...just don’t call them nerds!
As a gen-x 80s kid, time is getting interesting; we went from the best childhood ever with Atari, NES and other video games, with no phones and cameras spying on us, to the dawn of the internet in the 90s, and now to the AI generation. That said, I’ve started to notice that some of the younger generations have interest in learning about former tech. and getting their hands dirty, but learning from past generations may be challenging to them.
You see this in kids wanting to buy computers from the beige-box era, wanting to learn DOS and getting old games going (DOOM!). This includes the hardware that went with that; ISA cards, setting IRQ/DMA settings and all that fun stuff. Thing is, while AI may provide future gens with prior knowledge, it might not always be right, it might be biased, it might not know “tricks”, it certainly can’t speak to the experiences of previous generations, and more importantly, might be gate kept in new and fun ways in the future limiting access to that knowledge. As such, the new generations need to connect with the previous generations. This is true for not only tech, but any other crafts, hobbies, interests, and everything in-between.
While I didn’t follow this person specifically, I recently learned about a ham radio elmer who was popular on Youtube had passed, and it reminded me I’ve been meaning to write about the importance of mentoring and connecting, as well some challenges around that. This was one of (if not the) last videos of that elmer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVsuEjvxMBs&t=171s
Continue reading “Hey younger nerds…you need to learn from the last-gen nerds!”