WTF has gone right! with the (PC) World?

In response to HTWingNut’s thread here, I want to offer a different counterpoint, in addition to agreeing with most of the counterpoints by others in his thread.


Today, we are living in a world that has dulled our sense of wonder, sharpened our hunger for bigger/better/faster, raised our expectations of what we are entitled to and done so in such a way that even if heaven itself was presented on a silver platter, many would probably state ‘this is it?’.

Sad. Very sad.

Productivity in the world since 1950 has pushed the number of hours needed to produce the same amount of work to 11 hours from 40 hours a week in 1950. Computers have played a not insignificant part in this process. Instead of living like our parents or grandparents did back then, we work even more hours to buy more ‘stuff’ to make us feel better in a never ending cycle that robs us of enjoying what we have and rather, long for stuff we don’t. Even if what we have today (whether it is current or not) is better than ever and in a single word; amazing.

These stats are already old, imo; I’m assuming that that is closer to 10 hours per week today which means that we have more time to socialize, not withdraw from society and each other by hiding or deep diving into tech the way the gaming industry specifically wants us to swallow whole, and; without thinking.

I don’t want to comment on specific platforms or components here; I have done so in many previous posts. But I do want to highlight that I would not trade what I am capable of today with what I was able to achieve in as little as a few years ago, let alone decades back (even as I had more drive and energy back then). Being able to buy ’tech’ much, much better today is not a given; granted. Yet the benefits to me are obvious with each new iteration, when I am able to take the time to explore and eventually understand and sometimes bend the new offerings for my purposes. I am not a young person, neither have I gained superhuman powers with the passing decades.

But tech has allowed me to work as hard as I want (or can) and still produce more than I realistically need to. Or; want to leave for my offspring to simply squander and waste their own life lives with. Even with the inevitable slowdown age has on everyone, including myself. To expect more from tech is a little absurd to me; it is simply a tool. Do I want it? Of course. But to expect it or worse demand it is to set myself up for failure and that is where I see the problem starts for many different aspects of modern life.

What tech has allowed me to do is to not simply work hard; but to work/play hard at something I enjoy immensely and at a level that still tickles my perfectionist attitude, even as my age inevitably advances and my skills diminish over time. Tech to me is a tool to be used to get a job done. That is why ‘gaming’ is not anything I have ever enjoyed (why would I use my ‘tools’ willingly, after working with them for 8+ hours all day…), nor do I think it has ever pushed for real leaps in technology either. I think that is a myth the manufacturers wish the never ending youngsters to believe into so as to keep buying into the industry/franchise indefinitely and blindly (at least for the first few years of ‘gaming immersion’).

For myself and my generation, work was meant to be finished quickly to have time for your friends. Your family. Your neighbors and even strangers you happened to meet in the street (gasp! In person). In this aspect, tech has given me that freedom. And I take full advantage of it in as many ways as possible by not relying on it to give me everything and anything I want.

I’m ancient, I’m crabby and I’m irritable too. When I’m by myself.

Tech has freed me from having to do hard physical labor for a (much shorter and probably more miserable) lifetime and has given me options that otherwise would see me shut in and screaming at the kids to ‘get off my lawn’ behind my curtained window. But with that power comes responsibility in how I use it. Yes, I do sometimes work with a bunch of people for 18 and 20 hour stretches or more (when needed), but it is with a sense of purpose and pride to deliver a job on time and on spec. The 'responsibility' part is to not work myself ragged and be the richest dead person in town.

The other side of that coin is that it allows me to work when I want. To schedule a ‘vacation’ to coincide with friends and families schedules and to simply wake up one day and say work is not an option and have a day at the beach* instead (*metaphorically speaking). Not because I am a millionaire or do not need to work to have a roof over my head and food in my stomach. Rather, because tech allows me to achieve those basic needs with very little of my time. The rest I can spend as I choose and I choose people over tech.

In a nutshell; ‘stuff’ never made me happy. People did.

Today Greece is a sad, real world example of what it means to live ‘feeling entitled’ to the extreme. The work ethic (non-existent in some), the almost universal expectation of being ‘saved’ by their gov’t and instilled in this thinking by their parents and their parents before them… And the idea that the world owes them something and they shouldn’t need to lift a finger to get it is scary when talking to some of the extreme cases I've met over the years.

