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True benefits of reading AT forums?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
SKORPI0 said:
The vast knowledge and wisdom that is part of the culture that is found here. It has given me a unique view of what's going on outside the place i call home. Alas we always get some nitwits trying to pretend to be something/somebody they are not in the real world. I can name a handful of those unfortunate souls.
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You found out I'm not really a fifteen year old nympho? Dang.
 
A year or two ago I asked the same question (well, not really... but I was deciding if the forum was worth my time anymore).

Back in 2001-2004, it was a great resource for me when I wanted to know more about building computers. If the spirit of "fairness", I decided that it would be good to try to share what I had learned with other people. I sure didn't have all the answers, but I felt like I contributed something in some cases.

I think it was around 2005 when Night Crew started, and that was a nice social group of people that kept my mind off things that I probably should have paid closer attention to.

More recently, I've learned a lot and posted a lot about Home Theater related stuff and that's helped me build a HT that I enjoy (although I've been taking a break from using it for some reason).

I think I figured out ATOT could offer more amusement when I started getting stuff in the mail due to this thread.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=234830

As for actual benefits in real life...

I've experimented a lot with photo editing / PowerPoint editing due to threads here.
From something as stupid as this, which was one of my first experiments with non-linear PowerPoints.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2055209&highlight=
To these, which helped me figure out animations and some very basic sound editing.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2021471

That kind of stuff really helped me out with my job, believe it or not. I tend to make a lot of professional development materials where I work, and the medium of choice is PowerPoint. So now I'm working to create animated PowerPoints with audio narration to explain some complex topics. Having experimented with a lot of different stuff, I have some idea on what I'm doing, even though I've never taken a formal class on it.

Oh yeah, I got my job through the forum 😛
HomeBrewerDude and I were both on the ATOT Ogame team. He saw I did well on the team, and offered me a job because of my in-game performance as well as showing some organizational promise through some of my threads. It's a good job too 🙂

So, about a year ago I was trying to figure out if I should stick around or not. Hanging out to post in Home Theater threads was fine, but I did not feel as entertained as I once did.

I decided that if I wanted the forum to be entertaining, that I would put some effort into it and try some new stuff that I personally found entertaining.

I started a couple Home Theater projects and made some rudimentary DIY guides. I'd been wanting to make some acoustical treatments for a while, and finally got around to it. Even though I'm not sure if it's been helpful to anyone, I felt some satisfaction to be done with the project and to have documented it for others, since it took me a long time to gather the information I felt I needed.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=327056

I also started goofing around with creating some stuff from ATOT content. Maybe it started with the t-shirt store... I don't remember.
I think I really figured out that it was fun with the Nemesis1 Reality stuff.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=300151

That eventually evolved into the ATOT artwork made into movies.

The weekly challenges that Crono mentioned are probably what are currently keeping me entertained the most. I used to watch "Scientific American Frontiers" as a kid, and the most entertaining ones were those engineering challenges where teams from colleges would design contraptions to complete a task. I always thought it would be fun to recreate something like that, so these challenges are keeping me amused on that front. I just wish more people were nerdy enough to find them as fascinating as I do 😛
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2061251

Ok, did I do a good enough job spamming a bunch of links that I have in my sig already?

ATOT is what you make of it TridenT. Meow!

Check my profile (327)
 
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I usually post to see if I can get a different opinion on the perspective of something that I don't want to bother asking a bunch of friends.

It's also less awkward too if it's a controversial or not the norm topic.

Other than that, I read to develop psychological mind reading skills. Watch out!
 
It fills in time for me, when I don't feel like doing anything at all. Sometimes it makes me laugh pretty good, which to me is worth something. Anything that doesn't add anything good or positive, I simply ignore.

When I need to know something, there's almost always someone helpful and knowledgeable with a great response in no time at all. It is a pretty good resource IMO.
 
I'd say news is probably the biggest benefit. Lot of stuff gets posted here that would most likely not show up anywhere else. I'm talking about the really weird stuff, that when you mention it in public, people wonder what kind of sites you visit. 😛

edit: oh, AT forums, not ATOT. Well the above applies for ATOT mostly. The rest of the forums are good for knowledge and such. Learn new stuff, get help and what not, and also get good laughs, such as threads related to tire pressure, or if a video card is worth a certain "effort" and stuff like that.
 
Another for what RedSquirrel said.
It's like a catch all news site that contains almost everything that's been translated to english if you are not bilingual.

No one at an office would talk about the kid getting knifed in the head from CS, or squid porn... hand motioning here, so on.
 
loki8481 said:
I can't believe no one's mentioned the lifer lounge.
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No one mentioned it because the first rule of lifer lounge is...

but I see you have forgotten the first (and second) rule. Therefore, back into Olds' basement for another round of "education".
 
Where can I get a T-shirt that says Anandtech gave me a virus?


Just kidding. There is lots of useful stuff here. Lots of knowledgable computer guys, for sale/trade forum, hot deals forum, health and fitness. Off topic is pretty useless except for entertainment.
 
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Incredible medical advice. I've delivered 2 children, performed open heart surgery and an emergency tracheotomy simply from posting here. ()🙂
 
I can usually get advice on any topic I need. ATOT is my go to place for asking random questions.

I can ask a question on nearly any topic and almost always get a few people who can offer help.
 
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