Comment by tenacious_tuna
4 days ago
This is a really enjoyable take, pushing the feeling of what one does on a computer towards actually being at a desk and having to reach for various functions. I feel like that would enable spatial memory to do some cool things.
I miss the 90s chunkiness of switches, buttons, hardware: being able to hear the computer "think" (HDD seeks), the hum of a CRT. Modern machinery feels so insubstantial, emphasizing clean glass and tidy machined chassis. (chassies?)
I have this persistent daydream about a computer setup that feels like the Nostromo flight deck from Alien. I almost want to feel like I'm sitting _inside_ a computer when I'm at my desk, surrounded by powerful feeling electronics with substantial switches and such. Of course there's plenty of inconvenience there too, but something about it appeals to me.
"I miss the 90s chunkiness of switches, buttons, hardware: being able to hear the computer "think" (HDD seeks), the hum of a CRT. Modern machinery feels so insubstantial, emphasizing clean glass and tidy machined chassis. (chassies?)"
That's one of the appeals of mechanical keyboards for me. It's primarily the visual and aural aesthetic (thock thock thock....or clack clack clack) but married to the silent billion or so switches frantically turning on or off on the PC next to me, it kind of gives me the tactile feedback that I want from the process.
You want your key input controls to be based off of the book _The Secret Doctrine_ by Helena Blavatsky? [0]
[0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/12/alien-1970s-city-futura-hel...
Is that the new rick roll? What's up?
That is strange.
The URL only works properly with Firefox in Private mode or with LibreWolf.
Guess the person that runs the community does not like HN.
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Wow, didn't know jwz is wearing his head up his ass now. Sad way to treat your readers by assuming that everyone who reads certain websites is a certain kind of person?
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Singular and plural chassis are spelled the same, but that doesn't make it right! I'm more inclined to spell it chassises personally.
Chasses :-)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-sis
It's inherently plural, can't have just one. sort of like pants I guess. It is a container of parts.
> It's inherently plural
> It is a container
Did you mean "It is containers"? Or is it actually possible to have a singular container of parts?
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Spelled the same, but pronounced differently: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chassis
Replace language with an actually sensible one, and press any key to continue!
If nothing else, that is a truly sadistic trivia question. I wonder if there are any other words in the English language whose plural form is spelled the same, but pronounced differently.
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Buggerall.
Chassis'
Chassipodes
Chassae.
We just need to add more sound effects tied to system monitor probes to get those HDD noises back, kinda like how electric cars have that parking lot noise to make sure pedestrians are aware of them in lieu of an engine banging away! Being inside the computer like being at a pipe organ console, or surrounded by screens like a hacker in a dystopian hovercraft!
My desktop is wired up using Ethernet over powerline (was easier than running a cable) and it creates some noise through my desktop speakers.
The issue is easily fixed with better grounding, but I’ve found that I prefer the noise. I can hear my network traffic, and I’ve come to use it as mental input. (“Op, I can hear that my script has reached the write-to-s3 step”)
a couple weeks ago i was lamenting the lack of hard-drive noises to know when my computer was "thinking", and came across this fun little app:
https://disknoice-655ee8.gitlab.io/
it's got the right noises and i believe that they are synced up with real disk usage, but it doesn't quite feel the same because i think disk usage patterns have changed over the last 20-some years.
pushing the feeling of what one does on a computer towards actually being at a desk and having to reach for various functions
I love this. And it also reminds me of Magic Desk for the Commodore 64.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Desk
I now have a reason to put Linux on my old Intel Mac.
Hey you may like this project: https://github.com/AdoPi/wlgblock
This gives me Microsoft Bob vibes
> tidy machined chassis. (chassies?)
I think you mean "chassissessieses"? :)
Hey the clunkiness, the slow thinking, the hardware buzz (fans) and the feeling that your computer is a living being (an evil one) is well alive in my worklaptop.
Fucking piece of shit.
[dead]