Category: technology

Most consumerist delight. Cool blue keyboard.

My friend David converted an old PC that could not run the current or even the not-current version of Windows into a computer that is running the current version of Fedora Linux like a champ!

Here we see the Intergalactic Headquarters of ConcreteLunch Projects.

This is not a state of the art computer. This is 10-year old tech.

• 4x Intel Xeon CPU
• 16 Gigs RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 video card
• Fedora Linux 44
• KDE Plasma Desktop Edition

It runs Firefox really well, and handles 3 monitors of the following resolutions: 2k, 1080 HD, and 1600×900.

I’m not using this machine for video editing. Not even really for watching videos. It is really for writing and playing online tabletop RPGs using a Virtual Tabletop System (Roll20.net). It is snappy as hell for these uses.

I did get a wider desk to accommodate the three monitors. Still getting the layout dialed-in. I think this really demonstrates that for most uses older tech is still fine.

Non-federated social media will never be used on this computer.

If you walked up to an artist and said “paint me a picture of this or that”, and the artist painted it, would you then say “I created this.”

Probably not.

That’s why AI art is not art, and people using AI to do their “art” are not, in fact artists.

Not trying to start any discussions or arguments here. No comments here on this post.

The more I consider it, I see no upside to humanity from AI. ​

Removing the cognitive load from people’s brains will only make us stupider, more incompetent at simple tasks, lazier. This applies to every task. Use AI to write an email? Weakens you. Use AI to program a website function? Weakens your brain, atrophies your skills. Have AI summarize an article for you? Weakens your brain, which should be able to focus, read, UNDERSTAND, and summarize. Use it to brainstorm ideas for a game? Weakens your brain by offloading the creative process. And all of these things rob you of the sense of accomplishment you should experience and replace it with simply – being – a – consumer.

It’s not just a tool, like a pocket calculator. That’s like saying a dagger is the same as a nuclear bomb. It’s a bullshit argument and intellectually lazy.

Every time you let AI lift the intellectual weight you get weaker.

Saw someone online today write ” how to get the most out of an AI collaboration. ”

You don’t collaborate with an AI. It’s a bunch of chips filled with ones and zeros and programmed to guess what word should come next. Collaboration is reserved for human beings, you idiot.

This is the kind of person who falls in love with his AI girlfriend.

My friend David took an old beat to shit PC he built us a few years ago and refurbished it. Even better, he put Linux (Fedora) on it.

I haven’t had a “desktop” in a long time. Honestly, it is nice to have that tower on the floor and reclaim my the space on top of my desk.

My preference is always the Apple ecosystem and MacIntosh computers, but hell, I had this laying around and he fixed it up for free, and I’m excited to dive into a consumerist orgy of finding a 3rd monitor, a wider desk, a cool cyberpunk-looking keyboard, an Ono-Sendai Cyberspace-7 poster on the wall above this little tech-nest, and some glowing LEDs setting the proper mood when I use it to run my online Traveller RPG game and whatnot.

Thus far I am enjoying Linux. I’ve used it before, and years ago I had a Unix workstation at my desk at work (previous job). For a librarian I am pretty good on the command-line as well. What I lack these days is patience, but that is something to work on.

I’ve got all my peripherals working well, installed the Discord app, and a few other things. Over the next week I’ll get it organized as I want it, put a cool desktop image on the screens, and take care of various other details.

Last week I removed all social media from my phone. Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Mastodon, Twitch, Discord. Even my micro.blog app for my skateboarding blog.

Yes, I can still get to all that stuff on my computer, but there is something about removing it from the phone that already feels liberating. Sitting at a computer I can still get to Instagram, but it really doesn’t work well on a computer. So I’m not really using it anymore. I can get to Facebook on a computer even here at work. I never use Discord from a work computer, so removing it from my phone means I’m not really using it much at all.

So at this point I think removing all that shit from my phone has been noticeably positive. I’m not checking social media in waiting rooms, in the restroom, etc. At night, after dinner, I look at it for a little while and then I pick up my Kindle or an actual physical book and read.

I know at least a few of my readers have made this kind of change, or a great change, already. Friends, I am right behind you. I’ll catch up. I’m working on it.

There can be little doubt that the “smart phone” is the worst technology ever invented – until AI. They go hand-in-hand.

We have a Nintendo Switch, so obviously we also have a subscription to whatever their service is (ugh – another damned subscription to cancel). Therefore, I am on their mailing list.

Last week I got an email with the subject line “Bring your games with you, anywhere you go”, and the attached image…

After spending a lot of time thinking about current and future technology use, the way online activity interferes with concentrating on more valuable activities (like reading, writing, skateboarding, the list goes on), I couldn’t help be think when I saw this email “Why is it good that people can take video games with them anywhere? Is it good? Is it desireable?”

Like the cursed cellphone, I think this kind of thing isn’t really good. I know it sounds like I just don’t like video games, and that is partially true. I’m not into them really, so I don’t really value them much. I understand, however, that they are entertainment and people like them so I’m not voicing this opinion just to crap on someone else’s fun.

A book is portable too. Why do I view that differently? Well, I think reading is a better thing to do when I’m sitting in a waiting room than playing a video game. Making video games portable is an example of what my niece calls “the Poison of Convenience.” It’s also a way of keeping people jacked-into the content machine and reinforcing the digital addition. It’s not even a conspiracy. It’s just Capitalism doing what Capitalism does, extracting value from the humans and nature.

The same goes for the damned cellphone. Harvesting your attention and the irreplaceable and valuable moments of your life to sell another product.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t play video games. I think video games can be amazing and fun entertainment. I’m talking about our ability to disconnect and be alone with the wonder and the horror of our own thoughts, in silence. The power to concentrate on something like a book, or sit and listen to music with no other sensory input.

I like having my Kindle with me at all times. I keep it in my backpack, along with some pens and a couple of notebooks. I like to write in journals. Before the Kindle I would usually have a physical book in there. Sometimes I’ll throw this Chromebook I’m typing on now in there too. But again – what do I really want to carry with me? Isn’t a book enough? At least the Kindle, while it can get on the web, makes it hard to do so.

Anyway, yeah, been considering how much portability is too much.

For the most part, across any social media or blogging platform I use, I am unfollowing anyone who works in “tech.” There are a few I’m staying with, represented in my blog roll, and at least one other, but for the most part I just can’t read another post or article about one of the AI platforms doing this or that, why one is better than the other, etc.

I know this is just fascinating, right?

Saw a blogger I follow expounding on the value of AI to make everything he does easier and accelerate everything.

I reject the notion that things – anything – needs to be accelerated. That’s a pernicious idea that’s been created by the tech bros and capitalists to further enslave us.

Everyone needs to slow down.

Productivity is a lie.