Lizzie Steven
1 HN recommender · recommended in 12 months, 2007–2023
3:14 · 4.9M views · Jun 20, 2006
The Monty Python sketch in which four wealthy Yorkshiremen try to outdo each other with exaggerated tales of childhood poverty.
HN mostly posts it as a joke whenever someone says things were harder in the old days.
12 comments from Hacker News
LOL - didn’t expect that reference, but it’s perfect :) And for anyone that didn’t get it, this video will make your day this video
That's complete crap and merely a manifestation of "Rosy Retrospection" ( [LINK] ). Monty Python made fun of this "in my time, you see" bullshit with the Four Yorkshiremen skit ( this video ). Woody Allen's movie Midnight in Paris did the same ( [LINK] ). The programmers before us were the exact same as the programmers of today and they will be the exact same as the one's that come after us. The only difference between them is whose shoulders they stood upon and what they were be able to do using the tools at hand. Programmers of the 60s were happy just to get things to add up. The guys in the 80s squealed with glee at GUIs. The guys in the 90s made the internet what it is today. And the guys of the 2010s will bring AI and robotics into the main stream. Everyone glues things together - it's how creation works ( [LINK] ). The only difference between generations is the things you have available to glue together. Sometimes you glue together a stick and a rock to make a spear, and other times you glue together a machine gun, a camera, and a computer. Either way - same people, different situations.
Fourteen hour shifts? Fourteen hour shifts!? In my day we'd work from 1AM until 3AM the following morning, go to sleep for -2 hours, wake up and do it all over again! We were paid in 19th century New Zealand shillings and had to pay all of it back for living on the boss's premises! (Sorry, had to throw a Monty Python reference there: this video ) I don't believe just because something was done one way before, means it should affect how things are now. If we believe the way "something is" is fundamentally wrong - just because it has been that way (or worse) should not provide be a valid argument against said "something". Kind of fits in to: [LINK]
If you wanted to know something, there was no Google or Wikipedia. You might be able to find out a basic fact if you had a set of encyclopedias. But most information, from important stuff to basic trivia ("who was in that movie?") was not available unless you had a reference book or went to the library and really searched. Rumors, lies, media manipulation, thwarted by a few seconds of research. If more people bothered, it would be a better world. Off topic, but obligatory Monty Python piece this video
3 baud? Luxury. We had 1 baud and we kept it in a box in the middle of the road. Every day we'd get up, clean the box, read the bit, and then go to the factory to work for 20 hours. And when we got home every night our father would cut us with a knife. this video Merry Christmas!