Auteur Sujet: Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You  (Lu 5856 fois)

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An excellent text about digital naives natives. There are few words about NSA too (mostly about a poor designed powerpoint slide).

http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/

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Mobile has killed technical competence. We now all carry around computers that pretend to be mobile phones or tablets. Most people don’t even think of their phone as a computer. It’s a device to get quick and easy access to Google. It’s a device that allows us to take photos and post them to Facebook. It’s a device that allows us to play games and post our scores to Twitter. It’s a device that locks away the file system (or hides it from us). It’s a device that only allows installation of sanitised apps through a regulated app store. It’s a device whose hardware can’t be upgraded or replaced and will be obsolete in a year or two. It’s a device that’s as much a general purpose computer as the Fisher Price toy I had when I was three.

Considering the examples given, I think he's a little upset.
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.

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Re : Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You
« Réponse #1 le: 12 août 2013 à 21:44:11 »
That is good stuff. I can relate.

I have a client who is probably in her mid fifties. (I don't ask.) Occasionally, I get a call from her. The conversations invariably begins with her statement, "I can't get into my computer." (I've been tempted to tell her, "Of course. It's too small for you to fit in.") "I can't get into my computer" can mean anything from not being able to access her emails to a lost internet connection. I know she can't articulate the real problem, so I have her describe what she sees on the monitor. Only then can I get an idea of what the problem is. The last time she called, she began with the all too familiar statement.

"What do you see on your screen?"

"It's black."

"Is it all black?"

"There's a bunch of white letters."

"What do they say?"

"login@localhost"

"Okay, enter your username 'dona' in all lowercase letters."

"It's not doing anything."

"Did you press ENTER?"

"Okay, now it says 'password'."

"Type in your password."

"It's not doing anything."

"Did you press ENTER?"

"Okay, now it's 'thinking'. It says 'unable to start Xserver'. It has a blue picture and says 'Do you want to view the error log?"

I tell her to answer YES.

"I can't", she says. "The mouse doesn't work." I have to explain to her where the TAB key is and how to use it. After going through the Xorg configuration prompts, the Xserver still won't start. I then tell her to answer NO to all the prompts. She finally gets to the CLI prompt. I tell her to enter "su" ENTER, then her root password. (I have to tell her what the root password is.) Then I tell her to enter the word "reboot" followed by ENTER.

At the GRUB boot screen, I have her use the down arrow key to select Safe Mode. After reaching the CLI prompt, I have her change to the /etc/X11 directory, then delete xorg.conf. (That was a five minute exercise in patience.) Then I tell her to enter the word "reboot" followed by ENTER.

"Okay, now I see 'dona' and the little picture", (meaning the GUI login screen). I tell her to click her name then enter her password.

"Thank you, thank you. It's working."

I ask her what happened the last time she used her computer. She said "A lot of messages were on the screen and I didn't know what to do." I asked her what she did next. She said, "I turned the computer off." I grimaced. I asked her what she did to turn the computer off. She said, "I walked over to it and pushed the button."

She is using the LXDE desktop, one of the most basic interfaces there are. I cannot tell you how many times I have told her not to turn the computer off with the power switch. I can't tell you because I've lost count. I've repeatedly told her to click the red button in the lower right corner of her screen to get the shutdown dialog. I have shown her how to perform this simple act repeatedly. And, I can guarantee you that the next time she encounters the same or a similar situation, she will react by pressing the power button.

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She can't use a computer.

« Modifié: 12 août 2013 à 21:47:16 par djohnston »

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Re : Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You
« Réponse #2 le: 13 août 2013 à 02:02:39 »
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I ask her what happened the last time she used her computer. She said "A lot of messages were on the screen and I didn't know what to do." I asked her what she did next. She said, "I turned the computer off." I grimaced. I asked her what she did to turn the computer off. She said, "I walked over to it and pushed the button."

This would bring in a question, how come she saw lots of messages instead of having the machine finishing the shutdown completely (and the plymouth splash hiding the messages btw)?

The description you are presenting looks like she has a pclos lxde version which is supposedly fit for the very end users. Is that supposition right? :)

About the "can't use a computer", I have liked in the link mimas brough, the statement about the youngsters who would be "naturally tech savvy". Of course here IRL around us I also often hear the same statement…

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

djohnston

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Re : Re : Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You
« Réponse #3 le: 13 août 2013 à 03:37:23 »
This would bring in a question, how come she saw lots of messages instead of having the machine finishing the shutdown completely (and the plymouth splash hiding the messages btw)?

