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00:10

stackoverflow.blog/2021/01/12/…

This is silly. The real way to teach kids to program is to stick an old school home computer in front of them with a BASIC ROM, like a Spectrum or Commodore.

10 PRINT "I am a programmer now!"
20 GO TO 10

Also anyone who calls it "coding" instead of "programming" probably uses global variables for everything and can't even optimize a switch statement.

Rob

00:29

A trailing semicolon on line 10 and a couple of spaces after the exclamation mark would look better.

The forest of Reinstate Monica

heh

Sonic the Curiouser Hedgehog

00:43

@TheforestofReinstateMonica As someone with actual experience teaching children programming, you need to spark the interest first, before you can go into actual programming.

As a kid, I probably would have never gotten interested in real programming without the toys I had when I was really young, the programmable toy truck and the Lego Mindstorms set.

The forest of Reinstate Monica

@SonictheCuriouserHedgehog That was pretty much my veiled point. The kids who don't have it in them will be bored, and those with programming in their blood will love it.

The interest gets sparked because you want to be able to play games, and to do that, you need to know at least a very trivial amount of BASIC.

Sonic the Curiouser Hedgehog

@TheforestofReinstateMonica Point is, I'd have never realized it was in my blood had it not been for those toys.

It was right after Lego Mindstorms that I asked for something more...technical, and at that point my parents got me my first "true" robot set (i.e. not a kid's toy)

A BASIC Stamp-based robot, that is

The forest of Reinstate Monica

I taught my daughter programming just by saying "hey, let's teach you how to use computers", essentially, so I suppose there are many ways to do it, but pushing it on kids by giving them crappy apps that teach really poor skills is counterproductive.

Sonic the Curiouser Hedgehog

So, then give them better toys that teach better skills

The forest of Reinstate Monica

That's what Speccy is for. :P

Sonic the Curiouser Hedgehog

00:48

...but are still child-oriented

The forest of Reinstate Monica

And there's the problem. It shouldn't be child-oriented, but it shouldn't be too advanced.

If it's child-oriented, it'll dumb things down.

Sonic the Curiouser Hedgehog

Even today, Lego Mindstorms is still a good starting point.

The forest of Reinstate Monica

"Here's an assembler and a book on the x86 ISA. Go make something." and "Hey let's play with drawings and flashy blocks like the c0derz do!" are not the only two possibilities.

Sonic the Curiouser Hedgehog

Nov 11 '20 at 20:00, by Sonic the K-Day Hedgehog

At age 6 I had my first exposure, with a little toy truck that had four "routine" blocks you could position on it to make it perform specific things (move forward, turn, dump contents out, etc.). I wasn't about to count it, but considering most "learn to program for kids" tools today are just like that, I'd count it.

The forest of Reinstate Monica

Today's tools are even more dumbed down, especially the "apps".

Sonic the Curiouser Hedgehog

00:51

In case I wasn't clear, these types of things are for sparking the initial interest, not for actually teaching

The forest of Reinstate Monica

But I do agree that Lego Mindstorms is a great way to get kids interested.

Journeyman Geek

@TheforestofReinstateMonica the former sounds like how bean dad would teach his kids to write software 😁

The forest of Reinstate Monica

@SonictheCuriouserHedgehog Sadly Scratch is specifically about teaching (bad) techniques.

@JourneymanGeek I helped my daughter dive straight into C, after only a little shell scripting.

Not quite x86 assembly, of course, but at least it's a real language.

Journeyman Geek

C was my first attempted language.... And well I still can't write anything 🤣

The forest of Reinstate Monica

TI-BASIC was mine.

Terrible, terrible language, it was.

But this was back in a time before mobile phones and "apps".

Back when people had to learn something real if they wanted to feel like they knew something.

The forest of Reinstate Monica

01:22

You know, one thing that I keep wondering is why there isn't more emphasis on teaching kids other computer-related skills, like system administration or even basic information security.

Especially since those are very useful for protecting people against bad actors on the internet.

"Stranger danger" was nearly as useless as DARE, but what we really do need is scam/malware awareness. There's a reason so many kids have pwnt boxes.

Tech Expert Wizard

02:05

@TheforestofReinstateMonica Yeah, that's a really good idea...

That is, if someone'll ever attempt to do it.

Luuklag

05:42

I love how software rec has a "gratis" tag. The one Dutch word, besides apartheid :/, that made it international.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

06:34

@Luuklag huh, nice. :)

Luuklag

Well yeah, for the case of Gratis it is, but for apartheid, I'm a bit ashamed

anyways, time to get the kids out of bed and dressed.

rene

07:04

→ 5 messages moved to Chimney

Ryan M

07:22

@JNat Cross-site spammer: stackexchange.com/users/19932660/rcmb-banglore

Journeyman Geek

@Luuklag I literally blame open source

cause something can be free (as in open source) but not free (as in it costs nothing) and vice versa

My favourite graphics application (paint.net) was open source, then got closed sourced, but is still no cost.

