I know that there's a lot of tech industry folks on this here website, and I would just like to remind all of you that the world actually functioned before the computer.
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Some of us retired tech folks actually remember the era before computers became ubiquitous and were huge machines, shut away in their own rooms and serviced by a highly trained priesthood.
My example today of how "more tech != more better" is trying to communicate a long number to an automated system, which expected me to say it aloud rather than type DTMF signals on the keypad, for which our phone system is optimized and which predate home computing by a decade
In the hotel world, every shift begins by printing the downtime report which contains all the information you need to operate the hotel on real, actual paper!
do you think the data the system is collecting wasn't being collected before? this is what keyboard touchers miss: you aren't doing anything new. you've just attached a system to it which may *or may not* make a necessary task more efficient, but *definitely* added a layer of complexity and expense.
I'm remembering arriving in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2007. They couldn't find our reservation. When we told them we'd booked online, they pulled out a stack of online reservations they'd printed, found us, and then went looking for a room. Data entry was from the front desk only, no connection. 🤣
I've been in similar situations, but other side. People arrive at work and get a print out of what they needed to do. Like what products needed to be restocked. Prior system was a single human wrote it all down over 6-8 hours of observation and counting.
Payroll was never correct either. Sometimes swinging $5k per period wrong. A small percentage but it was just due to humans typing in data from one system into a spreadsheet and doing calcs there. Incorrectly.
I know that there's a lot of sub centenarians on here, but the world actually functioned without electricity, phones, cars, and more - it sucked and was harder, but it functioned.
Honestly feels like the elegant and efficient solutions are routinely losing out to the inefficient but ubiquitous cookiecutter solutions in almost every industry. Creative freedom is really not valued like it should be by massive companies
Agreed. But we are not going backward. We need to figure out how to go forward using technology to give people good choices and to prevent people from harming each other and our environment.
And when there's a collapse, but humans still live on. We would struggle but still march on. I get it, but until that happens, always move forward to advancement but not towards dystopia.
Computers do make a lot of things work better and more efficiently. The trick is to identify which things benefit from them and which don't. A toothbrush needs a computer about as much as chocolate needs garlic.
I miss my analog childhood. Sure we had a computer and internet in the house, but you had to *want* to go online and it took work. It wasn’t in our pocket at all times. We went outside, did things, hung out with friends, enjoyed ourselves. And not once worried about what would happen if this picture
"As a new technology grows into ubiquity and obscene profitability, its societal benefit inversely decreases and eventually becomes a detriment."
-- Me.
Thats when people learned to do things like play music or build things. Even went around places and socialized. Computers helped ruin doing those things.
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
*infinitesimally* less. any personal computer from the 80s onward leaves the apollo guidance computer in the dust. an original game boy wouldve done the trick.
How silly, everybody knows The Simulation containing our universe could not have existed before said computer was deployed to run it. Our instance is far too tedious for manual processing, just think of how slow the simulation speed would be otherwise!
Distressingly often the problem that software innovation solves is “fit this business into a shape VCs like to fund”. Hardly any software actually needs to be SaaS for instance but people do it for their founders
You can look up information easily now, there's FOIAs that have been filed that were hidden info then. All instead of getting your information solely from a small handful of news and radio stations that all give media a patriotic spin.
Ah, but it it also means it's easier for people to form echo chambers - because if their family don't also think Obama is a secret Kenyan, they can find 10,000 people on Reddit that do.
It's great for people that have learned (or have the knack of) critically examining and studying their views, but for the dopamine-rush of bias reinforcement it may as well be crack cocaine.
When 100% of the nation could only get its info through either state funded radio or television, vs now where there's hindsight from FOIA requests, and everyone has a recording device in their pocket, yeah I'm going to stick with my statement. Much easier then vs now.
Like I get current gens have goldfish memory but it used to be laughably easier to sell manufactured consent prior to the advent of broadband and smartphones.
Before computers, telephones & TVs sounded as clear as a bell. They lived up to their purpose. I guess, now with data collection and AI development, it must be less interesting to create a good product for end-users.
Being fully reliant on computers weakens society and individuals both, because increasingly neither can survive without them. I can, but I remember how life was prior to being reliant upon computers.
Did they? None of the TVs or phones my parents had sounded all that great. Certainly my TV sounds a whole hell of a lot better than my grandma's old Zenith.
