Well, there could be a cohort of Mondo readers who have been on them for the past 40 years. They might be able to say if there have been long term consequences.
Plus, it’s a rare win/win of indulgence and plausible productivity.
The fact that you just have to read these medium form articles since that’s all there is for the month kind of resets your brain from just flicking through a million YouTube shorts.
Despite being Gen Z, our house wasn’t hooked up to the internet for most of my childhood and I remember spending ages analysing every single detail in the magazines I got. While now I have to actively avoid getting distracted and pulling out my phone.
But no “Nibble”? That was my go to mag for Apple programming. I wish I had saved them like OP!
In the 80s, I regularly went to B&N to troll the computer mags. They're all gone now.
My hot rod magazines have all disappeared, too. Magazines like "Chrysler Engines". Sigh. The only one left is Hot Rod.
I have nearly 200 issues just of PC Magazine. If I toted up the rest, I might have more than you!
I love being able to access almost anything instantly, but it kind of reduces my appreciation of everything at the same time
>By its third issue PC was square-bound, because it was too thick for saddle-stitch. At first the magazine published new issues every two months, but became monthly as of the August 1982 issue, its fourth. In March 1983 a reader urged the magazine to consider switching to a biweekly schedule because of its thickness. Although the magazine replied to the reader's proposal with "Please say you're kidding about the bi-weekly schedule. Please?", after the December 1983 issue reached 800 pages in size, in 1984 PC began publishing new issues every two weeks, with each about 400 pages in size.
I don't believe BYTE ever reached 800 pages, but it came close. The only other computer magazine I know of that reached >400 pages per issue is ... 80 Micro, in 1982 and a special issue in 1983.[1] The magazine folded in 1988, which tells you just how quickly the TRS-80 market collapsed once the IBM PC (as represented by PC) got going.
[1] The special issue has an editorial titled "There's no end in sight". <https://archive.org/details/80-microcomputing-magazine-1983-...>
I'm a technology enthusiast but haven't been blown away by any new hardware in a while.
I wondered if this was age-related, but my kid and his friends don't seem to be too excited either. In fact, he's now into mechanical analog watches and even grabbed my wife's Swatch which she hasn't used in over 10 years!
These days I'm so burn out when newsletter or social media site feed me with daily new Javascript frameworks.
techdmn•4mo ago
criddell•4mo ago
IBM launched the PCjr and it was a cover story. When's the last time anybody wrote about a new desktop? I guess Apple and Framework do something interesting occasionally. Does anybody else?
Gigachad•4mo ago
The Mac mini gets quite a lot of attention considering I’ve never actually met a Mac mini user ever. Everyone picks the MacBook.
M95D•4mo ago
criddell•4mo ago
AnimalMuppet•4mo ago
CharlesW•4mo ago
hagbard_c•4mo ago
- old off-lease hardware providing our services
- those services are based around free software and keep our data where we can 'see' it. No Apple-Google-Meta-Microsoft-etc accounts needed or wanted.
- older laptops, notebooks, mobile devices running free software
Content filtering takes care of the advertising and other data parasites. As to 'the attention economy' that is up to you as an individual to keep out of your life. Ditch the legacy media and you're already on the right trail, find alternatives where needed and you'll be fine.
If some product is locked down you just have to refrain from using it no matter how enticing it looks, no matter how slick the advertising, no matter how heavy the group pressure. You may have to live with your text messages showing up in a different colour on the screens of those who drank the Kool-Aid, you may have to insist on using a different communication channel than the one pushed by FaceMetabook, etc.
In short there is still a bright future for those who know how coax it from the materials at hand, you'll just have to fight the parasites who always appear in thriving ecosystems. Squash them like the bugs they are and you'll be fine unless you happen to live somewhere where the state uses repressive means to keep everyone and everything under its control. If this is the case you can try to fight it, especially while they have not achieved full control and there is still a chance of turning the ship around. If not you're probably best off by moving out of that state, the world is a big place and there's likely to be some country where your skills are welcomed.
FuriouslyAdrift•4mo ago
ryandrake•4mo ago
hagbard_c•4mo ago
Data technology has gone mainstream and with that it is used by adversarial actors, this was much less the case in the time of yore. There was no 'big data' because the storage and processing capacity to enable it did not exist while nowadays it is available to anyone who has the means - and those means are steadily going down. In biological terms data technology used to be a niche which was found by a group of critters which happily lived in their secluded valley until it suddenly spread over the whole world. With that came new opportunities - jobs galore for anyone who knew his way around - but also new threats, predators and parasites. That is where we are now so the name of the game is survival of the fittest. In other words, up your ante, ditch parasite technology and learn to thrive again. You'll have to swat some buzzing parasite every now and then, both the winged as well the branded variety. Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
michaeldoron•4mo ago
We watch AI models become better each month, not in ads, but in blogs and posts. While not making cover stories, new models do make the news. I was so excited when Dall-E first came out, I even hosted a guess-the-prompt party four years ago with what seems now like prehistoric-level generated images. The AI industry may face more scrutiny and criticism than the computer hardware industry of the olden days, but we even have a semblance of open source communities who are trying to democratize this for everyone.
All this to say, similar sentiments still exist in the frontier, it's just that the frontier moved.
munificent•4mo ago
Much (but not all) of the enthusiasm I see with AI today seems to be from people who think it will make them rich, powerful, and freed from the apparently intolerable burden of having to interact with other humans in order to generate and consume media.
It's not the same.
fuzztester•4mo ago
>and freed from the apparently intolerable burden of having to interact with other humans in order to generate and consume media.
Can you explain it?
munificent•4mo ago
* A comment I saw on HN once where some dude was excited about AI video because it let him play at being a filmmaker without having to deal with actors, camera operators, etc.
* The large number of tragic souls who install chatbot apps on their phones and have virtual relationships with them instead of actual relationships.
* Spending an evening scrolling through TikTok or other social media which is increasingly AI-generated images and video instead of summoning the willpower to call a friend or get out of the house.
* Music producers who use AI vocal generators instead of finding a friend who can sing.
Etc.
fuzztester•4mo ago
I've seen things like that too, among my friends and acquaintances.
e.g.: a few months back, i was hanging out one evening in the office of a friend who works in the filmmaking field, who i saw creating a presentation to promote an upcoming film course they were going to conduct shortly.
i somehow could detect, by the words and tone, that it was probably ai-generated. he said yes.
then i told him what i intuitively felt, that using such a tool once in a while may be okay but if you use it a lot, your skills will atrophy.
same thing happened with another friend in a different field some days later.
plorkyeran•4mo ago
I definitely enjoyed the phase of AI stuff where it wasn't actually useful yet more than the current one.
sakesun•4mo ago