Mithical

@TheforestofReinstateMonica My parents put an emphasis on teaching us about viruses and malware. Most of what they knew was from the early 2000s when they tried to teach us, but still.

Journeyman Geek

my parents just popped the PC in a shared room , and we figured out most things ourselves :D

rene

07:51

@Mithical who knew that lesson about viruses became important in 2020 ...

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

08:24

oh no, forgot my espresso in the machine....

@Mithical fun fact: I last had anti virus back in 2000 or so. When I realized it just crash the PC and prevents 0 actual viruses, I said goodbye.

And didn't have a single virus or malware.

Mithical

...that you know of.

Luuklag

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating untill your pc is infected and frozen.

My Uni once send a test email when I attended. But instead of using an anonymous email they used their atandard IT email. They also had an IT-sec awareness week so it was all too obvious.

I returned them the email as an attachment and said to do better next time. They congratulated me for being one of the very few seeing through this.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Mithical mdkgn$fsts tset setg

:D

@Luuklag nicely done.... any medal at least? ;)

Rob

08:40

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating Viruses and malware have many modes of operation or end goals. Some seem to do one thing but actually do a few things quite quickly while others seem to do nothing and remain invisible and undetected for decades. - You would always want to try to detect and remove, sometimes doing that triggers defensive mechanisms; and you need to go back far enough to find backups that aren't corrupted.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Rob I do run scans sometimes, just don't have anything installed permanently.

Rob

You can loose a lot in a fraction of a second. You can loose banking logins, have important data corrupted, family photos stolen in under an hour. --- It's like making backups, a waste of time until you need them; like insurance, safety ropes/belts/rails, planning before doing, etc.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

Losing loose is lousy.

Anyway, if there was anti virus that didn't make the PC crash every other minute, I'd happily use it. There is none like that.

It's like having insurance for your car, that cause it to stop working almost every day, making you lose lots of time.

Much more harm than benefit.

John Dvorak

09:02

Windows Defender

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@JohnDvorak can't uninstall it, and don't consider it anti virus.

It might defend against fake viruses, dunno. :D

John Dvorak

Actually, just sitting behind a router and not downloading porn might be sufficient to prevent viruses?

Luuklag

09:23

@JohnDvorak Nope, you should check out Linus's video on that. Search for LTT on youtube, they all slow things down

hi Jnat

Rob

09:38

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating So, what are the benefits of having viruses and your computer participate in a botnet?

Luuklag

Probably none, but the chances of that happening are also very slim if you're a cautious user

I have more then once had Sys-admin turn of my AV because I needed excel to calculate and the MF thing started scanning again.

Rob

It's like refusing to practice social distancing and wear a face mask - on the one hand you're a supporter and on the other hand you refuse to do it.

Luuklag

@Rob at least your only harming yourself in that way

Rob

I guess it depends if you ever encounter anyone, and if either is infected.

Luuklag

Well wearing a propper facemask stops you from exposing others. It won't protect from being exposed

Rob

09:45

IIRC Both of you have complained about lockdown recently; there must have been a reason for the lockdown and your complaint; otherwise there wasn't.

Luuklag

@Rob Well yeah, lockdown aint exactly fun, but there definetly is a reason for it. Reason being people are stupid.

2

Tinkeringbell

^ Definitely.

Luuklag

You have first hand experience, don't you @Tinkeringbell

Tinkeringbell

Yeah. I'd rather not have had that but here we are XD

He's already back to going partying every evening with more than 2 friends :/

Sometimes, I wonder if I should just call the cops on him, hit him where it hurts (his wallet)

Luuklag

10:06

call Meld Misdaad Anoniem xD

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Rob if I'll find such things I'll reconsider.

Rob

Nah, just leave it.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Luuklag exactly. I never open scam/spam emails and never open links even in emails from trusted friends if I don't expect a link.

I never took part in those silly chain emails, which were also source for viruses for millions of people, most likely.

(e.g. "pass this link to 10 friends and you'll have good luck for 10 days")

Luuklag

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating haha yeah those marvels of the internet

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

yup

Tinkeringbell

10:09

@Luuklag It's an option :)

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

Now moved to WhatsApp and other platforms so can't infect the computer, just phone.

Rob

What's great about my phone is that it gets monthly security updates, and comes with one AV subscription.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Rob if it makes you feel safe, it's good.

Rob

Never had a problem. I used to have way more problems with my desktop. My phone has protected boot - Knox.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Rob the reason here comes from the top: our leaders don't give a tiny bit of personal example, and keep throwing parties even during lockdown, with dozens of people and without a single face mask. Not to mention never going into personal quarantine after being exposed to verified COVID patients because "their job is too important and they can't do it from home".

