5 ms·

Then again how much time do computers save? Washing machines and fridges freed up a ton of time for people. Maybe computers as well, then again maybe they just

Then again how much time do computers save? Washing machines and fridges freed up a ton of time for people. Maybe computers as well, then again maybe they just entertain. My personal anecdata, I was recently investigating some page load timeouts for my client and this lead me down a rabbit hole which in the end meant moving a WHERE clause from outer query to an inner one and sped up the query 100k times. Based on slow query log stats it eliminated 25h of human waiting per day.

hospitalJail 3y ago
I see this too. We now have dedicated programmers to maintain a program that was supposed to save time. Well that program(and a few others) made it so instead of having 120 (real) engineers, we have 7 engineers. The cost saving is real, it allows greater complexity, and the maintainer can add upgrades and work on other things as the program matures.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> Then again how much time do computers save? Unbelievable amounts, both in speed of processing and communication, and in lack of error.
- itsboring 3y ago
  Seems like AI is becoming pretty effective at undoing the “lack of error” part…
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    AI is barely involved in any digitisation of things yet.
sempron64 3y ago
I’d be very upset if my dishwasher broke every 5th time I used it. And in that scenario I’d much rather wash the dishes by hand. Probably the same for my clothes vs. the washer. If it takes 10 minutes to boot my computer, log into 10 SSOs with two factor, and install 57 updates, at what point do I start keeping graph paper and a desktop calculator to track my sales instead of using excel?
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  Would you be upset if the fix was just to restart the dishwasher and most of the time it would work again?
  - vinyl7 3y ago
    How about we make things actually work? I know thats extremist talk in 2023, but I believe that its possible to make things that actually work.
    - MattGaiser 3y ago
      Have to be willing to pay extra for it and switch away from products that do not work as well as you desire them to. And there need to be enough of you for a market.
  - donquichotte 3y ago
    Only if it updates during the restart and loses half the cutlery in the process, while subtley reordering the rest.
pizza 3y ago
I have to say ChatGPT has turned a lot of micro-obstacles into problems that only last a couple of seconds. Stuff like "what's the command to turn a folder of pngs into a video" I can Just Do in seconds with a zsh alias set up to query it from the terminal. Then there's stuff like "I don't understand this error message, give me pointers?" and it can be quite useful in that regard too. I still validate but I guess long term I can stay in flow way more consistently. The biggest objection I hear to chatgpt as an assistant is that "you can't know if it gives you a truthful statement." That's true but it's also nowhere near a show-stopper. Just requires critical thinking in each scenario. People who don't use it have a tendency towards black-and-white thinking about its utility. I find that people who are skeptical of it initially who observe my workflow tend to 'get' what it's really useful for, after a short while.
TheCapn 3y ago
>Then again how much time do computers save? This is honestly a good question to ask at times. I remember back when I was trying to get into weight lifting. I was searching for apps and tools that would help me track milestones and progress, setting up routines and all that. I remember going through some options, then making a spreadsheet, and refining the spreadsheet and just hating the whole process. So then I opened a notebook and just wrote down my lifts for the day. At the top I wrote my 1 rep maximums for the big 4 lifts and had a page for my program that denoted the rep#/set#/1RM% and done. What did it lack? Maybe some categorizing or search tools. Maybe some graphing to visualize progress over large spans of time? Well I don't need any of that. What matters is what I'm doing now. There's probably several examples of things like that. I can't count the number of times I've tried using organizers for things like groceries or maintenance that have me spending more time fiddling with settings and formats than just doing the task. At my job I create a new text file daily to note what I worked on and shit that came up. I date it and save it to a directory and just use grep to recall info when I need to look back over large spans. No awkward TODO lists or planner apps. No updates or UI changes. No subscription fees or "Share" buttons. Sometimes, asking how much time you save with a computer/app/whatever is the right thing.
- smallerdemon 3y ago
  Reminds me of Merlin Mann's "perfect apostrophe": http://www.43folders.com/2006/06/11/perfect-apostrophe http://www.43folders.com/2006/06/11/perfect-apostrophe
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Keep It Simple Stupid seems to have been forgotten with everyone salivating for "cutting edge technology". It's called cutting edge because when you use it you bleed.

