A lot of places in the US it's becoming more common to be able to make a living on a small-scale farm. Especially if you live near (hour) of a larger city. You can sell a lot of produce to restaurants that want local ingredients. I don't know if it's respected, but it's not looked down upon.
Also, apparently in the last ten years or so American farming has become small-scale by a vast majority. I think it's about 90% are 3 acres or less?
I presume that's 90% by total number of farms, rather than by produce yielded? American farming is going the way of most other industries; a small number of huge corporations dominating, and thusly controlling, the market.
I enjoyed the women from Chicago's point. That having that old-time gym feeling is not something that's the best for most people. It's one of those silly ideas that tries to sum up a big problem and give it a small fix. I remember a friend showed me something their aunt or something posted about dirt roads. It was a similar idea to the gym thing. It's absurd.
Seriously. Yet it's at the top of HN with 150 upvotes. OP posted this twice already and it got 5 and 6 upvotes. Either HN readers are becoming less discerning or this guy gamed upvotes. Judging by the fact that the testimonials feels dishonest, I wouldn't discount the latter.
I feel like whoever wrote this doesn't have kids or just now started paying attention to what they are doing on their devices. Also, this seems like it would be really obvious; people want money. Kids love to just click everything so there is a ton of revenue there.
Serious question though, what is immersion in the programming context? Is it being only in the programming environment and not leaving? Wouldn't using a web browser for documentation or stack overflow be a break in it? Why not just have the windows one needs and configure your ide to be how you like?
> Is [immersion] being only in the programming environment and not leaving?
The dream is never leaving, as expressed by the Dynabook concept. However, in the full expression of that dream, the browser et al that you mention would also be inside the context.
In practice, things like using a browser for documentation is acceptable but not super common because viewing in the IDE is so much more powerful in certain ways (e.g. executable examples, finding "senders" of a message).
The idea is about having one's computer be "turtles all the way down" where you have the same power to change and explore every layer of the system without learning a whole new technology - from what we usually leave to the OS (which Dan Ingalls said "shouldn't exist") to what currently exists in apps (which Alan Kay and the creators of Smalltalk envisioned as services, which didn't stovepipe possibilities/power down to a small fraction of what's available).
As soon as I can find a decent, stable job I'm going to start degoogling more of my life. Unfortunately, I have a Pixel 2 and a Pixelbook (unfortunately because Google, otherwise they're great), and I don't have the money to replace them right now. I do use Firefox and DDG on my desktop though. I really like them.
Also, apparently in the last ten years or so American farming has become small-scale by a vast majority. I think it's about 90% are 3 acres or less?