gdritter repos when-computer / 929b552
A few more edits Getty Ritter 8 years ago
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55 way, even on smaller or irrelevant topics. It's striking to me that I am
66 very used to writing in the abstract—I probably write a novel's worth on various
77 chat services every week or so—but when I start to do long-form
8 writing, I tend to overthink things, get bogged down in details,
8 writing, I tend to over-think things, get bogged down in details,
99 and then give up.\ref{blog}
1010 \sidenote
1111 {
2727 programming languages, and I've done reading about
2828 a whole slew of odd topics, but especially food and language
2929 and notations and just plain weirdness. So \em{reason two} for
30 this blog is that I can try to take all this miscellanea and
30 this blog is that I can try to take all this miscellany and
3131 throw it into a place that's not just my head.
3232
3333 Number three: I'll probably write a lot about computers—I am,
4242
4343 I think for a
4444 lot of people, that feeling tends to fade over time, once you
45 look into the guts of the machine and you notice all the
46 cut corners and awkward edges that exist in our modern computering
47 environments,
48 to say nothing of the even worse state of the culture and
49 social structures that surround computers. We have amazing
45 look into the guts of the machine and notice all the
46 cut corners and awkward edges that exist in our modern
47 computing environments,
48 to say nothing of the even worse state of the cultural,
49 social, and economic structures that surround computing.
50 We have amazing
5051 underlying ideas that we've obscured with layers of cruft
51 and a thick forest of hacks, argued over with fervor by
52 and a thick forest of hacks, argued over with unwarranted fervor by
5253 cliques of short-sighted super-specialists who don't know what
53 history their craft has (to say nothing of the insights
54 they'd gain from it), all deployed in the service of widespread
54 history their craft is (to say nothing of what insights
55 they'd stand to gain from studying it),
56 all deployed in the service of widespread Orwellian
5557 surveillance both public and private, or at least in the service
5658 of blandly Objectivist reimaginings of existing service companies
57 with a thin veneer of web-view disguising the same old greedy
58 hucksters selling the same old snake oil. It's not hard to get
59 disillusioned.
59 with a thin veneer of WebView disguising the same old greedy
60 hucksters playing the same cynical capitalist game.
61 It's not hard to get disillusioned.
6062
6163 Certainly, it's important to be aware of those problems—but
6264 I also think that if we're ever going to iron out those problems,