Thinking that tech is letting you down is a wakeup call from the cosmos.

What it is telling you is that your uses of it have grown old. Enjoy it as is or leave that aspect of it for a while, or for forever.


What you have to re-invent is yourself. Your thinking. Your attitude. Your choices.

If something new works better; embrace it. But nobody is forcing you to change. If the old is better for you; take that to the bank.

As I’ve stated elsewhere on this site; staying behind on purpose is a lot like dying. New things to learn and explore and to try to bend to make them better for us are not always fun or exciting. But it does keep our minds sharp and our increasingly ‘extra’ time productive, for our own personal growth and well-being. The alternative is to assume that everything you need to know was learned at kindergarten and live with the consequences.

But even if you think like that; remember kindergarten (even if that didn’t exist when I was a kid)?

It was still fun, right.

The most fun I've had is learning new things and being surprised how that new thinking affected the things I already 'knew' I knew. I didn't know anything! Lol...

But seriously; having options that you don't explore yourself and instead use them as an excuse to have outgrown a part of your childhood (which I think is natural) is the sad part. And not because some of the reasons are not true. But because the viewpoint turns negative and nothing good happens next.

My biggest take away is that life is not about making $$$$; exclusively, nor is it having fun; permanently. I've done both extremes and both are extremely boring. Life is balance and at each stage in our lives, we should strive to get there as quickly as possible, even if it means learning (sometimes without wanting to) new things or abandoning childish ways, as we outgrow them.

Whether we think we can or we think we can't. We're right.

(In every aspect of our lives, including the tech angle).

I really believed we would each have a personal hover car by 2015 (in the 50's that was like; ooh.. the future). But tech didn't let me down; I just didn't pursue that childlike dream with half as much passion as I should have to make that happen - and neither did the rest of the world.



So to answer the question the thread title asks? Everything. What has gone wrong is our sometimes unrealistic expectations to NOT continue growing and learning as needed to fully utilize and keep up with the tech we do have available to us today.

Ranting by itself doesn't solve issues. Rising above the obstacles keeps us moving forward, even if we can only do just one small step 'this' time; after a while many miles will have been traversed and the cumulative result is always the same; amazing.


Skylake (mobile and desktop), 16GB SoDimm DDR4 modules, USB3.1, Optane SSD's and other XPoint RAM/Storage products and many other promised/hinted at future tech...; all are welcomed and eagerly anticipated by me. Today's 'workstations' will be tomorrow's watches - even if I'm not around to see it myself. That is the steady, but constant flow of progress I see in tech. And I don't see that as something to need or demand next year. But rather as something to embrace as it comes to bear. And if that is not satisfactory don't sulk; bend the world and build it yourself if you can.

What I personally can never see myself using tech for is to be 'connected', via facebook, skype, twitter or any other technology that can interrupt me when I'm with others, or worse; take the place of being with them in the first place. My phone is just a phone and I use the silence mode a lot. It is there for my convenience, not for marketers or computers to let me know about the latest deal I'll miss. Just like the rest of the tech in my life; it is a tool and I choose to use it for my benefit (only).

Too bad everyone couldn't do the same.



NOTE: The above is a quick opinion of society and technology as I see it today and not a personal attack on anyone here, least of all HTWingNut.


Peace Out!

 

OK, what I do not get about all of that is you say not too rant but to me that is one? We all have our soap boxes along with wants and needs, I say to each their own. What one considers important apparently another will not, this is the reason for Personal in PC.

Now phones, tablets or as you mention watches are devices and let the tech fall where it may with them. The biggest issue as of late is treating the PC as a device (and one that spies on EVERYTHING). If the future lies in that, then I will resist what the future brings.

 

If I look back over more than 30 years then I can see a lot of progress. My first personal computer (BBC model B) used cassettes for program and data storage. My first encounter with a portable computer was in 1983 when I saw the suitcase-sized Osborne 1. In 1984 I came across a portable hard drive which was the size of a shoe box, one needed to remember to run a "park heads" command before powering down and it held 5MB or 10MB of data. In 1985 I bought an Epson PX8, which was ahead of its time in using some solid state storage for programs (on ROMs) and could run for about 8 hours on its battery, but the 8 line display and micro cassette data storage were limitations.