So people see this, and do the same. Can't blame them a bit.

Luuklag

10:14

At least you guys started vacinating @ShadowWizardisVaccinating

Rob

Knox.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Luuklag true! So the feeling of false safety just add to the disobey orgy, or whatever we can call it.

(only few got the second dose of the vaccine, which is critical. about 20% of the COVID patients in hospitals did get the first dose and got infected afterwards.)

Luuklag

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating thats a shame.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

Totally.

Luuklag

Here they only started with healthcare providers that provide help to infected patients

But that also got exploited by office and restaurant staff of hospitals apparently

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

10:19

that's a shame...

Anyway, going to fetch chocolate ball my daughter made yesterday, eat it with the half cup of coffee left from hour ago.

Luuklag

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating sounds horrible, that coffee

Rob

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating Some leaders give a personal example, look at the health minister demonstrate how ill he is during a news conference.

Luuklag

but enjoy1

@Rob yeah +1 for leading by example

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Luuklag thanks!

Rob

They live in denial.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

10:22

@Rob :)

Here it is. Well, was.

Om nom nom

Rob

Must have wiped his face over a few dozen times within a few minutes.

Luuklag

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating with peanuts or something? Looks good!

Rob

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating Your Pavilion has BO.

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Rob well, that's like giving a lecture about protecting your PC from viruses, while opening attached file in email sent with title "OPEN THIS TO WIN $1000000".

@Luuklag no, it's biscuit crumbles. She didn't break it well. ;)

Tinkeringbell

@Luuklag Communication was just horrible on both ends. My mom's employer sent out the same letter to all personnel, even though they're supposed to be in several different groups. At the top was a big phone number you could call to make an appointment for vaccinating. Only after that there was the explanation that it was only for people within certain functions, and that the rest would get a letter again at a later stage...

Two of her coworkers called and just got appointments without anything being checked, really.

Not even a few questions where you'd at least have to lie...

Luuklag

10:28

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating At least she gets an A for effort ;)

@Tinkeringbell well that would've been better yeah

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Rob Yes, never bothered to check what it is, actually. Bought a renewed PC. Very cheap, and fits my needs.

Rob

Will they be offered the second shot, or just one?

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Luuklag yeah lol... well she didn't do it on her own (not there yet), but part of a Zoom Meeting of this:

Hebrew Scouts Movement in Israel

The Hebrew Scout Movement in Israel (Hebrew: תנועת הצופים העבריים בישראל‎, Tnoat HaTzofim HaIvriiem BeYisrael) is an Israeli Jewish co-ed Scouting and Guiding association with about 80,000 members. The Hebrew Scout Movement is now the largest youth movement in IsraelIt is a member of the Israel Boy and Girl Scouts Federation, which is a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). Established in 1919, the Tzofim (Hebrew Scout Movement) was the first Zionist youth movement in Israel and remains today the largest...

Luuklag

@Tinkeringbell I still owe you a picture off my daughters Christmas dress: i.sstatic.net/OO0Ep.jpg

Tinkeringbell

Nice!

I'm jealous :)

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

10:31

:)

Luuklag

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating Well thats cool

I made my wife one too @Tinkeringbell, a bit more suffisticated, but don't have a picture of it on my phone

Tinkeringbell

No worries :) This one shows of quite a bit of skill already :D

And the colors are lovely :)

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

@Luuklag thanks

JNat

@Ollie it's pretty much just me doing this these days

Journeyman Geek

11:15

:(

Ryan M

Does the network-wide nuke also apply a suspension if they try to recreate accounts?

Tinkeringbell

11:35

@RyanM I would guess not... but that's just a guess XD

Luuklag

12:26

anyone here used gotomeeting before?

Tinkeringbell

12:46

Not me..

terdon

@Luuklag I have, about a year ago. Why?

Worked fine out of the box in my browser on Linux as I recall.

Luuklag

13:05

Yeah I have a meeting in it now, works OK.

was a bit of trouble to get it running in the first instance

Journeyman Geek

14:52

@RyanM kinda sorta. The standard one

But it's easier to grab a free cm than mods across n sites, even for a mod

Tinkeringbell

15:16

Most Dutch spammer name I ever saw on IPS just now: Jantina van Buuren Buuren

rene

15:27

A family member of W.A. van Buuren?

Luuklag

@Tinkeringbell time for an Elfstedentocht

Tinkeringbell

@rene Perhaps...

Love how both of you jumped to that though XD Hadn't even crossed my mind yet

I am going to laugh so hard though if we get some severe cold weather and ideal conditions for an Elfstedentocht, and then can't have it because covid XD

Luuklag

@Tinkeringbell yeah me too. I have a colleague that said well if there is a possibility I'm just going to do it no matter what

rene

In the 10 days before the event all Dutch people get vaccinated. Yes, then we can.

