
Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid - BerislavLopac
https://gizmodo.com/the-tech-my-dad-banned-from-our-house-1844777825
======
klyrs
In the late 90s, my dad was _really mad_ about me experimenting with Linux on
my personal computer which I built from parts bought with money earned at a
summer job. It was kinda hilarious. He has zero involvement with microsoft,
very little knowledge of computers, and tended to be mildly anti-
establishment... and since it was 100% my computer, it had zero impact on his
life. It really felt like a "my role is to crack down on my rebellious
teenager no matter the cause" situation. Of course, he shut right up when I
lined up a sysadmin job starting immediately after graduation.

~~~
Shared404
> when I lined up a sysadmin job starting immediately after graduation.

If you don't mind me asking, how were you able to do this? I would like to do
this kind of work, but am unsure of how to get into it. I'm perfectly
comfortable with Linux, and can hack together tools when needed but haven't
had any luck.

~~~
CaliforniaKarl
For what it's worth, here's what happened for me: During Summer at Ohio State,
I worked as a "consultant" in the computer lab. The job involved
opening/closing the lab, managing the printers, and providing basic assistance
to students (we had to know how the subject matter of an intro sequence).

During Summer, it was so dead, I somehow found my way to contributing to
Bugzilla. Those contributions, plus hanging out in IRC, caused me to be
noticed by someone who was looking to hire a Bugzilla person. That eventually
led to sysadmin, and later more.

------
aaomidi
Rules for my kids:

If you're over 10 years of age you should know what your limits are. I'm
always going to be here for advice and help to get yourself back up from an
accident or something that went wrong. I won't block content. I won't demand
access to their phones. I won't shame them in any way.

I'm also planning on being sex and body positive. Nudity isn't inherently
sexual and shame is a social construct. Nothing should be forced on my kids
and unless they actually agree with me on plans I won't force them to do
anything.

~~~
sukilot
That's putting your children in grave danger from all manner of criminals
online.

~~~
narag
When my kid started playing Minecraft, he told a lot of funny stories about
the chat and joking about how people asking for personal details were
pedophiles.

Ten years old kids are not stupid.

~~~
sneak
Well, many 30 year old adults are stupid, so it stands to reason that at least
some percentage of 10 year old kids are, too.

I’m glad your child is bright and perceptive.

~~~
narag
Good point. You're right that we trusted him more when we saw that the trust
was used wisely.

------
rdiddly
I'm with the dad. Not necessarily for the specific choices but for making a
choice. Author should have waited another 10 years because this is a shallow
and still-immature perspective that underappreciates her dad's principle and
integrity. Why should a company that demonstrably sucks for you, continue to
get your money? (So your teenage daughter can be like the cool kids?) It's
called voting with your wallet, and a lot of problems would just vanish if
more people did it. If you keep rewarding a company, they assume they're doing
it right. And you have this entity in your life that is bullshit, and if you
accumulate enough of those, YOU become bullshit.

Edits/Addenda:

Live your truth. (Once you have your own money that is, because beggars can't
be choosers.)

"Hmm I can't help but notice that the people this company hired _specifically
to talk to me_ are rude AF and my very first contact with them included
statements that were verifiably lies." [0]

"Hmm this company takes advantage of me by collecting & selling my personal
data, some of which I consider private and might not have consented to if I
had read the privacy policy." [1]

"Hmm this company does provide the service I want from them, but I've heard
they treat their female & ethnic-minority employees like shit, don't consider
a lot of their workers employees at all, and they seem to break local laws a
lot." [2]

"Hmm this registrar uses deceptive phraseology in its communications, e.g.
referring to an expired domain that I intentionally didn't renew and on which
I owe nothing, as an 'overdue invoice.'" [3]