Functioned? Yes. But as an n=1 data point, I know my own life got a LOT more brighter, interconnected, and positive after I had a computer and regular internet access. (Growing up a queer, ND, non-Christian in the bible belt is interesting)
I'm noticing a distinct general conversation shift that's becoming less educated about computing in general and more fearful about some of the less harmful applications. It's hard to not take all of the bait that people are putting out nowadays that computer = bad. They're a miracle.
“Computers arent the thing. They are the thing that gets us to the thing”
I try to hold onto that more now, especially because I used to be the same type that thought computers were the future of everything and will be the tool to fix it all
There are a lot of us tech industry folks who literally lived in that time and built the tech industry thru our “grinding” furthermore- I have no issue going back just to level the billionaire class 🫶🏽
An enormous part of the industry purely works to insert between the consumer and the thing they want to do - and then conspire to pretend that doing with is completely new. See WeWork as an example.
some of it functioned, but some of it was people dying in isolation because communications were primitive and unreliable. However we'll return to that as everything becomes subscription based and exclusive.
Indeed, when I worked on Y2K in the power industry, we were delighted to discover that most of the critical projection systems were electromechanical, I doubt we’d be able to pull off the same tricks if a new Y2K was on the horizon.
But could they survive now if it all stopped working it's fine to say it survived without it but we have computers hooked into so many key infrastructure to belittle the importance by it not being needed in the past when we require so much of it now seems problematic
I hope you bought ones compatible with the Sealy 'physical activities' subscription or the sheets will roll into a ball with or without you on the bed.
Whenever I hear of some tool being "so easy even a non-technical person can do it" I think in the perspective of someone who doesn't want to deal with their computer and only wants to do one thing and turn it off, because tech people tend to forget how little the average person knows about computers
there's so much data organization and logic you can perform on paper ledgers and spreadsheets! it goes a little slower sure, but sometimes tech just allows us to make mistakes faster
Probably depends on how finely defined the word "function" is in that context. But it was slow, crashed all the time and didn't have a way to reboot to achieve a known good state.
I like to think of it as the world was bootstrapping before the computer was invented. :p
Most tech guys I know have a lot of nostalgia for analog machinery. I miss card catalogs and microfiche and overhead projectors and hard bound notebooks and film cameras even though I'm a "no dead trees" guy today.
Like, I love the convenience of tapping my phone to pay but I also have a ton of nostalgia over the old credit card carbon-paper copying machine with its satisfying ka-chunk.
Sadly I am a relentlessly practical man and as much as I have that nostalgia I never seem able to give myself permission to use something so clumsy just for *vibes*.
For real, the point isn't "The world worked before every innovation", it's "An innovation isn't necessarily 'the future' just because it exists. Computers are a tool and should be applied where that tool works, not everywhere". Same goes for every other invention in human history
The fact that an Internet connected juicer with a subscription model existed and raised $120M in investment before going bankrupt suggests this isn't universally obvious.
Some of the replies seem to be willfully ignorant to the idea that people probably aren’t saying computers are scary and evil, but that the tech industry built systems around computers that have completely fucked us. How convenient for the industry to not fully grasp the social implications of tech.
I took a philosophy class on the ethics of technology & it was one of the most fascinating and simultaneously theoretically terrifying class I have ever taken. Computers are a fantastic tool, but like any tool they should be applied properly & treated with respect, not abuse. FANG, I'm looking at u.
the LED is a wonder of modern technology and it can in no way exceed the glamour and elegance of a gas discharge lamp. the lamp is made of base chemicals and careful arrangements of shapes. the LED is made of dirt that's been bombarded with smaller dirt
IT guy. The older I get the more I appreciate using the simplest possible device to do a given task. If it can be completely mechanical all the better.
Could probably use 5v logic and a solid state relay. There is actually a 24vdc module in here with led, but its not in use anymore. The clunking is the 480v 3 phase motor starters operating. 70s design basically, but built in the 80s.
It functioned before humanity too, but wasn't as interesting. (Or so some think, I think that would have been interesting, but difficult to tell anyone about discoveries and inventions.)
Something related crossed my mind lately in that for a lot of day to day activity I do on a computer (with the exceptions of photo/video editing and some games) I could probably get away with a late 80s to mid 90s computer (even the internet though with extremely heavy handed add blocking).
