Nearly 20 years ago, I was in a computer programming class surrounded by clunky towers and desktops.
Suddenly, a loud popping, then one of the machines starts belching smoke like a budget fog machine. The kid using it is calmly moved to another station while the prof investigates.
Fifteen minutes later - pop. Smoke again.
Turns out the kid was jamming a paperclip into the power supply like he was playing Operation: Arson Edition.
That was his last day.
On the bright side, computers are a lot cheaper now - and kids are still dumb. So, maybe progress?
This seems like something they should have engineered out of a product primarily used by schoolchildren.
Engineer out the electricity?
You can design something to survive pin shorting.
They said 20 years ago. We literally had ‘use a paperclip to turn on the computer on the test bench’ as the standard practice. Designing things for people to do them wrong was very much not the style at the time.
I have the same memory, except the teacher would just pop his head out from the office and tell us to knock it off. Someone managed to draw a giant line of Axe spray across the electronics desk/counter things and made a massive fireball. Nobody really got in trouble in that class.
We just pulled stupid pranks, like setting a repeating function with sound at the highest frequency in BASIC and locking the machines… on all the computers.
I was dealing with this all last week till finally a kid did it and his battery melted the computer in my classroom. He was told multiple times not to do it so now he is getting charged with possible arson. I have dealt with him doing stupid shit for the past 3 years and now finally the admins do something because it was so outlandishly stupid they have to. I am so glad I am retiring in less than 20 days.
explain to me why tiktok is promoting these videos and not censoring them?
they censor cuss words on there, but not videos of encouraging kids to hurt themselves or others?
but, there were always idiot fucking things up in school… well before the internet. tiktok is just channeling that.
….
also, forcing kids to use chromebooks is child abuse… especially since schools spy on kids through themI searched and the first time ever received a message about tiktok protection, etc. They are censoring apparently.
the worst part is expecting kids to learn about computers using a fucking Chromebook.
They’re not learning. They’re being implanted into Googles software as a service model. Get the kids on Gmail when they’re young and they’ll never use anything else.
Chromebooks aren’t replacing computer classes. They’re replacing textbooks and mimeographed handouts for a variety of classes. Most of that stuff is web based now, and Chromebooks are cheap so they’re the perfect tool for the job.
That’s like if you taught the next generation of carpenters using Fisher-Price toy tools (all sponsored by Fisher-Price, by paying huge campaign money to the politician).
I remain utterly convinced that Tiktok is nothing but a chinese psyop experiment to see how far they can manipulate people into actions that would otherwise be prevented by our brains screaming in self preservation.
Has there ever been a “good” trend on tiktok? Every week its just another destructive thing that gullible idiots are being tricked into doing.
We skipped our 3310s down the road Infront of our school without tiktok brainrot. Kids today need chinese to tell them to be stupid. Back in our day, we were stupid on our own!
Was the road ok?
Yeah, this is yous lemmitors being conspiracy poisoned by the internet.
back in our day, our stupid wasnt malicious mass destruction or food tampering.
It was actual stupid shit, like trying to jump over your friend as he raced towards you on his bike, or falling off a roof, Shit that only hurt yourself, if anyone. Wasnt breaking and entering and destroying shit so people in the next town over would think you were cool. We were stupid, but we werent that stupid.
Nah kids always do things that end up being malice since they don’t know it is maliceful. Kits are by definition retarded. Its expected of them to do dumb things.
The fact you didn’t just means you were lucky.
Soon as Chump took office the moderation flipped. It was open and handled well. Now if you call a corrupt politician an asshole you get a violation.
Talk about Palestine get a violation. Critical of the Chump regime get a violation.
Chow somehow inserted himself fully up Chumps ass on like Jan 22. TT hasn’t been the same since.
TikTok always favored Trump because China always favored Trump and TikTok is operated by Chinese Military directly out of Chinese servers which also store location data, contacts, text message history, and photo library of every device which has ever installed TikTok.
It’s a weapon to be used against the US now and since always.
[…] TikTok is operated by Chinese Military directly out of Chinese servers which also store location data, contacts, text message history, and photo library of every device which has ever installed TikTok.
It wouldn’t surprise me, but can you point me to a trustworthy source confirming that claim? Also, does the TikTok app refuse to work without those permissions granted (Location, Contacts, SMS, Photos and videos)?
Years ago it was reported on by Internet 2.0 which was shared by news organizations such as Huffington Post. Additionally there was this guy on Reddit 5 years ago who decompiled the app and shared all the results on a subreddit made specifically for it LINK HERE and he claims that the app is literally more malware-like data collection than actual video playing app, like the amount of install data is mostly just the data collection tools.
There were also House of Representatives intelligence briefings that went public but god those things are hard to sit through and read.
If TikTok didn’t want these stories swept under the rug and if there wasn’t truth to these stories they could have sued these people for defamation. But they didn’t, implying they would have lost the case handily and looked bad for it.
But at the very least, why wouldn’t the Chinese government do what they think can get away with?
Same reason they could be respecting human rights but choose not to.
