14 ms·

Good thing said hacker culture spent 15 years buying inflated laptops and desktops from them ultimately for convenience to give them the market presence to do t

by zanny 6y ago

Good thing said hacker culture spent 15 years buying inflated laptops and desktops from them ultimately for convenience to give them the market presence to do this in the first place. Its the same thing with Windows. People will preach all day that they won't make any personal sacrifices to try to avoid feeding literal cancers that are eating the software industry and are shocked when said all consuming voids take away their autonomy but they are so locked in to their ecosystems they are trapped. These are for profit corporations, not your friends. Their bottom line dictates they maximally abuse copyright and their ability to sell and distribute proprietary software out of your control to maximum effect. Microsoft, Google, et al want you using devices you cannot control, because then they hold all the keys and can demand the greatest ransoms for you to do what you want. Its inevitable, and the persistent total arrogance and hubris on display in the tech hive mind in regards to any of these walled gardens is just... depressing. Free software isn't going anywhere, especially with RISC-V now being an established failsafe if UEFI PC and ARM totally lock down, but it would just make the struggle a lot easier if the principle victims would stop martyring themselves for the corporate ecosystems they have no say, influence, or control over.

emptysongglass 6y ago
What's worse is the number of other posts with the top comments being vociferous defenses of these companies as if they needed these people to defend them or cared one iota for their welfare. It feels like it's Stockholm Syndrome on a mass scale. I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. And the only usable tiny mobile devices are walled gardens. They scream outrage when they're not allowed their tiny little dance-jig operators provided courtesy of an abusive regime. Sure, I reflect that I may be now nearing the curve of an obsolescent person attached to such silly outmoded principles like "ethics" but if we're all just selling ourselves out constantly to the angry god-machine of the id, is this really the future we want for our daughters and sons?
- pdkl95 6y ago
  > I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. And the only usable tiny mobile devices are walled gardens. Without the ability to grow up playing with system level software, combined with the software industry's unwillingness to pass on institutional knowledge to younger generations, I fear we are already on a path towards a civilization that loses a lot of the technological capability we currently enjoy. I recommend Jonathan Blow's talk "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization"[1] for an unsettling view of how far we have already traveled down that path. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko
  - kimjongtrill 6y ago
    10 years ago when I started working I feared the younger generation and their enthusiasm and energy. Then I had to teach a few of them how to ssh and that fear was dissolved. Most of these kids will not cut it in heavy reading/comprehension jobs.
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      As an "older" coder I get where your hinting at but your view on Zoomers in tech from your high horse seems very narrow and entitled. I'm sure there are Zoomers out there who can code rings around you(and me).
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - kimjongtrill 6y ago
        not really meant as a hard judgement, just sharing my experience. i am 100% sure there are folks at all age levels that can be and are better than me. i have definitely worked with some.
      - daniellarusso 6y ago
        I think the parent just meant the surprise at the lack of enthusiasm, based on the ubiquity of the technology/device. Perhaps it is considered more of a commodity now?
        qayxc 6y ago
