Ask Lemmy

What's the scale? I'm proposing:

1 - able to turn on the device (not necessarily turn it off)
9 - can train and run own LLM (from scratch, not from an existing model)
10 - knows how to reliably set up a printer

how the fuck do you "bug" the internal speakers while attempting to pirate a game? that's like saying you broke the sink while trying to change a light bulb.

Whatever score you give to youself, will be a demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

There is not one single technology to be good or bad at. You can be an Android development ace, a Windows gamer and a Linux user all at the same time, and naturally you will struggle if you switch to Windows dev and Linux gamer.

Being tech savy really just means that you know and recognize tons of patterns that pop up everywhere (e.g. drag-n-drop, config files in certain places with overrides in other places etc.)

9.9/10

If I'm not interested then you can get 5/10 advice for free just to be polite.

Skill is not knowledge, it's the ability and hardheadedness to acquire knowledge kicking and screaming to make the world bend to your will so that the printer will actually print.

Are we rating ourselves against the general population? I'm an easy 9 if not 10/10.

Against people working in IT, or skilled enthusiasts? I've really slipped, maybe a 4 or 5 at best.

8/10 maybe more, maybe less. Software developer, don't really have issues with tech, but put me in front of a quantum computer and I sure as shit would be lost, but fine with consumer products.

Between 0.4 and 0.6 but the best humans score between 1.2 and 1.8; we are all pretty shit at technology.

If you don’t believe me, ask technical lithography questions to software programmers and economic questions to plumbers.

We are swimming in a sea of technologies and don’t even know how deep the water around us is.

Fuck the technological complexity in a single screw is massive.

Please give references for the scale

Also Richard Stallman -- the man who wrote the original Emacs and GCC -- has never installed a GNU+Linux distro, and he has no idea/interest in it.

Decimal or binary? I'd say a two.

A solid 4, I think. Sure, I can build a PC and install an OS but both of those have been pretty much plug and play for decades at this point.

Don't ask me about your smartphone, your smart home devices or your Windows 10/11 problems, I don't have a clue about any of that. If you visited my home you'd be forgiven for thinking it was abandoned 20 years ago.

I can usually figure out basic tech I've never used before, but I'd prefer to have the manual, help or hindrance though that may be.

If you blindly run commands without thinking, you're gonna have a bad time in Linux.

SteamOS is also not hard to use, especially if you use it as intended, but if you start going outside the box on things, you can definitely break stuff. Nintendo switch would have the same problems if they let you touch the knobs that valve does with SteamOS

I am an IT technician, I would say that I am about a 7.

Most of my job deals with psychology.

Compared to people who work on cryptography and AI magic? Like 2/10. Compared to Boomers? 9/10.

I think it is hard to give an objective rating on this since even extremely skilled individuals (probably half of Lemmy by societal standards) tend to skew their ratings toward the middle. Basically what Dunning-Krueger actually found from their research

That said... I'd rate myself as a 6/10. Maybe I actually know more than that

Depends on if I care of not.

Phone: 3/10. I don't really care other than googling "how to turn off annoying feature".

Writing Software: 7/10. It's not beautiful, but it does one thing reasonably well and I finished it in an afternoon. Just don't ask me to write a GUI.

Writing Software for industrial machinery: I've done it for a living for more than a decade. Still rather skip the GUI part.

I mean im in IT and it really depends. Everythings a learning curve so things you have figured out usually goes well but since every tech has pretty much unlimited use cases you still can hit roadblocks. For things you have never done it takes time to learn how to do the common uses and then you can expand out to things that require more finesse (ideally, if the boss wants Z you make it do Z even if you never got it to do X)

9.5; I worked on machine learning starting in 2016 and lead teams working on new cryptography. That being said, I've met tons of people wayyyy more skilled/"good" than I am. But if we are comparing to the general public, at least a 9.5

11 - I avoid it as much as I can ;)

More seriously, I will often be the one people around ask for help but it doesn't change that I also learned to absolutely distrust tech.

All tech, be it corporate-owned as well as free/Libre... I'm using Linux and have no issue (I like it) but I'm also terrified by the many 'social code of conducts' that have been popping out in many communities. Not necessarily because I disagree with their core values, that would not even matter much, but because it's stating a precedent to allow a group to remove any user they don't like/disagree with the right to use a tech... and that power will be used even when not 'the good guys' will be in charge.

Hence me slowly falling back to analog as much as possible...

Edit: typos, clarifications

Scale is always a problem with questions like this. If these are percentiles of the general population, then I'm easily 10 and even trying to dig deep enough into Linux to break a Steam Deck puts you near the upper end of the scale.

If on the other hand, 0 is an otherwise intelligent adult who refuses to have anything to do with anything having a screen and 10 is Lovelace, Turing, von Neumann, etc... then I might be a 7 or 8.

Operating stuff with GUI? Maybe 5/10, just ok.

Operating stuff using command? 0/10 i suck.

I used to be really good. In the last 15 years or so the industry has insisted on making the interface would be worse and worse. NowI’m damn near helpless. I google more stuff than you can imagine. It’s fucking stupid. I don’t even enjoy most technology anymore.

It all depends on the day lol.

I "hacked" my wii to get free games one time does that count? other than that I can operate most devices but I have no idea how to code and don't have time to learn. I'd put myself at a 6/10.

What's a 10?

Learning drive 5. Using once learned 8

Depends on how you are using your scale.

1. One way is to quantify how much knowledge do you have right now. This might be average or low or whatever. This doesnt matter at all.

2. The better way is to think about your willingness to learn and try with confidence. This is what you should actually put on a scale.

My existing knowledge is better than average. I've spent the last 2 years learning to put together some hardware (NAS/server, custom keyboard from scratch, hitbox videogame controller) and using more software (Linux basics, Docker and server basics, emulators, etc). I'm still probably way behind the tech professionals who are on Lemmy, but I would say my willingness to learn and try is very very high and that's more than enough for an enthusiast and hobbyist.

Also worth considering benchmarking against the general population rather than Lemmy's tech community. The general public mostly hasn't even heard of the Steam Deck or Linux, and certainly can't manage anything beyond pressing the install button in an app store. Compared the the general public, my wife thinks I'm a literal wizard for having an email address with my own domain and being able to access a remote desktop.

My thing is C++ and Z80/45GS02 assembly, and I love a good terminal, so wherever that puts me I guess

My technology skill makes me satisfied that your scale starts at zero, but annoyed it didn't end with nine.

I've been working with computers and building them my whole life. I am pretty good with windows. I regularly tell potential employers in interviews that I rate my skills with windows computers at about a 6/10. I can probably fix anything you broke, but I am terrified of editing hex code and other things that the IT wizards do with ease.

I can take apart most electronics and put them back together without breaking them which is not a skill that most people possess apparently. Back when I worked at geeksquad I became known as the "laptop keyboard repair guy" in the area. Other stores would literally send people to see me because apparently nobody else can take apart an hp laptop and remember where all of the 47 screws went or do it without ripping a ribbon cable. 🤷🏼‍♂️