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Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

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Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#181
Another tale of repairs: In 2018 my friend was still using an old Nokia dumb phone from 2007. Mainly because it has physical buttons which is good if you have problems with touchscreens, but mostly because you can drop it from large heights without it breaking (yes, 12 floors onto a grass field is a great height).

But even an old Nokia can only survive that many drops, so one day the phone screen stopped working. The phone would still turn on, make a startup sound, but it would only show white. Must be a display thing.

So we opened up the old Nokia, which meant lots of little screws. Inside we found that the screen and the main board were nog one part, but instead connected through a flat wire with like 10-12 lanes. Careful inspection of the wire showed there was a cut in the last two lanes. So part of the display signal was not reaching the display. Yeah, that might be an issue.

Searching the internet for the Nokia manual/design revealed the part number of the flat wire. AliExpress didn't have the part. In a stroke of luck, we actually found a webshop in the UK that sold the part for like 4 dollar. Ordered and two weeks later we got the part.

Opened up the phone again, replaced the wire, and the screen is working again.

I do want to say the phone is still in use, but unfortunately there are two issues we have been unable to solve:

1. The battery is no longer charging. The phone boots, and runs, but on the first incoming call, it drains so much power it just does. Unless on a charger of course. We have not been able to find a replacement battery yet (haven't searched either).

2. This is a phone from 2007, which means it has no 4G. 3G is already turned off and 2G is expected to be turned off in 2-3 years. This means this phone can no longer be used as a phone in my country. Such a shame really. We have bought a replacement Nokia 110 4G, but it is larger, heavier and has a illogical menu settings. I wish we would just have an upgraded version of the old phone with 4G. Snake is still there though, so we got that going for us.

Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#182
I usually get looked at like an alien when I tell people I repair my phone.

Here, it's usual to just get a new phone every year or two. Usually iPhones of course. As a student, I find it insane to spend 1k+ a year on smartphones.

So in 2018, I decided to buy the Pocophone F1 (360€ at the time) from Xiaomi, recently replaced the battery (15€) just before dropping my phone and cracking my display a few weeks later. I ordered a new screen on AliExpress the same day and it cost me 30€.

I'm planning on using this phone throughout my graduation for at least 2 more years before it'll eventually end up as a raspberry PI alternative for side projects (if it lives that long)

Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#183
post #145
post #119

Give yourself extra life. Buy the best tools you can. Don't let virtues learned by necessity become the vices that suck up your lifetime. You'll never get the time back that you spend working on unimportant projects, sustaining old builds, placating unhappy people, working on slow computers, etc. Unless it's the fastest way for you to deliver whatever good you have to the world, put it aside, especially if you've inv…

Pretty good piece of advice. Not that you should never repair anything, but thinking about cost/benefit is worth it.

But how will I signal conspicuous consumption to my Bay Area peers unless I have an M2 and a hoodie with no logos?

Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#184
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who sees compiling, loading, etc time as an opportunity to think?

The cycle, for me, is code -> compile -> run -> observe results -> think. Compiling is in the wrong position in that sequence to merge it with thinking.

I think about what I just coded and what it should do when I run it. A mini review, an opportunity for an “aha!” moment, and to plan the next step.

Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#185
post #8

I would have kept the same hardware forever too, but for some reason my tools seem to take more and more resources every year. Silly example is gmail, which loaded in 1s on my 2011 MacBook Pro when new, if it load it again today (I just tried) it takes 35 seconds before I can click anything. Another might be everyone’s favourite software to hate on: Teams. On my 2011 MacBook Pro: fans squealing, UI of the OS becomes…

> Silly example is gmail, which loaded in 1s on my 2011 MacBook Pro when new, if it load it again today (I just tried) it takes 35 seconds before I can click anything.

Gmail currently does easily over 50 HTTP requests when loading, and browsers limit the number of connections:

https://docs.pushtechnology.com/cloud/latest/manual/html/des...

