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- Hacker News
- This post resonates with me. I remember in Kindergarten getting my very first life experience with computing tech: grounding myself by touching the bottom screws of a Apple IIe. I've loved them in nearly the same way as OP.
I get the way he feels. I remember how special this stuff used to be because of how niche it was. It does feel a bit like the normies co-opted it but that is my personal and selfish view.
by Yhippa - Takes me back to the time where I would pickup any books that taught anything about computers/programming. I was too young to understand any of it, but the fact that there's this knowledge to be unlocked, that would then let me do new things with this white boxy device on my table top - was truly addictive.
I can't say the feeling remains because most new stuff that I learn now is not runnable on my machine now. Tech has gone back to the days when owning hardware that's capable of running the latest has become a costly affair.
by lewisjoe - Mr. Enger echos a lot of thoughts that I (and a lot of people on these forums) seem to have. We can still make an attempt to remake what we love, with personal websites and self-hosting. However modern architecture kills even that with DDoS attacks and IP blacklists on everything. It is no wonder that people are starting to promote alternate protocols like Gemini (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297467) that explicitly make it impossible for many of the evils of the World Wide Web to be repeated.by Shellban
- Computers used to have unlimited promise and potential.
then at some point, the balance started tipping.
Things I specifically remember:
- half life required you to register online to install your single-player game from CD
- turbotax would only install on one computer.
- software started rooting around on your system and uploading the findings
- the iphone didn't let you install your own software
- microsoft. enough said.
by m463 - > Computers used to have unlimited promise and potential.
Imo 90s sci-fi had a lot of this techno optimism, even if the settings were often dystopian. Cyberpunk was pretty wild and who knows a lot of that could still come to pass.
by le-mark - At some point, we were the owners of the machine. More importantly, this was normal. We could do whatever we wanted, and the corporations just had to accept it. World changing technology. Limitless potential.
Now it's the opposite. The computers belong to the corporations. They're just generously allowing us to use them, and only in ways that they profit off of. Computers, arguably humanity's most important invention, reduced to interactive television, a mere vehicle for corporate advertsing and surveillance capitalism.
It's truly disgusting. Makes me sad like nothing else.
- The personal computer is empowering, the thing client connecting to a mainframe isn't.
AI local rigs feel like the pc did in 1980.
by noosphr - The computer is awesome, and so helpful. However, what some people, companies, governments, organizations have done with the computer are NOT so awesome.by NoSalt
- > Nearly two decades after that first introduction, a therapist would speculate that my interest in computers could stem from how it was a rare point of stability in a life where I ended up leaving my home and my friends every few years.
This line hits really close to home. :-/
by munificent - I got emotional here as well.by alex_x
- I think we all sympathize and feel this way.
But it's also because we are getting older, and we are romanizing those sleepless nights getting 3D acceleration to work in Slackware with Dropline Gnome. Our first chat experiences, first emails, IRC, making your first website, getting your first server online...
It's easy to think that the weary giants of steel messed up our beloved internet, and they certainly took a large share of it (and indeed messed it up). But our internet is still there, faster and better than ever, and there are still social spaces naturally independent of the tyrannies they seek to impose on us. When I go to i.e. FOSDEM I feel that feeling from my youth, it's still very much there.
Ok, it is very annoying that they are messing with the prices of our hardware and I feel that. But that will pass. Perhaps in a year or so we get a wrinkle effect and stuff will be cheap for some time. And we can do "AI" our way (on our terms and hardware).
Let's not get so negative, just try to ignore the negative things and focus on the positive (like my gigabit symmetrical connection whoop whoop, yes it has cgNAT but I have WireGuard).
by teekert - One of the main reasons I fell in love with computers was determinism. I always felt weird seeing people get upset and curse at the C++ compiler. In my mind, the “computer” will always give you the same output for the same input. Therefore, you must be doing something wrong if you’re fighting the compiler. The answer to your problems is in the source code.
This is something LLMs took away from me. I can’t just look at the source code and figure out why a prompt didn’t produce the expected outcome. I have to go with my gut feeling, and with the little I know about LLMs.
On the other hand, LLMs have enabled me to code prototypes that I would have only dreamed about a few years ago.
Do you want your own fancy terminal emulator? Done. A couple of weekends’ worth of work.
How about your own Linux windowing system, running Firefox and a terminal? Done. A couple more weekends.
You always hated KiCad routing, but never had time to go through the code and change it to meet your requirements? No worries. A day’s work.
