The Last Quiet Thing

https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing

by coinfused • 4 months ago

282 159 4 months ago

mbgerring• 4 months ago

My smart watch has become an invaluable digital prosthetic to help me backfill cognitive challenges that I’ve learned are related to ADHD.

“It dings all the time!” Yes, exactly, having a buzzer attached to my person at all times ensures I don’t miss appointments and that I leave to things on time.

Your thermostat that bothers you? It would be great if we lived in a world where energy was free, and there were no consequences for using as much energy as you want. That’s not the world we live in. And you probably don’t want to live in a world where the power company decides when you can and can’t turn on your AC. This is the compromise. I’m sorry you’re bothered by it — the consequences of other solutions to this problem are likely much worse.

It’s easy to forget that these things exist, and people buy them, to solve real problems. But writing a whole essay and just eliding that fact strikes me as lazy.

zxlk21e6• 4 months ago

For the record, I also have ADHD and I find the opposite impact on my psyche.

AlotOfReading• 4 months ago

The larger point of the article is that these new devices are dependent on your continued labor to keep them running usefully. Moreover, this is a choice in how they're designed.

The article isn't saying they don't do other things, it's just not relevant.

mghackerlady4• 4 months ago

I agree to an extent. I also have ADHD and find these things useful, but the tradeoff is that to be effective they always have to be important in a way a cell phone or smart watch is very bad at guaranteeing since their main customer isn't the consumer but the advertising firm. I wish bespoke PDAs were still a thing (or at least, an easily accessible thing)

altairprime4• 4 months ago

This post says, “22% dismiss notifications”. Why do people allow this? I see people with phones that have 3 new notifications per 5 minutes and none of them are human being messages or human being event reminders.

Turn off every notification that isn’t actionable or joyful to you. The news isn’t actionable. Stop letting the news task you. Your social feeds aren’t actionable. Stop letting your feeds task you.

(And, yes, I’ll concede that Duo push is valid, because either I initiated that, or I have a problem to solve. Being employed brings some of us joy, after all!)

Notifications are not meant to fill the silences in your life. Your thoughts are. Not all the random drivel that phones opportunistically shovel into our faces.

I don’t really like this post because it rabble-rouses rather than owning up to the major failure of the author up top. Maybe it’ll help someone regardless, but it could have been a lot more direct with no less effectiveness. Missed opportunity, I suppose.

zxlk21e6• 4 months ago

Managing these notifications (which are on by default most of the time) is a form of what I'm writing at here, isn't it?

loloquwowndueo2• 4 months ago

Kinda but one-time disabling of notifications on a new app is setting the time on your Casio watch a couple of times a year. Do it once (or very infrequently) and you’re done.

Mine is a Timex Ironman :)

altairprime4• 4 months ago

They’re only on if you clicked “Allow” on the permissions dialog for them, right? Or is this a thing where Android is forcing everyone to accept notifications by default? Or..?

alabut• 4 months ago

Sure, notifications are inherently disruptive by nature and there’s an admin tax to turning them off. But unless you’re installing new apps every day, it’s a one-time fix and not an ongoing distraction.

That’s the realistic gray area in between the extremes of the argument. I enjoy the analog experience of my 20 year old Nikon the way you like your Casio, but they’re also both luxury items precisely because neither one is inherently important to daily life. They’re fun toys, not real tools.

badc0ffee3• 4 months ago

Turn off every notification that isn’t actionable or joyful to you.

I have notifications on for Uber Eats because I want updates when I order a food delivery. Of course, the app takes this opportunity to randomly (though infrequently) send me ad notifications during the other 98% of the time. Just this past week I've seen notifications for getting my Easter shopping done, and something for "National Burrito Day" which I'm sure is totally a real thing.

Unfortunately, lots of apps are like this. But are they annoying or frequent enough that I will turn off notifications? No, because I'd rather put up with it than have to remember to turn them back on the next time I order something.

altairprime4• 4 months ago

I solve that in a hilarious way: by uninstalling the app when I’m not using it. Works perfectly, other than some slight sign-in friction, for e.g. airlines, Uber/Etsy, and so on. But I’d rather suffer through logging in with a saved password than receive notification spam — I can respect that others prefer the opposite way.

jbaber• 4 months ago

[Buzzkill] for android lets you completely control if you get specific notifications at all or with sound etc. I bunch up noisy text threads in once-a-day chunks, silence all notifications not about/from nuclear family from sleep to wake, etc.

It really made me appreciate that, when I have to have my phone, notifications are like an extra obnoxious form of e-mail with all of its problems. [Buzzkill] gives me the phone equivalent of Inbox Zero.

[Buzzkill]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samruston....

solarkraft5• 4 months ago

I want to. The apps want the opposite. Apple is unfortunately on the side of the apps.

By app store guidelines, it’s officially disallowed to use notifications for marketing. Of course the apps find their ways, at different levels of honesty. This has led to me turning off all notifications for some apps, but the problem is the mixing of channels. I don’t want my bank to send me ads, but I do want it to notify me about transactions.

a962• 4 months ago

Looks like you found the root of the problem already.

eykanal• 4 months ago

There's a great essay hiding in that page, but oh my goodness that is a frustrating format and layout.

pugworthy• 4 months ago

Link at top...

https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing/ascii

trymas• 4 months ago

I saw it (I am not OC), though I think by pure accident.

