doctorfrog on 23/12/2009 at 20:18
Maybe there's a weird kind of tyranny of features thing going on with modern technology. Like, being able to control my home lights with an iPhone while blogging and listening to music and watching a YouTube video isn't really all that great, but because I have an iPhone, by golly, I'm going to do it. I think iPhones are neat, but I don't want one, not because I'm a post-ironic hipster, but because the damn thing is going to want even more of my attention than anything else in my house.
Maybe those who leave it to the rest of us to figure it all out have the right idea. But I think this thread is about the poor saps who look at all the blinking lights and say, "I want some of that, here's my credit card, give me some RAMS."
SubJeff on 23/12/2009 at 20:30
Its partly that, but partly me just expressing my disbelief at some of the stuff I see/hear. I know it's not that important to understand exactly what is going on under the hood (and Lord knows I certainly don't) and perhaps I'm a bit too much of a tech geek after all, but all 3 things I've mentioned (RAM/HDs, different 3D tech for films and mp3s/cd audio) seem, to me, to be pretty basic concepts. I doubt anyone who posts at TTLG can't give at least a workable explanation of each.
You know what the worst thing is? - its that someone is going to get one of these Avatar pirate copies, watch it at home and then either a. say it was awesome 3D or b. argue that 3D is crap because it wasn't very good. Either way I'll have to bite my tongue and I'll end up having an ungentlemanly laughing fit of hilaaaaarity or it'll get me ENRAGED when they (and some others, naturally) pipe up to tell me I'm wrong and I'm the one that doesn't get it.
Aja on 23/12/2009 at 20:38
Fingernail you made my day
The Alchemist on 23/12/2009 at 20:47
Being the leet haxor that I am I actually am surprised at the amount of knowledge the people I know posses over their devices. Sometimes I can't even tell how they got something to work with what little they really know about the stuff. My grandma is a good example. She's in her late 60's and has worked her entire life living in Miami having never learned to speak English, working as a carpenter along with my grandpa. They were from rural families in Cuba. My grandma has a laptop now. I tried at first to gear it to her as best as possible, it opens up Firefox automatically and goes straight to her email cause thats all she really uses it for, to talk to people from Cuba. But I see her doing other things and I can't process how she even understands the idea of moving the mouse on the screen etc. I expect so little out of people I guess. Maybe that makes me worse than you. My grandpa, too, pretty sure I caught him surfin porn one day. Fuckin christ, the guy doesn't even know how to use a cellphone, let alone have any concept of computers.
Renzatic on 24/12/2009 at 00:01
Quote Posted by Muzman
.
All that stuff the news tells you about how youth these days are very switched on and up to date with technology? Bollox. By and large they haven't got a clue. They buy shit and twitter and facebook and play Xbox and bullshit, but that really doesn't mean anything. And they don't care, what's more. It works or it doesn't.
Does it really matter though? After all, there are alot of people out and about as we speak who are quite good at driving their car, but think of their engine as a "12 liter V4 or something". It doesn't matter if they know all of jack and shit about the minute details of the internal combustion engine, they just need to know how to drive.
The same thing applies to computers. If a grandma wants to get on Facebook to talk to her kids, she doesn't have to know a single thing about northbridges or the various types of RAM, heatsinks, FSB clocks, or any of that other fun crap to do any of that. She just needs to know how to navigate the desktop and know what buttons do what.
Tonamel on 24/12/2009 at 03:52
I have no idea what the serpentine belt in my car is for.
Renzatic on 24/12/2009 at 04:13
I think it catches snakes so they can't crawl into the catalytic converter or something.
Scots Taffer on 24/12/2009 at 04:17
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Or am I really being a twatish intellectual snob?
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Parallels blah blah come on its about sexy blue aliens ffs.
cognitive dissonance lol, it's what's for christmas
Quote Posted by Fingernail
True this, just the other day I had to walk my 8 year old nephew through how to re-route the encryption codes of some bullshit client-side AJAX implementation using an alternative fuzzy logic sub-routine, and I was just like "dude, when I was your age I could calibrate the
entire fucking positronic matrix of a generation 4 AI in like, I dunno, about two minutes or something"... I mean what the fuck
YES
Quote Posted by Muzman
It's all true ... It works or it doesn't.
Very true indeed.
Quote Posted by Muzman
Mostly I think all that talk is an indirect sales pitch to scare adults into buyng more stuff. When not curled in a ball listening to nostalgia bait commercial radio and clutching their
Wedding Singer dvds that is.
Hey, I just bought my wife that for Christmas you BASTARD.
Drazur on 24/12/2009 at 05:38
To answer your unasked question: YES, people are dumber now than they...or is it stupider? More stupid? Less clever?
Uh...Never mind.
Just think of this: How can they show THEIR kids how the stuff works? This kind of crap only lasts for a generation of two - by then, morons won't understand how 3D Holorooms work, and iPods will be a thing of the past.
Renzatic on 24/12/2009 at 07:48
I think everyone will know how 3D Holorooms work. Our generation might be in their 60's by then and have no idea how to turn on that new fandangled fancy subsonic wave accelerating washing machine our kids bought us for Christmas. But the 3D Holoroom? Oh, we'll all know how to use that.