Tinkeringbell

@rene How? there's supposed to be 2/3 weeks between shots :P

@Luuklag I've heard a similar sentiment here, if it's a possibility they're going on their own.

rene

15:33

@Tinkeringbell we'll re-invent time ...

Tinkeringbell

Haha

rene

I'm amazed it didn't come up in the Tweede kamer this afternoon.

Luuklag

@rene I'm amazed by the lack of knowledge in the Tweede kamer in general

Looks like you can only become a member if you did a Gamma studies, and studied way too long.

Or Alpha studies, what is it called again

Tinkeringbell

Alpha, I think.

Humanities :P

Politics are seriously confusing at times. I haven't watched the debate this afternoon though.

rene

I had it on as background noise

Luuklag

15:38

I watch the debates on agriculture every now and then. And the sheer stupidity that is uttered by members enrages me from time to time

rene

True that.

JNat

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating gone

@RyanM well... there's no such thing as a "network-wide nuke"

I suspend these accounts network wide, but need to destroy the per-site profiles manually

Luuklag

@JNat Ouch!

JNat

@Luuklag gone

Luuklag

Ooff month of backlog

JNat

15:46

@Ollie gone

@Luuklag gone

@Ollie gone

@ShadowWizardisVaccinating suspended network-wide, since it appears they never posted anything worthwhile — left the profiles around, though, 'cause there's 32 of 'em and I don't see any harm in keepin' 'em around

@RyanM gone

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

16:09

@JNat I see. 10 years off the sites should do the job. Thanks! :D

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

16:29

@Luuklag it's like a sniper who has to take down the targets one by one. :P

Tinkeringbell

17:56

meta.stackexchange.com/a/359560/369802 < My question on the post action links capitalization got an official response people might like to read :)

Ollie

@JNat Cross-site spammer: stackexchange.com/users/20300987/rashekgre-langare

rene

18:12

@Tinkeringbell left a comment

Tinkeringbell

Good one! :)

rene

I can be nice ;)

Tinkeringbell

Can you really? ;) I thought you were just acting confusing :P

rene

that might be more accurate as you think ...

Rob

Stacksified and Sacksified

Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating

18:40

@Rob sacrificed

It's good they renovate old code. It's bad they also move the cheese whole doing so, making the UX much worse.

Could ask UX expert, if they have any, before making the changes to appearance.

When action links span few lines randomly, it's very hard to follow them, it really don't make you want to use them.

Rob

Scarified¹

18 hours ago, by Rob

A trailing semicolon on line 10 and a couple of spaces after the exclamation mark would look better.

Tinkeringbell

19:39

Your call not to announce wouldn't have been too bad, if it would have took you 2 hours to reply, not 2 days. — Luuklag 20 mins ago

@Luuklag is that really necessary? There might've been 1001 reasons they couldn't reply immediately (including considering further changes) and two days really isn't bad...

rene

19:53

I was pondering on a response as well. Just delete it @Tinkeringbell it only attracts more users that might step up the complaints a bit. With shadows comment and mine all bases are covered.

Tinkeringbell

Someone already beat me to deleting it... That's what I get for trying those soft-skills...

rene

Yeah, useless skills. I never use it. ;)

Now we upvote Cat ...

Tinkeringbell

There's worse things/users to upvote ;)

rene

Also true.

Confluence has "threaded" comments. Except when you delete a comment. Then it only removes the first comment, leaving all other comments.

Catija

20:12

:D

Ollie

21:32

In the Ask Question page on SO, it says this because I am now part of a Team. How would the content of my drafted question be made publicly available?

Never mind, otherwise someone'll exploit it...

Tinkeringbell

@Ollie for images, they go on imgur... I don't know about other content in draft mode though

Ollie

@Tinkeringbell That's true... mods don't get to see how?

Tinkeringbell

It may just be some warning because drafts are stored somewhere that isn't "private company device"

@Ollie nope. All I know is just what regular users know, that images go to imgur so if you start drafting and upload an image, it's technically not private anymore. Very hard to randomly find, but not private

rene

21:54

On my team the images go on a stackoverflow domain, not on imgur ....

@Tinkeringbell content goes in the Redis cache on SE server farm. I'm told even a dev would have a hard time finding it there. it doesn't have an easy access / query option.

user400654

23:18

🩸

Shog9

23:48

Hey folks!

I've been packing stuff up, preparing to move out to washington:

(Unofficial state motto: all the chipmunks you can eat)

Anyway, I was going through a closet and I found this:

Blew off the dust, and it was a vintage Stack Exchange messenger bag:

(A.K.A.: laptop purse)

So... I've been wondering what to do with it

And figured I'd ask y'all for advice

Some ideas:
- Use it to replace the cookie can I use to hold odd bolts and screws
- Run a contest on meta with the bag as a prize
- Send it to one of you

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