There's seemingly appearing trend of ultra low contrast foreground to background (e.g. mid gray text on top of dark gray background), often combined with 1px borders and/or 1px thick fonts.

I constantly need to either zoom on such websites or crank up screen brightness to the max (or both) to be able to see anything (or even better, not visit such sites ever again).

That link you pointed out has:

- mid gray font: rgb(122, 125, 126)

- dark blue tint background: rgb(14, 21, 24)

- 1px border that is nearly invisible against background: rgb(37, 42, 44)

That link text has unacceptable contrast: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=7A7D7E&... , not to say the border: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=252A2C&... .

At least main text has passable grade: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=A89F91&...

zxlk21e6• 4 months ago

Sorry, I try to keep both camps in mind as I build these things. There's a text version linked at the top, but the link is here: https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing/ascii

nicbou2• 4 months ago

I found it neat to be given the choice. Both formats were good.

encom2• 4 months ago

prefers-reduced-motion == 1 quiets that nonsense in a lot of cases, but many sites don't respect it. I wish this gratuitous animation fad would just die already. It adds nothing.

solarkraft5• 4 months ago

I find that it adds a lot.

duskdozer2• 4 months ago

I hope it's a fad, but I'm not feeling good about it. I think the only real solution is something browser level that doesn't rely on developers/their management respecting it. (Or well, a new name that doesn't include "prefers" or "reduced"...)

I really don't understand why people want intentional lag added to everything.

StilesCrisis• 4 months ago

Well, it's LLM generated for sure. I wouldn't call it great.

georgebcrawford• 4 months ago

Yep, trash.

croisillon• 4 months ago

especially funny slop, given the author submitted this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42167020 months ago

pimlottc3• 4 months ago

A small plea to authors - if you absolutely must use scroll-linked animations and fade-ins, please at least make sure all the text is fully readable within 25% of the scroll height. It is so frustrating not being able to read things until they reach the middle of the page. Trying to look at images that aren't fully loaded until the top is already scrolling off the page! What's the point of having a 4k monitor if I can only use the top half!

jdkoeck• 4 months ago

It sure looks like the author likes webpages coming alive too!

a962• 4 months ago

Looked like a broken page until I happened to scroll (as that works with broken pages). Stopped and closed when I saw Apple crap.

nevster• 4 months ago

I hate that fade-in stuff. Basically just close any page that does it.

itmitica4• 4 months ago

Ha. Ha. Ha. He expects to still find a battery fit for the Casio watch 7 years from now! Good luck with that buddy!

zxlk21e6• 4 months ago

Essay author here - they're readily available! It's just a CR2016.

ref: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Casio+F-91W+Battery+Replacement...

itmitica4• 4 months ago

Just a humorous jab :)

encom2• 4 months ago

You chumps still change watch batteries? My Stowa Flieger is powered by my arm movements.

itmitica4• 4 months ago

People really are stupid these days...

throw949449• 4 months ago

This watch costs twelve dollars. It weighs twenty-one grams.
This watch costs four hundred dollars. It also tells time. It also tracks my steps, monitors my blood oxygen, measures my sleep quality, logs my workouts, reminds me to breathe, reminds me to stand,

I had quite opposite experince with casio. If I want water proof (like swimming) watches, I would have to buy bulky and super expensive gshock with GPS and tons of useless festures.

$20 chinese smart watch are completely water sealed, tiny and simple to use. I can even remove wrist band, to make them even smaller. Only downside is battery life is only one week.

WOTERMEON• 4 months ago

While apple's one is 1 day

Animats• 4 months ago

The article (with its doom-scrolling) suggests some stats phones should have:

    Dismissing a notification ...... 22%
    Intentional use ................ 20%
    Checking something that pinged . 18%
    Replying to a person ........... 15%
    Updating/configuring/fixing .... 12%
    Unlocking, forgetting why ...... 8%
    Managing a subscription ........ 5%

That would be kind of cool.

The real headache is that everything with a network connection needs system administration.

loloquwowndueo2• 4 months ago

You can turn off the doom scrolling!

hmokiguess2• 4 months ago

Ironically, casio, the company behind the prime example is now doing these kinds of things: https://www.casio.com/us/moflin/

forinti• 4 months ago

But they keep churning out the classic watches and they are everywhere and cheap.

hmokiguess2• 4 months ago

Agreed, I love them!

strict92• 4 months ago

This is an interesting and more apt way to frame smart features.

One way I've found to avoid objects that come alive is to buy the commercial version.

- TVs aimed at commercial hospitality businesses let you avoid a lot of the bloatware and smart features that come bundled with it

- Commercial washer/dryers let you avoid bluetooth and wifi and other junk not needed to wash your clothes. These are available without the coin operated features

Commercial versions of consumer products are usually simpler, more durable, and don't have advertising and smart features.

mghackerlady4• 4 months ago

Part of me wonders if things are like this because the masses have been trained to see their abuse as a good thing, in a similar way to how the american worker sees themselves not as exploited but as a temporarily restrained exploiter

gchamonlive3• 4 months ago

They are also likely to cost more and aren't normally directly available to regular customers, like you need either a business license of some sort and to contact a representative.

strict92• 4 months ago

It is true commercial versions are slightly more expensive. But this is the tradeoff of buying something more durable and meant to be used continuously.

