Guest post by “One of the things that will never fail to make me happy: seeing people stuck in time explain what modern day technology is. Kim Komando hosted an educational series about computer and explains the basics of its hardware, DOS, Microsoft Windows, Writeand more.”
Time travel!
On a side note, what about a Xerox Parc Video explaining the Smalltalk environment in 1983 ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLPiMl8XUKU
On those days UNIX was still CLI only and the so called “Live Programming” theme from nowadays Hipsters was just another feature offered by the OS.
Or Lilith, already coved here
http://www.osnews.com/story/26321/The_Lilith_a_graphical_mouse-driv…
And many other systems, what we have is great, but somehow the industry seems to be full of wrong turns.
Microsoft will mock DOS, like it was stupid. Actually, they’ll pretend it never existed. “What denial of service attack?” I don’t know what you’re talking about.
So, it’s a denial of denial of service!
If you really disliked the way MS-DOS worked I can guess you could call it a Microsoft backed DoS attack.
As almost every computer ran it back then I might even say it was DDoS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q0sepZl9sEw
a few references to Cario as well!
I always get a kick out of past views on current technology. E.g. while skimming one of my old astronomy books from the 80s, I found a description of the tech NASA used to transmit images from their probes, by breaking the images down into some newfangled thing called a “picture element (or ‘pixel’)”. It was basically an explanation of digital photography, for people who’d never heard of digital photography before (apparently NASA were among the earliest users of digital photography).
Or there are the two gems from my old computer magazine collection, the first being an issue of Byte from 1993 – right around the time the PPC was first released, when everyone expected it would put Intel out of business overnight (and some fascinating info on IBM’s “Workplace OS”, which I’d never heard of before).
My favourite, though, has to be an issue of Scientific American from 1995 (re-issue of a “special issue” from 1990) called “The Computer in the 21st Century.” There were some interesting predictions about the future of display tech, which were mostly correct (along with some amusing photos of people working at huge, monochrome plasma displays used as computer monitors), articles by Negroponte and Alan Kay, etc.
But the most interesting piece was an article on the very last page, about legal attempts to prevent the Bush administration (the first one) from deleting archived EMails from the Reagan era, many of which pertained to Iran-Contra. It was interesting just because of the parallels with the EMail-related controversies that arose after Bush the Second left office (as if we needed more proof of the saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree). But it also helps protect us from the hubris of believing that these are exclusively “modern” issues and we’re the first people to ever encounter them or think about them.
What can I say, I like big hair. Shows my age, I was in high school when this was made.
You’re sexist, but also very right.
She has a very cool name too, although it might also be her hacker alias.
Edited 2013-04-27 17:00 UTC
Just for clarification: Is he sexist for thinking it, or expressing it publicly? Because to call someone sexist for simply finding a person attractive is nonsense, as far as I’m concerned.
I wasn’t overly serious, it was more secret reference to the recent Obama incident.
It’s funny women try to be as attractive as possible, but when someone notices this it’s sexist.
I wouldn’t have thought you were, but I wasn’t sure.
And I guess I don’t pay enough attention to the news in my own country, I have no idea about the incident you mentioned.
I’m always aware of the news, but sometimes I wonder what use it is.
Most news isn’t very pleasant. War, terrorists, bird flue, One Direction, the enviroment, etc… all terrible things, but if I look out of my window nothing is happening or changing. So what use is knowing all these things?
Maybe I’d be much happier not being aware of terrible nasty things.
To gossip-news – and not paying much attention to those is a good thing.
Some would say that women are pressured to be as pretty as possible by our patriarchical, misogynistic culture. Some would also say that noticing and remarking first and primarily on a woman’s attractiveness is a type of objectification, where her other attributes are implicitly downplayed or ignored and her status as a sex object is implicitly put up as the most important of her features, thus dehumanizing and degrading her.
And some people simply refuse to accept that physical attraction exists and can be a positive thing, no matter how illogical and flawed such a belief can be.
