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Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#61

Post by RetroTechie »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #13

Interesting magazine. Not to detract from its content - but are any of those technologies really low tech? Old computers, solar panels, and the various generators all rely on exceptionally advanced science and technology. It would take decades of research to recreate them from scratch. It's more about reusing/repurposing 'old' discarded tech. Or keeping high tech going as people would do in a post apocalyptic society…

Lowresourcetechmagazine.com is too long domain name, no?

But yeah, "doing more with less" is the focus here. Skip unnecessary cruft. Not so much avoid using (high) tech stuff.

Also note that in the realm of computing (or even general electronics), high-tech IS frugal, if used appropiately. Thx to Moore's law, switch-mode power supplies, RPi style computers (or microcontrollers on the low end), e-paper / OLED displays & similar fancy stuff. Doing without those would be wasteful, imho.

Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#62

Post by Ekaros »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #13

Interesting magazine. Not to detract from its content - but are any of those technologies really low tech? Old computers, solar panels, and the various generators all rely on exceptionally advanced science and technology. It would take decades of research to recreate them from scratch. It's more about reusing/repurposing 'old' discarded tech. Or keeping high tech going as people would do in a post apocalyptic society…

If you have electricity you are not really in realm of low tech. I would consider mechanical human powered(not bike with generator) to be low tech. And those might make sense if you value that type of thing and don't want easiest way out...

Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#63

Post by BobbyTables2 »

roughly wrote: post #49
txutxu wrote: post #12

Booting a modern laptop, something I do every day, is the anti-low-tech paradigm. Just my motherboard BIOS is 50348032 bits. And it doesn't provide many options, I think the other way around, it hides many options on purpose. Then there is an i7 processor... a whole beast itself against simplicity. With its Intel Management Engine, it's microcode updates, etc. Secure boot? UEFI? VT extensions? TPM? NFC? graphics init…

> The more it advances, the bigger and out of control it gets. This is largely due to path dependency - there’s a required amount of “bigness” and complexity to do the things we want to do, but it’s substantially lower than the amount we have, because we’re not starting from zero, we’re building on what we already have. You can see this everywhere - telecom lines follow old train lines, keyboard layouts mirror old ty…

A minimal Alpine Linux install is what — 10MB?

A minimal Debian/AlmaLinux install is closer to 1G.

What did we gain with 100X the space, larger attack surface, and configuration complexity?

Even hardware is this way…

Look at the weight and power requirements of a SFF PC.

Then look at a blade server… Still requires heavy steel case, heavier than SFF PC because it’s larger, only job is to fit into heavy steel enclosure. Enclosure requires beefy steel rack to handle weight.

Every layer makes logical sense but the end result does not!!

Older NAS servers held multiple 3.5” drives (heavy), requiring big power supply. Now a plastic clip holds NVMe drives onto a motherboard — no steel!

Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#64

Post by specproc »

wholinator2 wrote: post #52
tooltechgeek wrote: post #47

I think at some point people get tired of so much turnover of technology that doesn’t correlate with much improvement in quality of life (i.e. the latest phones are probably marginally better than older ones) sometimes it even feels like one is forever forced to upgrade computers, operating systems, etc, with minimal improvements. For me that pointed me towards hobbies that are lower tech such as working with hand to…

Honestly at this point I've ceased to see even marginal improvements and now observe almost exclusively regressions. They keep taking away functionality, maybe the CPU is faster but my ability to accurately manage the device i own to my personal specifications is forever being reduced. I've encountered many settings that claim to have been "moved" since upgrading windows that just are no longer there. But the old con…

This may be a good time to give Linux a go as a daily driver, if that's possible.

I made the switch a year or so ago, and it's been really refreshing having my laptop not treat me in the way you describe.

Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#65

Post by galdosdi »

txutxu wrote: post #12

Booting a modern laptop, something I do every day, is the anti-low-tech paradigm. Just my motherboard BIOS is 50348032 bits. And it doesn't provide many options, I think the other way around, it hides many options on purpose. Then there is an i7 processor... a whole beast itself against simplicity. With its Intel Management Engine, it's microcode updates, etc. Secure boot? UEFI? VT extensions? TPM? NFC? graphics init…

Maybe if you run the Arachne web browser for MS-DOS on an older non-UEFI intel machine, you might be approaching something where one person could still understand the whole sequence

Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#66

Post by pxmpxm »

wholinator2 wrote: post #52
tooltechgeek wrote: post #47

I think at some point people get tired of so much turnover of technology that doesn’t correlate with much improvement in quality of life (i.e. the latest phones are probably marginally better than older ones) sometimes it even feels like one is forever forced to upgrade computers, operating systems, etc, with minimal improvements. For me that pointed me towards hobbies that are lower tech such as working with hand to…

Honestly at this point I've ceased to see even marginal improvements and now observe almost exclusively regressions. They keep taking away functionality, maybe the CPU is faster but my ability to accurately manage the device i own to my personal specifications is forever being reduced. I've encountered many settings that claim to have been "moved" since upgrading windows that just are no longer there. But the old con…

I must be getting old or something, because that is my sentiment exactly. Every (forced for bullshit CVE reasons, zomg state actors are after my cat photo collection with $1mio 0days) upgrade introduces yet another user-adverse change aimed at either merchandising something I don't care about, selling my data or changing my existing configs to default back to one of the two formerly mentioned avenues.

Also it's mildly terrifying this dynamic is now pervading things outside of general computing - there are people on this very forum that cargo cult forced "security upgrade" mentality for things like tvs and appliances, without having the slightest idea about the real revenue motives that drive this. Here's a hint: whirpool doesn't give a f about your wifi washer the day after you bought it; any money/engineering time spent on OTA updates is done strictly to sell you a new washer.

Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#67

Post by k99x55 »

The most underrated technology is the bicycle.

It the least discriminatory mode of transport: it caters to all ages, almost-all abilities (1). It give you free exercise, its good for the environment, for the community, for the local economy (small commercial shops benefit from cycle infra, ask notjustbikes and search it)

The reason we dont use the bicycle more often is because cars. Cars monopolized our streets taking most of the space making conditions too hostile for many to cycle. We then built cities (actually bulldozed cities) for the car and now distances are just too big (specially in the US).

Build cities for people not machines.

(1) I am including trikes and wheelchairs, and anything on wheels powered by humans.

Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#68

Post by chefandy »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #60
chefandy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say you can live on 1/3 of a paycheck but is that really true? No matter how clever I got with my cuts, I could never trim that much without losing either the payment information or signature line.

Don’t start at the edges, start at the center

An xacto knife could have a huge impact on my budget.

Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#69

Post by JohnFen »

specproc wrote: post #64
wholinator2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly at this point I've ceased to see even marginal improvements and now observe almost exclusively regressions. They keep taking away functionality, maybe the CPU is faster but my ability to accurately manage the device i own to my personal specifications is forever being reduced. I've encountered many settings that claim to have been "moved" since upgrading windows that just are no longer there. But the old con…

This may be a good time to give Linux a go as a daily driver, if that's possible. I made the switch a year or so ago, and it's been really refreshing having my laptop not treat me in the way you describe.

That effect is becoming increasingly common in the Linux world over time as well.

Re: Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past technologies

#70

Post by jalict »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #13

Interesting magazine. Not to detract from its content - but are any of those technologies really low tech? Old computers, solar panels, and the various generators all rely on exceptionally advanced science and technology. It would take decades of research to recreate them from scratch. It's more about reusing/repurposing 'old' discarded tech. Or keeping high tech going as people would do in a post apocalyptic society…

More like adjacent keywords & topics: https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/permacomputing.html

There are loads of activity on perma- and frugal computing on https://merveilles.town/

#indieweb movement also has a lot of roots in similar ideologies with people going into lowtech -- so I would also check that out, but that is a pretty massive hole to dig into already :-)

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