To kick off my blog postings I’ve resisted the urge to talk about Dominator memory, performance power supplies or other things Corsair, and turned my attention to my current non-IT hobby, building an R/C car.

I used to race 1/10th scale electric buggies many years ago when I was considerably younger, and I’ve had the recent urge to take it up again. There’s probably something Freudian/physiological in that somewhere about attempting to recapture my youth now that I’ve passed three-zero etc. etc.

Anyway, building the car, and talking to some of the racers at the R/C club in Hertfordshire that I plan to attend, made me realise how much of an R/C racing n00b I really am. Talk of brushed or brushless motors, LIPO or NiMh cells, what chargers to use, car makes and models, 19 turn, double-wound this and 2.4GHz transponder that, left me feeling well out of my depth. The very helpful staff at Model Sport UK did a great job of explaining the basics, but it was still like they were speaking a different language from time to time.

This made me realise just how daunting it can be to break into a hobby with a heavy technical aspect to it, and in many ways, computers and enthusiast computing and overclocking in particular, is very similar. I’m effectively an R/C racing n00b, and if newcomers to the world of enthusiast computing and overclocking felt anything like I did at my introductory race meeting, then they must be truly intimidated. Imagine...

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