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   josef (jk@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Sep-2026 09:22:46 JST josef

   i feel like the desktop user interface for computers is kind of over now, which sucks

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     josef (jk@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Sep-2026 09:22:45 JST josef

     in reply to

     these are very technical types of issues to talk about but i'm not talking about how any of this is actually implemented technically, because obviously it's such a broad set of trends that there's tons of exceptions to everything. i'm more talking about the general 'feeling' of 'the computer being a thing you own and have understanding and control of' going away, even on the most basic levels like 'where are the files'

     Rich Felker repeated this.
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     josef (jk@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Sep-2026 09:22:45 JST josef

     in reply to

     i also feel this same lack of control and alienation when using free or open source software and operating systems, because the culture now is not only to never finish working on software, but to intertwine every piece of software on the computer with every other, requiring even more systems to keep everything up to date, and ensure the computer is always constantly changing under me, the sands shifting, soil turning to liquid, sinkholes opening up, swallowing all my configurations and programs

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     josef (jk@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Sep-2026 09:22:46 JST josef

     in reply to

     the way i learnt to use a computer is this: you have a hard drive with files on it, like pictures and sounds and documents in folders. you can look at these using a program called a file manager, which shows icons representing each one, and lets you move them around. programs are also files, which end in 'exe' and you get them by copying them off shareware CDs your uncle gave you onto your hard drive. most programs are just a single 'exe' but some (bad ones) include a bunch of other files too

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     josef (jk@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Sep-2026 09:22:46 JST josef

     in reply to

     i think the way computers are going, virtually nothing about this will be true or relevant anymore. even now, everything seems way less grounded, less focused on where the data is materially and your own ownership and use of it. the programs are transient, at best temporarily cached on your computer but really residing on some server. the files aren't in your own folders, they belong to each app, or they exist everywhere and nowhere, and it doesn't matter what they are or where they are