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As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

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Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#151
Technology was more interesting about 20 years ago. All different phone models, with constant feature improvements, different form factors, so many different things to choose from. Now we have a boring black rectangle running one of two mobile operating systems, not much to care about here.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#152
post #151

Technology was more interesting about 20 years ago. All different phone models, with constant feature improvements, different form factors, so many different things to choose from. Now we have a boring black rectangle running one of two mobile operating systems, not much to care about here.

"When phones were fun" is a, well, fun series about cellphones of yesteryear.

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwd8abTO4vh2smuMzykXDOP...

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#153

There isn't a whole lot of new technology around. Apart from LLMs, everything else is a remix/retread/clone/speed bump with a few tweaks. iOS is 16 years old. Android is a year younger. AWS is a year older. The original Oculus Rift is from 2016. Facebook dates from 2004. Twitter from 2006. Amazon has been around for 30 years. (And looks it.) Starlink is a consumerised reinvention of Iridium (1997). Docker - 2013. Git…

Go review the iPhone announcement. The original iPhone was nothing compared to the recent models. Amazon in 1997 might allow you to buy some books, whereas the amount of stuff you can buy is much larger today.

The only point I get from this is that interesting technology takes a long time to get to a mature point.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Playstation 2 was as far away from the Atari 2600 as we are from the Playstation 2 today. One of these periods had a lot more change. Yeah, from PS2 to now is a much bigger difference. Of course you meant in relative terms, but in absolute terms the computation (and especially per watt) that you can do today is astonishing relative to in 2000. Software development on the 2600 had more in common with the PS2 tha…

From a user perspective, I'm going to have to disagree. You have it backward. Atari 2600 you were playing something like Pole Position. Gran Turismo 4 was released on PS2. Gran Turismo 7 for PS5. What improved from Gran Turismo 4 until 7? Model detail? Better grass and reflections? Some improved physics simulation? It looks great, don't get me wrong, but it isn't a massive improvement in user experience for 23 years…

Gran Turismo 7 already plays in VR.

Also disqualifying VR that way by stating we've been trying to get it going since the 80s is a bit silly. Most of the other "huge steps" we've made like the iPhone were too just incremental improvements from predecessors.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#157

There isn't a whole lot of new technology around. Apart from LLMs, everything else is a remix/retread/clone/speed bump with a few tweaks. iOS is 16 years old. Android is a year younger. AWS is a year older. The original Oculus Rift is from 2016. Facebook dates from 2004. Twitter from 2006. Amazon has been around for 30 years. (And looks it.) Starlink is a consumerised reinvention of Iridium (1997). Docker - 2013. Git…

LLMs too are a remix with a few tweaks. Most of the major things you listed fit under that bill too. React, just a better Angular. Facebook, just a better myspace. iOS just a better PalmOS.

This is the problem, you are expecting something brand new and revolutionary while looking at the past through rose coloured lenses. None of that stuff was revolutionary! It was only so because you were in a stage of your life where everything of this sort was new to you.

Couple this with the fact that genuinely new technology is always berated at first, and you've got a wonderful recipe for aging pessimism.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#159
post #3

Title is misleading. Not getting excited about a new Next.js version doesn't mean you don't care about new technology. Maybe it just means that you don't feel like reorganizing your code or something. Relatively speaking it's still an incremental upgrade to your approach overall. I am 45 and stopped caring much about new web frameworks many years ago. It's not that I don't find them interesting or even advantageous i…

I'm just exhausted by it. I've been writing front-end code since 2009 so I've been here from the early jQuery days, and I don't have the energy to keep rummaging through docs to figure out how this new special thing (next13/astro/alpine/blah/blah/blah) deviates from standard web technology. I'd much rather conserve my limited energy for things that are inherent to the platform and actually exciting, like WASM or WebG…

Maybe offtopic but jQuery still kinda rocks for small proejcts. It's not the fastest nor does it do fancy compile steps to avoid the DOM but instead just provides an easy-to-use API for most common tasks. And as a bonus the documentation is awesome compared to mpst other new-ish JS frameworks.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#160
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology is a false god. Speaking of which, I spent about 15 years of my life being an atheist. I went to Mexico last Christmas and came back a changed man. I answered the calling of my conscience. I think over time the current political situation in the US is going to push people back to traditional values as well. Living life for yourself is always going to be ultimately unfulfilling. Men need to sacrifice and be…

Religiosity is rapidly going down over time and it's unlikely that it's going to suddenly turn around. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/how-u-s-reli...

We don't even have a name for it now, that's how bad it is IMO. All those mere vessels relaying what "the average user" or "the industry" requires, which we should most humbly submit to. The way "disrupt" was thrown around, or the kool-aid required to believe that continuing down the route consolidation and inequality will somehow result in universal basic income. People who fly to 15 conferences a year rolling their eyes at anyone refusing to understand nuclear energy is the way to solve climate change.
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