Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#31

Post by rdiddly » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

I'm with the dad. Not necessarily for the specific choices but for making a choice. Author should have waited another 10 years because this is a shallow and still-immature perspective that underappreciates her dad's principle and integrity. Why should a company that demonstrably sucks for you, continue to get your money? (So your teenage daughter can be like the cool kids?) It's called voting with your wallet, and a lot of problems would just vanish if more people did it. If you keep rewarding a company, they assume they're doing it right. And you have this entity in your life that is bullshit, and if you accumulate enough of those, YOU become bullshit.

Edits/Addenda:

Live your truth. (Once you have your own money that is, because beggars can't be choosers.)

"Hmm I can't help but notice that the people this company hired specifically to talk to me are rude AF and my very first contact with them included statements that were verifiably lies." [0]

"Hmm this company takes advantage of me by collecting & selling my personal data, some of which I consider private and might not have consented to if I had read the privacy policy." [1]

"Hmm this company does provide the service I want from them, but I've heard they treat their female & ethnic-minority employees like shit, don't consider a lot of their workers employees at all, and they seem to break local laws a lot." [2]

"Hmm this registrar uses deceptive phraseology in its communications, e.g. referring to an expired domain that I intentionally didn't renew and on which I owe nothing, as an 'overdue invoice.'" [3]

[0] Comcast

[1] Facebook

[2] Uber

[3] Namecheap

A person for whom principles aren't important, lives with and financially supports things like this. It's not necessarily weak, but it doesn't take any particular strength of character either. Only a tolerance for cognitive dissonance. Someone for whom principles are more important, gets out of that relationship and finds another. Someone for whom principles are paramount, might just do without that product or service entirely, if unable to find a satisfactory provider of it.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#32

Post by atoav » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #5

I am genuinely sick to death of people taking up arms in some sort of faction war against their supposed "opponent" technology. I see it everywhere. PlayStation or Xbox! PCMR or Console! MacOS or Windows! iOS or Android! Disturbing tribalism. Liking Apple does not make you cool, not liking Apple does not make you cool. Apple produces hardware and software, it is not a religion. I see so many people taking up arms aga…

I don't really care what OS people use, they might have reasons I don't see after all.

On the other hand I did work in an IT department and saw people getting 3k€ devices where I know there is no way on earth they are going to need that horsepower, and I knew because I helped them using it daily. And guess what: it is usually Apple. The shiniest new thing just for the good of their own souls.

3k+ devices for sending screenshots wrapped in docx as a mail attachment.

And yes I get judgemental there. That doesn't mean all the people with an expensive Apple machine are status driven egomaniacs, there are people where these 3k+ are more than well invested — but over here they were too few..

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#33

Post by protomyth » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

benbristow wrote: post #11

cowmix wrote: post #6

Now that my kids are officially "grown" (18+), here were/are my tech rules for the house: 1) We (my wife and I) do not want to know any of your passwords. 2) No content filters on any device or router level. 3) Mixed OSes (we had Linux, MacOS and Windows in the house). 4) NEVER share your passwords with friends. 5) Anything you email, txt or post to anyone... consider it public. Nothing online is private. 6) No conso…

Why no consoles?

Apparently the GP is part of the "PC Master Race" and will not tolerate "console peasants" in the house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Master_Race

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#34

Post by threatofrain » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #21

dijit wrote: post #5

I am genuinely sick to death of people taking up arms in some sort of faction war against their supposed "opponent" technology. I see it everywhere. PlayStation or Xbox! PCMR or Console! MacOS or Windows! iOS or Android! Disturbing tribalism. Liking Apple does not make you cool, not liking Apple does not make you cool. Apple produces hardware and software, it is not a religion. I see so many people taking up arms aga…

> you don't see tradesmen getting all pissy about people buying DeWalt power drills. Tribalism is everywhere. Dodge vs Chevy vs Ford is one that certain tradesmen might be inclined to take part in. Certainly even tool brands like DeWalt vs Makita. I don't see a problem with it. This is like complaining that people have opinions and that they might argue about them. It's 100% human nature. Arguing against it is like a…

IMO your identity is how people think of you. You might think of yourself as an credible person, but if other people don't think so then what's your identity? You might think of yourself as a safe person, but if other people don't feel that way, then what's your identity?

