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Steve Wozniak Was My Computer Teacher in 1995
- rodgerd 10y agoWozniak would have gotten along well with C E Beeby: "The upheaval of the depression years and the rise of fascism forced him to think not only about differences in human abilities but also about the right all individuals should have to education in a democracy. In his view the education system suffered from undue centralisation and conformity and should open itself to variation, experiment and change. The abolition of the proficiency examination in 1937 held out hope for primary schooling responsive to the range of children’s abilities." Alas, these tenets of New Zealand's public education system are being systemically demolished.
- ChristianGeek 10y agoProud to have been educated through my primary years in New Zealand during the '60s!
- soperj 10y agoGates foundation, hard at work.
- mistermann 10y agoHow so?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jacobolus 10y agoThe Gates Foundation is one of the big funders of a movement which is trying to dismantle US public education. No idea whether that has anything to do with New Zealand per se. Read e.g. this book if you’re curious https://amzn.com/0345806352/ https://amzn.com/0345806352/
- marclave 10y agoSteve Wozniak is whom I strive to be as a Computer Engineer. He is so thoughtful, creative, passionate and genuine. He has inspired me like no one else.
- eltoozero 10y agoMet Woz at Bob'a Big Boy in Toluca Lake and he's a super friendly guy. We compared notes on the Sony DSC-T7 and I gawked at his Nixie tube watch. Good times.
- WalterBright 10y agoI'm glad there are people like Steve in the world.
- 1qaz2wsx3edc 10y agoI as well, he's probably my top role model, up with Chris Sawyer, John Carmack, Rich Hickey and more.
- echelon 10y agoI'm also thankful for people like you, Walter. But I know what you mean.
- pmoriarty 10y ago"I admitted that generally, school was hard for me, but I loved art..." Logo. He should have taught them Logo.
- spaceandshit 10y agoAgreed. I was taught Logo in the 4th grade and it was a great introduction into programming and computers, which ultimately led to a stronger foundation in the field.
- voltagex_ 10y agoI probably picked Logo up around that time too. I still dip into it from time to time. I just wish there was a good JS implementation that I could run in the browser - you never know when the urge to draw spirographs will hit.
- ido 10y agoI was taught Logo at the 4th grade and it seemed pointless to me cause you couldn't make games in it...I know now you probably could, but they only showed us how to make the turtle draw simple things, basically a recipe to draw a house etc (QBasic was the holy grail at the time, then Turbo Pascal). I guess tho the main problem was that few primary school teachers in the early 90s actually had even basic programming competency. The only ones I knew who could do any programming beside the trivial textbook examples were other pupils.
- latchkey 10y agoAround that time there was a Macintosh web server called WebSTAR. I hacked together a shareware plugin in C that used the newish (at the time) browser 'Host:' header to allow for multi-homed domains without the need for separate IP addresses. He bought an entire site license for $1500 when he could have just spent $35. I had created the $1500 option as a joke thinking nobody would spend that amount. Made my day and that really encouraged me to become a professional software engineer. Thanks Steve!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- hkmurakami 10y agoLook at the kid rockin' the America Online T-shirt in the splash image. ;)
- ntaylor 10y agoI was lucky enough to meet Steve at Xamarin Evolve, this year. He is incredibly friendly, and one of the most fascinating people I've ever had the chance to hear speak.
- kutkloon7 10y agoI wonder if people still found it fascinating to speak to him if he were not succesful...
- ntaylor 10y agoFrom what I saw, he's really a fun-loving person. His stories are as much inspiring as they are amusing. Success found him, and helped provide him with the resources to do more of what he already loved to do: tinker with gadgets and teach.
- Qwertystop 10y agoIf he wasn't successful he'd probably be quite a different person in practice - he wouldn't have had the money to do most of what he currently does. And that's quite apart from the question of whether he'd have been in the plane-crash that gave him brain-damage, and how that would have affected his personality. Based on what he does, though? If there was somehow a person who's involved in all the different stuff he is but somehow without getting major recognition or money for him (and that was not in and of itself a notable trait)? Yeah, I get the feeling he'd probably still be interesting.
- poisonarena 10y agoI follow him on twitter, He is always tweeting from Outback Steakhouse with his wife..
