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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
Are we sure this is zoomers being less tech literate, and not just being a common issue, but used in a way to shit on the next generation? I dealt with the same shit in highschool with other millennials, so this feels so much like those “Millennials are killing X” articles by out of touch boomers writing clickbait.
Working IT for close to 2 decades , I’m not convinced the users are getting dumber, as they’ve always been dumb af about technology. Maybe it’s because I’m out of end user support and don’t have to deal with modern stupidity, but talking to my support staff I don’t hear anything that I haven’t facepalms through my skull about before.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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
Man I hate one drive. Can it be removed/uninstalled?
Windows users will say this and then call you slurs when you even suggest other options exist
