Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Joey Hess' minimal approach

joey.hess.usesthis.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 122 posts

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#91

Post by SCdF »

agumonkey wrote: post #39

Let's make a petition for someone to produce this e-ink open arm laptop. I'd buy one immediately.

This does seem like a kickstarter waiting to happen. Open source laptop / netbook with an eink display, running Linux, perhaps with a modified distro with some tweaks based on the low refresh rate of eink (e.g. no animations, less drag and drop and more snapping).

On the down side, it probably only appeals to a select number of geeks, and probably not enough to make a kickstarter viable.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#92

Post by mhd »

cweiss wrote: post #58
agumonkey wrote: post #39

Let's make a petition for someone to produce this e-ink open arm laptop. I'd buy one immediately.

My understanding is that the big issue is that e-Ink displays have a miserably slow pixel update time. The new Kindle Paperwhite is on the order of 450ms whereas the average LCD display is in the single digit ms range. Great for static text, but horrid for anything real-time.

This would still be far better than ancient 300 baud terminals. I bet some Unix editors still have the hacks in them to speed up operation over slow connections…

Although I don't know how well contemporary eInk displays would handle partial updates. If it e.g. doesn't save much energy compared to a full-screen refresh, there might be huge difference in battery usage, as even slower typists would cause more redraw than the page flips caused by your average reader.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#93

Post by agumonkey »

mhd wrote: post #92
cweiss wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the big issue is that e-Ink displays have a miserably slow pixel update time. The new Kindle Paperwhite is on the order of 450ms whereas the average LCD display is in the single digit ms range. Great for static text, but horrid for anything real-time.

This would still be far better than ancient 300 baud terminals. I bet some Unix editors still have the hacks in them to speed up operation over slow connections… Although I don't know how well contemporary eInk displays would handle partial updates. If it e.g. doesn't save much energy compared to a full-screen refresh, there might be huge difference in battery usage, as even slower typists would cause more redraw tha…

Based on crappy youtube videos it seems eink screens support partial redraw.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#94

Post by yungchin »

jakobe wrote: post #48

It's great to be reminded that productivity doesn't really depend as much on the tools you use as some might have you believe. I keep thinking about buying a faster laptop, or I'm complaining that getting fiber is way to expensive where I live, and then I read about someone on an ancient tiny netbook on dialup who is probably way more productive than I am.

Ok, because no-one's made the obvious point yet, I'll bite... What's more likely? That all the research saying more screen space increases productivity is wrong, or that joeyh is simply denying himself that bonus productivity? So just imagine how scarily productive he might become if he had my laptop...

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#95

Post by reeses »

nevinera wrote: post #82
w1ntermute wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is such a liberating setup. Yeah, it's "liberating" until you develop chronic back and shoulder pain later in life.

Observing your body and changing positions whenever they become uncomfortable is far better for your long-term health than is a well-engineered chair. I now rotate between a standing desk, a normal desk, a couch (only when reading/exploring - typing here is tougher), and the floor, and all of my back problems have disappeared.

Pilates is great for developing that sense of individual muscle fatigue and for strengthening the muscles that will hold you in proper form.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#96

Post by hollerith »

mahyarm wrote: post #72
to3m wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a handy way of ensuring that your time spent dicking about is minimized. I used nothing but Windows from 1999 until mid-2010 (and I used MS-DOS as well between 1993 and 1999). Windows 3.x was horrid, Windows '9x was horrid, and Windows 2000 and following have their disadvantages, but there's a lot to be said for never having to relearn any of the basics. I used only Windows XP from 2002 (or 2003?) until 2010, wh…

I stopped using linux and started using osx because linux always involved way too much dicking around by it's nature.

Same here. A person who knows how to program and who are easily annoyed by things like inconsistent computer behavior or lack of design aesthetics should probably avoid Linux if their interest in an OS is to help them be productive.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#97

Post by icebraining »

mahyarm wrote: post #72
to3m wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a handy way of ensuring that your time spent dicking about is minimized. I used nothing but Windows from 1999 until mid-2010 (and I used MS-DOS as well between 1993 and 1999). Windows 3.x was horrid, Windows '9x was horrid, and Windows 2000 and following have their disadvantages, but there's a lot to be said for never having to relearn any of the basics. I used only Windows XP from 2002 (or 2003?) until 2010, wh…

I stopped using linux and started using osx because linux always involved way too much dicking around by it's nature.

