Luddites, leave your tech nostalgia at home
April 11, 2011
On April Fools' Day, NPR's All Things Considered ran a story about the Slow Internet Movement, based around a coffeehouse called Drip that offered slow Internet service on purpose, to cater to those who yearn for the old days of 14.4kbps modems and waiting 10 minutes to check your email. They even had someone describe the time spent waiting for data to arrive as a form of meditation.
It was a joke, and a funny one, but such people actually do exist. The All Things Considered letters segment the following week brought forth this comment:
James Sweeney got the joke, but asked: Am I the only one who was disappointed when they realized it was the gag story? He continues: I live a somewhat conflicted life. I am at the same time nostalgic for technology of days gone by, yet I work in the IT industry with current technology. But I resist new technology as much as possible. No smartphone, no Bluetooth, and yes, still dial-up at home. Others make fun of me, of course, and I was excited to be able to share news of this anti-bandwidth revolt with them. P.S., Mr. Sweeney writes: I still have my original Commodore 64 somewhere in the attic.
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I don't know Mr. Sweeney, but I know people like him: folks who work in IT every day, dealing with highly technical operations in the fastest-moving industry on the planet, who in their hearts prefer simpler times. Most don't bring their Luddite tendencies to work with them. But some do.
In fact, some bring it to the table during technical discussions, flaming the room with the IT equivalent of "fix old, no new!" There's definitely a time and a place for such caution, but I've found that these folks tend to pick their battles poorly -- and fight every change as though it were the end of days.
As a brief example -- one going back a way -- I recall a time when a senior IT member who was in charge of the AS/400 was absolutely adamant that the company did not need any of these new Intel servers. Instead, they could buy a bunch of AS/400 Integrated Netfinity Servers and keep everything within the AS/400 purview, never mind that they had been end-of-life for years. This old-school frame of mind can lead to a horrific waste of money in all kinds of pernicious ways.
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