I often think about "computer bad" and similar defeatism — so much is fixable via training, customization + just not buying garbage (which requires money, money solves a lot of problems!).
I'll never understand folks complaining about something they have the means to fix.
@fasterthanlime also, French people are apparently known to complain a lot. The whole "the Olympics will surely fail" vibe seems like something that wouldn't happen elsewhere.
@remidupre yup, I get why French expats in the US find it hard to come back to the homeland: unbridled positivity (US) vs unbridled negativity (FR) is a shock. I hang out mostly online so France is bearable x)
@fasterthanlime I mean a lot of this is monetary, like you say.
Like a lot of the job calculus is that a lot of modern frameworks are actually, complete and utter garbage in their failure modes, design, etc. And then its a question of - do I want to work with systems that progressively suck the life out of me like a technological vampire, or do I want to not eat.
@fasterthanlime I have bought everything from a $100 Celeron laptop to a $10k Threadripper system. There's still things wrong with the Threadripper that I absolutely can't fix (broken BMC & NIC firmware). A lot of stuff just sucks. I get the sentiment, though.
I guess for me key insights were: anyone who says "it just be like that sometimes" simply hasn't put the requisite effort into it, that my work output and health depend directly on the equipment I have, and that it's okay to take yourself seriously and invest in yourself.
I notice this elsewhere — that things aren't nearly as bad as reported. French administration, driving in Paris, both infamous: turns out? Not that bad! There's rules, a culture, a vibe, but it can be learned, it's solvable. It's not an unquantifiable, anxiety-inducing evil.
@fasterthanlime Yeah, this is key - things can be better, and in order for that to happen, we have to actively make the effort to envision what that is.
@fasterthanlime
Related to that it's human nature to always want something you don't have yet. Positive: it's striving to improve yourself, the world. Negative: billionaire <plenty of bad examples>
@fasterthanlime There are only so many things you can fix before you are overwhelmed. Sure, each individual thing is fixable if you devote your time and resources to it. But there are so many things right now, that even the need to decide which one is the most important to work on is paralyzing.
"Simply hasn't put the requisite effort into it" is the most ableist thing I've heard today.
@deshipu you're choosing to interpret my words with a specific framing that's clearly different from the one I had when writing them. that's your prerogative!