In this perspective, identity is about relating to other people, whether on matters of Chevy, Apple, or skin color.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#35

Post by piyush_soni » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

I am a bit like the author's dad :). But sure, just like everyone we have our own reasons and it's hard to argue against personal preferences.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#36

Post by hrktb » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #20

dijit wrote: post #5

I am genuinely sick to death of people taking up arms in some sort of faction war against their supposed "opponent" technology. I see it everywhere. PlayStation or Xbox! PCMR or Console! MacOS or Windows! iOS or Android! Disturbing tribalism. Liking Apple does not make you cool, not liking Apple does not make you cool. Apple produces hardware and software, it is not a religion. I see so many people taking up arms aga…

> Liking Apple does not make you cool, not liking Apple does not make you cool. Apple produces hardware and software, it is not a religion. I disagree: For example accepting or rejecting a golden cage is a deep decision about one's moral values - thus near to a religion.

This was the impression we had 20 years ago looking at RMS talking.

It felt like a cult, we felt he asked to us make completely unpractical sacrifices purely in the name of an ideology, the Free.

In hindsight he might have been right, but there clearly was a communication problem, and our kneejerk reaction was to take distance from anything that looked like a cult.

That’s still how people react when they’re just told Apple is evil and they should give up their iPhone for some open source hardware phone or they’re sheeples.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#37

Post by Reedx » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #5

I am genuinely sick to death of people taking up arms in some sort of faction war against their supposed "opponent" technology. I see it everywhere. PlayStation or Xbox! PCMR or Console! MacOS or Windows! iOS or Android! Disturbing tribalism. Liking Apple does not make you cool, not liking Apple does not make you cool. Apple produces hardware and software, it is not a religion. I see so many people taking up arms aga…

I've been sick to death of it since the days of Nintendo vs Sega, but I'm starting to come to terms with these being relatively benign outlets for tribalism.

I'd much rather people burn off that kind of tribal or religious energy via PS vs Xbox and Red Sox vs Yankees than Left vs Right, which is an unfolding disaster.

“This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games." - William S. Burroughs

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#38

Post by Zenst » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

Some kids today are lucky was my initial thought, mine wouldn't get a phone-line after the film Wargames came out.

Though that era was also the days when a child could buy a knife, matches, all sorts of chemicals and even glue. Oh and chemistry sets with chemicals that would get you upon a terrorist watch-list today :(. Today's kids are with that all in mind - perhaps not as lucky in hindsight.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#39

Post by yodsanklai » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #5

I am genuinely sick to death of people taking up arms in some sort of faction war against their supposed "opponent" technology. I see it everywhere. PlayStation or Xbox! PCMR or Console! MacOS or Windows! iOS or Android! Disturbing tribalism. Liking Apple does not make you cool, not liking Apple does not make you cool. Apple produces hardware and software, it is not a religion. I see so many people taking up arms aga…

I have issues with some colleagues who are very opinionated about which language/tech to use. Overtime, I learned to value more pragmatic people who can get work done without going into sterile religious discussions.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#40

Post by bad_user » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #16

dijit wrote: post #5

I am genuinely sick to death of people taking up arms in some sort of faction war against their supposed "opponent" technology. I see it everywhere. PlayStation or Xbox! PCMR or Console! MacOS or Windows! iOS or Android! Disturbing tribalism. Liking Apple does not make you cool, not liking Apple does not make you cool. Apple produces hardware and software, it is not a religion. I see so many people taking up arms aga…

I agree. All three major OS platforms have their own faults. I hear Mac people praise Mac as dev ready but just like Windows you gotta install additional things to make it useful for building things you can deploy to a Linux server. Linux has its own flaws especially with how they handle package management: I wish Debian would differentiate between system required packages and user app packages, imagine letting the s…

> "I could easily argue Windows is easier than either one with WSL."

No you definitely couldn't.

The experience is sub-par, having to deal with the Win boundary sucks, it's slower, and many apps don't work. This is very visible when trying to use an editor that's not imbued with Microsoft's magic.

WSL is a glorified virtual machine, that's all.

Homebrew does not install a virtual machine. I'm not 100% happy with it, but it usually works fine, and the packages are up to date, which you can't say if you'd go for Ubuntu, whose repo tends to lag behind, especially on LTS (and you want to be on LTS if you actually want a usable system).

If you want to take it to the next level, we also have Nix running on macOS ;-)