Wow, I have a completely different take on this article. Us techno-geeks that can fix proxy settings are low-end commodities nowadays. (Outside of a tech company) - the lawyers, doctors, salesmen that want to work and drive revenue don't need to mess with that. Newer computers and OS's do shield a lot of that, and that is a good thing. They can hire a few IT dorks to plug things in if needed. That is the future.
There was a time that a car mechanic was looked at as an engineer or scientist. Now he is a wrench turner. Get used to it.
Now, should people dump tech problems on you? No. Just like it is not considered right to show your rash to your doctor friend while at Starbucks. That is a different issue.
Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
381–390 of 433 posts
Re: Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
#382The county proxy is there to ensure that the staff and students can’t access porn on the school network. It also filters for violence, extremism, swearing, social networks, alcohol, smoking, hacking, gaming and streaming video. Ironically, if you were to perform a Google search for “proxy settings OSX”, the top results would all be blocked because you used the word ‘proxy’ and that is a filtered word. That was the mo…
When I was in high school, a similar filter meant the kids who didn't normally have the time of day for computer geeks were doing all kinds of independent research into proxy and VPN technology.
Of course, this effect wasn't intended, and I doubt the teachers knew about it (AFAIK nobody told them, and even if they had, I doubt the message would've been understood).
I think the reason they do it is liability: The school wants to be able to tell parents that they made commercially reasonable efforts to ensure their kids weren't exposed to inappropriate materials in school.
> It's crazy that people are ok with it.
Not really. A school library wouldn't have hard-copy Playboy magazines for students to peruse. Choosing not to allow access to the online equivalent isn't that much of a step. Parents who trust their kids with uncensored Internet access can still provide it at home.
Re: Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
#383I get the feeling that the author was judging the person he was helping far more harshly than the perceived judgement she might have passed on him. Maybe she was tired, clearly she was frustrated, but it wasn't obvious that she held the author in any disdain, though the author seemed to perceive it. What we're sure of is that the author held her in such low regard. I wonder if she picked up on that. I suspect she did…
I thought the author made a bunch of assumptions about her, too. Things like:
She handed me her MacBook silently and the look on her
face said it all. *Fix my computer geek, and hurry up
about it.*
To people like her, technicians are a necessary
annoyance. She’d be quite happy to ignore them all, joke
about them behind their backs, snigger at them to their
faces, but she knows that when she can’t display her
PowerPoint on the IWB she’ll need a technician, and so
she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while
inwardly dismissing them as too geeky to interact with.
I’ve heard this sentence so many times now from students
and staff, that I have a stock reaction. Normally I pull
out my mobile phone and pretend to tap in a few numbers.
Holding the handset to my ear I say ‘Yes, give me the
office of the President of the United States… NO I WILL
NOT HOLD, this is an emergency… Hello, Mister President,
I’m afraid I have some bad news. I’ve just been informed
that The Internet is not working.’
He treats everyone who approaches him for help like shit and then wonders why no one knows about computers? Real head-scratcher there.
Re: Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
#384As someone that grew up with computers and the internet I have numerous issues with this article. Mostly the expected level of knowledge about computers.
Most teenagers are decent typists, can navigate a well done website or application, can use word/other programs to get work done, and are comfortable being on a computer. That's what they should know how to do.
It's us in tech who need to make things work for users, not users jobs to know how to install linux from source code. I'm going to go against the author and say that most users _shouldn't_ learn linux, and should use easy to use software like iOS. It lets them get work done.
Most people don't and shouldn't have a reason to have a deep understanding of python, html, and the command line.
>A hundred years ago, if you were lucky enough to own a car then you probably knew how to fix it. People could at least change the oil, change the tyres, or even give the engine a tune-up. I’ve owned a car for most of my adult life and they’re a mystery to me.
This is actually a great metaphor to show why the article is wrong. Cars became reliable enough and abstracted enough that you can confidently use one _without_ knowing how to fix it. Technology should be reliable enough that the average user doesn't need to know what's under the hood to use it, and that's what we've seen happen with things like iOS and web apps.
