2021-07-13

Re: The Old Computer Challenge: day 3

Solene writes about working with an old/small powerpc based system.

gemini://perso.pw/blog//articles/old-computer-challenge-day3.gmi

Noise

> I forgot the crispy noises of the old HDD.

This made me smile.

I have had an old SGI Oxygen 2 system. This was an amazing machine in several respects. But I used it rarely, because "it made the noise of a combat jet plane while taxiing to the parking point" --- in other words: Unbelievable. However, an Oxygen 2 system was residing on or under a lot of peoples desks. For years. And we had to accept the super noisy SCSI hard drives and fans. And no, I don't want to go back. I definitely enjoy silent systems!

Noise, like light, can turn into sort of pollution. We should not accept more of it. But I disgress.

Short Attention Span

> I'm quite sad to see an older system forcing me to restriction can improve my focus, this mean I'm lacking self discipline and that I've wasted too much time of my life doing useless context/task switching.

Don't be harsh on yourself! I think it is a very good insight, and I'm happy that others are experiencing this, too. I switched to use torbrowser as my main browser several years back. And honestly I cannot stand the presentation of the same websites at $Dayjob (with plain firefox) --- even with NoScript active most of the time.

That being said, I am one of those funny characters, who have read the man page of bash(1) and make(1) from beginning to end[a]. The bash(1) man page several times actually. And I can only recommend doing this, you will probably find a few gems along the way. Today I do not have the patience any more. I can still read long sections, e.g. the "EXPANSION" section. But my attention span has shortened. Partly due to my brain knowing a substantial fraction of things already and getting bored too easily. When I start skipping paragraphs, I'm not patient enough and should probably be doing something else.

Cheers,

~ew

--

[a] I also read a printed out copy of the emacs info manual, probably version 18 or 19. What an adventure in text! Circa 1993.

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