Rebuilding the Computer Room

Rebuilding the Computer Room(alexwlchan.net)

49 points by ingve 4 hours ago | 18 comments

I was hoping to see photos here but I didn't see any photo. That's kind of a shame because the write-up was pretty good.

Aldipower 2 hours ago |

My working computer still is a stationary desktop computer. I still need to go somewhere to use a real computer. Love that. I do not like smartphones. Surveillance devices.

utopiah 2 hours ago | |

FWIW I was there few years ago then, as mentioned in a recent comment, moved away from iPhone to deGoogle Android (relying on /e/OS) then GrapeheneOS using nearly exclusively open-source software on it with nearly no dark patterns. It's far from perfect I feel a lot saner now. I don't necessarily advocate for smartphones but I still want to point out some smartphone tailored to your own usage can be less intrusive and surveil radically less, if at all.

Cthulhu_ 2 hours ago |

Part of this is modern house construction too (at least where I live in Europe); the living room / kitchen is just one big room, and upstairs there's two bedrooms (one of which can be split up).

I simply don't have the space to dedicate a room for one specific function. I'd love to be able to e.g. have a guest/living room with no tech, an office room for working, etc on top of separate bedrooms for everyone, but that's only possible now in older houses starting at €600,000 in the more remote parts of the country.

Aperocky 2 hours ago |

> When I walk into my office and sit at my desk, I’m choosing to be there. When I walk away, I have a door I can close, and a life outside the room that the digital world is no longer allowed to reach.

Being intentional is hard, and a little friction helping it is welcome. But I do hope for myself that I can be intentional in everything that I do (this includes having fun, being with family, and even doomscrolling).

wrxd 2 hours ago |

The sad thing about phones being he primary (and in many case the only) computing devices for most people is that they lose the possibility of separating the tasks that the do on the phone vs the tasks that they do on a computer.

hnlmorg 2 hours ago | |

That’s the entire point of why people use a smartphone as their primary device: they don’t want the hassle of having to use a computer. And for normal people (ie not the readership of HN), using a computer is a chore.

Cthulhu_ 2 hours ago | | |

I agree that it can be a chore, but more like, I'll use a real computer for serious tasks like doing my taxes, administration, planning vacations, etc.

matheusmoreira 2 hours ago | |

Smartphones are computers. There's no difference between what you can do in a "real" computer and what you can do on a smartphone. I wrote an entire programming language inside my Android phone with Termux. Perhaps the first language to be born inside a mobile phone.

Any limitations on smartphones are either ergonomic or entirely artificial.

wrxd 41 minutes ago | | |

My point wasn't really about the capability of a phone compared to a computer. I have thoughts on that but it's not the point I was making.

Assigning tasks to devices can be done due to the capabilities of each device but also due to other factors, like what behaviour you want to influence. For example, if you want to spend less time doom-scrolling/on social media/whatever, moving these tasks outside of the computer you have in your pocket and into the computer you need to sit in front of helps.

echoangle 1 hour ago | | |

Technically true but practically you know what people mean when they say that, right? Do you think there’s a 3D artist out there that models and renders something in blender on a smartphone?

topgrain2 1 hour ago | | |

> There's no difference between what you can do in a "real" computer and what you can do on a smartphone.

In fact, it kind of runs the other way: even my "portable" "real" computer is terrible as, say, a camera, or level. It's a bad GPS navigation device, both due to the form factor and it's entirely lacking the hardware for it (technically they can have this, but very few do).

There are lots of things my phone can do that even my laptop, let alone my desktop, practically can't.

utopiah 2 hours ago |

Funnily I had a discussion with someone I barely met yesterday. They commented on my reMarkable Pro, wondering if I liked it.

We discussed a bit and while doing so I pullet out both my paper notepad, my phone but also my XR headset (which just happened to be in my backpack). I also use a bottlecap to sketch in the sand.

My point : anything, literally anything, goes. You can have the best of tools yet think poorly about the most pointless problem. You can have nothing at all, no tool, being in the middle of a very noisy place... and still tackle this brilliantly. If you are flexible and if you tailor YOUR tools to YOUR usage, anywhere and anything should be "good enough".

TL;DR: thinking happens in the mind and only optionally extending it via tools.

utopiah 2 hours ago | |

In retrospect MY first computer, not my parents or school computer, was not a desktop but rather a pocket calculator that I needed for mathematics.

When I noticed I could program on it it definitely expanded my horizon. I was not bound to a desk though and I programmed anywhere. It was a very excited feeling, still is. It does NOT mean being available 24/7 for others though.

FWIW I do also have a computer room with a tower desktop. It's very convenient. I'm not convinced I do my best thinking there. It's mostly convenient to execute, to drill. The actual thinking though happens anywhere, I don't really get to decide where and when.

uwagar 2 hours ago |

gee this chap is young if imac g3 was his first computer. or i'm old.

agalarz 2 hours ago | |

It’s the latter, I’m afraid. I thought the same thing!

TacticalCoder 22 minutes ago |

> Laptops became more convenient for more types of task, and soon they were good enough to be your primary computing device.

> My primary computer is now a desktop with a large monitor, ...

I own several laptops: they're simply inferior computing devices due to their mediocre screen and pathetic keyboards. I'm laying on the couch while typing this on a laptop. That's what it's good for.

My actual workstation has a 38" ultra-wide. Wife's got, in our office room, next to my ultra-wide 38" monitor, a desktop setup with three monitors. She likes screen real-estate too. We've got a T-shaped shared desk, with the multifunction printer/scanner in the middle, "separating" us.

But that's not all: I've got a 38" ultra-wide that does 3840x1600 and there are 12 virtual desktops on it, all carefully arranged.

Friends of mine had a company doing 3D and post-prod for ads and short movies: I don't even remember ever seeing one laptop at their company.

To me a laptop is a stamp-sized version of a desktop: it's asking Da Vinci to paint the Mona Lisa on a stamp.

Do I, at times, do actual work on my 17" LG Gram laptop (a very sweet and very light laptop)? Yes. But I hate every second of it.

It's really not to "compartiment" your life and not always be connected that you should prefer your own chair, your own desk, your gigantic screen real-estate and your fat desktop to a laptop: it's because it's a superior way of working.

Invest in a good chair. Invest in a good keyboard. Invest in big monitor(s). You'll thank me later.

P.S: you're excused if you hook a powerful laptop to a proper keyboard, a proper mouse and fat monitor(s). But then that's basically a desktop.

P.P.S: as a bonus your desktop can use a good old wired Internet connection.