Notices by Stephen Farrugia (fasterandworse@hci.social)

This is where I will collect images designers have drawn to show what design is.

@aral nice! in my experience the thing about streaming setups is they are a vortex of "ooh that would be cool to add to my setup"

@aral enshittification is just the polish fading from the turd

@aral this is (if you're me) actually a really important point. I feel like something can only really become shit if it starts from a shit place. Even if along the way it managed to be good at *something* it still started from a opportunity of the means to a self-serving ends

we need post-tech-industry careers advisors

Communication is a product anchor

Music is a product anchor

Video is a product anchor

Computing is not a product anchor

https://www.techspot.com/news/106170-apple-may-have-ended-production-vision-pro-headset.html

Even the critics elevate these software product pushers to something more by treating their outputs as emergent technologies free from the shackles of packaging that take up shelf space which would be justified if they can just find that killer app.

That’s the problem! All the killer apps of the past were recognised in hindsight. They weren’t anticipated as some inevitable justification for the underlying technology.

We are very susceptible to thinking *anything* is more than a product because a lot of money and effort went into making it. But that’s like playing Desert Bus for the full 8 hours and expecting a reward.

I also think that Ed Zitron is right that this time *feels different* than just “that’s capitalism” because capitalism has never had such an advantage of a product being so *virtual*, so *ethereal*.

And it sucks to hear so many critics like Ed Zitron have to keep saying “don’t get me wrong, I love tech” because they are constantly called pessimists or whatever. This stuff isn’t tech. It’s not innovation either. It’s crap products that are exposed only when we frame them as *products*.

The ai pin and rabbit should be seen as the virtual being taken away for a moment of clarity. A look behind the curtain. They weren’t crap products, they were manifestations of a crap product.

It’s important to remember there are two ends to the snake oil spectrum. Inert ones like homeopathy or potent ones like irradiated water. They all depend on a belief in potential.

You never *loved tech*, you loved good products that, for a period, were mostly digital.

@aral take it easy, man. Get well soon

The thing is, I can criticise gen ai exactly the same as I criticised crypto and I’ll be able to criticise the next *thing* the same way because they are all just shitty products disguised as technologies and they use potential to distract from lack of purpose.

There is no escape from the need to qualify as an innovation by being better in every way and any shortcomings justified and balanced by the importance of the purpose being satisfied.

@aral yeah, I don't have much but I'm proud of the zeros I've turned down too

@aral that's crazy! I bet they offered a bag for the role, though. They gave the agency I was with at the time a biiiiig number to make *anything* with it so they could showcase it. We turned them down because it just made no sense

@aral the true successor to silverlight

One of the best uses of software is to not bring more hardware into the world

when we go back to an internet of homepages we will need a good tool to index and search them. I hope it's possible

the final frontier of everyone leaving platforms is everyone having homepages again