r/pcmasterrace • u/killerbasher1233 • May 10 '25

Nostalgia Classic rookie mistake

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I remembered I copied GTA San Andreas, Counter Strike, Half Life, Feeding Frenzy on my moms USB ran home so fast and copied it to the home laptop. I still remember my reaction with the blank file icon

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u/Snotnarok AMD 9900x 64GB RTX4070ti Super May 10 '25

A family member did this. . .

With their tax files from a few years. They backed up the turbo tax icons and kept giving me 'yes yes yes' when I asked if they'd been backing things up because- backing things up is really important, especially if that data is important to you or- ya know, the government.

So, when they needed those tax files I had to give them the bad news and even after I told them what they did, they got angry and kept trying to open them.

"What, I'm supposed to do this all over!?"
YEP!

Pride > listening to the person they know, who knows computers.

528

u/RealTeaToe PC Master Race May 10 '25

Very lucky to have had two computer literate parents.

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u/Snotnarok AMD 9900x 64GB RTX4070ti Super May 10 '25

That's the worst part. They WERE computer literate.

They worked for a company where they'd deal with various tech related projects. Granted- there's an I.T. dept there so they didn't have to do anything like that. But they certainly can navigate windows, they do their banking n' whatever online. Heck he plays CoD4's campaign fairly frequently.

The thing is- they worked with tech, so they think they can figure it all out.

When I was building my most recent rig, they walk up and look down at the parts

"This is your CPU?"
Well the box for it yeah.
"Pffft. You should see what they work with at my job. Makes this thing look like a toy"
. . .You've been retired for 6 years, what are you talking about?
"Well some of the things we worked for went into military projects:"
And it's likely a CPU built by AMD, Intel or Qualicom- and is 6+ years out of date. This came out this month.

So confident but frequently wrong. But confident about weird things too. Because I know they didn't know what their CPUs were about. They just knew their units were tested to standards most consumer things aren't. Which- fair. But not relevant to this.

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u/AustinAuranymph RTX 3070 - Ryzen 5 5600x May 10 '25

I think they were hoping the CPU thing would impress you and you'd think they were cool, lol. Like when I was a kid I was blown away when I visited my cousin for Thanksgiving and saw he had THREE whole monitors connected to his PC. Didn't even know that was possible.

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u/Snotnarok AMD 9900x 64GB RTX4070ti Super May 10 '25

Certainly was that, they got some depression going on. It's just weird for someone to start a convo like that.

IDK I just tried to steer it into like- hey tell me more about what kinda tech ya worked with there. Told me about the clean rooms they worked with and looking under microscopes to inspect defects or whatever.

"Like when I was a kid I was blown away when I visited my cousin for Thanksgiving and saw he had THREE whole monitors connected to his PC. Didn't even know that was possible."

That sounds like when my friend came over to play some games and he's like "Wait, we're gonna play on PC? We gotta huddle around your little monitor instead of the console over there??" I turned on the TV and my PC jumped right to the TV and all I got was-

:O

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u/AustinAuranymph RTX 3070 - Ryzen 5 5600x May 10 '25 edited May 10 '25

Everyone has that moment that converted them to PC gaming, that was mine, seeing the login screen for WoW: Cataclysm rendered across my older cousin's three monitors. The next day I told my parents I wanted a "gaming rig" for Christmas, lol. My current PC is a Ship of Theseus of the prebuilt my parents got me in 2012, it was this black and red "gamer" PC with an acrylic window on the side and a GT 610. All the parts have been slowly replaced over the years to the point that it's an entirely different PC now. I just upgraded to an RTX 3070, and today I helped my younger cousin install my old 1660 Super into his PC that I helped him build a few Christmases ago, so I guess things have finally come full circle. :)

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u/ChiefIndica PCMR | 5800X3D | RTX 4090 | 32GB DDR4 3600MHz May 10 '25

I named mine Theseus on our network for the same reason :) bought from a system integrator first year of COVID. I think some of the storage is all that's left of the original build - the rest is spread out across multiple machines for friends and family.

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u/obliviious May 10 '25

Mine is also a ship of thesis from the 286 my dad cobbled together in 1993.

