this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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"oh, you know so much! howd you do that?"

"grandma, i literally only typed dir."

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[–] AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world 34 points 2 months ago (1 children)

y'all motherfuckers need Bash

[–] bombadil@feddit.org 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Give someone bash, and they'll shell for a day. Teach them fish and they'll shell for the rest of their lives.

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 months ago

teach them batch, theyll ask for an ibm pc and a floppy

teach them basic, theyll ask for a c64 instead. and a cassette, apart from the floppy

[–] 11111one11111@lemmy.world 32 points 2 months ago (3 children)

As someone living in more rural demographic, replace grandma with every person with a cpu driven device. To quote my dad regarding his cellular trailcams "Wtf is updatefirmware? Stop making up words."

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 33 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The whole "old people are bad at tech" thing is a bit long in the tooth now. Many people who grew up with computers are now old, and many young people are just as baffled by the command line as any grandmother.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 33 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

There really was a magic learning window 1990-2010, I think. Some people who were there are still bad at technology, and a select few from before are good at it and maybe even helped build those systems, but the prevalence is night and day.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yes but I'd say it started 10 years before that, growing in numbers through the first few years of the 1980s.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That could be, it was a rough period. I wasn't around for the beginning, and even the end is approximate as locked down mobile OSs and similarly user-opaque systems gradually came to dominate.

Kids today can still learn computers, but they have to explicitly try. I think something analogous happened with early cars. The first guys had to be able to personally maintain and repair the whole thing, and then over time it gradually became an area for experts and the odd enthusiast only.

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 months ago

i didnt say any grandma, i said specifically mine, who follows that trope. idk how yours is but mine is like that

[–] SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Reminds me of the Hollywood trope of a character saying “In English please” after any reference to something on a computer.

I hate it so much when they do it. The writers should just say it the way an IT admin would and move on. Pretending that the character is speaking another language is just anti intellectual bullshit.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 1 points 2 months ago

Have you ever seen A Touch Of Cloth? It's a superb send-up of police procedurals. There's a scene where the main character, Cloth, is explaining some not-very-complex idea like you said and one of his lackeys replies, "Can you explain it like I'm some kind of viewer, guv?".

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 months ago

in my case replacing my grandma with "everyone at my school" also works, i chose my grandma just to vary a bit

[–] justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io 25 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Jokes on you, my Oma worked in Dos until her retirement.

She was an absolute master at it.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Jokes on you, my Oma worked in Dos until her retirement.

I bet one of her previous titles was literally "computer"

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago

thats one of the nicknames the school jocks came up with about me

and i just accepted it bc i actually found it fitting so they had to think of another one lol

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

mine doesnt even know how to add a custom ringtone to her phone

[–] Tanoh@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Mine was convinced that cell phones and landlines were two different networks. Like you couldn't call a landline from a cell and vice versa. This went on for decades, even after we infront of her proved it worked.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago
[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Do be fair that took me longer than installing the operating system too.

[–] devilish666@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It same when i was called by friend who worked at police HQ, updating linux with showing terminal at full screen because i want to know if udate successful or not while i reinstal windows at some computer in that room.
all police that station almost killed me because they tough i hacked police database just because they saw terminal with some progress bar installing linux update.

[–] st3ph3n@midwest.social 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] alezyn@feddit.org 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)

My wife calls it “the app with lots of text”. She’s very beautiful.

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 months ago

yes thats what my music teacher calls trackers too

[–] czardestructo@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

At least she even comments. Mine just waves her hand in disgust. She knows it enables her whole technological life, but couldn't give a shit.

[–] exu@feditown.com 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Batch is a very cursed shell/scripting language though

[–] obstbert@feddit.org 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I like typing arcane runes.

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] lemmyng@piefed.ca 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

That's because the default color scheme is white on black. Just change it and Poof! Blue magic, red magic, yellow magic... so many possibilities!

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago

is the blue magic another name for the bsod

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

man that was the command that first got me into the terminal lol

it was also how i made a christmas tree when there was none: launch cmd, change the colors to a christmas-y palette (spefifically red on green) and run tree. bam. christmas tree. look heres a screenshot

collapsed inline media

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Just wait until she hears about the Linux shell.

[–] somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

pacman -S neovim

-"Are you trying to play pacman?"

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

yes my favorite game is the arch package manager

[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago
[–] napkin2020@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 months ago

as a middle i refuse too

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

"I'm gonna pop out and get some lunch because this is going to take a while and definitely isn't just an SSH into an Ubuntu box running apt update/upgrade in a loop."