> Eh. I'd argue while some of the objects have improved - I'm not sure my life has improved because of them.
This is exactly right. So many "improvements" are cool or interesting, but either provide no meaningful improvement to one's life (e.g. streaming vs. VHS) or actually detract from our lives on balance, e.g. smartphones.
Streaming TV shows means I can watch them at a convenient time for me, pausing at leisure, not having to waste time on adverts. In practice this means my wife and I can work through series 45 minutes a night, perhaps only one or two nights a week at whatever time it happens to be after kids are down.
Smartphones can be used in unhealthy ways for sure, but they are almost unreal when you consider how things have changed in the last few decades (looking at my own time):
90s: Shared house lines were the norm, long distance calls expensive-ish, international definitely.
Early 2000s: Personal cellphones pretty common.
Mid 2000s: Home VoIP becoming accessible through Skype, but not mainstream, generally requires a full PC, inconvenient, either for computer enthusiasts or family wanting to do free overseas calls. You would have to hope or arrange other person to be online with Skype at the same time.
Late 2000s: Smartphones are a thing, voip from your pocket is finally accessible, not everyone has smartphones yet, but you can use Skype credit to call anyone in the world at a reasonable cost.
Mid 2010s: smartphones are pretty much ubiquitous, FaceTime (and later equivalent on WhatsApp) mean that you can now talk to almost anyone with very high quality video anywhere in the world basically for free.
What does this mean for me? I regularly FaceTime my parents completely casually with my young children, sometimes just before sleep or in the afternoon or whenever, no ceremony or hassle.
My wife’s sister moved to New Zealand (we live in South Africa) 7 years ago and they FaceTime more than once a week on average with nieces and nephews.
I lived in Europe from 2006 to 2012, and I wish I had in 2006 what I have now in smartphones, maps for most everywhere always available), translation tools always available.
Having experienced the advent of cellphones in my lifetime, they are almost unbelievable to someone who grew up with the full sized PCs which were a lot less capable than a device which now fits in my hand.
that's 10 cents per american (still crazy!), but not $30, and $30 is only for Harvard much less how much federal funds go to other schools
Obviously I'd rather that 10 cents go to something productive, but on the national stage trump golfing feels like just a distraction from much more important topics
Still have a T420 I keep in my toolbox in the garage. Use it to watch videos when I'm working on my bike or car. It's covered in grease and oil. Sits out there through summer/winter, high humidity, etc yet always boots up when I plug it in.
Because of some line on a spreadsheet. It's certainly not due to some kind of educated reason because that would imply... intelligence. Which we now know Elon Musk does not possess.
I was just listening to a podcast that made the observation that in the tech world, decisions often have tight feedback loops, if Musk lays off a team it could be as fast as days or weeks that he figures out that that team was necessary for something.
But seed vaults? We may be talking decades long feedback loops.
That would imply rationality. It's rage trolling anyone who pays enough attention to care, while posturing for sympathy that he is a victim. His hideous naked id.
The top of the homepage says File Pilot was made from scratch (so I'd expect inherently less technical debt than something that's been around since the 90's). Comparing its screenshots to Directory Opus, it looks less cluttered, or at least slightly different. The interface looks like it adheres to the Windows 11 design style a little more, versus Directory Opus's screenshots looking like Windows 8-10.
If I used Windows regularly, I'd probably appreciate having another option, just as I appreciate (and even take for granted) the ability to switch between various options on Linux.
On the other hand, 35 years of cruft also represents 35 years of accumulated knowledge about what people want from a file manager. So one should not dismiss Directory Opus based upon a few screenshots.
Fresh blood is certainly a good thing though. I am just arguing that we should not dismiss something based upon its age or cosmetics.
(Directory Opus is one of the few things that I miss while using Linux.)
This. So excited for the Ortus gang. They basically have taken all the good bits from CFML and gotten rid of all the old, outdated baggage that Adobe (and Lucee) insist on continuing to support.
As I get older the one thing these designer overlook is aging eyesight. My Honda has decent controls but the small display (like on these knobs) is very difficult to see sitting still. At night, while driving - it's impossible. The icons are tiny. Given the size of the current screens in cars - that's a lot of real estate for knobs. Use it.
On the other hand, one of the most important aspects of physical controls is that you shouldn't need to look at them to operate them, as your eyes should remain on the road.
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