The net effect is that you wait at least 8x (but probably much more) your ping to the server for the page to load.

It's sort of a plague in enterprise web apps and stems from the fact that nowadays you have small teams working on independent modules, which do their own requests. Banking apps are the worst offender here.

Also some people are simply unaware of/ignore the issue. The other day I inspected an e-store my friend paid decent money to set up and the first thing that I noticed was that it was firing 200+ requests, because the devs neither bundled nor minified their code.

I thought this was because it was still in development - nope - another store by the same company had the same issues, causing the site to load 12s+ on a good connection, and 30s+ on a 4G simulator.

Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#186
post #119

Give yourself extra life. Buy the best tools you can. Don't let virtues learned by necessity become the vices that suck up your lifetime. You'll never get the time back that you spend working on unimportant projects, sustaining old builds, placating unhappy people, working on slow computers, etc. Unless it's the fastest way for you to deliver whatever good you have to the world, put it aside, especially if you've inv…

Sadly, this attitude is endemic; the only goal in life is to make things as easy as possible for yourself, rather than leave things in a better state than you found them. You might be giving yourself "extra life" (the massive assumption being that repairing and reusing tools is a net negative timesink rather than a positive pleasure) but you're taking life from the people at the other end of your supply chain.

Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#187
I update my system when needed but I always have reasonable good hardware.

SSD/nvm are same defaults for me.

Memory I currently have 48gb in my desktop for running a VM properly.

My last CPU upgrade was necessary when I got a new camera and the raw files grinded Lightroom to a snail.

My keyboards are either full metal base with real cherry MX keys or a expensive ergonomic keyboard also with cherry MX keys.

I sit too long on my device every day to cheap out.

My displays always are at least IPS panels but my current display is already 6 years old. Still IPS with 27" and 1440 resolution.

I think it's good that you can work with your setup and your situation is a little bit harder I guess but make sure that you don't need to wait unreasonably long for your PC doing it's tasks.

And never use a HDD as your main hard disk!

Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#188
post #186
post #119

Give yourself extra life. Buy the best tools you can. Don't let virtues learned by necessity become the vices that suck up your lifetime. You'll never get the time back that you spend working on unimportant projects, sustaining old builds, placating unhappy people, working on slow computers, etc. Unless it's the fastest way for you to deliver whatever good you have to the world, put it aside, especially if you've inv…

Sadly, this attitude is endemic; the only goal in life is to make things as easy as possible for yourself, rather than leave things in a better state than you found them. You might be giving yourself "extra life" (the massive assumption being that repairing and reusing tools is a net negative timesink rather than a positive pleasure) but you're taking life from the people at the other end of your supply chain.

That's a weird sentiment.

Without the investment of early adopters the hardware would not be as cheap or as good as it is right now.

Also no one throws older hardware away.

Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#189
post #170
post #119

Give yourself extra life. Buy the best tools you can. Don't let virtues learned by necessity become the vices that suck up your lifetime. You'll never get the time back that you spend working on unimportant projects, sustaining old builds, placating unhappy people, working on slow computers, etc. Unless it's the fastest way for you to deliver whatever good you have to the world, put it aside, especially if you've inv…

It's interesting and very sad how all the comments seem to ignore completely the positive impact of repairing on the environment :( No wonder why we are in such a bad situation now.

Have you read his hardware specs?

I do a lot of things which just wouldn't be possible on his setup at all.

Re: Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

#190
post #8

I would have kept the same hardware forever too, but for some reason my tools seem to take more and more resources every year. Silly example is gmail, which loaded in 1s on my 2011 MacBook Pro when new, if it load it again today (I just tried) it takes 35 seconds before I can click anything. Another might be everyone’s favourite software to hate on: Teams. On my 2011 MacBook Pro: fans squealing, UI of the OS becomes…

FYI, I am running Arch on a Macbook Air 2011 and it handles Teams OK ;-)
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