This is a lovely bit of writing, and really points to the value of constraints. Some of my favorite childhood memories were being at friends' houses, huddled over the computer, playing Space Quest or Zork. At one of my friends' houses, we were aware that Leisure Suit Larry was installed, and curious, but never played it because of the central location of the machine.
I think the shift we've seen TV is something similar. When I was a kid, TV was viewed as an antisocial medium ("the boob tube"), but I have really fond memories of sitting with my family watching Quantum Leap or Growing Pains. Now that everyone has their own screen to watch TV, it seems the studios don't even bother trying to make shows that appeal to an entire family.
We focus so much on the media (tv/internet/video games/books) when ascribing value, but, as this article indicates, the physical nature of the delivery (shared living room appliance vs portable individual screen) makes a huge difference.
Yes! And music! What a social thing listening to a CD or watching MTV in someone's room used to be. Now it's just isolating.
we played leisure suit larry at my friend's house, when his parents were at work. Guessing the right answer for the parental lock was most of the fun.
> This is a lovely bit of writing
A lovely bit of AI slop.
Edit - This is not the first time I'm observing this. Could somebody explain to me why the comments which point out the discussed texts are AI generated are being frequently downvoted on Hacker News?
In the very same thread there is this apparently downvoted (as of now) comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47807528
Why is it so, is this really this community's stance on LLM-generated, mostly weak and empty writing?
I downvote them because they are tangential to the content. They are like complaints about scroll bars and back button hijacking, or annoyances about the website's color scheme. Valid complaints, but contrary to the HN guideline:
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
I want to respect the guidelines for the good of the community, but at this point it isn't serving the community well for there to not be backlash against the rising flood of AI-generated garbage.
It was really truly bad enough when it was ~half the articles either being about AI directly or indirectly. Now it's that, plus half of it is written by Claude too.
What meaningful community is going to be left for these guidelines to protect?
Moderation needs to put their foot down in some cases, as a matter of necessity. Sometimes users need to put their foot down, too.
I think your comment was maybe downvoted for being so terse and dismissive.
But you're right that it is anything but a good piece of writing and it is genuinely strange to see people act otherwise.
> That kind of furniture organized more than just objects. It organized a relationship with technology. It suggested that the computer (and with it, the internet) was something used under particular conditions: seated, in that spot, for a certain amount of time. Something that was switched on and off, opened and closed.
It's making a nice point and one that I'm sure most of the people here do find appealing, it's an idea that I relate to myself. But the words used to make that point are bordering on nonsense.
> But you're right that it is anything but a good piece of writing and it is genuinely strange to see people act otherwise.
It is prudent to assume there is a decent chance it is not a person acting otherwise (i.e. could be bots). Funny, because this was also a recent post:
I think HN is just fucked. A lot of people either genuinely don't see the problem with having a bunch of AI-generated slop garbage on the frontpage, or they are themselves posting it so they have a personal stake in not seeing anything wrong with it.
Don't be too surprised: there are literally comments that are just blatantly written by Claude on HN, which seem to be coming from human accounts that predate Claude. Which means that there are people here who, in trying to respond, actually ask Claude to basically do it for them. I find this utterly stunning and honestly, truly alarming. Even if the person behind the keyboard is technically alive, what exactly are they becoming? Are they even going to think for themselves, or will they just ask Claude what they're supposed to think from now on?
And as much as HN moderation has been genuinely pretty great at keeping the community under control with a relatively light touch, it's already too late. Dang and friends needed to do something much sooner, and they didn't. It literally doesn't matter what they do now, so there's no point in bugging them, not that I expect they would be interested in listening anyway.
I'm not going to make a lot of dramatic "I'm leaving Twitter" type comments, but I'm losing respect for HN's rules and guidelines the more I see this page overran with literal CRAP. And just so I can make my opinion clear, it's not crap because it's AI generated, it's crap because I can tell it's AI generated, full of fluff, cliches and a lack of substance.
It says a lot about the taste of the average person voting on HN that this is what we get now, and it fucking sucks because I don't really like any of the competing news aggregators either. I actually had to log in to post this comment because lately I've been staying logged out of HN and visiting less frequently now that I'm not sure what I get out of it.
