AV versus no AV?
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@dkf I can understand lazyness, sure.
But if I take my mom for example: She uses her smartphone/tablet maybe a few minutes a day and she knows that she doesn't know how to do many things with it (kind of philosophical ^^). Still, she seems unable to read informational popups or instructions. That is what I can't understand: She doesn't use it nearly often enough for routine/lazyness to kick in, she knows she is inexperienced, and yet she ignores all sorts of on-screen hints/guidance/text in general.
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@Akko said in AV versus no AV?:
WHY WOULD YOU NOT READ IT FIRST BEFORE DOING ANYTHING?
Computers are scary and confusing and always ask me weird things I don't understand. Why can't it be simple like {insert job the person has been doing for years and understands}?
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@Jaloopa Pretty much that, yeah.
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@Akko The way I understand it, most people don't want to use a computer (tablet, phone...). They want to accomplish a task which involves a computer, but they don't care about the computer. So whatever message they see is just a hindrance in accomplishing that task, and should be pushed away as fast as possible to focus on the task.
As an analogy, imagine using a hammer with a wobbly head (because it's getting loose). You'd say that anyone with a bit of judgement should stop, look at how wobbly it is, whether it's dangerous and so on. And yet, I'm pretty sure that everyone has done something like that at one point or another, because you don't care about the hammer, you just want to fix that picture on the wall. Even though the hammer is giving you a pretty clear message, you will ignore it.
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@remi said in AV versus no AV?:
The way I understand it, most people don't want to use a computer (tablet, phone...). They want to accomplish a task which involves a computer, but they don't care about the computer. So whatever message they see is just a hindrance in accomplishing that task, and should be pushed away as fast as possible to focus on the task.
That is the perfect summary/explanation of my mom's relationship with computers XD
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@Akko said in AV versus no AV?:
That is the perfect summary/explanation of my mom's relationship with computers
Since most people are not IT professionals and/or have no interest at all in IT per se, it's a perfect summary for most people's relationship with computers.
Most people have no desire at all to understand IT in any way, so the things they learn about it are limited to fixed step-by-step recipes for getting required tasks done. And this is not because every IT training course in the world is fundamentally deficient, though all of them obviously are; that fundamental deficiency is driven solely by trainee preferences. Most people simply won't pay for a training course that spends any time on actual education.
You'll see this whenever you try to explain anything IT-related to a civilian: any deviation from the step-by-step process they're frantically trying to jot down as you work through whatever it is you're explaining gets met with a glazed look that says "I really, really don't care what you're telling me just now." The only way I've ever found to get past this involves flat refusal to help any further until I see some sign of willingness to step back from the immediate problem for five minutes and let me draw some boxes and arrows.
This basic attitude feeds into a kind of learned helplessness. Once a person has gone down the path of reflexively dismissing alert boxes as obstacles to the task at hand, they just kind of forget that those boxes actually say things. Also, the instant that some piece of industry jargon they're not familiar with (like "file" or "folder" or "MB") appears anywhere in a dialog, the whole dialog gets filed under "I don't know what any of this means". Both those effects combine to give the user plausible grounds to believe that not only do they not want to know anything about their IT gear, but that it's inherently too complicated to understand.
The rise of "intuitive" touchscreen phones and tablets, which sweep even more of their inner workings under the carpet than desktop computers do, is so not helping. Sure, there are more people who feel confident about using these things simply because so much attention has been paid to limiting their options and corralling them down the chutes of fixed workflows. But the sad fact remains that even fondleslab-wielding "digital natives" are, by and large, almost completely unable to reason out effective workarounds and fixes when stuff goes wrong, as it eventually always does.
The main thing about fondleslabs is that because so many of the controls have to be implemented as various kinds of gesture, there will always be more potential controls available than the typical user is aware even exist. This, combined with the fact that distinguishing one gesture from another is iffy at best, results in a very high incidence of invocation of unexpected behaviour. It's really, really easy to make phones and tablets do "helpful" things that you didn't know they could do, never thought you asked for, can't replicate deliberately and don't know how to recover from.
