Re:Early Hackers Used Whistles from Cap’n Crunch Cereal Boxes
by sixothree on Sunday March 17, 2019 @01:05PM
(#19414991)
> Now, in the age of Wikipedia, it astounds me how uncurious many people are
I find myself constantly astounded by this. But I think this age we are in only exposes something that is probably the default state for this country.
I was "into computers" growing up in the early 80's and I remember the number one question I got from adults was - "what are you going to do with a computer?". I'm guessing many people had the same experience.
Curiosity isn't a default state. It is what separates us from everyone else. Very sadly.
Re:Early Hackers Used Whistles from Cap’n Crunch Cereal Boxes
by sosborn on Sunday March 17, 2019 @01:08PM
(#19415012)
> It is what separates us from everyone else.
I think everyone is curious, the only difference is what people are curious about. Not everyone gives a rip about computers, that doesn't make them fundamentally uncurious.
(But on a serious note, it surprises me how few people in the community have a sense of history. I spent a lot of time in the late 90s/early 2000s reading stuff on textfiles.com, researching terms etc I didn't understand, and I think it really helped me become a better hacker.)
Now, in the age of Wikipedia, it astounds me how uncurious many people are. Maybe I'm werid, but I often look stuff up and click around.
It makes me sad that we have so much more information than previous generations, but so few seem to leverage it.
(Ex: most of my technical issues can be solved with a simple DDG search. Back in the day it would have been hours of reading man pages, poking through mailing list archives, or possibly popping into the IRC room for the devs to do something as simple as get a wifi card working)