In about 1990 I bought a Sharp PC6220 (there's one described here) which was an impressively compact package for its times but had limitations (I forget what they were) but my biggest investment was at the end of 1992 in a Toshiba T4400 which was the first really portable machine with a decent (for the time) colour display. Part of the investment was an Intel 486DX2 CPU which ran twice as fast as the 486SX CPU which came in the computer. The combined bill was the better part of £3,000 but the computer provided over 3 years of service (subject to a couple of very expensive HDD upgrades 120MB -> 250MB then 250MB -> 500MB). The T4400 was superseded by an AST 950N which was my first encounter with a Lithium battery and was a big improvement compared to the NiCd brick that powered the Toshiba.

The next notable investment was in a Dell Inspiron 8000 which was a 15" monster. Quite potent, but also quite heavy when combined with the swappable floppy and CD drives and put into Dell's bag (which weighed 2kg empty) and caused me a few arguments with airline staff over the weight of my hand baggage. Buying the Fujitsu P2020 (which had a weight including PSU of under 2kg) was a big step in the other direction weight-wise, but the 10" WSXGA (1280 x 600) display was too hard on my eyes and the 633MHz Crusoe CPU didn't win any speed prizes but the capability to run for over 5 hours on the 6 cell battery was a major trigger in getting Intel to address improved power efficiency for its mobile CPUs.

Since then I have tended to replace my computers more frequently. Perhaps I'm getting fussier in my old age but usually my reasons are the quest for improvements in (i) battery life (ii) display quality (iii) noise levels and (iv) portability without sacrificing too much performance. As a result, I'm experiencing the incremental improvements that one now encounters with upgrade timesteps of a year or so. If I waited, as in the days of old, for several years before replacing my computer then I would notice bigger changes. Nonetheless, there is the basic performance ceiling on CPUs for which there seems to be no solution in the near future.

John

 

One point I am trying to make is that tech on it's own is not worse or better; it is in relationship to what you have now and what you're willing to invest in time and effort to make the latest offerings work for you.

In an absolute sense, yeah; tech seems to progress at a slower pace each year vs. the last. But the opportunity to take advantage of the cumulative benefits is as big today as it was in the glory years.

A device (hardware) on it's own doesn't do anything. It is the software, firmware, O/S and BIOS that controls it to do the things you and I do not want (in this case; to spy). Instead of resisting what the future seems to bring, I am doing my best to disable those features instead and use the remainder for my benefit.

Running away from the issue or trying to keep old systems running 'forever' isn't an answer that can be depended on for more than a few years or decades at most...

Because that slow pace of advancement everyone is complaining about? It will eventually steamroller everything 'old', right out of existence, if not relevance, soon enough.

 

John, some of those memories are just as vivid for me. I remember $40K 'portable' computers. But I needed both hands and my leg and back muscles to get them into a car in the '80's.

I was addicted to buying new systems and getting major jumps in performance each time; and when that didn't continue happening for me, I stopped buying 'new' period. That was a disaster.

When I realized that new offerings were just that (offerings), I had a better vision of the path I could take for each new iteration. Over years, that path changed from what I could read about in computer magazines and slowly turned inwards, to me. Yeah; I was the benchmark of what was to be deemed good or bad (for me). That was an 'ahh' moment.

Just like you, the last few options don't seem to push raw cpu performance too much. But the longer battery life, along with less noise, heat and weight and better ergonomics (I simply don't buy if the ergonomics are atrocious) are huge benefits to me for staying and even becoming more productive vs. the last time I did a major upgrade.

CPU performance has always been limited by how fast and how much we can continuously feed the cpu. Yeah; I too want a 1,200 core monster with a few TB's of RAM that weighs less than a kilo... But today, maxing out the RAM and minimizing the bottleneck of the HDD/SSD is enough to get the most possible of what we have the options to today.

