You must log in or register to comment.
Unfortunately the tech literate of us are in the minority.
Almost all consumer tech is targeted to the lowest common denominator which is either Dorris, the 68 year old lady from you legal department who prints off emails to read them. Or Jessylyn the Zoomer thats only ever used an iPhone and cant learn anything that take longer than 10 seconds to teach.
This has me wondering, are young people actually getting LESS pc literate? I’m sure there’s studies about that? It’s never occurred to me that growing up with computers but without smartphones was peak conditions for becoming tech literate.
Yes. They don’t even know where to find files during their college classes
Can confirm this. I teach a programming class and about two years ago my brain exploded when I was helping a student debug a problem said “o, you tried to reference the file but it’s actually up one directory and inside another one so you’ll need to include the full (relative) path”
The blank look of “what the hell are you talking about” threw me for a loop. So, then we talked about file systems for awhile…
I’ve done support for sysadmins and I’ve run into a lot of them who don’t understand the concept of relative or absolute paths. A couple weeks ago I had to explain how password hashing works to people working for a huge aerospace company.
I think most people learn to use computers like they learn to use a car, in that they understand the rituals they need to perform to get it to do the thing they want. They lack understanding of what’s going on under the hood so when something goes wrong they can’t fall back on knowledge and figure out what went wrong, they have to learn an entirely new routine to fix it instead of learning the principles and thinking critically.
I haven’t bought a new car since 2004. How fucked am I when I need a new one?
You have to hunt really, really, hard to find a model without all the shit. I picked up my teenager an outlander Sport last summer.
All the reviews said: the infotainment is dated and older. The engine and transmission hasn’t changed in 5 years with no major issues… Perfect.
Lots of physical buttons and the infotainment center is not critical for the car to function. No climate control settings on it etc. Carplay and AndroidAuto only play through the USB. No OnStar, wifi, or cellphone connectivity.
I do most of my own maintenance after having some clusterfucks at mechanics. I simply follow the manual and check things off. It’s the easiest car I have maintained since the 80’s. An oil change on it takes 5 minutes. On my wife’s Ford escape it takes 5 minutes to get the fucking cover off to get to the oil plug.
I will probably buy another one for my other son in a year when he starts driving.
Let me put it this way: don’t. Or consider buying a newer used car.
$0.02: If you can keep your 2004 on the road for less than a new car payment, and can suffer the downtime for repair, just don’t. The price of new vehicles is way more out-of-whack with inflation and wages than ever before. Also, it looks like manufacturers have become more crafty at steering you back to the dealership for repairs.
My recent new car experience, after retiring a 17 year old vehicle, left me floored with how normalized “spending the day at the dealership” had become. They almost fought me to drop the car off for a recall at a scheduled appointment time, instead of just using the key drop. No thanks, I won’t be watching bad cable, drinking bad coffee, all while huffing new tire and brake cleaner fumes all day. This is not the great service you think it is, thank you.
Very
Well, you wouldn’t buy a 10 year old used laptop, but I drive my second 06 Forester, almost 20 years old.
But for a new car, fucked.
Well, you wouldn’t buy a 10 year old used laptop,
IBM thinkpads and Linux bros disagree.
Separately from that, it drives me mad how warped the idea of “consent” is in Windows (and in tech in general). “Later” is not the opposite of “Yes” goddammit!
Imagine sexual consent was similarly warped: Hey Becky, you wanna have sex? You can only answer “Yes, right now!” or “Maybe later,” and I’ll keep asking you FOREVER. So, what will it be?
Windows 7 was peak. Everything after that has been getting worse and worse every iteration.
I was an XP fan. 7 was cool, too, though.
But don’t you dare suggest Linux or else you’ll be an obnoxious zealot. Better to just keep your head down and let Microsoft maintain their monopoly and steadily make the lives of everyone who uses a computer worse.
The desktop was feature complete in 1998. Everything after that was unnecessary complication. I use xfce desktops and it hasn’t changed a bit and I love it.
False. We didn’t have wobbly windows in 1998.
