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Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

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Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#81

Post by digitallyfree »

mikewarot wrote: post #25

I've watched over time as the desktop stopped being the primary computing device of choice for many people. I've grown far too accustomed to the power and flexibility of a nice keyboard and 32" monitor, and virtually endless storage and general purpose compute that I own to fall into that usage pattern, but I understand the appeal. No Wednesday morning headaches from Microsoft, no applications breaking with the new P…

Hah, I'm also "accustomed" like you and always prefer a proper monitor/keyboard first, then a laptop, then lastly a phone even for simple tasks. Obviously things are different if I'm on the street, but if I'm in front of a computer I'd rather use that to check something rather than pull out my phone.

It's partially an eyestrain issue (I find the text too small) as well as the fact that the phone shows much less information than the computer screen. For instance on a mobile web page I have to scroll a lot, whereas on the computer I can just take in the text and images in a single glance. The keyboard and mouse also seem much more intuitive to me. So I guess I find the phone more cumbersome while many people I know think the other way :D

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#82

Post by zerbin »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #70

Computers are, essentially, fast, iterative, extremely useful for automated and communication tasks, and naturally attract young, detail focused minds based on these qualities. Those essential qualities lend themselves to computer culture. Inherent qualities lead to cultural connotations, not the other way around.

I'm not sure you can say that their attraction of youth is actually "natural" - as other subthreads here have suggested, Gen Z is considerably less interested in computing than my (millenial) generation was. When I was a teenager I was torrenting 100% of my media, tweaking and installing VST's in Ableton's Max for Live to make music, hacking my school district's crappy computer security system to get onto a proxy and play video games in the library, and then figuring out how to code in Powershell so I could bot on those games.. the list goes on. Me and my friends thought we were Epic Trolls and hackers - I think that image has been relegated to the "cringe" bin of history, the same way that people look at pictures of themselves wearing leather jackets with teased hair from the 80's and go - Look! Look how ridiculous I was back then! Times have changed.

I think for a certain segment of the population born between 1980 and 1995, mostly male gamer/geek type personalities (and believe me, I do cringe at the person I believed I was in 2006 when I was doing all of this stuff), computers were and remain attractive because of the stereotypical associations with the Hacker/slacker archetype - the cultural milieu consistent with The Matrix, online video games, shows like the I.T. crowd, musicians like Aphex Twin and Radiohead, fantasy and sci-fi ranging from the more primitive Dwarf Fortress and Lord of The Rings to the fast-paced cyberpunk of Counter Strike and Snow Crash.

I'm not particularly "hip" but a lot of the mystique and glory of the Hacker seems to have worn off with kids these days - gaming and mobile phones are ubiquitous and easy to use, where they used to only be for the "hardcore nerds". Tech startups full of people like me when I was 18 have taken over the world (unfortunately, I was not one of them) and they seem to have done their fair share of harm.

I know that computer science remains popular as a career avenue to make money for young people, but I'm not sure that they're particularly passionate about it in the way that some people my age and older are. When I was into it as a self-styled "outcast" neckbeard teenager, I was into it because of the cultural connotations and the associations marketed to me as a young man in the "hacker" heyday. Imagine telling me or any young "geek" type guy in 2005 that when I was 35 that I would be a systems engineer working with ex-frat bro type guys on the hardest problems I have ever approached - I probably would have scoffed and told you that there's no way such a small mind could ever approach the mathematics and algorithms needed to REALLY be an engineer (again, cringe, but true). Yet here I am, and it's great.

Suffice it to say that I don't think there's anything uniquely young or male about computing or computers, and that the culture around them is completely free to morph and shift as

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#83

Post by Syonyk »

popotamonga wrote: post #44
Syonyk wrote: post #33

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not g…

My schneider 286@12Mhz from 1990 with 40MB huge hdd still running fine, all original components.

How much of that time has it been running?

I would wager that it's not been running powered on for 33 years without any repairs. If it has, probably long past due for a re-cap job, and you probably don't want to put a scope on the voltage rails to see what the ripple is.

For a broad handwave, "sitting powered off" isn't too bad for solid state equipment (it does bad things for hard drives, see "stiction"), but operating (and operating at temperature) is where the wear occurs from a range of effects. I've reworked [0] a Core 2 Duo board that stopped booting after a decade or so, because the capacitors filtering power for the IDE controller got so bad it wouldn't boot reliably (it would load the kernel off the drive, and then insist the drive wasn't present later).

[0]: https://www.sevarg.net/2018/04/15/on-art-of-repair-re-capaci...

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#84

Post by eikenberry »

guhidalg wrote: post #69
forgetfreeman wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please enumerate the demonstrable advancements of society attributable to open source software. Edit: lots of downvotes, no credible responses. Guess y'all are stewing in your own cognitive dissonance?

Ok so gcc and Linux don’t exist in your world.

Or the internet.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#85

Post by beardog »

moffkalast wrote: post #60
beardog wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise Gen Z and Alpha are not very technical. Many teens and 20 somethings have a hard time with seemingly basic tasks like finding files. As a 20 something myself, my public school did not offer any 'technical' courses beyond office programs and keyboarding.

Each generation consists of roughly 90% of people who are completely clueless about anything computer related. Those of us that work in the field usually can't even conceive of it but it's true.

Indeed, you could say the same about cars and plumbing too (with some variation in %). People tend to think younger people are automatically 'good at computers' though.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#86

Post by 2fast4you »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #78
aj7 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think much “computing” is done, in our sense of the word, on tablets and phones. Personally, I’ve found that almost any slightly complex, has-to-be-done-once-and p-right, action is better performed on an actual computer. And that’s not even considering writing new programs.

This hasn't been my experience. I'm able to be surprisingly effective on my smartphone. I've constructed trip itineraries, balanced outing budgets, shared shopping lists, designed room layouts, computed food and drink recipe ratios, built DJ sets, laid out wood pieces, and read books using my smartphone. Coding is probably the only thing that I find unparalleled with a keyboard and a seated position than my smartphon…

Really agree. Programming and gaming are the only things I use my laptop for. I have my iPad for CAD and art, everything else I do on my phone. All my trip planning is done on there, all my finances, everything on the phone.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#90

Post by forgetfreeman »

eikenberry wrote: post #84
guhidalg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so gcc and Linux don’t exist in your world.

Or the internet.

Claiming the internet is a net advance for society is a pretty hard sell in the face of the dissolution of critical institutions, proliferation of mental heath issues, and hyper-concentration of wealth it has made possible.
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