3 ms·

I keep using Emacs because without it I do feel like a William Gibson protagonist -- "trying to reach the console that wasn't there" (or M-x or Lisp repl in my

I keep using Emacs because without it I do feel like a William Gibson protagonist -- "trying to reach the console that wasn't there" (or M-x or Lisp repl in my case). Emacs works the way I work, the way I need an editor to work. I recognize that it's a very personal thing and doesn't readily generalize, but it's a bit condescending to imply that all these personal choices are to forge some pretentious cosplay identity. Some of them are just a simple matter of: human need get work done, human brain work best this way, use tools that best support way brain works to get work done.

bitwize 1y ago
Thinking again about the essay in OP, for whomever is still reading this, I'm reminded of Patrick Farley's The Guy I Almost Was, in which the protagonist buys a Hermes 3000 manual typewriter instead of a computer to rebel against the self-serving consumerist futurism he used to embrace (and also, incidentally, because he cannot afford a computer). In short, the typewriter was a component of a form of cosplay, the garb of the sort of beat-generation intellectual with the sort of authenticity he aspired to have. (I'm convinced that fellow Hermes user William Gibson has spent a career cosplaying as a beat poet, which is why his fiction has an urticating effect on me.) As it happens, I also own a Hermes 3000 typewriter. I bought it for a different reason: because it's really, really cool. Like all of the modern, sophisticated computers I own, it's a fascinating piece of information technology, precision engineered to do what it does very well. There's a minimalism about it I admire: it's a machine for augmenting the writing process that doesn't even need electricity. So again, some people use certain tools because those tools are simply a joy to use. And that's fine too.

3 ms·

I keep using Emacs because without it I do feel like a William Gibson protagonist -- "trying to reach the console that wasn't there" (or M-x or Lisp repl in my

by bitwize 1y ago

bitwize 1y ago
Thinking again about the essay in OP, for whomever is still reading this, I'm reminded of Patrick Farley's The Guy I Almost Was, in which the protagonist buys a Hermes 3000 manual typewriter instead of a computer to rebel against the self-serving consumerist futurism he used to embrace (and also, incidentally, because he cannot afford a computer). In short, the typewriter was a component of a form of cosplay, the garb of the sort of beat-generation intellectual with the sort of authenticity he aspired to have. (I'm convinced that fellow Hermes user William Gibson has spent a career cosplaying as a beat poet, which is why his fiction has an urticating effect on me.) As it happens, I also own a Hermes 3000 typewriter. I bought it for a different reason: because it's really, really cool. Like all of the modern, sophisticated computers I own, it's a fascinating piece of information technology, precision engineered to do what it does very well. There's a minimalism about it I admire: it's a machine for augmenting the writing process that doesn't even need electricity. So again, some people use certain tools because those tools are simply a joy to use. And that's fine too.