Re: Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
#385The problem isn't that these people can't use computers. It's that they can't THINK. They do not understand what critical thinking is, or how it works. They do not know how to approach problems or explore solutions. They don't know how to do it with their computer... or their car, or their vacuuming robot, or their television, or their oven or their relationships or any thing in their life. They don't understand why…
The problem isn't that these people can't use computers. It's that they can't THINK. I find it's more specific than and not as serious as that. I got my first computer in 1982, first modem in 1985 (hence my username). I find that people who proudly state how not-technical they are actually purposely turn their brain off around computers. It's not that they can't think. They can and often do around non-technical thing…
This is precisely the point Rebert Pirsig explores in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. You should read it if you find this to be curious.
Re: Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
#386I was one of the kids who could use computers. I got a lot of negative reactions from teachers whenever I used the DOS prompt for anything. Kids in high school who know programming or other advanced tricks learn quickly that the teachers finding them using what they know often leads to censure or even punishment.
So the "good kids" who follow all the rules will leave that stuff at home and play dumb in school. The "rebels" who like to push boundaries will make sure the teachers don't find out.
So I'm betting there are plenty of bright kids who know a lot about computers in the author's classes, and they're all keeping their heads down. Doubly so if the author has a reputation for being angry and judgmental. (I didn't think this article was particularly offensive, but other commenters disagree.)
Re: Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author wasn't even an IT bro--he was a stand-in whose real job was teaching. This all said, would you expect that a doctor would have patience with somebody who insisted "My body hurts" without being willing to provide more detail? Terminology matters, and those who think it does not are doomed to be taken advantage of by people with more nuanced ways of reasoning about the world.
I think the amount of snark that doctors get away with is pretty illustrative of the low social standing that people in technology have. If you told a doctor "my body hurts" and refused to clarify, you would almost certainly get some sort of snark. Nobody thinks poorly of doctors because of this though, while people in technology are caricatured endlessly in popular media for it. The most you see that being done for…
> If you told a doctor "my body hurts" and refused to clarify, you would almost certainly get some sort of snark.
Actually, no. Very few people tell doctors, "My body hurts!" It's more like... "My leg hurts," or, "My back hurts," etc. Which is just as unhelpful, but doctors never pull out their cellphone and call an imaginary President or give them any snark like that; you would lose a crazy amount of patients.
What doctors do is ask, "How does it hurt? When does it hurt? Is it constant? When did it start hurting?" When I ask someone, "When did this computer problem start happening?" they almost always give more information. I've never had someone refuse to clarify; sometimes, they just don't know.
Re: Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've hit on what I think the core problem is: since forever (as far as I know) computers have been regarded as "magical and incomprehensible" - that is, non-technical people think they will never be able to understand what you just did with the proxy settings. So even if you show them and explain what you did, they never even consider that they could use that knowledge again in the future. I think this is a failure…
So true. In fact, I get really angry at people that use jquery to write applications if they don't know it inside and out. In fact, I don't even use libraries or even functions when I code unless I know exactly how they work.
I don't think the philosophy of "I need to know what X does before I use it" is extrapolatable. With jQuery, your frustration is mildly justified, in my perspective, as jQuery is in constant development, has bugs and breaks stuff.
But consider the number of times you've used systems and libraries that you do not understand beyond the subset of its API that interests you. I do not understand the details of my computer's microprocessor's architecture, yet through several layers of abstraction it is a useful tool for me to get my job done.
There are other systems, too, like processed food. Traffic control. The power grid. The military-industrial complex. Whole industries have their internal workings abstracted out but for the tiny intersection between them and our individual lives.
Sometimes the guy who's using the jQuery library is, say, running a startup that has other, more pressing priorities, and has no time to learn anything beyond .ajax() and .append() .
So while your specific example makes sense, I don't think the point you are trying to get across is extrapolatable beyond it.
Re: Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
#389> defeated by their school laptops because they don’t have administrator privileges
Physical access is usually game-over from a security perspective. Unless you're doing hard-core encryption and TPM stuff, I bet someone who knew what they were doing, and was allowed to take a laptop home overnight, could root it by morning.
I'm sure that some students have done this.
I'm not going to detail the attack vectors, because I respect those hackers more than I respect the school that gives people crippled hardware, and I want those doors to remain open for others like them.
Re: Kids can't use computers, and why it should worry you
#390If you don't know how to spell "tires", you don't know how to use a computer.