        > Perhaps it is considered more of a commodity now? It is and it should be. What the white beards all too often forget is the fact that the generation before them would say the exact same thing about them (lack of enthusiasm, lack of interest and knowledge, etc.). This is a story as old as time: > The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. attributed to Socrates (469–399 B.C.) How many 80s kids were into HAM radio or actually building computers (Ben Eater-style: https://www.youtube.com/c/BenEater/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/BenEater/videos ) instead of toying with micros or basically playing Lego with PC components? Same difference. Today's computers have reached a level of tight integration and complexity that simply cannot be grasped by a single individual anymore. People keep whining about that when it comes to computers but happily accept the very same thing in other commodities like cars, clothes(!), highly processed food(!), hygiene and cleaning products (soaps, hair gels, rinsing agents, ...), utility grids, etc. It's hard to get young people enthusiastic about glue or forging metals, even though both are essential to our daily lives - often in ways we don't even realise. Same deal, no whining from metallurgists or chemists.
- vervas 6y ago
  It is a choice to buy or not buy a device from a company. In this particular case the greatest threat is that devices that were always used by powerusers, are a step away from preventing us having superuser privileges on them, and instead have a moderator like on an iDevice. At the same time Gen Z has way more choice and exposure to "computers", so worrying about them sounds very diminishing to their prospects. Sure, adoption of computers, even if they fit your bag or your pocket, is much greater nowadays which leads to way wider range of usages, for better of for worse. In the end same could be said about the Edison generation and electricity. In the end I barely have a clue how electricity networks operate. Can I experiment with it? Sure. Do I need to if I just want to power on my computer? No.
- mysterydip 6y ago
  On a related note, game consoles seem to be going the same direction, focusing on services and downloadable content or games over physical media (and even those that are physical seem to have a large online/multiplayer component). After a console generation or two, these services get taken offline as they are no lonher profitable, leaving a portion of your system useless. I can go back and play old games I grew up on any number of platforms thanks to emulation or buying old physical media. This generation won't be able to do the same in 10-30 years.
  - daniellarusso 6y ago
    Also, it seems alot of games are only meant to be enjoyed as a distributed multiplayer, not really a single player ‘quest’.
- krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
  > I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. Gen Z here. I learned most of my basic computer skills by playing / modding games, editing videos, and having no friends. Gradually snowballed into writing scripts to make things easier, learning more programming languages and eventually getting books on more formal CS topics. I hope my kids can have a similar experience. The ugly and maladjusted among us will always find a way ;)
- panzagl 6y ago
  I understand the sentiment, but how many people were ever going to understand their systems at that level? I'm sure Gen Z will have their own tech equivalent of Roy Underhill telling them to put down the Ikea bookshelf and grab an axe and a log, and that the number of people who respond then will be about the same as now.
- submeta 6y ago
  > What's worse is the number of other posts with the top comments being vociferous defenses of these companies I slowly tend to think that some of those commenters, who fiercely defend all and any action taken by Apple to limit the freedom of its users, are paid marketing and PR firms who scan forums to oppose any opinion that is not in line with Apple‘s vision of a closed system.
eznzt 6y ago
And what do you expect us to do, install Linux and spend days configuring the touchpad? Computers are a tool we use to do our work. Setting up the computer cannot become a job by itself.
- flohofwoe 6y ago
  An open computing device doesn't need to be unusable, and a usable computing device doesn't need to be locked up. There's a lot of space to explore between those extremes.
- pydry 6y ago
  I've spent far more of my life trying to getting development environment shit working on a Mac than I ever have getting touch pads working on Ubuntu. For example, the latest version of Mac OS broke docker - literally today we discovered this.
  - ovi256 6y ago
    >latest version of Mac OS broke docker That's wrong, Docker will run fine on M1/Big Sur after an ARM release and probably some patching. Not too different what you'd expect on any major OS release.
    - moondev 6y ago
      How do you know it will?
      - smsx 6y ago
        Because Docker has a large financial incentive to get it working?
      - ovi256 6y ago
