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The Rise Of The 15-Year-Olds
Lewis' latest book, Next: The Future Just Happened, is getting some enthusiastic applause from the popular media, whose binary view of the Net holds that it's either destroying the world or changing everything in it. In a similiar vein, Time asks in its cover this week "Do Kids Have Too Much Power?" The magazine, along with many so-called experts, seems to think so, and cyberspace is a big reason why. There can't be a better place on the Web to have this conversation than here.
Lewis argues that the Net has spawned a great status revolution, one that especially affects the technologically skilled young. The insiders are now out, and the outsiders in; high school sophomores and juniors are in charge and the people who have always run things are doomed and irrelevant. Lewis sees one powerful institution after another, from Wall Street to the music industry to the legal profession, being transmongrified by kids who, thanks to the Net, can do for free what many professionals have been charging tons of money for.
Kids, with sophisticated technology skills and more time on their hands than almost any other segment of the population, are fighting to get hold of traditionally proprietary (thus valuable) information. It's giving lawyers and corporations fits. Companies wonder how they can possibly survive as new media technologies -- open source among them -- make information cheaper and more available.
Is this a revolution, and is it really upon us?
To make his case, Lewis visits a series of casually-dressed, informally-educated teenagers in the U.S. and England, including the celebrated Jonathan Lebed of Cedar Grove, N.J., who rocked Wall Street and the SEC by turning himself into a master online stock manipulator in a few short months, though that's supposed to take years of high-intensity experience and training. Lewis also profiles Marcus Arnold of Perris, Calif., who joined the knowledge-sharing Web site AskMe and shortly become its most popular legal expert, dispensing wisdom he gleaned from many hours of Court TV watching, humiliating attorneys everywhere.
These kids, says Lewis, are destroying the "old priesthoods" of lawyers, investment gurus, academics and CEO's. Technology has "put afterburners on the egalitarian notion that anyone-can-do-anything, by enabling pretty much anyone to try anything -- especially in fields in which 'expertise' had always been a dubious proposition. Amateur book critics published their reviews on Amazon; amateur filmmakers posted their works directly onto the Internet; amateur journalists scooped the world's most powerful newspaper."
In my opinion, Lewis stumbles badly here. It's true that amateurs have gained access to fields once closed. But how many best-selling books are propelled by Amazon reviews? And who did Jonathan Lebed's parents call when he got into trouble -- Marcus Arnold or a criminal attorney who'd passed the bar exam?
The idea that anybody can become an instant expert at any age in any context is pretty creepy. It doesn't even apply to programming or Web design, let alone law or finance. Besides, expertise isn't power. Publishing houses, bar associations and medical groups still wield enormous influence, not only over their respective fields but with with regulatory agencies and, viat hordes of lobbyists, with lawmakers. Entrenched insiders have great win-loss stats.
Lewis believes such insiders are as irrelevant as the czars. What they know isn't so important, and it's obviously been over-priced.
But like much of the media, he focuses on the exceptions more than the rule. Most 15-year-olds on the Net are not making millions or dispensing legal advice; they're gaming, coding, downloading music, talking to their friends, surfing. You will never hear most of their names on the news. It's true that younger people now have access to once-restricted enclaves like the stock market, and they are forcing institutions to change. But that isn't the same as overthrowing them.
It's the nature of media to focus on aberrations, which makes for good stories but poor social reality. When a plane crashes, the wreckage is on TV screens 'round the clock for days. But planes rarely crash.
How about a follow up, perhaps a brief article about the geeks in your book? What's going on with Jesse? How is his friend Eric? Perhaps I missed it somewhere, but what better place to ask than here, eh?
It's a book I purchased and read with enthusiasm, and was impressed with. I was inspired to plan my own move and future in my education and career.
It's in the works, so to speak, but if all goes well, I'll get a higher paying job, and be moving next year after I get my degree.
It's kids who grasp technology and run with it to the future, right? So where has it taken the geeks, other than out of Idaho? What do these kids have to look forward to?
Very interesting. I'm not familiar with adequacy.org, so I don't know if this is intended to be a joke or troll, but I guess I'll bite.
The "15 year olds" were quite right in this case. The instructions on that page are in most cases unintelligent, and in a few just plain wrong. Go build yourself a system using those components, and you'll find yourself having a bit of trouble trying to fit your Pentium 4 into your AMD motherboard. So, you go buy a *real* p4 motherboard, and find the ram this page told you to buy (pc133) doesn't work with it. Furthermore, the power supply (they tell you to get the cheapest generic brand for $15 including the case) will almost certainly not have the 12V plug needed for a p4 system.
Enough with the wrong, lets get back to the unintelligent....the site recommends
*A WinModem
*In almost every case, the chepest components you can find (claims all motherboards are identical)
*Windows ME (and they *intist* you purchase your own copy...hmmmm)
What kind of crack are you on? Where can I get some?
--
grep "xercist"
Society has an undeniable fascination with prodigies, to the point that every kid who shows some interest and talent can potentially be hyped up into a genius in some field or other.
There are 15 year olds out there hyped as blues guitar greats, math whizzes, hacking masters, and most of them, while talented, can't possibly live up to the label of prodigy. But we love prodigies so much, we keep looking for them, and if necessary, manufacturing them.
It seems (from the links you provided) that Sarah Flannery managed to keep things in perspective, but I have to wonder how many kids don't. The pressure we put on these kids to be the "real deal" can be huge (what if Sarah's algorithm had really been the huge improvement it promised, and it turned out to be her biggest accomplishment, at the age of 15 or 16?). It's also not fair to the adults who spend years mastering their crafts to spread the fiction that a kid can do the same thing, with just a gift.
I wonder if we emphasize the prodigies so much because we as a society really hope that it's possible to be "born great," without ever having to work hard at it. Is it just laziness that fuels our obsession with prodigies?
The overwhelming majority 15 year-olds on the 'Net aren't doing anything that tough, as has been pointed out. It's only the fact that many adults are too intellectually lazy to investigate a bit further that makes those teens seem like such whizzes, and so the myth of the brilliant teen hacker lives on. Not that these teens aren't bright; but they haven't done much besides read manuals and spend some time digging around.
If you're looking for "clueless, hostile and incompetent, ... there can't be a better place on the Web to have this conversation ... . "
Yay, /. !
Katz is correct. Who cares that a few teenagers post crap on the internet? I never buy a book based on some anonymous review on amazon.com. Anyone who asks legal advise on something like AskMe (or /. for that matter) is just asking for trouble.
So much of that crap on the web is useless.
So many times, these teenagers don't have the attention span long enough to see anything through, that is why we rely on adults (with something to lose/gain) to give us info or services that we bet the farm on. You get the best advice/service/product when someone has only their reputation to recommend them. Reputations take lifetimes to build, and a very short time to destory. Teenagers have no such reputation to endager. So you get what you pay for.
Just look at how many projects on freshmeat or sourceforge are abandoned before they even reach 1.0.0. Yes, these teens aren't fully to blame (and big deal, right, we aren't paying for it?) but my experience tells me that this is a big part of it.
This isn't to say that these teens have to redeeming social value, or that they can't contribute to society. But when you learn to ride a bike, you start with training wheels, not the Tour de France. World domination can't come before you learn the rules of how to play the game.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Experience will always be good, even if its i a field of absolutly no clear relevance, simply because when you deal with someone who's been around for a while, they no how to go about finding the solution to whatever problem they will encounter. Maybe they wont have a clue of how it could actually be done, but they'll know how it should be analysed. But hey dont go around thinking i'm some 45 year old who misses the "good old day", heck i'm only 19!! But i know that every week, when i have supper with my mom and she asks me how my computer is going (or, as she has learned to phrase, what's wrong with windows this week ;) ) even if she doesnt know squat about computers, she always views the problem i submit to her from an angle that i would've never thought of.
Experience is and always will be valuable
I know only one and that's that i dont know anything
18 hours a day heh? that doesn't leave much time for sleep or chronic ma$turbayshun.
If it's "first in a series", it's probably because IT'S NOT FUCKING FINISHED YET! Wait until your story is done, and then post it. Or if that would be TOO LONG WINDED, cut it the fuck down. Why are you turning one writing assignment into many parts? Is this your way of BULLSHITTING YOURSELF into thinking you are more productive than you really are?
What irony? He says that there can't be a better place then Slashdot on the web to discuss this, not in the world, not in time, not even the whole internet, but the web. It's a matter of taste that Slashdot his the best place on the web for this discussion, but I don't see the irony.
No, not really.
There were at least a dozen trouble tickets that had been open for *over six months* when I arrived. People were *not working* because their machines were `broken'. I had all of these resolved within the first week and a half.
I suppose we all need charts, but we *really* need to have a working network.
And he hasn't come in yet today (10 AM here.) Not very professional.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Could be because:
Men now want to ditch their Tshirts and put their most professional image forward.
Power has swung back to the old east-coasters who don't believe a man is properly motivated without a rope around his neck.
Either way, them "15 year olds" who can still wear tees and Nikes to work, enjoy.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
:) "Toy" is the operative word...
Hmmm... Dubya supports public schools. So is Dubya a liberal?
If that kid's gonna pump and dump, well, more power to him. That'll learn ya'll for being gullible buffoons.
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
I'd have more respect for a jailhouse lawyer. At least they've got access to a law library.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Can't or just won't? I don't know of anyone that *can't* physically set the VCR but I know plenty who just don't bother. Unless you're recording something that needs the timer, they say why bother? Some just use their VCRs to watch movies.
It seems, however, that people have no interest in the realities of the situation though, since they make no effort to confirm the expertise of these children (the lawyer or the stock analyst). They are satisfied to be getting free advice where previously they were paying exhorbinant fees.
Interestingly, after Marcus Arnold revealed to his online patrons that he was in fact a teenager - after a backlash by the professional lawyers on the site - he became even more popular than he was before he revealed his true identity. This suggests that people to not put additional value in formal training, but rather, that they are satisfied with the perceprion of expertise that the shroud of the net provides. It's an interesting comentary on the state of American culture that even after the shroud of anonymity is lifted, people still prefer the teenage pseudo-expert, to the formally trained real thing... For this phenomenon, I have no explanation.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Damn it, moderators, not everything that mentions goatse.cx is a fucking troll!
I believe that pop media and talking heads are more offensive than silly smut. Is that trolling? I believe that offending the nobility of the human spirit is much more serious than offending your sense of sexual proportion.
Damn it, I was *serious*. And *not trolling*.
Assholes.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Just from a sanity perspective, it is a lot less annoying if your teenage brother is doing something cool and productive, as opposed to being lazy watching TV or hogging the computer playing Starcraft. If he improves the world in the process, so much the better.
In the end, I vote that sanity wins over a few lawyers with their panties in a twist.
Ch-Ching!!! We Lose!
But I'm getting away from the real point. Yes, its truly a cliche, but its also true.. Information wants to be free.. And information = freedom, eventually .
Thanks to the web, these institutions now don't have a stranglehold on information. They only control 99%. But they are scared because they *know* that if even 1% of what they are doing becomes known, they are doomed.. Because they are evil. And especially because they are (often) parasites ..
The so-called 'established institutions' are ultimately fragile because they are parasites sucking the lifeblood of all of us.. Like the RIAA, they add no value to life or the world.. they only restrict the inevitable..the 'magic of the marketplace' *laugh* can replace.. them.. too. And they know it.
politicians take notice..
It is not the 15 year olds who are changing things.. They just are the ones who don't know how to keep it quiet. *laugh*
For now..
Boo!
15 year olds are like the child in "The Emperors New Clothes", they will admit what others only think. And eventually we all win when the stale and haughty fatcat institutions crumble..
Peace..
... but in the end, Dogs will still chase Cats. Lets look at it this way... the information is still out there... I did computer support and now do calculator support and I seem to find that most older people threw their hands up years ago at learning technology. Yes, we young whipper-snappers have a leg up now on the adults, and it does pose a threat... in theory. I am mostly self taught when it comes to PCs but I still had problems getting into a good tech job without certifications. In some ways, the big companies still hold it all over us. Now, the threat comes in with this.... if I am job-hunting, all I need is someone to listen to me and test me, and for the most part, I can get in the door for a good job (with no certs mind you), but even that is far off as most companies want your paperwork before they agree to see your pretty face.
Still, I hear plenty of phone calls daily from 13-17 year olds asking... "Can I put games on this calculator?" Forgive me, but even most young people when presented this awesome information, will turn it away for a simple game... what a sad world we live in.
Diji
"I came, I saw, I WTF'd!"
Hmmm... I must be a 15 yr. old at heart, as I'm playing Destructo-man with the American political system. The Internet is the new playground for those of us who see great ill with the world, and wish to positively remake it.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
and here is an interesting link.
I think that he's right - obviously, there really is no better place than here - the haven for the technogeeks. At any age.
I've been reading slashdot for darn near as long as I can remember there being something more on the web than "HEY! A WEB PAGE WITH PICTURES! CHECK IT OUT!". I wasn't 15, but I wasn't that far away from it, either.
I'd be willing to bet if Slashdot could conduct a survey that people woudl take SERIOUSLY, we'd probably find an EXTREMELY varied age range, but with a shockingly low average. I mean, I know geeks/nerds anywhere from 8 to 80, but the vast majority of them are in their early-mid teens, and they are by far the smartest, brightest, and most innovative.
They don't have the blinders on, that we get through age.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I totaly agree. Same thing happened to me. Now i look back on how i was and i'd like to shoot my self for being so stupid. And a word to all the people that think they know everything about everything yet haven't admin'd a server in the real world where users depend on it, stop talking, listen, and learn.
When I was in my second last year of high school, I wrote a program that 'mimicked' the Netware logon screen exactly, and when someone tried to log in, it would look like they somehow tripped a batch file, and a format c: was in the works...
On April 01, I set up the program on one of the computers in the a lab near my first class, just before classes started for the day at 9 AM. Shortly after that, at about 9:20, I could hear the SysAdmin just HOLLERING in the hallway by the lab. I was just waiting for him to enter my class and look with evilness at me.
But it never happenned. I think that that was the best one I ever came up with.
And yes, I've matured now. I don't do that anymore. Except maybe to my family members :P
JonKatz is really a sixteen-year-old. It'd explain some(most?) of his writing.
He bought stocks, and then (this is the tricky bit) posted favourable lies about to them to as many forums as he could find. Pump and Dump. Not difficult. Of course, it is illegal, despite Lebed's squealings to the contrary. A smart person would have known this.
BugBear
Ignorance is curable. Stupid is forever.
As soon I got broadband, it took a long time to get off MP3s, movies, and warez before getting back into developing.
When you're 15 you dont really need money, you have a home, parents etc. (usually). As soon as you start paying taxes, rent, food, cable bills, it all adds up and after a while values tend to change. I've seen this in myself, the focus has changed slightly from open source coding and warezing any proprietory sw I need to actually paying for stuff and beginning to think that closed source does indeed pay the bills (for now). I guess what I'm trying to say is, its easy to be idealistic when you dont have to be realistic :)
These kids, says Lewis, are destroying the "old priesthoods" of lawyers, investment gurus, academics and CEO's. Technology has "put afterburners on the egalitarian notion that anyone-can-do-anything, by enabling pretty much anyone to try anything -- especially in fields in which 'expertise' had always been a dubious proposition.
I kind of disagreee. There have always been child prodigies, they have always been discriminated against. But the idea that there is a new generation of hyper-smart teenagers just does not cut it with me.
For example, the controversial news and discussion site adequacy.org recently ran an article explaining how to build your own PC. It was instantly spammed and crapflooded by 15 year olds claiming they knew better than the adequacy expert. Which is fine, except that they didn't.
The whole hilarious episode csn be viewed here
Point is, not whether kids have the knowledge, it is whether they have the maturity to deal with the responsibilities that knowledge brings.
how old are you? I see you as clueless! Seriously, there are a lot of things you need to know to run a business, the average person under 25 doesn't cut it. There are exceptions, I've worked with many exceptions, though they weren't very exceptional. First the person said "I run a portal", well sonny, I remember when portals were called webpages. Also, what comes with age is learning from your mistakes, the dot-com bust is mostly because of people that haven't learned the hard lessons yet and made all the mistakes. A year ago someone saying "I'm 15 and run a business" would mean something, now the same person is saying "what do you mean we have to make a profit? What do you mean I have to pay the venture capital back? Billy next door doesn't have to pay his venture capitalist back? This isn't fair."
Odd idea here - let's stop imagining kids versus adults and focus on (and call my a wild radical here) raising our kids, supporting them, learning when we can and teaching when we can. You know, that community-type thingy that humans have experimented with for, oh, say . . . a few hundred thousand years.
It may make great press to imagine armies of techno-teens versus the irrelevant old geezers, but real life should take precidence over masturbatory culture-clash fantasies.
Most techno-teens spent the day pretty much like everyone else - getting along in life, having fun, making mistakes, learning. Same things us techno-oldsters did in our day, just with more bandwidth and pop-up adds.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Fuck off you do. 16 year old as a network admin for a class B. You might fool most here, but you don't fool me.
$6/hr people do not do network admin for class B setups. They might do customer support. You "partner" might be your boss (another little lie, huh?)
You can't even be honest, so don't tell us you can hack the real world. You DO have a lot to learn. You scoff at the managers upstairs for reasons like them buying radius software rather than using the free stuff huh? You wonder why they use veritas not raiserFS? You don't understand why they don't run mysql?
And the bit where you TOTALLY wrong is the mainframes. These never went away, and will become more prominent very soon. They can do the job of 750 Sun servers for a third of the cost, 5% electricty and rent costs, 20% employee requirements etc. etc. For example, Deutsche Telekom just replaced their server farm with a z900 IBM mainframe running 40,000 linux sessions. Their costs dropped from $35million over 3 years to 7 million over three years!!!! Yes, 40,000 virtual machines. On ONE box. These are going to replace server farms without a doubt (do the sums - cost of a z900 didivded by 40,000, taking all expenses into account, is one hell of a cheap coloction server).
So don't claim to know the real world sonny.
sales_worldwide
FLAMEBAIT?
Bite me, moderators. It's flamey because it's true. You all sux0rz.
Being 16 myself (though rather mature for my age, like many TRUE geeks), I can say that I see this as often as any of you and it is unquestionably annoying and bothersome, but these 16-year-olds on power trips in tribes servers or acting as script kiddies win-nuking ICQ users are harmless. They're either so immature or so ignorant that the worst damage they'll cause is to annoy those who are more mature than themselves, and to attempt to impress those who are as immature as, again, themselves (a theme here?) I will note that playing Counter-Strike, I've been in clans run by 15-year-olds. They're miserable. The admin is on a power trip, kicking anyone with superior skill, and controlling the clan as his subjects (in case you didn't notice, CS isn't a game of kings and their subjects...) Saying that they will harm the internet is like saying that your going to kill me with a squirt gun. They most annoying of their kind, the script kiddies, do not even understand through what port win-nuke works, much less any of the code behind it. They will never cause any damage, never really hack a system, never start a worm, never create a virus, etc, etc. Certainly, most of this can be attributed to so called "media hysteria", as we see all kinds of messages about "our children" (since the famous school shootings) and it raises suspician that children may be causing these problems on the internet. The people causing trouble on the 'net are not the 15-year-old script kiddies, but the older, more mature and intelligent "hackers" writing worms and virii. They are the people that are the risk, if any really are. My only other criticism is that mass generalizations are often made about people of my age group (roughly 16). While, I would be the first to step up and say they are mostly true, there are some of us who are mature enough to realize the true value of the internet and those subjects accociated with it, to know that it is foolish to attept any worthless acts (such as win-nuke, the example I am oh-so-ever fond of) In summary, blaming the problems with the internet on 15-year-olds is naieve and ignorant. The threat originates from a far more mature and intelligent crowd (same wording, so sue me). The crowd spoken of in the article are the type of people who think using an SMTP server to send annonymous email is "hacking"
Logic is the ultimate device.
