3 ms·

I've been having a similar thought. The future isn't lugging your computer around on your face. Desktops will stay desktops, just like a workbench. It's about c

I've been having a similar thought. The future isn't lugging your computer around on your face. Desktops will stay desktops, just like a workbench. It's about computing the physical world.

noduerme 3y ago
When I went "remote" in the late 90s/early 2000s, pulling out your laptop at a coffeeshop in America (remember those? the ones that weren't chains?) wasn't even common enough to be considered antisocial or an abuse of the space yet. Doing so at a bar at 3pm in a third world country was exotic enough to get you kidnapped. Since then, society went through a phase where it was almost like a showy thing that people could be working away from the office, to the point where everyone started doing it, and then eventually to where if you want to work on a laptop, you self-segregate with everyone else into a starbucks or whatever, and make sure to keep buying coffee or limit your time. We're, in other words, way past the point in human history where walking around with tech on your person is cool because you can do productive things on it, or even cool because you have something new, or cool because the tech itself is cool. It is actually impossible for Apple or anyone else to recapture that now, because everyone now knows that everyone with one of these things is just watching cat videos and looking stupid. Apple seems to be chasing the tech-as-jewelry market with larger and larger ticket items and diminishing returns. Because tech was never jewelry and or status symbol to the people who use it to be productive... and the only card you could ever play in a bar with a laptop, even 25 years ago, was that you were being productive. Not entertaining yourself. I would've been ashamed to sit there and watch cat videos and tune out the world while other people were talking, but I could show them what I was building and get into conversations. This tech violates that norm which Apple assumes is dead - that of not sitting in a social space and walling yourself off from it in a fundamentally antisocial way.
- tlb 3y ago
  For coffee shop computing, I’d like a computer than is clearly only for programming/creative work. When you saw Hemingway with a typewriter in a cafe, or Feynman with pages of squiggles in a bar, it was obvious at a glance they were creating. And 30 years ago, a programmer could also look like that, but laptops have been ruined by entertainment.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    My kind of mid-2010s hack to that end was to use an app that put my whole screen into red monochrome on a black background. It didn't abuse my eyes and, since the whole screen was usually filled with tiny code, people assumed I was doing something important. But more importantly, I think, I came from an epoch where if you're going to take your work out with you, you'd better be prepared to be interrupted and be gregarious and conversational with people. No headphones, no cold shoulder. People ask what you're doing and you take a 30 minute break and show them. Maybe make plans to get drinks after work. I used to meet other coders that way - it was actually how I met most of the really solid people I worked with over the years. Otherwise why would you be out?

I've been having a similar thought. The future isn't lugging your computer around on your face. Desktops will stay desktops, just like a workbench. It's about computing the physical world.

noduerme 3y ago

When I went "remote" in the late 90s/early 2000s, pulling out your laptop at a coffeeshop in America (remember those? the ones that weren't chains?) wasn't even common enough to be considered antisocial or an abuse of the space yet. Doing so at a bar at 3pm in a third world country was exotic enough to get you kidnapped. Since then, society went through a phase where it was almost like a showy thing that people could be working away from the office, to the point where everyone started doing it, and then eventually to where if you want to work on a laptop, you self-segregate with everyone else into a starbucks or whatever, and make sure to keep buying coffee or limit your time. We're, in other words, way past the point in human history where walking around with tech on your person is cool because you can do productive things on it, or even cool because you have something new, or cool because the tech itself is cool. It is actually impossible for Apple or anyone else to recapture that now, because everyone now knows that everyone with one of these things is just watching cat videos and looking stupid. Apple seems to be chasing the tech-as-jewelry market with larger and larger ticket items and diminishing returns. Because tech was never jewelry and or status symbol to the people who use it to be productive... and the only card you could ever play in a bar with a laptop, even 25 years ago, was that you were being productive. Not entertaining yourself. I would've been ashamed to sit there and watch cat videos and tune out the world while other people were talking, but I could show them what I was building and get into conversations. This tech violates that norm which Apple assumes is dead - that of not sitting in a social space and walling yourself off from it in a fundamentally antisocial way.

tlb 3y ago
For coffee shop computing, I’d like a computer than is clearly only for programming/creative work. When you saw Hemingway with a typewriter in a cafe, or Feynman with pages of squiggles in a bar, it was obvious at a glance they were creating. And 30 years ago, a programmer could also look like that, but laptops have been ruined by entertainment.
- noduerme 3y ago
  My kind of mid-2010s hack to that end was to use an app that put my whole screen into red monochrome on a black background. It didn't abuse my eyes and, since the whole screen was usually filled with tiny code, people assumed I was doing something important. But more importantly, I think, I came from an epoch where if you're going to take your work out with you, you'd better be prepared to be interrupted and be gregarious and conversational with people. No headphones, no cold shoulder. People ask what you're doing and you take a 30 minute break and show them. Maybe make plans to get drinks after work. I used to meet other coders that way - it was actually how I met most of the really solid people I worked with over the years. Otherwise why would you be out?