GRAY MATTER

Thermal paste, the tech writer's kryptonite

- PHIL IWANIUK

It's a humid afternoon in the PC Format office, circa 2011. Among the writers, who are diligently typing deeply informative articles, their keystrokes in perfect unison, is an array of miscellaneous magazine office set dressing. A blowup sheep, from a photoshoot nobody can seem to remember precisely, and which it's broadly agreed is best left unacknowledged. A Michael Myers Halloween mask, which people are equally reluctant to talk about or bin. All the world's SATA and IDE cables, strewn around gaily like tech bunting. More graphics cards, coolers, and hand-shredding PC cases (this is 2011, before manufacturers smoothed off the sharp bits) than is sensible to keep in any one place, let alone an office where people regularly eat McDonald's at their desks. And most ubiquitously of all, in every single millimeter of space that isn't occupied by something else, thermal paste.