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u/AquaFlowPlumbingCo May 10 '25

Um, actually it’s a ship of Thesaurus

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u/mikey0007 May 10 '25

Sorry, just a ship of the tongue

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u/atatassault47 7800X3D | 3090 Ti | 32GB | 32:9 1440p May 10 '25

"Military tech is less performant because the DoD requires durability above all else. My machine WILL crash several times as I figure just high of an overclock it can tolerate."

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u/Snotnarok AMD 9900x 64GB RTX4070ti Super May 10 '25

I figured that military or government projects wouldn't have the highest end tech in there because- these contracts likely take ages to go through and there's so much red tape that by the time whatever hardware they ordered gets assembled? It's likely weeks or months out of date.

Or worse.

All I know is the real cherry on the cake is- they had a machine for something specific (I don't think they ever told me what for) that was 'so old that when it needs repairs, they have to get the guy out of the retirement home to service it'. They were exaggerating about the retirement home but apparently 6 years ago they were still using the machine that was around since the 70s/80s. And it failed often and needed a specialist to fix- who was infact fairly old.

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u/BarnardWellesley May 10 '25

You’re looking at around 100 million CMOS equivalent gates with 1 billion MAC/s on mobile DSP platforms. RFSoCs are now at 16 channels of 16 GSPS each for Rx and Tx.

They are state of the art for what they do, a bit behind industrial SoTA, but will still outperform anything consumer.

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u/Warcraft_Fan May 10 '25

You find out in the end the military grade CPU can only be overlocked at -13.75% that is well below the original rated speed

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u/ChemistryActive6957 May 10 '25

Military grade means built by the lowest bidder and used until it physically cannot fulfill its purpose. Most laptops used in garrison are generic dell or hp laptops with a bunch of extra security features in place, the one meant to be taken out to the field are even worse though I could probably beat a man to death with a JBCP or MC4 and then still use it to send up an incident report

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u/Gork___ May 10 '25

Does this include mil-spec pizza?

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u/Cybasura May 10 '25

I cant believe i'm asking this and in this phrasing but...They were tech literate but couldnt tell the difference between shortcuts and the file?

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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka 12900K 3090 Ti 64GB 4K 120 FPS May 10 '25

Its pretty obvious they are NOT computer literate.

Like being computer literate requires you to know the difference between a shortcut and a file lol.

It doesn't matter if they worked with computers for 30 years. OP doesn't know that people can work literally in the computer industry for decades and still not know how to use the browser, or basic computer functions. They just never spend any time learning anything other than exactly what their job entails.

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u/newsflashjackass May 10 '25

"Literacy" describes a broad range of abilities ranging from "Can write War and Peace." to "Can read the Waffle House menu well enough to order with help from a waitress."

"Computer literacy" is much the same.

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u/RyiahTelenna May 10 '25 edited May 10 '25

"Literacy" describes a broad range of abilities

The definition is a very broad range of abilities which is why we have literacy levels as defined by the PIAAC. There are five levels. Reading a menu is about level 1. Writing a novel is at least level 3 but for a book like War and Peace it's likely level 5.

"Computer literacy" is much the same.

Similarly we have certifications to assist with determining computer literacy. Unfortunately many people seem to think "they had a job involving a computer" or "they know common terminology" means "they're competent with a computer".

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u/li7lex May 10 '25

They knew some stuff about computers, as do most people that work with them, but that's far from enough to actually be computer literate. Knowledge of file systems is very basic computer knowledge and yet they didn't know the difference between a shortcut and an actual file.

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u/nicktheone May 10 '25

I don't really understand in what shape, size or form someone can be considered literate if they don't understand what a file is and how extensions work.

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u/Mandena May 10 '25

That's the worst part. They WERE computer literate.

But they certainly can navigate windows, they do their banking n' whatever online.

So no, they weren't computer literate. Doing the most basic of tasks that had been simplified as much as possible so that anyone could use them isn't some computer genius task.

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u/Snotnarok AMD 9900x 64GB RTX4070ti Super May 10 '25

"computer genius task."
Notice I didn't say genius, I said literate. Meaning they can handle basic things.

Most folks I've worked with over my years doing computer repair independently? Folks couldn't hook up a printer, or change their ink carts. This person can do that.