[0] Comcast

[1] Facebook

[2] Uber

[3] Namecheap

A person for whom principles aren't important, lives with and financially
supports things like this. It's not necessarily weak, but it doesn't take any
particular strength of character either. Only a tolerance for cognitive
dissonance. Someone for whom principles are more important, gets out of that
relationship and finds another. Someone for whom principles are paramount,
might just do without that product or service entirely, if unable to find a
satisfactory provider of it.

~~~
trabant00
100 % with you. I mean why would you give money to companies that treat you
like a dummy, won't allow you to tinker with your computer, ask for double the
money compared to build it yourself, etc.

It might be just me getting old but I don't understand the current consumers
who don't really demand anything for their money. Is nothing important to you?
Do you just buy what they tell you to in marketing and PR?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_It might be just me getting old but I don 't understand the current consumers
who don't really demand anything for their money. Is nothing important to you?
Do you just buy what they tell you to in marketing and PR?_

They just value different things to you. It doesn't mean they are a gullible
idiot. I don't understand why that is so difficult for people to recognise.

~~~
trabant00
What are those things?

I care about price, reliability, ease of maintenance, freedom to modify, etc.

What do you/they care about?

------
cowmix
Now that my kids are officially "grown" (18+), here were/are my tech rules for
the house:

1) We (my wife and I) do not want to know any of your passwords.

2) No content filters on any device or router level.

3) Mixed OSes (we had Linux, MacOS and Windows in the house).

4) NEVER share your passwords with friends.

5) Anything you email, txt or post to anyone... consider it public. Nothing
online is private.

6) No consoles.

~~~
benbristow
Why no consoles?

~~~
protomyth
Apparently the GP is part of the "PC Master Race" and will not tolerate
"console peasants" in the house.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Master_Race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Master_Race)

~~~
cowmix
I don't know all about this PC Master Race stuff. Basically, I wanted my kids
to have to maintain, build a system to play games.

When my kids were young Minecraft JUST came out. They both learned A LOT about
modding early. If they were stuck on consoles they probably would have missed
out on all that.

~~~
endgame
Consoles are consumption devices. PCs are creation devices.

~~~
seventhtiger
Nintendo games with 4+ player multiplayer is actually a great time with family
and friends. In general I think Nintendo makes social games that are intended
for the living room, which is harder to find on the other consoles, and almost
impossible on PC. I say this as someone who mainly plays on PC and has LAN
parties at home.

Consoles can be social devices. PCs can be isolating devices.

~~~
nitrogen
There are social games on PCs, meant to be played by a bunch of people with
controllers, available on e.g. Steam. The ones I know of tend to be more teen-
and-older oriented in their themes and levels of violence though.

~~~
seventhtiger
They do exist but are they the best single screen multiplayer experiences?
Even indie developers of the genre target Nintendo platforms because they know
Nintendo draws that audience. They are the only local-multiplayer-first AAA
developer.

------
hddherman
I would love to have a discussion with the person(s) who think that having an
autoplay video pop up and cover 40% of the article I’m trying to read is a
good idea.

~~~
generalizations
I would love to have a discussion with the person who doesn't browse the web
with uBlock Origin (or similar).

~~~
meddlepal
Talk to an iPhone user?

~~~
bdcravens
iOS has supported ad blocking for a bit.

------
dijit
I am genuinely sick to death of people taking up arms in some sort of faction
war against their supposed "opponent" technology.

I see it everywhere. PlayStation or Xbox! PCMR or Console! MacOS or Windows!
iOS or Android! Disturbing tribalism.

Liking Apple does not make you cool, not liking Apple does not make you cool.
Apple produces hardware and software, it is not a religion. I see so many
people taking up arms against Apple as if it's some kind of religious crusade
or imperative for the betterment of mankind, while at the same time rallying
behind Microsoft (of all companies).

I'm guilty of a bit of elitism too, I can't stand Windows and it hurts me to
see people using it when I know better things exist (or, better for me at
least, I'm one of those pesky linux users) but at the same time: It's a
fucking tool, you don't see tradesmen getting all pissy about people buying
DeWalt power drills.

