12 ms·

We would be better off steering into the skid. History has plenty of examples of people who've tried to hang onto the old ways 'because that's how I learned it'

We would be better off steering into the skid. History has plenty of examples of people who've tried to hang onto the old ways 'because that's how I learned it'. The way forward isn't to try and keep cheap PCs viable for creativity's sake, but to ensure that creative desires are being met on the newer devices. Would I have learned memory management and dual booting if I'd had a tablet instead of a 386? Probably not. But now that same money buys a high end tablet and a pile of hours for an EC2 micro instance. Would I still be me? No, I would be even better. All those weeks wasted fighting with modem racks for my BBS I'd gladly trade for weeks spent on a Nexus 10 and a linode.

solnyshok 13y ago
I do not disagree, just wanted to mention that nowadays it is still possible to learn multi-booting with Android tablets and custom ROMs
quantumpotato_ 13y ago
I fear the ergonomics of mobile computers do more damage than desktops. Source: own experience
GuiA 13y ago
As a kid, my parents were really anti-videogames (except for a few educational ones), anti-TV (we had one, but it was in its own room and rarely used), and would only let me use the home computer for homework. As a result, I spent all of my childhood and teenage years reading (mostly fantasy and sci-fi; several books a week, at my peak) and programming. I taught myself programming in 7th grade because I really wanted to play Sim City, but having no gaming computers/consoles, I couldn't. However, I did have a programmable calculator for my math class. I spent all of middle school and high school programming my own games on this underpowered (a few mhz of CPU and a few kb of memory), inconvenient (typing thousands of lines of code on this tiny keyboard is a feat) device (and yes, I did make a turn-by-turn Sim City for the TI-82). While I was doing this, a lot of my friends were playing Warcraft 3, The Sims, and watching dumb TV shows (early to mid 2000s, reality TV was just becoming big in France). Similarly, my girlfriend's parents were very anti-TV etc. As a result, she spent her childhood and teenage years drawing, and eventually she went to a top art school (RISD) and now makes a living from her illustration and teaching art. I'm not sure who I would be if I had grown up with an iPad and a playstation, or who my girlfriend would be if her parents had let her watch TV; no one can tell. However, I think our situations worked out really well for us; and when I have kids/teenagers (not for another decade or so), I will most definitely give them a life analog to what I experienced rather than a media-consumption heavy one. For instance, I haven't had TV ever since I moved out of my parent's house (I do have a projector for watching movies from the computer), and intend to keep it that way. I obviously have a fairly tech heavy life right now, as a tech worker in SF, but I am trying to cut down. I am noticing that I whip out my phone every time I have a spare 30 seconds, I have several laptops and iPads laying around the house, etc. - and I like it less and less. I'm slowly selling away my excess devices, and am thinking of getting rid of my iPhone when my contract runs out (and just get a dumbphone as a replacement for emergencies). I bought a really cheap netbook, installed archlinux+xmonad on it, and am using it as my primary machine at home for web browsing + programming + LaTeX. It's harder to get distracted with this machine. In 2011, Tom Preston-Werner said the only hardware he had at home were a waffle maker, a microwave and a bike[0]- I like that mentality. 19 year old me would have pre-ordered a Google Glass from day one and used it with religious fervor; now, I am absolutely not interested in such a device, as I know it is just the ad billboard of the 21st century manufactured by Google. I still have a few guilty digital pleasures; for example, I buy a lot of used video games that I wanted to play in my childhood and never could (mostly Game Boy Advance/Game Cube- the upside is that you can get 20 of those games used on Amazon for the price of 3 new current-gen games). My hope is that over the next few months and years, I will revert to reading as much as I used to, and spend less time on Facebook/Twitter/etc. (HN is not completely in that bucket, as it leads me to write introspective comments like this, which I think is good). I think a big part of it is removing the devices that will call for your attention. My Game Boy Advance or MP3 player will never call for my attention- it just waits for me to use it. However, my iPad or iPhone will call for my attention every few minutes, which is not liberating at all. Tech should be liberating. YMMV :) [0]: http://tom.preston-werner.usesthis.com http://tom.preston-werner.usesthis.com
- 001sky 13y ago
  I am thinking of getting rid of my iPhone when my contract runs out (and just get a dumbphone as a replacement for emergencies Iphones are great for tourtists. Unneccesary otherwise.
  - collyw 13y ago
    Except when you are in another country, and roaming charges are outrageous.
- jacoplane 13y ago
  This is why I love my Kindle Paperwhite so much. I could read on my Ipad, but it's so easy to jump into something else with that. The Kindle's limitations let me get on with reading without being tempted by other things.
- sn0v 13y ago
  Beautifully worded :) I've got a 4th gen iPad, a laptop, an external monitor + kb + mouse and a Lumia 920 right now. I still wonder at times if I should cut back a bit, but most of these devices have their uses for me.
- johngalt 13y ago
  Quite interesting thank you for sharing. The idea that constraints can guide creativity. It reminds me of pg's essay on distractions. I've got something of a different view. I was never limited TV or game consumption. My parents had the mindset of 'you'll have to learn to self moderation at some point, better to do it when the stakes are small'. They wanted me to learn to recognize when something I enjoyed was having a negative impact. They would guide me subtly by asking me to think about time spent in various areas and what that meant. Now as an adult I've not struggled with moderation in any area. Never got pulled into MMO style games, diet isn't a challenge etc... My biggest worry is that I work too much and don't make enough time for fun. I remember finding it odd when I'd visit a friends house and they were only allowed a certain number of sodas per day, and had regimented rules about computer time. Later on as adults, these friends almost universally struggled with various addictions real and digital (I've seen lives ruined by MMOs). To me it appeared that they weren't able to manage their own desires without outside inputs. Obviously it was a different experience for you.
bradleyjg 13y ago
Long form writing seems close to impossible on a tablet. A long hacker news comment is possible, but once you are looking at even a modest book report, I can't see it. Maybe with some sort of accessory keyboard, but then you are looking at more of an ad hoc laptop than a pure tablet.
- spiffytech 13y ago
  You'd expect long-form writing to be unthinkable on today's mobiles, but plenty of people wrote whole novels on Palm PDAs with only the on-screen keyboard/Graffiti. I also performed extensive text entry on Palm PDAs for my middle/high school notes and assignments, and didn't consider it a bad experience. And these examples, and the above commenter with his Sim City clone for the TI-82, demonstrate, when you make up your mind that you're going to do something on a limited device, it's often surprisingly possible.
sspiff 13y ago
I'm not sure if you mean that the comfort of working on a tablet connected to remote virtual servers is higher than that of a single local laptop or desktop. But if that is your final point, I very much disagree. Besides the fact that a computer keyboard and mouse are often vastly superior to the cramped peripherals you typically see connected to a tablet, large screens and user interfaces designed for large screens often have a huge ergonomic and productivity advantage over the tiny, touch centric interfaces for tablets. Note: the previous paragraph only applies to the current state of apps for creative and engineering activities. It could be that five years from now, tablets and their software for creating content have evolved to a point where they rival or surpass desktop software. Or they might not. Either way, my point is that we're not there now, and creating software etc on tablets is a sub optimal experience today.