Of course, none of this is production quality, but it gets you started very fast. And I’m sure you can turn it into a solid, production-quality product in much less time than it would take without using an LLM.
by noncoml - I loved (past tense) the computer.
Many of us here can wax nostalgic on our first memories of a computer in our home. And when we look at the current slab now in front of us with a little less wonder, it's easy to dismiss this as us having grown up with the machines, having become older, perhaps even a little jaded. That spark is gone?
It's also possible though that the machines now just aren't the same as the ones we grew up with.
Personally, I remember beginning to dislike computers a little when I was suddenly tasked with remembering passwords. At first it was simply to log into my machine (didn't need to do that on Mac System 6.0). Then when the internet came along, suddenly it became something of a chore using the machine…
After working 25+ years at Apple, when I finally retired, people have asked me since if I miss working at Apple. I have to tell them "no and yes". I don't miss working at Apple in the 2010's or the 2020's (when I finally retired). I do however miss working at Apple in the 90's, when I began. It was a very different time to be working at Apple. I miss it and have been missing it for several decades now.
by JKCalhoun - What a story. I never had a chance to play with System 6.0, my first one was Mac OSX Maverick...before DOS/W95-98/XP and Debian/Ubuntu...what was it like?by neuropacabra
- > suddenly it became something of a chore using the machine…
That really rings true. I can't believe how frustrating it is to get to a place where I can actually focus and do some work.
1. log into my computer with a pincode
2. log into jira, gitlab, confluence with sso (no automatic sign on)
3. ssh into dev containers with key that requires a password
4. open vscode, again ssh into dev containers with a password protected key
5. Close all the popups from IT (usually get 3-5 a day) in the notification area
Heaven help me if IT decided to force an update (I timed one to be 53 minutes). Some days I feel like a custodian instead of an engineer.
I know it's very much a first world problem, but it's shocking how many barriers exist to get any work done in US corporate world. Startups I've worked at didn't have this problem - just get a macbook and here's your gsuite user/pass.
by fusslo - Back then the whole system was designed to do stuff for us. Now, so much of it is designed to work against us. Monstrous towers of complexity for the sole purpose of stopping you getting a high definition output without copy protection, or download a permanent copy of a video you are watching, or learning how your video card works without a million dollars and an NDA. And there was so much less of it. There's huge swathes of unexecuted code just for rendering text backwards in case I wake up Arabic tomorrow, etc.by Sophistifunk
- I love the computer too. Never more than while writing 6502 assembler for a decades-defunct home computer for literally no purpose at all.
Meanwhile, the economy needs software to be written and I need employment, and I'm lucky enough to have a job that hews somewhat close to my interests, whether that be learning the latest JS framework or to prompt Claude. It's all pretty decent and better than chiselling coal out of a pit for 10 hours a day.
by pmg101 - > It's all pretty decent and better than chiselling coal out of a pit for 10 hours a day.
Your comment has made my day, perhaps my week. Well said.
by fpereiro - I love computers too, but it doesn't resonate with me when people call AI "snake oil." The comparison suggests that the thing doesn't do what it's marketed to do. AI does more or less what it's marketed to do, sometimes badly.
I still write code by hand. But LLMs have been a legitimately useful tool when I've wanted to dig into a new field like computer graphics, theoretical physics, or numerical analysis. Or even just asking the LLM to write a piece of code and learning from its output. I think it makes me a better programmer because I can bootstrap the knowledge needed for a new project much faster and spend more time programming.
by fasterik - I would say the claim that AI is going to replace most white collar work a very snake-oily term. The technology behind it however is very compelling and interesting.by spamizbad
- AI is snake oil. It sells you a slot machine in the guise of a colleague.
Oh, not using it right? Not the right model? Insert coin to continue.
Snake oil, total snake oil.
by specproc - > I think it makes me a better programmer because I can bootstrap the knowledge needed for a new project much faster
faster != better
by tines - > I love computers too, but it doesn't resonate with me when people call AI "snake oil." The comparison suggests that the thing doesn't do what it's marketed to do.
