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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Mac's. we like knowing when we bite into an apple, what we are going to getyup. 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
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What, rotten to the core? 
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
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to the coreouch, ouch...  ya don't see me with none of them virii on my computer...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
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Then there's the older programmer's lament to his sweetheart:
Don't sit under the Apple IIE
With anyone else but me.
TEd
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
"...you might as well join king Cunet on the shore an rail agaist the rising tide!..."
That tide has already risen as far as it can go. Working with, for, on, around, etc computers was suddenly "cool" because they were dumbed down enough for the people who worry about "cool" to use them. MS made sure the "us" and "them" culture of computer *use continued, but that's another story. The fad is over and now it's starting to look like that 'avacado' colored refrigerator did in 1980... for those who need to stay *cool, anyway.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
refrigerator ... for those who need to stay *cool, anyway. Groannnnnn!
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
dumbed down enough
I'm not sure I agree with your overall point, but I do think this is a mischaracterization. Computers have gotten easier to build, program, and use. This allows dumbing down, but it's not dumbing down in itself.
Example:
Back in engineering school, we actually had to build a microcomputer from scratch and write a simple monitor program in assembler. When I say "from scratch," I mean "from the chip up" including putting capacitors across a 555 chip to get the internal timing correct, laying down the wiring, addressing the interface chips, polling, interrupts, the whole thing. Nowadays, I hear people talk about building their PCs and I know they mean something completely different. They buy a motherboard here, a chassis there, plunk, plunk, plunk and they're done. But the equipment is not dumbed down, per se. At about the time I was making my own microcomputer, one could purchase a Radio Shack computer called a TRS-80 running TRSDOS. It was a great computer really - very reasonably priced, but still far beyond anything I could afford. You crack open the case and it looked pretty interesting. My friends had all made mods to theirs - adding capacitors to the keyboard to reduce keybounce, jumpers all over the place for reasons I've long since forgotten, homemade "paddleboards."
When I look at the computers now, though, I'm continually amazed. The layouts are so neat, the designs (even of the mediocre boards) are clean. It's so obvious that they've got this fabrication thing down and they're using some very good software for design and control. It's like someone who's built a log cabin walking into the World Trade Center (well, when there was a WTC).
Is there a dumbing down effect? Well, in the sense that it allows people who otherwise would not have been computer users to make productive use of the computers. It adds something to their lives: entertainment, livelihood, whatever.
In some sense, I can follow the "cool" argument. Having access to computer games could be like having cell-phones. I see 8 and 9 year olds with cell phones. I have one myself (although I'm an ardent critic of the way they are misused). Even my 14 yo has one. Interesting, though, there's a kid in her school who got one and was harassing her for not having having one. (She had one, she just didn't wave it around.) There's always a group of people who think because they have the best tennis shoes or the newest DVD that they are somehow superior. Would that this were limited to adolescents. I suppose I agree with the general argument.
(OTOH, I think there's "really cool" and there's "cool for the sake of appearances." )
It's the specific comment on "dumbing down" I'm choking on. There's just this general trend in technologies - to remove possibilities for error, to make things simpler. From clocks to cars to network routers, when new technologies arise, they initially require people with modest specialized skills to look after them, but eventually the technology improves to where any bonehead can use it.
Look at it from the other way: imagine that using the net required one to make one's own computer - really make one's own computer, write your own OS, build your own modem, and so on. Could you do it? I know I'd have to do some serious review to start something like that. I've never actually written an entire OS. I've never built a modem. In any case it would be a lot of work - huge investment of time. Figure what percentage of people now on the net would remain if there were this sort of initiation rite?
Early on in my job, I used to do my own upgrades, fix my own problems - in fact, people were often asking me to fix stuff for them instead of calling the tech guys. Then I realized I was spending way too much time on this mundane stuff. First, I wasn't doing what I was get paid to do. Second, I wasn't making these other guys do what they were getting paid to do. Third, and probably most important, I was denying these guys the opportunity to learn by solving different kinds of problems. It's a REALLY hard thing not to get irritated and do things myself. Generally I've disciplined myself to call on the computer services people to do most things. This is a lot easier now that I have a certain group of people I know who are actually good at what they do. This is another thing - these really good guys have certainly benefited from the trend of technological improvement (the "dumbing down"). These guys can actually use oscilloscopes, voltmeters, etc. - correctly. They don't have a lot of need for that - BUT they also have strong logical skills and a strong experiential base. So they aren't resigned to the usual method of computer repair - replace every component, almost randomly, until the thing works. Not only can they solve problems better than the lesser techs, they can solve them 5 to 100 times faster than I can (literally).
On the other hand, there's way too much work for this elite group to do on their own. They help lay out the general plan, they take care of some of the harder problems, and they let the novices do the simple stuff like OS installs, replacing keyboards, ghosting drives, and the like.
One might argue - and I have heard people argue - that MS is a step backward. You could argue it several ways, but the initial install procedure for MS, imo, is really good. Also this PNP stuff (did they steal this idea from apple?) - I just get a memory stick and plug it in - it works with no hassle. Is it "dumbed down"? Well, yea, but it's saving me time. I don't want to spend an afternoon looking for drivers, talking to people on the phone, only to discover it doesn't work.
When I was much younger and the door-to-door religion salespeople would come to my door, I would very often talk to them for hours and hours. I don't do it any more. I just don't have that kind of time. I'm extremely grateful that technology has gotten easier to use. If that's dumbed down, I'm all for it. Give me more of it. If I gotta listen to some inconsiderate imbecile yell loudly into his cell phone while I'm trying to eat dinner or read a book, well, it's not a huge price to pay for getting back some time.
k
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 6,511 |
I'll happily stick with my Mac, she signed, dumbly.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
First time I got a Mac at work, I was horrified. The Mac Shuffle (if you've been a Mac owner for a long time, you know what I mean) was a continual annoyance. When cheap hard drives became available at the 40 MB level and above, that problem was eliminated.
The other annoying thing was the appearance of that stupid bomb icon for reasons only those who had been initiated into the mysteries could fathom. It's the Mac equivalent of the PC's Blue Screen of Death. I no longer hate Macs. Also, I hear their OS is based on unix now, which is great. Before I got my dual processor PC, my machine used to crash several times a week - sometimes every day for a week. PC's seem to handle resource management very poorly. I got into the habit of rebooting every morning whether I needed it or not. The fellow in the adjoining office, oth, has had the same Mac for nearly two years - running almost 24/7. He's only rebooted the thing about 4 or 5 times ever - and just last Thursday he was telling me he had his first system crash - in nearly two years. There's a difference between us, though. He was using a Mac for administrative purposes (email, writing papers, briefing slides, etc) and an SGI for his substantive work. I was using a single processor PC (NT) for both things simultaneously. In my view, NT was a real operating system which distinguished it from it's predecessors which were almost monitor programs. OTOH, the things which distinguished NT as what I would call a real operating system (like resource management and process level security) didn't seem to be implemented very well.
Anyway, the Mac is a great computer. It's different than what I'm currently accustomed to, though. And it's very difficult for me (and probably most other people) to wrap my mind around new ways of thinking and behaving. I get into a rhythm and I don't like changing. (Hey, I refused to use full screen editors for about a decade after I first saw them. I stuck not with a line editor, but a character editor called TECO.) Part of it is stubbornness, but part of it is just being tired of learning a new thing every couple months.
k
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