It's really no wonder that it's so easy for malware to slip by unnoticed - its effects just kind of disappear into the prevailing fog of non-comprehension.
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@flabdablet reminded me of this classic post
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@Jaloopa Yeah, that's a ripper.
This one, in particular, reminds me of exactly why I'm retiring next year:
A teacher phones my office, complaining that his laptop has "no internet". I take a walk down to his classroom. He tells me that the internet was there yesterday, but today it's gone. His desktop is a solid wall of randomly placed Microsoft office icons. I quickly try and explain that the desktop is not a good place to store files as they're not backed up on the server, but he doesn't care; he just wants the internet back. I open the start menu and click on Internet Explorer, and it flashes to life with his homepage displayed. He explains that the Internet used to be on his desktop, but isn't any more. I close I.E. and scour the desktop, eventually finding the little blue 'e' buried amongst some PowerPoint and Excel icons. I point to it. He points to a different location on the screen, informing me of where it used to be. I drag the icon back to it's original location. He's happy. He can't use a computer.
Ten years I've been explaining shit to that guy. Ten years. And he's still making all the same mistakes he was making ten years ago. I think all of us get to work with that guy at some point.
It's not because I'm shit at explaining things. If you show some sign of trying to understand the root cause of your current problem, then I guarantee you that by the time I've spent five minutes on it with you, you will understand it sufficiently to be able to work around it and related problems when they arise again (unless it doesn't happen for another two years and you forget, which is fair enough).
Edit: I disagree with this:
All through their lives, I've done it for them. Set-up new hardware, installed new software and acted as in-house technician whenever things went wrong. As a result, I have a family of digital illiterates.
No, you have a family of digital illiterates because most people want to be digital illiterates. If you'd done none of that stuff, the only difference would be that you'd have a family of digital illiterates whose stuff didn't work.
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@Akko said in AV versus no AV?:
That is the perfect summary/explanation of my mom's relationship with computers
It's also the philosphy behind books like Don't Make Me Think, which you might be interested in
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@flabdablet said in AV versus no AV?:
No, you have a family of digital illiterates because most people want to be digital illiterates. If you'd done none of that stuff, the only difference would be that you'd have a family of digital illiterates whose stuff didn't work.
I hope my kids will have some interest in technology. I'm planning on trying to teach and explain, with enough enthusiasm that they don't think it's boring dad stuff. I realise I'm probably hopelessly idealistic and my daughter will never learn much beyond how to switch on her Apple Brain Electrodes, but I live in hope
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@Jaloopa said in AV versus no AV?:
I hope my kids will have some interest in technology.
One in three for ours, which I guess puts us ahead of the game.
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@flabdablet at 10 months old, my daughter already enjoys remote controls and phones, although they're more for chewing than understanding the technology behind them.
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@Jaloopa said in AV versus no AV?:
I'm planning on trying to teach and explain, with enough enthusiasm that they don't think it's boring dad stuff.
Maybe start by showing what fun things you can do with technical knowledge: robots, games, everything you want.
I was taught programming but at first I found it pointless until I found out it can be used to make your own game.
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@flabdablet said in AV versus no AV?:
A teacher phones my office, complaining that his laptop has "no internet". I take a walk down to his classroom. He tells me that the internet was there yesterday, but today it's gone. His desktop is a solid wall of randomly placed Microsoft office icons. I quickly try and explain that the desktop is not a good place to store files as they're not backed up on the server, but he doesn't care; he just wants the internet back. I open the start menu and click on Internet Explorer, and it flashes to life with his homepage displayed. He explains that the Internet used to be on his desktop, but isn't any more. I close I.E. and scour the desktop, eventually finding the little blue 'e' buried amongst some PowerPoint and Excel icons. I point to it. He points to a different location on the screen, informing me of where it used to be. I drag the icon back to it's original location. He's happy. He can't use a computer.
Oh god yes, the "Desktop full of icons". Teachers and professors especially seem to do that a lot, in my experience...