In other words: We’re human, we’re visually oriented, and we’re mammals so we’re going to be attracted to one another. Some of us will be jerks about it but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to be. Get over yourself and stop pretending you’re so much better than others because you’re “enlightened”.
“Some would say”
Okay, so what is your position then? The way your post was worded seemed to indicate that you agreed with what you typed.
I mostly agree with the sentiment, but I think it’s often overextended and creates the problems you mentioned. Sexual attraction and sex in general do matter and are important to people. That cannot be denied. Yet we should be careful not to let it lead us base our judgment of the thoughts and deeds of women on their attractiveness or sexual value to us as men (which I am). Far too often I still see people make unnecessary and irrelevant commentary on the attractiveness of a woman, and they sometimes even make that the main topic. You less frequently see that when men are the topic of discussion, though if they are particularly ugly or otherwise “interesting”, people will talk about that — and that’s also wrong.
So why not just say that in the first place instead of using weasel words to edge around the point? I’m just saying there are more positive ways to foster a discussion.
Maybe things aren’t always so cut-and-dried.
Well, it’s a damn good thing there are no women who does the exact same thing towards men. Oh wait….
What does that matter? Objectification is wrong no matter who does it. That women may also do it does not excuse men who do.
Maybe she is going Komando…
My mom still expects her computer to blow up with a wrong key press/click …
Where as my Dad simply clicks on everything, downloading every tool bar ever created because he things nothing can ever go wrong …
If something does go wrong its because the computer is “out of memory”. So he deletes random word files he has written, which is bad for him, but better than when he used to delete files from the windows folder “because he wasn’t using them”.
So in a strange way, my Mom is kind of right. I retract my criticism.
So while I may critisism Microsoft and Apple for some things that Dumb down the interface, I’m never talking about things that make them more bullet proof for my parents.
Edited 2013-04-27 18:10 UTC
This is nuts. I followed Kim Komando back in the 90’s when I was on AOL. She is just a very nice person who has a gift at explaining complex technology concepts to beginning users. I still subscribe to her weekly emails. Now, I am a software engineer, and I’ve been messing with computers since the 80’s. The first computer program I sold was a golf game for the Tandy Model 100 laptop. The reason I still follow her is just because I appreciate a person who does what she does. And, oh my goodness, once in a while there is a useful tip for even someone like me (an interesting Android app for instance).
The kind of arrogance I see in articles like this is such a turn-off. I saw the same kind of attitude in the Linux User Group I used to attend. I have been a full time Linux user since my early fun with the 13 Slackware floppies. It was so much fun getting X and networking working. But I could not stand listening to people make fun of other people who couldn’t compile and install a custom kernel. They made fun of Window’s users who couldn’t grep their way out of a paper bag.
Give attitudes like this a rest. As I said, I’m a software engineer, I know my way around a Unix/Linux/Windows/Mac box. I can develop in C++, Java, PHP, .NET (C#,VB – ASP.net or Desktop), etc., but I don’t look down on folks who just want there computer to be easy to use. When I write an application, I take it as a software defect if the customer doesn’t find it intuitive and easy to use.
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resume normal transmission…
I see this a lot in the young generations that did not have any experience with the early home computers from the 80’s, like we did.
fretinator,
“The kind of arrogance I see in articles like this is such a turn-off. I saw the same kind of attitude in the Linux User Group I used to attend.”
That really surprises me, the LILUG I used to attend was nothing like that. They were happy to have anybody there and I don’t remember any bashing of windows users. Guess each user group has it’s own personalities?
True, not ask Lugs are the same. It also bothered me because it turned off my sons. They primarily use Windows, but they also have experience with Linux.
Here’s a classic programme from 1982, “The Computer Programme” (pun intended, baring in mind British English differentiates between “Programme” (general term) and “Program” (specific to computers).)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV6W0QXoMbQ
TVOntario, 1980s, for old-school microcomputers:
http://www.youtube.com/user/bitsandbytestvo