Text editing with spell checking (even WYSIWYG word processing was a thing already back then), chat applications, even watching videos, or browsing the web. Sure some of that would require some very clever coding or extra hw (modern cryptography and media decoding is not cheap), but not impossible!
Did it though? The computer is basically just an evolved form of the loom, and before the computer we've always had like, knitting, and weaving, etc. Like, I'm splitting ships of theseus a bit, but I think we've always had computers, just maybe not good ones.
Well anything that hasn’t moved to 64bit signed… Think satellites that haven’t been updated in a while… Many SCADA systems haven’t moved in a long long time… Tuesday could be a wild ride.
As a software engineer, I've seen way too many organizations try to solve relationship problems with technology. First figure out who is responsible for things, and only then explore if a database will help.
I'm an academic technologist and my motto is "you can't technology yourself out of a social problem." At best we can tinker around the edges, at worst we just cause more social problems.
The thing I've been saying this about the longest is plagiarism and academic dishonesty. A student determined to be dishonest is not deterred and usually not even caught by technology, no matter how advanced the algorithms are. Determine the reasons students make this choice, and address that.
Exactly so.
"We've got problems with students sharing logins to cheat on exams."
We say try implementing MFA.
"Now they're sharing auth methods."
This isn't a tech problem.
Most people fail to realize that, for example, pen and paper *is a technology*.
All technology choices involve tradeoffs. A technology's value isn't higher just because it's newer. Sometimes older technology has the more appropriate balance of tradeoffs.
The internet publication Low-Tech Magazine suggests that if you want to be eco friendly and you plan to reference a certain article a lot you should print it, bc at a certain point the repeated server requests + computer/monitor power draw will require more resources than the printer job
The internet ruin the world…I knew smart phones were gonna be a disaster for humanity…look at everything the internet is responsible for! Cyber attacks, porn on demand, kids sucked into TikTok etc, scammers stealing money, the bombardment of individual interests/feelings/thoughts…it doesn’t stop!
Things worked, but the world required humans doing more work by hand, and the world's velocity was half or quarter of what it is now. Fast, cheap telecommunications has potentially been at least as much of a factor as sand doing arithmetic at high speed. (Now, unlimited minutes, 1999, 300/month.)
I’m increasingly concerned with how dependent on electronic systems that our food supply is becoming. More and more, we are one bad-solar-flare or EMP away from a supply chain collapse for meeting our physiological needs. Societal food security shouldn’t have such huge single points of failure.
Im just glad terrorist groups haven’t figured out small 2-3 man teams can take out enough electric power generators & substations to bring the country to a complete standstill in a day or two. Computers dont work without electricity and even systems using or reliant upon batteries will not last long
Bryan Lunduke lost his mind over getting banned here. I do think he was poking a wasp nest with what he did. I'm not so sure about his motives anymore.
I followed a user called "Internet of shit" on the old bird app. A stand-out was a connected wine bottle. It wasn't a prank, someone thought that the label needed to have push content. Meanwhile, the wine is getting cooked by the heat generated by the on-board computer...
Not for any TV I've seen. The components are underpowered and get outdated within a year, and the manufacturers will collect your data for extra money despite selling you the TV already (even on expensive $3K models). If I want internet stuff, I'll plug a firestick or roku in.
This. I'm better served by the Xbox One that I use solely for consuming streaming media than the "smart" functions on my TV. And thanks to HDMI CEC, the remote I'm already using works seamlessly with the Xbox.
My cynical side says it's so that the toaster maker can EOL your toaster and make you buy a new one every couple of years instead of one every 10-20 years.
The other options is "toasters as a service" you want to be able to control how toasted your bread is? That's $5 a month.
My fridge can connect to wifi. I have no idea why since it doesn't have interior cameras, media capability, or any other reason I can think of to be connected to the internet.
That and appliances that have to be connected to the internet to work.
Oh you liked making coffee? Today is the last day we are supporting the coffeemaker 2.0 software package, please purchase the coffeemaker 3.0 upgrade to enjoy uninterrupted brewing...
Yup, there's a lot of good lessons we can learn from non-digital human interaction that applies very well today, if we look.
