A certain group of Boomer-brains are heavily invested in the idea that Millennials are the only generation that knows how to use computers.
So we’ve been seeing a lot of “blame the X for the Y” agitprop that’s increasingly divorced from reality. It’s just the next generation of outrage porn, tailored towards the current generation of 40 year olds.
FOX News ran the same bullshit content for GenXers and Boomers.
Most Chromebooks offered Linux on them. Even Linus Torvalds used a Chromebook when travelling to develop via it. Presumably because he was sick to death of “troubleshooting” when he had other, better things to do. And presumably schools and teachers also have better things to do than deal with bs like conflicting packages, missing drivers, viruses or whatever on every kid’s device.
Doesn’t matter if they encourage it or, not, the option is there. So if kids want to mess around, compile stuff, run Linux games they can totally do it. The main purpose of the laptop however would be to do work, save / submit stuff to the cloud, run all day and be cheap so if it gets stolen or broken it’s less expense to replace. I think in that role the Chromebook is the best solution anyone came up with. And there were a long line of contenders.
Is the option actually there, as in it’s allowed by school policy? Would you be able to show an example confirming this?
I highly doubt a school IT department would be okay with this. The very post were discussing asserts that it was marketed to schools as something that can be locked down.
I’d also argue that even if it was allowed, whether or not it was encouraged undoubtedly matters.
These are kids we’re talking about, not engineers. Additionally, were discussing technical competence at the generational level, so we’d have to rule out outliers, which I’d handily believe “kids who installed linux on their school Chromebooks” would fall under.
I don’t have my Chromebook to hand but I believe the setting is in the Prefs. When you set up Linux it’s a virtualized Debian that you can pretty much do anything with but it can’t mess with ChromeOS outside. Not all Chromebooks support it since it’s space / CPU dependent but if it does then it’s Linux. I was even running graphical apps since the screen is a Wayland server.
All Chromebooks ARE Linux. ChromeOS is a Linux based operating system. Whether or not you can get to the lower level is a different discussion. I had one of the first Chromebooks, you have always been able to root them and do what you want with them.
Is it your genuine belief that your schools would have computer instruction and big easily accessible labs if not for Chromebooks?
I remember “teach kids computers” as an educational panacea during the 80s/90s. It made Micheal Dell very rich, but often at the expense of the biology, chemistry, and physics lab programs. “Nobody knows how to use a blowtorch / dissect an animal / build an engine anymore” was a refrain I heard all the through my high school years.
Has eliminating computer labs brought back the old 70s era Space Race science programs? Or are we still just boiling away ever ounce of the public system that costs money (except athletics, of course)?
I was simply stating why the kids only know Chromebooks.
Many poor communities, mine and myself included, have households that don’t have computers at home.
The schools give each kid a Chromebook at the beginning of the year. So it’s the only computer access these kids get.
There isn’t instruction on how PCs work on a base level in my kids middle school, and no computer lab to experiment with. So they only know how to navigate Chromebooks, because that’s their access level
And I mean, They got rid of home economics for the computer lab back when I was a kid. I don’t understand why you brought up the 70s or whatever, I’m aware times and education instruction changes sure, you don’t need to be rude.
The schools give each kid a Chromebook at the beginning of the year. So it’s the only computer access these kids get.
Plenty of kids have access to desktops and laptops through their parents. Libraries also have computer labs with traditional PCs.
There isn’t instruction on how PCs work on a base level in my kids middle school
I’ve never heard of a school that provided middle school computer education outside of small elective classes, and even those only in wealthier districts.
I don’t know many of my son’s peers, who do have a pc at home.
I had computer instruction in middle school while attending a title 1 rural school. Idk
Maybe both things are true. Wasn’t trying to argue or “be proven wrong” just stating why many children may only know Chromebook use, and it’s not thier fault
That’s honestly technology in a nutshell. Technological development leads to further abstraction, leading to less low level knowledge. It’s always been this way. Is AI an abstraction step too far, or are we just the next generation of old man yelling at cloud?
AI has value but first a reality check. Most of the time it produces code which doesn’t work and even if it did is usually of terrible quality, inconsistent style, missing checks, security etc. That’s because there is no “thinking” in AI, it’s a crank handle using training and some rng to shit out an answer.