solnyshok 13y ago

I do not disagree, just wanted to mention that nowadays it is still possible to learn multi-booting with Android tablets and custom ROMs

quantumpotato_ 13y ago

I fear the ergonomics of mobile computers do more damage than desktops. Source: own experience

GuiA 13y ago

As a kid, my parents were really anti-videogames (except for a few educational ones), anti-TV (we had one, but it was in its own room and rarely used), and would only let me use the home computer for homework. As a result, I spent all of my childhood and teenage years reading (mostly fantasy and sci-fi; several books a week, at my peak) and programming. I taught myself programming in 7th grade because I really wanted to play Sim City, but having no gaming computers/consoles, I couldn't. However, I did have a programmable calculator for my math class. I spent all of middle school and high school programming my own games on this underpowered (a few mhz of CPU and a few kb of memory), inconvenient (typing thousands of lines of code on this tiny keyboard is a feat) device (and yes, I did make a turn-by-turn Sim City for the TI-82). While I was doing this, a lot of my friends were playing Warcraft 3, The Sims, and watching dumb TV shows (early to mid 2000s, reality TV was just becoming big in France). Similarly, my girlfriend's parents were very anti-TV etc. As a result, she spent her childhood and teenage years drawing, and eventually she went to a top art school (RISD) and now makes a living from her illustration and teaching art. I'm not sure who I would be if I had grown up with an iPad and a playstation, or who my girlfriend would be if her parents had let her watch TV; no one can tell. However, I think our situations worked out really well for us; and when I have kids/teenagers (not for another decade or so), I will most definitely give them a life analog to what I experienced rather than a media-consumption heavy one. For instance, I haven't had TV ever since I moved out of my parent's house (I do have a projector for watching movies from the computer), and intend to keep it that way. I obviously have a fairly tech heavy life right now, as a tech worker in SF, but I am trying to cut down. I am noticing that I whip out my phone every time I have a spare 30 seconds, I have several laptops and iPads laying around the house, etc. - and I like it less and less. I'm slowly selling away my excess devices, and am thinking of getting rid of my iPhone when my contract runs out (and just get a dumbphone as a replacement for emergencies). I bought a really cheap netbook, installed archlinux+xmonad on it, and am using it as my primary machine at home for web browsing + programming + LaTeX. It's harder to get distracted with this machine. In 2011, Tom Preston-Werner said the only hardware he had at home were a waffle maker, a microwave and a bike[0]- I like that mentality. 19 year old me would have pre-ordered a Google Glass from day one and used it with religious fervor; now, I am absolutely not interested in such a device, as I know it is just the ad billboard of the 21st century manufactured by Google. I still have a few guilty digital pleasures; for example, I buy a lot of used video games that I wanted to play in my childhood and never could (mostly Game Boy Advance/Game Cube- the upside is that you can get 20 of those games used on Amazon for the price of 3 new current-gen games). My hope is that over the next few months and years, I will revert to reading as much as I used to, and spend less time on Facebook/Twitter/etc. (HN is not completely in that bucket, as it leads me to write introspective comments like this, which I think is good). I think a big part of it is removing the devices that will call for your attention. My Game Boy Advance or MP3 player will never call for my attention- it just waits for me to use it. However, my iPad or iPhone will call for my attention every few minutes, which is not liberating at all. Tech should be liberating. YMMV :) [0]: http://tom.preston-werner.usesthis.com http://tom.preston-werner.usesthis.com

