Start talking about logic gates and flip flops and PLAs and FPGA, maybe even throw in few of the ASICs. If they don’t shut up even after that then bring in the big guns and start talking about doping and PN junctions and How BJTs are better than FETs
I was legally contracted to say yes.
At least it was satisfying to answer NO when the question involved their personal (not a company one) acer cheap mall laptop filled with mcafee, bloatware and socuh combined with the slowest low capacity hdd in existence.
Hell NO
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
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.”
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.
Computer science has absolutely nothing to do with support, they are totally different fields with totally different skill sets.
That also holds for computer science and programming :)
Okay but someone that works in IT will have the same answer.
Nobody should work for free unless we get to live in a post scarcity society
“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
HAHAAA YOU FOOL YOU HAVE ACTIVATED MY INFODUMP I AM AN UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENE
understanding how a cpu works and how to write efficient programs is the easy part.
understanding why windows does [anything] is the hard part.
Yeah, just read that their newest server OS puts a recovery partition to the right of the primary partition by default.
Which is completely useless on a server, and prevents you from growing the partition when you run out of space.At this point, they’re basically saying “Office and AD guarantee our monopoly, so we can push out literal monkey shit, and tell admins to deal with it.”
People need to understand the difference between computer science, information technology, software engineering and Tech Support
Tis is the same
and “actually needing Microsoft support but coming to you cause Microsoft doesn’t give a shit about private end users”
My new excuse is, “I only know linux, I don’t know anything about windows.”
I do that too but only because it’s much easier to help my relatives with Linux than those with Windows.
I even “convert” some people because Llinux is easier for them if I just manage it. I had a neighbor that was using Window on a very old computer, it was slow and choking under the weight of simple updates. Plus, she was always asking me why her computer kept rebooting by itself while it was obviously Windows update. So I installed Mint and all the problems went away.
Anyway I don’t want to have to deal with Microsoft accounts, licenses, office365, the general bloat, the ads, the new versions of Windows… I have enough at work, so if I am going to help on my free time, it has to be on the OS I find easier to deal with.
Stare at their computer blankly
“Wait, they got rid of the green hill???”But that’s where I kept my emails. How do I get back to that hill?
“… don’t you have a cloud or something for going back to the hill ??”
(Actually, ever since NES, he had vaguely pictured computers as being related to the pipes in that Mario Brothers game)
no uncle steve, that’s commuter science, I know ALL ABOUT PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
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…
What is a number, that a man may know it?
Lets start with natural numbers and define the integers, rational, real and complex numbers as solutions to certain equations.
and a man, that he may know a number?
Now you asked for to much.
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!!!
your drug dealer wants to lower your debt in exchange for fixing their PC? HELL NO!!!
nuh uh, if i’m getting paid (getting paid in reduced debt is still paid cuz it’s money i was gonna give him anyway) i’ll do whatever
Yep that’s a contract and I work for those
No, sorry, I don’t know what kind of ass-backwards somersault your windows machine did this time. Your word doc is randomly missing every third paragraph? Too right mate.
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.
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.
