> I am certain they never intended to inspire a 12 year-old kid to find a better life.
i can't speak for everyone, but as one of the people writing tutorials and faqs and helping people learn to do things with free software during the period miller is talking about, that is absolutely what i intended to do. and, from the number of people i knew who were excited to work on olpc, conectar igualdad, and huayra linux, i think it was actually a pretty common motivation
as a kid on bbses, fidonet, and the internet, i benefited to an unimaginable degree from other people's generosity in sharing their learning and their inventions (which is what software is). how could i not want to do the same?
underwritten by the nsf, the internet was a gift economy, like burning man: people giving away things of value to all comers because if you don't do that maybe it's because you can't. the good parts of it still are
"the internet was a gift economy, like burning man: people giving away things of value to all comers because if you don't do that maybe it's because you can't. the good parts of it still are"
But it feels like more and more are taken over by money from advertisement. It is allways a relieve to me, find a site in the old spirit.
Likewise. The idea that I can elevate others like others have for me is exhilarating.
My childhood was a little bleak in some ways like the author of this post. Not as bleak. But definitely lean times, sick parents, lots of time alone on the internet.
Without that, who knows what would have happened to me. I don’t think but I know deeply that I can help others, both through my experience as a kid being helped and through my experience as an adult mentoring others.
I wish I could write more and do it better, or find some means of giving back better. People have often referred to me as “self-taught”, but the reality is that I was taught by thousands of people. I only had the good fortune that I was willing to seek out their knowledge. I’m extremely grateful for that.
Many have definitely been motivated by the wish to share information. But there also wasn't much of an alternative. If you wanted to actively learn something, get someone else to use it, or get them to share what they knew, you almost had to interact with others. Which doesn't mean there wasn't a genuine want to help others. But it was also wanting what you shared to become better. Something that was a direct consequence of many of us having experienced a scarcity of computers, software, and information. And then experiencing network effects.
That still exists in some ways. But much of the Internet is very much being gatekept. Including YouTube, Wikipedia, GitHub, Reddit, and Hacker News. There is almost no point in posting things publicly anymore because not only is the average user not genuinely interested, but they are genuinely not interested. That is why kids grow up with TikTok. Because it is one of the few platforms where you can post on almost the same terms as you consume. And thereby experience those network effects.
I've ended up enough times on the Raspberry Pi forum to understand why anyone young today would not want to go into computer science or electrical engineering.
I also write tutorials and guides on my tiny blog because other people have inspired me with their writing. I have great memories of trying to answer a question about some obscure Unix or programming thing, only to come across some minimalist 90s style blog that had already explored those ideas. it's such a vibe when you are in the zone at 2am digging through the internet and using that resource to bang out some code.
The author seems about a decade younger than me and "raised" isn't the word I would use for myself, but I doubt I would have made it if not for the friends I made and the things I learned that way.
The thing about pulling yourself up out of a bad situation is that you learn to be usually very deliberate in how you talk about it and what you talk about. People who've never really known anything but stability in their lives tend to make a lot of assumptions they're not equipped to recognize, so it's usually just better not to create the opportunity.
If you feel you've noticed an odd ellipticality in accounts like these, the vague sense of something going unsaid, it's this. If that's all you've noticed, better not to pry.
It came up on HN recently, about how work is a place where it can be best to leave some things unsaid, because it invites assumptions about your character and capabilities that might not be true, or positive.
I'm not sure what could be going unsaid here. The schizophrenic dad, absent mother, limited and erratic money for food, no adults to do the shopping and cooking, and mentions of programming blogs and escaping poverty all paint a clear picture. It's an open account and I don't feel the need to pry or ask questions about the exact conditions of the household, which were presumably not good, but I don't see anything vague.
Your comment, on the other hand, raises my curiosity in exactly the way that you seem to be against. I have no idea what you're trying to warn me not to do.
> People who've never really known anything but stability in their lives tend to make a lot of assumptions they're not equipped to recognize, so it's usually just better not to create the opportunity.
Having fell hook, line, and sinker to the conceited and holier-than-thou notion that (progressive) people have been enlightened beyond assuming things such as gender or shared lived experience or even race, I can corroborate the claim that silence is the winning move here. Unfortunately as others have noted downthread there are many who like to, and will insist upon, prying in this post-privacy era of the Internet.
