Hacker News Reader

Comment by ToucanLoucan | Hacker News Reader

> Or they learn to enable developer mode, unlock the bootloader, and install Linux, or use the officially supported Crostini, or so on. There's like 3 different ways to run Linux desktop apps on a modern Chromebook.

Oh so all our hypothetical child has to do to discover what computers can actually do is completely rebuild one's software from scratch with no prior knowledge.

Next you'll tell me F1 drivers in their teens just have to LS swap a Saturn SC2 and book time at a track.

View on HN

It's really not that hard. Someone who can follow a tutorial can do it.

5 seconds of googling will get you an answer to "install blender on a Chromebook"

I used to be the cool tech guy in school because I memorized the tutorial to jailbreak iPhone or to cheat in games with a memory editor. You know, stuff like "when you see this screen, click that icon", "find row 5 and change the second value to 0", or "open terminal, copy paste this command and hit enter". I don't think I learned anything useful from those.

You learned that such things are even possible, and you learned that other people saw you as the cool tech guy just because you took time to memorise that stuff.

Well, sure. Maybe you're the kid in the article who opened Xcode and Blender and Final Cut, but it didn't click for you. Of course not everything is for everyone, but it doesn't prove exploring the limits like that is a bad thing.

> It's really not that hard.

Of course not. I could do it in a coma. I've also been using computers since 2004, and you're probably similar.

I've been using computers since 1991 (I'm 42, from 1984), and to be honest this stuff is getting harder and more confusing, not easier. Mostly because it keeps changing, and not based on any logic towards improvement. Sure I'm good at getting my questions and problems solved now, especially with AI, but I don't believe I have the ingrained mastery I felt after a while with computers in the 90s.

And these days, you can ask your favourite LLM for step by step advice, and you can even give it shaky phone camera shots of the error message on your screen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com