You're mostly correct, Grishnakh. All of these replies have a basis and are close. Things just vary because of public education and current trends in a kid's town, and their social clique.

I don't have a college education, but that's because I didn't finish high school. I was taught throughout middle school and freshman year that not fitting into the generic intelligence trends isn't good enough, using facts is incorrect, etc., so I learned on my own (except math! math was still fun!), and I'm sure that's what some people do. Some businesses are aware of this. During the last interview I had where they asked why my education wasn't listed, I told them I stopped caring about school and learned my resumes' noted skills on my own, and if that was a corporate problem I would understand and we should end the interview. They laughed, invited me back for a second round of interviews, then apologized for wasting a day; they should have just hired me after the first round. Some places just require it because their interviewers aren't apt enough to determine a person's abilities without generic tags like BS, MS, CS/EE..

For comparison, I have a friend who finished high school as the "troubled kid" then went to university for free because he'd spent high school figuring out how educational benefits worked and the proper path to get a good university education. Due to the economy, he can't get a job related to his degree and is turned down by some places because he's too educated to actually want to work there.

I disagree about stuffy community colleges, which can vary by region. I tried to do a writing assignment about ZFS a few years back but apparently the Internet isn't a reliable source of information, and multiple sources must be used. So because it was new at the time, and there was only one approved source of information about it, it wasn't possible to find accurate information about ZFS. Unless only referencing small parts of the paper, via several 'different' sources it was available through.

The only downside to learning by yourself is that you've been shown the supposedly correct way to learn is run by processing information through bureaucratic nonsense, which can lead to exploring many things instead of concentrating your focus on the specifics relevant to your profession.

What's this silvery orb by your name do?

Unless things have changed, they don't participate too much in the design of their network. The companies that invent new technology are the most knowledgeable of their brand new tech, so they're the best to install it and set it up. Since the phone network brands (e.g. AT&T) don't know the details, they don't know what to scrutinize; there isn't much pressure for the inventing company to pay attention to security.

I think at least one 21st century child per class would ask "Can't you put a WiFi router in every classroom and get those cheap tiny laptops with long battery life? Then just download the class textbook, or anything else we need, and stuff?"

Then the teacher would be forced to say "Well, yeah that would be cheaper, I suppose." And then the class would realize their educational system might be constructed poorly and care less. So, I don't think any mention of laptops' effect on textbooks will be advisable..

As rickb928 said, he gets them used. So it's fairly likely he's only used IBM's ThinkPads. The same is true for me, I got a refurbished T43 and the thing works fine.

Oh, and it only cost $300.. Used/refurbed ThinkPads seems like a good idea.

If somebody isn't tailgating already, they're not going fast enough. A light being red doesn't mean they should stop accelerating; they still have time to slow down.

There's an urge to go faster if there's somebody ahead. There's no reason behind it, but that's just how people drive. I have lived in my town long enough that I know the correct speed to drive. I don't use my brakes downtown because it's all one-way streets whose lights turn green on arrival if you're traveling at 12.5MPH. The only time I have to brake is when the person tailgating me changes lanes, floors it, changes back to my lane, then halts at the red light just ahead. They have to accelerate from a stop so I have to brake while they're so slow.

Sometimes they honk. Sometimes they keep accelerating until the light turns red and they have to stop again. For blocks, and blocks, and..

When driving downtown from my suburb, I use the brakes when turning 90 degrees onto the onramp, then again when I have reached the offramp after several highway and freeway intersections. I don't vary speed more than 5MPH away from the posted limit. But people don't like it. It's too simple to work.

I download lots and lots of TV shows to break contract with Turner. It's actually easier than setting up a DVR, but less variety. And if you're out of work like me, it gives good practice for writing scripts and using regular expressions to get the right torrents :)

But, I did have to look up "Del The Funky Homosapien Press Rewind" on youtube to remember Ted Turner's name. This darn age of media envelopment.

It's not great. "Unlocking" is the removal of an arbitrary "feature"-type addition Intel came up with to disallow the price/performance leniency allowed by changing the multiplier. They came up with it when overclocking became too popular. Using a lower multiplier and higher bus than the defaults used to be great. Running the CPU at its max may be pointless if a higher bus allows the communication between CPU and graphics card to increase.

It is nice they're removing their removal of a powerful option.

Associate the kid's interests in games with examples of what coding can do. If there's a great metaphor to relate something done with code to something a person already finds interesting, coding is suddenly similar to a familiar world they enjoy.

If you know the kid, looseBits, get to know their games and what it is they like, or comment about. Then reference some cool coding that acts in a similar fashion.

Do they respect the advantage of playing strategically as a team over just having really good aim or strong spells? Of course, because a tricky shot isn't so important when the enemy is in a vulnerable position. What if there was a way to have code strategically organize a display of colors so more were shown than were allowed?

It would be difficult to find somebody whose interest in programming isn't sparked by something like that.

Yep. With gaming, it all depends on how much detail is consciously examined, i.e. if the player is good and they know why, they've exercised their mind.

The first two examples that come to my mind are wall jumping (Mario) and bunny hopping (Quakeworld). But obviously, I'm in QA, not a dev.