At least I won't miss HN when the internet becomes an inaccessible hellscape in part due to AI crap outnumbering human posts 1000:1 and in part due to horrible legislation screaming ahead at breakneck speeds with literally no opposition from anybody.
> [the internet] It didn’t just have a place; it had a time. There were moments of access, moments of waiting, moments when it simply wasn’t available. You went in and came out.
I feel like this physicality and time-constraint is what really helped you use it (the computer/internet) as a tool to enrich one's life.
The introduction of the smart phone and the "always-on" internet that gave rise to a super-charged attention economy, tracking, engagement algorithms fuelling doom scrolls and unnecessary notifications avalanches has become a hostile internet of stress and anxiety.
Agreed. Maybe its rose-tinted goggles for me, but I feel like the internet was a better place (and encouraged a healthy relationship with technology) when it was a place you "went" instead of something thats with you all the time, always connected.
Using the computer, or getting online required setting aside a block of time, and physically going to a desk (or library/computer lab). It didn't follow you when you were done, you shutdown the computer and went on with your life. There was a clear separation of online and irl, those identities weren't merged yet.
It was very task focused. Yeah, I still got on the family computer and just browsed around for an hour, but for the most part it was something I got on to do something specific, as a tool, not an extension of my daily life.
> Maybe its rose-tinted goggles for me, but I feel like the internet was a better place (and encouraged a healthy relationship with technology) when it was a place you "went" instead of something thats with you all the time, always connected.
In my experience the difference was rather that a lot of internet users of this generation were radically pro-privacy, and very opposed to any centralized service (they were willing to teach you a lot about setting up your own internet applications, websites or web applications under the promise that you don't use a centralized web platform and you delete your accounts there).
The fixed computer is also a huge factor to facilitate supervised computer use (and make it a shared experience!) with kids at home.
As much as I agree with the point of the article, I keep getting tripped up that every second sentence is "It didn't X, it Y'ed".
I think it's repeated to form a stylistic device in the second paragraph, but then the shape is interspersed so much in the rest of the text that it reads like a clumsy first write.
Yes, this is definitely AI-generated. It's always weird that people don't even attempt to sanitize the output to look a little more human. The last pic was very nostalgic, however. It's like we have shared experiences very similar to the corner computer in the living room, complete with the stack of CDs (which will never get completely used).
I can't say whether this was machine-generated or not, but the reason LLMs use these patterns is because they're often used by humans, which is what they're trained to mimic. LLM spam has now made it annoying, but there are many people who still write like this. Asking them to change their writing patterns because LLMs have ruined it for readers is not just unfair—it's offensive. (See what I did there? Double whammy!)
Thank you for saying this. I use those writing devices a lot, always have since I was young. I've always said I don't write like an LLM, the LLMs are copying me. Its also a common hallmark of neurodivergent writing, and it's frustrating to frequently get dismissed for being an LLM just because of writing patterns?
I'm now having to deliberately re-word my emails and comments, spending additional time, to avoid being accused of being an LLM.
> I can't say whether this was machine-generated or not, but the reason LLMs use these patterns is because they're often used by humans, which is what they're trained to mimic.
It's definitely written by an AI. I understand that people use these same rhetoric devices but the word "mimic" is exactly right. They're not writing like humans, they're mimicking human writing in a way that feels extremely uncanny.
(Hey look, I did the thing too!)
Sigh. That's why I stopped using — (em dash)...
When I was a kid it would have been pretty unusual to let a kid have a TV in their room. Some parents did it, but it was never seen as appropriate. This was the 1980s to 1990s. Now we make sure everyone has much, much more than a TV on them at all time. It's a huge cultural shift in itself and has not been a healthy one.
It wasn't inappropriate, it's just that you typically didn't have multiple cable boxes. There wasn't really a reason to have a TV in a kids room if you're only getting OTA broadcasting, there wasn't much for kids other than like Saturday morning cartoons. I knew plenty of kids in the 90s with a video game console and TV in their room though. It was for games, not TV watching.
My parents certainly were of the opinion that it is inappropriate to let kids watch TV whenever they want to.
Oh, it is not that family computer
The Famicom was so cool in a way that the NES just never intended to be. Disk drives, a modem (online banking!), super funky aesthetics for the console and the carts, etc. Very ahead of its time.
