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To: Windflier

Hahaha...reminds me of a funny story...

I was carrying out some computer application teaching back around 2000, and there were still people who really didn’t use computers much. For some of them, this was their first real PC exposure (not mainframe)

I was trying to teach the concept of radio buttons in a computer interface (which as most of us know means you can only have one item selected...selecting another item deselects the first one like...well...radio buttons...:)

There was a wonderful colleague of mine sitting near the front listening to me, and she had the most blank look on her face. With a start, I suddenly realized...

She had no idea what real radio buttons were.

She just sat there with her mouth partly open, her deer-like brown eyes gazing vacantly out of her long, slender face, the gears in her head having ground to a complete stop.

She had never seen a real car radio with “radio buttons” and watched how they work. In that split second, as I understood the situation, I felt such a melange of emotions. I felt puzzlement change to incredulity to humor, then, for split second, sadness, and then the humor flooded back in. I later relayed what I had seen to a very funny, tough female co-worker, and she growled grinningly in a good natured way, that “The only buttons she knows about are the door buttons in the backseat of the car...”


105 posted on 04/11/2013 6:57:26 PM PDT by rlmorel (1793 French Jacobins and 2012 American Liberals have a lot in common.)
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To: rlmorel
With a start, I suddenly realized... She had no idea what real radio buttons were.

Fascinating when you momentarily find yourself standing with one foot in the present and one in the past, isn't it?

I've had the same experience, most often with my kids, who all came late in my life. Every once in a while I'll mention some gadget or common everyday item to them in passing, and notice the same blank look on their faces. Sometimes it takes me a second to realize they've never seen or heard of the thing I'm talking about.

Unlike the woman in your class, my kids will usually ask me, "What's that?", which opens the door for them to learn a little something :-)

108 posted on 04/11/2013 7:22:41 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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