For the love of all that is good: stop giving a fuck unless it affects you
directly.

~~~
wayneftw
> you don't see tradesmen getting all pissy about people buying DeWalt power
> drills.

Tribalism is everywhere. Dodge vs Chevy vs Ford is one that certain tradesmen
might be inclined to take part in. Certainly even tool brands like DeWalt vs
Makita.

I don't see a problem with it. This is like complaining that people have
opinions and that they might argue about them. It's 100% human nature. Arguing
against it is like arguing against the wind.

Perhaps there's even a tribe of folks who think that opinions are bad and
everybody should just think like they do and not give a fuck. Well, that's
just like, your opinion man.

If my opinions are not part of my identity, what is?

~~~
noman-land
It's not about having opinions, it's about spending energy arguing about them.
Everyone has opinions, but they're not going to go to war about ice cream
flavors, nor should they. It's worth going to war with people who think
keeping slaves is okay. It's not worth going to war over which brand of phone
people use.

Overzealous tribalism can lead to otherizing and dehumanizing and all sorts of
terrible things. Let's save those side effects for things that are a little
more important than which car you like to drive.

~~~
wayneftw
You're comparing the civil war to people texting each other on social media.

Nobody has ever gone to _actual war_ over personal opinions about cars, phones
or computers.

~~~
noman-land
People routinely destroy cities when sports teams win or lose. Get in brawls
because someone is wearing the wrong color. The list goes on. Of course it's
not the same, but the kernel of otherizing remains.

~~~
wayneftw
OK, but nobody has ever destroyed a city over opinions about technology, among
many, many other things that people argue about online such as favorite
celebrity, music, cars, etc.

Just because you can cherry pick a couple of examples of people destroying
things over their opinions, that doesn’t mean anybody’s going to actual war
and it doesn’t mean that having opinions or even arguing about them is bad in
general. It’s human nature.

I get the point though - being less opinionated can be good and if you find
that you’re better without them then I support that. I have sometimes wished
to go live on an island or in a cave myself, to escape the constant culture
war but instead I just turn off my Internet devices. Most days I just wade
through it to find the stuff I agree with.

------
GoofballJones
I just use technology. I never was a windows kind of person, just didn't gell
with it. I was more unix. I know that system. I know what it does and why it
does things. I could have done that with windows, but just never wanted to.

I guess I was more of a tinkerer than the author of this piece, which is why I
went with Linux. And I'm talking Linux when Linus first put it out there
decades ago.

Before that, I tinkered with DOS, of course. Windows 3.1. OS/2\. Windows NT.
But, like I said, it just didn't gell with me. Linux was where it was, and
still is. Yes, I've gotten Macs because again, with OS X, they were unix and I
knew the underlaying structure. I didn't really find the need to install a
gaming OS like Windows, because I'm not a gamer and that's basically all I saw
it offering.

And now? I don't allow any Google products in my home. I don't even use Chrome
nor any Chromium derived browser. And absolutely no Android.

No Amazon Alexa anything.

No "smart" devices at all. No "Internet of Things" BS.

------
dilippkumar
I wish that a significant portion of people today held the tech industry to
such high standards.

Imagine the progress we would have made if our industry was forced into making
sure that tech is extremely reliable and highly functional.

Instead, we get half baked broken things with all notions of quality and
craftsmanship completely abandoned to make room for fast iterations.

~~~
toast0
> Imagine the progress we would have made if our industry was forced into
> making sure that tech is extremely reliable and highly functional.

Do you remember the progress of landlines? In 2000 (and beyond), some people
were still paying extra per month for touchtone dialing. Extreme reliability
comes at a large cost.

If everything had to be reliablr before it was released, we'd have a lot fewer
things to try, and a harder time deciding what we liked. By shipping half
broken stuff all the time, we can figure out what we like, and then make it
reliable if it's warranted, or throw it away if that's the right choice.

------
II2II
Wow, what a bizarre world to grow up in.

I can understand avoiding certain products because other products are better
or because of something that contradicts one's values. Yet the author's father
seems to be doing so because he held grudges and had a weird sense of brand
loyalty.

Gateway, of all companies! Then again, I grew up in a family that went to
computer dealers and had systems built. There was no real brand loyalty there,
not even loyalty to a particular dealer, but it taught me the value in a
custom built PC.