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@Yamikuronue said in AV versus no AV?:
It's also the philosphy behind books like Don't Make Me Think, which you might be interested in
Hmm looks interesting, might have to check it out. Thanks for the tip
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@Akko said in AV versus no AV?:
But if I take my mom for example: She uses her smartphone/tablet maybe a few minutes a day and she knows that she doesn't know how to do many things with it (kind of philosophical ^^). Still, she seems unable to read informational popups or instructions. That is what I can't understand: She doesn't use it nearly often enough for routine/lazyness to kick in, she knows she is inexperienced, and yet she ignores all sorts of on-screen hints/guidance/text in general.
My mom is like that. The funny thing is, she was a librarian in the 60s when they had just figured that computers would be kinda useful in libraries so she was among the first librarians (or anyone outside the maths department for that matter) to take FORTRAN classes and learn how to handle punched cards and all that shit about MARC that makes XML seem sane. I don't know if it's from living with my dad who was an complete effing luddite but today she just freezes like a deer in the headlights when something unexpected comes up (and dialog boxes are usually unexpected), even if it's in Big Friendly Letters that say DON'T PANIC.
Come to think of it, line editors were more user friendly for this clientele.
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@LaoC that's almost kind of sad, actually...
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@LaoC said in AV versus no AV?:
line editors were more user friendly for this clientele.
In my view it's all about expectations management.
The IT marketing industry has had decades to push the line that all you need to do is take it home and plug it in and it will all be fine and you'll be able to use it in no time.
If you're working with punchcards and/or a line editor, you know that no such thing is true, so when something goes wrong you're not blindsided by it.
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@flabdablet said in AV versus no AV?:
@LaoC said in AV versus no AV?:
line editors were more user friendly for this clientele.
In my view it's all about expectations management.
The IT marketing industry has had decades to push the line that all you need to do is take it home and plug it in and it will all be fine and you'll be able to use it in no time.
If you're working with punchcards and/or a line editor, you know that no such thing is true, so when something goes wrong you're not blindsided by it.
I actually meant that less metaphorically. In a line editor, you have one place to enter stuff, and if the computer responds, it will do so below that. It reads like a book (a "scroll" actually), one in a strange language but still in a linear fashion the way even grand-grandfather learned to read. In a GUI environment, stuff happens seemingly at random, all over the place, from several applications at once. At least for my mother I think that's a major part of what makes it so confusing and scary.
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@LaoC said in AV versus no AV?:
In a GUI environment, stuff happens seemingly at random, all over the place, from several applications at once. At least for my mother I think that's a major part of what makes it so confusing and scary.
Set her up with a Linux box that doesn't have X and have her teach you LaTeX. That'll ground her.
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@flabdablet said in AV versus no AV?:
In a GUI environment, stuff happens seemingly at random, all over the place, from several applications at once. At least for my mother I think that's a major part of what makes it so confusing and scary.
Set her up with a Linux box that doesn't have X and have her teach you LaTeX. That'll ground her.
I've actually thought about doing that; now she's using a sufficiently nailed-down XFCE that doesn't try to be too smart and it kinda works for her. For that last step ... it's just, emailed grandchildren's pics don't look that good with aalib ;)
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@Luhmann some are. Not mine or my wife's, but some.
The baby is just as happy with a phone case as the actual phone though
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@LaoC said in AV versus no AV?:
emailed grandchildren's pics don't look that good with aalib
Okay, so give her two screens, only one of which has an X server behind it, and no desktop environment or panels etc. So she can launch gpicview to look at photos, and use mutt to attach them to emails, but doesn't have to deal with all the icons and clickery.
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@flabdablet said in AV versus no AV?:
emailed grandchildren's pics don't look that good with aalib
Okay, so give her two screens, only one of which has an X server behind it, and no desktop environment or panels etc. So she can launch gpicview to look at photos, and use mutt to attach them to emails, but doesn't have to deal with all the icons and clickery.
Nah, that would spoil the look of that oak desk she got out of some monastery even more than that box with the ugly cables (seems like the time working on an UNIVAC still wasn't effective immunization; That Box is an all-in-one Lenovo ThinkCentre) already does. Unacceptable. If I get around to it, I might try i3 or something that just provides a split screen. Shell left, pics/PDF right, switching between mutt and nano on F-keys.