Well... consider the 1960 generation, which was about peace, love, freedom of expression and action. These are now the people who run corporations which make war, promote conformation, and generally go against everything their generation stood for 30 years ago...
In 30 years, The only thing that will have changed is the faces.
DOS is dead, and no one cares...
If there's a Bourne Shell, I'll see you there
I guess this is an average since that's not me. I already have a Web Design job and getting more. I run my own server and I am tech support for a few organizations. I must be a geek or someting, that's right I am an anti-social geek. I also do NOT use AIM (/. is more important)!
If memory serves me right, he was rated among the top experts on the site, competing against real lawyers. You may be overrating the value of university study. If you add up the hours, way too much time is spent smoking pot, taking non-essentials classes, sports, drinking beer, wasting time taking useless notes at a boring lecture, and on and on.
If you have an area of interest, it being stamp collection, beanie babies, astronomy, medicine, law, programming, politics, history, math, finance, journalism, there have always been shitloads of sources out there. If you dedicate some time and focus on a field, at some point there are only minor details that makes you different from a certified expert. You don't even have to be a genious to be a know-it-all, or a good performer in your field.
You are the one serving up bullshit. Just because someone didn't follow a curricilum from a to Z does not mean they're not experts. I've run into many amateurs, some very young, who can run circles around professionals in their field. The professionals tend to have a complacent attitide to their field of expertise. Amateurs make up for that with focus and dedication.
I read the story about the legal whiz kid, and was a bit annoyed by his "I just know" answer myself. But my conclusion is different from yours. He may be a wiz at law, but less educated about society at large, and how to deal with're journalists. And probably some bad lawyer attitude has rubbed off on him. Lawyers don't like to admit that the advice they're giving came easy. I bet 80% of legal advice given could be compressed into a fairly small F.A.Q. Lawyers need to make money, even off the FAQ's which is why they frown upon somebody giving it away for free.
Wiz kids who appear to be experts don't amaze me, though. These kids have always existed. There's not more wizardry now than before. It's just that the internet have given them a much larger audience. So, instead of being the neighborhood's annoying besserwissers, with maybe one or two likeminded souls in the each town, these kids now may have thousands of readers.
If the kid spent his weekends looking up answers to questions in the local univeristy legal library, then I'd think he was a industrious worker with a promising future. But this kid is quite full of BS, and his answer on askme.com are engineered into piles of BS, so its mildly rediculous that he's getting all this positive attention.
So, you're saying paper and ink are more valuable sources of information than television, bits and bytes?
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
I don't know about 15 year olds, but I am 20 and I certainly plan to change the world. I mean look at what the older generation has left us to start out with... George W. Bush.. HOW COULD YOU ELECT such a moron. Yes, I am 20, yes, I voted.... so, you say... my generation had a part in it too... yea it did, but we are not the generation in power right now... I am working my ass off and will continue to do so until i see some major changes in the country from how the older generations have left it to us.... It is completely rediculous and there are sure to be some major changes...
The common kid never has changed the world? Correct me if I'm wrong but the last time I read a newspaper that had an article about Columbine, the kids involved are no different than those in any other suburban high school. They may not have caused havoc on a global scale now but they definitely affected the American culture and attitude towards the youth of the current generation (There were more cops on my high school campus this past year than any previous years). But given time teenagers definitely carry the propensity to change the rest of the world.
I think its the usual slashdot self-perspective...
Yesteryears 15 year old is todays 35 year old...
You can indeed argue it all back to whichever wave of home computing you joined under... The net is merely another aspect of what is essentially a home computer revolution...
Smid
spirituality? Asian religion? I hate to burst your bubble, but where I live there are about 20% asian and they are as materialistic if not more then a real american. I have a $17k car, where the average cambodian has a lexus or at least a $30k car with every extra you can possibly add on. They have spoilers that could lift the space shuttle off the ground and it's bolted to the back of a landrover?!?! Spirtuality? That's right brother, send me all of your cash and your first born and you too can speak with god!
This kind of thing has been going on for time immemorial- high school athletes performing better than 40 year olds, high school programmers in the 1980s building better games for the Apple 2 than professionals, high school "html coders" in the early 90s, genius 12 year olds graduate from college, etc. But the main thing here is that these people are still kids, they ARE smart, they can amass knowledge about fields like law or compute programming really fast. But just having that knowledge does not a professional make. Being a legal "expert" on a soon-to-be-dot-gone place like AskMe and having $1 will get you a cup of coffee, you know? While the kid was perpetrating a criminal fraud, it was pretty small potatoes. Ditto with the stock manipulator- anyone who thinks that you have to go to school to understand the way the stock market works never paid attention when penny stock manipulators were defrauding investors in the 70s and 80s. No one says that it's amazing that an undereducated mook like John Gotti ran an entire business, there are simply some aspects of life that are base on chutzpah and not on education. and you get a kid with chutzpah and you're in business. I have found that working with 17, 18, 19 year old programmers can be a nightmare. The few I dealt with loved the big challenges, building pieces of apps that had to be cobbled together into a full app by someone with the dilligence to finish the whole job, not just the fun stuff. They will be leaders in the industry once they learn that when they don't show up for a client meeting, the client won't pay them. little things like that. I'm happy that so many teenagers are inspired to succeed, but they have turned NOBODY and NOTHING on its head. don't overplay this crap.
psh. Well rounded? No one who excells at anything is 'well rounded'. Is Linus Torvalds well rounded? How about Einstein? How about Gates? How about Newton?
I didn't read that, but I am still moved to comment. How did you take such issue with a 2 line comment that u wrote this 700 word dissertation on it?
/* no comment */
You could try this for a conversation with Marcus & Johnathan Lebed.
How come this bitch doesn't get modded down as Flamebait, or Troll, or Offtopic?
(All of which he is, by the way.)
MODERATORS SUX0RZ!
could you fill your articles/features with any more broad useless statements? and yes im 15
Wow, your story sounds _completely_ uninteresting.
I certainly am a 14-year-old geek myself. From the people I have seen at school there are about zero that code or use linux like me. Most know how to use IRC and download movies and such, but I have not seen a single person that I mark as computer competant. A low percentage of kids do productive things on their own. I call them failures :). Geeks are unique people who developed intelligence before the common monkeys.
The way that things are going right now, 15 year old kids don't have a chance because they are being educated in government schools.
Is there an antidote for what you have? Bwahahahaha.
well, drago - i can hardly argue those points! i was being a little overboard...
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
So? If you have a friend that's into sports, another that is into cars, and you are into computers, what is the big deal? The problem here is pigeon holing, "you are a geek and therefore missed out on your life, you never scored 4 touchdowns in a single game" or "you are a jock and therefore will work manual labor the rest of your life". It boils down to some unhappy people trying to make themselves feel better by making someone else feel bad. If you bought a modem and stopped developing(SW) then so what? Did you have a good time? What were you "developing" that was really that important that you now feel bad about not continuing? People should just injoy what they enjoy and ignore anyone that tries to make you feel bad about what you enjoy. The problem with too many choices is that you make 1 choice and someone that made a different choice now feels that you are telling them they are wrong and you are right.
And the same Americans who are violently against cloning humans, but are **flabbergasted** to hear that identical twins are as identical as clones. (This one from a roommate of mine. He was *not* a science major.)
So, um does this mean if I find one of your fingernails I can grow a couple hundred copies of you to keep in my personal slave pit? They'll be mostly superfluous, I'll just gut one everytime I see an obvious troll like this.
useless bloody morons
Of course, I can't help but admit, nuclear *is* the best modern source of power.
The real question isn't "How can these 15 year olds usurp the power from the traditionally powerful" but is instead: "Why are our cultural institutions so fragile -- and so mysteriously sacrosanct -- that radical shifts in power (such as Lebed's stock trading) cause such widespread fear and paranoia?"
What is it that the "powerful" are protecting? My guess is that they're protecting the hegemony of their institutions so that they, the traditionally powerful, can remain in power. And until recently, these protected institutions have been immune to all but those in "power".
What all this shows, I think, is just how fragile things are -- cultural instititions -- and how the powerful will stop at nothing to maintain their hold on the institutions that legitimize their power. Adobe, for example, is proof of this. Microsoft, too.
But why? Why is everything so fragile? And why do guys like Lebed so honestly and completely expose the fragility?
If you saw Lebed on a recent 60 Minutes, you can see that he's obviously a smart, savvy guy. He's no nut, no raving lunatic. He's simply done his homework. And he understands how things work. Then, cut to the chair of the SEC: an old white guy, your typical CEO: big suit, big white hair, sun tan. Lots of years on the golf course, right?
He's "old school" all the way. Probably from the same school as our good buddy Jack Valenti. Probably shot a few holes with ol' Jack. (Can't you imagine the conversation these two guys would have? "All this internet stuff, Jack. It scares the hell out of me. Where's the honor? The tradition?" And Jack, nodding and nodding -- any more nodding and his head would pop off and birdie into the hole -- couldn't agree more: "The internet. It's the ruination of our culture. Bandwidth means piracy. There is no honor anymore, no tradition. Why I remember golfing with Jack Kennedy. There was a stand up guy. A guy who knew how things worked. Blah blah blah.)
Anyway, this SEC guy, he goes on and on about Lebed. How Lebed's crime is just about the worst sort of crime he could imagine. He defrauded the masses. He took advantage of the system. And, you better believe it, friend: Lebed oughta be thrown into the pokey and the key thrown away.
These old guys -- the CEOs still sitting around table chit chatting about golf and driving their Lexus' and worrying about their platinum parachutes -- these guys oughta be fired on the spot. Told to either get with the program or get the hell out. They still think the best business is the business you conduct between holes seven and eight. Driving around with their little ladies golf gloves in loud little golf carts, pretending to care about whether or not you got a Big Bertha driver or that latest titanium driver.
It's all a bunch of crap. Lebed and others -- they're the ones exposing the institutions for what they are. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. But more power to 'em.
Is Katz a sensationalist or just another troll? He kinda blurs the boundries. And what's this preoccupation with children? Kinda creepy, in that Willy Wonka way.
Some of us have fallen in love with the notion of giving without reserve-Raoul Vanegiem, Revolution of Everyday Life
The truth is this occurance is natural and is simply occurs on a seemingly larger scale because of the nature of our media and technology. Kids have always challenged adults, there have aways been prodigies who could play better music, had a more in depth knowledge of the law or have even been surgeons and physicists, there have always been children who at 13 showed more skill and talen than any 40 year old in their field. We simply hear more about them now because media is no longer insular and regional, a kid in Maine makes a million off of the stock market and in 10 minutes people in China know. No longer can institutions squelch these stories to avoid the embarassment they cause. It's the nature of our media that has changed, not so much the nature of our children, more kids have access to more knowledge today, children no longer need to rely on intitutions to teach them, with the advent of the net they can teach themselves at a tremendous pace. The power structures of society are changing and the once hallowed halls of guilds and learning institutes are no longer the only places to learn a trade or gain knowledge, society has yet to catch up to this phenomenon but we will, eventually.
The critical period hypothesis has been questioned by many researchers in recent years and is presently quite controversial (Geneses, 1981; Harley, 1989; Newport, 1990). The evidence for the biological basis of the critical period has been challenged and the argument made that differences in the rate of skill acquisition may reflect psychological and social factors, rather then biological ones that favor child learners.
imho, the retired people are the real danger : they have the realworld experience, the time and the money ! Of course they blame it on their innocent grandchildren. Bastards !
While I can agree with the majority of the posts that were made by users. I feel that I disagree with a few of them. The first being that regarding Jonathon Lebed as a hero is ridiculous, especially from my standpoint. When I was 12 or in 7th grade I got a pile of cash to buy some stocks with. So I started trading in about September of '99 and in the first month or two, I got a return of about 60% of my money which was the equivalent of a few thousand bucks, ok. So then I wanted more money so I asked my grandparents for some money (at that point being an ignorant kid), now by december I was down about 50%(that was the worst Christmas, I can remember). Now the reason that all of this happened was because I thought I knew what I was doing, my parents encouraged me (I wasn't pumping and dumping stocks by the way) and thought I was doing well. But when everything started crashing, I couldn't understand why it was happening and the reason was that the expectations were to high and my knowledge and understanding was too low. Now the reason for all of this was because people thought wow this kid is successful and knows what he's doing, which is completely false. When kids (teenagers whatever, I was a kid and still am) believe that they know what they are doing and have actual knowledge (not ignorance), and in reality in fact do not, they have a tendency to fuck up on a large scale (like me). And from my view Lebed fucked up because all he did was destroy a bunch of companies and I watched him on 60 minutes and every fucking word was pure ignorance he is more of a gangster than an investor and has no business whatsoever on Wall St. His actions would be the equivalent of people calling a pickpocketer a good samaritan. My point from all of this is that Children (Minors anyone under the age of 18) have no right whatsoever being called experts in any field because the knowledge we children have gained based on mediums such as the internet will never be on par with that received through the similar degrees at a University or college. And I think when adults complement children and treat them like they are experts (the media coverage of Lebed) they tend to feel that they are invincible and actually have the knowledge to proceed which is completely untrue. I think the only way a kid is going to become an expert in anything is if they can get a degree. And making a kid feel like he knows what he's doing is a recipe for disaster. I have a job at a telco now but I am very interested in venture capital (investing on a much larger scale) Please contact me @theodoreking@hotmail.com
I always thought a bunch of 15 year olds ran the editorial on slashdot. Why aren't they in the news?
-Shaunak.
Being a commercial developer in industry, in a company well-funded by the real big money of the world, it's very interesting to see that the institutions and power structures that exist take years, even decades, to understand and influence.
Why? Because they're full of people, and success in these realms is about working with people. Playing politics, playing "the game", whatever you want to call it, it takes time, experience and maturity. No amount of precocious young talent makes up for that.
I'm sure the Hare Krsnas are trying to get them to convert, too....
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
There are 15 year olds all over the damn internet these days (just look at some of the recent moderators) and they really do get annoying. Just log on to AIM or MSN messenger some time, and your little window will pop up with "a/s/l?" about 100 times, unless you check the option to only receive messages from people on your list. They all seem to be from Duluth or Lawrenceville GA too, which sucks because I just moved there, I never see any young people out, no 14-30 year olds, they must all be computer geeks or something.
~ now you know
I am 18 years old with 11 years programming experience under my belt. I make more money than most people twice my age. Anyway, getting to the point... For the most part, 15 year old geeks are usually smarter than college graduate programmers. Most programmers coming out of college have no experience in the field, and if a problem isn't in their book, they are clueless. It's a shame that most companies value a piece of paper over actual experience and most people like me will never get decent jobs. By the way, I have yet to finish high school.
12-15 year old kids have managed to ruin almost every online community I have ever been involved in. This is ESPECIALLY true of multiplayer online games.
Spending more time on the net will not make a person more well-rounded. It will expose them to other people's experiences but reading about those experiences will not improve their practical experience. People who read about things are sometimes caught off-guard when their theory meet practice. Things like human interaction are hidden behind a facade when you use email or even instant messaging. People who surf a lot will have the opportunity to gain more knowledge, but it will not make them well-rounded in the traditional sense.
Are brilliant 15-year-old computer geeks running the world
Stupidass 15-year-olds are running the world. See who MTV is catering to these days? N'Sync, Britney Spears, Boy/girl band ______, That's whose money corporations are pursuing. Money is power. They've got it.
The flip side to that is that many kids are becoming well rounded because of the net. Kids that are introverted and used to spending time mostly alone and indoors can now spend that time on a computer and internet. It's an outlet to interact with others (to a limited extent) while still being introverted. It's better that the shy kids are on the internet, learning to use computers, maybe learning to program, rather than doing nothing.
But what's the overall picture? I think most kids who are active and outgoing remain active and outgoing; I doubt most of them trade in sports for the internet. And I would imagine most kids who are introverted, but have a computer at home, use the computer and become more well-rounded.
Developers: We can use your help.
NeXT: The Future Never Happened
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
I'm a bit of a geek myself, but wouldn't it be better if the children of the world were a little bit more well rounded. I don't want to see any meat heads run the world, but at the same time I don't want someone that only knows Quake and sendmail to be on top of the chain either.
I think it would benefit the world if children were well rounded! Technical skills, People Skills, along with things like a social life are all important!
I don't sign his checks. Heck, I don't even click on the ad banners. I'm pleased you think me so influential; it makes my ultimate plans to take over the world that much easier to achieve. But I'm afraid Katz had secured this job long before I ever heard of Slashdot.
... if you didn't read his columns, he wouldn't be a paid, featured columnist.
Developers: We can use your help.
and not until your died consist of twinkies, ding-dongs, star crunches, and hot caffinated beverages. You can't truly be a nerd until you' ve posted your first /. comment that says nothing more than "can you imagine a Beowolf Cluster of these?".
Agreed - if there's one thing I have learned, it's that I don't know everything I need to know, and older people with more experience do have lots to offer. I was simply noting that not all kids are as stupid or lazy as we're made out to be. By no means do I consider myself to know all I need to, but I have a willingness to learn, and the drive to work as hard as is necessary to make good with what I can do.
It's an age old battle - age vs. beauty, so to speak - and it doesn't look like it will let up soon. Scary enough, I find myself looking in disdain at those younger than myself, and find that I try to justify those feelings, when in reality, from an objective standpoint, they have every bit of potential that me and my peers do. I see myself becoming one of the people who laugh at me, and somehow, it seems different. But it's really not.
First of all, as noted, we hear the exceptions, not the rule. Most fifteen-year-olds I run into on the net certainly aren't stupid, but I doubt they're running things. My 20 to 30 something friends do a lot on the net because we also have the money and the access to make our own servers, buy domains, etc.
Secondly, let's be honest about "kids running things" - the adults have the government, and the military, the police, and the money In short, brute and economic force. Until the kids have that, they aren't running things - and by the time they do, they'll be adults.
And, ironically, probably wonering if THEIR kids are running things.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
No doubt, there are 15-year-old who know a lot about computer, personally I started with computers at the same age, took me 2yrs till I got to Linux and now with 19 I can say that I know more than 99% of the computer user. It doesn't matter when you started only how much time you invested, I did a lot, spent (and will spend) most of my time for working out how this and that works. If I look back to what I knew one year or even two yrs ago I see that my skills improved in the last months more than ever.
If you're young you can learn easier and faster (that's a fact) but you don't have the energy and power to concentrate at one thing like the elder one has. In my first two yrs I've looked into everything, from raytracing (PovRAY) to programming (basic, c, pascal), and always some games (something I stopped months ago). I saw a lot things but took none of these really important and so I started them but didn't finish.
In these days I can easily concentrate at one or two things (PHP/websites and translations for various programms). My skills aren't that broad anymore but deeper.
For me that's more important!
-- just a geek - trying to change the world
I was wondering about the point raised that children see their parents as irrelevant or uneducated and "not getting it". First, I think kids in the 50s also thought their parents didn't get it (and it probably went back hundreds of years), although it wasn't about hi-tech but rather music, fashion, and the rest of the prevailing pop culture. Today's pop culture certainly includes technology and some older people are apprehensive of some aspects of technology (my grandmother still refuses to use "that hole in the wall" - read ATM - to get cash).