That upbringing reflects how I choose products today. I would much rather
spend an hour shopping for components and an hour putting them together than
spending several hours shopping for a computer.

My recent experience trying to find an acceptable laptop has driven me to the
point where I probably won't buy a laptop in the years to come. I'm the type
of person who won't touch a laptop unless the RAM and storage can be upgraded,
as well as knowing what type of CPU and GPU it has. Having to dig around
support sites or even third party sites to get such information does not
impress me. Granted, finding the information often reveals why vendors are so
hesitant to provide it. (The performance of your $800 laptop is worse than my
middle-of-the pack eight year old PC?! Yeah, that's comparing desktops to
laptops, but it's an eight year old desktop!)

But that's different. It's based upon my wants and (perceived) needs as well
as the information currently available. If things change in a few years time,
the decision will change with it. It's not because of a problem that was fixed
several years prior. It's not driven by a misguided sense of brand loyalty.

Edit: missed word, extra word. Sigh.

------
chmod775
Off-Topic:

There's two misplaced or missing words in just the first paragraph of that
article - the sort of thing that happens when you're going back and rephrasing
things.

I was getting ready to enjoy a good story, but was immediately punished for
not just skimming instead. These mistakes happen to be really easy to catch
for everyone but the author himself and they will trip up specifically those
readers who are trying to pay attention.

Since even major professional online publications clearly don't hire editors
anymore, maybe they should at least adopt a policy of having co-workers
proofread.

~~~
indigodaddy
I noticed the exact same thing immediately. Turned me off a bit to the
article, and the mistakes appeared to continue throughout.

------
stiray
My father didnt want to have cable tv. On antenna we only got ORF (austrian
television) and local one (which sucked). I needed almost 10 years to actually
hear how Captain Kirk in Raumschiff Enterprise really sounds (everything is
synchronized to german) like.

Side effect: I also fluently speak german.

And banning social networks is positive for your kids. Also ads.

~~~
kgwgk
> Side effect: I also fluently speak german.

May have been useful living in Austria!

> everything is synchronized to german

I suspect that's not the word you were looking for.

PS: I guess that explains it:
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronisation_(Film)](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronisation_\(Film\))

~~~
mongol
My guess is parent lived in another country bordering to Austria. Italy?
Hungary?

~~~
kgwgk
Ah, that makes sense. I thought it was Austrian + regional/city (and assumed
he was a foreigner living temporarily in Austria), but it probably is Austrian
+ <home country> (could also be Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic; or
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia depending on the epoch).

------
mixmastamyk
Tech banned in my house :D

\- Windows and telemetry-based apps. I do have a VM for a work VPN however.

\- Google, except the school district forced an exception.

\- Youtube, unless supervised on a shared anonymous tablet.

\- Double-click and other advertising sites.

\- Third-party cookies, and most third-party javascript.

\- No giving out information to any site, make it up if required.

\- Alexa etc, wife uses Siri.

As you can see, outside entities have forced a number of exceptions. Other
additions:

\- Screen time

\- dnsmasq whitelist for kids

~~~
formercoder
Maybe the internet is a different place now but if these restrictions were
placed on me as a kid I never would have grown up to be who I am today.

~~~
acituan
What percentage of these technologies were available when you were a kid?
Chances are addictive nature of these engagement driven websites would have
sucked up our curiosity and autodidactism to an extent that there wouldn’t be
much time left for actually doing hands on experimentation, self-directing our
research, coming to our own conclusions and experience inventiveness that come
from boredom. I think this downside is more important in comparison to the
information they make available.

~~~
username90
All of those existed 9 years ago, there are adults today who grew up with
them.