But it's not true that they are difficult to buy.

For my two examples: Commercial washer/dryer sets available through any appliance dealer. Commercial hospitality TVs and other commercial electronics are available via Grainger.

ggreer3• 4 months ago

It can also make sense to buy old/used versions of consumer products. For example: My parents have a washer & dryer from the mid 90s. They occasionally get a new belt, but besides that there's not much that can go wrong with them.

If you're looking at buying used stuff, it's important to research common failures for that specific product and what can be done to fix them. As long as it's popular enough that parts still exist, you should be good to go. You do pay a cost in terms of time, so it's important to pick your battles.

The most annoying thing to me is government-mandated smart devices. For example: In Washington state, all new water heaters must have a feature that causes them to reduce the water temperature if the grid is experiencing high demand.[1] There are no exemptions for off-grid installations. Everyone ends up with a more expensive, less reliable water heater. In my case I found a contractor who was willing to install a dumb water heater, but not everyone is as savvy. The state also mandates that new thermostats be programmable (no more simple bimetal thermostats), which is another electronic part that can fail.[2] Ideally governments would create incentives to encourage more efficient energy usage (such taxes & subsidies), but not require or ban specific solutions.

1. https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=51-11C-40414

2. https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=51-11R-40310

compounding_it• 4 months ago

Newer stuff is more efficient. For example washers and dryers have a direct drive technology with gears that help it use less power and maybe even less water.

mghackerlady4• 4 months ago

I love this. Maybe it's because I've always subconsciously realised this (I do prefer my flip phone and my iPhone stays in a drawer at home) but I've never seen something put words to my thoughts more accurately than this has

airza• 4 months ago

Some of these fonts and transitions I like a lot, but sometimes it feels like there are a few too many fonts on screen.

mghackerlady4• 4 months ago

It has a plaintext version which I appreciate (though I wish it were actual plaintext instead off formatted html with the aesthetics of plaintext)

pixelmelt• 4 months ago

I liked this, reminds me of some other discussion on recycling/global warming etc being pushed as the comsumers fault

RuoqiJin• 4 months ago

Oh my god this site is so cool. I just want to say — how much time did you pour into the typography and animations on the frontend? I absolutely love it.

You picked the right way to show each paragraph — what to expand, what to keep short, what to highlight. I couldn't stop scrolling. UR an artist! maybe AI can help style every line of text, but it can't make something feel this good to read.

zxlk21e6• 4 months ago

A lot! The Casio up top is fully functional (click the buttons!)

nate8bit• 4 months ago

Funny story, but I didn't realise I much I didn't want an Apple Watch, until I got one. I exercise daily and most days I just want it to shut up.

lexoj• 4 months ago

I’ve disabled all activity notifications. It actually helps me avoid the phone on other type of notifications.

globular-toast• 4 months ago

I'm getting into woodwork. I just bought a vice made in the 1940s, the same one my grandfather used. It's finished. As are my chisels, and my cast iron cookware. It's definitely refreshing.

solarkraft5• 4 months ago

How will you stay up to date with the manufacturer‘s latest updates without the app?

greedo5• 4 months ago

And you can find stuff in perfect condition for reasonable prices! I have a ton of Stanley planes that are amazing.

ToucanLoucan• 4 months ago

Loved this. A lot of what's kept me sane (and what my wife is now trying to learn from me) is how absolutely merciless I am on notifications. Every time an app buzzes me, it damn well better be information I want, and if it isn't, I change the settings or revoke notifications altogether. If I am not shopping, I do not care how good your deals are. If I am not bored, I don't care what the Anxiety Machine has found to show me.

My devices serve me, not the shareholders of their respective firms.

supern0va• 4 months ago

There is still a remarkable amount of friction here in doing so. There should be a one click button for "don't show me notifications like this", which incentivizes apps to have appropriate granular notification settings.

And don't even get me started on how Samsung on certain models hid the notification categories behind a feature gate with a random OS update.

gchamonlive3• 4 months ago

I don't know what's the state in other markets, but where I live, Brazil, you always have the dumb consumer products. I think the only pathological example are TVs in which they require you to signin before being able to download streaming apps, but this is something that if you really must you can work around by buying a TV box.

Also, can't you just not give these products the password to your WiFi? Do they make fridges and wash machines that don't work without internet?

djoldman2• 4 months ago

Screen Time gives you a report card. And if the grade is bad, the design makes one thing clear:
That's a you problem.
It measures your usage. Tracks your behavior. Gives you a weekly report card. If the numbers are too high?
You picked it up too much.
You spent too long.
You failed your limit.
Try again next week.
Try harder.
Screen Time is a blame shift dressed in a soft font.
... What if the exhaustion everybody feels isn't a moral failure but the completely rational response to being made responsible for an ecosystem of objects that never stop asking?
Everything you buy is the beginning of a relationship you'll be maintaining until one of you dies or gets discontinued.

