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Column: Otto Kaaij

Hate letter to my laptop

A green light for his thesis and almost done with his Computer Science master, Otto Kaaij has started reflecting and has made a resolution.

Otto Kaaij zit op een bankje

(Photo: Sam Rentmeester)

Dear laptop,

I hate you.

I was given the green light last Wednesday. The procedures around theses vary widely across faculties, but for us at Computer Science getting the green light is just about the most important point in the whole process. You present your work and what you still want to do in the time that remains, and are then told if it is good enough to graduate. If you get the green light, it means that you have practically graduated and you only need to wrap it up. I have my green light, so kudos to me.

And suddenly, the end of my study is nigh. Just another three weeks, my defence, and it’s done and dusted. I may be getting ahead of myself while writing this but, touch wood, in principle it can’t go wrong anymore.

I also see that my brain has already started reflecting. While I am trying to concentrate on the feedback that chapter three does not ‘flow’ well, my mind is wandering and I look back at seven and a half wonderful years of studying in which I learned, laughed and cried, and experienced a lot of good things. But one thought keeps coming back.

I hate my laptop.

Yes, you read it right, I study Computer Science. Which is, you know, all about computers. And computers are really cool. Your laptop can do 50 billion calculations per second – more than enough to use it to watch Monty Python, solve complicated algorithm puzzles, or order a 10 kilo pot of peanut butter. This is all – especially the last one – very interesting. So I don’t really have anything against computers. I just hate my own laptop.

I hate that it is so easy to do meetings online

I hate that it is so easy to do meetings online, as though you achieve as much and learn from each other equally.

I hate how quickly I grab it if I get bored for even just a second.

I hate that I tell myself that I can concentrate just as well at the laptop as at a clean desk with some A4s and a pen.

I hate that I can type cmd+space, ‘fir’, enter, cmd+l, ‘you’, enter without thinking, and thanks to shortcuts and autocomplete can open YouTube without a single conscious thought.

The laptop is the norm. Education is digital, collaboration is digital. If you manage to meet with a project group physically, it is usually impossible to persuade everyone to close their laptops (KlaDiLaDie in Dutch, and maybe CloThaLa in English?) and really listen to each other. There is much awareness about screen time for teenagers, but let’s not pretend as though we adults do any better or that we don’t suffer from it.

I in any case do suffer. I have three weeks left: writing and throwing together a defense. But as soon as I have defended my thesis, I will put my laptop in a safe and it will stay there for a month. And after that, I want to go back to the time that I was allowed one hour of laptop time per day: “but you need to go outside first”.

 

This is Otto Kaaij’s last column for Delta.

Otto Kaaij is a Computer Sciences Master’s student and musician. As a computer scientist he is passionate about algorithms, science communication and sustainable software, and as a musician he tries to work with as wide a spectrum of music as he can.

Columnist Otto Kaaij

Do you have a question or comment about this article?

o.k.n.kaaij@student.tudelft.nl

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