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Surely you don't mean to refute Hans Rosling's testimony that his mother had more time to read to him? I think you have an interesting viewpoint. If these techn

by arh68 14y ago

Surely you don't mean to refute Hans Rosling's testimony that his mother had more time to read to him? I think you have an interesting viewpoint. If these technologies don't actually save any time, it follows that we spend as much doing X before the technology than after. So 4 hrs/wk washing 1 loads/wk + washing machine => 4 hrs/wk washing 4 loads/wk. What if you reverse this and apply it to computers? I spend maybe 2-3 hours in Excel every week. If I were born 100 years earlier, would it follow that I'd also spend 2-3 hrs/wk making spreadsheets, albeit at a much slower work pace? It seems doubtful. I've got only a few dozen sheets, tops. Lots of time spent in Excel is tweaking, making things line up / look right, updating kludges, etc. Busywork, basically. Maybe this is my fault; the 'math' tells me I should have lots of sheets, but I get caught up doing busywork on this machine that's supposed to automate the whole ordeal. What a scam!

holri 14y ago
Another example: The advent of the car or plane did not reduce the live time spent on traveling but expanded the ways. People and their priorities and motivations for giving a slice of their live time to a particular kind of activity do not change greatly because of technology.
- PhineasRex 14y ago
  Have you ever flown across the country?
  - holri 14y ago
    Since some inhabitants of one country think their country is the world I can imagine which one of the 194 countries you think of. The answer therefore is yes.
fractallyte 14y ago
Regarding spreadsheets: Excel (and similar) is a great toy for doodling, but for serious work one would want the 'real thing'. In the 80s there was Javelin Plus, then Lotus Improv in the 90s. Now there's Quantrix. With endemic spreadsheet errors (since the 80s), and far better solutions being ignored (also since the 80s), there's certainly something to rant about! ;-)

by arh68 14y ago

holri 14y ago

Another example: The advent of the car or plane did not reduce the live time spent on traveling but expanded the ways. People and their priorities and motivations for giving a slice of their live time to a particular kind of activity do not change greatly because of technology.

PhineasRex 14y ago
Have you ever flown across the country?
- holri 14y ago
  Since some inhabitants of one country think their country is the world I can imagine which one of the 194 countries you think of. The answer therefore is yes.

fractallyte 14y ago

Regarding spreadsheets: Excel (and similar) is a great toy for doodling, but for serious work one would want the 'real thing'. In the 80s there was Javelin Plus, then Lotus Improv in the 90s. Now there's Quantrix. With endemic spreadsheet errors (since the 80s), and far better solutions being ignored (also since the 80s), there's certainly something to rant about! ;-)