Re: [school-discuss] Gen Y not as interested in IT

["James P. Kinney III" <jkinney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2008-03-26 at 21:12 -0400, David Scott Williams wrote:
> And probably even more true 1.5 yrs later..
> 
> I think a devil's bargain was struck somewhere along the line that made 
> the average computer user pretty much the average citizen (with many 
> exceptions) ...   I think it may even be called the WWW.

Um. Apple gets that credit/blame. Before the wide spread use of a gui,
computer users had to have an organic memory capable of holding quite a
few commands readily available for command line use. But once Apple
lowered the IQ requirements for computer savy status...

A former department chair at a top 10 university once remarked to me
that once they got Apple Macs and got the gui they could "hire any idiot
off the street and they could be productive". 
To which I replied "and how many idiots do you want working for you?".
He was very, very silent for a long time. Several minutes passed and he
finally said, "So how long is it going to take to get that Linux lab set
up?".

And now Wal-Mart sells PC's. 30 years ago you had to have some _serious_
connections to touch a computer. 40 years ago you had to have a PhD.

> 
> It serves to create a priesthood ... a dark mysterious group of people 
> who are uber-uber-geeky enough to go into the dark world of programming 
> ... real programming.. to unearth great mysteries, and then condense 
> them for the masses...

Not just programming but the inner workings of how computers function.
What chips do what and how. What magic combination of parts make a pc
into _A_PC_WITH_COJONES_. People with long hair and strange habits.
People who talk to their machines as if they really expected an answer.

:)

> 
> It leaves the rest of the world at a disadvantage.   I can't even FIND 
> my oil filter.

That would the cylindrical object only visible from _under_ the engine
as when viewed by the oil change places through the hole in the floor.

Best one was the Le Car that required an aftermarket access hole to be
cut in the firewall on the passenger side to avoid having to pull the
engine to change the oil filter.
> Pretty soon they'll be shipping computers glued shut w/ little litmus 
> paper and screw tape to show whether someone has had the audacity to 
> open it up and 

I've seen it already. Several local builders would use tamper tape over
the access panel seams to see if a buyer had opened the box while still
under warranty.
> 
> 
> Joel Kahn wrote:
> > On the subject of the relationships between youth and tech,
> > here is yet another angle:
> >
> > http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/09/14/basic/index.html
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >
> >
> >       ____________________________________________________________________________________
> > Be a better friend, newshound, and 
> > know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
> >
> >   
> 
-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC        
770-493-8244                    
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7


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