With the Skylake I'm excited about; a ThinkPad with Win10x64Pro, ECC RAM, Xeon E3-1505M V5 platforms and the possibility of having 64GB of RAM or more in a notebook along with USB3.1, Thunderbolt (finally) and DisplayPort support for 4K external monitors (multiples, please...), I don't see anything previous that can touch this?

This is not a simple incremental improvement to me when all these capabilities are together in one platform for the first time.

New 'exciting' platforms to me is closer to 'stimulating' than thrilling or action packed.

The stimulus is to try and get the very best out of a new component/platform before the return period is up.

If I do; I am mere dollars poorer. But time-wise richer, if my productivity really goes up even a few minutes a day (over a year; I'll get a few more mini 'vacations' out of the deal - that is something I'd invest in 'blindly').

But I do see it from the gaming side of it too: going faster doesn't get really get you anywhere. It simply enables greater realism, smoother play and a more immersive experience which may all be good in themselves. But the issue is not the hardware, once again it is the software at fault.

It seems to me that game developers take the easy way out and program for 10% higher than the best current platform (made up statistic, for sure). That doesn't push the platforms nor the manufacturers like Intel, NVidia or AMD to step up and crush the new demands made from them. Nor does it leave the users with a satisfied feeling for spending top dollar on a new system when they finally compare to their old...

The mobile Xeon has taken a long time to come and maybe it needed that time to come fully mature and usable on a mobile platform (the connectivity (USB3.1 and Thunderbolt) needed to take full advantage of that power). But the benefits are very clear to me, if it is done right.

Gaming? Not so much.

That is why I have never seen it as a driving force in tech development from my perspective.

I am not merely bashing gaming here; I am showing how hardware needs are pushed when software demands it.

Gaming software and the associated 'engines' have stopped pushing gaming for a long time from what I have read about it. Other than slapping together multi-monitor 4K setups and stating that 'we need more power' and that are equivalent to using a phone to find new prime numbers; gaming for most people today is more than sufficient on single monitors at realistic (re; affordable) resolutions. When the game 'engines' bring more to the table (something real, not just fluff), I'm positive the hardware will catch up too.

Actually, thinking about it just now; the latency of getting code to the processors (cpu and gpu in this case) is already being addressed; DX12 and Mantle (although Mantle is dead?) is what will enable lower end cpu's to give gamers the performance they need (and even more reason for cpu makers to ignore gamers.. except for cpu's with igpu's, of course).

But then again; what is an API? Yeah; software. Optimized to take full advantage of the hardware it is run on.

And shock; Microsoft is what made this happen for all/most.

 

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with you on the liberating influence of tech. I take it you've read the recent NYT article on Amazon's corporate culture? A good deal (but not everything, of course) of what's described in it could not have happened in a 1950's office.

Technology has indeed made many things much faster and easier, but it's also introduced a lot of new things - some of which are negative/stressful - that people simply didn't have to think about at all in previous decades.

From a bigger picture perspective, I also believe that we will never get something we don't ask for. Therefore, we should continue to demand that heaven be presented to us on a silver platter, regardless of whether or not we expect it to actually happen - the progress that we (as a civilization) make in the process is what's important.

To provide an example, as recently as 1950 the entire world thought that the idea of humans on the moon was the stuff of legends and fairy tales like Chang'e, yet within less than 20 years it became reality. On top of that, we also invented a lot of nifty stuff - like the satellites that allow us to use GPS - that's now a part of our everyday lives.

On the flipside, however, this example also illustrates what happens when we stop holding high expectations and demanding things - not long after we reached the moon, America felt satisfied that the space race had been won, and so NASA's budget was slashed and we've made relatively little progress in space in the 45 years since.

As I said in the other thread, contentment is the enemy of progress - the moment we become fully satisfied with our lives is the moment our society starts to stagnate. Thus, from my perspective, always demanding more and more is not a sign of entitlement, it's a sign of optimism for the future which in turn perpetuates a virtuous cycle of progress.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/an-a...ling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace-2015-8

 

^^^^^^^

With all due respect, that article smells, looks and tastes like Kool-Aid...

 

I agree with a lot of what you say, but um. Gaming is life.

 

Peon, your examples are faulty, but I appreciate what you're trying to say.

