MAINGEAR Announces Relief for Haiti Charity Auction

[btarunr]

MAINGEAR Computers, award-winning builders of high performance custom computers, is proud to announce the Relief for Haiti Charity Auction in benefit of Save the Children to help support the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. This special edition SHIFT will feature one of the last remaining AMD Phenom II X4 TWKR processors, of which only a few dozen were made. The last time one of these processors went up for sale on eBay for charity, it went for over $10,000 - just for the CPU. For this charity event MAINGEAR is building a whole computer around it with signed hardware and software from industry partners including Microsoft, Valve, SilverStone, Kingston, and Psyko Audio.

“We’re thrilled that so many of our industry partners leapt at the opportunity to support this cause.” said Wallace Santos, CEO and Founder of MAINGEAR. “With AMD’s TWKR, this is truly a special system and it should generate a significant donation to Save the Children’s worthy cause.”



This unique MAINGEAR SHIFT comes with a Radeon HD 5970 signed by AMD CEO Dirk Meyer, a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate signed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and a copy of Left 4 Dead 2 signed by Gabe Newell and the crew at Valve. In addition, MAINGEAR will be donating 10% of all sales of AMD-based SHIFT PCs to Save the Children for the duration of the auction.

For additional information on the Relief for Haiti Charity Auction and how to bid on the system, please visit Maingear. If you are interested in being an official media partner for this cause, please contact Chris Morley at chris@maingear.com.

[Phxprovost]

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[TIGR]

Well of course many of their industry partners "leapt at the opportunity to support this cause.” Small cost, big publicity. You don't really have to care in the slightest about Haiti to run a promotion (because that's what it is) like this.

Not that there's anything wrong with promoting your own business while doing some good.

[W1zzard]

Originally Posted by TIGR

Small cost, big publicity. You don't really have to care in the slightest about Haiti to run a promotion (because that's what it is) like this.

that's exactly what i thought when i signed up tpu as media partner for this

[TIGR]

Originally Posted by W1zzard

that's exactly what i thought when i signed up tpu as media partner for this

Just because you don't have to care about Haiti to be involved doesn't mean you don't care. I chose my words carefully for exactly that reason.

And like I also said, there's not necessarily anything wrong with getting some promotion while doing good.

[caleb]

Money makes the world go around...

[FreedomEclipse]

but the biggest problem now a side from all the disease spreading because of rotting corpses. there have been many & major complaints about aid/supplies etc etc not reaching the Haiti people - despite each country raising over millions in funds to help these people, they are just not receiving it. so somewhere along the line there are probably some people with itchy hands that are supposedly siphoning off small or large amounts at a time or just not communicating between organizations/agencies to make sure that whatever needs to be done is done & not just left at the runway waiting for that flight to take the supplies to Haiti where it can actually do a lot of good.

the more money Organizations & Agencies receive from governments & the public - the less they want to do & they are quite happy to hide away millions of yours/everyone's donations while providing little relief to those who really matter because lets face it - its not everyday that there is a humanitarian crisis so bad that makes the whole world sit up n bark.

thats not to badmouth the companies/agencies/organizations that have been honest with what they've been given & put it too good use. I'm sure there are some hard workers out there who really deserve the praise & respect of everyone.


more communication is needed & there needs to be a external board setup that MANAGES the donations to make sure that every dollar/cent/pound/penny or Euro (etc etc etc) that you donate for-fills the purpose or the cause that its donated for & not ending down some corporate FAT CATS pocket.


So as much as i respect MAINGEAR & their sentiments/intentions. I'm skeptical about how much of whatever they make at final auction will actually make it to Haiti.

[newconroer]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

but the biggest problem now a side from all the disease spreading because of rotting corpses. there have been many & major complaints about aid/supplies etc etc not reaching the Haiti people - despite each country raising over millions in funds to help these people, they are just not receiving it. so somewhere along the line there are probably some people with itchy hands that are supposedly siphoning off small or large amounts at a time or just not communicating between organizations/agencies to make sure that whatever needs to be done is done & not just left at the runway waiting for that flight to take the supplies to Haiti where it can actually do a lot of good.

the more money Organizations & Agencies receive from governments & the public - the less they want to do & they are quite happy to hide away millions of yours/everyone's donations while providing little relief to those who really matter because lets face it - its not everyday that there is a humanitarian crisis so bad that makes the whole world sit up n bark.

thats not to badmouth the companies/agencies/organizations that have been honest with what they've been given & put it too good use. I'm sure there are some hard workers out there who really deserve the praise & respect of everyone.


more communication is needed & there needs to be a external board setup that MANAGES the donations to make sure that every dollar/cent/pound/penny or Euro (etc etc etc) that you donate for-fills the purpose or the cause that its donated for & not ending down some corporate FAT CATS pocket.


So as much as i respect MAINGEAR & their sentiments/intentions. I'm skeptical about how much of whatever they make at final auction will actually make it to Haiti.

I've grown old enough to realize that sticking it to the man is not only a waste of time, but also immature. Big business (or Capitalism for that matter) does not equate to greed and evil.

Assuming a company supporting a disaster relief to be anything but virtuous and genuine, is not really in my nature anymore.

However...this smacks true of the same old story where it's quite ironic how certain parties or companies or organizations only seem to get involved in things that make a particular level of headline. If they were really concerned about the 'welfare' of something, it doesn't have to be on a global scale in order for them to contribute aid. <---this is often what you find with private party donators and volunteers. They may be one person, or a small group of persons, who don't have millions to throw around, but they do what they can.