Humanity's speed of communication has accelerated massively over the last 175 years. Also a fun fact: The rate of change of acceleration is called "Jerk". Which checks out.
I'm currently in uni for CS, and one of my professors was a really annoying tech-bro. He thought he could solve all the world's problems with algorithms.
None of the tech people are deciding to ruin stuff with computers. We're just paid to do it in order to keep having health insurance. Take it up with the business folks.
If you think I'm advocating for a world without computers, then your imagining I'm saying something I'm not.
What I'm really saying is that a lot of people in tech need to look outside their own heads for solutions which may not involve code as they understand it.
You think "tech bro's" decide to put computers into everything? The tech people implement what marketing/mgmt wants based on what people buy. I'd love a job where I can implement whatever I want, but it's either this, or building bombs for Lockheed Martin...
Because you know what I'm really sick of? Throwing more computers at things just for the hell of it.
I think most honest assessments of the technological landscape today would conclude that, for day to day needs, we've arrived. I haven't strictly needed a new PC for almost a decade.
Android got turn-by-turn navigation in 2009. That may be the last time I felt such a significant advancement in utility from any personal computing device.
Computers used to be a place. The internet was on a home computer, and nowhere else. Now, everything has to be a smart-this or an AI-that.
I hate it. I think tech enthusiats hate it more than anyone. My 21yo ass got called a "boomer" for criticising how much useless bloat is thrown into everything.
I don't see how hating these infotainment displays replacing every single thing in a car is "old man yells at clouds". You used to be able to adjust the fan speed by rotating a thing, instead of entering the bloody Konami code.
I think part of the problem is the benefit to adding intelligence to things is primarily going to companies wanting to track and even control consumers. There's plenty of room for consumer friendly intelligent devices, but we're not going to get that in this market.
Cathode Ray Dude has a good thesis on this (it's just in the start of the video). Like I mainly have a shinier PC for gaming, but for day-to-day my older laptop does pretty much everything I need. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8tjA8VyfvU
I find myself missing the better stability of my older laptop, part of me wonders if I should have spent a couple hundred on a new mid-frame and new display case and bezel...it was taped together but the hinge mounting was broken and display couldn't stay put properly. And had a stupid dual core i7
The biggest exception I can think of is gaming, and even then you can still play a shit ton of games on a 1050 ti. And much of the need for upgrades is driven by studios not optimizing performance as much anymore, because they assume people will upgrade, and so on it goes
This post happened because of a lot of responses to a different post. Where I talked about old software still being in use because it works and a while hoard of people came in to imagine vulnerabilities based on nothing but "old software"
As someone who works in cybersecurity, that's a valid concern...but also stuff can be old and still supported, and new doesn't mean automatically bug free and secure either.
The constant push for higher computing power is a greater boon to the businesses making computer products, than to consumers.
When all that matters is turnover, and efficiency is taboo, you instigate a race to the bottom where consumers must to pay ever more for increasingly dysfunctional products.
This isn't just a matter of computers and software, either. In the automotive industry there is a distinct trend towards bigger, heavier vehicles powered by increasingly monstrous engines, motors and batteries.
"Less is more" is a primordial ideal, practiced for Millennia. How quickly we forget.
You know what's worse? This "smart home" stuff which most often seems to be "use a convoluted cloud app to turn your expensive computerized light switch on or off more difficult and less reliable than pushing a button". And now light switches can crash so they need reboot switches! 🤦
I also feel like I can't justify a new machine, the 2012 desktop I have still meets my needs...but EVERYONE seems to think I'm nuts putting any money into "old obsolete junk"...just found 2 cooling fans failed so $100 I'm replacing all the fans
And now we're careening toward a world where we assume more computational power will always be necessary... and for what?
For research and the sciences, absolutely. There's really interesting stuff happening these days. But for basic "computers help us with our lives" stuff - it's way off the rails
Nobody really needs anything recreational but it's still nice to have. I absolutely enjoyed the visuals I got from my top end pc. If you don't need it, thats fine, but no need to tell other people that they are doing their hobby wrong.
I went here on a class trip in '04 or '05 maybe? Big thing I remember was a small demo/exhibit about ~videoconferencing~ Wild how far we've come since then.
(Tangent) Comp Sci Student here, sometimes I find the reliance on computers for everything from some of my classmates to be baffling.
