I like technology (mostly pre-2010), but I think there’s been a philosophical shift in the things that modern tech companies prioritize. AI is a huge part of the problem obviously, but it’s more of a symptom than a cause.
I want something that I can repair and modify. I want the internals to be easy to access and made out of parts cheap enough for me to replace. I want to be able to play pretend like I’m Terry Davis and not have to deal with UEFI bullshit telling me what I can and can’t run on my computer.
It’s all a move to walled gardens with very limited access to the OS or hardware, where the focus is on touch screens and amplified UIs. I’m the kind of person who customized Xmonad and Vimperator (RIP, I know there are dupes but it’s not the same) to never even bother with a mouse, and so it all feels unnatural. I spend so much time fighting my autocorrect when I’m on windows or Mac products, another one of those “helpful” features that is forced and obnoxious.
It’s a move from computers as toy (LEGO set) to computers as toy (needoh squishy). They’ve become machines designed to deliver content and extract data while you zone out. Some of the most fucking fun I’ve had in my life has been spending 6 hours writing PERL to do something I probably could have done manually in 30 minutes or strange journeys into the windows registry as I try to figure out why all of my / changed into ¥, and that’s just not the vibe of anything in modern technology. Everything is designed to hide as much of itself from you.
I like technology (mostly pre-2010), but I think there’s been a philosophical shift in the things that modern tech companies prioritize. AI is a huge part of the problem obviously, but it’s more of a symptom than a cause.
I want something that I can repair and modify. I want the internals to be easy to access and made out of parts cheap enough for me to replace. I want to be able to play pretend like I’m Terry Davis and not have to deal with UEFI bullshit telling me what I can and can’t run on my computer.
It’s all a move to walled gardens with very limited access to the OS or hardware, where the focus is on touch screens and amplified UIs. I’m the kind of person who customized Xmonad and Vimperator (RIP, I know there are dupes but it’s not the same) to never even bother with a mouse, and so it all feels unnatural. I spend so much time fighting my autocorrect when I’m on windows or Mac products, another one of those “helpful” features that is forced and obnoxious.
It’s a move from computers as toy (LEGO set) to computers as toy (needoh squishy). They’ve become machines designed to deliver content and extract data while you zone out. Some of the most fucking fun I’ve had in my life has been spending 6 hours writing PERL to do something I probably could have done manually in 30 minutes or strange journeys into the windows registry as I try to figure out why all of my / changed into ¥, and that’s just not the vibe of anything in modern technology. Everything is designed to hide as much of itself from you.