What Should One Know to be Truly Computer Literate?

rbannon asks: "Computer literacy is becoming an increasingly used term in education, and more and more schools are being asked to set computer literacy goals for their students. Unfortunately for too many, it means being able to use Microsoft products, and that's all. However, I see it much differently, and I cannot help but think that computer literacy is all about using computers to be able to communicate more effectively. With that in mind does anyone have any recommendations for computer literacy goals, and how to measure them?"

obviously...

[one-eye-johnson]

Assembly.

Simple

[Jimhotep]

Know more than the other people you work with.

Just stay one step ahead.

Re:The following....

[An Onerous Coward]

I started on your tutorial, but two steps in Emacs closed on me.

MS-DOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you can get the mouse driver and the Novell redirector running with 630K free, you don't know shit.

Re:Not much, only...

[wiz31337]

If you can successfully find your way to porn while at work behind a content filter, then you're probably computer literate. If not it is a really good skill to have.

Re:context: education

[AKAImBatman]

What does this sort of literacy entail?

I guess it means we need [Computer] Shop Class? Or do we need [Computer] Driver's Ed? Or we could just stick with the wonderful car analogy (don't you just loooooove car analogies?) and have both!

Surprisingly, that may actually make sense.

Re:obviously...

[Who235]

01011001 01100101 01110000 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100111
01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001
00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110111
01100001 01111001 00101110 00100000 00101110 00100000 00101110

and Ctrl-F

[Anonymous Coward]

I used Ctrl-F in front of my parents the other day while they were trying to find somebody's name in a long document, and they acted like I knew some sort of gypsy magic.

Re:They're missing the point.

[CyanDisaster]

...set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life...

...and for a brief period afterwards.

Hope be with ye,
Cyan

The answer is obvious

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

To be computer literate, one must know how to read computers.

The answer is simple

[nightowl03d]

Volumes 1-3 of The Art of Computer Programming by Knuth. Be sure to do all the problems .

Re:Simple

[Rob_Warwick]

People in hospitals take pulling the plug far too seriously.

Your own fault

[SmallFurryCreature]

You released the keys didn't you. He wrote the command a bit confusing. It is supposed to be LCTRL+X+RCTRL+C+V+S+ALT+F4+Lef & Right click.

Do that and a goddess will appear to grant your every wish. Or untangle your fingers.

Re:The following....

[MoogMan]

Haha, well I managed to get through 4 steps before VI froze on me!

Re:And abilities that carry

[martinultima]

I'm not saying everyone should have memorised the jumper settings on their motherboard.”

Dammit! You mean my entire life so far's been in vain??

Most Essential

[mkw87]

How to obtain HDTV quality porn without getting viruses. If you can do that, you shouldnt need to do anything else with your computer.