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Comment by melony | Hacker News Reader

Attaching -phobic to everything is really an injustice.

The author makes no effort to say they are afraid of technology. Nor do they really hint that they are old school. Just that the technology being USED is old school. Often times, what works best for you is what you should do. There are many more complications that make flying a plane more comfortable with technology. However, we have been circumnavigating the globe without ipads for what, over a century?

Sometimes pencil and paper is all you need. If it gets you home, there's no sense in learning to use fragile easily broken technology. Especially out at sea, where weather conditions could easily destroy such conveniences. You might be surprised at just how many hobbies and jobs use simple pencil and paper to do their business. In fact the article is fascinating strictly because it shows just how unnecessary bags full of the latest greatest tech are.

This is no different than how programmers work. I am not language-phobic because I don't want to learn the newest greatest framework. I simply work with what gets me the best productivity.

However, we have been circumnavigating the globe without ipads for what, over a century?

Sorry, I couldn't resist the nitpick. It is more like FIVE centuries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_expedition

Us doing something one way for 500 years doesn't inherently mean we should continue. Horses were the primary means of transport for 3000+ years, so should we go back to them? (We should use bikes really)

An abacus worked for a similar amount of time, should we go back to that because it worked?

I have no skin in the navigation game, but something working in the past isn't a good enough reason to not change.

On the other hand, why should we use the latest and greatest technology if it's not the best tool for the job?

I don't think the commenter or the author of the piece is arguing for anybody to completely throw out technology. The author even advocates strongly for weather forecasting apps and services. What they are advocating for is using the correct tool for the job, even if it's "older."

I wouldn't go back to horses as a general rule. If I were in the backwoods with limited access to gas and roads, however, a horse may very well be a better solution to my travel issues.

From the context, it seems clear the parent was referring to flight.

> Sometimes pencil and paper is all you need. If it gets you home, there's no sense in learning to use fragile easily broken technology.

You should do a Twitch stream of yourself using celestial navigation instead of Google maps to drive cross country in the US.

Driving by celestial navigation would be interesting as it's likely never been done before.

Maybe you meant a map.

It would actually be interesting, except navigating the streets by celestial navigation might be hard. We've had maps for a long, long time. I'd probably just use one of those and compass :). Otherwise the north star might drive me into a wall!

Sure, because it's fast and easy. But I bet you any pilot can work it out with pen and paper if they have to. They get tested on that stuff, at least where I live.

Same with a boat. All you have is what you bring. Will the Ipad survive weeks of salty spray? Maybe, but a backup (pen and paper) is recommended

That depends on how you were trained. Many ground schools are now recommending students to use a CX-3 (flight computer) instead of slide rules.

> use a CX-3

Now you're making me sad that we just trashed a box of prototype CX-3s!

What’s the story behind this?

The initial version of the CX-3 was developed here. (The final shipping version, not so much.) This was before my time so all I've really done is clean up the aftermath.

Any prototypes left ;) ?

Nope. I don't think they worked anyway. (Whether they could have ever worked also seemed to have been an open question. Something about the keyboard was a lot of trouble. I think the early prototypes were a lot thinner. Possibly unmanufacturably thinner.)

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