Too bad I haven't been able to find a Bluetooth punchcard reader.
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@LaoC said in AV versus no AV?:
a Bluetooth punchcard reader
prolly hack something up just by making the punchcard reader power a phone up and down for each hole :-)
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@Jaloopa
We lost an old dumb phone before realizing that
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@Yamikuronue fantastic book that.
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@Jaloopa said in AV versus no AV?:
at 10 months old, my daughter already enjoys remote controls and phones, although they're more for chewing than understanding the technology behind them.
Sounds like she's reached the ability level of Digital Native already.
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@Jaloopa said in AV versus no AV?:
@flabdablet reminded me of this classic post
Here's an idea. When they hit eleven, give them a plaintext file with ten-thousand WPA2 keys and tell them that the real one is in there somewhere. See how quickly they discover Python or Bash then.
I might not agree with the guy in general, but I like his take on parenting.
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@LaoC said in AV versus no AV?:
@flabdablet said in AV versus no AV?:
"Noy", meaning "small", is actually one of the most common short names for both males and females here.
Here, we mostly reserve it for bad rappers.
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@remi said in AV versus no AV?:
The way I understand it, most people don't want to use a computer (tablet, phone...). They want to accomplish a task which involves a computer, but they don't care about the computer. So whatever message they see is just a hindrance in accomplishing that task, and should be pushed away as fast as possible to focus on the task.
This is how I think of washing machines. There are so many settings and programs, but I don't want to learn the intricacies of clothing/washing technology. I would prefer if the machine has a single start button.
I am sure the washing machine engineers would be appalled by my ignorance in the same way I think of ignorance towards computers.
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@Adynathos Right, but if the washing machine does have more than one button, you're not going to just press one at random and hope it works. You'll read the names at least.
And if the screen shows "ERROR 46", you're probably going to fetch the manual and see what it is before trying to wash clothes.
That does not require "washing machine skills".
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@flabdablet said in AV versus no AV?:
The thing I did five years ago that cut malware detection rates to zero was block advertising sites at our campus Internet gateway. I now consider this to be a far stronger security measure for machines in frequent use by naive users than running an AV.
QFFT. Given how common malware via advertising seems to be nowadays, it seems like this should be anyone's first step.
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@anonymous234 said in AV versus no AV?:
you're not going to just press one at random and hope it works
No, you'll stare at the labels in confusion for a while, then go "Sure whatever that sounds good" and pick one at random after convincing yourself that's what you wanted. I've seen it happen :D
@anonymous234 said in AV versus no AV?:
And if the screen shows "ERROR 46", you're probably going to
cry about it on the internet until someone more knowledgeable tells you what to do.
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@remi said in AV versus no AV?:
@ixvedeusi "sudo" kind of works for power-users that actually really understand the messages, as a safety net (i.e. as long as you don't use it, you hopefully can't screw up the system too much -- and hopefully the additional effort of using it makes you careful).
It is indeed no better than UAC for a basic user (i.e. 99% of users!), but it has I think its uses for the rest (i.e. all of us here!).
And obviously, "sudo" works best with this:
https://twitter.com/liamosaur/status/506975850596536320This is a thing
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@anonymous234 said in AV versus no AV?:
@Adynathos Right, but if the washing machine does have more than one button, you're not going to just press one at random and hope it works. You'll read the names at least.
And I'm going to be as confused as if I was reading hieroglyphs. I have no idea what the various icons might mean (this one is a crossed square, which is obviously not the same as a crossed circle. Very useful information. Probably?), I have no idea whether my clothing is cotton, linen or whatever (it's a shirt. A white one. I like it. It's made of, uh, cloth? I guess?).
So yeah, I might end up guessing, maybe I'll take the middle one because I know it's not very fragile (like fancy women clothing) nor very sturdy (like aprons and kitchen stuff). If the programs are not in a logical order, I'll pick the wrong one.