        Because M1 has virtualization and emulation support, unlike the A12Z (not M1) ARM processor on which the docker issue was opened. This is explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25073010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25073010 And Docker has the motivation and means to patch and build the M1 Arm version. You can take it directly from the Docker people: > Thanks. We're working closely on this with Apple. This is expected right now (and indeed there's nothing we can do about it yet) as the new chips don't have virtualisation support yet. https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/4733 https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/4733 Notice the lack of panic or any mention of "it'll never be done", even implied.
jrib 6y ago
Next laptop for me is going to be from a company that explicitly supports linux. Probably dell or lenovo. A lot of people like to rag on Ubuntu. I agree with some of the criticisms. But the one thing they have done right is broker partnerships with hardware vendors like dell and lenovo. https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystems https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem... https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-launches-linux-ready-thinkpad-and-thinkstation-pcs-preinstalled-with-ubuntu/ https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-laun...
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Fedora on Lenovo laptops as well: https://fedoramagazine.org/lenovo-fedora-now-available/ https://fedoramagazine.org/lenovo-fedora-now-available/
- bovermyer 6y ago
  I'm personally quite fond of System76.
  - driverdan 6y ago
    Unfortunately System76 still uses 10 year old LCDs. Let me know when their displays are at least as good as an 8 year old retina MacBook Pro.
- zzzeek 6y ago
  use Fedora. I run Fedora on a Dell XPS and version 33 is great.
- autoexec 6y ago
  superfish was reason enough for me to never touch lenovo and all the other malware they've infested their systems with since have only made me feel better about that decision. Dell might be okay though.
- loxs 6y ago
  I did that already with a ThinkPad T495. Couldn't be happier. With Arch Linux and KDE it's objectively far superior to Mac OS for development (I do mostly TypeScript and Rust). The crazy thing is that I've been blind to the massive improvement that happened in Linux-land for the 7 years I was using Mac OS. Of course there is still some PITA with missing productivity software (in my case for hobby photography), but so far I am determined to suffer with open source tools and maybe try to contribute a little.
crisper78 6y ago
I remember people pretending to be "skaters" way back, "hacker culture" reminds me a lot of that.
- BLKNSLVR 6y ago
  Hah, I've become a skater relatively recently. It's my Zen place. It's s good analogy, you have to want it, either skater or hacker, any label really, must be earnt with time and effort. True for all things, and those who have earnt it can spot the pretenders a mile away.
kar1181 6y ago
The one thing that gives me hope is the pendulum of open->closed->open has swung back and forth so many times now that even as depressing as current trends may be, I'm confident things will swing back again. Not sure when, but I'm certain it will. It is one of those strange things, the more closed things become, the greater the incentive is to open them back up again. The hacker ethic is still out there, just this recent boom has dulled it a bit. A steady diet of locked down computing will fix that.
ab8 6y ago
Well said. The hacker culture is not immune to the trappings of luxury brands. You can’t show off your wealth using a no name brand running Linux.
pjmlp 6y ago
It won't change anything switching to RISC-V, if those same hackers just build SaaS placed behind a server wall with a pretty Web interface implemented in WebAssembly talking over gRPC.
ASalazarMX 6y ago
One of the major drivers is app developers. You can't build an iOS app without buying a mac, and if you're buying a mac. It's kinda abusive how you need to pay the hardware tax, the yearly $100 USD rent, and 30% percent of your sales to have the privilege of developing for their platform.
natchy 6y ago
I'm glad windows server lost to linux so we'll at least be able to run our own servers for the foreseeable future. But I see platform layers being the threat there (AWS, Azure, GCP). > literal cancers that are eating the software industry figurative cancers
7thaccount 6y ago
What is your ideal solution? Linux seems to have largely won. Will it run on RISC-V? I wish we had a completely open system of hardware and OS. Is librem making any progress in this space?

