Sadly there are very few people left who know what a Lemming was or were ever familiar with the game. It seems like everyone around now starts at Minecraft or WoW.

Aside from their trade-in racket where people "sell" games to them, they're just another victim of the B&M vs Online bloodbath. Running a B&M costs money, employing staff costs money (useless or not), and without some kind of magic *thing* to draw people in and pay full retail, it seems like it would be almost impossible to compete with Amazon on just about anything but groceries.

You'll always have that outlier that insists on shopping local or B&M because they can't/won't use a credit card or other payment service online, but I think those numbers are always shrinking, so you're left with the impulse shopper, and that is pretty much it.

Because turning it into water pollution is better?

If the taxing authorities go after the big tech companies hard enough, they will ultimately just abandon the markets trying to profit from their success. Think how great it'll be in France were Amazon/Google/Apple to abandon them--they would have to rely in China for tech and ultimately end up like N. Korea and Cuba with 20 year old technology and a thriving market for second- and third-hand smart phones.

When the taxes to do business in a market climb to a certain point, it's no longer profitable or worth the effort to service said market. And it's not like there are a lot of viable options besides Google (and technology partners) or Apple for mobile devices. Paying taxes is one thing, but what France and the EU are trying is more like pay-to-play or straight-up graft.

I've seen several people come into my organization from a similar background - mom and pop shops that had one or two everything IT guys.

The two newest additions had good timing, the right mindset, or both. One was as green as could be, but enthusiastic, and he plugged right into our entry level spot, immediately earned his A+, then came up with a plan for his next couple of years to get a 4-year degree. The other joined our network group, earned his CCNA, and has moved to our #2 position in our network group in just over a year.

I guess the takeaway is maybe look in a different direction - if you've been shopping bigger businesses, check out government jobs, or education. I know in my area,while there are a lot of options out there, the county, municipal, and education markets offer as many IT positions as the private sector, and usually have a much more relaxed attitude about prior experience, formal education, and your paper accomplishments (certs). It might not pay as much as a corporate job, but the benefits package usually makes up at least some of it.

I think this really is the most important part a lot of people miss. I got my start in IT for a school district, then moved on to regional law enforcement IT, then back to local government. None of them are going to make me an instant millionaire, but if I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't stay.

The right question is why are you still doing user support after 30 years? Most of us might start there, but that's the foot-in-the-door role, and depending on opportunities and drive, end up moving on in 3-5 years.

From the brief history you provided, it sounds like you never had a higher goal - systems engineering, network design, infrastructure support - all the many IT career paths that move you away from end-user support. It sounds, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, like you wanted to be the best customer support specialist you could be. And here you are, 30 years later, marveling at the fact your user base never gained any IQ points and realizing that you're not interested enough anymore to keep it up.

You mention Macs, so I suspect .edu or journalism is probably the market segment you work in, and that, professionally, is soul-sucking all on it's own unless you love it and live the lifestyle.

Because we'll never actually agree on how we should live our lives, run the world, or care for the planet. The only way we would completely mix is through conflict and most likely in a very violent, artificial manner.

It's like when Enron investigated itself...

Every time another one of these "studies" comes out, I wonder how long it will be before an actual scientific study uncovers something of consequence. Cure for cancer, third arm, vaccine for the common cold?

I'm surprised there haven't been some new studies showing that marijuana causes a relaxed mood, reduces stress, and helps people with high blood pressure.

I've typically always seen PR folks using Apple products if left to their own devices, as that seems to be the platform of choice for the personality type that makes you want to be a PR person.

I abandoned Firefox after using it almost the entire time of it's existence when they decided to start adding 3rd party widgets (Pocket; Hello). Look at Chrome/Opera/Safari, whatever floats your boat. Chrome has made some decisions lately that, while good for the "world" are somewhat hostile to the individual/business trying to use Chrome to deliver antiquated, craptastic enterprise software, but was still my choice at the end.

First, please try not to call it "coding". "Coding" is what the people who watch lynda.com and instructables to learn PHP/Python/Java call the what they do.

Let's call it "computer science" or "programming" instead.

Then lay out a lesson plan that tries to keep it simple, starting with the basics--discuss a problem (or goal), plan (write out steps to achieve goal), then teach the programming involved in accomplishing each step.

Think, plan, do, as it were.

Anyone I've ever heard refer to themselves as a coder is generally a very poor programmer. Their biggest challenge is identifying and describing the problem. They somehow missed that actually writing a functional program/script/site is really pretty easy after you get through the problem determination and planning stages. They just start banging on the keyboard and eventually come out with something that kinda works.

As another poster earlier said, teach them logic, critical thinking, and basic math, then everything else is easy.

Toyota uses separate ECUs for just about every major feature. Sounds like the guy was a victim of the "hard sell" when he was calling some shady locksmiths to cut and program a new set of keys. New transponder ECU with a new matching set of key blanks and he would've been good to go. Significantly lighter in the pocket book, but nowhere near "your car might explode".

Do people really "upgrade" processors? I mean, I've been building computers for almost 20 years now and I think I got over the whole idea of upgrading the processor after the first time, circa 1997.

Outside of the gimmicky super-shredder-killer-fps-man-slayer motherboards, it's not like they have been the most expensive part of a computer build for a long time. Introducing a new video card incompatibility like the transition from PCI -> AGP -> PCI Express would be a whole different story.