People have just been doing dumb things for reputation since forever. We had the cinnamon challenge back in our day.
yeah, the cinnamon challenge was dumb… but it didnt involve mass destruction, psychotic behavor, or contaminating food\ in stores.
So its hardly comparable.
Also it wasnt Tiktok. Predates it, significantly.
Sees teenagers doing dumb shit, like they have since literally forever
“Is this a plot by the despotic orientals?!”
Fucking listen to yourself. I’m not on TikTok. I just don’t care for vertical short-form video as a concept. But even I can tell you that not every TikTok trend is teenagers being destructive idiots.
oh wow the .ml user is getting super offended over criticism of china/russia.
how original
Russia isn’t even a part of this discussion. I’m honestly more offended by your opinions of teenagers.
But that aside, it’s not about “defending” these States. It’s that your tone is dripping with orientalist racism
Sure buddy.
Lmao what a fucking racist loser! You can’t even respond with anything meaningful
Sure pal.
I agree. I was exposed to a lot of leftist content on tiktok and it’s made me want to protest. Good thing you explained that it’s stupid.
TBF TikTok wants the US Government to fail regardless of who is in office at the time.
It’s like that meme from flippanarchy the other day.
TikTok is poison for the mind.
It literally shrinks your brain with excessive usage.
I wish we lived in a world where they’re doing it because they don’t want locked-down toys issued by an evil corporation. But of course that’s not the reason.
P.S. proprietary software should be illegal in education. Full stop.
I suppose the question would be the alternative.
Note the devices actively discouraging offline save is a huge asset to schools, since kids screw up a lot, forget their devices and need loaners to get through a day and such. Extra bonus if the device can’t be too fun, to avoid them being overly used at home and get broken more.So Chromebook is desirable because they suck so much.
I was thinking of buying a Chromebook for travelling cause it’s cheap. I was very close to buying one, but someone told me about the world of used ThinkPads. I ended up buying a used ThinkPad with an AMD R7 4750U and I am so glad I did. It can run literally every game I want lol
It depends on your use case. A same cost Chromebook would be much lighter, faster with the things it can do, and over ten hour battery life. As always, a lot depends on cost: a school districts bulk $50 buy will always be horrible but you can get a much nicer “high end” Chromebook for a couple hundred
I don’t game much and considered a Chromebook for basic travel use, but went with a tablet.
faster with the things it can do
What do you mean by this? Surely you don’t mean actual performance, right?
I don’t game a ton but having the performance to be able to do so is really nice IMO. The battery life is great as well (like 6+ hours depending on what you do etc), and being able to put any OS I want on it is huge too. I also like how durable it is too.
I feel like if I got a tablet, I’d want a keyboard, and then a mouse too. That’d still be best for portability though, most likely, but it’s kind of nice having a full laptop experience.
Actually I do. The thing is a Chromebook can’t really do things you normally associate with performance, like gaming. However I’ve found decent ones to have a snappier ui than low to medium windows laptops
That’s the thing with a tablet: what’s your use case?
I’m not a fan of the keyboard and mice: they work well enough but now you have a bunch of pieces to keep track of and you need a table or desk. If I need a keyboard I prefer a laptop/chromebook form factor because it’s just one piece to deal with and you can use it on your lap
I realized that I spend way too much time e consuming media, but with light typing, such as this reply. a tablet is great and I’m perfectly happy writing on screen. Actually I’m on my phone at the moment. I do use my phone for most things, so maybe I think of the tablet as a larger phone screen for times I don’t need to be as portable
That’s why I bought a fold, not a Samsung fan but I didn’t want to buy a separate tablet and I really like the sweet spot this phone offers.
99% of the time I’m just using the front screen, but when I want or need that extra real estate (gaming, admining my homelab remotely, partially watching a yt video while doing chores) it’s really nice that it’s the same device and I can continue exactly what I’m doing on a bigger screen.
ThinkPads generally aren’t low to medium Windows laptops though, they’re literally several thousand dollar machines. It’s just they age incredibly well, so they end up on the used market at a heavily discounted price after a while. I’d be surprised if a Chromebook outperformed a ThinkPad when it comes to actual performance.
Yeah that’s a good point about keyboard and mice, that’s kind of why I like having an actual standalone laptop. For me I feel like a tablet isn’t as portable as a phone, but it’s also not as useful as a standalone laptop, so it’s kind of hard for me to find a use case for it.
I adore my T-480! I put Linux Mint on it, and it does everything I need it to do, with basically no fuss, and no garbage from Microsoft or Google
Youthful rebellion transcends technology.
Is there much difference between this and, say, using a pen to drill a hole in your desk?
Pen is less likely to start a fire and or create toxic smoke.
I’ve never done that either. The fuck? did you eat paint as a kid?
Thank you, it’s relieving to see that some people don’t fall for the “kids today” bullshit
Drilling a hole in your desk doesn’t lead to cancer.
Man I feel like a large part of the internet is out of reach.
Why have I got to sign up for tiktok just to watch this happen?
