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“This is not the computer for you”

samhenri.gold

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Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#241

Post by sgarland »

znpy wrote: post #232
PaulRobinson wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned to code on my school's BBC Micro. [0] 8-bit. 16KiB of RAM. BASIC as the programming language. 640x256 resolution in 8 colours. I could make that thing sing in an hour. It was hard to get it to do much, but then the difficulty was the fun thing. By the time we got to the early 2000s and I could buy something with more RAM, CPU and storage than I could ever reasonably max out for the problems I was interested…

I’m waiting for somebody to come and tell us about the time they punched cards by hand, one hole at the time, and then threw coal in the furnace to have the cards interpreted by a steam-powered computer.

Do you have a substantive argument against any points made by parent?

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#242

Post by kuschku »

MITSardine wrote: post #235
kuschku wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the past decade or so, many children had no access to real computers. Before covid, many households either only had school-issued chromebooks, or only smartphones. With covid causing a rise in remote schooling, many families got laptops, but again often only locked-down chromebooks. There's adults nowadays that do their taxes on their phone, cut videos on their phone, and edit spreadsheets on their phone. And whi…

It's an interesting paradox: the more we made computing accessible, the less we got out of it. When a PC was expected to boot to an OS and not much else, we had all the freedom - by necessity - to tinker and learn. Hardware was barely enough for most day-to-day usage, so we upgraded relatively frequently and got to know the physical innards as well. This is all so streamlined today that even computers can be smartpho…

In the past, it was hard to start using computers, but once you did, the journey from user to expert and developer was smooth sailing.

Now it's much easier to start using a computer, but going beyond that has become so much harder.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#243

Post by forinti »

Apple has turned computers into luxury items. They are not simply computers, there is some status and image projection involved.

As a hacker and tinkerer I could never justify the cost of purchasing one of their machines, but I see people around me trying to sell their old Apple machines and phones at absurd prices (I do live in a peripheral economy and Apple stuff is even more expensive here).

So it makes sense for Apple to segment its market like that. It makes sense for their audience too.

When I shop for a car, I find the same issue: most analyses have very little to do with the car's technical attributes and there's a lot of gibberish about design and lifestyle.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#244

Post by criddell »

creshal wrote: post #174
raincole wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think this is about the macbook neo. It shouldn't be, except that the author chose to make every single paragraph about Mac, Apple ecosystem and bashing Chromebook.

And faking being sick so he could clap at Apple marketing events. He kinda lost me there.

Lighten up. He was a kid and he knows how silly that was.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#245

Post by xattt »

mauzybwy wrote: post #226
mr_briggs wrote: post #151

> A Chromebook’s ceiling is made of web browser, and the things you run into are not the edges of computing but the edges of a product category designed to save you from yourself. I'm in the same boat as the author; I cut my teeth on a hand-me-down 2005 eMac, then a hand-me-down 2008 Macbook, before finally getting my own 2011 iMac. I think this is overly harsh on Chromebooks given they belong to the cheaper end of t…

Man I got a computer engineering degree in 2015 with a $200 Chromebook chrooted into Debian. And I worked professionally for years on an 8gb MacBook Air. The Neo is definitely something younger me would be interested in.

> $200 Chromebook chrooted into Debian

Are there even any x86 Chromebooks left at that price point? They are only one that are still capable of chrooting into Linux. ARM Chromebooks remain locked up.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#246

Post by criddell »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #225

1. This is the most optimistic, inspirational thing I've read in months :) 2. Are there kids like that still?? I would love to think so. None of the kids in my circle of parents are. There is one teenager who's going into computer science because they are smart and love math, which is great, but they never built or explored or been curious about anything on their computer as far as I can tell. There is a big ecosyste…

I thought it was inspirational as well. When he described making a folder called "Projects" it reminded me of that feeling I had after graduating from a TI-99/4A to a PC. The possibilities were endless.

