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It was inevitable. Long ago you had to know a lot about cars and engines to own a car. Now only enthusiasts know that kind of stuff.
That’s how i think of it. My dad can tear a car apart. I can’t wrap my head around changing the brakes. But i know how computers work, because i grew up needing to know.
I always found it fascinating to learn about the things I used in my life worked, because as a kid I loved learning to take things apart, mod, and put them back together. But there never seems to be enough time to study and understand everything, because most devices we use are over-engineered (read: repair hostile), so I can’t ever think about becoming a jack of all trades like my family members are.
Electronics, yes. Mechanical, no. I have to pay someone else to help me.
Same on the computer thing, but I feel that knowing how to tear a computer (or anything, really) apart reduces the “I don’t think I can do this” threshold a bit. Not having a choice also helps, as in “Oh, the turbo died and all the shops say it’ll cost more than the car is worth to replace? Guess I’m learning how to swap a turbo.”
I’m not trying to be negative about blaming people who are in bad financial situations but idk why more people don’t realize that you can get things that you wouldn’t normally be able to afford if you’re willing to learn about them and do some work. Technicians/mechanics aren’t usually geniuses, they’ve just read the manual.
I spent a lot of time having a very tight budget. I realized that the only way to afford my first car was to buy a busted one and fix it myself. I couldn’t afford a mechanic but I could afford a repair manual.
But, I’m also confused by people who simply aren’t curious. They don’t want to know. They’re totally content just not understanding how all of this technology around them works. Like, how are they OK with that?
I’m not trying to be negative about blaming people who are in bad financial situations but idk why more people don’t realize that you can get things that you wouldn’t normally be able to afford if you’re willing to learn about them and do some work.
I’ve been in the spot before and honestly it comes down to risk management. Usually it’s a case of considering fixing something myself, and as I analyze it I end up determining the risk of either being unable to fix it after investing in tools/parts or worse making it worse due to my lack of skill ends up outweighing the cost savings of just paying a professional.
Or for a real world example, I had the rubber gaskets wear out on one of my toilets. I took it apart, dremmeled off the corroded bolts (after buying a big honking screw driver and bolt cutters hoping either would help, and ultimately the bolts were too corroded to unscrew and the bolt cutters couldn’t fit the space to reach the bolts to cug) replaced the gaskets and suddenly have leaks in new spots. Other parts looked corroded so I basically bought completely new innards for the toilet, replaced them, reassembled and it still leaked in the same places. Finally having spent about $300 in parts and tools plus multiple Saturdays of my time, I accepted there must be some art to this plumbing thing that I’m missing and I hired a plumber who fixed it in 30 minutes for about a hundred bucks.
You make good points and I agree that in this case, hiring a plumber right off the bat would have given you the better outcome.
As you mentioned, there is some risk to doing it yourself and this risk often motivates people to avoid even attempting to fix things. Part if it really is an exercise in learning about the thing and being realistic about how likely you are to succeed.
However, I don’t think you should characterize the $300 as a total loss. You probably still have that big screwdriver and set of bolt cutters. Some of the toilet parts you bought might have been appropriate and included in the plumber’s repair. You also probably learned a thing or two about plumbing, even if all you learned was that you’d rather hire a professional for future plumbing projects.
Exactly. I figure changing the sound card is like changing the transmission.
Eh, there’s a curiosity aspect as well. I can’t do work on my car, but I can change the oil, tires, brake pads, and such. I understand the principle of how an IC engine works. I’m a computer programmer but I think it’s because I’m a curious person who likes knowing how things work, and computers offer more chances to learn than anything else on the planet.
It isn’t ignorance that has ever bothered me about boomers, zoomers, or anyone else. It’s that 99% of people you meet are fundamentally incurious. They don’t care how things work, they don’t care if they could work differently.
This so much, all the information in the world one click away online and most people just doom scroll nonsense. If money wasn’t an issue I’d be a perpetual student, just learning things for the heck of it.
Great point, and well said.
Reminds me about that line in World War Z (Max Brooks)
(Paraphrasing) "Some survivors were frustrated with the assignments they were given. A lady who was a former TV exec was furious that she was assigned to a janitorial unit, led by someone who’s lifetime salary she made in a month!
For people like her, you didn’t have to worry about fixing a plumbing issue or cleaning your home. She just hired someone else to do it, because she made money talking on the phone, and the more people she hired, the more time she could spend talking on the phone. After the Great Panic, nobody bothered to use phones anymore. There were no TV contracts that needed to be made, but there were toilets that needed work, and floors to clean. In a strange way, the blue collar workers outranked their “superiors” in importance to the community. We needed mechanics, engineers, HVAC workers, plumbers. We had those people of course, but there was never enough of them."
Reminds me of the story of Golgafrincham from the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy books:
The planet Golgafrincham creatively solved the problem of middle managers: it blasted them in to space.
