You should have at least finished the sentence before concluding that it makes no sense. "I'm not sure that it's possible to know how to code in as many programming languages as I do, own an iPod, three laptops, two mobiles and be able to quote verbatim from some W3C/IETF specs and consider oneself a Luddite unless one significantly bends the definition of Luddite."

Perhaps you're right. I just felt it didn't make any sense. How is owning gadgets and quoting specs some kind of "anti luddite" badge? Seems like he's in some serious denial.

Agreed - One who is a "Luddite" is not, by the very definition of the word, opposed to technology, per se, but instead are opposed to "technology change" - the author does seem to be opposed to technological change - but does make some good reasons as to why he is.

I think the article may have been written half tongue in cheek - I expect if I was British, instead of just Canadian, I might have more fully appreciated the humor. Hints were as follows:

" If a burglar enters your home, you can drop your typewriter on them from above"

"To get the most out of Google Docs, you must use an arcane device known as a mouse. "

But, if you read the article all the way to the end, there are actually some parts that cause you to think about the (particularly for the ADHD among us) issue of using Google Docs as our principal text entry / editting tool (as opposed to something like "Pages" in Full Screen mode)

I'm somewhat surprised - but gratified - to read my post on Hacker News. I posted it mostly as a sort of very dry, tongue-firmly-in-cheek public memo to various people I know who are always telling me why I really need to "get with cloud computing". The idea was to prompt said people into seeing that those of us who don't immediately respond with excitement when told about online services like Google Docs and hurriedly jump on the bandwagon might actually have some relatively sound reasons for it. Lots of people I know seem to get very excited about stuff because it's new, and seem to be on automatic optimism mode about all new technology. The attitude I think is much healthier is a bit of guarded scepticism or realism. The Luddite would refuse new technology flatly - they want the world to stop so they can get off. Instead, I was hoping to push my readers (mostly my personal friends IRL) through a rather absurd example to try and step back from the Digg/TechCrunch/Twitter-driven hype and try to ask themselves "do you really need it?".

As for the earlier suggestion that I should retire, I most certainly would like to, but I'm in my twenties (it is perfectly possible to have used a typewriter frequently as a child and now be in one's twenties). Old school doesn't equal old. I'm a programmer in my spare time and do independent development projects to pay my way through philosophy grad school. I think Google Docs has a perfect use - I use it a fair amount for planning (the podcast I'm involved in uses it, and we used it quite a lot to plan a vacation). I'm not advocating using a typewriter instead of Eclipse or instead of whatever you use for word processing. What I'd like is if some of my geek friends would learn the lessons of technological history and maybe try some of the old tech they think desperately needs to be deprecated in order to bring about some technological paradise. It's not all bad.

I'm not opposed to technological change. I'm opposed to people thinking technology is automatically good because it is new and automatically needs to be made obselete because it is old.

Bah, learn to read or at least to skim with some accuracy.

It's tongue in cheek, and the point of the article (as stated early on) is that when changing tools there are always advantages and disadvantages.

The author then goes on to demonstrate that there are plausible disadvantages even for something as implausible and absurd as using a mechanical typewriter instead of a word processor.