For the young computer wizards..

Okay, straight to the point :

This is to all the people who're young, who are vociferously addicted to computers.
I'm myself a young chap, prefer not to disclose my age lol
Anyway, what i think is happening at my country, that is india, is that young people are aimlessly mad about computer gaming, cracking, etcetra and are spending 70% of their studying times on the computer. Now it is very obvious that if somebody uses windows for like 2 years , they would know everything about it, and if they are interested, maybe even more.
This leads them to falsely believe that they have a lot of knowledge on computers and that they arent wasting their time, instead when they should be studying.

Even if I talk besides normal users/script kiddies, and talk about ourselves, people who are serious about computers, i have heard about the high amount of competition even in the universities in the USA and Canada.

What my view here is that instead of spending most of our time reading TCP/IP tuts when we should be studying about the periodic table is no point at all. This doesnt mean that im sayin that the computer is evil, and we should stay away, just that we need to manage our time, because if we dont get grades in high school that we'd need to get into a good university, we wouldnt have, what they call a "great career", or even a reasonable one, because they need your academic prowess in your bio-data and not the amount of exploits that you discovered or made.

So, simply put, for the young people who are still studying, i suggest , because i have experienced this with myself lately, that we'll have to spend a limited time on the computer, and if we really love it so much that we aim to make it out profession, we would have to spend more time on our books and not here. Rather ironic, isnt it ?

But true.

Thats why i love college, i always have an excuse to be on the computer:) to be honest though man i know how that is, i hated high school, i got kicked out so i went and got a GED and then worked for a while before starting college, i love computers, it was like, well about 4 years ago i got my first computer with windows 95, i just played with everything untill ifigured out how it worked, after that i screwed it up badly and had to buy a new one (the one im typing on right now:) its my baby) this one has ran windows 98SE, windows 2,000 Pro, Linux red hat 6.1, Mandrake 7.1 or 2 i cant remember, BeOS, caldera Linux, free BSD (whoooo did that ever screw my MBR in the butt) and of course DOS. not to go of track but i have alot of respect for all OSs (except MAC OS and even then i have 3 forms of rspect for it, i have respect for it because steve wozniak used to build these in his garage, i have respect for them being the first GUI driven OS, and i have respect for the newer ones being based in FREE BSD), i have lots of respect to people that write OSs, i know a tiny bit about programming and to write an OS would be like an ultimate challenge, but i think some day i would like to have my own , lol could you imagine GORe OS, mine would be a mixture of different OSs, id have the easy to use interface of windows and MAC, the wizards that install drivwers for you like windows, the stability would be a mix of the BSD family and UNIx and Linux and BeOS, id make that thing so stable the only reason to turn it off would be adding another perice of hardware, id make it also have support for justa bout everything, i hate having to hunt down drivers so id create an advanced version of plug n play, it would be called plug and work.
and my OS would be awesome, it would be totally great with like, ok instead of logging in like normal, id have it so you could log in with your username and password and choose "Work" if your doing homework or at work, or "play" to do multimedia and stuff like that, so when you logged in it would be a different desktop, like people at workl could click work and all the tools they used the last time they logged in would start up, or for play there browser could be launched or some kinda image editor or whatever (im just tossin ideas around but this could go somewhere) anyway im done ramblin. but to summarize, if you like playing on the computer alot, go to college and get into the industry.

invader:
the problem u mention about young ppl playing with their 'puters instead of studying isn't really that big a problem.. I'm sure that most ppl with a big 'puter interest will find themselves choosing to test the kewl new prog they d/l'ed last night before studying.. and sometimes ppl forget to study... this can happen but it doesn't happen very often cuz if it did then maybe it would be time ask oneself if u made the right education choice... sometimes ppl temperarily loose their selfdiscipline but it's mostly only temporarily...
I differently.. I study first.. and then I might forget to go to sleep but that's not as important.. I still have time for studying and 'puter challenges :) the way life should always be :)

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this can happen but it doesn't happen very often cuz if it did then maybe it would be time ask oneself if u made the right education choice... sometimes ppl temperarily loose their selfdiscipline but it's mostly only temporarily... - zion1459

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wel zion, it's not temporary, that's the damned problem.
Once you're in the pit, it's difficult to come out.
Great to hear about your self-discipline though :thumbsup:

To contradict zion1459's message a lil' bit, I 've found that over the years sleep is important. I mean I'm still young, and yes, I tend to have to learn my lessons the hard way, but this is one lesson that I've learned. Sleep is essential for the mind to awaken. Now my mom always preached this cuz I would stay up to study for tests, not that I wasn't prepared, but that I wanted so badly to ace it. In fact, one time earlier this year, I stayed up til 3 studying for a History test, that when I got there my brain wasn't working. I erased 11 of the right answers and put wrong ones down, when I already had the right answer down....and when I got it back i was like WTF! I'm not trying to neg Zion, but trying to prove a point that sleep isn't as important as school-like he said-but still ranks up there as one of the top priorities that people tend to reluctantly think about.

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i have respect for them being the first GUI driven OS

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Xerox had the first GUI which was "borrowed".

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The very first graphical user interface was developed by the Xerox Corporation at their Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the 1970s. Steve Jobs, visited PARC in 1979 (after buying Xerox stock) and was impressed and influenced by the "Alto", the first computer ever with a graphical user interface.

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If you have not read about the Xerox Palo Alto labs you should. A herd of nerds sitting around on bean bag chairs building whatever struck their fancy. The first GUI, the first mouse, the first e-mail system, networked computers and even rudimentary voice recognition.

Xerox decided in their infinite wisdom that they were wasting their money and shut the research down. Bill Gates had also visited the parc and 'borrowed" a few ideas.

Invader, I think you make a good point. I myself am a computer science major, however it is at a liberal arts university. Therefore, and totally not to put down the technical / engineering schools cause those are sweet, I pretty much get what you're looking for: read lots of classics, study economics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, history, humanities, sociology, math, etc and still learn about (and get a degree in) computer science. While my classes have been cool and informative, they mostly suffer from academic theoritical concentration, rather than providing me with skills applicable in the real technical world. This is where learning on my own has come into play. I recently got a nice computer security job strictly from the skills I picked up by playing on my own. So what I say to you (new,young computer people in general) is just attempt to manage your time properly -- learn some cool computer stuff, learn to program / hack / whatever, but learn about the rest of the world as well, and don't forget time for socializing, sports, other hobbies (and women ;-) ).

I guess that's it. I wanted to get a post under my belt and hopefully I helped someone. Places like slashdot and google news are pretty cool for reading the headlines. Then, if you have time, try reading articles in various fields...you may actually like what's going on outside of computer science.

Peace,

Raz0rSharp

ive got a great career and i didnt even finish high school. Not everyone who studies and goes to uni will end up with a great career ( it may increase your chances) same as not everyone who doesnt do well at school will end up a bum. :)

tHERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS, ONLY STUPID PEOPLE

-Mr garrison

A college is a college is a college. Great grades in high school doesn't assure you a top 10 spot, heck a 4.0 and a 1800 won't even get you into harvard. They turned down like half the people with that. The important thing is that you get an accredited degree and not where you get the degree. Sure you can bust your ass get into a state university get into some job which is a "great job." but you can also put in a half assed effort and go to a state college get a "good job." and the bonus is you didn't waste your youth.