I don't want people to just give up, nor do I think that everything new is rosy either. What I am expecting is a fairer comparison of tech jumps more than how it pertains to simple gaming though.

Productivity is much more than IPC, clock speed, turbo/OC'd speeds or any other single metric we can hold as a single number and say 'see!' with. It is a combination and balance of everything from how we interact with a device to how fast we get the result we want. Killing zombies or driving virtual cars can only get 'this good' and it will be far from actually doing it for real (yeah if zombies were actually real...). No matter how smooth the frame rate is or how fast a game starts or how realistic it looks on a monitor (or VR headset).

But for productivity aspects, I have taken less performance oriented notebooks with better ergonomics and gained the productivity I need vs. a superior (performance) oriented model but with a keyboard/touchpad/screen that slowed me down in my use. What each iteration in tech affords us is to have this better balance and each step is a little closer to not sacrificing any raw performance either.

With regards to your examples; The general populace of the USA did not ask for someone to go to the moon. And even if they did, it doesn't mean it would have been done at any rate. What the common man/women want (or think they do) usually has no bearing on what will become important for society as a whole.

That is left for single persons of great vision, determination and dedication to accomplish. Not be left in the hands of the majority who can't even manage to vote in numbers large enough to actually be a 'majority' in any one country, let alone the world (as corporations span now).

For most consumers, their choice is to evaluate the products available fully and honestly and come to a decision that is in their best long term interest. Without regards to what they may have spent or done in the past (sunk costs...) but with a goal of having the most performance over time for minimal cost.

And most don't even do that (or know how to).

I know businesses that suffer with old systems because the online reviews say the new ones are not worth buying (sigh). Some of these businesses are not even willing to invest $100 for the main workstation to get the RAM to 2GB or more. Let alone upgrade to an SSD or install a new O/S (yeah; XP to the death...).

One client has a once great 15K RPM Seagate that literally screams at him for 8+ hours a day, yet he says upgrading to an SSD would be a waste of money and offer little real world performance improvement for his workflows in return. He may be right for the performance aspect - but the ergonomics would be elevated by how many orders of magnitude for him and his surrounding workers (even some 25+ feet down the hall with still good hearing)?

The tech we are discussing about today no single person here could improve upon. Thinking that wishing for it brought it to be is also amusing.

The tech train will roll down the tracks whether we wish it or not.

And simply wishing for it to roll faster is not feasible in reality. Nor will a genius pop up by our spell (but they will in their own time).

In a way, the existing tech is very stifling to new ideas of how 'tech' should be done. The next big jump will be because the balance of the total computing experience will have been reached with today's current thinking of what tech is/should be. Then, the world can get excited about tech again.

Hope I'm there to see it.

ajkula66,

I agree. But about both (sides/articles)...

Splintah,

Life is... not gaming.

(To each his/her own).

 

It's not on the individual level that this wish for improvement comes from, it's on the level of an entire society.

If someone conceives of a paradigm shift in computing and manages to convince everyone that they need the latest and greatest computer in order to enjoy life (and collectively spend tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars in disposable income on the PC industry in the process), I'm sure that Intel would very quickly start delivering annual performance increases that are worth talking about again.

Unfortunately, these "someones" are far and few between - Steve Jobs is the only one that immediately comes to mind.

 

Overall, PC laptop systems are more balanced than ever. Processor speed, RAM speed, and components are well matched, battery life is better than ever. Which means more productivity and entertainment than ever. While the gamers and workstation users are bemoaning little performance gains, and the speed gains little, most users are cheering otherwise in general.

 

What do you mean? Power draining 4k displays with underpowered 7W TDP CPU's and meager 20-25WHr batteries. I don't doubt the ULV laptop race is heavy and full of options at the moment. It's just that ULV is only for "productivity" when it comes to Office and Web. And laptops with all soldered components costing thousands of dollars, which means a paper weight if any single component dies, and god forbid you need an extra 8GB RAM for some task, or even more storage, well you're screwed.

 

I mean general average laptops. Not Gaming or Workstation machines. And 4K displays not included as my general average laptop. Which is your typical medium grade consumer or business laptop.