You may not have had them but I sure remember the plastic sheeting keeping the wind at bay!
Maybe 4 years ago I would’ve thought that last line was an exaggeration about win10, but ohhh boy if thats not their goal now I don’t know what is.
Problem with average users its either be fucked in ways that arent apparent until you have to buy a new PC even though your last one was perfect fine, or you fuck yourself up and don’t know how to fix it, let alone to approach the thought of that.
To who I have suggested Linux to, usually they are already familiar but not using it as a daily, I’ve said how installation was smooth and easy, most of the software I need is available or has a nice alternative, some games need light config but there are some that won’t, but it isnt for everyone. If they’re modifying reg keys to make it less annoying, they deserve a less annoying OS, if they don’t give a shit… their loss lol
My favorite was when my new Windows 11 laptop started automatically backing up my files to OneDrive without telling me, then STOPPED LETTING ME SEND AND RECEIVE EMAILS because my OneDrive was full. Full of stuff that I never wanted to back up.
So one of my main email accounts, which I’ve used within the free tier limits for 20ish years, suddenly went dark because I signed into Windows.
Of course while investigating, the UI offered helpful options like:
- Pay for more cloud storage
(Not depicted: “Free up some space,” “Disable backups”)
Epilogue: After several rounds of disabling backups, then deleting the stuff in OneDrive, then Windows deciding that I couldn’t have wanted that and backing all my stuff up again anyway, I finally fixed it by deleting some key directories so the backup would just fail.
Delete some key directories
My grandfather is in need of a new computer, im not gonna try to Linux pill him, which leaves me with a windows 10 machine that will be EOL this year, and just hope nothing breaks with time. I think he would stop using technology if he saw the constant nags and popups in 11.
i had the same shit with google drive recently, legitimately had to CTRL A and delete everything. It should genuinely be criminal to not have “delete all button” Though to be fair, i think it kind of did tangentially a little bit? It was hidden behind like three menus, and didn’t properly update, and i still dont think i have everything deleted from there, i have no idea what google is doing honestly.
Heard about that yesterday from some folks, that it had uploaded all their documents and desktop files and replaced those folder paths with OneDrive paths. Without their knowledge.
Just what the fuck? They were from the US, so that probably isn’t illegal there, but why even build such a “”“feature”“”, if you’d get sued to hell and back for it in any self-respecting country?
Buying technology used to be like plucking a ripe apple from a tree. You see, you take, you enjoy.
Lately, I liken the process to gutting a fish. You now have to skillfully dispose of the unwanted bits, and it always comes with unwanted bits.
Edit: okay, you have to pay extra for the “professional” version to go back to a less encumbered experience. It’s still bad though.
Or choose open-source, which is either plucking the apple, or planting the whole orchard from seeds and tending it for years. Coin toss.
Pfft! Don’t like it? The code to the DNA is right there in the treepo.
And that’s just computers. Cars and phones, man, holy crap.
To take your fish analogy, it’s like “Well maybe 5% of your catch is NOT laden with innumerable parasites, but they’re the only thing that lives here and we gotta eat so…”
Edit: “But I heard there’s a new breed that not full of parasites!”
“Yeah but those don’t seem to migrate here and if they do they either don’t thrive or get eaten by these bloated monstrosities.”
Windows 11 has made me feel old.
wtf just popped up, whats it doing
Even on maybe 6 year old hardware and SSD some components like the news and weather, sometimes search just take so long to populate that its a question why anyone would use it, and I often don’t intend to
wheres that setting
Still have control panel and settings, now we get two right click menus! (More options summons the old win10 styled right click context)
Wish I could stick to windows 7, it was comfortable and clean, people got in a tizzy when they decided to report when you logged on to a server. And look im sounding old
Wish I could stick to windows 7
Bring back XP. Win 7 is far better than 10, which is more tolerable than 11, but XP didn’t have any of the multiple settings menu systems.
Man I hate one drive. Can it be removed/uninstalled?
Windows XPsp1 was peak. No visual overhead, no surplus protection , nothing but plain interaction with a computer using only mouse
Mouse is bloat