hospitalJail 3y ago

I see this too. We now have dedicated programmers to maintain a program that was supposed to save time. Well that program(and a few others) made it so instead of having 120 (real) engineers, we have 7 engineers. The cost saving is real, it allows greater complexity, and the maintainer can add upgrades and work on other things as the program matures.

robertlagrant 3y ago

> Then again how much time do computers save? Unbelievable amounts, both in speed of processing and communication, and in lack of error.

itsboring 3y ago
Seems like AI is becoming pretty effective at undoing the “lack of error” part…
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  AI is barely involved in any digitisation of things yet.

sempron64 3y ago

I’d be very upset if my dishwasher broke every 5th time I used it. And in that scenario I’d much rather wash the dishes by hand. Probably the same for my clothes vs. the washer. If it takes 10 minutes to boot my computer, log into 10 SSOs with two factor, and install 57 updates, at what point do I start keeping graph paper and a desktop calculator to track my sales instead of using excel?

MattGaiser 3y ago
Would you be upset if the fix was just to restart the dishwasher and most of the time it would work again?
- vinyl7 3y ago
  How about we make things actually work? I know thats extremist talk in 2023, but I believe that its possible to make things that actually work.
  - MattGaiser 3y ago
    Have to be willing to pay extra for it and switch away from products that do not work as well as you desire them to. And there need to be enough of you for a market.
- donquichotte 3y ago
  Only if it updates during the restart and loses half the cutlery in the process, while subtley reordering the rest.

pizza 3y ago

I have to say ChatGPT has turned a lot of micro-obstacles into problems that only last a couple of seconds. Stuff like "what's the command to turn a folder of pngs into a video" I can Just Do in seconds with a zsh alias set up to query it from the terminal. Then there's stuff like "I don't understand this error message, give me pointers?" and it can be quite useful in that regard too. I still validate but I guess long term I can stay in flow way more consistently. The biggest objection I hear to chatgpt as an assistant is that "you can't know if it gives you a truthful statement." That's true but it's also nowhere near a show-stopper. Just requires critical thinking in each scenario. People who don't use it have a tendency towards black-and-white thinking about its utility. I find that people who are skeptical of it initially who observe my workflow tend to 'get' what it's really useful for, after a short while.

TheCapn 3y ago

>Then again how much time do computers save? This is honestly a good question to ask at times. I remember back when I was trying to get into weight lifting. I was searching for apps and tools that would help me track milestones and progress, setting up routines and all that. I remember going through some options, then making a spreadsheet, and refining the spreadsheet and just hating the whole process. So then I opened a notebook and just wrote down my lifts for the day. At the top I wrote my 1 rep maximums for the big 4 lifts and had a page for my program that denoted the rep#/set#/1RM% and done. What did it lack? Maybe some categorizing or search tools. Maybe some graphing to visualize progress over large spans of time? Well I don't need any of that. What matters is what I'm doing now. There's probably several examples of things like that. I can't count the number of times I've tried using organizers for things like groceries or maintenance that have me spending more time fiddling with settings and formats than just doing the task. At my job I create a new text file daily to note what I worked on and shit that came up. I date it and save it to a directory and just use grep to recall info when I need to look back over large spans. No awkward TODO lists or planner apps. No updates or UI changes. No subscription fees or "Share" buttons. Sometimes, asking how much time you save with a computer/app/whatever is the right thing.

smallerdemon 3y ago
Reminds me of Merlin Mann's "perfect apostrophe": http://www.43folders.com/2006/06/11/perfect-apostrophe http://www.43folders.com/2006/06/11/perfect-apostrophe
CatWChainsaw 3y ago
Keep It Simple Stupid seems to have been forgotten with everyone salivating for "cutting edge technology". It's called cutting edge because when you use it you bleed.