Shit like this used to be easily finable on google or something. Now I can’t seem to find shit. All I get get in news articles about it.
That’s generally a good thing, those kids don’t need their bullshit going viral outside of tiktok. Give it 3 months for Instagram to pick up 5% of it, and then FB can pick up 5% of that.
Yea but if I want to find something I want to be able to find it.
Eh, I kinda like the ephemeral nature of most tiktoks, having things go viral within a group of like 10,000 people, to the extent that if you’re tangentially connected to the group, you and everyone you know has seen it, but nobody outside that group ever sees and it vanishes into the ether like a month later makes it a little more personal.
It’d be a crying shame if the students were required to complete the school year with physical books and a notebook.
Normally that’s exactly what they would do if enough students destroyed their computers to blow through the loaners. The frustrating thing is this is happening right when schools are set to do state testing and state testing is mostly online now. This requires every student in the building to have a device at the same time. Normally all the loaners would be for kids who forgot theirs that day.
Kids were doing dumb shit like this before there was a TikYik to put it on.
Parents and psychiatrists have been trying to wrap their heads around how some of the more dangerous Internet trends take off, especially among kids.
Kids are dumb and they do dumb things. There’s not really that much to wrap one’s head around.
And it’s not even like Internet trends are a new thing. TikTok has simply offered a platform that’s extra predatory about it.
I can imagine that TikTok has been for Internet trends, to what slot machines did for gambling.
Yeah, like, first time?
The presentation has changed slightly but the content is much the same. Back in the good old days I was a moderator on Totse forums (the original, but its web bulletin board incarnation and not when it was a BBS) and we literally had an entire subforum just titled “Bad Ideas.” This was where things got launched, torched, smoked, blown up, stolen, scammed, or otherwise mutilated. Or at the very least all of the above talked about, at length. All of this with an strong implicit suggestion to try it yourself. Most of the kiddos did not actually have the means to pull of what they claimed they did but the ones who could and more importantly had the means to prove it were celebrities. Usually only for a short time, for various reasons.
The early Internet was basically just a repository for bickering about Star Trek, low grade porn, plans for how to build potato cannons, or schemes involving smoking dried banana peels. An immense amount of stupidity has always been there to be found, because the place was and is full of teenagers and teenagers are stupid.
I sure was, when I was one.
Anyone else remember kids watching videos of other kids nearly choking to death on cinnamon, and thinking “hey this looks like fun”?
Or the “chug a gallon of milk” thing? Those “trends” were just weirdly masochistic and sadistic. It wasn’t even misinformation or anything. Kids watched other kids suffer, and then chose to suffer too.
I can imagine that TikTok has been for Internet trends, to what slot machines did for gambling.
It’s closer to what mobile apps did for gambling. Crazy how quickly that was normalized in the US, and it’s tragic how easily people can just delete thousands of dollars from their bank account on a whim from the comfort of their couch.
I guess what I’m saying is, maybe sometimes children and adults really do need some protection from their stupid impulses.
To be more specific than mobile apps, sports betting apps are so insanely predatory
Google didn’t respond to Ars Technica’s request for comment.
To be fair, I don’t really see why they should. Chances are they didn’t factor in that level of stupidity when designing those things.
It makes sense that they wouldn’t have anything to comment anyway. Google themselves don’t actually manufacture most Chromebooks, they only provide the OS. I imagine the majority of the mass of Chromebooks in the world by weight are actually designed and made by Lenovo, Asus, Dell, HP, etc. Even the Google branded ones are manufactured by someone else under contract.
It’d be like demanding Microsoft explain to the news why your Dell caught fire simply because it had Windows installed on it.
That’s another thing I was wondering about; Google used to design their own Chromebooks, but those always were the premium options and way too expensive for school use.
Perhaps it’s more like “Kids short-circuiting school issued chromebooks because of excessive surveillance.”
…but probably not (or at least, not entirely) because many kids are dumb.
source: was a dumb kid.
Nah, before Chromebooks we’d vandalize the text books and desk.
I would take the balls from mice
And also computer mice
Which also meant that they had to seal them in…
Which means that you couldn’t clean them out when they got dirty.
Fun times.
Why throw the kids in the slammer? So they can eventually come back out as hardened criminals and contribute to the recidivism statistics, further circling society down the drain because they were betrayed by the corporations that injected their explosive products into our tax-funded school systems? They should give the TikTok kids full STEM scholarships for exposing these dangerous design flaws!
Hold the Chromebook manufacturer liable for the unsafe hardware design flaw with no overcurrent protection, hold the school liable for recklessly issuing these dangerous laptops that cheaped out on safety features, and hold Google liable for neglecting power handling in their Chromebook software! Get the CPSC on the phone and get every single Flamebook recalled across the nation!
It’s outrageous, egregious, preposterous!
But how else will google sell overpriced computers to schools despite lack of funding and force children to growing up with google products?
Isn’t the entire premise of Chromebooks is that they are extremely cheap compared to having actual laptops or iPads?
r/kidsarefuckingstupid
Good. Less spyware machines in the world.