People like to pat themselves on the back for having been educated beyond making such assumptions; in reality they still have the blinders on and are still constrained by the tunnel vision that their own upbringing has imposed, not even capable of comprehending that other ways of growing up and living can even exist, and presuppose that everyone visited the same waypoints in life at the same time and in the same order. The framing of one who has grown up in privilege is fundamentally different from one who struggled through adversity; si duo idem faciunt, non est idem.
People with different life experiences should just be quietly written off due to the faulty assumptions they might make out of ignorance.
> If you feel you've noticed an odd ellipticality in accounts like these, the vague sense of something going unsaid, it's this. If that's all you've noticed, better not to pry.
In what context? Work acquaintances chatting over coffee at the office? Parasocial public discussions on the internet? Intentionally public discussions? Friends talking all night over drinks?
As someone of the younger generation, I think "raised by the internet" these days is extremely toxic and non-productive not at all what the author here is talking about in this lovely post.
When someone says "I was raised by the internet", I immediately think: social media addiction, 4chan and other online obscenities. But this is completely based on my own personal experience.
My point here is not related to this lovely post at all, it's just that I always have associated "raised by the internet" with negative connotation.
In the long long ago before social media and amongst a certain type of people, the answer to “where are you from?” would be something like “the internet”, and the connotations were positive.
It meant that you were from a small shitty place that nobody ever heard of, but you had transcended those humble origins to become a being of pure information, sharing thoughts, philosophy and maybe code with other similar beings, and that physical location was irrelevant and really the whole idea of it was quite vulgar.
I suppose we are still sharing thoughts now, but times change, and the real struggle is transcending the vulgarity of the internet and going back to meatspace.
Hmm. These days if you don’t like discussing where you’re from, there’s no equivalent answer that immediately reveals interests, while pushing back on the presumption of getting a real answer. Being from “the library” is maybe closest in spirit in terms of being infotropic and on an autodidactic mission, but urban people will think you are homeless, and rural people will think you are a weird librarian.
I hate that this comment is at the top of the page - that may be what you think but even if those exact sites, the chans, are the places a young person is spending their time that doesn't mean it's a problem necessarily.
I'm an adult and I spend about 80% of my time in front of screen and so do all of you.
I'm reminded of a Bible verse something about a log in your eye. That's what this is.
I’m pretty sure the author of the post would have had a similar trajectory had he been growing up now. People who are innately curious and self motivated will always find a Linux networking tutorial. Even if it comes in a form of a TikTok video and not a bunch of burned CDs.
That is a very fair assumption nowadays. I was not raised by the internet simply because I could not afford to even have it in the home until I was in my early 20's. Still remember the weeks after youtube being launched! The internet was that thing I had 30 minute chunks of from the local library. So it was always at arms length. Something that felt like a negative then might have been a positive in a way. The internet was this very positive force, a tool not an obsession for many.
I do worry about those nowadays that are "raised by the internet". I see the stream of influence that social media is having and I have to remember than for many people, this is all they have ever known of the internet. There is no other context. Many viewing this stuff are smart folks, but when that stream of media becomes like the air, many can be tugged in all manner of directions and now even realize it.
In the same manner of drugs, try not to turn them into a diet. The internet is a wonderful tool but a questionable 'way of life'.
"When someone says "I was raised by the internet", I immediately think: social media addiction, 4chan and other online obscenities."
Yes, that is definitely personal, there are many other types of internet upbringings.
Take a look at the most viewed videos on youtube and you will be enlightened into a more recent type of internet upbringing.
The most popular category of videos on youtube are baby videos. Parents literally leave their 1 or 2 year old toddlers with their ipad. Those kids won't go into 4chan, it's a new generation.
I know what you mean and it makes a little bit sad. I loved browsing through the early web, learning stuff and break things. Especially in the seedy underbelly, IRC chats and all of that.
But now, I'm happy that I am not an adulescent boy being constantly bombarded with the manosphere crap and all of these influencers. I pity the younger generation, they don't know what was taken from them. I mean, the helpful internet is still there, but hidden behind so much bullshit.
I faced nothing like the hardships the author did, but I'm nonetheless deeply indebted to people who took a young Linux nerd with an upbringing that was "no fun" under their wing and ignited a lifelong passion that became a very interesting career and a very interesting life.
So I'd like to add my gratitude to that of the OP to the wonderful mentors I've had over the years. I don't see eye-to-eye with all of them in 2024, but that in no way diminishes the tremendous debt of gratitude.
This is the kind of debt that's paid forward: when and where I can I try to pass some of this treasure along to younger hackers.
Thank you for a moving personal story @jimmyhmiller.
