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There are still millions of small scale cool things to do. More than previously even. Go invent your own filesystem and write a driver with FUSE. It will proba

There are still millions of small scale cool things to do. More than previously even. Go invent your own filesystem and write a driver with FUSE. It will probably take a week of work and will be pretty impressive to most people. Go reverse engineer the protocol for your rgb keyboard and write a program to change the colours. It wasn’t so long ago that I was blown away when I managed to make a crappy forum software in php. If you think computers were boring, it’s not a reflection on computing but on you.

bawolff 6y ago
I'm not saying its not possible, it certainly is. Just back in the day, everything was new and exciting, so you could get to something new and exciting basically without trying, which makes modern times seem boring in comparison. Its a relative comparison (probably steeped in nostalgia for a past that never actually existed), not a statement that everything is boring.
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  It’s is more a reflection on you/others than the reality of the time. As someone who is 22, I used to think the iPod touch was the most exciting thing in existence, mostly because I didn’t have one. It seemed to have limitless possibilities and games. Now I have access to all of that and more, it’s not very interesting anymore because it’s not new to me anymore. Point being, it’s not that things got boring, it’s just that boring is just how we feel about things that we have had for a while.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    > It’s is more a reflection on you You keep implying that i hold the view that modern technology is boring. I never say that. > I used to think the iPod touch was the most exciting thing in existence, mostly because I didn’t have one. Perhaps you don't have much to compare the status quo to. I would hardly describe the iPod as old enough to be part of the bygone era. Hell you can still buy the modern version of one. > Point being, it’s not that things got boring, it’s just that boring is just how we feel about things that we have had for a while. I'd be curious how you define becoming boring if not a feeling that the novelty wore off. That's pretty much a dictionary definition of "becoming boring". Regardless i think we fundamentally agree, as my take is that people view things as being boring largely because so much programming has become commeditized, where back in the day the field was less mature, so everything seemed like an adventure regardless of if you were looking for one. Edit: reflecting on this perhaps my view has changed, maybe the difference is the slowing down of moores law (and knock-off effects of that), especially for single threaded performance. I could use a computer from 10 years ago now without much trouble (ignoring certain specific workloads like video games). I think it would have been much more of a burden to use a computer from 1990 in the year 2000. Even just look at ui differences, windows 2000 is a big leap forward compared to windows 3.0 (which didnt even have real multitasking, only cooporative!) or MS-DOS. Windows 7 vs windows 10, not that big of a difference. Things used to change rapidly in leaps and bounds. Now its slow (albeit still steady) progress.

bawolff 6y ago

I'm not saying its not possible, it certainly is. Just back in the day, everything was new and exciting, so you could get to something new and exciting basically without trying, which makes modern times seem boring in comparison. Its a relative comparison (probably steeped in nostalgia for a past that never actually existed), not a statement that everything is boring.

PurpleFoxy 6y ago
It’s is more a reflection on you/others than the reality of the time. As someone who is 22, I used to think the iPod touch was the most exciting thing in existence, mostly because I didn’t have one. It seemed to have limitless possibilities and games. Now I have access to all of that and more, it’s not very interesting anymore because it’s not new to me anymore. Point being, it’s not that things got boring, it’s just that boring is just how we feel about things that we have had for a while.
- bawolff 6y ago
  > It’s is more a reflection on you You keep implying that i hold the view that modern technology is boring. I never say that. > I used to think the iPod touch was the most exciting thing in existence, mostly because I didn’t have one. Perhaps you don't have much to compare the status quo to. I would hardly describe the iPod as old enough to be part of the bygone era. Hell you can still buy the modern version of one. > Point being, it’s not that things got boring, it’s just that boring is just how we feel about things that we have had for a while. I'd be curious how you define becoming boring if not a feeling that the novelty wore off. That's pretty much a dictionary definition of "becoming boring". Regardless i think we fundamentally agree, as my take is that people view things as being boring largely because so much programming has become commeditized, where back in the day the field was less mature, so everything seemed like an adventure regardless of if you were looking for one. Edit: reflecting on this perhaps my view has changed, maybe the difference is the slowing down of moores law (and knock-off effects of that), especially for single threaded performance. I could use a computer from 10 years ago now without much trouble (ignoring certain specific workloads like video games). I think it would have been much more of a burden to use a computer from 1990 in the year 2000. Even just look at ui differences, windows 2000 is a big leap forward compared to windows 3.0 (which didnt even have real multitasking, only cooporative!) or MS-DOS. Windows 7 vs windows 10, not that big of a difference. Things used to change rapidly in leaps and bounds. Now its slow (albeit still steady) progress.