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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

#51
post #43

Corollary A: As I get older, it is seriously hard to stay interested in video games: more and more, it feels like playing with little toy cars. I have more and more a hard time accepting the "lore" which pretends to be "serious"... which is actually clearly made for teens/young adults, and often lack coherence even at following the "rules" of their universe or abuse in a cheap way the deus ex machina. Basically, I ne…

I feel the same way about games— especially AAA titles. I can’t be bothered. Some games that you might consider for giving you a unique feeling without any pretentious nonsense: Limbo, Inside, Journey, Planet of Lana.

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

#52

There’s plenty of old technology to explore!

This. I love getting stuck into new-to-me technologies that are tried, tested, and still around. Is this a good idea from a career perspective? I'm not sure. While I knew some SQL before, I'm deep diving now and I'm sure that'll be useful in snagging future jobs in the data space. But learning Lisp? The principles and perspectives I pick up will no doubt be applicable elsewhere, but perhaps not the language. But then again, not everything is about career progression — I'm really doing it for fun and on that front it's certainly delivering!

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

#53
I think it's interesting that the time horizon being discussed here is so short.

I don't think I've cared about new technology... ever. I have cared about "new to me" technology at several points in my life.

When I was a teenager, the world was FULL of new (to me) technology, and I ate it all up. Programming in QBasic and Turbo Pascal, using hex editors to figure out file formats in my video games and mod them, building PCs from parts. Along the way to my late 30s, a few more new to me things produced excitement: GIS, Bash, Vim, Raspberry Pis, 3D printing, Linux containers, etc. I was years late to all of those parties, but still happy when I got there.

No amount of adopting the new version of an existing thing will ever replicate the joy and wonder of encountering something entirely new to you, and as you stay in the industry longer, there just aren't as many completely-new-to-you things to come across. Now, I have more excitement learning new things that have absolutely no connection to tech, because it's still novel enough to be exciting. Small engine repair, biology, and carpentry have sparked more wonder in my more recent years than anything I did on a computer.

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

#54

I'm quite excited about technology. I'm not too excited about the sloppy seconds in technology. We seem to substitute performance for convience. For example the whole need for FSR in rendering to just to get playable performance shouldn't be the desired output. It seems like we keep settling for the half ass solution. AAA Games coming onto desktops needing 4090 with DLSS just to be playable at 4k just feels wrong.

Desktop PC gaming may have spelled its own doom with these GPU prices. I have a 11900K, 4070 and 990 Pro but my next system may be one of those handhelds. I tried to get a fair price on a GPU for a very long time. I won’t be doing that again. On needing a 4090, I think the problem is 4K. These games are getting pretty advanced, and 4K is a very large number of pixels. I like it for the additional horizontal real esta…

Mind if I ask what made you purchase one of the worst CPUs ever? That 11900 is in the same category as the pentium D 820

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

#56
post #5

When you're a kid, everything is magical and the world is paradise. When you're an adult, everything is set in stone and the world is out of touch. When you're an elder, nothing is as it was anymore and what world is this?

Correlary: Technology that existed when you were a child is considered normal. Technology introduced when you are a teen or 20 something is exciting. New technology after 40 is scary.

That’s an interesting way to look at it. For a certain generation like me though, I’m over 40 but under 50, all the new technology coming out is trivial. Appliances. The desktop PC era from the Commodore to DOS and Linux and even Windows with a complex set up, is far more challenging than anything coming out today.

I think there is a generation of technologists that are the prime era. Not too old to have lived the simple life. And not too young to be living the simple life of the iPad. At least in regards to technology.

The modern life is very challenging if you’re doing it right. There is a lot to research and be responsible for unless you just run around signing your life away on paperwork without properly educating yourself about mortgages, real estate, housing. That on top of learning a trade is pretty tough. For the average person at least. And it takes a lot of effort out of everyone. Most people just sluff off though and settle for less. Or blame the system for their condition, since no one is making $50 an hour out of high school anymore, like how it was for decades. One of those two.

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

#57
post #30

Interesting that the Reddit post is about web frameworks and stacks, as the title made me assume this was purely about devices/hardware. Maybe I was projecting my own feelings onto the topic, which are mostly about hardware. As I’ve gotten older, I find it much harder to care about new PC components, cutting edge graphics for video games, and processor cores. I just value stability and consistency above all else

I had the same feeling reading the title, I guess you are right about projecting. Just this morning I realized my old thinkpad is about to throw the towel, thinking about going to find a decent replacement in the current market depresses me.

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

#58
post #43

Corollary A: As I get older, it is seriously hard to stay interested in video games: more and more, it feels like playing with little toy cars. I have more and more a hard time accepting the "lore" which pretends to be "serious"... which is actually clearly made for teens/young adults, and often lack coherence even at following the "rules" of their universe or abuse in a cheap way the deus ex machina. Basically, I ne…

I feel the same way about games— especially AAA titles. I can’t be bothered. Some games that you might consider for giving you a unique feeling without any pretentious nonsense: Limbo, Inside, Journey, Planet of Lana.

Limbo, Journey... yep

Heard about Inside, and lurking on Planet of Lana (but I need to validate it runs well in a lean wine+vkd3d build before #noproton).

(I am waiting for some of them since I played their demo, don't recall all the names)

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

#59
Basically what I wrote in a different thread:

I get idea that some parts of the front-end ecosystem are designed to be busy work, or at least usually turn out to be. But not all of us work in a SaaS development team that can affort 30% or 40% to just play with front-end build systems. Some of us work for clients instead, and need to make the best of the time we have. And more often than not, that means excluding risk factors like large parts of the NPM ecosystem. Limiting things to some simple gulp, dart-sass and some terser to “build” the front-end.

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