I worked in a produce department for two years. In that time I saw some really strange fruits and veggies come through and purple potatoes were one of them. As I recall, only the skin is purple, with a slight tinge on the actual "meat" of the potato. You have to remember, there's a lot of varieties of potatoes. Russet, Yellows, Golds, Blues, Purples, Reds, the list goes on.
I've got to jump in and second this idea. I'm a technology instructor for the public library and week after week, class after class I have a staggering amount of seniors who are all interested in learning what a computer can do for them. Sure they're never going to become uber-geeks and contribute copious amounts of good code to the open source movement, but that's not the point.
How many other people of all ages use computers every day and contribute nothing to the world of technology? It's unreasonable to expect such a thing. That would be synoymous with asking everyone who drives a car to design a better fuel injection system or implement a better carburetor for all domestic models.
Woodstock2409's idea is becoming a reality though. A lot of grandparents in my classes did not buy their computer. It was given to them by one of their kids or even one of their grandkids. They gave them the system, hooked it up, set it up for the internet, and said "Happy Day, I'll see you online!" and walked out the door. So the seniors are left with this chunk of beeping and whirring pastic sitting in their dens and they have no idea what to do with it. All they know is that there has to be more to it than solitare.:)
Every now and again I get a child in my classes, the youngest being around 7 or so. They sat down next to an older gentleman and they had a ball learning stuff from each other as the class progressed! It was impressive and it makes one hold hope for the future if the "older generation" (I put that in quotes because EVERY generation is the older generation to someone.) can learn something about these new fangled computer from the kiddies.
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I worked in a produce department for two years. In that time I saw some really strange fruits and veggies come through and purple potatoes were one of them. As I recall, only the skin is purple, with a slight tinge on the actual "meat" of the potato. You have to remember, there's a lot of varieties of potatoes. Russet, Yellows, Golds, Blues, Purples, Reds, the list goes on.
I've got to jump in and second this idea. I'm a technology instructor for the public library and week after week, class after class I have a staggering amount of seniors who are all interested in learning what a computer can do for them. Sure they're never going to become uber-geeks and contribute copious amounts of good code to the open source movement, but that's not the point. How many other people of all ages use computers every day and contribute nothing to the world of technology? It's unreasonable to expect such a thing. That would be synoymous with asking everyone who drives a car to design a better fuel injection system or implement a better carburetor for all domestic models. Woodstock2409's idea is becoming a reality though. A lot of grandparents in my classes did not buy their computer. It was given to them by one of their kids or even one of their grandkids. They gave them the system, hooked it up, set it up for the internet, and said "Happy Day, I'll see you online!" and walked out the door. So the seniors are left with this chunk of beeping and whirring pastic sitting in their dens and they have no idea what to do with it. All they know is that there has to be more to it than solitare. :)
Every now and again I get a child in my classes, the youngest being around 7 or so. They sat down next to an older gentleman and they had a ball learning stuff from each other as the class progressed! It was impressive and it makes one hold hope for the future if the "older generation" (I put that in quotes because EVERY generation is the older generation to someone.) can learn something about these new fangled computer from the kiddies.