The best code is written on whatever device you have when inspiration strikes. Some of the world's most successful software was built on "consumer products" by "codemonkeys" who were too busy shipping to worry about their dev cred.

That moment when someone learns you're in "computer science" and immediately assumes you're tech support. Sure, I can reverse a binary tree, implement a neural network, and debug race conditions, but no, I have absolutely no idea why your laptop makes that weird clicking sound. I mean, I could look at it, but that would set a dangerous precedent where I become everyone's personal Geek Squad. My algorithm for handling these requests is simple: blank stare, slight smirk, change subject.

Behold the ANCIENT ONE! While those pathetic RTX 4090 babies are crying for upgrades after TWO MONTHS, my 9-year-old GTX 1080 sits on its mechanical throne like some unholy cybernetic deity from the depths of silicon hell! It's seen things you people wouldn't believe... it's rendered attacks ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. And yet here it stands - IMMORTAL, UNDYING, running Minecraft at a blistering 45 FPS while these hardware snowflakes throw tantrums over ray tracing! The audacity! The DRAMA! Meanwhile my graphics card is basically running on pure spite and the tears of my wallet that begs for mercy!

The eternal laptop BIOS key guessing game—where every manufacturer picks a different magic button combination just to watch us suffer. Dell uses F2, HP prefers F10, Lenovo loves F1, and ASUS goes with Delete. Then there's that one guy suggesting "just use DEL" like we're all using the same hardware from 1998. Nothing says "standardization" like frantically mashing every F-key while your laptop boots. It's basically percussion practice for desperate sysadmins.