001sky 13y ago
I am thinking of getting rid of my iPhone when my contract runs out (and just get a dumbphone as a replacement for emergencies Iphones are great for tourtists. Unneccesary otherwise.
- collyw 13y ago
  Except when you are in another country, and roaming charges are outrageous.
jacoplane 13y ago
This is why I love my Kindle Paperwhite so much. I could read on my Ipad, but it's so easy to jump into something else with that. The Kindle's limitations let me get on with reading without being tempted by other things.
sn0v 13y ago
Beautifully worded :) I've got a 4th gen iPad, a laptop, an external monitor + kb + mouse and a Lumia 920 right now. I still wonder at times if I should cut back a bit, but most of these devices have their uses for me.
johngalt 13y ago
Quite interesting thank you for sharing. The idea that constraints can guide creativity. It reminds me of pg's essay on distractions. I've got something of a different view. I was never limited TV or game consumption. My parents had the mindset of 'you'll have to learn to self moderation at some point, better to do it when the stakes are small'. They wanted me to learn to recognize when something I enjoyed was having a negative impact. They would guide me subtly by asking me to think about time spent in various areas and what that meant. Now as an adult I've not struggled with moderation in any area. Never got pulled into MMO style games, diet isn't a challenge etc... My biggest worry is that I work too much and don't make enough time for fun. I remember finding it odd when I'd visit a friends house and they were only allowed a certain number of sodas per day, and had regimented rules about computer time. Later on as adults, these friends almost universally struggled with various addictions real and digital (I've seen lives ruined by MMOs). To me it appeared that they weren't able to manage their own desires without outside inputs. Obviously it was a different experience for you.

bradleyjg 13y ago

Long form writing seems close to impossible on a tablet. A long hacker news comment is possible, but once you are looking at even a modest book report, I can't see it. Maybe with some sort of accessory keyboard, but then you are looking at more of an ad hoc laptop than a pure tablet.

spiffytech 13y ago
You'd expect long-form writing to be unthinkable on today's mobiles, but plenty of people wrote whole novels on Palm PDAs with only the on-screen keyboard/Graffiti. I also performed extensive text entry on Palm PDAs for my middle/high school notes and assignments, and didn't consider it a bad experience. And these examples, and the above commenter with his Sim City clone for the TI-82, demonstrate, when you make up your mind that you're going to do something on a limited device, it's often surprisingly possible.

sspiff 13y ago

I'm not sure if you mean that the comfort of working on a tablet connected to remote virtual servers is higher than that of a single local laptop or desktop. But if that is your final point, I very much disagree. Besides the fact that a computer keyboard and mouse are often vastly superior to the cramped peripherals you typically see connected to a tablet, large screens and user interfaces designed for large screens often have a huge ergonomic and productivity advantage over the tiny, touch centric interfaces for tablets. Note: the previous paragraph only applies to the current state of apps for creative and engineering activities. It could be that five years from now, tablets and their software for creating content have evolved to a point where they rival or surpass desktop software. Or they might not. Either way, my point is that we're not there now, and creating software etc on tablets is a sub optimal experience today.