- Gorbzel 10y agoHe does love him some chain restaurants.
- johnpowell 10y agohttp://ask.metafilter.com/47835/Woz-More-like-Was-am-I-rite http://ask.metafilter.com/47835/Woz-More-like-Was-am-I-rite A not so nice question was asked about Woz. He responded. http://ask.metafilter.com/47835/Woz-More-like-Was-am-I-rite#728258 http://ask.metafilter.com/47835/Woz-More-like-Was-am-I-rite#...
- shakna 10y ago> I am very happy to read these posts. It's not easy to have notoriety and pretty much have accurate conceptions in the public mind. Virtually everything said her about me is accurate. And now I like the guy.
- jstoiko 10y agoWoz also clarified, on HN, some of the things that were said about his relationship with Jobs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8701997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8701997
- piker 10y agoHacker News: where even Steve Wozniak only has 17 karma.
- theologic 10y agoI'm roughly 14 years younger than Woz, and I grew up in Seattle reading about the exploits of the Steves. While I started at a startup in Seattle at 17 years of age, I've never reached any real fame. But I was always a fanboy of the men that built high tech, with Woz being one of them. 8 weeks ago, I returned to the Silicon Valley for a job, and I bought a house in the hills of Los Gatos. After being here for a week, I was told that Woz lives up the hill a few house from mine. I wake up every morning hoping to see him riding his Segway down the street, but I have yet to spot him. Everbody wishes they could hang out with the Woz, and even though I'm 54 years old, I still have my heroes in the industry. Woz is one of them.
- sumedh 10y ago> but I have yet to spot him. Probably because he lives in Tasmania, Australia now.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- branchless 10y agoHave you read "Commodore: a company on the edge"? https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/dp/0973864966 https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/... It's not critical of Woz but it does re-seat him as a peripheral figure. I was surprised given the other things I've read. I'm not asserting it as the "truth" but it was a different take.
- eMumbaBlog 10y agoGood to know, that. Feels good to have someone to follow and know that they're out there still doing good.
- foxhedgehog 10y agohis son was my cofounder 20 years later
- kumarski 10y agoI think* every technocrat has a teacher or mentor who enables them to level up on a subject matter. Am I alone in this feeling? Zuck had a world class programmer teaching giving him coding lessons when he was young.
- Quarrelsome 10y agothat's not true, some of us are autodidacts. We get help sure, I was helped a lot on newsgroups when learning but we haven't all had mentors.
- sh_tinh_hair 10y agoAs an autodidact I will only note that you can learn at pace (given intelligence and aptitude) only so long as you give it 110%. That extra 10% wears on you. Eventually you will not be able to keep up. The old saying is 'learn from others mistakes'; being self taught leaves you open to not understanding others mistakes and learning a lot from your own. Time++.
- kumarski 10y agoI've found there are many auto-didacts in programming. I haven't found that for any lab science or engineering for that matter. I wonder why...
- mvkaxon 10y agoWorld needs more Wozes than Jobses.
- johnnydoe9 10y agoWoz seems like a cool guy, very few people in his position would act in ways he does.
- sonabinu 10y agoIt's so important that you have a good inspiring CS teacher when you start learning the ropes. The first person who taught me computing was the reason I stayed away from going into CS for 15 years before taking it up a second time. This time round my community college math teacher taught us how to program a TI-84 and encouraged us to do so. I went on to download R because I read that it was best for statistics and learnt more stuff later. An inspiring teacher who goes out of their way to ensure that your learning roadblocks are removed is the best!
- misingnoglic 10y agoWhat did that first teacher do so wrong?
- sonabinu 10y agoStarting writing BASIC without telling us what we were doing. Kept using technical terms that sounded like a foreign language. Told me it's ok if I did not understand - girls don't always get it fast! Well, I later learned that the guys who got it had PCs at home (huge luxury when I was in high school ) and went for private lessons in Programming.
- MaxLeiter 10y ago"I remember feeling like I had the keys to some magical kingdom." This post, and this quote in particular, strongly reminded me of this song by a former teacher on the current educational system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD2o6soOe1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD2o6soOe1I