Google doesn’t even treat the quotes as a requirement anymore, just as a suggestion.
I was searching for something the other day, such as ‘blah blah text’. Google asked if I wanted results that must contain ‘text’ so I clicked on it and it changed to ‘blah blah “text”’.
The results were exactly the same. Except now the suggestion asked if the results must contain “text”. So I blocked that. And now the search was for ‘blah blah ““text””’
I use a privacy search engine called start page which scrapes the results From google, ecosia is great too, while it isn’t as privacy focused it is still pricacy friendly and it plants trees as you use it
My mom used to rely on me to do anything technical because I was around, and I was pretty good at it. Since I’ve moved out, she went from calling me all the time about anything to do with the computer to experimenting and learning a bit before she calls me. Overall, I’m proud of her for branching out and doing something challenging. With that being said, the other day I watched her not only print out a website rather than bookmark it, but the way she printed it was by opening word, using print screen to screen cap the site, pasting the screen cap into word and then printing it from word.
Incredible problem solving skills. She knows word is the print program and she figured out how to get the stuff from the internet into the print program!
We grew up with the technology, and understand how it works on a more basic level. But if you don’t?
I’m really curious to see what will come along that will fuck with my understanding on the same level.
I’ve always been pretty curious about what technology will just baffle me, and at what age that tech wall will him me. I’m middle aged and tech is still easy for me. But I know that day will come.
I think it will have to be a completely different paradigm.
The boomers for instance were all into machines… like cars and engines. They services their own car… knew how to tune a timing belt etc. I still see old timers restoring and tinkering with cars or bikes etc.
I’m middle aged too and I think computers and software will always be intuitive. It’s our “car engines”.
The things which we’ll struggle with won’t be computer based because we “get” that already. It’ll have to be something out of left field for me I think.
Well, I’m almost 49 and I honestly think AI is going to be my Achilles heel. It’s not that I don’t get it on a certain level, but I just don’t give a shit. To me, that’s when the understanding gap comes in, when you no longer care enough about the “latest thing” to be bothered.
Agreed. It’s not like not understanding technology is a causal consequence of age. Like you hit 55 and suddenly you don’t get it anymore. My dad is a baby boomer and he’s always had an interest in and thus was and still is good with computers, both hardware and software. That doesn’t go away. He’s less adept with smartphones though because he views them through a very utilitarian lense and doesn’t really experiment and thus doesn’t learn much about them. And he’s literally never made any social media account because he doesn’t give a fuck.
Oh absolutely, and this is why I make an effort not to get frustrated when her experiments lead to unpredictable results. Like when she forgot her email password and by the time she gave up and called me had accidentally opened three or four new accounts.
I am absolutely terrified of the potential of real time deep fakes combined with AI voice impersonations being used to scam the elderly. Obviously, that’s a ways off. But I fear it’s not that far off.
Alternative: he is using software you’re familiar with to do something very specific that it can technically do but wasn’t designed for. Someone else hacked it together for him but now that system has broken down. He doesn’t know the names of any part of it, only that it used to do the thing and now it doesn’t. Also he is on the phone and you can’t see his screen.
There are five other people with equally obtuse problems waiting on five other phones, becoming increasingly frustrated and irrational the longer it takes to solve this one. There is no call waiting and the people have nothing else to do, so each phone never stops ringing until answered.
I once met a man who was complaining about how much time he had to spend copying an email into a word processor. I realized that he had been doing it manually because he didn’t know that he could copy-paste.
I was talking to a support once and he was watching my screen while I had to type the commands. I asked him if he was bored and he said it was like watching a movie in slow motion and I always remember that when I have to do the same.
I’ve done that on the support side too. Have to remember that they haven’t done it as many times as you, but it’s still frustrating. Brain wants to move on.
I’m a teacher aid. I have to remotely help students qhen they sre stuck on a programming exercise. Teams calls woth screen share. I have mastered the skill of patience so much, I could start a youtube channel.
selects something by drag-> Misses one letter -> klicks around aimlessly until the selection goes away for some reason -> selects again -> moves fingers on mouse so they can use the same finger for right and left click -> right click -> needs to read the whole context menu to find "copy" -> clicks on "paste" instead -> is confused for 20 seconds -> repeats the whole fucking thing, but hits "copy" this time -> clicks around in the taskbar until they stumble upon the other window they wanted -> looks around the screen aimlessly until they find the text prompt they were looking for -> right clicks -> another 20 seconds to find "paste" -> clicks on paste the first time and looks proud about that
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