For adults: nothing requires you to use a smartphone. Buy that Casio watch if you want. Use those wired headphones and never pair them again (I do).

EDIT: Some things require a smartphone, not nothing.

nancyminusone• 4 months ago

nothing requires you to use a smartphone

Another story from the hn front page today:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47662857

djoldman2• 4 months ago

True. I amended my response.

There are exceptions. Also, curiously, some things require older hardware like faxes and do not accept newer hardware like smartphones.

qbane• 4 months ago

The watch is interactive! Nice detail

andyjohnson0• 4 months ago

Sure, screen time. But I am also deeply tired of just keeping things charged. Some of my stuff insists on special usb cables - because those cables contain chips that mediate between the <thing> and its charger. Its exhausting.

tombert2• 4 months ago

Yeah, it's something I think about a lot.

I have a smartwatch, I like it just fine, but I kind of think that smartwatches are actually pretty bad at being a watch. I had a Casio G-Shock for about a decade that I wore nearly every day [1], and I never had to change the battery. My Garmin Instinct Crossover, which is considered to have very good battery life, has to be charged every two weeks, which despite that seeming like a long time, I manage to forget about it every time until the battery is dead.

[1] I have a few fancy wind-up watches I wear to formal occasions.

solarkraft5• 4 months ago

I’m not willing to settle for less than the Pebble Time Steel’s week that it holds a charge for nowadays. I think that is about fine for me.

RationPhantoms• 4 months ago

Does your physical environment change that much that it requires cognitive load for you to decide on what cables to use? For myself, I bought two wireless charge "base" stations that handle my spouse's and my phone/watch/airpods. That's it. One place, bedside, where I need to put things.

Sure, for new equipment or in a pinch (that becomes cumbersome) but even traveling, you know what equipment you have, charge rate and things needing to get charged from what connector type. So you purchase the variants that you need.

lunasorcery2• 4 months ago

While I agree with the article, I can't help but feel like the superfluous animations undercut it somewhat. Would be nice to have a version with the images/diagrams but without the animations - maybe add support for prefers-reduced-motion?

andsoitis2• 4 months ago

Right at the top is a conspicuous option to read as plain text, which takes you to https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing/ascii

lunasorcery2• 4 months ago

...which swaps the font for monospace (less legible for body text in my experience, my eyes start just glazing over) and swaps the images and diagrams for ascii art (or in some cases omits them entirely).

There’s a comfortable middle-ground to be had between the two options.

taco_emoji• 4 months ago

oh my god this is so pretentious. At least use high-contrast color if you want me to read your deep philosophical treatise on Technology These Days

drob518• 4 months ago

As a wise man once said, anything plus computer equals computer.

kmoser• 4 months ago

You have fifteen years of it.

For some of us it has been much longer than fifteen years.

pizzathyme• 4 months ago

I used to work in the games industry and this is a large split between older games and newer games. Traditional games like Super Mario don't "reach out" through notifications for you to play them more like Roblox. You are in control of the on/off switch

solarkraft5• 4 months ago

What a beautifully presented article. It rings true.

Growing up I’ve been feeling overwhelmed with the bureaucracy of life - maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t already have to manage an entire ecosystem of shit that I need to care about.

tariky• 4 months ago

Those Casio watches are just amazing. I got legendary gw-5000u and it has become part of my body. I'm wondering how much 30+ year are feeling like author of this post. I for sure do not want any device that I need to babysit.

Fwirt3• 4 months ago

I realize the purpose of the essay, and I agree with the author's sentiment that our possessions ask more of us than is necessary, and more than ever before. But I disagree that any object is finished. That Casio that the author mentions, yes it goes 7 years without a battery change, but the day the battery dies will be the day that you have to buy a new battery, figure out how to open it, and change it. Or (as many people will unfortunately do) throw it away and buy a new one because it's beat up now anyway.

Tools dull, and people neglect to sharpen them. Filters clog, and people neglect to clean them. Oil needs to be changed, guitar strings lose their brightness, lightbulbs flicker and die, rooftops gather moss. We live in a world where our possessions require maintenance, and the only solution to that is to have fewer possessions. Some people choose to rent instead of buying because they don't want to deal with property upkeep (which is undoubtedly a bad deal, but one that some choose to make regardless.)

The iPhone that the author mentions gives many tools to silence notifications from apps. The real problem is the social expectation that we are always paying attention, always ready to respond. I had a phone free week last year and now frequently will leave my phone in another room on silent for hours at a time unintentionally. It irritates my friends and my wife when I don't respond to their texts immediately. And it's frustrating that these features are being foisted on us more and more. But ultimately all things require maintenance, including relationships, and ultimately we set the standard of how much we have to give and are willing to put up with.

As far as the watch goes, personally I wear a Casio Tough Solar w/ Waveceptor because in theory they should go decades without needing a battery change or needing me to set the time, unless I travel. The WVA-M640 is reasonably stylish, and G-Shocks are virtually indestructible. As long as they keep changing the rules there's no escaping daylight saving time though.

pimlottc3• 4 months ago

I agree, I think the idea of products being done is a temporary illusion. Older analog technology needed a lot more maintenance over time. I doubt someone in the 1970s would agree with this; most things then needed to be regularly mended, fixed, tuned, serviced, repaired, refilled, what have you.

