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0 pointsuserbinator12y ago0 comments

> Given that mindset, what do you gain by having Administration rights to your new-age VT-100 Personal Computer?

The freedom and power to control what's yours. A chance to explore, to learn more about the system you're using and possibly adapt it to fit your needs. IMHO giving users that chance is very important: how many experienced developers started out as power users - who also were originally only users? By taking away these chances, keeping regular users relatively oblivious, fewer of them will want to go through the increasing hassle of "becoming a developer"; it becomes an abrupt decision instead of the continuum of knowledge it once was. This divide between "users" and "developers/administrators" only makes it harder for users to cross that gap, and takes control away from them.

> If you want to fiddle with hardware yourself, you get a Raspberry Pi [...] These devices are open in ways Personal Computers never were, having everything from schematics to JTAG pins available.

Funny you mention the RPi, as it's nowhere close to being as open as the PC/AT was.

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derefr12y ago· 2 in thread

You seem to be conflating "developer" with "administrator", which I just don't understand.

Want to be a developer? Download https://love2d.org/, open Notepad and write some Lua, save it in the same directory and run the executable. Or write some text that starts "<script>", save it as HTML, and double-click it. Or download Racket and follow the tutorials. Or, if you really insist on writing low-level code, download {Visual Studio Express, XCode Command Line Tools, Debian build-essential} and open up a shell. Learning to program has only gotten easier and easier over the decades.

But wanting to be an Administrator? What for?

Do you want to Administer your DVD player? It's an appliance. It plays DVDs. It works well because it only plays DVDs.

PCs are appliances. They run, in sandboxed environments, "application software", which are binary packages code-signed-by-proxy by the OS developer. They work well because they only do this. And within the framework of these restrictions, you can still program new software, or an entirely new OS. These are tasks this appliance lets you perform.

You can build your own computer. It won't be an appliance. You can also build your own DVD player. It won't be an appliance either. Is it so bad, then, that DVD players exist for playing DVDs? Is it so bad, then, that PCs exist for running sandboxed code-signed applications?

diydsp12y ago

<sarcasm> What do you have a kitchen for? You can microwave TV dinners all you want. If you want to make your own recipe, say because you want to be healthy, or don't like the flavor of TV dinners, you can just make a simulated Real Recipe out of pieces of TV dinners. It's almost as good.

Just let someone else more qualified than you, or well maybe not more qualified, but more in charge than you, decide what you should eat. Selecting a restaurant or frozen dinner has only gotten easier and easier over the decades. But wanting to be a cook? What for?

And why do you need a camera? People should be able to sell you pictures of whatever you want a picture of. There should be enough pictures of everyone on Facebook already. Or, if you really insist on having a picture of something or someone that a Big Corporation doesn't have, just get out some crayons and sketch them. Buying crayons and coloring books has only gotten easier and easier over the decades. But why take your own pictures, what for?

And what do you need musical instruments for? Want to be a musician? Just download some songs that have already been written and play them in a different order on your DRM-closed player. Or, if you really insist on having your own choice in music, just call a radio station and request something. Calling and requesting songs has only gotten easier and easier over the decades. But wanting to make your own music or start your own band? What for?

And that address bar on your web browser? Just go to yahoo.com, and click all the links there. They already know what's good for you. If you really insist on having your own, post to a social network. Starting a web page on Facebook/google has only gotten easier and easier over the decades.

But wanting to go to whatever websites you want - or make your own websites? What for? </sarcasm>

derefr12y ago

Er, did you miss the part where I said "You can build your own computer. It won't be an appliance"?

Most kitchens have microwaves in them. Sometimes a microwave is the best tool for a job. (For defrosting red meat, for example.) But chefs don't insist on forcing their microwave to somehow do all their kitchen-related tasks; they use other tools, each with its own affordances, each with a best-suited task, together, to get done what they want done.

Likewise, a home-entertainment system usually has a DVD player in it. You don't try to use your DVD player as a PVR, or a video-game machine. You use separate devices for each of those tasks.

A capital-c-Computer is an amazing machine that can do many things equally well--it's sort of like an undifferentiated stem-cell. I completely understand wanting to use a capital-c-Computer, just for the sheer neatness-factor of it.

But a PC? The modern PC isn't a capital-c-Computer. The modern PC is a microwave, a DVD player. Like the microwave, like the DVD player, you likely have one in your toolkit--in fact, you likely use it for a lot of things. But it'd be silly to expect it to do everything.

You can have your capital-C-Computer and a PC too. Neither of them is going anywhere.

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