...Why do you need an LLM to write this essay for you? Didn't we all attend Highschool? You should have at least the basics of how to write and present stuff down.
I am not disagreeing with you, but compare carburettors to computer controlled fuel injection-blah-blah. You need to try to see if this works, and depending on development, the tech might be behind. But in ten years, it could overcome issues - and you never know until you experiment?
Even in bioinformatics research, we're well past the time when a better computer will improve research more than a better understanding of data and software algorithms.
Some might argue, maybe ones' kitchen appliances do need internet... and AI... and the ability to mine crypto, and play video slots, ... Then the refrigerator charges service fees based on the contents inside, using it to make ice cubes costs extra (else it holds the milk for ransom), ...
Don't get me started. I design computer chips. We need to make them faster because software/product people people are lazy. If it runs fine on their top end iphone, off it ships. Making hardware faster will never fix that.
Even for something like video games, I can count on my hands the number of AAA games I thought looked better than an indie game with 1/1000 the RAM requirements.
I've had the opinion for a while now that computer hardware is just fine, but software is WOEFULLY lacking.
I am a dev and I hope to bring software to the world that's really designed to help people rather than exploit them. But I'm early in my journey.
how will i function if i don't have my toothbrush communicating with philips HQ so it can tell me that i only hit my lower right incisor for 3 seconds tonight though!
In fact, we've rather gone backwards. We used to optimise software for the hardware that was available, now we don't anymore. Many programs today (e.g. Spotify) aren't written for your OS; instead, they're a website running on a self-contained browser.
Even as a techie, I agree with you. I used to refresh my phone annually, now I don't. My gaming computer was built in 2020, I think. I looked at the newest chips and I don't think it's worth the upgrade.
I often think about how websites seem to load ever-slower, and so much of that is ad-tech combined with tricks to keep attention. When that stuff is removed from the source, a 15 year old desktop does OK on the modern web.
I still remember times when every website was expected to gracefully degrade when JavaScript is off, and now every single one, even with purely static data, is considering itself a web app and forces me to allow executing code on my machine.
I work mostly with CMSes and in the last 20 years things in online publishing have gone off the rails. The amount of 'dead code' vs the pure information we ship is staggering.
Simple news delivery isn't any more just news delivery.
I prefer the "Is it required to be connected to the internet for me to use it?" Like, I have a wifi capable fridge, tv and thermostat. I have never once connected any of those things to my wifi.
The only reason you're going to see a bunch of people getting new computers in 2025 is because of an imposed deadline of Windows 10 EOL in October. Lots of perfectly competent hardware can't run Win11.
I literally said to my therapist today, "when I look back at all my happiest moments, my proudest times, my best memories, not a single one happened in front of a screen".
I'm actively trying to spend less time at computers for my own mental health. Difficult when your full time job is computers....
and many things functioned better before computer
and many things functioned better on older computer
but also many things function better now with computer
it's not all bad
There's a depressing number of people in this thread that immediately jumped to "youtuber that covers technology is DEFINITELY saying we should return to living in caves"
And now it’s functioning better with technology. I know there are a lot of downsides, but come on. We have something our ancestors wished for and worked so hard to achieve. I’m gonna stay grateful.
I play a post-zombie-apocalypse survival game (7DTD) where the trader explains she's only open from dusk to dawn because clocks don't work because there's no electricity. And I'm like, you know, I have a clock in my living room RIGHT NOW that doesn't need electricity.
I already know she doesn't want me. Even when she's flirting.
"I think you LIKE Dr. Jen."
Yeah, yeah, you're built like a teenage geek's wet dream and probably get propositioned 50 times a day. I preferred the old Jen. Clean up the art a little, but I preferred the slim lady in a lab coat.
lotta tech bros in the comments immediately jumping to "BUT MEDICAL SCIENCE" when this is clearly more likely about how my toothbrush doesn't need an app
charitable reading my friends, always assume reasonable intent first and try to find it before getting defensive
My toothbrush doesn’t need an app, but it has one that I use.
And tbh, made my brushing better, even if I rarely use it now.
Tracking is neat though, I can see my frequency go up.
Last time dentist even complimented me on clean teeth, never happened before.
I don't know if it's age or getting seeing how the sausage is made too much, but I've become a bit of a luddite. Tech is a false solution most of the time and I find myself happier the more time I spend out in nature. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecotes.