Any slashdotters with teen aged kids? How do your kids see you on the "getting it" scale? If Michael Lewis is right then the teen aged kids of geeks should have much more respect for their parents than the teen aged children of, say, botanists or brain surgeons or athletes. It doesn't quite make sense to me.
people still eat fast food even though it's not the healthiest thing around.
Sometimes convenience and ease of access is more important than quality.
-PYves
I'm 17 and I run my own corporation. We officially incorporated Q2 this year and my responsibilities include financial and legal issues. I got into this kind of stuff very young, possibly because I was labeled a "nerd" and didnt' have many friends til high school. Most people wonder how I can handle this kind of stuff at my age, but it's just everyday life for me.
I am !amused.
The teenage stock-manipulator and the AskMe would-be lawyer were hardly expert in their 'fields', so if these were indeed the kinds of experts the author uses to bolster his argument, then his must be a pretty weak argument indeed. The kid who was manipulating stocks was not an expert stock-picker, he was just pretty good at manipulating over-greedy speculators who themselves knew nothing about the thinly traded issues he was pumping. As for the kid who played AskMe legal expert, his rating as a legal guru largely comes from ratings from people soliciting free legal advice...in other words, a selected-for group likely to know very little about the law thmselves. So who are they to rate someone a guru ? These two exemplars only go to show that today, one need not be very smart to fool a bunch of fools, just as was the case yesterday and yesteryear. The only thing that has changed is that the Net has now made it infinitely easier to con people, and infinitely easier to mask one's credentials or lack of same.
It's a symbol; a badge of office, if you will.
And I just tuck it into my shirt between the second and third buttons when I have to go spelunking under someone's desk.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Teenagers are capible of alot more than society thinks. A 13 year old was considered 100% an adult here only 100 years ago. The only reason why they are not usually capible of being as sensible as adults is because of the way society is structured. In short, children & teenagers mentally grow up much slower than they should, & once did. 15 year olds are shining in computers because this is one thing where they can complete and utterly out-do adults. If raised properly & given the chanve, most 15yr olds could do one heck of alot more than what most of us think they are capible of.
I can understand what you are saying, although it isn't necessarily true. I too once though I knew everything there was to know about certain aspects of computing. But when I was 16, I got hired by a small corporation. And you're right in the fact that most 15 year olds don't know how computing works in the real world, it is a lot more complex. I do feel I have gained many skills by working in a corporate environment. And (now 18), I understand that a lot more organization is needed if you are working on a large scale. So I guess I am your exception. I have seen 2 college graduates (with 4 year degrees in networking & telecommunications) come and go because they didn't have the skills needed. They had the knowledge; believe me, but not the same passion for computing, like the old school hackers and the new school hackers have. They were in it for the money. This is truly a new generation. We see where computing has been, where it's at, and where we WANT it to go. Maybe some of our goals are unrealistic, but that is what drives us.... We go for the impossible. On a side note, I have a friend that is a financial advisor (just turned 18), and even in these days of horrible stock market outlooks, he still manages to make about $4000 a week day-trading. He's been doing it since he was 15, with no internship or the like, just an understanding of how the system works, and a passion to defeat it. Peace, Pi
I beg to differ on your point of computer science maturing, it already has to a point... end users are seeing the benefit of 40 years of computer research, to grasp ALL of it seems beyond anyone. Sure, one could generally know almost all of it but mainly people have specialized into specific fields, example: computer graphics. I thought I knew alot about computers before going to college when I was 16-18 and I suppose I did at the 'end user' level. As discussed here before, computer science is mostly theory and inner workings... but that IS computer science... what some 15 year olds know is MIS (nothing more than high level end user knowledge).
parricide: the act of murdering one's own father, mother, or a close relative.
patricide: the murder of one's own father
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
This thread is akin to the "If kids play video games (which in 1980, the big one was Pac-Man) they will LEARN about electronics and develop better hand-eye coordination. Rubbish!
In 1990 it was BBSs. Using offline mail readers to find out where the War3z B0ardz where at didn't teach anything about networks. Neither did using programs like CopyII+ for Apples teach anything about software development.
In 2000 (well, 2001) it is Napster and AIM and BattleNet and searching for nude pics of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
Curve ball time - none of these pursuits are abnormal past times of 15 year old boys. In fact they mirror the underlying technology of the time. But to say that they have developed a TECHNOLOGICAL mastery of it and will be future leaders because of it is 100% nonsense.
I would expect to see this as a lead story on some trash like "Extra" or even the "National Enquirer".
(it was Katz anyway *knowing smile*)
True, but someone has to actually be a democrat to fit that description.
Sorry to be so clueless but I assumed he was doing his writing here for free. So how much do they pay him and why don't I get paid for *my* idiotic postings ?
I take exception to the aspersions cast on the Amazon critic community. 1. Professional book reviewers make trivial amounts of money. (I know I did it for a while). 2. Advancement in the field of professional book criticism depended on the ability to turn out mediocre revews on a regular basis. A professional critic (whose reviews I think are top rate) has confessed to me not even having read the book all the way through most of the time. 3. Newspapers and journals costs money to print. Therefore, they can only accept a finite number of reviews. 4. With Amazon, there is no money involved, simply a desire to inform and to enthuse over things. Sure, some of the reviews are trivial, but the majority are helpful and very insightful. 5. The best critics are writing for Amazon. Unlike the New York Review of Books or the NYTBR, Amazon has a pretty karma system in place to give more prominent to respected reviewers. Say whatever you will about Amazon's control of one-click patenting, (I hate it), they still have the best source of book criticism anywhere in the world.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
I'm not sure that the net has changed any of this. A ton of identification through both education and experience has actually become a marketing tool in itself. Certain educational institutions carry an enormous amount of clout with their degree -- it's effectively a marketing tool. Experts will still remain experts.
I think the revolution actually lies in the accessibility of the local expert. Not everyone needs the advice of a prestigious lawyer, or an expert stock analyst. It's the cases where someone needs the advice of someone more knowledgable, but not necessarily an expert...that the age and education barriers become less important and accessibility becomes more so.
The only beef I have with the original posting is this notion that somehow folks your age are pulling the levers and us older folks aren't catching onto this fact. I think this is a horrible Hollywood cliche that does a disservice to us all. We all experience and use the Net in our own way - much like many blind people will describe the same elephant in a different way. To say that one population of users is somehow running the show is simplistic.
Youth brings an enthusiastic perspective on weaving technology into the fabric of everyday life. Older folks work much harder at that, but bring a perspective of how we might apply new tech to old problems. Even this is simplistic, of course. ;)
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
30% Downloading pr0n before Mom gets home from the market. 30% Chatting on AIM to all the 15 year old chicks. 30% Chatting on AIM pretending to be a 15 year old chick. 9% Reading /.
1% Hacking/Cracking/Manipulating stock markets, and other halfway intelligent endeavors.
Last I knew, that was the exact ratio of activities that everyone else on the net was doing, too.
Not so. We have casual Fridays here.
And I *feel* like a professional while wearing a tie. I've even mostly gotten used to it over the summer. I look like me, not like a kid stuffed into a monkey suit.
And I get mistaken for a manager in the grocery store if I stop for munchies on the way home. Sigh.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I was on the net in 1991, at the ripe old age of 12.
In fact, I don't remember when I first started using the net. It's too long ago, and I was too young at the time. Granted, for the first couple of years I was just playing a couple games on an old unix box at the university my father worked at, and only knew a few commands. By 1991, though, I was playing more advanced, multi-user games like Empire and a bunch of MUDs, and starting to get comfortable using unix.
In the future, everone will be like this. People won't get their first internet access when they get to college, as was generally the case 10 years ago. Neither will they first use the internet when their family gets AOL or whatever, as is typically the case now. In 10 to 20 years, children almost all be born into houses with computers and internet access, and will start using them when (or before) they learn to read.
It's interesting to think about how this'll change things. For one, hopefully there won't be some many folks who are completely clueless about their computers. Beyond that, I won't venture to guess at the moment.
Arrr, it be the infamous pirate, No Beard Pete!
For those in the U.K. - this series is already running on Channel 4 (I think, but you may want to check this) on Sunday nights (around 8-9pm) - 2 programmes down, but another 2 to go.
Of course, I'm sure he has some legally viable explanation for being able to say he's "recognized by the American Bar Association" but I can't help but think that his "credentials" are a stretch at best.
No doubt, he's gotten some certificate from his local Bar Association - "Junior Attorney-in-Waiting" for the month of April, given to some enterprising youngster who's displayed the proper taste for blood.
Or maybe he's "recognized" in the same sense that Greenpeace "recognizes" me when they ask me to send money - they're able to identify me and communicate with me. Hmmm, "recognized by Greenpeace as a defender of the earth" - got a nice ring to it.
Well, I'm off to update my profile now...
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Wow ... talk about a memory. I did this in my programming class in high school as well! Except, my login program actually called the real netware login screen in the background, and logged the username and password to "{alt-255}" in the root. It was a neat program, for Turbo Pascal!
DrPascal: Not the language, the mathematician.
WOW, thank god I live in Boston, much safer then what you describe.
It's pretty old too.. But still intriguing :).
Matt
Here is an extract from the book.
Check this story from Yahoo! out.
Seems Computer Associates has had some trouble with users of it's TNG Unicenter Nugents assisting youth in purchasing beer. Seems some coke machines are run from these Nugents. So teens figured out the boxes IP adress, and started playing with the box. Soon it was popping out Dr. Peppers, Cokes, Sprites, and later the building owners own supply of Miller, that he kept on top of all the other drinks. police arrested the vandels, but ended up letting them go. They didn't have anything to charge them with, as there was no evidence the box had been tampered with. Later, the building owner was ticketed with helping the teens accure the ill gott'en booty.
Funny story...
ok. thanks.
Adolescents thundered onto the Net over a decade ago...
Maybe my memory is faulty, but in 1991 there were not that many adolescents on the Net. Not that many people at all, really. Lots of university students who might perhaps qualify under loose definitions of adolescent, but 15-year-olds? Not enough to write about, or talk about, or even worth mentioning. BBSing was still big back then, so maybe if you loosely include that and FIDO hookups...
In fact, being on the Internet in 1991 would mean that today you have been on the Internet longer than 97 percent of all current Internet users. That's stilly a tiny number of people.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
I started getting on local BBS's when I was 13, eventually moving to newsgroups and the web (my first experience on the web was through Lynx!). My social skills through high schools may have suffered because of this (maybe I wouldn't have had any either way), but the online community gave me a place where I felt empowered, and because of this 'anti-social' behavior throughout my teenage years, I now have a beautiful wife and a wonderful son, I own my house and have a brand new car. I don't make a lot of money, but my wife doesn't have to work and can stay home and raise my child right, and I'm 21. I couldn't possibly ask for more at this point in my life, I'm now a functioning part of society whereas all the "Jocks, preps, and cheerleaders" from my high school days, who were graced with the social skills that are required to be popular in high school are working at part time entry level jobs and (maybe) going to college.
I could sit here and list all the positive impacts that this "social parricide" has had on my life, but I'm sure most of you understand. If anyone disagrees with me, please let me know...I'd love to debate this with someone!
_
While seeing no end to this language-related phenomenon, the commentator thought the computer-related issues would lessen in severity in the next 10 years or so, as "those 15-year olds" have children.
I can confirm this by the number of times I've been kicked/banned from Tribes servers by 15-year old admins on a power trip. Oooh.. you have admin on a game server.. big man!
Think about 20 years ago. No one, and I mean no one, would have based their business on the college project of some computer programmer in Finland. But today, Linux is a hopeful toppler of a monopoly!
The point, I think, is that the Internet by promoting anonimity, and encouraging communication, allows anyone who has a good idea, or a persuasive idea, or a popular idea to rise to the top, regardless of their financial backing, geographical location, age, or whatever. The quality of their ideas is what brings them success, not any of these other superficial issues.
While I think that much of the 15 year old stock trader stuff is overblown, the fact that it exists at all can't be reduced to nothing. It is a significant change in the way the world works.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Back when I was younger, I remember when computers first hit the home market.. A fair section of the games were produced by the teenage age group (back in teh very early 80's, when I was Just hitting teenage myself.. :) ).
This was supposed to shift the balance of the market to youth.. And I guess this was supposed to happen with the child prodigies that also produced a lot of classical music back in earlier centuries.
The simple matter is that this is temporary. Most of the info in the net is generated by adults, so what the teenagers find, and absorb, is frequently the ideals of the adults that placed it, with a fresh slant (as the younger mind is usually more creative than the adult).
As for this imbuing the teenager with the power to look down on the adults, and lead the way... Well, they need a roof over their heads, and a cred card to buy most services, and various other things that are still currently restricted to adults..
Every generation has it's new toys that allow the next generation to supercede the previous. Every dog has it's day.
It's called evolution. That hasn't changed one bit, except, it may have speeded up an awful lot.
Malk
i am 15 and offended that you think all 15 year olds are so trivial as to make a webpage about... well... manufactured music. ouch. i'm hurting. it sounds to me that you are hurt by people half your age knowing more than you. i believe you should look inside yourself before judging others. you "punk" lick me.
When I was in this age group (13 to 18 - JK's 15 yr olds) it was the same thing - my parents didn't understand what I was doing (on BBS's, writing my own games, tools, utilities etc) so to them it was a 'big thing' and my generation was going to 'take over the world'.
... they already do without doing anything. In my experience most problems can be solved (in this order) by ...
In a sense they were right - I did join the IT profession, I do work on 'mission critical' software, my opinions (beliefs, dreams, etc) did come true. But it had nothing to do with me as an individual. It had a lot more to do with *their* beliefs, dreams, etc.
And now I'm in a 'power position' what is the situation? I'm worried that some 15yr old (read 13 to 18 yr old) is going to know more than I am about the latest 'hip' technology (ie Java) and I'm studying like crazy to keep up.
How are they going to be in 10, 15, 20 yrs time? The same as I am - worried to hell about the next generation taking their jobs, spending ungodly amounts of time studying (far more than I [or they] ever spent while at school doing the same thing) to try and prove they know more than your average 15 yr old.
And the sad thing is
1/ Knowing how to deal with your manager
2/ Knowing how to deal with the team you work with.
3/ Knowing how to solve the problem
Cynical? Perhaps. Truthful? Yeah.
And two out of three of those solutions only come with experience of dealing with people. One of the few benefits of age.
Being married is a freedom?
No, really, I'm not kidding. True story. He was really, really uninformed, and yet held strong opinions.
And fission power is a bad idea to start with. They're more expensive than coal because they have to be so redundant and safe (and even then, frequently aren't), and they make nuclear waste. It was a bad idea to construct even one of the monsters.
Fusion power, on the other hand, is a *good* idea. But good luck getting anyone to accept it.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
But I haven't met a 15 year old yet that even knew what a B+tree was, much less how to implement one, or how to write a program to raytrace something allegedly simple like a sphere (uh...how do you compute a tangent plane on a space curve??). Don't know many 15 year olds that could develop a multi-user multitasking operating system on an 8-bit microprocessor with 128k of RAM, like OS-9 on a 6809 CPU.... (OS-9? Doesn't that run on a Mac? NOT!). Experience is something you can only obtain with time.
I don't think these '15 year-olds' are really THAT brilliant
The obvious counter-example is the Irish cryptographer Sarah Flannery.
And RSS developers might recognise Aaron Swartz.
Yes, these were the "good old days" of paper tape and punchcards, but other than the number of teen techno-whizzes going up dramatically (and in lockstep with the general availability of inexpensive and widespread computing. . . ) the details have changed, but the picture remains the same. . .
get the fuck out of my game
The Time article, Do Kids Have Too Much Power? Is not about internet savvy kids upsetting the status quo. It's about how inept parents spoil their children rotten, and its portrayal of parents who can't say 'no' as victims of mass marketing towards their spawn will make you sick.
But it doesn't have a lot of relevance as it applies to your essay. Seriously... do you expect me to bother reading the rest of your little article when the second work cited has nothing to do with your topic?
When i was 15 most of my friends where nothing but warez pups. There was always that one kid who didnt talk much, everyone thought he was going to be the next uni bomber, but really he just spent way to much time kernal hacking.
First in a series...
Jon, you realize, it's very unprofessional to issue threats without making your demands clear. We definitely want to come to a mutually beneficial compromise, so tell us: what is it you want? What can we do to prevent the rest of the series?
I was a prodigy when I was younger, now I'm only slightly above average. The problem here is that the word "business" keeps popping up and I don't think any real prodigy can succeed in business. In my case, I started in the business when I was 16 and I'm now 29, I learned a lot in that time that can't be picked up in a book or by using logic. There is no logic in business!! If you think there is, try debating with the ceo or someone in management about something, try telling them that they are wrong and you are right. You won't last long in that situation, if you are right and they are wrong, you are still wrong because they run the show. If you tell off the ceo, you will be fired or assigned to urinal cleaning duty. Next time a decision needs to be made in your company, try this, first think of the most logical decision, then think of the most illogical one. I can bet that 95% of the time, the illogical decision will be made and supported by management. I also worked at an ISP in 96-98 (I was 25-27) and worked with a high school kid that was considered in the company as a prodigy, he also set up most of the initial network and dns/smtp/pop/etc. He moved to another company and I ended up working with someone from that company a couple years later, he hated the prodigy/high school kid. Why? He didn't work well with others, he would go to the admins and say "this is what you need to do to fix the problem", but wouldn't tell the admins what the problem was. He was accustomed to running the show, but couldn't adjust when not running the show. I guess what I'm trying to say is that time is the best teacher, you will learn what teachers couldn't teach, what you couldn't pick up in books, or what your small circle of friends couldn't share. It sucks, but eventually you will be 30 and given respect that you don't deserve now, but did then. It's a trade off, but you won't be young forever.
It is true that more kids are gaining access to the world and its riches through technology. In the past 2 years we saw Shawn Fanning, 18, revolutionize the way we get our music. Winamp and Gnuttella were both written by an 19 year old and was later bought by AOL. However, as correctly noted, this is not becuase it makes people just understand and get it. Fact is, Shawn and the other guy both understood their respective technologies by doing a lot of learning. No, its not college, but it is more or less the same... learning a skill. You learn to be a lawyer one way, you learn how to code and you learn technology by screwing around with it and then developing something cool. Personally, I am 20, I started my fist company at 18 and now I have a software company I am starting to build... e-Ference, a networking software company. I am not even close to as good as these other guys, but I learned it the same way, hands on. Maybe it gives us recognition but as long as there are people... there will be studying to be lawyers, doctors, chefs, and every other profession. Maybe in some fields you can have a knack for it... like music and technology. But you still have to work hard to get good. Nate von Colditz President e-Ference, Inc.
Don't worry. I thought it was cool to mess with my users and other ISP's when I was 15, too. I'm still only 18, but now that I have a real job and a real life, I grew out of such childish behavior. I'm sure your kids will too.
Just because a few of us can read write and do a little math, doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the universe
OK, you ask this kid for advise, he gives it, you end up in court, lose your house, all belongings. Would you then still say "hey he was a good kid"? I'd say "where did I leave the rifle?". The problem here is that law is very very VERY difficult, you can't watch tv and learn it, you can't even just pick up books in a library. Just to prove I'm correct here, this kid broke the law, several laws if he claimed to be a legal expert, he then told reporters?!?! How fucking stupid is that? If I need legal advise, I'm going to someone that can at least keep himself out of trouble. A crack dealer can be a good businessman, but would you ask him how to run your business? If you would, then you are as stupid as this kid. "I watched tv, there was a show on heart surgery, so after watching I cut the heart out of my dog...not bad for a 10 year old".
