Probably the biggest time suck is the internet, just browsing social media and random websites. Not only is it time consuming – it’s expensive with the $50 plus a month for the cable or FIOS service, to say nothing of the electricity consumed and the constant supply of gadgets like modems and routers that you use for a few years and throw in the garbage when they fail or become obsolete.
For years, a resisted even having a smartphone until they finally became inexpensive and it seemed like a growing necessity to have access to email for work. But nowadays it seems like you can virtually do everything on your smartphone – no computer needed.
Bandwidth caps keep increasing and with more powerful smartphone apps you don’t really need computers for much except for the most processing intensive things like GIS work. And heck, it seems like most new phones are including Hotspot capabilities and providers are allowing you to use part of your monthly bandwidth for hot spot allowing you to get your desktop computer online for basic, occasional use.
I just like having my internet access limited at home and not using my laptop, which uses far more electricity than my smartphone. When I need an occasional dataset or to do something best done on the computer, I can use the hotspot mode to briefly connect. And I can get connected wherever.
For bigger files and downloads, I can always swing by a public Wi-Fi network at a local library or other location. My office has WI-FI and that’s where I normally grab software updates, podcasts, YouTube videos that I download and so forth. I like how my internet access is controlled and limited to set time periods at the library or similar other locations.
Even when I own my own land, I really doubt I’ll ever have home internet. It seems like a lot of equipment to buy, services to subscribe to, electricity to consume and equipment to discard. I get that smart homes are very trendy these days but I don’t want to live a life where everything I do offline is monitored and sold for marketing purposes. My smartphone is really just enough.
Lines of code longer than 80 characters drive me crazy. I appreciate that this is pedantic. I’ve seen people on the internet make good arguments for why the 80-character limit ought to be respected even on our modern Retina-display screens, but those arguments hardly justify the visceral hatred I feel for even that one protruding 81st character.
There was once a golden era in which it was basically impossible to go over the 80-character limit. The 80-character limit was a physical reality, because there was no 81st column for an 81st character to fit in. Any programmers attempting to name a function something horrendously long and awful would discover, in a moment of delicious, slow-dawning horror, that there literally isn’t room for their whole declaration.
I get tired of the endless number enormous, complicated and thoroughly modern houses I see on Zillow. But when I get to a more remote place like the Adirondacks and look around I know there is reason for hope. Most cabins, especially seasonal hunting cabins aren’t wrapped in plastic or are enormous though some certainly are. I really don’t get the appeal of modernity, the smart television in every room with high speed internet. I am pretty sure the house of future, as sold on television will come with a mandatory 30-yard dumpster with the amount of waste we are told is normal by the television.
I think home should be a sanctuary away from it all. Simple and not needing constant repairs or buying new shit to keep it in good condition. A simple cabin, with as few electronics and as little technology as possible. Maybe some electric lights, but not much beyond that. While I could see the benefits of having a propane heater as a backup when I’m away for an extended period of time, a wood stove, with as little space to heat as possible would be best. No washing machine, no dish washer or fancy appliances. Just a very basic propane stove, an energy efficient refrigerator, a place to charge my cellphone.
Maybe to live a life like that I have to build it, as few houses on the market truly are like that. But there are people who live that way, as witnessed by the Adirondacks. Not all houses are spacious and “modern” or covered with vinyl siding and full of white walls. Shiplap and board batten are common options in cabins, white drywall ain’t the only option. You also don’t have to have a 2,000 foot square house. Maybe such things are normal in suburbs, along with the mandatory 30-yard dumpster for all the things you get in Amazon on a daily basis, but I find it all so repulsive.
“Old John Robertson he wore a Stetson hat
People everywhere would laugh behind his back
No one cared to take any time to find out
What he was all about, fear kept them out. “