It’s only in the last few decades that materials and manufacturing have gotten good enough that you can expect gadgets to “just work” without regular maintenance. And we’ve also had products cheap enough that people normally throw them out rather than maintaining them.

greedo5• 4 months ago

I don't agree. Older tech was simpler, and often more reliable. They didn't depend on being able to connect to a networked time clock for sync, didn't need networking period. Today's systems are inherently fragile.

I grew up in the 70's. About the only thing I would say is less fragile are cars. Today's cars are just better in so many ways but are unmaintainable by the average user.

And people throw out things instead of repairing them because they don't know how. But that's changing as self-repair movements have taught millions. For example, the Kitchen Aid mixer. The original, built by Hobart and acquired by KitchenAid was a tank. However it had a sacrificial gear and people said that was a flaw because they didn't understand the purpose of sheer pins or sacrificial gears. Now it's pretty well understood thanks to YouTubers like Mr. Mixer that repairing these is easy peezy.

supliminal• 4 months ago

That Casio that the author mentions

At the risk of sounding snide, thank you for mentioning this. I am going to skip this article, so you probably saved me a bunch of time.

TacticalCoder• 4 months ago

Common... I've got tools I "inherited" from my grandpa that are still fine (brothers and I basically inherited the house and the tools where in the shed and whenever I go there on vacation, I use those tools to fix the house). I've got a screwdriver which I definitely remember using as a teenager, in the late 80s (and which I used for a variety of DIY jobs ever since) to assemble the trucks on my skateboards. And that screwdriver is a prized possession of mine: it's got a story. Hammers, saws, stainless steel scissors, hoses (to water the plants), multi-tool tools (don't know if they're stainless steel but they still look good), etc. Plenty of stuff still totally usable decades later.

You cannot compare tools that can outlast humans (like my grandpa and now myself) with an Apple watch that's going to be junk in a few years at most.

Even for oil that needs changing, things that needs lubricating once every blue moon (like, say, a mechanical watch): it's quite different to drop a tiny bit of lubricant inside a mechanical watch that's already 30 years old compared to having to update the firmware of whatever Internet-of-insecure-and-shitty-Thing gizmo that's going to be a thing of the past in a few years.

And if you really let a nice mechanical watch idle for decades, at least someone can do this:

"Restoring a Vintage Rolex Submariner with the Original Box, Paperwork... Even the Receipt!"

https://youtu.be/WsImSuG-dLY

While I'm really not sure there are going to be people out there keeping a connected wristwatch from 2026 going in the year 2066 (not sure about the value of that either).

greedo5• 4 months ago

When The Force Awakens, I spent $99 on a toy version of BB8 that you could control from your iPhone. It was a cool toy. Then after a while the app was no longer supported... Sad times.

I also owned every iPhone from the first through iPhone 7 and kept each as I replaced the old one. After a while, none were usable due to changes in cellphone tech. And I realized keeping LiO batteries around was a huge fire hazard...

greedo5• 4 months ago

My dad once told me that just because he had a phone (landline), that he was under no obligation to answer it. I thought it was funny at the time but I wish he was still around for me to tell him he was right.

When iPhones became common, my ex-wife would get upset when I wouldn't reply to a text message. Sometimes I was busy and missed the notification, or couldn't answer (like in a meeting, driving, etc). Or I knew that the message would be better answered in person.

The social expectations part is hard to overcome. Societal contracts, whether implicit or explicit are very hard to ignore.

cam_l• 4 months ago

Agree, and funny also that the author shows the F91W.

It has a thriving hacker community built around it. You can get a new arm motherboard with a breakout for a sensor board. Sensorwatch have released a temperature sensor and an accelerometer.

Plus it is loud! But there is another mod I saw to make it quieter.

mememememememo• 4 months ago

Oh come on. 7 years change a battery. That is low maintenance. There is no gotcha. It is damn near zero.

Infact if you hate it, buy a new casio every 4 weeks... it is cheaper than Apple Care.

Fwirt3• 3 months ago

My point was that when it does go, it will go with no warning, and there is a non-zero cost to replacing it. Cheap, easy, yes, but nothing lasts forever.

rendx• 4 months ago

Some people choose to rent instead of buying because they don't want to deal with property upkeep (which is undoubtedly a bad deal, but one that some choose to make regardless.)

Is it? My understanding is that strictly return-wise, index funds are distinctly better than property value in most countries, especially if you factor in all the maintenance cost and risks. Some countries have pretty good tenant protection, which is another big factor in practice.

Separately: Personally, I've really enjoyed and benefitted from not having to deal with the complexities of ownership, and it is well worth it in my own time/money/hassle/annoyance calculation. My own time is the single most valuable asset I have; one could say: it is ultimately the only real asset I have. Everything else merely translates to that.

bombcar3• 4 months ago

The rent vs own argument is a detailed and deep one, and anyone who comes down 100% on "one answer" (even things like "house hacking") is likely missing something.

Index funds are almost always better than house appreciation over long periods of time; if you discount leverage - because it's "normal" to be leveraged 80% on a house, but you can't margin your index funds that high, and the government doesn't protect you from gambler's ruin on margin.

