“Right, so you see, when a conductor is passed through a magnetic field, an electromotive force is produced, and this force can perform work, which can in turn be used to represent probabilistic information…”
mashes the A button to skip dialog
no uncle steve, that’s commuter science, I know ALL ABOUT PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
No matter the degree or seniority, the answer is always NO.
Is that called “relatives with benefits”?
Step-IT, can you help me with my hard drive problem?
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes
Edsger W. Dijkstra
And when your radio is broken, you don’t ask a composer
Computer science has absolutely nothing to do with support, they are totally different fields with totally different skill sets.
Most programmers I’ve known would be garbage at support and most support staff might be able to do some scripting but sure as hell aren’t coders.
Okay but someone that works in IT will have the same answer.
Pro tip: whenever a relative asks you to fix their computer, wipe everything and set up Linux for them. That’ll teach em.
“You use Arch, now, btw”
“Make sure to write that down, because you’re legally required to bring it up at every possible opportunity.”
Did that for my sister but nowadays I just use the excuse: “Sorry I can’t help you, I don’t use Windows anymore”.
The real problem is when a relative know that I’m computer guy and ask me to fix the TV/air conditioner or like my father once did: setup an antenna
I just tell them that I only deal with Linux and that is usually enough to dissuade.
,oh how glad, my ubuntu is broken since update"
Honestly no problem, if they’re tech literate enough to have gotten that far it’ll probably be okay
Looks like we’re setting up an improvised KVM device! :D
Then it’s fun lol
Exactly.
Legit haven’t touched windows in 5 years, I don’t know my way around it
I haven’t used Windows personally in about 15 years and professionally in about 10. I’m pretty useless on anything newer than XP. I even got my wife to switch over to a Mac Mini because at least that has a Unix-like OS and she can still do her audio work on it (in fact, better than a Windows system because their patch QA is light-years ahead of the MS “fuck it, it’ll break some systems but we’ll get that next patch Tuesday” approach).
That’s not to say that I like Apple. I just dislike their OS less than Windows.
You have experienced the pinnacle of Windows (we could probably also add Windows 7 to this). Do yourself a favor and never touch a Windows 10 and especially Windows 11 machine. It’s unimaginable how Microsoft managed to break everything that was working and how clever they are in terms of marketing to sell you stuff you don’t need.
They made me finally switch to Linux because my paid 365 subscription offered me to try the new outlook because Windows Mail was to be discontinued in future. I activated the test and the fun began: Only one of seven accounts was imported into outlook. Of course it was the only Microsoft account (Outlook). All other Accounts were ignored. I thought „Ok migration didn’t work, I’ll do it later manually“ I had a new email. I clicked on it. Edge opened although Firefox was my standard browser. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that I was clickbaited into opening an advertisement by one of the biggest companies on this planet.
This made me immediately stop my work and install Linux Mint. I’m not going back any time soon.
For job related reasons I have to use a lot of VMs. Unfortunately most of them are Windows 10. I created a naked installation years ago and basically use this as the base for individual development VMs. One of these annoyed me for days to make an update. All I could click was „remind me in one hour“ or update immediately. So I chose the one hour a lot of times. I finally let it update. Now my (Windows default!) task bar is transparent and also the whole windows menu. A colleague using the same VM with the latest updates (without changes to installed software) has no issues.
Or even better, install Emacs and run away laughing wildly! Bwahahahaha!
Did that, kind of. The system’s been running flawlessly for like a decade now. I’m not sure if they even understand the difference.
Relative: You know about computers, right?
Me: I’m not sure. Who knows about computers, really? In the words of W.S. McCulloch, “What is a number, that a man may know it, and a man, that he may know a number?” (if you’ll pardon the gendered language) Now if you extend this to computation…
Relative: All right, STFU, I just wanted to know how to update my Amazon account…
My answer is usually “I don’t use computers the same way you do, so I probably won’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know about computers, right? Can you he-”
“No.”
Especially this time of year when people are panicking for whatever reason, people are travelling, people are coming and going, people are buying laptops, devices and phones and the majority of them don’t know how digital files or folders even work (or where they are in a digital system).
If you know anything about computers … just pretend you don’t know anything like everyone else. It will save you so much work and headaches this time of year.
And don’t get soft either … cute girl asking for help? NO … old grandma has a new laptop? NO … your dying relative has a new phone? NO! … your two year old niece has a new tablet? NO! … your drug dealer wants to lower your debt in exchange for fixing their PC? HELL NO!!!
Every year at Christmas my grandparent in law asks me to fix her iPhone. Something with iCloud account. The answer is always the same: Apple store.
Using Apple requires a PhD in computer science.
1 in 10 CS majors fall for this common trap. The other makes this mistake at work.
The biggest career mistake I’ve ever made is opening an Excel macro and changing two characters to make it count a thing again.
I was then permanently labelled Cracks the Technomancer, master of all things technology. It fucking sucks.
ughhhhh yes this is so annoying (randompcb and me have become the classroom’s tech support ugh)
What’s a Cimproter?