The Internet is about equalizing opportunity, and if children take advantage of that, so much the better. But it also alows those outside of traditional conduits of society and education to level the playing field. A reactionary discussion of tots using the Internet to learn about finance, programming, and web design is ultimately myopic.
-------------------------
I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
I'm 15. I'm not an expert. But, I do know more than I would if the internet didn't exist. If the net didn't exist, I wouldn't be able to use GNU/Linux. The internet merely enables everyone to gain knowledge, and therefore increases the general populations knowledge as a whole. The information is free, not 40 bucks, so people who don't have the 40 bucks for a book can now get to the same information that would have cost 40 bucks 10 years ago.
The entire population should have an increase in knowledge, but that isn't happening. It seems that the older a person is, the harder it is for them to get used to the new technology. So, the younger you are, the easier it is to get used to the new technology. If you are around 15 (like I am), then you were born into an era of technology. I've been surrounded by computer my entire life. In my years of concious memory, I have slowly learned to live with and use technology. Coding comes to me as naturally as writing a report for school. Writing email is more natural to me than writing a letter. IRC is the same as the phone.
I wonder what people who were in their 30s and 40s did when the phone was invented. I bet they would have been slower to pick up how to use it than their children who were born when the phone was invented. If you live around something for your entire life, you are bound to know how to use it better than someone who hasn't been around it for their entire life. The younger you are when new technology comes about, the better chance you have of understanding it.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Yeah, I think those were called Party Lines and you can see stuff about them in old movies and TV reruns. Used to be the line went to several houses and whoever was making a call rang a switchboard operator. Kinda an honor system not to be evesdropping on a neighbor's call, but we can imagine this is where some people (Richard M. Nixon, perhaps) got their training as government spooks.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Knowledge contributes directly to power. The internet is a vast pool of knowledge waiting to be tapped into by these young teenagers - where they can learn and glean information on just about any subject. When I used to have to write a paper/book report/etc in school, I used to have to dig through our public or school libraries arcane collection of random books, often having to tailor my report on to the information I was able to find. Now young students can decide what they want to learn/write about and simply go out on the internet and find the information they need. They are able to delve into complex subjects earlier and in more detail then was ever possible before, allowing those teenagers who are gifted to exceed previous and traditional limits on their knowledge and skill through more efficient learning. While knowledge without discipline can be dangerous, equally so is ignorance. I would prefer our young people to be dangerously knowledgable. Besides - who is the bigger fool, and who needs protection - the teenager dispensing legal advice he learned watching court TV and reading about on the internet, or the person who goes to a website to ask about important legal questions?
And the same Americans who won't go in a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance device, unless it's called an MRI. (Go to a physics department and ask what the non-accelerator device with the huge magnet is called. It's NMR.)
And the same Americans who are violently against cloning humans, but are **flabbergasted** to hear that identical twins are as identical as clones. (This one from a roommate of mine. He was *not* a science major.)
They're a bunch of useless bloody morons . Especially with regards to science, technology and anything more complicated than watching television.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
OK, get set for a long post.
Power is mastery of an adult skill. This is something that happened long before there ever was an internet or one that was accessible to a twelve year old.
Back when I was a kid (I was born in 1962) as soon as we could string the sentences together, the teachers taught us how to write letters. There were friendly letters, and there were business letters. With the business letter, the teacher had tossed each of us the key to power. By writing a business letter, I could communicate just like a grownup, and command grownups attention. I routinely wrote away for free stuff.
Well I love cats and cat fancy though all my furr babies are mixed breed shelter kitties or rescues. I attend cat shows, and when I was a kid I had a subscription to Cats Magazine. I read every article I could understand.
That was how I decided to write to breeders and catteries to get free information on the different breeds. I of course knew no one would waste their time with a twelve year old girl so I crafted business letters in the proper form and said I was interested in breeding that particular breed of cat. I was particularly interested in various breeds of Oriental shorthairs.
The literature poured in and then came the phone call. My parents were away and the sitter looked very perplexed as she handed me the phone. It was a man with a high voice and he was calling in answer to my letter about Chartreux cats. I sweated bullets as I talked cat fancy over the long distance line. We said our goodbyes and then...
I was consumed with guilt. This gentleman had actually believed I was an adult! Not only that he was in California which meant a day time long distance call for nothing. No wonder I felt guilty. I promptly got out my writing tablet and pen and wrote him a letter of apology telling him I was truely a kid.
Now my cynical adult self laughs at my pangs of conscience. A few questions and the breeder of Chartreux in California could have found out I was a fake. He could have asked how many cats I had or for my CFA registration membership number etc... Of course it takes a cynical mind not to believe information that comes well presented. Presenting information well is power.
Roanna
Please visit ZOID CITY Community and Community Competition http://www.zc2zc3.st
Very insightful (though it promises to pull down the who edifice of geek status down upon itself like Sampson in the Temple)
It is by coff... er, will, alone I set my mind in motion...
I haven't done this in about 3 years. I remember l0pht or some other famous internet security group still had one about a year or two ago. Maybe they still do.
Rule number 3 states: There are no experts
My UID is prime!
For every genious 15-year old manipulating stock prices, there are 100,000 fanbois cheating in Quake or Diablo 2 or some other waste of time.
Technology doesn't lead to a egalitarianism: it leads to a meritocracy.
Which, in the end, is what most of us want anyways.
As for children having too much power: can they smoke? Drink? Vote? Serve in any job more then 4 hours a day? Aren't they legally obligated to attend school for 8 hours a day? Do they have any choice what school they attend? Do children play a role in any legislation or decision making involving educational funding, year-round school, homeschooling? Can they collect welfare? Is it illegal to spank your children? Are parents required to do _anything_ to prepare their children for lives as adults, except provide public school?
Fully understood AC, I am a 19 year old male, and I understand that office pollitics play a bigger part then what you know, I dont think I would be able to survvive if I did not play the office pollitics game. I dont run and cry to mommy or piss my pants either, FYI.
Then why is your Slashdot user number so high? Didn't the internet start around slashdot? Between reading the many moronic comments (including this one), pr0n and mp3's what else good is the internet?
There's also a 4 part Next: The Future Just Happened series running on A & E this week. It started yesterday and continues tonight. Check your local listings.
--Steve
You are right....
I pity you now....
Good luck!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Well, at least since the writer of the Proverbs was alive: Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Prov 22:15
When I first started using computers it was far before the age of 15 however it's not so much of age as it is maturity of some 15 yr olds. As well as mindset. I'm 21.. I'm young but people who normally talk to me wouldn't assume that I'm 21. Infact very few people believe me when I say I'm 21 and then they don't believe that because I'm "African-American" (or whatever you wanna call me to fit into your cateogrized mindset) I do what it is I say I do.I have large resposnsibilities and am in charge of some corps infrastructure. Which isn't that big of a deal (to me at least).
Then again around the age of 15 I got myself into trouble at a famed 2600 meeting and ended up in Military Intel a couple of months before my 17th birthday all thanks to our friends at AT&T security (and a snitch). In any event, it's more of the mindset for exmaple if you take a young 15 y/o coder to a musuem he/she is quite possibly going to be more interested in whats there (ie: questions will be asked, whats that, etc, etc). You do the same with a non "computer lit" 15 y/o and they'll be complaining in 5 minutes. As information becomes more freely available people are finding new hobbies, new likes and dislikes, more things to protest against, learning new things and generally broadeing their horizons. Because of this every new generation gets smarter and smarter and smarter. That is the way it should be and what I would like to call the "true" singularity is beginning.
It's better to look at mindset than it is to look at age. The quicker we start learning to respect 15 yr olds as people will genuinely good ideas (moral character etc put aside in this discussion) and stop catergorizing them as being damn confused teenagers, the quicker big business will learn how to adapt.
For big business it really is a simple task, just ask them for some of their ideas, let them see some of their ideas working. It really is a fair trade off.
As for 15 yr olds being experts in anything the only way you can become an expert is to have experience. Being 15, you have little experience as life itself is an experience. So I don't care what loop hole they used, what legal advice they give as it is all based upon others peoples work and past experiences.
Life is too dynamic for any of that to hold water. To be an expert you have to be able to handle all situations regardless of their dynamics and at the age of 15 yrs old you haven't even really begun to see what you can and can't do. That prima donna shit is for the birds. But a 15 yr old who knows they don't know it all and are constantly learning.. Those are the ones you have to look out for because those will become experts.
I'm 17 and I run my own corporation.
So? When I was 17 I had a sole proprietorship and created some of the first gaming systems and had customers worldwide.
Same old, same old. The names have changed, the graphics are better, but the content still ain't that great.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
And realized that `4ll j00r b4s3' only gets funnier each time you say it.
Can you dig it?
Defecation occurs.
To some degree, I suppose. You are, after all, reading slashdot. Not quite sure which side of the line that puts you on, though. :)
Just accept that JonKatz is, as usual, pretty full of it. Take any aspect of computing and blow it way out of proportion, and you've achieved zen, Katz-style.
I'm just really astonished that he didn't use the word "Columbine" in here, especially since he's talking about young kids ruling the world.
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
That's typical of all democrats - robots who think they are free thinkers.
Perhaps there is some way to encourage people of this age to engage in more productive activities Yes, get them to stop watching the television...
In a word, no.
When did kids *not* regard their elders as "clueless, hostile, and incompetent" - and when did their elders not feel likewise about them? Never. It's basically a flavor of egocentrism: everyone thinks that they're devoting their energies to the most important things that are happening in the world. If they care about the relative "merit" of Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera, how could you *not* care? You must be an out-of-it doofus if you don't. If IMing and its shorthand are second nature to them, how could it be so difficult for you to get the knack? You must be a total boob. Striking closer to home, how could anyone in their right mind not know that Linux is better than Windows, or not care about the erosion of our liberties represented by the DMCA, or not be up-to-the-minute current on the latest crypto/infosec technology? Such people must be "clueless" indeed, right?
There is, however, one thing that's different about the current situation: on the net, nobody knows you're a dog. Anyone can pass themselves off as an expert, if they know just a tiny bit more than the people around them. There are millions of pseudo-experts out there on the net, and even more millions of totally ignorant people feeding the pseudo-experts' egos. As long as the pseudo-experts stay just one tiny step ahead of the people seeking their advice, the shallowness of their knowledge might not become apparent. That's particularly easy to do in the computer field, still more so in open source, when a reasonably intelligent person can dig in and find the answer to a specific question, and then lay claim to total mastery of that whole area of knowledge - with almost no danger of their ruse being discovered. Consultants have been doing this to corporations for decades. Now anyone can do it. The real barrier that has been broken is not the barrier to expertise itself, but to all-but-unassailable claims of expertise.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
The irony extends farther than just those of us who go back as far as you mention. Katz was right, who better to discuss the self-appointed 15 year-old experts of the world, than the world headquarters for self-appointed experts?
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
The net does one thing and one thing only. It accelerates the motivating factors that we're all ruled by. Wheather it's porn, or money, or love of technology, the net accelerates these desires. So it no longer takes a child 25 years to get their knowledge up to par... so what. The real question is "WHY are we so scared of ourselves?" This whole argument is rediculous. BTW We may be in the last society to ever loose knowledge. Have you ever thought about that?! The Net is neither good nor bad. It's just an acclerated reflection of society. 90% of all books suck badly
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
There's more to reality than what can be seen. Where I live, "all" of the teenagers are vandalists, drug addicts, alcoholics, have teen pregnancies, etc But thats just what you see and hear about. I myself am 17, but I don't do any of that stuff, I sit in my room all day playing with my computers. Its sorta like the news, you only hear about the bad things, never the good.
Actually, adults (usually) have the maturity and the patience to manage large projects, plan long term, and are better able to organize. Typical problems when dealing with teen hackers (from one who started out as such) is they lack perspective of the "big picture"
Interesting film which touched on this briefly, was The Warriors
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
to nitpick, it's transmogrified, not transmongrified good catz article though... As long as old folks can still have someone jailed, then the other stuff isn't as important. We have to find a way to come together, not how to fight each other.
"Kids", As we call them today, should not be underestimated. To think that a "kid" could not change the world is just crazy. Julius Ceasar conquered many lands by sixteen. As did Ramese The Grate. History is loaded with examples of what happens when the ageing/ruling class looses there edge. The "Kids" can and will change the world. "Kids" now days have time, energy, and knowledge on there side. They can and will change the way the world works. It only takes time, Something they have plenty of!
Marketing is BS. Showing you have knowledge is one thing, but for some fields, such as law and medicine, the learning experience and the mental expansion in university is greater than the sum of the knowledge base, so if you're serious about becoming a lawyer, its worth it to go to the local university part time for a few years rather than read ten books and take the bar exam.
Survey says!:
/.
30% Downloading pr0n before Mom gets home from the market.
30% Chatting on AIM to all the 15 year old chicks.
30% Chatting on AIM pretending to be a 15 year old chick.
9% Reading
1% Hacking/Cracking/Manipulating stock markets, and other halfway intelligent endeavors.
no, you're not a nerd until you hit 23 hours.
We should all encourage, and monitor, our children's internet useage. For that matter, kids should be encouraged to learn regardless, but the Internet is what makes learning beyond traditional means possible. I know my library has very few books on Linux, or Eagle Talon's, or case modding, or religious persecution, but thanks to the Internet, that info is easy to find. Make sure they're not getting into things they shouldn't, but encourage learning, and a self-motivated desire to learn. It will aid them greatly in their lives to 'love to learn.' It's helped me, and I didn't even have the Internet until I went to college. Just think what I could have learned in grade school if I had.
and that is forcing the experts to rethink their strategies. Before, the "experts" would charge arm and leg for simplistic information. Now days people dont *need* to take their computer to compusa to install a cd burner. most people know someone who knows someone who can get them a cd-r installed - free or cheap. young, psudeo-skilled people are only chipping away at the beginners market. its making the easy stuff cheap.
...that JonKatz himself proves that anybody with a few months' experience in reading technology books and surfing the Internet can become a paid, featured columnist on Slashdot every week.
Go to any chat room and you will immediately and desperately hope that there's more to the net than 15 year old geeks. Collecting warez, MP3s, and whining that everything should be free--because you have no income--is not any kind of revolution.
My father works teaching Cisco networking to kids in Juvinile hall. As one of the vaunted exceptions, he had one student graduate (from high school, mind you) and go on to land a job making 80k a year doing networking (with no college). As the rule, though, its the first time in the history of juvinile hall that they've had students ask to come back after being discharged - just to complete his courses. I believe that, with exposure, kids grow up faster. They participate in forums like this, read news, even if it may be limited to topics of interest to them. It reminds me of a book I read so long ago, by the name of Enders Game (Orson Scott Card). Two of the main characters (children) decided they'd use their equivalent of the net to create political persona to try and steer impending events that they foresaw.
Our friend, Who art in Rio Harry is thy name
Pretty funny story. Not surprisingly it was published on April 1.
If I remember my 15th year properly, it was more like
;)
89% downloading pr0n
10% searching for more pr0n
1% chat rooms (BBSs)
Course, this was with a 386 and a 2400 baud modem, so the downloading took more time because it took *forever*. Now I remember the *real* reason I got my 14.4....
Yeah, I remember I was very obsessed with BBSes too. That was craploads of fun. It doesn't seem like such an attractive hobby anymore.
Huh, well, like the subject says.
Really, though, my observation is that there are some damn clever 15-year-olds out there on the Net. There are, however, some damn stupid ones as well. The Net's not a different place, fundamentally speaking, from the real world: you can't really categorize people. The "supersmart 15-year-old bringing corporate behemoths to their knees" myth is, well, a myth. Or at best, a statistical anomaly.
Hmmm... Bar what I just wrote. There is a big difference between the Net and the real world: anonymity. So you tend to categorize people anyway... If I come across an inarticulate, insulting, brainless troll who hasn't heard of the concept of grammar, I'll mentally put him or her into the "15-yo" category. It may happen that he or she is actually 40... or 12. I don't know. And sometimes I'll be surprised at learning that a particularly smart, cultured person is actually only 14 or 15.
The big truth is: the Net isn't a place for empowerment of the 15-year-olds. Nor is it a place for their systematic denigration; it is, really, a place where anyone can develop their potential regardless or their age.
... and sometimes 15-year-olds have a big potential, and sometimes not.
Do they really dig people up over there, or do they make them the old fashioned way?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
C'mon... this smug, technocratic view of the impact of the Net on the World is beyond reality and should be left in the domain of a Wired magazine article (you know, the People magazine of the technology world).
Granted, the Net has had a disintermediary effect and 15 year-olds (or anyone) can participate equally, but I think The Book overestimates the impact. Provocative premises sell books and maybe encourage dialogue, but that's about it.
Think about why info you find on the Web is less trustworthy than info you might find in the Old Media world. In Old Media, you have publishers and editors with established credentials, shareholders, legal frameworks, and bricks-and-mortar presence somewhere. In all, you have an Entity that gets some amount of your trust (think CNN as a Brand). A medical book produced by Old Media is inherently more trustworthy than an posting on a newgroup (at least it outta be).
The Net experts you find these days (i.e. the 15 year-olds with expertise in CourtTV procedings) are really just the Pamphleteers of old - standing on their street corners with homemade tracts and hoping someone might pay attention. The Net has simply provided lots more street corners.
So please.... enough of how the Net will/is/has changed the world by making all information accessible and free. I still need the mechanisms of Name, Editor, Brand, and Recognized Authority for a lot of the info I need - and I suspect you do too. I'd still like to hear what the 15 year-olds have to say, but it's just more info to score and syntesize into my own Big Picture.
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
I think the author is looking at the concept of teenagers with power from a questionable viewpoint. The question isn't what power the kids have now but what they're likely to do in 10 years time when they have the opportunity and chance for the first time to work on policy.
I was 16 in 1995 when the Internet craze really started and had just got my first PC (386DX40, 4MB RAM & A 200MB HDD) and more importantly first modem (33.6k). I think the Internet was one of the defining things in my life, I know it effected the decisions of a lot of my age group and gave some of us a far better view of the world than we would otherwise have had, but more importantly a lot of us are still around in the IT community. The culture and ideas from then helped us to define how we saw things and what was important.
Thats my point, everyone back then talked about how a 16 year old with a little html could make millions and some did, but a far larger number stayed in the system and only now are starting to make their presence felt.
I'm not dissing teenagers but I think its far more important that we look at how society effects them than in how they effect society. So how are this generation going to turn out? any parents in the audience?
-----
"I'm sure you can tell me all about Michelangelo and question his relationship with David, but can you tell me what it feels like to stand in the Sistine Chapel and look at his work yourself?" Good Will Hunting
As a teen, I believe 'The future has not happen' but is in the making. If a kid can become an expert quickly, cheaply, and easily over the net, then what happens when they become adults? They can quickly reach the top, because their education was fulfilled during their childhood (when most of the time it isn't).
There are more kids doing that than you think. It's becoming a trend use the net, to study ahead in a class (such as a new book in english...etc), because chances are many of the teacher resources are available to students. It's nice to see that A+ when you said exactly what the teacher wanted to hear, without much effort.
I want to see what happens when these kids grow up (hitting college), that's when the future really starts happening.
> U.S. and England, including the celebrated
> Jonathan Lebed of Cedar Grove, N.J., who rocked
> Wall Street and the SEC by turning himself into
> a master online stock manipulator in a few short
> months, though that's supposed to take years of
> high-intensity experience and training.
