“ VALENTINA ” [UPDATED JUNE 2021] - Whether you're a hobbyist, or someone who just needs a good desktop computer, or an IT professional who wants a wider breath of knowledge, or a gamer who needs a performant machine, you might have contemplated at some point whether to build your own desktop computer. If you're a hobbyist, I think it's a great project. If you're an IT professional - especially a "coder" - I urge you to do it: in my opinion, a full-fledged Computer Scientist absolutely needs breath, ranging from the likes of Shannon's Information Theory and the Halting Problem - all the way down to how transistors work. And what about someone who just needs a good desktop computer? A big maybe on that - but perhaps this blog entry will either help you, or scare you off for your own good! To build, or not to build, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of OEM's cutting corners and limit