by zanny 6y ago

emptysongglass 6y ago

What's worse is the number of other posts with the top comments being vociferous defenses of these companies as if they needed these people to defend them or cared one iota for their welfare. It feels like it's Stockholm Syndrome on a mass scale. I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. And the only usable tiny mobile devices are walled gardens. They scream outrage when they're not allowed their tiny little dance-jig operators provided courtesy of an abusive regime. Sure, I reflect that I may be now nearing the curve of an obsolescent person attached to such silly outmoded principles like "ethics" but if we're all just selling ourselves out constantly to the angry god-machine of the id, is this really the future we want for our daughters and sons?

pdkl95 6y ago
> I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. And the only usable tiny mobile devices are walled gardens. Without the ability to grow up playing with system level software, combined with the software industry's unwillingness to pass on institutional knowledge to younger generations, I fear we are already on a path towards a civilization that loses a lot of the technological capability we currently enjoy. I recommend Jonathan Blow's talk "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization"[1] for an unsettling view of how far we have already traveled down that path. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko
- kimjongtrill 6y ago
  10 years ago when I started working I feared the younger generation and their enthusiasm and energy. Then I had to teach a few of them how to ssh and that fear was dissolved. Most of these kids will not cut it in heavy reading/comprehension jobs.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    As an "older" coder I get where your hinting at but your view on Zoomers in tech from your high horse seems very narrow and entitled. I'm sure there are Zoomers out there who can code rings around you(and me).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - kimjongtrill 6y ago
      not really meant as a hard judgement, just sharing my experience. i am 100% sure there are folks at all age levels that can be and are better than me. i have definitely worked with some.
    - daniellarusso 6y ago
      I think the parent just meant the surprise at the lack of enthusiasm, based on the ubiquity of the technology/device. Perhaps it is considered more of a commodity now?
      - qayxc 6y ago
        > Perhaps it is considered more of a commodity now? It is and it should be. What the white beards all too often forget is the fact that the generation before them would say the exact same thing about them (lack of enthusiasm, lack of interest and knowledge, etc.). This is a story as old as time: > The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. attributed to Socrates (469–399 B.C.) How many 80s kids were into HAM radio or actually building computers (Ben Eater-style: https://www.youtube.com/c/BenEater/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/BenEater/videos ) instead of toying with micros or basically playing Lego with PC components? Same difference. Today's computers have reached a level of tight integration and complexity that simply cannot be grasped by a single individual anymore. People keep whining about that when it comes to computers but happily accept the very same thing in other commodities like cars, clothes(!), highly processed food(!), hygiene and cleaning products (soaps, hair gels, rinsing agents, ...), utility grids, etc. It's hard to get young people enthusiastic about glue or forging metals, even though both are essential to our daily lives - often in ways we don't even realise. Same deal, no whining from metallurgists or chemists.
vervas 6y ago
It is a choice to buy or not buy a device from a company. In this particular case the greatest threat is that devices that were always used by powerusers, are a step away from preventing us having superuser privileges on them, and instead have a moderator like on an iDevice. At the same time Gen Z has way more choice and exposure to "computers", so worrying about them sounds very diminishing to their prospects. Sure, adoption of computers, even if they fit your bag or your pocket, is much greater nowadays which leads to way wider range of usages, for better of for worse. In the end same could be said about the Edison generation and electricity. In the end I barely have a clue how electricity networks operate. Can I experiment with it? Sure. Do I need to if I just want to power on my computer? No.
mysterydip 6y ago
On a related note, game consoles seem to be going the same direction, focusing on services and downloadable content or games over physical media (and even those that are physical seem to have a large online/multiplayer component). After a console generation or two, these services get taken offline as they are no lonher profitable, leaving a portion of your system useless. I can go back and play old games I grew up on any number of platforms thanks to emulation or buying old physical media. This generation won't be able to do the same in 10-30 years.
- daniellarusso 6y ago
  Also, it seems alot of games are only meant to be enjoyed as a distributed multiplayer, not really a single player ‘quest’.
krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
> I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. Gen Z here. I learned most of my basic computer skills by playing / modding games, editing videos, and having no friends. Gradually snowballed into writing scripts to make things easier, learning more programming languages and eventually getting books on more formal CS topics. I hope my kids can have a similar experience. The ugly and maladjusted among us will always find a way ;)
panzagl 6y ago
I understand the sentiment, but how many people were ever going to understand their systems at that level? I'm sure Gen Z will have their own tech equivalent of Roy Underhill telling them to put down the Ikea bookshelf and grab an axe and a log, and that the number of people who respond then will be about the same as now.
submeta 6y ago
> What's worse is the number of other posts with the top comments being vociferous defenses of these companies I slowly tend to think that some of those commenters, who fiercely defend all and any action taken by Apple to limit the freedom of its users, are paid marketing and PR firms who scan forums to oppose any opinion that is not in line with Apple‘s vision of a closed system.

eznzt 6y ago

And what do you expect us to do, install Linux and spend days configuring the touchpad? Computers are a tool we use to do our work. Setting up the computer cannot become a job by itself.

