Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

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Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby Gridfan » Thu Feb 02, 2017 4:40 pm

If you know just even a little about computers then this is a recommended read:

http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/0 ... computers/
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby Jezebelle » Fri Feb 03, 2017 8:08 am

Depressingly true.
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby DaddyLes » Fri Feb 03, 2017 10:02 am

He paints a scary picture. And, y'know, I actually didn't notice. My kids both use tablets with such finesse, I completely side-stepped teaching them how to fix things.

My first PC ran DOS and Windows 3.11. Most of the time, I didn't bother with Windows, unless I was bored or needed to use Word. And I don't even remember anybody teaching me to use much more than the basics of DIR, CD, etc. I do remember finding a DOS tutorial on the hard drive and working from there.

I *do* know that the kids didn't need to be taught how to use their tablets. I think it's time to hand over an old PC for their use, and just plain letting them explore, the way I did.

Good article, Griddy.
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby Kermie » Fri Feb 03, 2017 8:42 pm

Apparently daddyless and i learned the same way. got my first pc when IBM came out with the 5150. so yeah that shows my age completely.
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby Shigy » Sat Feb 04, 2017 2:58 am

I get what he's talking about but I can't relate. We had a Commodore 128 when I was young. I didn't really know how to operate that other to play games. Once we got the 486 dad originally tried to lock me out a bit with a password on some functions (knowing now how much he hates passwords this must have been hell on him). Once I found my way past that he never really tried to lock me out. The guy used to program in machine code so I don't think he was terribly worried about me breaking it.
We got an earlier pentium (was about a 200hz thing) and I spent time trying to network that and the 486 together so we could play network games. Mostly diablo and warcraft 2. This was coax. You had to have terminators and assign IPs. That was my introduction to networking. Everything from there has been easier. I remember a lan at my cousin's place where the host was chosen by where on the network they were than their computing power.
The first PC that was mine was a celery. It came with 64mb of ram. It had onboard graphics which it shared that with. Quake 3 was big at the time. I found there was almost no discernible difference between giving the graphics card 8mb, 16mb, 24mb or 32mb of memory to use because it was coming out of the ram. So any gains on the video card were a loss on the ram. My nickname for a longtime was "12fps" in some truly horrific colours. On a bad day this was an exaggeration. When I got some more ram eventually and could turn the video card to 32mb and leave it there it was a good day.
I've built computers. So far I've never killed a component from shorting it. I remember when at a lan of any decent size someone was always "playing the windows game" aka reinstalling windows. I remember us discovering being able to petition drives before we all had a million hard drives. So we could just put windows and a few other uncared about programs on there. Made the reinstall/reformat so much less painful.

On the car side he used as an example at the end. My dad was a mechanic. He taught me how to do my own service on my car. He told me what he thinks is worth worrying about and what is worth checking if it gives you issues. I don't consider myself an expert but I can do basic maintenance and with a little help from google I can fix somethings (car nut forums are awesome).

However both skills will become less required. Take networking on the computer side. In the time I've been using it. It has has gone from coax cables (we once fiddle with serial networking but that was done for novelty more than anything) which you had to set up in the right way and terminate at each end. Manually configure your IP, DNS if there was some internet to be had, subnet mask, gateway. Actually I think we even had to use TPX or something. I can't remember the name of an it doesn't even show up as a default protocol under windows 7. Compared to now. Plug in network cable. Auto assign everything. You are good to go. Very, very rarely you need to /release and /renew IPCONFIG. That or connect to wi-fi. Same deal.
Computers are going to require less configuration. No one is going to make money out of selling computers/OS that are hard to use.
Cars are headed for self driving cars. Once that becomes mainstream a lot of people aren't going to need to own one. Either you'll just do it taxi style or maybe pay a monthly fee to have access to a car on demand. It'll be an app on your phone. You won't need to maintain it because that'll just be included in the price.

On a side note that TL:DR pissed me off. I read the whole thing and generally do but why put a TL:DR in that's not anything. It's just a waste of my and anyone else who's time read it's time.
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby Shigy » Sat Feb 04, 2017 3:02 am

I have put this up in the toilet. XKCD made it as a bit of a joke but like a lot of things they do it's also surprisingly accurate.
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby DaddyLes » Sat Feb 04, 2017 7:14 am

I love that one, Shig. It's absolutely accurate.

Back when I used to work at a computer store, actually repairing computers for a living, that's what we did with every single problem. Over time, you learn how to fix the common stuff. Then the not-so-common stuff. It all starts with a search engine.

Tech support must've been a lot harder, before the Internet.
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby Gridfan » Mon Feb 06, 2017 5:49 pm

DaddyLes wrote:I think it's time to hand over an old PC for their use, and just plain letting them explore, the way I did.


Heh! Maybe format the drive on it, take out all the components and put them beside the computer and then hand then a disk (or USB stick) with Windows on it. Tell them to assemble the PC and then install windows and then make non-administrator accounts (one for each of themselves) and then to get a web browser installed and a word processing program installed (etc) on each account. And they gotta figure it out themselves (they can work together if they want) by using google as a starting point.
(and then check their work when they are done, make sure they didn't get any malware on it.)

If they manage to figure it all out for themselves they'll probably be the most computer savvy kids in their school. :)

Shigy wrote:I have put this up in the toilet. XKCD made it as a bit of a joke but like a lot of things they do it's also surprisingly accurate.

XKCD is really funny at times.

Shigy wrote:On a side note that TL:DR pissed me off. I read the whole thing and generally do but why put a TL:DR in that's not anything.

I gotta agree to that, might as well just write a synopsis or lead in in the first paragraph instead. I don't like it much better when they do the TLDR; at the end either (one could do a summary there instead).

Same reason I cringe all the time on youtube at the start or end of videos. To explain what I mean let me tell a very apt joke:
What do you call a YouTuber who turns into a werewolf?
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby Shigy » Wed Feb 08, 2017 5:08 am

Gridfan wrote:Same reason I cringe all the time on youtube at the start or end of videos. To explain what I mean let me tell a very apt joke:
What do you call a YouTuber who turns into a werewolf?
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hahaha
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby DaddyLes » Thu Feb 09, 2017 12:09 pm

Gridfan wrote:
DaddyLes wrote:I think it's time to hand over an old PC for their use, and just plain letting them explore, the way I did.


Heh! Maybe format the drive on it, take out all the components and put them beside the computer and then hand then a disk (or USB stick) with Windows on it. Tell them to assemble the PC and then install windows and then make non-administrator accounts (one for each of themselves) and then to get a web browser installed and a word processing program installed (etc) on each account. And they gotta figure it out themselves (they can work together if they want) by using google as a starting point.
(and then check their work when they are done, make sure they didn't get any malware on it.)

If they manage to figure it all out for themselves they'll probably be the most computer savvy kids in their school. :)


They'd be the most tech-savvy people in the house, if they managed all of that. :)

A machine with no essential data on it that they can screw up all they like would probably do the trick, especially if I encourage them to just explore it and ask me questions.

To be honest, it's at the point where entertainment is too readily available to them right now. There's no such thing as "nothing on TV" for a kid with access to the Internet. Most of the parents I know restrict their kids' access to the Internet mid-week. The wife and I have been thinking about making it a weekend thing, or an hour of an evening thing, rather than any time they pick up a tablet.
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Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

Postby Gridfan » Fri Feb 10, 2017 2:29 am

Give incentives. The better they take care of their "project" PC the more hours they get.

The day they've managed to make it dual boot Windows and Linux might be the time to let'em loose unsupervised. :P
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