Actually, I did bother once to understand this stuff, long enough to program the "custom" program button, and now I use it for everything. And that's because there is a custom programmable button (and I'm a programmer so I understand what that means). On the previous washing machine, there was a dial for the programs, it stayed on the same one all the time and I had no idea what that was.
(in reality I do understand a bit more than that about washing, but you get the idea...)
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@remi I just stick everything in on the Wool cycle, even though I own no wool clothing at all.
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@RaceProUK And dry it on permanent press? My husband and his friends did that religiously, despite never pressing their clothes.
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@Yamikuronue Nah: I hang everything on a heated clothes horse.
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@remi said in AV versus no AV?:
a shirt. A white one. I like it. It's made of, uh, cloth? I guess?
I'm gonna blow your mind here and point out that every commercially available shirt lists the composition of the cloth it's made from on the label inside the collar.
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@flabdablet said in AV versus no AV?:
I'm gonna blow your mind here and point out that every commercially available shirt lists the composition of the cloth it's made from on the label inside the collar.
The point is not that the information is not available, but that we may be unwilling to make the effort of gathering it.
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@flabdablet Why would I bother reading the doc? I don't care! I don't want to know what my shirt is made of, I want it to be clean! That is your problem, as a washing machine maker (or cloth maker, I don't care which one) to find out. Plus, if it's written there, why are you not smart enough to detect it automatically? Why should I be doing your job?
(I'm just pushing the analogy about using computers... it holds up quite well, for once!)
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@Adynathos said in AV versus no AV?:
we may be unwilling to make the effort of gathering it
If you can't be arsed to look at a label on a shirt you have in your hand as you're putting it in the machine, you don't deserve a clean shirt.
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@remi Sir, I have already told you I am not a washing machine person. You are being deliberately unhelpful. I'm hanging up now
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@Adynathos said in AV versus no AV?:
I'm gonna blow your mind here and point out that every commercially available shirt lists the composition of the cloth it's made from on the label inside the collar.
The point is not that the information is not available, but that we may be unwilling to make the effort of gathering it.
I had a t-shirt once that had a bunch of (the less obscure) symbols on the label and underneath something like "If you don't understand this, just give it to your mom. She'll know what to do". That was an adult size so I always found it a bit ridiculous. TIL.
Actually here it's my wife who has The One Washing Program. It's "Cotton Quick"—good thing we don't have woollen clothes here. When I got to know her she had this baby-size pullover in her room that seemed made from some thick felt. Turned out it had been angora wool, fallen prey to The Washing Program which at the time was "95° Extra Rinse".
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@flabdablet You are right.
However, having many shirts in each washing cycle, I do not want to read each one. I just choose some default program because it worked numerous times before.And the computer popup messages are probably treated like the labels on shirts.
@remi said in AV versus no AV?:
And I'm going to be as confused as if I was reading hieroglyphs. I have no idea what the various icons might mean (this one is a crossed square, which is obviously not the same as a crossed circle.
I have this problem with mobile applications - they insist on using icons and I have no idea what they are supposed to be :(
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@Adynathos said in AV versus no AV?:
@flabdablet You are right.
However, having many shirts in each washing cycle, I do not want to read each one. I just choose some default program because it worked numerous times before.And the computer popup messages are probably treated like the labels on shirts.
If you can live with the occasional discolored shirt or Ukraninian credit card perusal, you'll probably be fine.
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@Jaloopa I paid for this shirt! Why can't you give me clear instructions how to wash it? Stop confusing me with your mumbo-jumbo about "labels" and "programs"!
And before you ask which washing machine I have, I already told you, it's a white one with a circular
Windowswindow in front.
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@flabdablet said in AV versus no AV?:
If you can't be arsed to look at a label on a shirt you have in your hand as you're putting it in the machine, you don't deserve a clean shirt.
So now you're telling me only engineers and scientists can have clean clothes? Next thing you're going to tell me that I can't have a white shirt because I'm not white? Check your privilege!
(oops, I'm getting derailed here... maybe I need to fit a Trump reference in there to ensure a clean (!) shift to the
garage?)
Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you — Coding 2 Learn