Golgafrinchan Telephone Sanitisers, Management Consultants and Marketing executives were persuaded that the planet was under threat from an enormous mutant star goat. The useless third of their population was then packed in Ark spaceships and sent to an insignificant planet.
That planet turned out to be Earth.
And it was a good plan, for a while. Shame about that plague, though.
Didn’t they all perish shortly thereafter from a disease spread via unsanitary telephones?
Yes
Now sports cars have paddle shifters so people can pretend to drive manual
My Forester XT has that for the CVT. I’ll admit it’s fun, but not as much fun as a nice 5 speed manual.
So like, how did she get an emulator working on iOS without knowing how?
You can just download one from the App Store as of a year or so ago.
A lot of emulators are just apps, but the iso itself is a bigger mystery. My guess is an older sibling or even parent helped set that up. Nobody in their right mind would bundle a licensed game with an emulator on the app store.
I don’t think it was even an emulator, it was probably the official Nintendo port called ‘Super Mario Run’.
I would assume she has a nerdy family member or friend that assisted.
In the past, it could have been an emulator included in an app in secret.
Probably just Afterplay
It could have been a website. I think some let you play emulated games in a browser window.
It’s like that ‘What’s a computer?’ ad
Everything is so abstracted nowadays that even the specialists are disconnected from understanding the underlying systems
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Eventually any actual websites will be difficult to access, all information will be filtered through LLMs, centrally controlled by a handful of megacorps with the final say on the information you find.
Well… that is unless the resistance keeps it alive.
Robert Dinero plays a fascinating character in the movie BRAZIL. This is how we will spend our lives. Check it out.
Thanks Chris!
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come on. Don’t be fatuous, Chris
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The concept of an emulator isn’t even that old. Like, literally all throughout the 2000s and 2010s. How did this generation grow up so oblivious to everything? “What’s an emulator?” “How do you use a computer?”
Bro, are we talking about 80 year olds or 20 year olds
Smartphones have made tech interaction ridiculously accessible and also into a locked down blackbox kinda thing at the same time. Consider how everything is a website now, and yet many people don’t know how to use a browser, as they install hundreds of apps instead.
As someone who is 25 I get some weird looks when I blankly and automatically tell people I don’t have nor will I use apps for store services. I’ll use a website happily but the busted ass apps can go fuck themselves.
For me it’s the privacy angle that matters.
All these restaurant apps being pushed like “it’s cheaper on the app!” and “you can get a free side on the app!”
And I’m almost tempted to install it, but then I remember by doing so I’m giving the company a wealth of data to slurp on me, letting them bombard me with notifications, and giving their logo a shining advertisement spot in my app drawer so every time I’m hungry I see it, and want it.
When I think about the higher non-app price in those terms, as a “privacy tax” to keep my data and my dignity, then I’m happy to pay it.
That’s also a factor, but functionality matters as well in this situation. The fact that I have a phone made in 2024 and 2/3 of fast food apps dont fucking work on my phone is kinda ridiculous. Does help remove the temptation to get the apps though, thanks Motorola you save me some privacy now let me remove your shitty default apps you motherfuckers.
What do you mean? He just prays to the machine spirit.
I mean that’s what I do as a programmer.
Yes… but we know why we do it!
If the oldest zoomers are almost 30 and the youngest are just barely teens, I guess we’ve reached the point where “younger” zoomers could be 18 or 20.
Am zoomer, am 18
It always depends on where you take the definition from, some say it started in 1996, same say it started in 2004. Saying that it probably depends on the country you reside in as well.
What’s the cutoff year for this mindset? Granted, I’m an electrical engineer, but I was born in the early 2000s, and my friends had a solid grasp of computer software and hardware fundamentals.
It’s not an age thing so much as an “amount of interest” thing. The barriers to entry are constantly being lowered, so it takes less skill and investment to get involved in things.
It’s one thing to download a free trial of something like photoshop, it’s another thing to spend years using it to the point where you understand the full capabilities of what you can do with it.
As you get older you’ll see things that used to require a lot of effort to get into become easier and easier to access. It’s the march of technological progress, and it might make you feel like it’s devaluing the things you used to value. And then you’ll understand why your grandparents were always going on about “Back in my day…”
Yeah, I would wager that this is not really a generational thing (or at least, not a cutoff between millennials and gen z).
I’m a millennial and I guarantee there are plenty of people my age who would have no idea what op’s question means…
they don’t understand what is an emulator?
Something to do with these fellas, I think:
ostriches ? ah, I get it. OStrich
It’s affecting the older generations too. My grandma loved playing solitaire on her laptop. I asked her “did that come with the OS?” And she responded with “What’s an OS”. Crazy times.
It just means someone set it up for her, I suppose
