The lack of basements makes me doubt how much of computer nerds you all actually are.
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Old nerds that don’t tollerate dark, damp places all that well anymore.
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That’s where I keep all the mess (not kidding)
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People have been asking for a messy one, so:
This is my home office in the corner of the living room.
The large printer on the left is a colour OKI I bought 4 years ago with an extra guarantee (a total of 5 years), but did not realise I’d have to mail in a registration for it to be valid without me taking it in for service. It failed about a year later, and having no car, I have still not taken the effort to take it back. We use the much smaller B&W that’s on the shelf below it.
Under the desk, the battered subwoofer of my 20±year-old 2.1 set. On top of that, the scanner that we sometimes use and I have no other place to store. It’s not plugged in, there’s a UBS cable running to the desk, so it can plug it in after closing the laptop’s lid, on which it rests when in use.
In the bottom-left corner, remains of the plant destroyed today by the cat.
On the desk, I used to juggle two wired keyboards and mice, one set for the work laptop, one for the personal PC.
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This is no critique of how people have their set ups but it formulated something I had vaguely considered before. Computers sort of exist beyond their physical limits. When you sit down they open up another world.
You know these photos of people in VR headsets in public space? There’s something extremely disconcerting about them. As if people have left their bodies behind.
Computer workstations have some of that about them. In an office it’s somehow not so strong but in private they are strangely spooky. Perhaps because they imply people staring into the “wall”
My corner where I have my computer looks like that as well. I had to have a look at Apple to see how they solve the issue in their material. They obviously want to avoid that look. It seems they prefer to stage their photos with the computers placed very “publicly” in the house or at least freely and by a window or so. Avoiding the stare at the wall in your isolation thing.
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Wow, lots of replies! 
I’ve been traveling and “arriving” all day so I’m just now sitting down at my laptop although I heard a constant stream of email notifications from my cell as I drove.
I have to admit - The varying degrees of mess and chaos are somehow reassuring. I was secretly afraid everyone would come back with these spotlessly clean rooms, perfect lighting, 18% grey walls and work surfaces… 
@123sg, @Tim, @kofa – Your “messes” are pretty much what mine looked like before I took the snapshot, I just tidied up real quick.
@TonyBarrett, @apostel338 – You really need to loosen up!! LOL Way too neat …and I say that as someone who likes neatness, but rarely achieves it!
Everyone else is kind of in the middle.
My old desk has survived the better part of 30 years now, even being moved from one house to another. It’s really not all that great (just a bog standard particle board big-box store desk) but it’s assembled, heavy and in place. So there’s little motivation to move nor replace it. In fact the shelf dictated I get a 24" (and not 27") monitor the last time I upgraded.
It was originally designed so that I’d face to the right with the keyboard on a pull-out drawer. I hate those things, so I turned that drawer into a true “cargo” drawer (with sides and back), then added the extension you see in the front. That way while facing forward (being right-handed) I can rest my mouse arm and hand from elbow to wrist on the desktop. This “neutral position” is what, I’m convinced, has helped me avoid RSI after 30+ years of heavy computer usage.
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Yeah, as long as I’m looking at my monitor I’m never “staring at the wall”.
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Haha of course not! It’s just that photos can’t really convey that other world.
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Yes but where are the computers???
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No room, too many boxes! (I think there are a couple of laptops in that wicker thing along with about 15 defunct hard drives I keep meaning to drill out or hit with a hammer.)
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Wow, it’s great to see other’s setups. And reassuring that that you don’t all have ‘perfect’ tidiness…
I think @apostel338 or @zerosapte take the ‘Speaker Award’… just not sure which… 
@Tim that’s a fancy computer enclosure!
Yes, not something I’d really considered, but very true.
Um… ever read Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov? The computer used to control Trevise’s gravitic ship really pushes that thinking to it’s limit in some ways. Definitely VR although I don’t think that term was invented in 1983 when published.
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I still think I will get the award for messiest!
Cavoodle is named Hannah
Main PC is a self-built tower with 2 28" 4K monitors - - left one for everyday, centre one for processing. Keyboard and trackball for that.
Laptop is work machine, smaller monitor to right is extension for that.
webcam, headset, generalised chaos at no extra charge 
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I dunno… if you ignore the paperwork, it’s pretty similar to a wider view here… 
I am sure most people would clean up before photographing their spots. 
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I just hid the dead bodies, nothing else.
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Generalized chaos only possible because there is no cat…
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Late to the party, but anyway… as of this morning:
When I started part-time work four years ago, wife finished this basement corner for me, about 7x10 feet. Since retirement early this year, I’ve partitioned the desk into workshop/desk, in the middle of the green tray is my latest project, a HO scale steam locomotive. In the corner is a cabinet with a 3D resin printer, just under the window is my latest tool acquisition, a lathe/mill. Window with a view to the front yard and, if I squint through the trees, Pikes Peak.
Computer-wise, three sRGB monitors, two hooked to my 16-core machine, one hooked to my old 4-core machine serving as a houshold backup. The left and right monitors are gifts from my kid, a IT sysadmin and gamer who semi-regularly sheds old equipment.
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