I mean… I get where you’re going… You’re an awesome person… and this is not a personal attack…
But functioning is insufficient. We need to change and grow.
For instance, I work in eye care… back in the early 2000s, something called anti-VEGF was created with the help of computers
and it has saved the vision of countless individuals. This was partly because of the communication the internet helped facilitate. Doctors could communicate in a way they couldn’t before. But also there were other variables that we cant even calculate
Like the grooves on the side of the hwy. Those were invented thanks to the space shuttle. It helped guide the shuttle landing but now it’s saving an untold number of lives… it makes noise & wakes up drivers but it also helps to align the wheels of the car.
It is important to not become *too* reliant on them… pilots for instance… they need to know how to fly without the computer… but they also make our lives easier, help prevent disasters, and helps us learn from mistakes.
Progress is hard. We stumble along the way. Things seem convoluted… but the benefits outweigh the risk. If we are diligent and hold onto our humanity… computers don’t take our humanity away. We just need to have common sense about it all.
Home computers were invented to help ease the chores of managing household finances, making digital art and music, writing digital letters, creating personal databases of VHS tapes, and playing video games.
Not at this scale! I needed a moment in my on boarding class for a large railway when they explained how long it would take the economy to crumble if our computers stopped working.
Please tell me why it's an issue that everything has a computer chip and is internet-connected and requires a phone app to be paired to it to do basic functions which should just be a physical dial, an app that someday won't work on modern phones and the device's ancient firmware will join a botnet?
I have a hardware appliance that is less than 10 years old, because its web/java based and meets NONE for the browser standards for the last 5 years its web management is completly useless without a 2nd insure system to work it.
Although I'm being naive. Realistically the cloud services will be shut down far before those things happen thus rendering all of these devices completely useless e-waste.
TC had earlier posts about how little need existed to upgrade a lot of Pre-XP legacy software in hospitality. This appears to respond to a backlash centered around the idea hospitality would fall apart without computers, a suggestion he never made but nonetheless is also stupid.
But then customers expected online booking or at the very least, online availability look ups so that gets bolted on somehow and the whole system gets more complicated than it would be if they were running something designed from the ground up to handle the internet.
No! That's what nobody in tech seems to understand.
Hilton has a central reservation system. It knows how many rooms every property has, how many are available, etc. A lot of stuff is interfacing with that system, yes. But the actual hotel? It's just polling that database repeatedly.
If I had to guess, it's that technology is not strictly necessary, nor strictly good.
I noticed you didn't mention bombs, tanks, HFT, biological weapons, addictive opiates, and similar products of the same technologies that brought us those products you mentioned.
That would indeed be a weird point to make. Fortunately, they don’t appear to have been making that point at all 🙂
Saying many things can work fine without computers or that computers are often used inappropriately isn’t the same thing as a blanket opposition to computers
Oh I agree, computers are a tool. But you don't use a hammer to drive a screw. Computers can often be amazing tools for the jobs they're needed. But there's also plenty of use cases where yeah a computer could work, but isn't strictly necessary for the desired result
No… but you use a screwdriver. You don’t use an OCT on a patient with keratoconus, you use a pentacam. You don’t use a pentacam on a patient with macular degeneration… but they are both computer driven. Sure, we have dilation… we have placido’s discs… but if I had ARMD… I would want an OCT.
However if not strictly nessicary, often subsationally more efficient with a computer, or makes the follow up tasks much more efficient. You can run a hotels check in/out process on paper, however its then far more labour intensive todo to the accounts afterwards, or do any analysis of of that data.
It makes it more boring to me because you pivot your time around computers. Used to you did things nonreliant upon electronic devices, and especially without networked devices.
I remember days when there was nothing on TV, nothing new to read, and nobody to play with. I'd often would make up my own games and be more creative than kids these days, but it starts with boredom.
I don't see a lot of difference in filling your time with electronics over something else.
However I do miss the downtime in between finding things to eliminate the boredom.
There's always hundreds of notifications and messages, that distract you from what you were doing and before you have a chance to be bored you've wasting 30 mins without realising it.
Comments
"Do it the old way"
People get irrationally annoyed and frustrated and vent that anger right at me lol
I had to use it a few times in my career.