I grew up in a rural part of the United States. First got online in 1996 when I was 8 years old. The best thing that the Internet gave me was a way to talk to strangers from around the world and make friends with people who I would have never had a chance to interact with in person. In my 20s, it lead to real life friendships with people I had met online, which is really cool. I have used Couch Surfing to make friends in places I was traveling through. Lived in Australia for a while with a group of friends I met online.
I also grew up in a rural town, in Norway. I think internet made me more of a "world citizen", empathic to all kinds of people, than I would have been without. A small town can be quite unwelcome to those not like us.
But I wonder if some of that is lost now to those being "raised on the internet"? That things are too big. There were small forums, behave, as you know the avatars of everyone and they become your friends in a way. But on reddit, everyone is just faceless, I will never chat with the same person there again. So no sense of community, don't learn to feel empathy for others in the same way.
I also wonder how my choice of games affected this. Playing WoW, you had to behave, get friends, join a guild, and spent time with those. I got friends I've visited in other countries, and learned much about life elsewhere through this. But my irl friends playing FPS shooting games on xbox live? Mostly swearing and trash talk, never to see the players again after getting a new random pairing.
20 years later, some of my closest friends are those I met in 97 in a MUD. I have other friends, of course, but it's notable that friendships have endured entirely online for twenty years.
Some of those friends I've talked to every day, or every few days, for decades, but I've only seen once or twice IRL.
I was booting Linux while sleeping in a car, and in and out of motels, eating from food banks, with drug addicted parents, as a teenager. There was something to "the internet" back in the day as a way to cope when faced with that sort of situation. The author is not alone. We were blessed to have a computer through it all.
I hope "kids these days" have the same opportunity with their phones.
Spoiler: They don't. The phones are hostile to experimentation and the social media apps they will use to kill time are designed to get them stuck in an infinite loop of watching pointless "content" and as many ads as possible.
As a kid I was out of the house for 12 hours a day playing outside. Although my parents were both working and we had food on the table, we were a pretty poor family. They were both exhausted after work and I yearned for their attention but I guess I could see that they were tired and suppressed my own needs. I became very withdrawn never speaking about my emotions or myself. Then age 10 my mother died and father became withdrawn alcoholic, basically in one fell sweep I lost both my parents. Computers and the internet were my only refuge. Be it pirated movies I could watch or play games.. I was there. At some point I became a really good competitive gamer so that gave me an opportunity to socialize a bit. I moved to a different game and crushed it there and made more internet friends. I got diagnosed with a lifelong chronic illness at that time (Graves Disease) but I still kept surviving. I was alienated from most of my real life friends because I couldn't relate to them. I was in a constant physical and emotional struggle and they were in the seat of stability. I wasted a lot of time but slowly I learned. At some point I realized that games aren't going to be a good financial support so I started learning programming and here I am in my mid 30s with a few years of coding experience(without a job currently and struggling). I can boldly say the internet has saved me, other people where I live and had nothing succumbed to street gangs and drugs. I know that I'm behind many peers I have in terms of life achievements but I also know where I come from and take pride that I've been able to survive up until now. I have stopped walking before thinking it's over but every time I have the strength to sit back up and start walking again.
We are going to see a lot of children (and adults) raised by chatbots. Asking them for advice, confiding in them where real people don't seem safe, etc. Through the looking glass! Still, definitely better than asking Reddit for relationship advice
If OP was 12 today, in 2024, would he have gotten into Linux? Or would he have been sucked into watching endless MrBeast videos?
It's easier than ever to get started understanding and building software... but at the same time it seems easier than ever to get distracted by the modern internet.
I wasn't raised (as a technologist) by the internet, but by cassettes, floppies, magazines and books. But we share at least one experience: the horrors of ndiswrapper.
20 years later, I recently tried to install Ubuntu on an old Intel MacBook Pro that I got somehow, and I realized that in 2024 you still can't install Linux on a laptop (at least, on laptop of a certain popular make) without jumping through hoops, due to, IIRC, lack of support for the particular Wifi chipset this computer uses.
There are so many laptops that Linux works great on right out of the box. I've used it on brand new models straight from Dell/Lenovo/HP etc and it's worked out of the box. It's weird to me that you call out Linux for not running on one proprietary machine and expanding that and saying you can't install Linux on any laptops. It's simply not true.