More importantly, they don't involve the public, or the government. Hence it's private. The goal is to help, not make a percentage, or promote themselves or etc.

You're right, some publicity whilst doing a good deed is not shameful, but publicity involves the public, and the public (the portion that doesn't want to help) doesn't need to be involved in the matter in anyway whatsoever. If they really wanted to help they would, in their own way.

The greatest example has to be missionaries in somewhere like Burma..insane yes..but they believe in it. Any computer companies out there helping aid the slaughter in Burma?

Just makes you think...

[TIGR]

Well said newconroer.

[ChrisMorley]

I guess what they say is true - no good deed goes unpunished.

If this was a publicity stunt, we would have "pulled it" the week it happened. Instead, we wanted to put together something really special. That meant going up the channels at three major corporations, AMD, Microsoft, and Valve to get the TOP executives to sign gear for the system.

We then donated our time - and LOTS of it - delaying the launch of our laptop line as well - to put this together.

None of us had the money to contribute what all of us are going to at MAINGEAR.

Wallace, our CEO, is Brazilian - and watches a lot of Brazilian news. Which isn't filtered like US news. After we got back from CES he was watching what was going on down there. He called me up one night really shook up about what he saw.

This is what we have done for this particular tragedy. If we can do something else in the future for someone else, we'll try. We're lucky we're in the position to do this. The SHIFT was a major launch for us and we've never found ourselves in the position financially to help in this way.

It's a helluva lot better than doing nothing. The auction is at $3,150 with 4 days to go - thanks in part to the media getting the word out. It's all going to Save the Children.

You make it sound like we're a big greedy corporation. They are out there. The 15 of us certainly aren't.

Chris Morley
Chief Technology Officer
MAINGEAR

[FreedomEclipse]

just to clarify - because it seems that my previous post is being misunderstood....

Chris - I applaud what you (MAINGEAR) are doing & i'm not accusing anyone or any organization/agency of foul play but it is a general observation that has been bought up many times over the last few years when natural disasters like hurricane Katrina & all the previous (forgive me - I cant remember them all but there have been a fair few within the last 10 years) ones have made global news & the world unites to offer aid to those who have had their lives devastated by such acts of God that despite all the funds raised towards the cause very little feedback of where it goes or what was done with it. the bbc news even had a report a few years ago that a warehouse in a 3rd world country had piles of food & other supplies that were just sitting there rotting away in the heat while all the countries people just carried on living in starvation & poverty.

People raise millions but where does it all go?

[ChrisMorley]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

just to clarify - because it seems that my previous post is being misunderstood....

Chris - I applaud what you (MAINGEAR) are doing & i'm not accusing anyone or any organization/agency of foul play but it is a general observation that has been bought up many times over the last few years when natural disasters like hurricane Katrina & all the previous (forgive me - I cant remember them all but there have been a fair few within the last 10 years) ones have made global news & the world unites to offer aid to those who have had their lives devastated by such acts of God that despite all the funds raised towards the cause very little feedback of where it goes or what was done with it. the bbc news even had a report a few years ago that a warehouse in a 3rd world country had piles of food & other supplies that were just sitting there rotting away in the heat while all the countries people just carried on living in starvation & poverty.

People raise millions but where does it all go?

I agree with you - I read your post earlier today - it's the subsequent posts that I was referring to. The charities are having a hard time getting in. Of course, flying in Scientologists with e-meters doesn't help. Things are a mess down there. But Save the Children is down there and getting some stuff done. We picked this charity because of their track record. Even if the money doesn't get to them tomorrow - it'll get down there - there's a lot of work to do for a very long time.

[ChrisMorley]

About 506,581 beneficiaries have been reached to date.

250,808 people have received food from Save the Children.

12 mobile clinics in Port-au-Prince are providing health care.

12 Child Friendly Spaces were established in Port-au-Prince, and 7 in Jacmel, with an average of 3,038 children participating in activities each day.

Save the Children has reached a total of 7,575 households with plastic sheets and other materials packaged into “shelter kits” and “hygiene kits.

www.savethechildren.org

Save the Children has worked in Haiti since 1978 and currently has about 353 staff on the ground.

[TIGR]

As newconroer said, "....the public (the portion that doesn't want to help) doesn't need to be involved in the matter in anyway whatsoever." That is what makes this, at least in part, a promotion. Nobody is saying you have to be a "big greedy corporation" to take the opportunity for big publicity from this. And I've already said (as did newconroer) that there's not necessarily anything wrong with promoting your business while doing some good.

In fact, I applaud the effort (promotion part of it aside) because the technology industry is closely linked with the "common good." Technology that finds its way to the medical fields (whether through genetic research, general medical R&D, or computers and software that do everything from hearing tests to EKGs) is often pioneered here, by community-driven demand for companies that, again and again, take personal computing to the next level. Sometimes the link is even more direct, via things like Folding@home. The gaming organization I am starting with some friends (Regenesis) has involvement in community as one of its main purposes, through FAH and promoting technologies that better or will better our world (as well as more hands-on things like sending crews to volunteer for disaster relief, etc.)

The fact that there is a strong link between computer technology and the progress and bettering of our world, is inadequately recognized and I commend those who uphold and further that connection.

No good deed has been punished here.

[caleb]

Death needs to be commercially attractive in order to put it on TV everyday. Dont forget you also need to be able to take a camera there so you can put poor ppl along side your logo so idiots will think you actually give a F.