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Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

manu.zone

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Re: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

#101

Post by senkora »

Random_BSD_Geek wrote: post #57
manuhortet wrote: post #2

I recently read Ellen Ullman's memoir about her life as a software developer in the dot-com bubble era: "Close to the machine: Technophilia and its discontents". The book was written before I was born, but I can still closely relate to most of the cultural points made. She does a great job defining the anxieties and frictions you experience working in the duality of the very formal computer systems and the subjective…

> What other similar books would you recommend? "Close to the Machine" by Ellen Ullman and "Microserfs" by Douglas Coupland occupy roughly the same space in my memory.

Can you or someone else explain what they liked about Microserfs? I read it after hearing a recommendation for it somewhere online, but it didn’t really connect for me.

I’m young enough that I don’t have any personal knowledge of the time period to compare it with, so maybe I’m missing a nostalgia angle.

I don’t doubt that it is a great book, it just didn’t grab me for whatever reason.

Re: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

#102

Post by agentultra »

fennecbutt wrote: post #87
agentultra wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been curious if our society were to collapse would the artifacts left behind indicate to a future society how to reconstruct this technology? Is there any object permanence in our creations? I imagine a wanderer silently plumbing their way through the streets of Manhattan on their makeshift catamaran. They're mostly in search of useful resources but they can't help but be intrigued by these little, grey s…

To be fair, I've thought about this sometimes too. Like, I contribute to technology myself, but in a very minimal way. And most people don't at all, they consume. But there are a golden few in the world who are doing _everything_. For example how many people in the world actually know how to build an EUV machine like ASML's one? How many people understand the absolute forefront of integrated circuit design? Maybe lik…

Exactly. A few people have attempted fabricating simple 8-bit CPUs in their garage but the yields are low without a clean room and it still requires an incredible amount of technology to get started. A good amount of how to set up a garage fabrication lab is probably available through bits of print media, if we're lucky... but recreating a garage from scratch by finding all of that information would be quite the feat.

Re: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

#104

Post by robaato »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #27

> How much of this is impostor syndrome and how much reality? How different are other fields really? I also feel any new programming task as something foreign, for which I am not ready, basically undoable from my position. But at the same time consider myself able to get into anything and everything, and of fixing and building whatever that can be done. I cannot figure out any straight explanation for such senseless…

That may depend a little on the CS degree you do/have done! Showing my age, but a CS degree at Edinburgh University in the 1980's set me up for a good career... No idea what is currently taught. That said, recently terminated a contract early as the person was taking days to do simple tasks, whereas another person was showing gumption and being productive in less timeframe, and seemingly with less of a programming background.

Re: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

#105

Post by robaato »

robaato wrote: post #104
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #27

> How much of this is impostor syndrome and how much reality? How different are other fields really? I also feel any new programming task as something foreign, for which I am not ready, basically undoable from my position. But at the same time consider myself able to get into anything and everything, and of fixing and building whatever that can be done. I cannot figure out any straight explanation for such senseless…

That may depend a little on the CS degree you do/have done! Showing my age, but a CS degree at Edinburgh University in the 1980's set me up for a good career... No idea what is currently taught. That said, recently terminated a contract early as the person was taking days to do simple tasks, whereas another person was showing gumption and being productive in less timeframe, and seemingly with less of a programming ba…

Oh and I learnt a lot from initial working for a software house as my first job (Logica as it happens). But I did have a base to build on. Some of the lecturers in CS dept in my era had degrees in psychology or classics...

Re: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

#106

Post by robaato »

bonoboTP wrote: post #73
developer93 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume tech moves on so fast that you have to rewrite the course every year. But you do have some certifications which go some of the way, for example the sun certifications for Java.. At least you know the holder will have an idea how it fits together under the hood...

Tech moves but often in circles and not in a cumulative way. What I mean is that if you know the basic enduring time-tested principles of algorithms, data structures, tradeoffs, principles like caching, compilers, a bedrock stable programming language or two, you know the concepts of Unix as of 20 years ago, then you are well equipped to be dropped into 2023 or 2026 and get yourself into the context over a few weeks…

Amen!

Re: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

#107

Post by KineticLensman »

agentultra wrote: post #14
ubermonkey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The book was written before I was born Oh my god I'm so fucking old.

My friend, it happens to everyone. I typed in my first BASIC program in ‘89. I dropped out of high school in the late 90’s to program uh… high quality adult entertainment websites. I had a small e-commerce site for a while selling weird stuff. I eventually finished school and tried to move on but I got back into programming for a living to this day. Twenty some odd years of doing it professionally. For fun. For curio…

> I typed in my first BASIC program in ‘89.

I created my first program on punch cards in '79. I can't even remember what the programming language was although I suspect FORTRAN. I wish I'd kept a listing.

Tangentially, my valued copy of The Lord of the Rings that I loved as a child has the date 'Christmas 1973' inside the front cover. I'm going to read it again this Christmas, 50 years later. I've been avoiding anything Tolkien-related since about 2017, when I last re-read it (and noticed the upcoming anniversary), to come to it as fresh as possible, accepting that I know the story backwards.

Re: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

#108

Post by chinchilla2020 »

developer93 wrote: post #53
mannykannot wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The users seem to believe that they are connected to some vast treasure trove — all the knowledge of our times, an endless digitized compendium, some electronic library of Alexandria..." Personally, I feel that this is one thing that worked out about as well as could reasonably be expected (it would be unreasonable to expect that the benefits of this could be reaped without effort...)

There is a treasure trove, it's just mixed in with a lot of trash. Like panning for gold, you need to know where the good lodes are and recognise it when you see it.

I disagree. I have had no moments of profound discovery or insight from surfing the internet.

It has been a useful tool for finding specific knowledge and skills, but I would say that there is no "treasure" on the internet.

Any treasure you find will be found through experiences in the real world.

Re: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

#109

Post by chinchilla2020 »

dpkirchner wrote: post #24
manuhortet wrote: post #2

I recently read Ellen Ullman's memoir about her life as a software developer in the dot-com bubble era: "Close to the machine: Technophilia and its discontents". The book was written before I was born, but I can still closely relate to most of the cultural points made. She does a great job defining the anxieties and frictions you experience working in the duality of the very formal computer systems and the subjective…

That quote also stood out to me, but probably in a different way. It's missing a crucial piece of information: What is the correct way to use the internet? And computers, for that matter? A generous interpretation is that users are expected to take the knowledge and do greater things with it, instead of sitting and clicking, but that obviously doesn't make sense after a few seconds' thought. I'm stumped.

Use the internet for the tools it provides. Maps, phone book, connect to news media etc.

The internet is useful when you need some specific knowledge. It is useless when you need nothing and are just browsing. Sitting there watching TikTok videos or reading hackernews is usually going to turn out to be a waste of time.

Re: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents

#110

Post by Karrot_Kream »

chinchilla2020 wrote: post #109
dpkirchner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote also stood out to me, but probably in a different way. It's missing a crucial piece of information: What is the correct way to use the internet? And computers, for that matter? A generous interpretation is that users are expected to take the knowledge and do greater things with it, instead of sitting and clicking, but that obviously doesn't make sense after a few seconds' thought. I'm stumped.

Use the internet for the tools it provides. Maps, phone book, connect to news media etc. The internet is useful when you need some specific knowledge. It is useless when you need nothing and are just browsing. Sitting there watching TikTok videos or reading hackernews is usually going to turn out to be a waste of time.

You can also build connection online through social media. It has its problems, but it can be fulfilling to find an online social life.
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