First, this kid "pumped and dumped" stocks. If you don't know what that means, you're more likely to think he was a genius. Second, Wall Street and London stock exchange companies have been recruiting "informally educated" kids (almost always men) to do trading-floor work for years. In London they're called "Barrow Boys" --- guys puffed up on testosterone and able to do math in their heads, because they have a background in bargaining in other kinds of street market. Third, Katz's sentence would be a lot truer if "a master stock manipulator in a few short months" read "a master stock manipulator FOR a few short months". It's always possible to beat the experts in the short-run (remember those little old ladies from Iowa or wherever?).
Note that "the myth of the genius" != "there's no such thing as genius". The former is a sociological phenomenon, a cultural archetype that people like Katz (and many geeks) like to latch on to. Of course there are plenty of smart 15-yr-olds. But they're not running the world.
you also cannot seem to express yourself to any extent. do you even touchtype.
No. But I have something of it.
I'm 18 now, and headed off to college in a few weeks, but I started my own web development business at age 15. I wasn't instantly accepted, but a smart businessman knows when he's hiring someone competent and worth his money. Once I had a few local contacts, business rolled along nicely. The only thing I felt my age influenced was pricing - I couldn't charge as much as an ad agency and be taken seriously. Coincedentally, this actually improved business, as I was the best deal around.
I've had high school internships in two IT departments, which lent me at least some experience in the "real" world of software development. Maybe I'm the exception to the rule, but I feel that if a teenager is motivated, he (or she) can break down age barriers. The 'Net makes it quite simple to sound professional, but real-life acceptance is almost as easy, you just have to know what you're talking about - and produce results.
I'm forced to agree that most 15 year olds are AIMing away, or downloading MP3's. Few are using their abilities for personal gain, as I have. But that doesn't mean its not possible, or not happening. Its just rare. I did have a singular experience at a interview weekend for Olin College during my college application process. Out of the 50-odd kids there, at least 5-6 had business of their own in software development. Not an overwhelming percentage, but there you go. We're not conquering the world or taking establishments over, we're just getting a head start in the real world.
Later,
Goss
The arrogance of saying "I just know it" for a kid who presumes to know everything you need to know about a professional field people spend years in graduate school for rather efficiently reveals that this kid's attitude probably won't take him far in serious academic study.
If I had to hire a programmer, and I ask a potential employee "where did you learn to program" and he said "well, I just know it" then I'd tell him to get the hell out. I'm not saying you have to go to university to become skilled in a field, but for knowledge based professions, you must at least have a base of book knowledge, and the kid in question apparently never thought to go to the library and read an intro to Jurisprudence.
If the kid spent his weekends looking up answers to questions in the local univeristy legal library, then I'd think he was a industrious worker with a promising future. But this kid is quite full of BS, and his answer on askme.com are engineered into piles of BS, so its mildly rediculous that he's getting all this positive attention.
If you start your own company, make a million dollars in the first 2 years and your 30 it makes a small story in a local paper. Maybe a bit more if it is publicly-popular.
It's only really news if your 15.
To use Napster as an example, myself, and others, would have produced something similar a long time ago, but the thought of going to jail was not pleasant.
Ending up in court getting sued over copyright infringment wasn't exactly my idea of having a good business model.
Maybe my problem is I thought the situation through too far. I should have just produced an application and worried about the consequences later. Oh wait, I'm not 15...
(Anybody who has actually read the protocol specs on Napster would be aware that Napster is a piece of shit from a technical standpoint, it truly is amazing it works at all...)
She's undeniably smart and talented, but not the prodigy she was made out to be.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
A teenager may know many things and perform better that many adults. But this doesn't amount to wisdom, which only comes with age.
Unfortunately America is dangerously tending to flash and glitz and knowledge. Investment in dotcom stock was not wise. TV mainly makes older people look stupid and younger people "hip" to today. You learning nothing at all from the reality-based programs, but a few hours spent talking to people in a nursing home could benefit anyone.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
That's all well and good.
I swung by "Hacking Truths," his website, and briefly read his Perl journal, "Everything you need to know about Perl."
As one of his "Hacking Truths," he makes the point that the difference between subroutines and functions (in Perl) is that functions come with the Perl interpreter. This is false, in Perl nobody gives a damn, up to and including Larry, and the built-in functions are called built-in functions.
I suppose if you wanted to get technical (from a broad, programming prospective) functions do things to data and return values, while subroutines perform a list of commands with a specific purpose.
I feel better... no 15 year old is going to put me out of work! He even uses DOS Perl, not even real Unix Perl! Yeah, and he misuses shift() to parse ARGV! That's a terrible way to teach it!
(Oh no... I'm turning into one of those vindictive, cranky old men... And I'm only 20! Help me!)
i'm 15 and i toy around my computer like 18 hours a day, that doesn't make me a nerd right?
----
"I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to people and assume they deserve it" - Dogbert
The only real revolution here is that experts will no longer be identified by education or experience, but instead their ability to market themselves; to find a way for people to look at what they have to say.
The Internet is generally stupid
err...I mean 'Portrait of a 14 year old' (hey, thats close enough, give me a break!). The younger generation will always have an edge. It is that edge that has corporations shaking in their panties (damn I'm mature!). It all relates back to the article in the New York Times that this article mentions. The reason children and teens pick up on technology is the same reason they can pick up on languages easier at an early age (Spanish, German, Java). But only in this genration, have teens been able to express and develop these talents openly. Social structures are changing, but they still will be very similar. Adults fear change, for comfort they look to the past. Teens really have no past, so they look to the future. But this by no means that we are going to have a post-apocolyptic world similar to the "Molersturd" Me episode of South Park. I find it funny that corporations fear children and the competion they might bring. That is ridiculous. This post has really run itself into the ground like all of my others, never turns out as planned. Here is a breakdown of my internet activities... 10% Internet Security research 25% Pr0n! The internet has made the days of scavenging through forrests or bribing seniors for pr0n obsolete. Teen+CableModem=Happy 5% Loading up MultiProxy, ZoneAlarm, and looking up anon. proxies 40% Using my pirate copies of 3dS Max, May (just solved the dongle problem), Photoshop, and Lightwave to create some cool 3D she-at! 30% Making house music mix cd's for buddies and selling them at outrageus costs (with help of Reason, Digidesign Protools, Cubase, Acid, Soundfourge, Soundforum, and Antares programs) 15% More pr0n 35% Writing cruppy Slashdot replies, always trying to be first 10% Wondering why this rundown equals 160%
No you haven't. I used 110 baud modems and ARPA, so you're a young'un.
Man, you are so ageist. Get a clue stick and wake up to the 21st Century.
You forgot the % of time spent DoS`ing IRC networks.
-quackPOT
I would estimate that greater than 95% of young teens/15-year-olds are spending their time on AOL chatting, emailing, and doing a limited amount of web surfing. Actually, my view may be skewed by the fact that the only people are know that age are girls... probably for guys there is a higher percentage that include games in their computer usage. While this is all fine and helps people socialize (my opinion), you don't learn much that will help you replace adult jobs.
And besides, if the job actually involves significant work then 99% of teenagers will not want to do it - who wants to be researching law cases when they could be out at the beach with their friends?
When I was 15-16 years old, my primary computer interests were developement and general computer knowledge. I was so carried away with my PC that I was developing in C and assembly. That year I bought a 28.8kbps modem and everything went down the drain. I stopped learning programming languages, and my interest focus has shifted to Usenet, file downloads, IRC and a famous MUD known as TCZ.
Ive been working with computers since I was 10 and there are some programs and computer languages that i have worked with over the years and now i just know how to use them. When a person asks me how i know how to use a piece of software or something i tell them that i just know it. i didnt learn it from a book or anything like that. I learned from just using the program. YOU DONT HAVE TO READ BOOKS TO LEARN ABOUT THINGS
At least they start to make one think that's what their intentions are.
No sig for you!!
Jon, you hit dead on this time. Actually, again. I'd be quick to point out that Amazon's "reviews" are the best reason society has for professional critics.
But the stock market... well, people are just as well off getting advice from 15 year olds as they are MBAs because the entire system is a big ponzi scheme/slot machine already. It takes little effort to reccomend a stock you think will do well, and whether or not it is doing well is fairly subjective. Remember that during the dotcom crash only 2% of real advisors said "Sell!" 2%!
And as far as "legal advice" goes, you can't use legal advice you get on the web anyways. It would be like taking a Dear Abby to court as your evidence.
So, thanks Jon, for giving us a good review of a poorly thought out book.
skye
You should have just stressed the (il)legal aspect of what they were doing. Arguments based upon a moral/honor code are only valid to people who share the same perception of morality, yet the law is (in most cases) farily clear.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
Actually, the issue dealing with the economic power that teenagers today wield is closely related to World War II and the Sexual Revolution as well as the increased economic and social pressures pushed by the cultural producers of Madison Avenue.
First, World War II caused parents to attempt to gloss over their roles as discipliners of their children as they raced both to forget the horrors of the past two wars and to attempt to fill in the five to eight years that they missed due to the wars.
With their children lacking moral and social guidance from their parernts, they formed the Sexual Revolution when these children became high school- and college-age. Those who participated in this Revolution were an easy target for the consumerist culture pushed by Madison Avenue as most of them had no mores or manners by which to live.
Now the current working adult population, the Sexual Revolutionaries now sacrafice family and social life in an attempt to afford the material items that they desire. This lack of social and family support leads to a lowered morale which in turn leads to an increased desire for material possessions which in turn requires more money which in turn requires more work. This causes the parents to be unable to spend adequate time with their children so they give them "guilt money" instead.
This giving money leads to increased materialism and consumerist culture in today's children, which accounts for the current state of affairs in the nation's entertainment media as it panders to teens who have the most free money. These trends also explain the decrease in collective morals, the increased feeling of worthlessness and pointlessness in life, and the increase in the studies of spirtuality and Asian religion as people attempt to turn away from this consumerist culture to find value in their lives.
My sources for this are my studies of US history in school and a certain documentary on CNN concerning spending. I am sorry that I cannot remember the name of that docuemtary.
Did you even bother to read the Time article, or are you just browsing the headlines while in the checkout line at the grocery store?
The article(s) in Time talk about children being spoiled and parents giving them too much. At no point in the article is technology, the Internet, etc. mentioned, brought forward, or implied to be the reason for any of this. Instead the article points out that Baby-Boomer parents are to blame for giving their children altogether far too much.
Please, read the articles in magazines before you include them in your own tirades
WTF?!?
There is no law or power other than the appearances that the power elite wish you to believe in. Everybody thinks that some kids got this thing going, these script kiddies got the world by the shorts but one day Bill Gates is going to issue a java patch that he's got locked in his wall safe titled "L' Deluge" & blow them all away. No more browser freezes, sniffing, etc. Don't cry for me Argentina, lEEt today jackass tomorrow. Sitting there with about 100 gigs of outdated trash. Don't go reaching for that C++ your days are #.
On what appears to be the hottest day of the year with a health advisory in progress for the next two days this day 2001:8:7 the superintendant is preparing to flood the patio above my apartment ostensiblely to determine the nature of a leak that has actively been damaging the plaster & electrical wiring for what I reckon to be some 20 years. I have requested that he desist as my elderly friends whom I am visiting, [ 59] are in only fair health. Said leak being over the the air conditioning wiring, it represents an additional hazard to flood the possible area which could conceivably knock out power in this line.
The Superinendant doesn't have any documentation to the effect that the City Buildings Department has approved this dangerous course of action nor has he any respect for possible cosequences tomy parents or any of a number of old persons sharing in a possible outage caused by a common short caused by the water in the wall. In all my life I've never heard of someone deliberately flooding a bearing wall loaded with wiring for any reason.
Not even self interest applies here, the guy is gonna damage a multi million dollar building for no other reason than to attempt to control one of the tenants; not a self interested trade. Money & property have no meaning to the free masons when it comes to an act of their own willfullness.
what about the other 10%?
--
Just a regular 15 yearold
It seems like 15 year-olds might have a lot to offer the net, but is this grand alienation good for the 15 year-olds? Highschool hell dosn't last forever, and its important to be able to integrate into society with other people that, actually, you're not better than. Perhaps college is the healing buffer for this, I guess it was for me, but I probably didn't have as rough of a time as most 15 year-old, reclusive, underachivers.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
A year ago, Katz was prattling on about how 15 year olds were going to take over the world and change everything, upend the media, and so on. Now he's refuting this guy who is saying the same thing:
In my opinion, Lewis stumbles badly here.
Has Jon joined the ranks of the jocks? Is he no longer the pied piper of the oppressed, under-appreciated teenage geniuses who master assembly language during a 15-minute recess while the older dinosaurs struggle for months with "Visual Basic for Dummies" ?
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
Second, yes, kids do have too much power today. Think of how full of piss and vinegar you were when you were 17, and then think about all the experience in life you've gained since then.
Remember that old saying, "Knowledge is power"? Well, that's true, but that's only half the story. The corollary to that saying is "But it is only powerful if you have the wisdom to use it."
As an example for us nerds reading this, consider something as simple as the C language. You can sit down in an afternoon and read Kernighan and Ritchie's C Programming. Officially, you now "know" C. But can you do anything useful with it? NO. You don't really "know" C until you have implemented a complex system with it.
The 'Net empowers all people. But some kids lack that maturity and experience in life to be able to use this empowerment wisely. As an obvious example, consider all of the script kiddies running around, downloading tools off of the net, clogging up the web and defacing websites. These kids actually think being "leet" is worthwhile.
The problem with Lebed (at least what I got from the first part of the show) is he committed a CRIME.
He did nothing productive. He bought stock, hyped it to raise the price, and dumped it. Adults go to jail for that. He (and his parents) tried to make it sound like he found undervalued companies and just shared his views.
Problem 1:
If he was so sure they were good why sell after a quick run up? Surely it would climb much more if he had really found a diamond in the rough.
Problem 2:
After he quit hyping the stocks they tanked. His hot air was all that was keeping the balloon up. That is fraud, not investing.
I am surprised all they did was make him give some of the money back. An adult would be in prison
There were "chat rooms", online marriage proposals (and I don't think its too much of a stretch to assume trolling & flames) in the 19th century on telegraph lines in the wee hours of the night when there were no real messages to send.
Ceci n'est pas un sig
First, I'd like to say right now that I am not 15. I am at the mature age of 16. While I personally do work with UNIX and do programming for my job, I do NOT see this as a counterculture, as some people do. This entire internet/open source "movement" in my opinion has created more problems then it has solved. I personally think we may have been better off in the late 40's than we are now. There are "zealots" who are obsessed with programs at this stage of the "information revolution". I am not sure, but I think that isn't a saying much about my generation. If I could, I would wake up all the people who are so hung up on using Linux or whatever just to call themselves a 'geek' or 'nerd'. Last time I checked, those were not compliments. Computers in general, are a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. This was not intended as 'flamebait'. Although almost any conservative view posted on this website seems to be treated this way.
Gotta agree with this to a certain extent. I was one too. You are lucky that you 'stepped out of your bedroom and discovered the real world.' I find that many 15, 16, hell even 21 year olds tend to know a lot about what they know and very little about everything else. They are the school wiz at windows or linux or mac or whatever: "Everything else sux." I went back to a company as a consultant 6 months after I quit and found that the bosses son was becoming one of those. I would have fired his ass for looking at pr0n all day, but the new manager was a wuss. The sad part is that I actually wrote a college recommendation letter for the kid.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
This sounds straight out of some Internet travel brochure, good stuff! By the way, you could do all that 20 years ago. The internet did exist then, imagine that!
5-6 weeks? that's a long time, hopefully you meant at the minimum 5-6 days, and if you were really good 5-6 hours is a generous amount of time.
I think the big selling point of a BBS system nowadays is that it would be local. Each BBS fostered a little community. You're not going to find that on a telnet BBS. I know, I logged onto one a couple months ago and LORD just wasn't the same. And we don't need BBS's anymore, we can just join #my_city on IRC.
I started up an ISP when I was 15 and helped build a successful web hosting company from the ground up. However, when most of the kids my age were out partying and getting trashed on a Saturday night, I was getting drunk with the occasional worry about my server's uptime and if someone was trying to 0wn my boxes. Despite the stress I had, working at a young age taught me to be responsible and it gave me valuable skills that have given me an edge in college. I know how to work under deadline; I work well in teams and with others, and most of all I've gained a tremendous amount of knowledge on how to sell myself. The greatest thing I have learned from my working experiences in the past was how little I actually knew when I thought I knew so much. Now that I'm a little older and wiser (now 22), I can pass down some of my knowledge to younger geeks and feel proud, because it was an older geek who took me under his wing, and really changed my life for the better. :)
Mr. Katz actually makes a good point in this posting. "15-year-olds" (actually referring to high-school age kids in general) are very capable of doing amazing things. They also have the one component that most (working) adults do not -- Time. Lots of time. I can remember having so much time when I was that age that I recall even feeling -bored- at times.
:)
I think the problem is that most kids that age aren't able to focus that incredible energy in a positive constructive manner. Some can (hence the exceptions mentioned), but most others tend to burn up the time doing largely unproductive things. Yes, video games can increase brain activity, reflexes, etc. but there's definately a limit to the returns. I certainly played way too many games, and could have done so much more if I'd spent the time doing something productive
Nonetheless, I think it has to be realized that this segment of the population is indeed highly capable. Perhaps there is some way to encourage people of this age to engage in more productive activities..
I'm 15 myself and I have been using computers for a long time. All I ever did was play around, and as a result I'm realy into higher math and physics, what has it got me? I certainly don't run anything, all I get are teachers who are annoyed that tis kid asks too many questions and parents who think I'm too cocky. I agree that the generation growing up with this technology has excellent chances of excelling in the future, but it really doesn't get us much for now. Peers who don't understand and teachers who don't like it.
-AJ
"SPOOOOON!!!" - The Tick
-AJ
"SPOOOOON!!!!" - The Tick
I'll admit I haven't written the book but the review makes a lot of sense to me. It's great that kids have access to so much information, and that it creates so many new opportunities...technology certainly enriched my childhood. The danger is in losing perspective: Some tech startups seem to be composed of almost-kids who know a lot about something, but think they know a lot about everything. As a result they reject the experience and knowledge of those around them, as well as the business lessons of the past, ultimately to their detriment. The additional power technology gives kids seems like a great thing to me, but ultimately not a threat to adults at large, as long as the adults can keep a reasonable perspective.
Please post your code here or at least a binary we can test? I can say I'm 12, I'm a coder, I can write "hello world" to the screen in 5 different languages. The truth is I'm 30, a sysadmin and code in perl for kicks. Can I say I'm a programmer? No, why, because that is a very subjective term and most coding/programming isn't very difficult. Maybe when the average 15 year old get's their license at 17 and then crashes their car, then they will really learn something.
What will happen when those 15-year-olds are in their twenties? That's the real question.
It's hard to tell, but they'll probably discover that money, power, information, etc. aren't the keys for a great life. So, their search for the truth begins.
Is Katz a sensationalist or just another troll? He kinda blurs the boundries. And what's this preoccupation with children? Kinda creepy, in that Willy Wonka way.
... this is where the news is, not in Jon's distorted view of how you can sit safe at home and pretend to be a change agent.
I think the thing is he's one of those guys who wishes he'd done something when he was a teen, but didn't. So now he writes pieces talking about how teens now have all the advantages he never did, and do stuff, when he knows it's just a straw horse.
It's like his eternal theme of the uber-geek. I mean, if there really were uber-geeks, they wouldn't hang with him anyway, cause he's so last century, but if he writes about how cool "they" are, some get sucked into the fantasy depiction of how much change they cause.
Meantime, the real change agents are going to Montreal or G8 and shredding the WTO and World Bank. These are the real revolutionaries, but they're too scary for Jon to write about.
