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CoolerMaster has been in the PC hardware and components business for almost 30 years now, and while most casual gamers would know CoolerMaster for their affordable peripherals, the company's stock in trade has been around cases, power supplies, coolers for CPUs, and so on.
So naturally, CoolerMaster makes their own thermal paste. Thermal paste is the grey gooey stuff ... [snip]
The only problem is that, like most companies, CoolerMaster's thermal paste comes in the form of a syringe. There's good reasons for doing so: the syringe design makes it easier when applying paste from above, particularly if you're installing a cooler when the motherboard is already mounted within the case, and it ensures you can apply the paste without getting it everywhere...
Unfortunately for CoolerMaster, there was a problem with their syringes. CoolerMaster is popular among budget gamers because their products are generally more affordable, so it's pretty common for younger PC builders to be buying CoolerMaster components. And the ones that were getting into PC building and modding with CoolerMaster gear were causing their parents to worry ... because the parents thought their kids were taking drugs.We didn't change the shape of the syringe to make applying thermal paste a lot easier, but because we we're getting tired of having to explain parents that their kid isn't using drugs. pic.twitter.com/ClyZLDDFe9
— Cooler Master (@CoolerMaster) January 16, 2020
Also at Ars Technica.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @06:51PM (2 children)
It's probably true. Many upper middle class American parents are dumb as shit, especially the trophy wives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @10:17PM
Knowing everything about everything is detremental to one's enjoyment of life.
(Score: 3, Funny) by theluggage on Tuesday January 21 2020, @10:42PM
OTOH, plenty of kids are dumb enough to pick up discarded syringes - or take their empty thermal paste syringes to school to prank people. If a kid leaves syringes lying around then any parent would be expected to inquire, and any true teenager would know that the cool reply is "none of your business I hate you it's so unfair i'm going out!"
So while it's ridiculous to blame CoolerMaster, if they want to re-design their applicators to not look like medical syringes, then kudos to them (assuming that wasn't a joke and the real reason wasn't to make them 5 cents cheaper to manufacture and/or to maximise wastage).
Like with laundry pods... yes, its primarily the parents' responsibility to keep household chemicals away from sprogs, but that doesn't justify manufacturers going out of their way to make the pods pretty swirly multi-coloured things that look like sweeties (... I mean, its presumably just the same gunk with different colourings since it all gets mixed together 10 sec after the machine starts). Just make them unappetising grey and shape the pods like brussels sprouts...
But, nope - latest wheeze is they now come in Fort Knox-like tubs made from enough plastic to give a dolphin kidney stones (I'd keep them to store wossnames except the kid-proof clips are impossible for anybody over the age of 30 to open and the smell of 'fresh spring meadows' kills cows at 30 paces and never washes out). Next time I go shopping I'll spend 10 minutes hunting for wherever they've hidden the old liquid/powder options (and hope it comes in a small enough box that I'll use more than 1/4 of it before it congeals).
I'll keep a box of pods though - then, in the unlikely event that any child invades my garage, it should distract them before they get to the lemonade bottle full of Roundup*.
(* No, not really - there are limits... but I still don't advise drinking it :-) )