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I was going to buy a new computer, and I ended up buying a harpoon instead.
Why was I going to buy another computer? I already have two. Part of it was vanity, this was going to become the perfect hackerstation!
I also have a strange relationship with computers, a big part of my personality has been built around computers, and on the other hand I really don't end up doing much with them.
There are many dichotomies about me, many yins and yangs, and one big split that tears me apart is the conflict between cyber and nature. Am I a netizen and a cyber-cowboy, or a back-to-the-roots hermit of the mountains, living in tune with nature? Yes, I am aware any such dicothomy is misguided, whatever, and anyway, all of this is built on nothing but pure vanity.
I bought the harpoon, anyway, and that ought to get me moving. I spend so much time staring at screens, and regretting this fact. Computers don't inspire me the way they used to, and sometimes I just spend time in here for the sake of doing so, and I end up wishing I would go out and move my body more, instead of sitting here expecting to draw something of value out of these damned machines.
It's not like I can't find something of value in here, but I have to *force* it out. I can be very unproductively productive in here, in a way that has ended up becoming a fake kind of progress. I think of all the kinds of miscellaneous stuff that I could talk about in a great many subjects, and how many times someone has been surprised by me mentioning some obscure piece of knowledge (obscure in the sense that perhaps not everybody would bring it up or know about it, in a normal setting), and oh the futility of it all, for I know a little about a lot, but never a lot about anything whatsoever.
Lately I have focused on reading about stuff that would get me away from the screen... and it's ironic that I depend on the screen to learn about this stuff. Not that I *actually* depend on the screen to do so, I am still going back over a bad habit of reaching for the screen in an attempt to get away from it.
And yet... the internet is my library of alexandria, for I am trapped in hick country (well, it's equivalent in my country), with no like-minded people in a 10-mile radius at least, a place where books have been apparently banished, and there is an ongoing effort to banish trees just as well. Where can I reach for anything that would allow me to keep my sanity? Hopefully, the harpoon will be a good way to keep my mind -and my body- busy enough, and at a healthy distance (at least a couple miles) from any screen whatsoever.
What I need are less computers, but I can never be computer-less.
~bartender, I almost forgot, a glass of white wine would be splendid right now!
hi ~detritus
For me, I fell into a Computer Science "versus" Nature mindset some time ago, and I found it to be *like* a dicothomy, but actually a "quasi" false choice ("quasi" because there is not actually a choice to it at all - Nature wins all-out, nothing anyone can do about it - (also there is no equivalent to nature, so a dicothomy can't exist in this respect). HOWEVER, the mindset of this (tech v nature) is recurring for me, but, I acknowledge that I respect and admire the natural world (some lack this admiration, which is unfortunate). Some things I like, and like to learn/amuse myself with, are sites like 100r.co, Low Tech Magazine, the small computing movement (not just Smol Web), permacomputing, and longevity-focused CS topics that address consolidating the (sad) reality of built-in obsolescence and Collapse Informatics.
Albeit, these are cutting losses, in the long and short term. The best way to state my view on it ("tech v nature", or (better) "Nature with tech") is to quote Ray Jardine: "if given the choice between Nature and technology, choose nature. Because technology will let you down".
~bartender, another espresso please. Sun comes up soon and I want to be ready for it :)