If you know what you’re doing it can still be a useful tool. I use it a lot but only after carefully reading what it says and understanding the many times it is wrong.
If you don’t know how to program everything might look fine. Except when it crashes, or fails on corner cases, or follows bad practice, or drags in bloated 3rd party libs, or runs out of memory on large datasets or whatever. So don’t trust anybody who blindly uses it or claims to be a “vibe” programmer since it amounts to admission of an incompetence.
When cloud first became a thing I yelled at the cloud a lot. Then I got on board with provisioning. And they stepped up the game with load balancers that actually have features security groups SSL unwrapping.
No I realize that one person with a cloud account can do the work of three or four of system engineers.
If you know what you’re doing, you can definitely do this hybrid of vibe coding and real coding. You can’t just give it a problem and tell it to solve it you need to tell it exactly what you’re expecting it to do. Occasionally you can ask it if it has any suggestions and it’ll come back with something that you didn’t think of that’s not a half bad idea.
That said, there’s a lot of idiots out there with zero skill just vibr coating stuff they have no business doing leaving vulnerabilities and caution to the wind.
Before AI we used to refer to the “vibe coders” as “script kiddies”. People who would find a chunk of code and apply it to a job without really knowing what it did.
Fine when they were working alone and what they were up to wasn’t your problem. But as soon as you got into a team project, the code base would start filling up with these patchwork, confused, inefficient solutions to systemic problems.
You’d have the same bug in three different places and you’d have to run down the flaw over and over again, because someone was just copypasta-ing a solution wherever it would fit.
So the argument is that because Chromebooks just work and don’t need troubleshooting unlike windows so this is Googles fault
OK
A certain group of Boomer-brains are heavily invested in the idea that Millennials are the only generation that knows how to use computers.
So we’ve been seeing a lot of “blame the X for the Y” agitprop that’s increasingly divorced from reality. It’s just the next generation of outrage porn, tailored towards the current generation of 40 year olds.
FOX News ran the same bullshit content for GenXers and Boomers.
No, the argument is that Chromebooks are so limited in what they can offer that kids never learned to do anything out of using the chrome browser.
Turns out you don’t need to worry about troubleshooting something if you just remove that functionality lol
Most Chromebooks offered Linux on them. Even Linus Torvalds used a Chromebook when travelling to develop via it. Presumably because he was sick to death of “troubleshooting” when he had other, better things to do. And presumably schools and teachers also have better things to do than deal with bs like conflicting packages, missing drivers, viruses or whatever on every kid’s device.
You are correct that most chromebooks can have Linux installed on them.
I don’t think that’s relevant in a discussion about Chromebooks in a school setting - were schools encouraging their students to install Linux?
Doesn’t matter if they encourage it or, not, the option is there. So if kids want to mess around, compile stuff, run Linux games they can totally do it. The main purpose of the laptop however would be to do work, save / submit stuff to the cloud, run all day and be cheap so if it gets stolen or broken it’s less expense to replace. I think in that role the Chromebook is the best solution anyone came up with. And there were a long line of contenders.
Is the option actually there, as in it’s allowed by school policy? Would you be able to show an example confirming this?
I highly doubt a school IT department would be okay with this. The very post were discussing asserts that it was marketed to schools as something that can be locked down.
I’d also argue that even if it was allowed, whether or not it was encouraged undoubtedly matters.
These are kids we’re talking about, not engineers. Additionally, were discussing technical competence at the generational level, so we’d have to rule out outliers, which I’d handily believe “kids who installed linux on their school Chromebooks” would fall under.
I don’t have my Chromebook to hand but I believe the setting is in the Prefs. When you set up Linux it’s a virtualized Debian that you can pretty much do anything with but it can’t mess with ChromeOS outside. Not all Chromebooks support it since it’s space / CPU dependent but if it does then it’s Linux. I was even running graphical apps since the screen is a Wayland server.
I don’t…think that answered my question?
Would this be against school policy? Are there examples to confirm this?