Different computers definitely give me different feelings when I use them. Some inspire creativity and the desire to make something meaningful or beautiful, others feel like machines made for work or for play. All of the boundaries are fuzzy but, for me, computers definitely have an emotional valence.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#247

Post by DonHopkins »

>What Apple put inside the Neo is the complete behavioral contract of the Mac.

I remember seeing and using my first powerbook 160 and being blown away that it had the "complete behavior contract of the Mac" that I knew at the time. Even the 16 shades of gray screen made it more luxurious than a classic black-and-white Mac.

And the "What's on Your Powerbook" ads, with Todd Rundgren and Rev. Don Doll, SJ.

https://alumni.creighton.edu/news-events/news/father-don-dol...

Todd> Flowfazer, the screen saver I codeveloped [with David Levine]

Fernando Perdomo - Dreaming in Stereo Suite (FlowFazer Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z4X4FmIhIw

http://www.trconnection.com/trconn.php/article=grokware.art/...

https://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/pop-for-the-people-by...

https://rocknrollwithme.substack.com/p/todd-rundgren-as-a-pr...

>Todd also co-developed graphic tablet software with a music theme for Apple in a technology venture in the late eighties. With Dave Levine, he designed and developed a screensaver product called Flowfazer (see example of one of the screensavers below), with the strapline “Music for the Eye.” They introduced it at MacWorld thinking they would publish it themselves, but found there was already well-funded competition with Berkeley Systems Flying Toasters and were forced to abandon the project.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#248

Post by criddell »

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #129
jayd16 wrote: post #79

The Neo seems kind of nice but I don't really see how it's more significant than "a nice low end computer." The article reads like its fire from Olympus but a nicer screen and trackpad is only incrementally better than what was available in Chromebooks and cheap PCs. Personally I think a the Steam Machine will have a better chance to cheat a general computing device into the home of someone not looking for it. The Ne…

you're commenting on an ad for Apple of course it will praise the product like it's golden, turning disadvantages into "that's actually the good part"

It must be a drag going through life as a cynic.

The idea that constraints aid in creativity is not new.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#249

Post by BoxOfRain »

mr_briggs wrote: post #151

> A Chromebook’s ceiling is made of web browser, and the things you run into are not the edges of computing but the edges of a product category designed to save you from yourself. I'm in the same boat as the author; I cut my teeth on a hand-me-down 2005 eMac, then a hand-me-down 2008 Macbook, before finally getting my own 2011 iMac. I think this is overly harsh on Chromebooks given they belong to the cheaper end of t…

When my mates at school had the aero glass effect on the new Windows, my ancient hand-me-down laptop wouldn't even try to run it. It could however run Compiz somewhat if it was persuaded very hard!

That's basically the reason I learned Linux initially, and those hours debugging video driver issues would serve me well later on.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#250

Post by shmeeed »

lapcat wrote: post #29

In my opinion, this article looks like a straw man argument, and the author appears to completely misinterpret "This is not the computer for you." Such a statement needs to be understood in the relevant context. It's not intended to discourage kids from buying a Mac! Rather, it's intended to rebut critics who are already Mac owners and who scoff at the MacBook Neo technical specs, such as RAM. The computer is indeed…

I don't know why you're downvoted. No matter how many feel-good anecdotes the author tacks to their article, to me the premise appears a strawman. It would have been entirely possible to make pretty much all the same points about just getting a used Thinkpad, or anything really.

My first laptop as a kid was a passed-down business Toshiba that was to be scrapped. I then bought a soldering iron to fabricate a serial dongle in order to reset the BIOS password that was locking it down, and then installed Xubuntu on it. Guess young me shoulda gotten a Macbook instead to inspire the true spirit of freedom and exploration?

It's an old and persuasive myth of the Apple community that of course it's not about the tool, but what you do with it creatively. Still, they never fail to mention how the tool being an Apple is important in one way or another. I just don't get it.

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