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From: baez@x.ucr.edu (john baez)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Sony Palmtop w/char recognition - Ultimate Laptop?
Message-ID: <5473@ucrmath.UCR.EDU>
Date: 13 Apr 90 01:54:28 GMT
References: <18720@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <1463@uvm-gen.UUCP> <19307@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <54020@microsoft.UUCP> <3223@moondance.cs.uq.oz.au> <1990Apr11.060139.1330@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <3237@moondance.cs.uq.oz.au>
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In article <3237@moondance.cs.uq.oz.au> brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au writes:

>You may want the computer to be an intrusion and an inconvenience in your
>life, but me I want the computer to do the work and make it easier for
>me to do things better, not differently.

Better is differently.  You want things to be done a bit
better but not too differently; that's a matter of taste.
Myself, being a neophile, I like better and don't care
how differently. I have limits on how much time I can spend 
learning new tools (an important limitation these days),
but I don't care if the tools are radically different,
except insofar as radically different tools take longer to 
learn.  

Its interesting to think back: since 1986 I learned:
1) How to use the Macintosh, primarily to write math papers.
2) How to use TeX, UNIX and Sun workstations, at first to
write math papers.  Subsequently, LaTeX.
3) How to use email. 
4) How to use usenet news.
5) How to use Mathematica.

This is not meant to be impressive; I'm not really into
computers for their own sake and only learn stuff when it
seems clearly useful.  But as a result I spend my days
quite differently than I used to, and I live much more
in cyberspace.  I like it, too!  I may waste time reading
usenet news, but its a worthwhile waste of time if you
know what I mean.  It's just interesting to think how many
basic tools I've learned in this span, basically just
minimally keeping up with progress.  Do you call this
differently or better.