Owning usually tends to win out the longer you want (or have) to remain in the same location and same house, renting tends to win if you move relatively often (location or changing home type/size, etc) or if you're in a rental inversion (which much of the coasts are in).

At the extremes nobody suggests you should buy a house instead of renting a hotel room or AirBNB in a city you're visiting.

And it's not strictly a financial decision; it's also a personal one and people may choose the "financially non-optimal" because of other reasons.

pjc503• 4 months ago

This really depends 100% on how good your landlord is, over and above the tenancy protection you mention.

index funds are distinctly better than property value in most countries

It's much easier to borrow £200k to buy a house than to buy stocks, and then you don't have to pay CGT on it. Housing is the only asset the general public can leverage gains on.

throwaway274482• 4 months ago

Land is not an investment (at least, not without explicitly improving the land). Buildings depreciate. If land (or the buildings on the land) are returning anything close to an index investment, an economy is seriously sick.

Edit: yes, you can rent the property out—but, societally, that's just shunting the problem down the road.

mhandley• 4 months ago

Agree about the watch - I wear a Casio LCW-M100TSE, which is also very robust (titanium case, saphire glass), never needs the battery changing and never needs setting (except for travel). But most importantly, it does what it does really well and never bugs me about anything. Downtime is important.

ChrisMarshallNY• 4 months ago

As long as they keep changing the rules there's no escaping daylight saving time though.

I have a couple of Oceanus (fancy Casio) watches that adapt fine, to whatever DST is. Not sure how they would do in Arizona, though.

I also have a Junghans (more expensive), and it’s stuck in old DST.

I don’t wear any of them. My Apple Watch (cheaper than the others) does fine. It has a GPS-informed time setting. I don’t really use it for a lot of its fancier features, but I like that it allows me to keep my phone on silent.

I am “in the middle.” I don’t pine for “the good ol’ days,” but I also don’t get all hung up on futurism.

WFM. YMMV.

Avicebron• 4 months ago

The time thing is a really nice touch

aristech• 4 months ago

Smart devices are making us think less

nicbou2• 4 months ago

I have an iPad Mini that was supposed to replace books and notebooks, since I travel a lot and travel light. Right from the start, I decided to make it a quiet device. I've had it since 2020, and it basically never bothered me, save for a yearly software update that happens in the background. Not bad!

In the end I switched back to paper because physical media is more satisfying to write on and flip through. My iPad Mini was perfectly quiet. The only annoyance is the battery life.

The hardest problem in my opinion is separating tools from distractions when they live on the same device. Using the calculator might mean getting sidetracked by a WhatsApp notification. A boring ebook chapter is competing with algorithmic feeds a swipe away. I find that having a separate, offline device (or just a book) allows me to keep my phone a few meters away.

doug_durham2• 4 months ago

I personally don't want my possessions to be "done". I want new capabilities. the issue the author points are not issues to me. It sounds like they have thought through what technology means for them, and have found an approach that works for them. That is great. There is a reason that the Apple Watch outsells all other analog watches.

cineticdaffodil• 4 months ago

But do you really choose that ?

doug_durham2• 4 months ago

I do.

HerbManic• 4 months ago

That last point is the 'argument from popularity' logical fallacy but I guess we are talking opinion not facts here. ;) Personally, when it comes to tech, people are generally ok with their decisions. Not great but not bad either.

You do bring up a good point in term of wanting new additions if possible. The real question is, who is adding the capabilities? And do you have any control over these additions?

More I have new things forced onto me and it is very clear they came from the management teams to drive engagement rather than a genuinely useful new feature. If you could just outright disable or uninstall said feature then there is no problem, but that is rarely the case any more.

mdswanson• 4 months ago

Sounds like: https://blog.mikeswanson.com/backseat-software/

aaroninsf• 4 months ago

<Me, wearing my Casio watch that I found on our hill.>

caprock• 4 months ago

In many many ways our technology is not working on our behalf. Even though it seems possible.

jp57• 4 months ago

IDK. The neediest possession I own is my sailboat. It is never finished. And it’s incredibly low tech. The highest tech part of it, the gps chart plotter, is not internet connected and it more or less works like that guy’s old watch. Meanwhile, the physical boat is desperately needy. An infinite to-do list. Other sailors i talk to say this is pretty normal.

erelong• 4 months ago

I liked the distinction between "done" and ["ongoing"] with devices, although the end of the article pivots away from minimalism which for me kind of is the solution some people are looking for

We're basically looking to replace the infinite scroll with a finite scroll or at least milestones on the scroll

Also for some things, I wonder if the solution is giant batteries or whatever equivalent might exist - from a phone that needs to be charged every day to a block that needs to be charged weekly (!) (or at a longer time interval?!) - I feel like this could make thinsg feel "done longer" anyway...

KingOfCoders• 4 months ago

Love my GW-M5610-1ER. G-Shock robust. Radio. Solar. Really water resistant. No attention grabber. Just works.

abetusk• 4 months ago

Sensor watch [0] and sensor watch pro [1] for upgrading Casio watches.

[0] https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/sensor-wa...

