51–58 of 58 posts
For that matter, kids might still find machines with big displays and keyboards useful, since writing an essay or term paper on an iPad probably wouldn't be a very pleasant experience. (Or do kids not get writing assignments in school anymore?)
On that blog, stupid is definitely winning.
On that blog, stupid is definitely winning.
The insight and creativity with which you discuss the concepts brought up in the article greatly raises the HN level of discourse.
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"There will never be one winner." There will, however, be many losers, and PCs are going to be one of those losers. The form factor won't die, but the philosophy and freedom will die. It is inevitable, given the priorities people have and the money to be made. If things continue going the way they are going, the only computers that will give users the freedom to do what we can do now will be locked away in research l…
I actually don't think that computers capable of doing stuff other than media consumption will get more expensive. I actually think the opposite will happen and you can already see the start of this. Look at things like Raspberry Pi , ODROID and arduino. Very hackable stuff at rock bottom prices. With faster internet connectivity comes access to remote virtual machines which can be rented by the hour and make stuff l…
This. While in one sense it is profitable to rope off technology and control it - having the general population embrace the skill set of working with computers is far more profitable overall for everyone.
In 100 years, every single person will have grown up in a world dominated by electronics with the presence of the internet. Being a fact of life makes the barrier of entry a lot lower than it is today when there are more options.
I was looking through old computer magazines from the 1980s and thinking about my youth when there were numerous incompatible microcomputer platforms that had some popularity at some point such as * TRS-80 Models I and III * VIC 20, C-64, C-128 * Apple II, II+, IIe, ... * CP/M systems based on the S-100 bus * IBM PC and way too many others to mention. Eventually the PC and the Mac won out, except for a few Amiga fana…
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A more concise argument is that your Android tablet that is Junior's first computing experience is significantly less hackable than your Commodore 64, which was more hackable than your DOS machine, which was more hackable than your Windows 95 machine, which was more hackable than your XP machine, et. cetera. Devices provide higher levels of abstraction from the tweak and tunables on the system, but only now are we se…
> but only now are we seeing devices where there is no easy way to actually write code for them, on them Ah, very good point. Well, today's devices still lack the hacking essentials: pointer/mouse/variant, keyboard, large screen ; maybe a decade of advance will give us usable virtual keyboards/pointers/what-have-you, projection displays on all handhelds and THEN no manufacturer will able to hold back the onslaught of…
The real breakpoint is that you can't build software for the device on the device anymore, with the exception of web apps.
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A more concise argument is that your Android tablet that is Junior's first computing experience is significantly less hackable than your Commodore 64, which was more hackable than your DOS machine, which was more hackable than your Windows 95 machine, which was more hackable than your XP machine, et. cetera. Devices provide higher levels of abstraction from the tweak and tunables on the system, but only now are we se…
Really good (long) summary, zanny. That was what I had garnered from the article's musings. It's something I've thought about a lot myself actually. How would I give a child the opportunity to learn to hack or program if they wanted to? For me it started with c-64 basic cause it wasn't compiled, then visual basic when I was like 13... I guess C# or Java could probably be taught very easily, but it feels like starting…
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> but only now are we seeing devices where there is no easy way to actually write code for them, on them Ah, very good point. Well, today's devices still lack the hacking essentials: pointer/mouse/variant, keyboard, large screen ; maybe a decade of advance will give us usable virtual keyboards/pointers/what-have-you, projection displays on all handhelds and THEN no manufacturer will able to hold back the onslaught of…
Honestly, those are just ease of use constraints - people with the right mentality will break through barriers to manipulate the device. A bluetooth keyboard and mouse are sufficient, and you can plug a tablet into a bigger display (though that is definitely not the new-hacker use case). The real breakpoint is that you can't build software for the device on the device anymore, with the exception of web apps.
Right, but that's because the open source programmers don't see the point; if it's already a hassle to find and buy the proper hardware to turn your device into a full-blown ergonomic development environment, they figure it's not worth the effort to even think about software.
But if devices already come with easy to use virtual interfaces -- Google Glasses seems to solve the big screen problem, now we just need a virtual keyboard and mouse idea -- it's only a matter of time before veteran hackers say "This is ripe for a community, let's crack this baby open".