Vive l'overclockeur!
Summary Description Heading to rural France reminds Simon Vandore that there is occasionally more to life than technology, but PCs still pop in unexpected places.
Author

Publication

Roullas Top10 Simon Vandore

Newswire
No


Editorial InformationArticle Location
Article Topic Vandore
Story Order
Story Group 000723
Post Date 21/07/2000 08:13 AM Status Posted Entered by Angus Kidman on 20/07/2000 11:28 AM


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Content
Introduction
I am in France, at Chateau La Birondie in Perigord. Jealous?

Body
As I sip the local Monbazillac and Bergerac vintages, sampling foie gras and camembert, I think I am slowly unhunching from a year of intensive keyboard use. There isn't much technology to speak of at La Birondie; playing Travis on my Discman is about as digital as it gets.
This is rural France and in every direction the view is of vineyards to the horizon. My hosts are having a 'millennium party' tomorrow and to cope with the number of guests they had to ask the electricity authorities to increase supply. A couple of local men turned up in an electricity van and sunbaked for a while, then tweaked something in the fusebox. Meanwhile, I fell down some stairs and tore ligaments in my shoulder, so my hosts called for the next-door neighbour, an elderly tractor mechanic who 'knows about these things'. (I'm doing fine thanks, this bottle is purely medicinal.)
Yes, things happen at a nice, slow pace. The local café is not a cybercafe and probably never will be. Forget online ordering; the man from the local delicatessen comes around in his van twice a week anyway. And if he doesn't have it, you can probably grow it yourself.
This is the same rural France that was online and internetworked before the rest of us, thanks to Minitel, a kind of interactive teletext network that uses the telephone network. To the English-speaking world the Internet was a revelation, but in France it must have felt like an upgrade to Minitel. Vast numbers of people still possess the proprietary Minitel terminals and many also use it now via PC and Mac client software. When the French version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? asks for viewer responses it provides a phone number, a Minitel keyword and a Web address, in that order.
France is also the world leader in smartcard technology. Chipcards were invented here, and my Australian magnetic stripe ATM card looks prehistoric next to the machines it enters. Many of the smartcard providers in Australia have close links with this country.
After lunch today, my host's teenage kids summoned me to their room to witness their pride and joy: an Acer PC with its guts ripped out and the CPU so overclocked it needs to sit outside the case with a pair of huge fans keeping it cool. Diablo 2 runs like liquid on the screen, all in French. The eldest wants to be a computer engineer and will transfer to a technology school next month.
Outside their window, a middle-aged farmer tends the vines that will produce appellation Bergerac controllee, vintage 2000. The ancient breed of Blonde d'Aquitane cattle graze quietly in the next field and I wonder if the post office can send this to Newswire. C'est la vie.
Vandore appears each Friday on Newswire.


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Bulletin SummaryVandore: Vive l'overclockeur!
Heading to rural France reminds Simon Vandore that there is occasionally more to life than technology, but PCs still pop in unexpected places.

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Vandore: Vive l'overclockeur!

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