flohofwoe 6y ago
An open computing device doesn't need to be unusable, and a usable computing device doesn't need to be locked up. There's a lot of space to explore between those extremes.
pydry 6y ago
I've spent far more of my life trying to getting development environment shit working on a Mac than I ever have getting touch pads working on Ubuntu. For example, the latest version of Mac OS broke docker - literally today we discovered this.
- ovi256 6y ago
  >latest version of Mac OS broke docker That's wrong, Docker will run fine on M1/Big Sur after an ARM release and probably some patching. Not too different what you'd expect on any major OS release.
  - moondev 6y ago
    How do you know it will?
    - smsx 6y ago
      Because Docker has a large financial incentive to get it working?
    - ovi256 6y ago
      Because M1 has virtualization and emulation support, unlike the A12Z (not M1) ARM processor on which the docker issue was opened. This is explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25073010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25073010 And Docker has the motivation and means to patch and build the M1 Arm version. You can take it directly from the Docker people: > Thanks. We're working closely on this with Apple. This is expected right now (and indeed there's nothing we can do about it yet) as the new chips don't have virtualisation support yet. https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/4733 https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/4733 Notice the lack of panic or any mention of "it'll never be done", even implied.

jrib 6y ago

Next laptop for me is going to be from a company that explicitly supports linux. Probably dell or lenovo. A lot of people like to rag on Ubuntu. I agree with some of the criticisms. But the one thing they have done right is broker partnerships with hardware vendors like dell and lenovo. https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystems https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem... https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-launches-linux-ready-thinkpad-and-thinkstation-pcs-preinstalled-with-ubuntu/ https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-laun...

m4rtink 6y ago
Fedora on Lenovo laptops as well: https://fedoramagazine.org/lenovo-fedora-now-available/ https://fedoramagazine.org/lenovo-fedora-now-available/
bovermyer 6y ago
I'm personally quite fond of System76.
- driverdan 6y ago
  Unfortunately System76 still uses 10 year old LCDs. Let me know when their displays are at least as good as an 8 year old retina MacBook Pro.
zzzeek 6y ago
use Fedora. I run Fedora on a Dell XPS and version 33 is great.
autoexec 6y ago
superfish was reason enough for me to never touch lenovo and all the other malware they've infested their systems with since have only made me feel better about that decision. Dell might be okay though.
loxs 6y ago
I did that already with a ThinkPad T495. Couldn't be happier. With Arch Linux and KDE it's objectively far superior to Mac OS for development (I do mostly TypeScript and Rust). The crazy thing is that I've been blind to the massive improvement that happened in Linux-land for the 7 years I was using Mac OS. Of course there is still some PITA with missing productivity software (in my case for hobby photography), but so far I am determined to suffer with open source tools and maybe try to contribute a little.

crisper78 6y ago

I remember people pretending to be "skaters" way back, "hacker culture" reminds me a lot of that.

BLKNSLVR 6y ago
Hah, I've become a skater relatively recently. It's my Zen place. It's s good analogy, you have to want it, either skater or hacker, any label really, must be earnt with time and effort. True for all things, and those who have earnt it can spot the pretenders a mile away.

kar1181 6y ago

The one thing that gives me hope is the pendulum of open->closed->open has swung back and forth so many times now that even as depressing as current trends may be, I'm confident things will swing back again. Not sure when, but I'm certain it will. It is one of those strange things, the more closed things become, the greater the incentive is to open them back up again. The hacker ethic is still out there, just this recent boom has dulled it a bit. A steady diet of locked down computing will fix that.

ab8 6y ago

Well said. The hacker culture is not immune to the trappings of luxury brands. You can’t show off your wealth using a no name brand running Linux.

pjmlp 6y ago

It won't change anything switching to RISC-V, if those same hackers just build SaaS placed behind a server wall with a pretty Web interface implemented in WebAssembly talking over gRPC.

ASalazarMX 6y ago

One of the major drivers is app developers. You can't build an iOS app without buying a mac, and if you're buying a mac. It's kinda abusive how you need to pay the hardware tax, the yearly $100 USD rent, and 30% percent of your sales to have the privilege of developing for their platform.

natchy 6y ago

I'm glad windows server lost to linux so we'll at least be able to run our own servers for the foreseeable future. But I see platform layers being the threat there (AWS, Azure, GCP). > literal cancers that are eating the software industry figurative cancers

7thaccount 6y ago

What is your ideal solution? Linux seems to have largely won. Will it run on RISC-V? I wish we had a completely open system of hardware and OS. Is librem making any progress in this space?