~~~
godelski
I don't think you can compare the addictiveness of sites today to those of a
decade ago. The algorithms are very different. It should be unsurprising that
in the last decade that they have gotten better at engineering
~~addiction~~engagement.

~~~
elliekelly
okay but have you ever played elf bowling? snood? chip’s challenge??

------
Joof
My dad shut off the internet when he went to bed every night. At 7:00-8:00 PM.
I presume so I would sleep? 'Videogames ruined your life' was what I heard
constantly.

For a while, I had a timer click it back on and off. At some point I learned
kali linux just enough to crack the neighbor's WiFi. There was also the time
my BIOS was locked, but I found out there was a jumper circuit on the MB that
reset it.

I'm now a very successful software engineer with a long history of devop
experience. _Shrug_

------
walrus01
Tech banned in my house:

\- amazon alexa anything

\- any smart speaker that uses persistent voice recognition (ok google etc)

\- things like thermostats, security systems/cameras (ring doorbells, etc)
that require a functioning WAN connection and cloud based services. anything
you would find here:
[https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en](https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en)

\- smart lightbulbs and other "internet of things" devices that require a
connection to a cloud based service, anything of this category that I can't
completely admin and control on my LAN.

\- internet of things consumer devices that require the use of a manufacturer-
proprietary android or ios app to set up and configure on the home wifi.

\- consumer electronics devices that for some unknown reason require a
proprietary shaped connector/charging cable. if it doesn't charge from
microusb or usb-c I'm very unlikely to buy it. in an era when even my road
bicycle front and rear lights charge from standard microusb this should be
obvious.

\- things that are obviously designed to be throwaway with no way to ever
economically replace the battery. such as apple airpods. anything that's given
a 1/10 or 2/10 repairability score by ifixit, such as the microsoft surface
notebook/tablet that is entirely glued together.
[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+2+Teardown/121471](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+2+Teardown/121471)

\- cloud managed wifi APs and routers

\- wifi mesh extenders and other things that create a CSMA half duplex RF
hell, for network reliability and performance reasons. If I need an additional
AP somewhere I can give it a 1000BaseT 802.3af/at wired connection back to the
home core switch.

\- Any ISP-provided all-in-one cablemodem/router/wifi device that I can't
fully control. I have a DOCSIS3 modem that is a dumb layer 2 bridge with no
routing or wifi functions, and my own router that I control.

\- any of the microsoft cloud-managed login accounts for windows 10 PCs

\- any consumer electronics/appliance device that has embedded android in it
unlikely to receive operating system/updates after 2 or 3 years. For example
fridges with a giant android tablet built into their door. Not going to spend
$2000 on a fridge that might have a 10-15 year service lifespan but the
operating system on the tablet will be woefully out of date and risky to put
on the Internet after 5 years. This also means no "internet of things" washing
machines or similar. Just a couple of weeks ago I saw fridges for sale with
Android 7 on them.

\- apple icloud

\- zoom, due to its many prior egregious security vulnerabilities and the
location of 80%+ of its developers

\- anything else that is legally obligated to be backdoored by the ministry of
state security (wechat, alipay, tiktok, etc)

~~~
Gatsky
Regarding the protection of one’s children, I am not comprehending why you
would have such an extensive list but still allow facebook and instagram.

~~~
walrus01
I didn't say I have children. It seems like a very extensive list because I
went into a lot of detail, but it can be summed up as:

\- no IOT devices I can't fully control, and which are known to stop
functioning when there's a last mile residential ISP outage.

\- no consumer-abusive electronics that I believe will be a waste of my money
in the medium to long term

~~~
Gatsky
Sorry, I just assumed this was about children due to the nature of the
article.

------
gpapilion
This makes me think of this book: [https://www.amazon.com/OBD-Obsessive-
Branding-Disorder-Illus...](https://www.amazon.com/OBD-Obsessive-Branding-
Disorder-Illusion/dp/1586487043/ref=nodl_)

The author outlined in part of it a move from appeals to ego to appeals to id
for marketing, and how this is a more powerful approach since it appeals to
sense of belonging.

You see that in the fathers commitment to particular brands, and how they
define him.