She wasn't shutting the machine down. She leaves it running all the time. I didn't get any specifics, but I suspect she got some browser messages. I can't be sure, though, as she couldn't even tell me what the messages said. So, she powered off the machine to get rid of the messages. The next day, after turning it back on, she couldn't login due to a corrupted xorg.conf.

The description you are presenting looks like she has a pclos lxde version which is supposedly fit for the very end users. Is that supposition right? :)

Yes. That's the reason I still run a copy on one of my machines. Some of their updates break things. I never have that problem with Debian. So, I may switch everyone from PCLOS to Debian.


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Re : Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You
« Réponse #4 le: 13 août 2013 à 09:43:00 »
Are you talking about Debian stable? I have never run Debian stable, but it seems a bit boring, even testing and unstable because they don't have a frequent update of upstream packages and are even quite behind. At least Ubuntu can provide sources from ppa (well, I know you know sources from various places with source.list which you can add, also).

We could talk about it in another topic?

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

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Re : Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You
« Réponse #5 le: 13 août 2013 à 19:19:37 »
I'm talking about Debian, regardless of the repository branch used. I'm not going to use Ubuntu myself, and I won't recommend it. Period.

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Re : Re : Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You
« Réponse #6 le: 14 août 2013 à 00:09:52 »
I'm talking about Debian, regardless of the repository branch used. I'm not going to use Ubuntu myself, and I won't recommend it. Period.

We are looking for the best choice for the end users around us, aren't we? :)

The best choice being always the one distro and desktop environment with which we are best being able to help them, of course.

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

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We are looking for the best choice for the end users around us, aren't we? :)

Yes, which is why I won't recommend Ubuntu. Your opinion may not be the same as mine.


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Re : Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You
« Réponse #8 le: 14 août 2013 à 10:51:52 »
The work you and Taco.22 are doing with Debian spins is great and your faith in the mother of many distros is a very good thing.

I still find Ubuntu easier to use than Debian, (regarding many details) under the condition not using the official version of course, and also sticking to LTS versions and do tests before jumping to next. For what I can see so far Xubuntu and Lubuntu are good versions, and I am trying to make the best one possible with Openbox while joining the Lubuntu testing team to participate. Xubuntu and Lubuntu don't use any spyware in the isos they deliver and hopefully don't ever intend to.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/lubuntu-users/2013-August/005214.html
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Hi,

http://youtu.be/CP8CNp-vksc

I must admit that I'm shocked. My first impression is bad and it is a shame
to hear/watch such thing for an Open Source Community and for a Community
like Ubuntu, there MUST be some clear and honest answers. I do not use
Ubuntu but other variants. How safe am I??? and how bad this might be?

If someone can enlighten us, it is much appreciated. I'm not happy of what
I have heard from Stallman.
...

The answer was in html and has been "scrubbed": https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/lubuntu-users/2013-August/005215.html

Once saved again to a html file and displayed in a web browser:
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First of all Stallmann is right when it comes to free software and Ubuntu shipping with some proprietary code. But this things most distribution offer (like binary blobs for wifi cards). Therefore the fsf has its own list of GNU/Linux distributions that are really free software without those binary blobs.

The second thing Stallmann talks about is the spyware feature we might have heard about in the unity shopping lense. It's a bad thing and also technically poorly integrated. It's whole purpose is earning money. Convenience is not given 100 percently as you don't have the option to only turn off the shopping feature but still be able to use online search results. There is only an all or nothing option. Advanced users might know how to remove this shopping lense but all in all I agree with Stallmann here. Shipping it by default is a malicious feature a spyware.

Lubuntu however is not affected as we don't use unity :P

When it comes to non free firmware binary blobs even Lubuntu ships them as we share the kernel and drivers with Ubuntu. The rest of the core system is pretty much identical with debian so there is nothing fishy there.

As for Ubuntu Phone OS of course it will use proprietary drivers for almost everything on the phone. Besides openMoko I don't know a single phone only running with free drivers without binary firmware blobs. As for the spying feature we will see. The smartphone itself is a spying tool, as it constantly sends data to a cellurar tower. But I hope the search options will be a liitle bit more configurable so that you don't default use network bandwith when you want to search for a song on your phone.


Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.