I used POS data instead. Faster. Better.
Most work-blocking IT problems are short lived so its rarely worth building the backup infrastructure.
What's your point?
The 90’s were great and terrible at the same time. But I’d take them back over this any day.
-- Me.
Because, man.... it was SO BORING, like literally all the time.
It also functioned before penicillin, manned flight, hot and cold running water and electricity.
To name just a few current indispensable technologies.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
Wishin' LLMs would definitely stop being crammed into everythin' tho
We have lost our ways
Double-edged sword and all that.
I try to hold onto that more now, especially because I used to be the same type that thought computers were the future of everything and will be the tool to fix it all
...
That place that gave me my Libby password?
And all this tech can do is replicate things we already did just a might easier.
This isn't forgetting, this is deceiving.
So yes, there were computers before computers.
...huh "ads" get a load of this guy...
or clean water
or antibiotics
or anesthetics
They said the bug fix is being worked on.
https://youtu.be/x0YGZPycMEU?si=cTeksUknheiFumcC
I like to think of it as the world was bootstrapping before the computer was invented. :p
My next post: animals were AROUND and VALID before you were born. 200k likes 34M reposts
The fact that an Internet connected juicer with a subscription model existed and raised $120M in investment before going bankrupt suggests this isn't universally obvious.
If you mean the original post, capitalists don't agree that "actually I don't want an LLM wrapper in my fridge" is obvious.
In any case, embarrassing to worry about likes and reposts.
And it's on you to think I'm worried about likes in a clearly satirical line
gg
Boss/Customer: * jumps butt-first into the MOREFEATURES spike trap *
Open the door.
Bonus points if it's usb
Alpha Team—MOVE IN.
MOVE, MOVE, HUT HUT HUT!
Then again, nobody reads anymore...
"Oh man... do you think crop rotation would help?"
"That sounds perfect! Tell me more!"
"We've got problems with students sharing logins to cheat on exams."
We say try implementing MFA.
"Now they're sharing auth methods."
This isn't a tech problem.
All technology choices involve tradeoffs. A technology's value isn't higher just because it's newer. Sometimes older technology has the more appropriate balance of tradeoffs.
E.g. paper has a very long battery life.
This gives me a very specific understanding of the tenuous place technology has in society.
The potato though - that's a winner.
Like they just straight up imagined that you said it was better before the computer
Sent from my Abacus
wait....
But egads, so, so many things have it for no discernable reason. Why do I need an IoToaster?
The other options is "toasters as a service" you want to be able to control how toasted your bread is? That's $5 a month.
Oh you liked making coffee? Today is the last day we are supporting the coffeemaker 2.0 software package, please purchase the coffeemaker 3.0 upgrade to enjoy uninterrupted brewing...
Grog being a fellow who achieved all he wanted in life with a rock and a stick.
Cavemen talking about modern tech in mostly punny ways.
Humanity's speed of communication has accelerated massively over the last 175 years. Also a fun fact: The rate of change of acceleration is called "Jerk". Which checks out.
Damn I thought you were smart. This is Neil Degrasse Tyson level faux wisdom.
What I'm really saying is that a lot of people in tech need to look outside their own heads for solutions which may not involve code as they understand it.
I think most honest assessments of the technological landscape today would conclude that, for day to day needs, we've arrived. I haven't strictly needed a new PC for almost a decade.
I hate it. I think tech enthusiats hate it more than anyone. My 21yo ass got called a "boomer" for criticising how much useless bloat is thrown into everything.
"Why do you care so much?” Why do you NOT care?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8tjA8VyfvU
What a lovely thing the collapse of context is.
When all that matters is turnover, and efficiency is taboo, you instigate a race to the bottom where consumers must to pay ever more for increasingly dysfunctional products.
"Less is more" is a primordial ideal, practiced for Millennia. How quickly we forget.
It slightly struggles doing 4K playback but can do it acceptably. And a newer video card would probably let it do 4K with ease if I wanted.
For research and the sciences, absolutely. There's really interesting stuff happening these days. But for basic "computers help us with our lives" stuff - it's way off the rails
Honestly, the only reason I've updated my computers in the last few years is so I can run newer versions of Windows.
Tragically, marketing exists and demands bigger number
My Pixel 3 already had plenty of CPU power to do everything I used it for. Not any noticeable difference at all when I replaced it with a 7a.