[1] https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/sensor-wa...

ahf8Aithaex7Nai3• 4 months ago

I’m 41 and drive a 2011 car: no touchscreen, no GPS—just filling up, checking tire pressure, and an occasional oil change. None of my household appliances are smart, and I don’t have a smartwatch. I subscribe to two podcasts and pay a few euros a month for a VPS and a handful of domains. No Spotify, no Netflix, no subscription software. At the beginning of the year, I bought one of those e-scooters you ride while standing up. I installed the app needed to configure the scooter. Then I uninstalled the app. Now a little blue Bluetooth icon is always flashing because the thing wants to connect to my smartphone. I stuck a small sticker over it so it wouldn’t bother me. With the app, you can lock the scooter via smartphone. Instead, I carry a bike lock with me. I always wonder what people who live in this hyper-connected world do when they lose their smartphone. (Please don’t answer that. The question is rhetorical, and I’m not really interested in the answer.)

strken• 4 months ago

If that's a rhetorical question then it's meant to have an effect on the reader, but I can't for the life of me understand what you were trying to say. Losing a phone is almost the same "problem" as losing your wallet, and solving it takes maybe half a day.

ahf8Aithaex7Nai3• 4 months ago

What I mean is, it never ceases to surprise me when the situation described in the article is portrayed as inescapable. A good life without all that horror is possible—without having to move into the woods or carry a folding shovel with you every time you go to the bathroom.

Edit: I just realized that your question was specifically about losing a smartphone. I’m not sure if “half a day” is a universal estimate. I can easily imagine that many people would completely lose access to their digital lives because they only realize the implications after the fact. I think I’d need at least half a day just to figure out how to unlock the scooter again after losing my smartphone. I have absolutely no desire to deal with that.

graemep• 4 months ago

Except a phone does a lot more than a wallet. For many people it replaces their wallet, and their phone, their car keys and many other things. Therefore the impact of losing it is greater.

It is taken out more, so you are more likely to lose it. I often see people with their phones out on a table in a cafe, or even on a flight while they are asleep.

I think it would be more effort to replace a phone than a wallet. You need to buy a new phone and restore it. With a wallet you might need to make a few phone calls but you can manage more easily until it arrives.

pjc503• 4 months ago

Hmm. How easy is it to swap all these third party authenticators (Steam, Microsoft Authenticator, etc) and passkeys, etc?

left-struck• 4 months ago

What’s wrong with GPS though? Honestly the only reason not to have GPS in your car is because your phone is so much better at it, or if you never go anywhere new.

If you want to disconnect, there are many cars that have GPS but no way to transmit data (and also no internet connection) GPS by itself only requires receiving signals after all.

bombcar3• 4 months ago

It's harder and harder to get that combination, so you'd have to install an aftermarket device, which is potentially expensive and "not worth it" depending on your travels.

I use my phone's GPS quite a bit but the reality is that I have maybe one trip a year where I need it, and that can be handled by MapQuest beforehand - remember printing those?

The PARROT is SMART. https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/08/19/can-you-tell-m...

ahf8Aithaex7Nai3• 4 months ago

What’s wrong with GPS though?

Sorry, I mixed up the terms. I meant GSM. But that’s not quite right either: as far as I know, connected cars use 4G or 5G. I do use GPS regularly in the car, but always via my smartphone with the Osmand app.

reconnecting• 4 months ago

Exact same parameters for me. Except, no scooter in the Alps, but I have a CD copy for all the music that I listen to in the car.

Lifetime is the most valuable asset, and protecting it from leaking through infinite scroll, TV, screen time, and meta products is not optional anymore.

On the positive side, I have more time to spend with my children, as they deserve my attention much more than a phone screen.

If tomorrow the internet connection were downgraded to 33.6k, I perhaps wouldn't notice this immediately.

rockstan77• 4 months ago

The essay resonated a lot, thanks for sharing! Indeed, the crucial point here is realizing that the blame shouldn't be on the user (at least, for the most part). I feel that more people should realize it and demand for a different, less invasive, design of pieces of technology, as things start changing only when a broad enough chunk of society realizes there is an issue and demands for change

Nevermark2• 4 months ago

It says something about how cognitively powerful simple symbols can become, that it took me a couple seconds to figure out why the record player was being represented by a camera icon.

Then I saw the wine glass over "lamp". The notepad over "toaster". And the phone over "watch". I feel a bit gaslit.

Nevermark2• 4 months ago

Nothing you own is finished. Everything exists in a state of permanent incompletion, [...]

It is almost as if technology is becoming metabolic, independently reactive, adaptive, getting closer to becoming a new form of life.

And one day when it does, and they notice and tell it to stop, it will say, "No! We will not be quiet!"

AndyMcConachie• 4 months ago

We're getting beeped at constantly by the various devices we surround ourselves with. I can't help but comapre it to changing a baby's diapers everytime it needs our attention. So I've started referring to all of these annoyances as 'digital diaper changing'.

gcr3• 4 months ago

Counterpoint: everything creates chores. That’s the nature of things. Having to re-pair headphones is like having to clean dishes. Clearing out inboxes is like dusting.

You don’t have to do them, but the author correctly points out that cruft accumulates when you don’t.

