Subject: Re: Best combination of {hardware / lisp implementation / operating system} From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 27 Oct 2002 14:09:58 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3244716598637728@naggum.no> * Advance Australia Dear <fundamentally_flawed@yahoo.com> | Although I am remunerated adequately for what I do at work, I find it | difficult to justify US $ 900 = AU $ 1800 for a purely hobbyist tool. Very few hobbies are inexpensive. The majority of hobbies cost /far/ more than computing and programming. One might be tempted to ask what it is about computers that make some people so unwilling to pay for anything and who think that "hobby" is an adequaty excuse when almost any hobby they could take up instead would be more expensive. In fact, there is nothing about computers, The attitude is that of the /masses/ who are unwilling to do something seriously. /Real/ hobbyists are enthusiasts who spare no expense: they seek ways to make more money so they can play with their hobby. What we have in the computer industry is not hobbyists, but we did have hobbyists in the past. Today, we have bored dabblers who see the computer as frivolous entertainment, as puzzles, as meaningless toys. And on the Net, we have people who think that /not/ being serious about their very own interests should be a mark of distinction. This is what happens when computers become mass-marketed goods: The masses actually get ahold of them and apply "mass ethics" to it: Being serious about something carries the potential that you will stand out from the crowd, and the masses knows what it standing out does to people with an interest in computers and programming: They become geeks and nerds, they become socially maladjusted because the masses cannot tolerate that someone becomes good at or is even interested in something that has an intellectual bent. Therefore, a true hobbyist would easily spend ten times as much as the computer "hobbyist" would /not/ spend on his "hobby" because it is no hobby at all. It is the absence of interest that marks the man of the masses who has unfortunately bought a computer and wants to play with it for free, without monetary or intellectual investment, for fear of not being a member of the masses if he did either. What /hobbies/ do people have that easily cost more than USD 900? One of my hobbies is marksmanship, target shooting with .22LR and .38 pistols. It would be hard to even /begin/ with that hobby for less than USD 900. Another hobby is literature. Unless I want to read mass market editions of interesting books, I have to shell out hard cash for hardcover. Right now, Amazon.com tells me that I could make more than USD 900 if I sold my past purchases as used books through them. I have taken up movies on DVD as another hobby, but have decided against spending several thousand dollars on a home entertainment center like many people do. Still, at USD 25 or more per acquisition, USD 900 does not last long. Then I have a cat, but she is not the hobby she could have been with cat shows and everything -- I do think it is nuts to spend thousands of dollars every year on such a hobby. But she has to maintain a good health and deserve the best treatment any living thing can get, and this is not free at all. I would be /very/ unhappy if she started to need USD 900 a year in vet bills, not because of the money, but because that would mean she was living on overtime. One of the things I do /not/ have because I want to spend money on valuable things is a car. A car costs about four times as much to purchase and own in Norway as in the United States, and almost all of the additional cost is taxation, which I think has already taken too big a chunk out of my life. We have a bonus system on insurance that makes it very expensive to start to own a car, and if you are a very good customer, it often pays to cover minor repair work from your own wallet compared to a reduced bonus. USD 900 would therefore cover a fender-bender. USD 900 would also buy you less than 25 gallons of gasoline. So I decided against this necessity because I value many other things higher than a car. My rent is also very low for the Oslo market and I have not bought a new computer since 600 MHz was fast, but I saved up money to purchase the gigabyte of memory and up the total disk space to 350G. And then I spend a lot more time in the library than I used to because I want to save money on books I would probably only read once and which would force me to move if I had to purchase more bookshelves for them. Budgeting is a balancing act and I probably refuse to spend money on many things that other people consider bare necessities, just like the car and the house I do not own. But you find it difficult to "justify" USD 900 on your hobby. Amazing. How much does your Internet connection cost you? With a commercially hosted server and digital cable TV with a megabit Internet connection, USD 900 gives me about 9 weeks' worth of full service, but this probably does not count, because I do consider it a business expense. So what would you /really/ have to give up to get USD 900 for your hobby? Or do you make the purchase tomorrow morning now that you find some difficulty in /not/ justifying the expenditure? -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.