That's certainly not my experience. After some trial-and-error during the first couple of months, in which I move from Gnome → XFCE → Fluxbox → Awesome and I configured the system to my liking, it's been extremely stable. Four years and two laptops later, I'm using the same setup without having to do anything but the occasional update, and the fact that I'm on a rolling release (Debian Sid) means my software rarely changes a lot at once.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#98

Post by icebraining »

hollerith wrote: post #96
mahyarm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped using linux and started using osx because linux always involved way too much dicking around by it's nature.

Same here. A person who knows how to program and who are easily annoyed by things like inconsistent computer behavior or lack of design aesthetics should probably avoid Linux if their interest in an OS is to help them be productive.

I find Linux to be extremely consistent; almost all programs I use read data from stdin, process it according to some arguments and output the result to stdout ;)

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#99

Post by mhd »

brandall10 wrote: post #43
mhd wrote: post #34

Interesting, but not totally unexpected as this is very much in the tradition of Unix terminal users. Never mind that today's "dumb terminal" is probably an order of magnitude more powerful than yesterdays mainframes, and you can fall back to even bigger servers without many problems. But I'm always a bit surprised by small-screen laptop-only users, whether it's this rather charming off-the-grid kind or your average…

5 months ago I transitioned from being a desktop C# app developer for medical devices to a Rails remote contractor. This meant going from a dual quad core 3.33 extreme desktop machine with 3 displays (2 x 24 and 1 21) to an 11" Macbook Air with a 1.7 dual i5. I'm much faster on the air. I have a tiling setup that I can quickly switch/move windows around, it keeps my vision and neck focused and reduces strain to both.…

I'm glad that this worked out for you. But my personal "story" wouldn't really fit either extreme. Whether it's a tiny eeepc or a 1920x1200 screen, it's all basically terminal multiplexer to me (or, well, Emacs frame organizers if I'm in that phase again). Not even arranged that differently. I'm not one of those guys with Wall Street multi-monitor-monstrosity setups‡, I too do fiddle with window managers.

For a while I even switched regularly between a 23 Inch Sony monitor and my 17" MacBook, both with the same resolution. The MBP even had the better CPU/RAM compared with the Office PC I abused for admin/dev purposes.

I still noticed that I prefered my desktop setup by a large margin. Mostly because those same pixels spread out over a larger area, encompassing a larger FOV for me (without me crouching like Rodin's thinker). Also, a much better keyboard. I can't really understand all the hype about Apple's scissor action chiclet keyboards. Last decent one they made was the Extended II. And all this in a package that costs much, much less. For my purposes, all those hyper-engineered ultrabooks (and their Mac inspiration) are overkill. Lots of really clever solutions and manufacturing advantages that I simply solve by putting all that in a large enough box. I simply don't gain a lot from all that cleverness.

‡) Well, apart from when I have to do lot with a browser, either for development or reference. A ridiculous number of sites break when the browser window is too narrow, and switching back and forth between only two applications is a bit of a waste of time. I remember this not being a problem when I was using half my 1600x1200 CRT back in the days…

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#100

Post by eric-hu »

icebraining wrote: post #79
pwang wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And when you are a creator rather than a consumer (especially of the written word, be it code, essays or books), screen size rarely matters. I don't necessarily agree with the parent post's sentiments, but I also disagree with this very broad blanket statement of yours. I am reasonably happy most of the time on my Macbook Air screen, but I definitely prefer to be coding on a larger screen when I can. I knew Joey ba…

I can't fit everything in my head and need the screen real estate. For those of us who use virtual desktops, the physical resolution of the screen is just a small fraction of the total. I code in a 12" laptop with just 1280x800 pixels, but my effective resolution is 20 times that.

Do you really use 20 desktops? If so, I'm curious what you use all of them for.

I try to limit myself to 3 but you have me wondering what else I could separate out.

Post reply on HN