------
lsh123
My house rules (I have 3 kids):

\- do whatever you want on your devices, but you break it - you fix it (your
brothers might help you but it’s up to them);

\- on school days, all internet ends at 10pm, but you are welcome to hack into
my firewall;

\- everything you post online is public and saved forever;

\- use generated passwords and 1password for all passwords and all password
recovery questions.

~~~
teddyh
> _\- everything you post online is public and saved forever;_

That’s a useful thing to know, but may be a bad thing to truly internalize:

“ _You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the
assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness,
every movement scrutinized._ ”

------
sunstone
Also a past hardware engineer. Also I've never bought anything Apple. And also
never bought anything Microsoft for about 20 years (unless the license came
with a computer).

I'm not dogmatic about tech though, I just don't care for companies telling me
what I can and cannot do.

------
throwawaynothx
Just a point... MP3 players existed before ipods... they were also incredibly
cheap and easy to add Mp3's to, unlike Ipods with their Itunes. just sayin

~~~
bitwize
Yeah, man. Screw the iPod. No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

------
piyush_soni
I am a bit like the author's dad :). But sure, just like everyone we have our
own reasons and it's hard to argue against personal preferences.

------
Zenst
Some kids today are lucky was my initial thought, mine wouldn't get a phone-
line after the film Wargames came out.

Though that era was also the days when a child could buy a knife, matches, all
sorts of chemicals and even glue. Oh and chemistry sets with chemicals that
would get you upon a terrorist watch-list today :(. Today's kids are with that
all in mind - perhaps not as lucky in hindsight.

------
fisherjeff
As someone who had a child later in life, I like to pretend that being a dad
isn’t a fundamental part of my identity. That, mostly, I’m the same person I
always was, except now I just happen to have a 19-month-old.

But then I read pieces like this and find myself deeply, almost inexplicably,
moved and realize that no, I’m definitely a dad.

------
mikeryan
Wow - first dial-up in 1997-8.

I grew up on the Peninsula, Back when Silicon Valley's northern edge was
pretty much the Oracle buildings on Redwood Shores and was just starting my
path in the tech industry. One of my first jobs in tech was for Excite@Home in
early/mid 1999 - so that was when I went broadband - and never looked back.

------
lvturner
Maybe it's just the mood I'm in this morning, but this article just made me
feel that the author's father had some serious mental health issues.

If anything, I would say it was more about that than the tech bans.

------
dziadziasmerf
This reminds me of
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnqAXuLZlaE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnqAXuLZlaE)

------
SergeAx
Sony's proprietary Memory Stick bugged me to the extent that I banned anything
with this logo from my life. And of course no Apple.

------
jasoneckert
When I was growing up, my parents adhered to Douglas Adams' rules of
technology (and I think many still do today):

1\. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and
is just a natural part of the way the world works.

2\. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is
new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

3\. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of
things.

~~~
neilv
I think that's a clever bit by Douglas Adams, and there's some truth to it in
some contexts, but I hate to see it voted to the top on HN specifically.

The reason is that our industry right now doesn't make a secret about
widespread, accepted ageism. And a common talking-point defense of it is "not
learning new technologies".

~~~
tempestn
I think it's clever because we all (at least those of us over 35) recognize
this tendency in our own thinking, at least to some extent. It certainly
doesn't mean we reject or are incapable of learning new technologies. It's
more about introspection—realizing for instance that the fact I have little
use for TikTok is more about me than it is about TikTok. Personally I don't
feel it needs to have any ageist connotation.

~~~
blub
It's not that simple. A lot of technology today is manipulating or is spying
on its users.

------
wombatmobile
My parents banned toy guns.

Not all parents did. A couple of kids at school were really into them. I
wonder how they turned out.

~~~
samatman
Probably just fine.

My mother hated toy guns; my father insisted we be allowed to play with Nerf.
Friends of the family weren't allowed toy guns at all, but the mother finally
gave up: one morning, she saw her sons chew toast into the shape of pistols
and chase each other around the table shouting "pew! pew!"

------
jtbayly
Way too many typos to bother continuing to read this. Very confusing.

------
knolax
> Unsurprisingly, the first mantra my dad imposed on everyone was (in the
> voice of Faye Dunaway) No. Apple. Products. Ever!

As someone who has to maintain my extended family's fleet of outdated apple
products. I can only daydream.

~~~
jozzy-james
just be glad it's not windows XP

------
vmception
Skimmed the article, whats the list?