Hint - the next G8 is in a forest with a single track road to get there - man, talk about massive infiltration deadzone - what were they thinking
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Are brilliant 15-year-old computer geeks running the world, upending existing institutions?
No. If you'd pay attention to what's been going on, like G8 (Genoa) and the like, you'd realize it's the 20-somethings, as always, who dictate change. Aided and abetted by the Edge-Gen and X-Gen elders who assist with logistics, money, corporate actions, and the like. The teens are just mucking around like they always do, generation after generation. For example, Jon would have you believe more kid-on-kid violence is happening when all measures indicate the percentage of this is dropping year after year, and the per capita rate as well. It's just that we televise these things now, so you see the whole world, not the tiny sliver that people are accustomed to seeing. The bandwidth increased, the network extends further, but the content ain't radically different.
Does it matter that childhood sometimes ends when computers arrive?
Yes. So stop using them. Oh, wait, you just want to stir up things, not really solve anything. I was just at a 10 year old's birthday party, and kids are still kids. And Kelsey, who's 16, pretty much describes most of the same things - the only thing is he doesn't play games with the computer - he uses the computer to play games with other kids and adults.
Better to ask a more useful question, like why the Media needs to hype things more and more, when there's less and less there? More hype, less content.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Anybody ever see that movie "Wild in the Streets"?
Why is it that 15 year olds are treated as if they are young, naive, and adolecent. Before the 20th century a 15 year old could very well be in college, on his own, finishing up her study on how to become a blacksmith. . . the responsibilities of being an adult nowadays are even less than what they were back then. . .how many times do you have to worry about famine or if you 'break your leg you will die' type situations? Not often. This idea that is floating around that kids are being forced to grow up faster and faster is nonsense, if anything over the past 100 years a 15 year old has been sheltered. A female at fifteen may have very well been married and had a few kids in the 1750's, and a male may have been opening his own shop at the time. I don't see how the world has changed THAT MUCH that people grow up so much slower. . . .blah blah, I am ranting on and on about something I don't know nearly enough about, but anyway, I think it is a good observation and just because we have a larger quantity of knowledge then we did a hundred years ago, it doesn't mean that the quality of knowledge should be effecting a 15 year old in a more difficult or challenging way then a hundred or a thousand years ago. . . anyway, i'll shut up now :-)
That's a completely different issue - and a sad one. Young talented folks getting undervalued and underpaid.
There's a generational conflict that needs exploring a lot more.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I can't believe Katz is actually comparing
a) Napster
b) Linux
as two facets of the Revolution to Gloriously Bring Down Big Corporations.
*Using* Napster and *writing* Linux are quite different. Yes, Jon Johansen is a young'un. But he's hardly typical. Most people that age care about
a) Britney Spears
b) Anna Kournikova
c) Dave Matthews
d) Counter Strike
There's no revolution, at least not the way Katz posits it. If anything, geniuses can be heard *before* they go to college.
But the common kid doesn't, never has, never should, never will change the world. And certainly not by using Napster!
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I've been on the net since before some of you were born.
--Blair
consider the 1960 generation, which was about peace, love, freedom of expression and action.
what a load. take it from one who was there - the 60's were about getting stoned and fucking and keeping your ass out of the war and doing whatever the hell you felt like. In 40 years the media still hasn't figured that out.
These are now the people who run corporations which make war, promote conformation, and generally go against everything their generation stood for 30 years ago...
still doing whatever the hell we feel like!
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Requires:
Several friends. An entire day to waste drunk. Numerous servings of the alcoholic beverage of your choice, preferably a cheap beer with low alcohol content, because you'll be drinking alot. And you need several hours of new posting for your liver to keep up.
Often, we see the same things day in and day out on slashdot. Why not use it as an excuse to get drunk?
Rules:
1.Start around 9am, EST, when it's reasonable to assume hordes of slashdotters will have gotten to work and begun wasting the day trying to get first post on their company's fat pipe. (If you can actually drink at work, post where you work. I'll send my resume)
1a. If you can't get all your friends together for an all day binge, start at night with the oldest article.
2. Play ends when everyone has passed out, puked, or surrendered. Last one drinking wins. Play shall be suspended if anyone is rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.
3.For every article with grevious spelling or grammatical errors on the front page, drink a shot.
4.For every front page broken link, drink a shot.
5.For every JonKatzBot article, drink two shots.
5a. Read the article.
5b. Drink a shot for every appearance of the phrase "coporate republic"
6.Drink a shot if the first post on a new article is remotely on topic.
6a. Drink another shot if it gets modded up to +5 funny
6b. Drink Two shots if it gets modded to +5 interesting or insightful. 6c. If someone has moderator points, and blows them all on modding the first poster up, then that player need not drink, no matter how unfair the moderating.
7. Drink a shot for every link to goatse.cx
7a. Drink a shot for every ASCII version of the goatse.cx pic presented in the comments.
8. Drink half a shot for every comment that mentions either:
a. Natalie Portman
b. Beowulf Clusters
9. Drink a shot for every offtopic comment involving the sexual escapades of any slashdot staff.
10.Drink a shot if the slashdot fortune was generated with a script.
11. Drink a shot for every poster who has a porn site link in their sig.
12. Drink a shot for every sig that mentions anonymous cowards.
13. Drink a shot if someone has their UID in their sig, or mentions it.
14. Drink a shot for any comment that has been moderated to hell (IE, moderated more than 6 points total)
15. Any player who has Karma greater than 25 gets to skip the first drink
15a. greater than 39 skips 2 drinks
15b. = 50 skips 3 drinks
15c. less than -1, one drink penalty
15d. less than -8 two drink penalty
Have fun!
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I used to be one of theses. I used to think that I new all I needed about Unix. Then I stepped out of my bedroom and discovered the real world. Where things are not so simple. Where downloading a little something from whatever warez site when I needed it is not an option. Where going root to fix something is usually not the good way to do it. In a word, real-world enterprise-style computing.
And this my friend, isn't something a 15-year old can grok (usually there is exceptions I guess, but I'm still looking for one. I just remembered theses two "sysadmins" college kids that didn't knew what colocation was.)
Nobox: Only simple products.
I had some stuff to say on the thread. The trail of thought began with that comment, so I posted it in reply to that comment. I didn't see much point in scattering a general opinion across 15 different responses to separate subthreads...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
First time I got this error message from /.
"This comment has been submitted already, 277000 hours , 1 minute ago. No need to try again."
Case in point: me. Not too long ago, I was in high school with excellent website building skills. People around seen me as a real tech guru, even though I really couldn't write a computer program, or use MS Excel to setup spreadsheets with macros (still don't know how, or intend to ever know).
Also, I just went to the O'Reilly Conference and was a speaker. Just a college kid among speakers who are senior engineers in respected companies. Why is this? Because I have a niche in building Mozilla-based applications.
Yet, I know that once I graduate and head off to work somewhere, it will probably not be doing whatever my niche currently is. Then, I'll just be a regular junior engineer.
This winter I'm gonna try to remedy that by becoming skilled at .NET. Now that I have the taste of success, I don't want to give it up, even if it means becoming a .NET expert.
There no limit To the possiblities anymore. We're smarter then before, and we have been given the tools to do as we see fit. We're your future, what're you going to do, kill us?
Where I live, the average 15 year old's past-times would include:
- * Bunking off school.
It's a beautiful place.* Smoking skunk (strong marajuana).
* Stealing/petrol-bombing cars.
* Etching their names into bus windows using glass-cutters.
* Hanging around outside McDonalds.
* Mugging old ladies.
-----------------------
Moderator's essentials
When these 15 year olds become 20-25 they will be supplanted by fresh, new 15 year olds? So the reject pile grows? That has some interesting social implications. If it's so, that is.
Like many other posters, I think the media has sensationalized the exceptional ones whose talents are amplified by the internet. Most are too busy being kids. And that is as it should be.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Well at least this state only lasts for 12 months :o)
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
If you had read my "hardcore" letter, you wouldn't have stated: "I've seen how the opportunities you spoke of have been utilized by your age group. Most of them can be found on geocities or tripod." I do clearly remember saying that very few are offered the chance to learn what Stewart Gregerson and I have. (*The other user that replied to the letter) so, naturally, there are MANY opportunities that may be "utilized", i.e. McDonalds, where your average C student is found working at minimum wage. And, if your talking about opportunities on the computer, I suggest you read the main article again my friend, because it TOO states how power some kids get from mastering stocks. Or wielding the ability to give more accurate legal advice than a lawyer that's probably 50 yrs older than the kid at his computer. :"By your very comments you have proven that 'adults' have nothing to worry about. At least have the proactiveness to include suggested solutions." Surely, I thought my solutions were stated, but perhaps you are right. Perhaps I was not frank enough and not as detailed as I should have been. Here, how's this?:
.. But don't forget... this is to enforce the safety of the people. there are so many other things. I wont go into them now, I wont waste my time on ONE person. I want all to hear me. One day they will, I assure you.
Yes, most are making little geocities sites. don't think geocities is a NON-profiting business! They aren't appealing with clothing and makeup ads to appeal to 50-year-old men. They are a business, and they sure as hell know their clientele.
Now, from there you just make me laugh at your blindness..
We, the legion of a generation of children who have awoken to the lies, murder, deception, manipulation and brain washing are livid. We will not tolerate it. For a solution to this, there are many ways. However, the majority must approve the solution. Personally... I think we should take down the government, at its many cores. I wont name any, unless you wish me to email a more personal letter if that would please you, describing each location that would be best. Is this the reality that you wanted to here? A kid that wishes to murder innocent people in order to set things back a few hundred years? Is this your doing? No, but you haven't helped the situation any. You and many others will ignorantly shout "communist" because I do not care for your government. Because you see that I don't stand for the bullshit, unlike the rest of you, so you call me, (the irony) after a person who wants more government. I say your Gov. because you may not have been there to shape it, but you are sure as hell not helping it in ANY way by cooperating. How about "anarchist"? Will you say that instead? Its possible, but I, like most don't want chaos. (Which is where we are heading any way)I wish for freedom. As a kid who obediently listens to his parents, i am here to say I am ruled by my own government as well... many forces control me. The thing WE as a generation want most... is freedom. In EVERY way... we will not just be satisfied with freedom of expression, (which is still limited in many ways, don't make me pull out a list)we want freedom with everything, no matter WHAT the consequences... we don't need someone to tell us we can not wear certain clothing, have to wear helmets, (for OUR safety? why do they care? is it propaganda? or is it really because we are just another object that gives those political giants more money in their pockets??) I mean, look what happens if we do something that doesn't promote our health! We are punished... usually with money!
Now, the class system? Are you admitting that you don't feel there's a class system???? omg. You people not only bullshit others and manipulate (starting with religion), but you also do it to yourselves!! Take a look around at the 21st century in the United States of America! With all our Bs laws we are forced to pay to help others to equal out the economy, and we still have a bias system, we just don't admit to it. Appearance, my friend, is 70% of bullshitting, (talking and action is the other 30) we don't push people to the back of the bus because of their skin color anymore, because that sure as hell was noticeable and made us look bad! Those different skinned still paid taxes and gave money. Like I have stated before, politicians who have figured out how to beat the system in every aspect are corrupting the government.
Are you happy now? You interrupted me from constructing my geocities homepage. (*Grin* I would never bow down to a corporation that made money by using it's clients but appeared to be kind.........so why do you?)
I am not perfect, in fact, far from. However, I do my best to live by my own believes. Number one is look at both sides of the story regardless of what others tell you, and make your decision ON YOUR OWN. But most importantly, don't give up the fight and don't accept the system. We need all we can get.
Complaining?? HA! I'm defending my case against you greedy, government hungry, blind fools who I at least TRY to get fear into by showing you the realities. Complaining is what you do when your kid didn't wash your dishes for you, or pickup not only his, but also your room as well. You punish him, and he despises control even more. Just like you did at one time, I'm sure. Only... now we are brought together much more as a 'colony' through computers and we share our opinions... not complaining about them.
So, don't worry about how your government will end. Just know it will. And with an attitude like you, (which is what the majority of the public has) we are screwed. So sit back and watch the show if you don't want to go down fighting like the 15 yr. olds who have "risen".
-Chris
(Next time you challenge me be sure to write more, it shows that you at least care about what you're trying to express.)
a little overboard...
a little overbroad, too...
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
I was that kid. I learned to program on a ZX81, before many posters here were even born. I've been into computers all my life, done it for fun, done it academically, and now do it professionally.
At 15, I thought I was pretty hot stuff. Ten years on, I know better.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
In the case of Marcus Arnold, he is very much listened to even after it was revealed that he was only a teenager with no formal law school or even law office experience, although his askme.com profile indicates otherwise. Of course, I'm sure he has some legally viable explanation for being able to say he's "recognized by the American Bar Association" but I can't help but think that his "credentials" are a stretch at best.
I read an in-depth article about him online, can't find the link to save my life but I will post it once I do, and it was a bit disturbing. His mom thinks he is some sort of genius prodigy and encourages him. Marcus believes he is a legal expert and gives out the home phone number to anyone and spends hours giving people his form of legal advice and monitoring his score on askme.com. It seemed to me that he almost sees it as a kind of game. His father is quite suspect of these people who are asking his 15-year old son for legal advice, especially when most of his son's "clients" always seem to be calling from payphones.
- tokengeekgrrl
Almost. They say "Why bother? My kid will set it." So is it any wonder kids see older people as clueless?
I should have pointed out the legal issues in my post. This was something that was stressed to them. However, you can stress legal all you want to certain people. But (this is from my observance and experience, which is in no way the way things are) kids who have the idea planted in their heads that they ARE superior and are better in technology than everyone else will use that, and then develop the mentality that they are untouchable, and that just bumps the legal issues under the moral umbrella. I agree with your comment, but there is a certain point that these kids just don't give a damn about it.
I was 15 only 4 years ago. I have no college degree(started towards my AS in CS this fall)but manage to make $65k a year running a furtune 500 company network. I don't think age has anything to do with it, it is the desire and dedication and love for something that drives a person. I was the same way 4 years ago, smarter then the 25 year old, but looked down upon because I was so young. I still get the same treatment sometimes, but now I get a lot of "wow" and "damn, your only 19, that is great", my current boss is pushing me hard towards college, and getting my certifications...I only hope to be a millionair by 27 not because it looks cool, but so I can help those that helped me, parents, siblings, teachers, and to buy a nice home :) We can all have our dreams can't we ? ..... on another note, my co-worker just turned the big 30, and I am scared of turning 20, I feel like I will lose my edge ..... these things we must do.
I remember when I was young, the only thing that held me back from a lot of activities was my age. "You're too young to do that." The Internet removes this problem by making everybody an IP address and all locations equadistant. This unlimited freedom allows kids to reach their full potential by allowing them to get any piece of information almost instantaneously. Right here and now I can go and learn the rules of Wall Street, read a couple academic journals, and chat with some friends in Taiwan. Imagine if you could do that 20 years ago, and how it could affect your life today.
Can you imagine a Beowulf Cluster of JonKatz???????
Blame wealthy and overindulgent parents?
I dunno, maybe I'm just pointing to this because my parents were never particularly wealthy, and so I can jump up and down an say that Katz doesn't define me.
Then again, they were never particularly poor, either.
And anyways, pop culture is mindless drivel whether you're seven, seventeen or seventy. The real power of the internet is that youngsters can see the wholesome image of the goatse.cx guy opening his anus to accomodate a fire hose, instead of the shockingly immoral crap they put on the fidiot box.
Hey, I'm serious. At least the goatse.cx guy doesn't tell me to die of anorexia or beat on those weaker than me. Sodomize, perhaps... Ahem. I'm serious. Really.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Looking back 4 years ago to when I was 15 and thought I was the absolute shit, I can only shudder. 15 year olds can have a knack for *looking* smart in certain fields, but that's about the extent of it. All this talk about kids ruling the world makes me laugh. As somebody only a few years down the road who can still remember what it was like, don't give kids that much credit.
I'm not being bitter, just honest.
And no, there aren't any real solid points here to back this up... if somebody posts wanting some, I'll give them, but I'm too tired to write any more....4 hours of sleep....hurts....
My experience with the upcoming generation of kids these days is sure, they are very competent and pick up knowledge much quicker. I was a sys/network admin at my alma mater, and I took on the task of training students (mostly freshman) in the fine art of sys admin of UNIX machines.
To my joy, these kids took very well to the tasks. They learned Linux very quickly, as well as the shots of Solaris and AIX I threw at them. I was very impressed. However, to my continuing amazement, I watched as they would use what they learned to stomp on people. I know the whole "I have power and I'm going to use it" human nature thing always comes into play when people get root, but not like this.
I really couldn't believe the total lack of respect and ethical disregard these kids had for sys administration. I know that people need time to adjust to the responsibilities, but these kids didn't seem to. They just thought it was "cool" to keep flood pinging other servers, nmap'ing people, etc. I don't know what these kids aren't learning, but I don't see the evolution of sys admins as being a bright future if this attitude continues.
2 Points to consider here:
1) What does it take to be an expert (actually, you mean what does it take to look like you know your job). There is such a shortage of trained or capable people, that anyone with a decent amount of knowledge and ability is acceptable, regardless of age. We have all known people who were patently clueless but still continued to be paid in their position. The news tells us occasionally of people who pretend to be doctors (why is it always doctors??); I'm sure that lawyers, accountants and now computer consultants have their share of "great imposters". The in-depth knowledge, that you spend those 9+ years of high school and university absorbing, rarely gets called into play. When's the last time you had to invert a matrix, or code a square root function?
2) The phenomemon IS as old as history - the empowered keeping the lowly out of the power structure. The capable warior was always a good bet to accept as an equal (or he would force the issue). As technology accelerates, the artist, the tradesman, the engineer, the scientist, the artisan - all have been escape routes where the underprivileged could earn a respectable living regardless of other status. Since the 1950's there has been a steady erosion of social structure because: which does business value more - conformity or competence? (There is a company in Japan that hires the women graduates and does very well. Women are shunned by the more traditional firms, and so this corp. can get some extremely competent people with minimal competition.) The grey-suit contry-club drinking-buddy back-slapping camaraderie like-hires-like conformity is long gone. Who cares if you are a visible minority/have long hair/ dress funny/ have alternate lifestyle - as long as you can do the job well. So now this "liberation" is extended to competent youngsters. Why not?
So, you decide... is this "new youth" truly competent, or are some just a good impersonators? If that were easy to tell, then companies would be much better run,, wouldn't they?
Well, if things go well, all the cool, useful technologies will remain free. Such as HTML, PHP, Linux, GPLed compilers, etc etc. The beauty in that is, you won't have to spend tons of money to have access to the latest, greatest technologies, and anyone with a brain and some time can learn them.
-Shade
What will business be like in 10 to 20 years when it is today's 15 year olds running the corporations? Will they remember the so called "freedom" of the net during their youth? Or will they simply fall into the old line of corporate profit, lobbying Washington, and trying to crush the same "fredom" they grew up with? Only time will tell, and it should be interesting.
nah, they probably go find your daughters and screw them instead
Actually, I've been using Linux since I was 12,
I've been on the net since 10,
I've been tech support for friends and family since I was about 11.
And, I am going to probably help out my schools computers this year.
This really strikes a chord with me and the guy who wrote this book should join the real world!
:).
I've seen it many times.
