[Cyclopath]

See Image Here 🙂 We've all heard this joke before, because it's been true for decades. There are a lot of versions of this joke, my personal one is "just because I'm a programmer doesn't mean I know how to fix your printer." But computers got too easy to use, and now you don't have to understand how they work to see cartoons, play video games, and chat with your friends. In the old days this stuff was harder to accomplish, took several steps, and required at least basic foundational concepts. Just my observations, I would love to hear others' thoughts on this? Hat tip to zephyr for posting the comic and putting this in my head.

[zephyr]

Can't believe you just re-posted my comic. Good grief. ~z

[Chief Joseph]

I miss the days when internet poker was completely legal...911 was it's demise, as the crackdown on wire transfers was part of the anti-terrorism bill. It was so cool, I could enter a tournament for $6 and win 1k...took about 8 hours though.

[Cyclopath]

[Randito]

I think the % of people that actually understand how computers work isn't much different now than it was in the past. The number of people that use computers on a daily basis has vastly expanded in the last several decades. I say this as someone has interviewed many people but only hired about 1 in 50 -- all of these candidates had computer science degrees.

[zephyr]

Thanks. ~z

[cdestroyer]

as to the repost of someone's post should ask permission first.. i for one would like to see what the post was so i can understand the follow up idea,,,,,,as to not many people understand computers it is like not many people understand what makes a car run...most just get in turn the key and off they go but don't know how pistons have rings that need to installed in a certain way or that there is a timing mark that needs to be set in a certain way. I used to program years ago, took many programs apart to understand how they made the computer do what it did. years ago it was fairly easy. 8bit became 16bit then 32 and now 64bit. people don' t realize how much more there is to that computer chip than before.....early computers ran about 4mhz or so but now a quantum leap to well over 4ghz... like putting a jet engine in your car. going from no hard drives when everything was stored on tape of some kind, to drives now hold every piece of software i ever used or wanted to use and still barely touch the total capacity of the hard drive....i have 132 of my fav movies on a 320gb sata drive and plenty of room for more...and the bells and whistles keep coming,,,and i don't think the end is in sight .... yet..

[neek]

[Kim Brown]

When I worked at Texas Instruments using dBase, I had to type in a long, long, LONG string of criteria to get a report. Knowing that, I was able to clean up input so I would get good information, and not suffer from "garbage in, garbage out." Now, software is like a McDonald's menu, which is nice, so far as that goes. But it makes it more difficult to understand how a database works, how it pulls data, what it wants from the user. When you had to actually ask for the information in a certain way, you got to think like it, and if you know how it thinks, the input is better. Now, input by multiple people who don't know what they're doing makes for a crappy search, because so many people don't understand it. I'm constantly combing through reports to look for creative input, and correcting it. Sometimes it's cute and creative.

[Malachai Constant]

Back in the day I wrote a program in Lotus to manage my office accounts I expanded it to prepare reports for taxes and other matters. It was an interesting project and I learned a lot. Now you can get free apps that do all that. Similarly back in the day most everyone could repair and maintain a Model T. Which required a lot of maintenance. Now both cars and computers are so complex so as to require teams of experts for all but the most basic tasks. I can’t repair any of my trucks computers or debug millions of lines of assembly language even if I could access either. I for one embrace our electronic overlords.

[Badger]

[Cyclopath]

[Cyclopath]

I never touched assembly. I know how it works, and accomplishing anything complete with it seems hopeless, so I never saw it as a worthwhile endeavor. But I can do RSA with a calculator.

[Get Out and Go]

At school we have annual mandated testing, which is given on a Chromebook. I used to be worried that 1st graders would have issues working with the program. Silly me. Likewise, I've asked 4th grade students why they were so tired. "I was up until midnight." "Why were you up until midnight?" "Oh, I was watching YouTube videos." (To be fair, when I was that age, I was probably in bed with my 9-volt AM Sylvania transistor radio, seeing what station I could pull in.)

[Randito]