All Chromebooks ARE Linux. ChromeOS is a Linux based operating system. Whether or not you can get to the lower level is a different discussion. I had one of the first Chromebooks, you have always been able to root them and do what you want with them.
They don’t need to know how computers work if Chromebooks are the only thing in existence.
They also don’t need to know how to deal with python dependencies if they can pace their code into AI and say why isn’t tkinter working?
Craftsmrn said the same thing about the industrial revolution.
You know how you know even less about computers? When you cannot afford one at all
That’s why they only know what Chromebook offers, they have them in school.
My kid’s school doesn’t have any kind of computer instruction, no computer lab, it’s all Chromebooks.
Is it your genuine belief that your schools would have computer instruction and big easily accessible labs if not for Chromebooks?
I remember “teach kids computers” as an educational panacea during the 80s/90s. It made Micheal Dell very rich, but often at the expense of the biology, chemistry, and physics lab programs. “Nobody knows how to use a blowtorch / dissect an animal / build an engine anymore” was a refrain I heard all the through my high school years.
Has eliminating computer labs brought back the old 70s era Space Race science programs? Or are we still just boiling away ever ounce of the public system that costs money (except athletics, of course)?
I was simply stating why the kids only know Chromebooks. Many poor communities, mine and myself included, have households that don’t have computers at home.
The schools give each kid a Chromebook at the beginning of the year. So it’s the only computer access these kids get.
There isn’t instruction on how PCs work on a base level in my kids middle school, and no computer lab to experiment with. So they only know how to navigate Chromebooks, because that’s their access level
And I mean, They got rid of home economics for the computer lab back when I was a kid. I don’t understand why you brought up the 70s or whatever, I’m aware times and education instruction changes sure, you don’t need to be rude.
Plenty of kids have access to desktops and laptops through their parents. Libraries also have computer labs with traditional PCs.
I’ve never heard of a school that provided middle school computer education outside of small elective classes, and even those only in wealthier districts.
I don’t know many of my son’s peers, who do have a pc at home.
I had computer instruction in middle school while attending a title 1 rural school. Idk
Maybe both things are true. Wasn’t trying to argue or “be proven wrong” just stating why many children may only know Chromebook use, and it’s not thier fault
That’s honestly technology in a nutshell. Technological development leads to further abstraction, leading to less low level knowledge. It’s always been this way. Is AI an abstraction step too far, or are we just the next generation of old man yelling at cloud?
AI has value but first a reality check. Most of the time it produces code which doesn’t work and even if it did is usually of terrible quality, inconsistent style, missing checks, security etc. That’s because there is no “thinking” in AI, it’s a crank handle using training and some rng to shit out an answer.
If you know what you’re doing it can still be a useful tool. I use it a lot but only after carefully reading what it says and understanding the many times it is wrong.
If you don’t know how to program everything might look fine. Except when it crashes, or fails on corner cases, or follows bad practice, or drags in bloated 3rd party libs, or runs out of memory on large datasets or whatever. So don’t trust anybody who blindly uses it or claims to be a “vibe” programmer since it amounts to admission of an incompetence.
I asked myself that question a lot.
When cloud first became a thing I yelled at the cloud a lot. Then I got on board with provisioning. And they stepped up the game with load balancers that actually have features security groups SSL unwrapping.
No I realize that one person with a cloud account can do the work of three or four of system engineers.
If you know what you’re doing, you can definitely do this hybrid of vibe coding and real coding. You can’t just give it a problem and tell it to solve it you need to tell it exactly what you’re expecting it to do. Occasionally you can ask it if it has any suggestions and it’ll come back with something that you didn’t think of that’s not a half bad idea.
That said, there’s a lot of idiots out there with zero skill just vibr coating stuff they have no business doing leaving vulnerabilities and caution to the wind.
Before AI we used to refer to the “vibe coders” as “script kiddies”. People who would find a chunk of code and apply it to a job without really knowing what it did.
Fine when they were working alone and what they were up to wasn’t your problem. But as soon as you got into a team project, the code base would start filling up with these patchwork, confused, inefficient solutions to systemic problems.
You’d have the same bug in three different places and you’d have to run down the flaw over and over again, because someone was just copypasta-ing a solution wherever it would fit.