I find it has improved heaps in recent years. Even Debian (a fairly conservative Linux distro) supports Intel wireless chips right out of the box and I understand it has support for other wireless chips as well. It's gotten to the point sometimes Linux has better support out of the box than Windows does! Windows for example struggles with USB-C data but works perfectly on Linux.
ay bro! my old man berated me because i installed linux on our desktop and couldn't connect to the internet via modem. today, i am only willing to install linux on thinkpad laptops and some well-known-to-work pc.
Kinda like me modulo the internet, I relied on Debian Sarge docs at 17-18, self taught. The DVD and the accompanying book/magazine was more than enough to deeping your knowledge.
Also, no project it's pointless. A Gopher/Gemini client in JimTCL with a basic cli interface a la cgo/gplaces? Go for it. A simple IRC client with a simple thread in the backgroup looking up for PING messages from the server ? The same. It wont be a killer application, but it wll be fun and you will learn a lot.
Yea it was a similar situation for me. I definitely wasn't in poverty, but my family was a mess. I mostly hung out in my room on the internet and got away from it.
a beautiful post. it's really nice when we get posts like this here, just personally i find it very meaningful.
> But sometimes the employees there would give me the employee discount, I guess they realized I needed it.
that is such a heart-warming thing.
i would maybe argue the following point in the article:
> People whose work was not aimed at me in the slightest.
idk. i think that part of the point of being open is being open to possibilities. obviously no one can see the far-reaching consequences of their work when they set out to do it. but sometimes, people have hopes, i think, that their openness will create possibilities just like this article is describing.
> resources like w3schools,
i remember a long time back - maybe 15 years ago - i would occasionally read w3schools, and i had a coworker who would kind of turn up their nose at that site, they were kind of a snob about it. i knew enough then to realize it wasn't the best site for everything but out of insecurity after that person said that, i stopped reading it too. but it helped me, too. and i'm glad it helped you. i am starting to re-revise my opinion of that site.
To Jimmy. I feel for you, man. No kids should went through time like you did. THank you for becoming a good citizen & contribute to the great time of computing.
I have spent most of my life (in years and percentage of the day) running a youth group, mostly targeting the underprivileged. Small [as in we officially mentor about 25 children a year], but powerful.
The number one thing you can do for a youth is convince them that they are capable. Believe in them, and give them challenges that you know they can achieve. Give them time, empathy and encouragement.
The worst thing you can do for them is pity them, discourage them, explain that because they are black / women / poor / etc they are destined to a life of being in second place.
I was raised by the internet, too. I first started using computers at around the age of 5. A lot of my childhood years were spent in places that still exist today. My family was poor and computers were my only escape, just like the article says.
I can't help but feel like I lost something through doing that, though. It certainly didn't help my ADHD to teach my brain that it's possible to live life through only instant gratification. And it certainly didn't help to always be connected to so many people that now I can't seem to do anything alone.
It's fascinating how someone can feel like they've been "raised by the internet," almost as if it’s a parent in this digital age. I'm curious to learn more about how that experience shapes a person!
[+] [-] kragen|1 year ago|reply
i can't speak for everyone, but as one of the people writing tutorials and faqs and helping people learn to do things with free software during the period miller is talking about, that is absolutely what i intended to do. and, from the number of people i knew who were excited to work on olpc, conectar igualdad, and huayra linux, i think it was actually a pretty common motivation
as a kid on bbses, fidonet, and the internet, i benefited to an unimaginable degree from other people's generosity in sharing their learning and their inventions (which is what software is). how could i not want to do the same?
underwritten by the nsf, the internet was a gift economy, like burning man: people giving away things of value to all comers because if you don't do that maybe it's because you can't. the good parts of it still are
[+] [-] lukan|1 year ago|reply
But it feels like more and more are taken over by money from advertisement. It is allways a relieve to me, find a site in the old spirit.
[+] [-] steve_adams_86|1 year ago|reply
My childhood was a little bleak in some ways like the author of this post. Not as bleak. But definitely lean times, sick parents, lots of time alone on the internet.
Without that, who knows what would have happened to me. I don’t think but I know deeply that I can help others, both through my experience as a kid being helped and through my experience as an adult mentoring others.
I wish I could write more and do it better, or find some means of giving back better. People have often referred to me as “self-taught”, but the reality is that I was taught by thousands of people. I only had the good fortune that I was willing to seek out their knowledge. I’m extremely grateful for that.
[+] [-] orcim|1 year ago|reply
That still exists in some ways. But much of the Internet is very much being gatekept. Including YouTube, Wikipedia, GitHub, Reddit, and Hacker News. There is almost no point in posting things publicly anymore because not only is the average user not genuinely interested, but they are genuinely not interested. That is why kids grow up with TikTok. Because it is one of the few platforms where you can post on almost the same terms as you consume. And thereby experience those network effects.
