jaffamonkey

On current consultant work, I am commuting daily by train up to Farringdon. First off (as I hadnt travelled on train for while), I noticed proliferation of laptops, and corresponding newspaper articles about people now working from anywhere. The majority of laptop users I saw were either playing games, watching dvds, and staring absently at the screen. No-one is working more, they are playing more on boring journeys. It reminds me of a similar illusion painted by the media in the early eighties, when there was a sudden proliferation of mass produced cheaper computers such as the iconic zx80 (still available at a market or car boot near you), the less charismatic sinclair spectrum, and the totally dull looking BBC Micro. The illusion was there was there was a whole new generation of whizzkids. Or to put another way, a whole generation of frogger and pacman experts. There was a minority of kids who programmed in Basic, and got joy from the command line. But the attitude now is the same as it was then - on my computer is my toy, there to entertain me, not enable me to do work before I actually have to do it. Oh, and writing blog posts does not constitute work - who do professioal bloggers think they are kidding