4 ms·

This guy spent months working on this. He was working for technology.

bluGill 7mo ago
Not anymore - that was months ago when he did all that labor, it is no a sunk-cost. We can debate if it was worth the investment though.
- Barrin92 7mo ago
  Literally every person I know who is obsessed with home automation has spend thousands of bucks and hundreds if not more hours on automating things that take a second or cost two bucks for a paper version that doesn't use electricity The article is about a 2000$ eink display that shows a calendar and the weather. Your phone does that for free and you don't need to walk to the hallway every time. This is basically anti-technology. It takes more time, money and effort than just buying something from the dollar store that does the same thing
  - jclulow 7mo ago
    Yeah, it really sucks when people have hobbies!
    - vntok 7mo ago
      Hobbies are perfectly fine. Here, his hobby is to work for technology, certainly not that technology should work for him.
  - bluGill 7mo ago
    There is that - I won't object to hobbies, though I often do ask 'what is wrong with the common dumb switch. Which is why I have only 2 in my house - there are two lights where the standard switch isn't good enough.
  - fredoliveira 7mo ago
    So you see no value in the learning that comes with the tinkering?
    - prforated 7mo ago
      I love how every chain in this thread starts off defending the practical utility of all this but ends with defending "learning" and "hobbies" when someone points out that you don't need to spend $2000 and 100 hours to know when a washing machine cycle ends.
      - jmuguy 7mo ago
        Its disingenuous to claim that OP spent that much time and money to know when the washing cycle was complete. That's one of several different things the screen can do in addition to everything else it can display.
        j45 7mo ago
        It's amazing how enticing dominos of chiming in with snark can feel. It's also possible that the sentence struck a nerve because it's a pretty simple lens and test. All the scrolling is free labour for tech/social media companies. Other folks seem to use it more as a platform to create, publish or be more mindful of their interactions compared to passive consumption and reaction. Family schedules can be a unique and valuable problem to solve, namely how much more valuable time becomes, as well as how much a little bit of optimizing can give back.
  - j45 7mo ago
    The sunk cost and dollar store arguments assume the goal is information retrieval at minimum cost. The relationship with technology you're designing around your family is worth considering too. Looking at a shared hallway screen that shows a shared calendar which doesn't exist to pull anyone into a feed doesn't make a worse phone, it's solving a different level of shared understanding entirely. The assumption that the phone is a neutral free tool tends to come most naturally to people who haven't yet thought about who designed the defaults and why. Free at point of use isn't the same as free. Someone optimized very hard for your continued presence.
j45 7mo ago
More than a little while with it friend :) Free scrolling = free labour for those brands. Where every screen can be a rabbit hole to consume something other than what the dashboard has it's a worthwhile consideration.

Not anymore - that was months ago when he did all that labor, it is no a sunk-cost. We can debate if it was worth the investment though.

Barrin92 7mo ago
Literally every person I know who is obsessed with home automation has spend thousands of bucks and hundreds if not more hours on automating things that take a second or cost two bucks for a paper version that doesn't use electricity The article is about a 2000$ eink display that shows a calendar and the weather. Your phone does that for free and you don't need to walk to the hallway every time. This is basically anti-technology. It takes more time, money and effort than just buying something from the dollar store that does the same thing
- jclulow 7mo ago
  Yeah, it really sucks when people have hobbies!
  - vntok 7mo ago
    Hobbies are perfectly fine. Here, his hobby is to work for technology, certainly not that technology should work for him.
- bluGill 7mo ago
  There is that - I won't object to hobbies, though I often do ask 'what is wrong with the common dumb switch. Which is why I have only 2 in my house - there are two lights where the standard switch isn't good enough.
- fredoliveira 7mo ago
  So you see no value in the learning that comes with the tinkering?
  - prforated 7mo ago
    I love how every chain in this thread starts off defending the practical utility of all this but ends with defending "learning" and "hobbies" when someone points out that you don't need to spend $2000 and 100 hours to know when a washing machine cycle ends.
    - jmuguy 7mo ago
      Its disingenuous to claim that OP spent that much time and money to know when the washing cycle was complete. That's one of several different things the screen can do in addition to everything else it can display.
      - j45 7mo ago
        It's amazing how enticing dominos of chiming in with snark can feel. It's also possible that the sentence struck a nerve because it's a pretty simple lens and test. All the scrolling is free labour for tech/social media companies. Other folks seem to use it more as a platform to create, publish or be more mindful of their interactions compared to passive consumption and reaction. Family schedules can be a unique and valuable problem to solve, namely how much more valuable time becomes, as well as how much a little bit of optimizing can give back.
- j45 7mo ago
  The sunk cost and dollar store arguments assume the goal is information retrieval at minimum cost. The relationship with technology you're designing around your family is worth considering too. Looking at a shared hallway screen that shows a shared calendar which doesn't exist to pull anyone into a feed doesn't make a worse phone, it's solving a different level of shared understanding entirely. The assumption that the phone is a neutral free tool tends to come most naturally to people who haven't yet thought about who designed the defaults and why. Free at point of use isn't the same as free. Someone optimized very hard for your continued presence.

j45 7mo ago

More than a little while with it friend :) Free scrolling = free labour for those brands. Where every screen can be a rabbit hole to consume something other than what the dashboard has it's a worthwhile consideration.