...Why do you need an LLM to write this essay for you? Didn't we all attend Highschool? You should have at least the basics of how to write and present stuff down.
May actually be be a good philosophy.
Just…please, my kitchen appliances do not need a computer. Managing the IT overhead isn’t worth any perceived benefit.
I am a dev and I hope to bring software to the world that's really designed to help people rather than exploit them. But I'm early in my journey.
Learned this in business school and love the concept. Don’t work harder,, but smarter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen
There's a reason for the "actual tech people don't have anything smarter than a printer in their house" meme.
Sadly, we want to survive capitalism, to do that we need money, and the money is held hostage by psychos who pay us to enshittify everybody's lives.
Simple news delivery isn't any more just news delivery.
For some industries or corporate leaders in an industry this makes sense. Hilton has logistics and scale that mom & pop hotel does not.
If you can't come up with a good answer, chances are good it actually benefits the company selling it to you.
I'm actively trying to spend less time at computers for my own mental health. Difficult when your full time job is computers....
I work in tech. I have for decades. This is not the tech world I signed up for.
and many things functioned better on older computer
but also many things function better now with computer
it's not all bad
signed,
a tech worker
Tech bros make stupid things when scared
(Also there are electric generators and solar cells in the game and Jen, baby, you have a NEON SIGN over your door that LIGHTS UP WHEN YOU'RE OPEN. 🙄)
"I think you LIKE Dr. Jen."
Yeah, yeah, you're built like a teenage geek's wet dream and probably get propositioned 50 times a day. I preferred the old Jen. Clean up the art a little, but I preferred the slim lady in a lab coat.
charitable reading my friends, always assume reasonable intent first and try to find it before getting defensive
And tbh, made my brushing better, even if I rarely use it now.
Tracking is neat though, I can see my frequency go up.
Last time dentist even complimented me on clean teeth, never happened before.
Anyway, it shouldn’t require an app, tho
I just do need it, and I’m just glad it has it
That doesn’t mean that enshittification etc isn’t real, or that tech bros know best.
All I’m saying is nuance is cool, ig?
Or that we walked all over the globe 🙄🙄🙄
But functioning is insufficient. We need to change and grow.
For instance, I work in eye care… back in the early 2000s, something called anti-VEGF was created with the help of computers
Everything else has been a mistake.
Capitalist tech: YES THAT! BUT YOUR LIFE!
What's your point?
Hilton has a central reservation system. It knows how many rooms every property has, how many are available, etc. A lot of stuff is interfacing with that system, yes. But the actual hotel? It's just polling that database repeatedly.
Room inventory
Room status
Reservations
Method of payment
Accounting
That's it. That's literally it. The people operating the hotel only need a system which lets them operate the hotel.
Room maintainer
Desk clerk
A box of keys
A box of money
A box of room maintenance supplies
It is the very basics of running a business. That is what hotel operators need.
Trying to design software which *does* handle it all seems to me to be the reason we have so many problems.
An air fryer works fine with an analog thermostat and doesn't need a microcontroller, etc.
I noticed you didn't mention bombs, tanks, HFT, biological weapons, addictive opiates, and similar products of the same technologies that brought us those products you mentioned.
Trying to make opposing a tool a point is weird.
Saying many things can work fine without computers or that computers are often used inappropriately isn’t the same thing as a blanket opposition to computers
Like "my air fryer doesn't need a 4mhz MCU to measure air temperature"
"My juicer isn't improved by an internet connection"
Sometimes we need to check the rest of the toolbox
But both machines are user-maintainable with parts that have been available for a couple of decades now.
I prefer that. 😀
I miss being bored these days, I don't know when that stopped being a thing.
I don't see a lot of difference in filling your time with electronics over something else.
There's always hundreds of notifications and messages, that distract you from what you were doing and before you have a chance to be bored you've wasting 30 mins without realising it.
Never enough time in the day.
Like, yes, lamps are neat, but if people didn't need to make things not-dark all the clever engineering wouldn't matter.
There's a kind of person who gets lost in tech and forgets people.
I love your YouTube channel!
The issue here is that there's been so much digital creep in every aspect of our existence it's hard to remember/understand a world without it.
Even 50+ years ago had some form of digital data for lots of business.