I've ended up enough times on the Raspberry Pi forum to understand why anyone young today would not want to go into computer science or electrical engineering.
[+] [-] sweeter|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Kevinkenneth|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] throwanem|1 year ago|reply
The thing about pulling yourself up out of a bad situation is that you learn to be usually very deliberate in how you talk about it and what you talk about. People who've never really known anything but stability in their lives tend to make a lot of assumptions they're not equipped to recognize, so it's usually just better not to create the opportunity.
If you feel you've noticed an odd ellipticality in accounts like these, the vague sense of something going unsaid, it's this. If that's all you've noticed, better not to pry.
[+] [-] ehnto|1 year ago|reply
It came up on HN recently, about how work is a place where it can be best to leave some things unsaid, because it invites assumptions about your character and capabilities that might not be true, or positive.
[+] [-] strken|1 year ago|reply
Your comment, on the other hand, raises my curiosity in exactly the way that you seem to be against. I have no idea what you're trying to warn me not to do.
[+] [-] ryandv|1 year ago|reply
Having fell hook, line, and sinker to the conceited and holier-than-thou notion that (progressive) people have been enlightened beyond assuming things such as gender or shared lived experience or even race, I can corroborate the claim that silence is the winning move here. Unfortunately as others have noted downthread there are many who like to, and will insist upon, prying in this post-privacy era of the Internet.
People like to pat themselves on the back for having been educated beyond making such assumptions; in reality they still have the blinders on and are still constrained by the tunnel vision that their own upbringing has imposed, not even capable of comprehending that other ways of growing up and living can even exist, and presuppose that everyone visited the same waypoints in life at the same time and in the same order. The framing of one who has grown up in privilege is fundamentally different from one who struggled through adversity; si duo idem faciunt, non est idem.
[+] [-] tbrownaw|1 year ago|reply
> If you feel you've noticed an odd ellipticality in accounts like these, the vague sense of something going unsaid, it's this. If that's all you've noticed, better not to pry.
In what context? Work acquaintances chatting over coffee at the office? Parasocial public discussions on the internet? Intentionally public discussions? Friends talking all night over drinks?
[+] [-] pushupentry1219|1 year ago|reply
When someone says "I was raised by the internet", I immediately think: social media addiction, 4chan and other online obscenities. But this is completely based on my own personal experience.
My point here is not related to this lovely post at all, it's just that I always have associated "raised by the internet" with negative connotation.
[+] [-] photonthug|1 year ago|reply
It meant that you were from a small shitty place that nobody ever heard of, but you had transcended those humble origins to become a being of pure information, sharing thoughts, philosophy and maybe code with other similar beings, and that physical location was irrelevant and really the whole idea of it was quite vulgar.
I suppose we are still sharing thoughts now, but times change, and the real struggle is transcending the vulgarity of the internet and going back to meatspace.
Hmm. These days if you don’t like discussing where you’re from, there’s no equivalent answer that immediately reveals interests, while pushing back on the presumption of getting a real answer. Being from “the library” is maybe closest in spirit in terms of being infotropic and on an autodidactic mission, but urban people will think you are homeless, and rural people will think you are a weird librarian.
[+] [-] NemoNobody|1 year ago|reply
I'm an adult and I spend about 80% of my time in front of screen and so do all of you.
I'm reminded of a Bible verse something about a log in your eye. That's what this is.
[+] [-] lifter3101|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] DaoVeles|1 year ago|reply
I do worry about those nowadays that are "raised by the internet". I see the stream of influence that social media is having and I have to remember than for many people, this is all they have ever known of the internet. There is no other context. Many viewing this stuff are smart folks, but when that stream of media becomes like the air, many can be tugged in all manner of directions and now even realize it.
In the same manner of drugs, try not to turn them into a diet. The internet is a wonderful tool but a questionable 'way of life'.
[+] [-] mandymoorefan|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] TZubiri|1 year ago|reply
Yes, that is definitely personal, there are many other types of internet upbringings.
Take a look at the most viewed videos on youtube and you will be enlightened into a more recent type of internet upbringing.
The most popular category of videos on youtube are baby videos. Parents literally leave their 1 or 2 year old toddlers with their ipad. Those kids won't go into 4chan, it's a new generation.
[+] [-] jagermo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] benreesman|1 year ago|reply
So I'd like to add my gratitude to that of the OP to the wonderful mentors I've had over the years. I don't see eye-to-eye with all of them in 2024, but that in no way diminishes the tremendous debt of gratitude.