I've been "playing" and working with various bits's of I.T. for almost 20 years (I'm 36) and I think I know my stuff. However, most of these supposed teenage techies that are on the net today are actually just prepubescent geeks, who spout techno babble as if they understand it. In reality, most would be at a loss if faced with actually fulfilling a useful I.T. role in a company. Sure, there are always the exceptions to the rule and there always have been (Jeremy San, Richard Bartle, Bill Gates for christ sakes!) but still, I would say that at least 99.99% of teenage computer geeks out there are pretty much clueless.
What I find highly amusing is that they do not even know it until they do try to enter the corporate I.T. world - then the shock sets in
Actually, I DON'T think the most clever people are Americans - we only have the advantage of having the most freedom and resources. Lots of studies show that American school kids lag behind those of other nations in a variety of subjects, particulary science and math. I DO think, however, that most Americans think (incorrectly) that we have some kind of monopoly on computer technology - we invented the PC, Bill Gates is American, we have more people on the internet than anybody else, etc. My comment was intended to "shake up" those who subconsciously believe that stuff means something. I personally believe that Russian hackers and Indian coders and all those other nationalities will start eating our lunch in the IT arena if we don't watch out. About the only non-Americans I'm willing to believe that are not as clever as Americans are those jokers in Afghanistan...
in 1991 there were not that many adolescents on the Net
There have always been loads of adolescents on the 'Net - they're the ones with the trainspotter compulsive mentality and the free time to exercise it.
I had Net access in 1980 - OK, so I had to go down to a local university to get it, rather than from school, and "the Net" (or at least the accessible part) was a somewhat limited collection of half-a-dozen machines at other universities. I still had acccess as a 16 year old, just by asking, to as much of a "Net" as was there to be had.
Some of the other kids there, doing just the same thing, became the first wave of kid-millionaires, riding on the Spectrum games boom.
Home "Net" access (in the UK) kicked off in around '87, when 2400 modems became cheap. The BBS scene Fido, Opus et al. was pretty lively (and full of teenagers) for years before TCP/IP came to dominate the local loop.
Adolescents thundered into drug use over three decades ago, and the world has never been the same, for better or worse (both, really). Are brilliant 15-year-old acid freaks running the world, upending existing institutions? Does it matter that childhood sometimes ends when drug use begins? Some have argued that trippers and stoners are committing a form of social parricide, turning on their parents and almost all other elders, as clueless, hostile and incompetent.
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I think Jon Katz needs to watch the movie "Rebel Without A Cause" again; Teenage angst and rebellion in the 50s. The more things change, the more they stay the same. For example, when exactly was this golden age where fifteen year olds got along with their elders and didn't scream for revolution?
Computers are just the new outlet to an old, unresolved set of problems.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Company X & Company Y are each implmenting a web-based ordering system. X hires a 15 year old with acne. Y uses their 40 year old with receding hair and expanding gut. Day 1 X: "Kewl, this looks easy" Y: has nose in a book titled "Java for Dummies" Day 3 X finishs coding Day 5 Y starts coding. Day 7 X goes online Day 10 Y starts testing. X has been online 3 days. Day 15 Y finally goes online. X has been raking in the dough for over a week. Day 18 X programmer is running around like the proverbial chicken "I dont know what happened! The whole system crashed and wiped out our database" Boss asks if programmer can restore from backups. "Backups?" Day 30 Y: "Yes, sir, we had a slight glitch because of those extra customers we got when X went out of business. I had to take it offline for an hour, but we're back now.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Rather than wasting time feeling out of place, making irreversible mistakes, and generally being miserable, I'd rather my son find productive achievement in technology. Achievement through sports in high school may make kids the envy of certain adults, those kids usually peak at 18 and never really get more than that. However technical knowledge is a lifelong evolution with more subtle but also more valuable rewards. It seems parents want their children to be successful, but turn a blind eye to the activities that breed success. Productive achievement breeds success.
My friend Pat's little brother, at 15, made $27,000 a year working part time as a web designer. He was damn good. A lot of his family told him "don't you want to enjoy your youth?" I think he would say to them : I am enjoying it. Most people , when they say "don't you want to enjoy your youth?" mean: Don't you want to be irresponsible and reckless? Don't you want to be un-goal oriented, poor, and socially accepted? To that I say, no way. I wasn't like that 6 years ago when I was 15. It's about time we applauded these geeks. They're driving the future.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
People get left behind for a reason, yes?
I agree the Internet is an equalizer but I don't believe that many dissident's in Nigeria have access to a computer, much less an Internet connection. Both are pretty hard to get when you make less than $1/day on a good day. Here in North America at least there are places like public library's where people can get online and express their opinions. I'm lucky enough to own my own computer but I do know that my public library doesn't charge anything for the Internet access they provide. Kudo's to them.
I'm fifteen and I actually spend most of my time coding and reading news and stuff. I really don't care for the people that chat on AIM and stuff. (IMO, IRC is better than AIM anyway). At least from my perspective, the author seems to be a little off when using the term "most fifteen year olds." At least the ones I see at my school would have no idea what UNIX is. Let alone recognize any C++ or anything else intelligent. So for the most part, I'd have to say that your assesments (may be) are correct, but that there is a small precentage of the teenage popluation that does involve themselves in "other halfway intelligent endeavors."
This is just my opinion as a teenager, take it for face value and nothing more. (and my $0.02).
Ha! Colocation is what the ASSTR moved to after being kicked off the university at which they were previously eating bandwidth!
See? You *can* learn everything from pr0n.
Anyhoo, I'm halfway through undergraduate school; currently administering a network of fifty or so computers, eighty or so employees. My `boss' makes charts. They're important (for some reason), but I do the actual administering.
And you know what? Most of it is reading documentation and, failing that, asking questions of admins senior to me. All I needed, really, was basic familiarity with networking and the willingness to read and learn a lot.
Eh, that's my experience. I'm older than fifteen, though. And I don't pretend to be a senior admin of some kind. But I am a professional.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Now we just have something to blame it on! (computers)
why don't you stay on topic? your daughters are ugly. It's true, adults are petrified of computers -- there's just way too much to learn at a casual pace. it has to be a bit of an obsession before one becomes usefully knowledgable, and when you're too young to drive anywhere, too puny to play sports, and too intellectual to bother with upholding an image, that QBASIC book suddenly becomes quite interesting. And your quiet vast knowledge scares your teachers.
"There is no statute of limitations long enough to keep you above the law forever."
Proper training does not necessarily make someone an expert. It just means they can pass a test. Take for instance the MCSE that I work under (because I am not a MCSE) asking me 5 billion questions a day about how to do things that a MCSE should know how to do. As for parents? I think the main problem here is that parents don't deal with there kids. If they actually paid attention to them and took an interest in what they were doing, the kids might be a little more civil....and get in less trouble. Dagan mailto:dagangh@hotmail.com
Bullshit, geek doesn't rule the world. If they did, then the world wouldn't be the huge disaster that is today.
Please read this day newspaper, or turn on your radio or tv and tune in some news program. Listen to it, and after tell me who rules the world. Yes, you're right, they do.
So kids learn faster than adults and are more amused by novelty, gee what a great revelation.
Why do six year old's using toys designed by forty year old engineers represent a new future?
At times we seem so in love with our own cleverness we forget how to put things into context.
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. - Albert Camus
this is true. Very true. the age of aquarious was born and raised with a computer within arms length at all time, showing up as often as a Mcdonalds or a Starbuck's. (Gotta love Starbuck's) Hence, we are more fluint at this and have chosen this as our way to 'network' ourselves around the world and make allies with poeple ina land far away. Many of the thoughts and beliefes expressed by Ep$ilon are true, including the fact that he as well as I, (because of this upbringing in a different world than 'adults') are more fluint in anything reguarding computers than most people well everyone who is not in the age of aquariouse. Bill Gates is great, and the world thanks to the last generation works all around computers, but imagine what we will bring. Us who have been raised by computers as our babysitters. Bill gates will look like average 9 year old playing with an electronic tellytubby. Beware, a new era of things will come upon todays adults just like the envention on tv and microwaves and computers has happened to those of YOUR PARENTS. All that in 50 years, and moving faster every day... We will enevitably rule all in the future, give us our damn Napster back. But we found a way around that already.. which is to allow something (MP3) to spread through an unfilterable device (Internet) to the point where no one is able to wipe out the databases. Imagine if you could store whatever information or whatever anything you wanted to on anyone's computer anywhere in the world, that is what we have done. Just remember the next time you are pushing around your 15 year old kid... payback's a bitch and in the end we will win.
I second that. I spend more time coding than doing anything else on the net. I have yet to meet another 15 year old who knows what Unix is or can code in any language.
what about grammar?
If these 15 year-olds are so powerful, why do they have to bug me at the 7-11 to buy beer for them?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
these 15 year olds are smarter than the ones on those dell/hp/compaq commercials.
Hello, my name is Adam, nice to meet you.
A series on this tripe!?!?!?!
Please God, NO!!!!!!!!
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Youngsters might make up a big relative proportion of the online world, but really, the online world is still a minority, even in "advanced" countries like the US. Stop being so self-obsessive and take a walk down the street (yes, that means getting out of the car!), or talking to your extended family (aunts, uncles, etc)... the online world and its influences will seem pretty distant (perhaps this is different in places like San Jose??)
"If you're underage, you're above the law."
that it'll be taken seriously not because I do it on intelligently or on the net, but because I'm 15? In that case Katz prepare to have your arse roasted by a 15 year old technophile with mom and dad's Compaq at his fingertips!
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Big international investment bank. No ties on sight any day of the week (maybe the traders do, sometimes).
... err... a tie, but to many other things far more important than the ability to fix a piece of dry cleaned cloth around your neck.
I have never ever worn a tie: they are ridiculous, inconvenient (ever tried to fix a PC while wearing one? I haven't!).
Professionalism should not be tied to
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Conversations, heated discussions, trolling, etc. all took place on a PDP-11/50, through VT52's, LA-36's and Model 43 Teletypes, via The Message System, in Michigan back in 1980. I eventually overhauled it so messages could be carbon-copied, address lists built, etc. I met friends I still have to this day, on there. I still have the source code (c:
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As a former 15-year-old :) I can tell you this. Forget about business, consulting, customers, etc. You're 15, have fun, play and do stuff that you love to do. As a teenager you've been gifted with a huge amount of creativity. It would be really bad if you wasted your teenage years working for people and doing what they want you to do.
Take it easy.
So they're still alone and indoors. How does this change anything?
it's like I keep telling the uber-nerds I work with: drinking more Coke and playing Quake for 10 minutes is not a real "break," getting the f*ck AWAY from the computer and going for a walk is a break. I'm sure they'll think differently when they're 32 and have the wrists of an 80 year old. :P
It's the nature of life that kids pick things up quicker and run further with them. You old fogies just have to accept it. OK sometimes they run so fast they fall over, but mostly they surprise us all with new ways to do things with old stuff.
As for breaking down power structures I ain't seeing much of that, if anything I'm seeing the power structures weilding that old school muscle and keeping those pesky kids down.
The few people on campus who know how to actually use their computers/the network have the ability to bring the other 99% of the campus to their knees in a matter of seconds.
So, between the masses unwittingly damaging the network unknowingly and the script kiddies doing so malevolently, I worry.
"Equal bytes for women!"
When I was fifteen, myself and my (then-)best friend started a corporation.
/usr/games directory. Ah, fickle youth...
He sucked at technical stuff; I sucked at sales. (I can't stand ripping people off, I empathize too much.) He said I wasn't pulling my weight, I said he was a pompous ass (not in those words), he told me he wanted me out, I went to the bank and withdrew everything but $0.25 from the checking account (about eight hundred dollars) and went home.
He took me to small claims court, where the judge spent five minutes on the case before throwing it out because we weren't a legal partnership---neither of us was old enough; he'd just known some people in the town hall.
I bought my first computer with that money (first that I owned; I'd been using my father's), and we never spoke to each other again.
He glared a lot, though.
Anyhoo, we set up a small NT network while we were in business. Charged a shitload of money. I don't think I'd even *heard* of Linux. Had played with SCO Unix, but just the
Point is, we were both immature assholes with technical expertise. Well, *I* had technical expertise. He had... salesmanship.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I guess I'm developing a weird view on this. I was programming from age 9 and I'm 23 now. Why? Cause it was fun to create something. Some of the "older folk" are very strange about computers. I think they're afraid to a certain extent, but I also think they just don't see computers as necessary to their way of life and are just not interested in those kinds of toys. I would say that the younger generations merely have a bigger percentage of computer literacy, but this doesn't really mean they could take over anything. I think a 15 year old has a better chance of being in the business of computers successfully, than being a major researcher, software designer, or programmer (for embedded systems etc.) But when you're younger, you have more of a curiosity for things, and if you have a computer available to you from early on, there's a big potential for being self-educated as well as self-educated can be. (Believe me, after all my programming, learning the *right* way to program was a godsend.) Plus, in my own opinion MOST teenagers are concerned with playing video games. Some may download programs that let them pretend to be a "hacker," but there are very few that really know what's going on inside the computer when they do. (So if you're one of those few, be happy.)
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
sean is the young man who helps at the retirement center he helps me send e-mails and other things and he told me to look at this article. this man is right all these young people that think they know the world.
last week i went to the rite-aid to get my lanoxin prescription and a young man was in front of me in line he had earrings and long hair and it looked like he missed a spot when he was shaving because there was a little bit of hair under his lip. he didn't even offer to let me go ahead in line even though i had heart medication and he was just getting cigarettes. norman used to smoke but he died of respiratory failure in his car and i didn't know where he was because he would always tell me, gladys i am the man of this house and i don't need to tell you where i'm going. so i waited at home for him and he never came and he never came and finally i called the police and they found him out by the lake. he used to like feeding the birds there.
sean says i have to stop using the computer now other people want to use it please send me e-mail i don't know the address because sean gave it to me and didn't tell me what it is. good bye your friend gladys malone
I don't think these '15 year-olds' are really THAT brilliant. I was one of those 'computer wizz-kids' when I was younger, and I wouldn't say I'm of above-average intelligence. It's just that computer science was so easy to pick up. It's all pretty new, compared to other sciences. I could see something cool in computers and learn it pretty quickly. Like watching those cool ASM demos? You can teach yourself to do them in probably a 5-6 weeks. The bleeding-edge information is avaiable via the internet (or BBS's back then), and not horribly complex. The tools you needed were readily available at Radio Shack... The older generation didn't understand it (having their own hobbies - my dad was into Ham Radios and electonics.. ) so they didn't leap into it as easily.
Compare it to, say, physics. 100-200 years ago a lot of young people were doing that bleeding edge work, in their basements. Today you would have to be a brilliant 20-year old in order to learn all of present day knowledge about physics to start discovering something new. You'd also need access to multi-million dollar equipment.
As computer science matures it's going to get out of the grasp of the 'average' person. It will begin to take years to learn enough to specialize in one area of computers, and you'll need access to expensive technologies to try them out.
Matt
About the 15 year olds can't possibly manage a website with 1000's of pages on it: it can be done. Some 15 year olds aren't just script kiddies and morons who just got a computer a year ago. Talk to those "kids" who've had computers since they were like 3 and you may see the difference. But then again, you probably won't.
"We young Linux jedi's find it hard to find a solemate."
I really have to agree with that. The scope is much larger, though. HTML, Php, Python, Perl, C++.. Hell- even BASIC! I don't know anyone else even close to my age that know any of these languages. I'd say 75% or more of my friends don't even know what an IP address is. I'm hoping that college will help aid this problem.
I guess we'll see.
The most amazing 15 year old I've run across isn't even American. MacMillan India Ltd. is publishing a book he wrote as a 14 year old. From the jacket blurb: "...The author, Ankit Fadia, 16 years old is a tenth class student, studying in Delhi Public School R.K. Puram. Ankit Fadia, who at the tender age of 14 wrote this book, is the youngest author for Macmillan in their 110 years of history. He started his website, Hacking Truths for a small circle of friends to whom Ankit would send out periodic manuals, but very soon it evolved into a worldwide community of thousands of like mined people who subscribed to receive information that really mattered. The basic motive behind Hacking Truths is to spread the message of ethical hacking which would revolutionize the global security scene. He believes ethical hacking is like vaccination - you fight eveil for positive gains..." So go ahead, Slashdot Effect Ankit's website Hacking Truths...it's pretty cool.
The BBC is running a 4 part series, and they have a web site .
I'm in my early twenties, live on my own, work about 10-12 hours a week (freelance computer networking/administration for a bunch of local small businesses), and have the rest of my time to do whatever I please... I have a hell of a lot more spare time than a kid attending school does. By all rights, if I quit blowing time on online games and slashdot, I'd rule the world.
This sounds like so much irrational paranoia to me. It's like the author hasn't grasped the fact that people get older and are replaced by younger people over time.
The younger people have always been taking over. All home computers have done is allows younger people to get a head start on their education. Big deal, high school should already be teaching more practical, workplace type skills anyway. We just put kids in their to babysit them during the 'trouble years'
Click here or here.
If this post makes sense, I'm an impostor
uhm. "isn't even American"
do you honestly believe that the most clever people are americans?
then i think you and your computer are both lagging.
/ d
A few years ago I read an article in Time suggesting that kids were growing up too fast. The author threw around examples along the lines of "...his dot com going public and retiring a multi millionare by 17". I stopped laughing after the second paragraph and wondered upon what this author based his research.
This topic is always brought up when some adult that people will consider listening to is amazed by something that a minor does whether it be dispensing legal advice over the internet(2001) or programming a VCR(1984).
The whole picture it takes only 1 adult with a pen who doesn't understand technology and a child (usually fairly inteligent) with a good amount of knowledge that performs some "breath taking" task without the blink of an eye.
The thought of child geniuses poses a double edged sword to buisnesses and people in general. Fisrt of all, people feel that all their professtional training/talent will be in vain by some child who performed some aspect of their profession. People also see a glipmse of hope in that they feel that they can take advantage of a child genius and pay him or her a fraction of what they would have to pay a professional.
To those people I will say this: Would you pay a child who frequents webmd.com a fraction of what you pay a heart surgon to install your pace maker.
(I know its corny):)
I wasn't trying to program in C++ or scheming on 15 year old BBS chicks. Heck, at 15, I didn't even have a computer. I was hanging out on the local 2 meter repeaters, building odd ball electronic kits, and RadioShack was my mecha. Yeah, you could say I was the techie nerd, but I still had a social life in high school. As for this review, I'm sorry but 15 year olds are not going to be running everything. As the current generation of teenagers get older, the more dependant on technology they will be. The computer geeks of the generation will eventually grow up and get real jobs, in which the skills they learned at a younger age will help them in college and *some* of the real world. Real world experience in any computer field still surpasses anything you will learn in college. Trust me...I'm 22 years old now, in 7 years I've graduated high school, college and got a real job. What you learn on the job (and books:) will help you on the job. As for the 15 year old script kiddies stealing credit card numbers, they will either grow up and mature or start robbing 7-11's, take your pick.
You have to consider the fact that the grownups have more experience than you in life. It's a very well known fact that teenagers know everything, and their parents nothing. It's been around for ages.
"Power" in itself means little. What makes it all worthwhile is the unsaid "Responsibility" part. Anyone who has decent legal general knowledge could probably dole out advice. But if something goes wrong, I guess we would have to settle for "juvenile" crime and the "kid did not know what he was watching" syndrome. As someone said before, when someone becomes "responsible" they are probably no longer kids.
The only thing the person on the other end of the net knows about you comes from your writing skills. Lots of kids have terrible "riting skilz", but those that can write well pass right through the age discrimination barrier unnoticed.