Call me old-fashioned, but I have a family computer. I got rid of my laptop, and got a desktop instead. It stays in the living room, in a desk drawer. The monitor is a portable monitor, and it gets put away when the computer is not in use. My kids aren't old enough to use it yet, but it will be the family computer eventually.
I've never bought a laptop or tablet for this very reason. No big phone (iPhone 13).
I'm still writting this now, from the couch. I fear how much screen time others waste.
We used to hide TVs when not in use, also - now we have TVs designed to be "always on" and show artwork instead.
Out of sight, out of mine - I think it's generally a good idea.
Legend
Poignantly in this instance, Utopia is from "ou-topos" (coined by Sir Thomas More in the early modern period). It literally means "no place".
The pun being that “eu-topos” would be “good place”.
Regulating our digital experiences through the built environment is underrated. I like the idea of a dedicated internet corner at home: somehow both nostalgic and futuristic.
Also related and enjoyable: cafes with no/limited WiFi hours and riding the subway with no signal.
I was a kid when we had a family computer in the living room.
We mostly played games on it. It's really not fun playing games in the living room while everyone is around you doing other stuff.
It's like being the only one watching TV on the sofa while others are reading or working.
Same, and agreed. It’s also annoying for everyone else who has to listen to the same few unit movement confirmation sounds hundreds of times in an hour.
Requisite youtube video: The Internet Used to Be a Place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYlcUbLAFmw
Turkish word for computer is "bilgi-sayar"(info-counter) mag on the image.
> It’s not nostalgia. It’s something else: the distance left by an idea that no longer holds.
sniff sniff... sniiiiiffffff...
Yes, I can definitely smell AI.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbw5KX9TaXY
I never experienced having just one computer for family use, but when internet finally came there was just one line for it and we had to limit our time and carefully coordinate when we got on. But for me that was also a time when computers were used for things other than online-stuff: programming, playing single-player games, drawing, or writing.
There was also a sense that the internet was a place: not a specific place in the house, but "out there", while your own computer was "in here" where your stuff lived. The UI affordances of the time reflected this. The first two icons on the desktop in Windows 95 were called "My Computer" and "Network Neighborhood", allowing you to access your own computer, and other computers nearby with shared files. When old browsers connected to the internet, the "throbber" in the upper right corner would animate. This was distinct from the animated hourglass cursor that indicated your computer was doing some sort of processing, and was specifically designed to indicate that stuff from "out there" was currently being transferred to your machine. Because "out there" was unknown, it was dangerous. It was 42nd Street at night in 90s NYC, and you didn't know who you were going to bump into or what you might find.
And then Steve Ballmer or somebody at Microsoft decided, you know what would be great? What if the browser was the OS, and everything on your machine were accessed just like it was online? One familiar interface for everything! That's why I still don't forgive Microsoft for its Windows 98 UI changes and browser integration. Not just monopoly and anticompetitive reasons, but because they blurred what I thought at the time to be an an extremely important distinction. To me it was a lot like what they were trying to do with making Windows 11 an "agentic OS": inviting danger to ordinary users and making it seem safe. (Geez, now I'm doing the thing.)
Today of course it doesn't matter. Today everything is online all the time. If an application runs on your computer or phone, it's usually still to interact with some online service, but to more closely monitor and constrain how this is done.
Sorry but is this just completely AI generated? Or does the author really love "not X but Y" devices?
I hated every moment of the family computer era.
Hated the dialup, hated having to steal other users AOL passwords because my large family couldn't afford internet.
Hated, later, having to keylog the local libraries ISDN line because the provider offered a free national dial in number for "traveling".
The whole world of information available to become less ignorant and I can only use it for an hour a day.
As a below poverty line child with heart defects who was prohibited from sports and a whole slew of other things, what we have now is fucked up because we've allowed every interaction to become a dopamine casino and we've skinners boxed ourselves straight to hell.
This kind of nostalgia bait is actively harmful, there are clear patterns businesses based in america use and all that shit should be banned.
Forcing everyone to use a real Id is an evil, making skinners box patterns illegal is much easier.
I loved Juno email, I loved that rich people paid for the ads I easily ignored because I had a velcro TMNT wallet from a community free store but not a single dollar inside of it.
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I actually found the LLM-generated image more annoying than the LLM-generated prose.