This is the kind of debt that's paid forward: when and where I can I try to pass some of this treasure along to younger hackers.
Thank you for a moving personal story @jimmyhmiller.
[+] [-] zoklet-enjoyer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] matsemann|1 year ago|reply
But I wonder if some of that is lost now to those being "raised on the internet"? That things are too big. There were small forums, behave, as you know the avatars of everyone and they become your friends in a way. But on reddit, everyone is just faceless, I will never chat with the same person there again. So no sense of community, don't learn to feel empathy for others in the same way.
I also wonder how my choice of games affected this. Playing WoW, you had to behave, get friends, join a guild, and spent time with those. I got friends I've visited in other countries, and learned much about life elsewhere through this. But my irl friends playing FPS shooting games on xbox live? Mostly swearing and trash talk, never to see the players again after getting a new random pairing.
[+] [-] stavros|1 year ago|reply
Some of those friends I've talked to every day, or every few days, for decades, but I've only seen once or twice IRL.
[+] [-] ndavis|1 year ago|reply
I hope "kids these days" have the same opportunity with their phones.
[+] [-] andersa|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] keep_walking|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] HPsquared|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] doubled112|1 year ago|reply
I do fear, in the long term, what happens to those chat logs?
Surely they will be used for training later on, and being anonymous doesn't always work out.
Will the viewer be more AI bots? Human employees? Law enforcement? A dump on 4chan?
[+] [-] tbrownaw|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] yapyap|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] isoprophlex|1 year ago|reply
It's easier than ever to get started understanding and building software... but at the same time it seems easier than ever to get distracted by the modern internet.
[+] [-] fermigier|1 year ago|reply
20 years later, I recently tried to install Ubuntu on an old Intel MacBook Pro that I got somehow, and I realized that in 2024 you still can't install Linux on a laptop (at least, on laptop of a certain popular make) without jumping through hoops, due to, IIRC, lack of support for the particular Wifi chipset this computer uses.
[+] [-] olyjohn|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kiwijamo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] lemper|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] anthk|1 year ago|reply
Also, no project it's pointless. A Gopher/Gemini client in JimTCL with a basic cli interface a la cgo/gplaces? Go for it. A simple IRC client with a simple thread in the backgroup looking up for PING messages from the server ? The same. It wont be a killer application, but it wll be fun and you will learn a lot.
[+] [-] zero-sharp|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] avg_dev|1 year ago|reply
> But sometimes the employees there would give me the employee discount, I guess they realized I needed it.
that is such a heart-warming thing.
i would maybe argue the following point in the article:
> People whose work was not aimed at me in the slightest.
idk. i think that part of the point of being open is being open to possibilities. obviously no one can see the far-reaching consequences of their work when they set out to do it. but sometimes, people have hopes, i think, that their openness will create possibilities just like this article is describing.
> resources like w3schools,
i remember a long time back - maybe 15 years ago - i would occasionally read w3schools, and i had a coworker who would kind of turn up their nose at that site, they were kind of a snob about it. i knew enough then to realize it wasn't the best site for everything but out of insecurity after that person said that, i stopped reading it too. but it helped me, too. and i'm glad it helped you. i am starting to re-revise my opinion of that site.
[+] [-] gradientsrneat|1 year ago|reply
I too saw the snobs.
[+] [-] curiousguy|1 year ago|reply
I have loving parents, but grew up poor in a developing country, surrounded by people that only care about football and soap opera.
If it wasn’t the internet and forums like slashdot or Hackers News, I would probably fall to conformity and the nerd in me would had died out.
Instead, my computer hobby became a really profitable job and now I’m living in a first world country and working on some really interesting things.
[+] [-] yapyap|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] lequanghai|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sam_goody|1 year ago|reply
The number one thing you can do for a youth is convince them that they are capable. Believe in them, and give them challenges that you know they can achieve. Give them time, empathy and encouragement.
The worst thing you can do for them is pity them, discourage them, explain that because they are black / women / poor / etc they are destined to a life of being in second place.
Glad you made it.
[+] [-] LoganDark|1 year ago|reply
I can't help but feel like I lost something through doing that, though. It certainly didn't help my ADHD to teach my brain that it's possible to live life through only instant gratification. And it certainly didn't help to always be connected to so many people that now I can't seem to do anything alone.
[+] [-] maxlin|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tbrownaw|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dhempsy|1 year ago|reply