Well yeah, because it doesn't. AI is being claimed to be a magical genius intelligence which will solve everything forever, but in reality LLMs are still idiots you can't trust to not screw up without a tight leash. They can't even do the one thing they are supposed to be good at (programming) well, despite all the effort which has been focused on trying to make them good at it. They don't remotely do what they are marketed to do, not even close!
by bigstrat2003 - The snake oil is how the people at the top scream "in x years we won't need programmers" and end up proving themselves wrong time and time again. It's a real technology and it can do a lot, but it's being sold like snake oil while we're still figuring out what it's actually useful for and how to leverage it properly.by mid-kid
- The fats in Chinese Water Snakes are rich in omega 3s and do have genuine benefits to consumption. The problem with snake oil wasn't that it was useless. The problem was with hucksters selling it as a cure-all for everything from cancer to syphilis. The metaphor is pretty apt IMO.by ux266478
- LLMs remind me of being a kid again being in wonder of all the possible things that could be done with a computer that haven't been figured out yet. The internet was relatively new and everyone had their own ideas of what that would enable. Fast forward to a few years ago and it was easy to believe that a lot of the low-hanging fruit of things an individual could do with the internet, apps, 3d graphics, etc, had been decently picked over and that things were stabilizing. Now I have no idea again what computing will look like in 5 years and it's exciting.by AgentME
- > The comparison suggests that the thing doesn't do what it's marketed to do
In my opinion you should interpret the usage of "AI" here to mean "the entire business/management/financial/bubble ecosystem surrounding LLMs". The snake oil is much more how LLMs are being weaponized and utilized rather than a specific technical assessment (although that often is an issue too)
- I still like the computer itself. Breaking something, poking at it, fixing it, and then it suddenly works. The hard part now is liking the industry around it.by suyavuz
This is exactly how I feel. I fell in love with computing for the same reasons I fell in love with physics and engineering. I love making things. I love the puzzles. I love digging down to understand things. And on top of that, it always ends up being useful. And then I can share my work with others and they get utility out of it too?! What an incredible and fulfilling job/hobby!> The hard part now is liking the industry around it.But now, the industry really kills that passion. I don't believe we're solving real problems, but mostly just solving made up problems that get us money. We've become incredibly dismissive of fixing things and using thought terminating cliques like "I only care that it works"[0] or "don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough"[1]. When finding bugs we end up arguing if it is "valuable"[2] rather than if it actually helps people. I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in discussing if we should fix the problem that were a magnitude more time, per person, than it takes to fix the problem. We've become allergic to deep understanding. We abhor expertise[4]! I thought this was supposed to be a community of nerds? I came to the STEM side because my family was all "business monkeys" and I didn't want any part of that constant BS. There was a real "revenge of the nerds", but the MBAs did strike back.
We're incredibly penny-wise and pound-foolish. We love our sayings, but hate understanding. All to keep that velocity up, but forgot that velocity has direction.
What happened to the time where we could make money AND make meaningful products that make peoples' lives better? (I know, rose colored glasses) That's the real dream, right? That's what we want *an economy* doing, right? Not this bullshit metric hacking. Not this maximizer with complete disregard for the things we're intending to maximize[5]. And for some reason we still look for "passion" in people when hiring, only to beat it out of them when they get hired. And how have we gotten to a point where someone's resume that has "VR + Crypto + AI" is read as impressive rather than the hype chasing giant red flag that it is?
I don't think this is just about computing. It's a bigger cultural phenomena. But without a doubt our field became perverted by whatever this infection is. There's a reason so many are burnt out. The disease creates a negative feedback loop too. We get burnt out, end up just going with the bullshit (tired of fighting), which only creates more bullshit. The feedback has been going on for quite some time now.
I don't know how we push back, but I know I'm not the only one frustrated, and I know if we don't figure out how to make changes soon then we shouldn't be surprised if change happens in an unpredictable and chaotic manner. That steam can only build for so long.
[0] Everyone does you asshole! What we disagree on is if it actually "works"![0.5] [0.5] https://x.com/mitchellh/status/2066657032938442833 [1] Perfection doesn't exist! Only an idiot thinks there's perfect code. What we disagree on is what is actually "good enough"! [2] $$$$ not "does this make the product[3] better" [3] God fuck... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZFTaEenaHM ----> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NeJ3Kg6OUo [4] https://x.com/yacinemtb/status/1836415592162554121 [4.5] Yes, this is the same guy who said QM and Fluid Dynamics are all easy, "its all einops" (I can, with 100% confidence, tell you that it is not. There's entire subfields of mathematics being lost here that are critical to both these subjects. You can't even get through Griffith's with just Linear Algebra and that's barely scratching the surface of QM!) https://x.com/yacinemtb/status/1836428078999851515 [5] A metric is never perfectly aligned with what we intend to measure https://9gag.com/gag/aQ9GEZ7by godelski- The machine is still fun.
It's the five layers of product growth between you and the machine that get tiring.
by aykutseker