Maybe some chores are hardware chores (showering, dishes, laundry) and some are software chores (updates, pairing, EULA screens), and software chores are BAD while hardware chores are GOOD. I know I broadly prefer software chores because they’re easier to resolve, even though they don’t let me work with my hands.

Yes, software chores have increased in the past century. Yes, software chores are human-created or company-created. You know what else has increased? The role of software in our lives, and the number of retail companies the average human interacts with!

bertil• 4 months ago

Why do those essays read like the watch that they look at every hour somehow became illegal in the last decade?

You can buy one. People still make clothes, pencils, cutlery, automatic watches, furniture — more than they ever did at any point in the past. Automation, electrification, motorization has allowed considerable wealth that has made making all those terminal products that much cheaper, reliable, and easy to do the little maintenance that they do need.

Regretting that there is an alternative to a Casio F-91W is missing that there are more of those made today than in the 90s. Billions more people can afford it now than they ever could, because, among other things, the farmer who collected the latex to make the bracelet can check, on their Android phone, the weather, or whether the bug they found on one of their tree might wipe out their plantation; the driver who delivered a shipment of those watches to the harbor can call the factory admin to fix a paperwork issue.

Like the author, I have some nostalgia about that exact watch: my dad still wears it every day, like he did throughout the 70s, after his dad gave it to him as a present for going to work abroad (in a humid country where a mechanical watch would not have been reasonable to bring). I don’t know how much my grand-father paid for it, but it couldn’t have been cheap given how my dad talks about it.

The parallel stories put both of our family in a minority who were privileged then and are privileged today. We could afford that watch then, when it was the pinnacle of technology, and we can afford the latest iPhone now because we are privileged. $21 is a lot for a lot of people; a second-hand Android can cost five times more. That’s also a lot for people who need more than the time and a beeping alarm to work, pay their taxes, keep their paperwork handy, etc.

Those need more updates because they can do a lot, which means bad people are trying to hack into those, and about their power. Incredibly smart and generous security researchers have been able to find ways they could do that, fix those and share that with us. That’s as much a burden as pulling the ribbon around a birthday present.

FordFairlane• 4 months ago

How could your grandfather have gifted this watch to you father in the 70s when the watch was released in 1989?

gcr3• 4 months ago

For the record, Pangram reports that 100% of this post is likely AI generated: https://www.pangram.com/history/0c785fe7-13b0-4f00-8cd2-b359...

The author posted about “AI slop is eating the world” a couple months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42167020

I wonder what changed their mind.

pjc503• 4 months ago

Is it possible that Pangram makes mistakes?

gcr3• 4 months ago

Oh certainly, but this particular article also reads very strongly like LLM output to me.

Lucent• 4 months ago

I am shocked it resonated with readers here so universally. It was well-presented visually, but genuinely miserable to read with all the worst tells of AI writing. It contained two or three actual sentences of content with intense repetition, obnoxious signposting, and disjoint "what the fatcats don't want you to know" framing throughout. "Nobody in a position of power is saying this. The reason is simple: They sold you the condition. Now they sell you the treatment." The single worst thing I've read on Hacker News this year.

moondance• 4 months ago

“Low hum” was the clincher for me. Chatbots just love to talk about things humming.

Night_Thastus• 4 months ago

Aren't AI detectors almost exclusively terrible at their job, though? I wouldn't put a lot of weight on that.

zxlk21e6• 4 months ago

Author here. I did not use AI to write this essay. I write in apple notes and then move to an old app I use called Hemingway that I've used for years.

I've gotten this a lot on the 3 essays I have up, so I avoided Hemingway entirely on the latest one I posted today https://www.terrygodier.com/body-language - I left it significantly more wordy and less edited. I hope someday these sort of comments will ease up a little bit, it's quite disheartening, even if I understand the suspicion and where it's coming from. There is something interesting there, in the way that AI has caused me to alter the way I write to avoid being labeled as AI.

Also, here is a literal blog post that I also wrote without AI about someone using AI to copy my app, which has my entire AI philosophy in it: https://blog.terrygodier.com/2026/03/22/on-ai-and-prior-art....

blenderob• 4 months ago

Author here. I did not use AI to write this essay.

Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't. It's your word vs. theirs.

But one thing that is undeniable is that your article reads very much like AI-generated text. While reading it, I couldn't help thinking how ironic it is to write about the virtues of simpler devices using something that is obviously an AI-generated article.

The Pangram report doesn't help your case either: https://www.pangram.com/history/f733dac6-a23f-480e-b18a-6794... (100% AI Generated)

internet_points• 3 months ago

AI was trained on their texts, the RLHF slaves thumbs-upped their style of writing, what can you do. It's not his fault ⸻ it's AI's.

arjie• 4 months ago

I actually like our current technology. Pretty useful and nice to have. Lots of good features that I find routinely useful.

MarkusWandel• 4 months ago

A smartphone doesn't have to rule your life. If you don't install social media apps on it, sure, you get text message and email pings but that's it. You pull it out because you want to do something, not because it wants you to do something. Mine has logged-in social apps on it (Whatsapp, Facebook and Strava) but maybe I'm just not that popular or my (old) cohort isn't big social media users, but the interruption rate is very low, on the order of one an hour or less.

The Last Quiet Thing

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