Writing skills and apparent knowledge are about the only clues we have about the person on the other end of the net. That kids, women, people with un-white skin and others who are often discriminated against can become accepted as if they were adult while males tells more about the discrimination these people othewise face in everyday life than it does about 'empowerment' on the net. And you sure can't blame any kids for going to the net, where if they've got the writing skills they can effectively hide their age.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
Some have argued that geeks and nerds are committing a form of social parricide, turning on their parents and almost all other elders, as clueless, hostile and incompetent.
When parents and teachers display their lack of knowledge about new technology to young kids, it ruins the image they set up for themselves that they are the teachers, that they know what is good for the kids. When kids know more about a subject than the teacher teaching it, they lose respect in the eyes of the children, based on what their parents and most school systems teach. If you felt you were being controlled by an idiot, wouldn't you rebel?
It's easy to blame the kids for thinking their elders are "clueless, hostile and incompetent", but lots of adults DO get hostile when shown up as clueless and incompetent in front of children.
Lots of kids get put down for knowing more than teachers (and their parents)... but if kids weren't taught that the knowledge is what breeds the respect, maybe they wouldn't behave like that...
and also if they got the respect they deserve for hard work learning things their parents don't understand...
Teach your kids the difference between life experience, life knowledge and education. And maybe have some discussions about respect, where it comes from, who they do respect and why... and maybe why they don't respect some things... they may have good reasons, maybe they don't, but I doubt they've been asked...
As a 15-year-old computer geek, I felt compelled to voice my opinion.
I've operated a small Web design/hosting firm for the past few years, and I know first-hand that there are many advantages to capitalizing on the Internet at a young age (not the least of which is enjoying tax-exempt status ;-). However, anonymity is (unfortunately) always necessary. Even if I have loads of experience and references, a potential client will invariably hesitate about handing a large project over to a kid. The ability to telecommute is the only reason youths can wield such power online. Anyone would balk at receiving legal advice from an adolescent, even if he seems legitimate and intelligent. It's all about stereotypes. This is why I have no clients locally; telecommuting simply isn't an option. The Internet is the ideal security blanket.
There's no doubt that the revolution has begun, but in my opinion, it will be a very long time before 15-year-olds like myself will be accepted by the general public alongside brick-and-mortar consultants and businesspeople.
Fuck it's so true. We young Linux jedi's find it hard to find a solemate. Non of my friends know SHIT about linux.
That, ladies and gentleman, is the token of doom. Save us now, Oh Lord!
One more post on the journey to negative Karma history!
But who cares? being brilliant at 15 doesn't get you much of anywhere without a break. Nobody's interested in having a Network Administrator or Programmer who's still in High School, even with credentials (A+, MCSE, Novell, etc). So what's a 15 (ok ok, 17) year-old to do? Anyone need a new web page?
I read two books by Michael Lewis and I find it hard to see him as a technologist. Before he started writing books, he was a bond salesman for Salomon Brothers, and if you read his account of that, "Liar's Poker" you can see that he has a great understanding and insight into what went on their. He also wrote, "The New New Thing" about Jim Clark, Netscape, Healtheon, and SGI. In that he seemed to pander to all the hype around the internet, internet time, etc. without really knowing what was going on.
JK
Somebody have to explain to the people that put the money for your salary how the service you provide is performing.
You should thank your boss that he takes the chore to do this which allows you to do the work that you enjoy.
Your sentence shows why young people need more than technical ability to join the adult world.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Was flipping through channels the other night, and low and behold, on A&E, I stumble upon Next : The Future Just Happened TV show...it was really quite good, reminded me a lot of reading posts on slashdot. He interviewed a 15 year old that was helping with Gnutella. The 15 year old (english) kid was talking about smashing capitalism. I didn't see the whole program, but they also had a bit on cell phones in Finland.
the younger generation is not running things. but they should, very often they are pushing the envelope while programing making peanuts. than their boss sells their software and makes a ton. so no...they are not running the world, but they allow us to have the world that we do.
most 15 yo males I know walk by the front of my house, asking if my teenage daughters are home.
The answer is usually no; at which point they probably go home and wack-off some more.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Proper training make someone a expert in any given field. Now yes there is more information available. Yes kids have more time than most people. But alot of them do not have the maturity to handle the information that is given to them. In the future this will be a problem more and more parents will have to deal with. But parents have been dealing with thier kids thinking they know more than them all the time.
The rise of the 15 year old Democrat that thinks he isn't a Democrat
Uh... Yeah. No. Im 17 now and have been working as a supervisor in an ISP for over a year now. When i think back to when i was 15 I remember learning Perl and trying to get a 21inch monitor for my sun box. (and talking to 15 year old girls on AIM). Yes, many of the teens on the net are just downloading p0rn and playing video games, but not all of them. I know a 14 year old that is working on his own distro of linux. (it may not be very good but hes makeing the effort) Yes, there are a few script kiddies around running NetBus and BackOrphice but they eventualy find better things to do with their time. Im not saying every kid on the net is a model programmer, im just saying that they are out there, and stereotyping them isnt too fair.
For my friend who has replyed to my message I must tell you this. Ep$ilon claims to be a 15 year old kid. Well, take this to the nearest 15 year old at the Transylvania HJigh (Or wherever you live) and ask another 15 year old to read this. He wouldn't understand a word the other 15 year old (Epsilon) was saying. Why? Because as a child he was probably talked to by googoo gaga and never talked to like an adult so as to build his skills stronger at a young age by being exposed to real life, and real words. So you are saying this crap about Geocities, but remember, they make their money off of poeple like you who are to 'lamo' to learn how to BUILD YOUR OWN FUCKING WEBSITE! We can build our own in a fraction of the time it takes for you to template it out because once again, we were raised by this.. computers. MY CASE IS CLOSED, SO GET OFF IT. You have been outdone, admit it. Another '15' eyar old, your future leader of the socialist world. And everything else inbetween.
I am a 15 year old. I have owned many many computers in my life so far, and i have developed knowledge and talents with, and through my computer. I know more about computers than the average 20-30 year old male, even in these times when computers are becoming as common and cheap as televisions. Am i over confident in saying this? no, i have talked to many adults about computers. If they are not software engineers, chances are I, and the average 15 year old geek at his desk know more than them. (and the only reason that ALL 15 year olds dont know how to code in c++ or vis. basic or html or even master a basic drawing program is because most public schools dont provide the classes, not unless your father is in politics and he sends you to some private school, and even there the chances are slim, even for the elite.) ,(respecting your unjust class system) sex, race, and age descrimination as well as a powerful government will be near abolished thanks to the evergrowing amount of people sitting at their desks and writing up their opinions in some forum.
p.s. i absolutly loved this letter when i first read it years ago, read it through and through adults, and try to feel like you once were, a curious and all knowing 15 yr old and then tell me we are criminals for wanting music to be free!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/07/31/17292 51&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=418
-Chris
(Ep$iL0N)- fifth letter of the greek alphabet :)
Now, the questions of whether or not we are starting a revolution is something way more than you adults would care to concieve or give thought to. the mere nano second of thought that is taken to comprehend what it would feel like to tear down your controlling and communistic government and the world as you see it is too much for you. the status quo WILL change, these computers are only a way for my generation to branch out and express our freedom of thought, hobbies, likes and dislikes. It creates more power for us. for the gentleman who stated (do not recall his SN) that knowledge, and gaining knowledge faster than adults is not power, you are wrong. once again you do not wish to think that we could gain power over you. fear... it is the reason you pay your taxes and wear your seat belt, and yes, why you even go to church, so that you wont spend eternity in flames.
Most of my generation (the brighter ones) have come to realize that this world that has been brought upon us is not one we wish to live in (i have thought, is this what causes such incidents as the 'coloumbine shooting' and teen suicides? because i admit myself, it is quite an overwhelming feeling.)
so, back to the topic, power, class, and knowledge (which are all directly proportional in the long end)are more available, it is only a matter of time before your world, ahem, your 'empire' is taken down by your siblings, and restored. (an updated version, if you will.) With any hope, by the time i am an 'adult'
Post again to show just how much of a dumbass you really are.
"There can't be a better place on the Web to have this conversation than here."
For those of us who were using computers before there were PC's, much less an Internet, the irony in this statement is just too rich to pass up...
sPh
I started programming in '79 when I was 11 years old on my Atari 800.
------
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Did you actually take the time to visit his homepage?!?
Ugly? If you think that girl (which I presume is one of his daughters) is ugly, you either date Nathalie. Portman or you have absolutely no eye for beauty. But enough flaming (well, I'd call it defending an innocent damsel *grin*).
ReidMaynard was absolutely on topic: I think he tried to be funny, in a cynical way, but the fact is that still most 15 year old boys do not care about anything more than that the girl next door notices them (and they mostly don't succeed). No, as matter of fact this article talks about a very small minority of younsters that do exceptional things. People forget that there have been bright kids all over history that acquired astonishing knowlegde about particular subjects. These kids are no exception, only being on a hip "medium" makes them more exposed.
I can't believe I'm posting this...ah, so what...it's only Karma!
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
...and this one falls into the perennial "we are afraid of our children" storyline. Creepy kid with genetically anamolous mega-brain leads hordes of his machete-wielding peers into their parent's bedrooms at midnight. The mythological roots of this go back to Jason and the Argonauts, where, in that story, the women of a town all go maniacal and hack their sleeping hubbys and baby boys into chum in the dead of night. It's fun to be scared by stories like this. But it's just for fun.
How come this ..... doesn't get modded down as Flamebait, or Troll, or Offtopic?
Probably because they ignore your posts, Jon. You know it's insightful, underrated, and it just sticks in your craw that other writers can make insightful comments for free, whilst you get paid to Troll as a main poster and we can't mod you down.
Besides, I've got about 70 karma on my old account and 50 karma in this, so it's a total waste.
As it slowly becomes impossible to gain renumeration for the production and distribution of 'Youth Culture' (Rock and Roll, Fashion, etc.) the old organs of Culture will die.
It's not certain they will be replaced by anything of substance.
Some of us say 'great.' I'm frankly sick of the worship of youth in our culture. Children should be seen, not heard, as the saying goes.
Rock stars? Pandering to the 15 year old mind?
Buh-bye.
And yet, that one line captures so much of the point it's incredible.
Sure, you could get in touch with people on the old bulletin boards, but the average Joe, and certainly the average kid, didn't have the means or the knowledge to do it. The internet, and in particular the WWW, is the first time that anyone could say anything to a wide audience (more-or-less). Just look at the amount of information on /. -- you count the numbers of posts on a single thread in the 100s. Never before the 'net had things been done on this scale, either in terms of contributors or in terms of audience, and that's the key difference.
An inevitable result of that, combined with the anonymity the 'net currently provides, is shattered illusions. Those who have charged big amounts of money for services with little real value are in for a rude awakening. Perhaps just as importantly, kids who have genuine talent can get on the ladder based on merit, and not some title and suit. I am rather older than teens these days, but still young enough to feel undervalued. Modesty aside, I know, and management at the office privately acknowledge, that I can do as much as many of the more senior guys. I'm sure many here can empathise with that claim.
However, the other natural effect of this proliferation of "average" work is that truly good work now stands out. While I'm all for kids knowing their stuff, and getting credit for it, let's not pretend that a 15 year old with a couple of years playing with coding can do the same as a good 25 year old with an extra ten years. I'm not going to catch the good senior guys at the office for a while yet. (That's "good" as in, "that same enthusiastic and talented person, but ten years later".)
And this is the key point that's being missed by many replies here on this thread. Take some of the common examples. Amazon book reviews were mentioned. Let's see, suppose I want to buy a book on C++. Shall I go visit the ACCU, where they have a comprehensive range of reviews written by experienced pros? Or shall I visit Amazon, and read reviews of beginners books by beginners who, by definition, aren't qualified to review them on technical merits?
There are numerous other examples. Look at programming. Many people here write the most amazing advocacies of new buzzwordisms in the programming threads. And yet, it's clear to the pro's that most of them have never programmed a serious, large scale, professional system in their lives, because they overlook the basic (to a pro) issues that they've never encountered.
Look at web pages for another example that's close to home. The ease with which a keen 15 year old can produce a decent homepage really shows up the con artists. However, no 15 year old has the knowledge of all the deeper issues, from graphic design through usability to effectively managing a site with literally 100,000s of pages on it. These things are the difference between a page good enough for a keen amateur (created by the 15 year old) and a page good enough for a business to bet its existence on (created by the experienced professional web design outfit).
And that, really, is the crux of it. In any activity, keen amateurs can get pretty good if they put enough into it. Those amateurs can be 15 or 50, and often, it doesn't much matter. Eitehr way, it's right and proper to give credit where it's due. But they'll never catch the pros, and no 15 year old has all of the knowledge, experience, maturity and ability to do a job in the same league. If you don't believe me, take a look at how many dot-bomb stories we've seen lately, and then count how many of the failures were wholly run by inexperienced management who assumed they could do it, and learned the hard way that they were wrong.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The best part about 15 year-olds -- I get older and they stay the same age.
Hey I'm fifteen and that's my use of the INet: 10% pr0n 60% /. www.heise.de linux.com etc.
20% www.gamersunitednetwork.de
10% downloading Music
while I'm doing this: IRC/ICQ
when I don't do surf around: I'm mainly coding (HTML/PHP/Perl) and designing; sometimes playing quake or listen to Music...
Boycot? Blackout? Subscriptions?
I don't care!
this whole thing sounds exactly like what Peter and Valentine did in Ender's Game. next thing you know, some punk kid'll turn out to be ruler of the world, simply by influencing so many people on the net. it's happening.
for (i = 0; i < ALL_CHICKS_I_KNOW; i++) { ask_out(); if (get_laid) break; }
15 year olds have always thought that their elders were hostile, incompetent, and clueless - adding computers to the mix really hasn't changed much in that regard.
When I was 15(92), I was coding what would have been the first MMORPG out there, but she forced me to work at Pizza Hut and Sony in a manufacturing hell. She thought computers were nothing important too. I had lots of ideas, instant messaging, auction houses, personals, gnutella, facist trust programs, but I just went with the MMORPG cuz it was fun. Never finished cuz the mom sux. Looking back, I realize I need to work more on my laziness. Nothing is worth doing.
God spoke to me
If you're in the Buffalo area or get their PBS station (like here in Toronto) Joseph Campbell's "The Power Of Myth" is on. It's more worth watching than the "Next" show on A&E. Last night's episode just pissed me off.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
It does happen, we all turn old and blame everything on children. All while we try and save them from the evil of themselves.
`fidiot' is short for `fucking idiot', much the same way `fugly' is short for `fucking ugly'.
It's gained common usage around me, so I use it here...
Besides, I'm American, too. I'm just annoyed that The People appear to be... well, morons.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Have you ever thought about [topic]?
Well [name], author of [book] has, and I'm going to paraphrase what he writes.
[name] cites a few examples, but I only need to steal one. [example] shows how America constantly discriminates against [topic].
While the book has its faults, I feel the author's intent is dead on.
Its like he can't write anything on his own. Just book reviews written to look like original content.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
anyone other than Tom Daschle. davidcorny is a fdemocrat.
I am 16 and started programming c/c++ when I was about 12. I now write directx & opengl programs everyday and I'm porting many of them to linux using mesa.
He's on vacation this week and told me not to go online cause he thinks I'll get in trouble. Heck, I've been online for 2 days, and haven't gotten into trouble. In fact, Monday, I got an e-mail from a total stranger offering to help me manage my money. I e-mailed him my bank account numbers, SSN, Mom's maiden name, my PIN numbers and all my credit card numbers. Soon after I did that I got some e-mail from the credit card companies saying I was over my limit and did I want to increase it, but my new friend told me it was a glitch and to just click OK. Today, he showed me how to direct deposit my paycheck. Those numbers he gave me aren't what's on my bank statement, but he says thats fine. Tomorrow he's going to show me how to transfer my house title online. Thursday, he'll show me a non-revokable power of attorney. When my son comes back Friday, he'll see that I'm not incompetant!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
C'mon guys use you inate intelligence. The only difference between a 15 yo hacker and a 30 yo hacker (me) is resouces, oh and how often we have sex (ha ha thuckers). I'm glad to see that healthy sceptics exist in the N-generation (from a decrepid old X-Gen). Corporations spend million on researching wots kewl, uh cool so they can market it to those teens eg Korn, Limp bizkit, - now Pshyco Clown Cult - it's the marketing that screwz it, usez it and moves on to the next thing. Don't beleive the hype. Mature 15 yo seem older to thier peers because of there state of mind, that same reason is why some 30, 40, 50, 60 - 90 yo's seem young to thier peers. Thier ideas and thinking produce fresh perspective because they don't allow themselves to be overrun by the crap. Some young people learn this early - Thats why they are cool, uh kewl cause they are independant individuals and aren't overrun by static thinking. As for some 15 year old's seeming to know it all and others saying they are full of B.S I say fuck you - School systems and Universities were built on people that just went out there and DID IT (e.g einstien pritty sure he got his degree awarded after he did his papers). Try to define inate intelligence, you can't - you just know it. A young mind is still flexible and prepared to absorb new ideas, I wish I could say that about many so called adults I have met. I have been in I.T since I was 15 and have a successfull career (sofar). I realise to go further I have to get a degree only because of other peoples perception. AFAIK once you are no longer able to accept new ideas, and indeed create new ideas you become static of mind - once you are in that state you are effectivley dead. I hope the volume of N-Generation fresh thinkers that make it to my elder years is much greater than what has occured in the X-Generation. Statistically this should be true as there are more N-Gens than X's and S.MF Baby boomers. oh and all you static thinkers - kiss my ass
Rise of the 15 year olds? The majority of the youth in this country are still too ignorant or far too focused on other affairs to get that much into computers. There is no 15 year olds rising. They are a minority. a very small minority. Just like with past generations There were a small amount of genius' but for every genius there are at least 50 incompetent ignorant people to keep them and their knowledge in check.
News at 11.
I can't think of a better thing for society than our 10-18 year-old population taking some political and economic power.
Before anyone can be respected and command power, they must obtain years of experience. This is how a person gains the knowledge necessary to obtain power and become successful. There is also an obvious lack of maturity in kids. The only reason it seems that there is this type of revolution is because the Internet is very new. It works in a similar manner to languages: there is a certain time, early in life, when it is increadibly easy for a person to learn a langauge. After that, it becomes more difficult with age for a person to learn a new language. This principle can also be applied to computers; adults must learn something completely new, which is very difficult. Kids, however, do not know anything but the Internet, so it is very easy for them. Once the current generation of kids grows up, this phenomenon will disappear. This is because the entire population will have grown up with the Internet and thus will not need to learn anything new.
Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"... Damn kids. They're all alike. But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him? I am a hacker, enter my world... Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me... Damn underachiever. They're all alike. I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..." Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me... Or thinks I'm a smart ass... Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here... Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike. And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all... Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike... You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us will- ing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike. +++The Mentor+++
Yes we fifteen year olds are running the internet............on the parent's pocketbook. Try convincing cheap parents you NEED that new (item)for (insert reason here). Hmm......think i'll try walking through this wall.....
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&o
That, and the fact that in 10 years, they start complaining about kids these days. Things change.
Dump the IRS - http://www.fairtax.org
I was unaware of this (as with many other "hip" terms). It's true that people as a whole are morons, its just really annoying when I (or anyone else that is not stupid) get lumped together with them just for living in a certain area.
'nerds are committing a form of social parricide, turning on their parents and almost all other elders'
Maybe that's social patricide?
Some things change and some things stay the same.
The video games sure are a lot prettier these days, but I'd take a NES over an N64 anyday.
This explains why Torricelli is trying to pass the School Website Protection Act. He wants to make sure all those 15 year olds don't take away any of his power!
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