• Superfly Samurai@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    I’m pushing 50 and when people ask me how I know so much about computers, my first comment is that I had to program my first computer for it to do anything.

    My second is that I actively sought to learn, and you can too.

    Later in life Linux played a huge role in understanding how these contraptions work. Ironically, I’m a human factors engineer, so I’m also guilty of creating part of the problem. User interfaces that “just work”… Until they don’t.

    • Sir_Kevin@discuss.online
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      1 year ago

      I had to program my first computer for it to do anything.

      Sadly, most people have no grasp what that even means. I’ve had adults think that means I “downloaded something into the computer” and then it worked.

      It was around that time I just stopped talking to anyone outside of my geek circle about anything technical. Best to play dumb.

      • fruitywelsh@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, I realized I started to sound snarky when I said “I work on computers” when people ask me what I do. Didn’t mean it to sound dumb, it was just honestly the level of understanding about computers a lot strangers had when they asked.

        Saying I did networking or worked with servers didn’t mean much, but sometimes people would ask me to work on their WiFi…