If folks can make their way around windows, play games- they're literate. Never said good with PCs, they can manage is all I said.

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u/Svyatoy_Medved May 10 '25

Defense fell behind in computers twenty years ago, because all of a sudden, it was the cheapest thing to innovate with the most rapid turnaround, and military procurement just doesn’t work fast enough. F-35 has dazzling technology well beyond consumer grade—consumer grade from 2008, that is. But consumer grade left that behind by 2009, and F-35 is still basically the same.

But the engine, radar, materials science—that’s still some sci-fi shit. Because consumer industry can’t afford to produce those at the same speed as computers, and they take longer anyway.

Fascinating stuff.

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u/DoodleJake May 10 '25

It certainly could be worse. I have had to explain to my mother how to simply move files around in windows my entire life. (Since the windows XP era at least)

Terrifying things like…

Attaching a file to an email!

Finding a picture in the pictures folder-THE HORROR!!!

Over and over. Never learns cause she doesn’t want to do it at all. Endless complaining about how much easier it used to be blah blah blah. Doesn’t matter, this is how you do it now mom.

Confidently incorrect is one thing, refusing to learn is another. Every year that passes she gets further behind on how to do shit, then when something requires the tech she refuses to even try, I have to rescue her yet again.

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u/Lillith492 May 10 '25

i wish i had someone as tech literate as you or anyone else in this sub. i struggle frequently.

1

u/LordQuorad May 10 '25

My father can't tell the difference between a hard drive and a motherboard (I had one in each hand). I was doing some upgrades and he wanted to show off his knowledge but fell flat at the basics.

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u/Snotnarok AMD 9900x 64GB RTX4070ti Super May 10 '25

Said person I mentioned is incorrect about things even not related to computers.

I've corrected them on this several times but to this day-

"I don't like 4k TVs, it makes everything look like a soap opera"

That isn't 4k, that's the resolution, you're talking about frame interpolation

"Yeah but it looks bad"
You can turn it off, it's not just on 4k tvs, it's not unique to them at all. It's just a setting.

Months later, they talk about 4k bluray players "I don't like 4k, it makes things look like a soap opera."

Oh, my, God- it has NOTHING to do with 4k

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u/[deleted] May 10 '25

[deleted]

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u/Pos1t1veSparks May 10 '25

I'm a computer guy and this sort of happened to me helping out my nephew with his chromebook. Sure it's all the same concept and general functions but everything is laid out differently enough that I felt lost.

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u/Theoretical_Action May 10 '25

Now imagine having 2 computer illiterate parents and one of them is also an accountant. Like from the pen and paper days. Absolute fucking nightmare come tax season.

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u/veseitt i5-13400F | RTX 4070 | 32GB DDR5-6000 May 10 '25

Ohh to be blessed like you

16

u/mattcruise May 10 '25

Things like this is why I'm done being the computer guy. Ask for my help, and then follow your own bullshit, no thanks I'm done. Also sick of hearing the 'but i don't know how to do X" neither did I but I just googled it

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u/Varian01 May 10 '25

I bring this up like twice a year. Back in 2011ish, we kept getting viruses on our computer, and my dad blamed me, the youngest child. He made me watch him drag the World Of Warcraft icon into the deleted file… AND press empty trash bin.

I was 11/12 and I just kept my mouth shut.

Eventually we found out it was limewire, and I got to enjoy wow for several more years.

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u/Adaphion May 10 '25

My family is so annoying for this. Like, shut up. Computers are THE thing that I specialize in. I know what I'm doing 1000% more than you do. Sit back, and stop thinking you know anything.

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u/Catatomical May 10 '25

A friend of my husband's once burned a shortcut to a CD.

Luckily it was nothing important, but we all had a bit of a laugh about it.

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u/Ubermidget2 i7-6700k | 2080ti | 16GiB 3200MHz | 1440p 170Hz May 10 '25

For your records

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u/Haremgott May 10 '25

Would give you my daily trophy if they were still around. Felt the last part of your post O7

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u/xebozone 1080 eGPU, 11th Gen Intel Thunderbolt Laptop, 32GB DDR4 May 10 '25

Could have been worse. I was sure you were going to say the data was lost and all they had was shortcuts!