Redditor NanoPope asked:
"What’s the most ridiculous thing you saw a computer illiterate person do with a computer?"
Mice
"I have two coworkers who aren't sure how computers really work. Both have wireless mice."
"Coworker A's mouse stops working and can't figure out why. Coworker B takes his mouse and walks over to her desk, puts his mouse down and jiggles it around, remarking 'Huh, mine isn't working either here. Must be your desk or something'."
"Meanwhile his cursor is doing a dance around his screen back at his own desk."
"All I could do to keep a straight face."
- SecretlyHistoric
"I was born in the early '80s, but I grew up with computers (Atari 800XL, followed by Atari ST, before we got our first 486 "IBM Clone" PC), so I was pretty computer literate from an early age."
"When I was in elementary school, my grade took a field trip to a temporary pop-up dinosaur museum. There were several hands-on exhibits set up, some of them involving computers."
"I remember seeing a group of students and a teacher crowded around one of the computers trying to figure out how to get it to work. The teacher had the mouse in her hand, turned upside down, and was trying to move the cursor by rolling the ball around (the was before optical mice)."
"Also, this was NOT a trackball, but an actual rollerball mouse with a mousepad."
- drummer_who_codes
Keyboards
"My father in law one day rearranged just the keys on his keyboard in alphabetical order."
"A was still Q, B still W and so on."
"In the end he smashed that keyboard and bought new one."
- lemonedpenguin
"Early 2000s, I opened an email account for my parents. I set it up on their work computer since I was waiting for them to finish work when I set it up."
"Everything worked great until one day I told them to open an email I sent them and they kept insisting they'd do it the next day when they were at work."
"Long story short they thought their email lived in the work computer and they couldn't access it from other computers. A quick lesson in email and suddenly they got much more responsive to emails."
- cybergaleu
"When I was the computer support person at my local library back in 04 an elderly lady was at a machine with an envelope and a confused look on her face."
"I approached and asked if she needed help and she said, 'I'd like to send this letter to my daughter in email, but I don't see anywhere to put it in'."
"She was holding a sealed envelope with her daughter's email address as the address and her return address in the regular spot. No stamp though."
"The look on her face was so earnest that I couldn't even be angry. I patiently explained what email was and helped her set up a Gmail account and typed up the letter in the email for her to send."
- Lobsterbib
Picture This
"My mom wanted to paint a picture of the Pope, so in a Youtube video that showed a picture of him she took a picture with a camera, developed the picture into a 4x6, and gave it to me to enlarge."
"So I just searched for the original image and hit print..."
- 3-DMan
Disk Drive
"Back in the days of the original Apple Macintosh (beige case, black and white display, new-fangled 3.5" floppy disk drive), one of the secretaries where I was working managed to force 2 floppies into the single drive at once."
"'It kept asking for disk 2,' she explained."
- corndogco
Don't Turn It Off And On Again
"Back around 2000 I did IT for a country club. Every Friday and Saturday night, without fail, the server which was in a locked room would crash."
"This caused the food and beverage ordering system to go down for about 20 minutes."
"One weekend, I stayed late on a friday and sort of camped out."
"At about the time the server normally crashed, at the height of the dinner rush, the food and beverage manager walked in and unplugged the server from the ups, then plugged it back in."
"I asked him why. He said it "made everything run faster" and further said this was a normal weekend routine."
- -Blixx-
"I used to be sort of a sysadmin for remote signals intelligence sensors for the Army. A few times a week for a few hours, an entire region of a specific network would go down and we'd just go kinda dark for a bit on that platform."
"No one could figure out why, and we normally have near 100% uptime. Colonels are calling asking wtf is up, teams are dispatched to check the sensors, no one could give an answer."
"Then we noticed they were only in hours that fell between 7am-3pm local time, Monday-Friday... hmm okay. Let's check everything again, teams go out to reboot each sensor individually, every node and server between us and the sensors, physically reseat cables... nothing, still goes out randomly for hours."
"Then one day during an outage the techs forward go check out that specific server room. There was a lone navy Lieutenant Commander in there doing office work (even though he had a private office) and he didn't like how loud the servers were so he just powered them all down when he wanted to work in his hideaway."
"This dude just casually blacked out a bunch of national security missions for a whole ass country instead of you know, closing his office door."
- napleonblwnaprt
We Don't Know How To Use Their Tech Either
"My grandmother has complained to me that store clerks are shocked and confused when she informs them she doesn't have an email address to provide, or a computer to make one on."
"She was born in 1929 and is 93 years old. The most modern device she owns is her TV, which has a VCR attached to it."
"She listens to music on a radio with a tape deck in it. Her phone hangs on the wall of her dining room. She doesn't even own a microwave."
"I think someone who was almost an adult when WWII ended can be given a break for not having an email address."
- Chris_Buttcrouch
Satisfying Call Me GIFGiphySo, are you the tech savvy one or the one who says "oops, my bad"?
Share your tech troubles in the comments.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
Reddit user Acid_In_My_Eyes asked:
"People who can't sleep, what do you do all night?"
Yeah ... turns out, it's certainly not a space of creation for everyone. Unless the thing you're creating is anxiety.
Over and Over
"Toss and turn. Overthink. Replay conversations on my mind."
- strawberrytohoney
"Yeah man... anxiety takes it toll on sleep. The more stressful the day, the worse the sleep."
- zfgnjzfgnjmzrfgjk
"100%!!!! And how I could have acted differently or what else could’ve happened."
- strawberrytohoney
GiphyIncreasing
"Be increasingly pissed off about not being able to sleep."
- Froggielaflame
"It's the most vicious cycle ever."
"Can't sleep, pissed off that you can't sleep, now it's even harder to get to sleep. Now you are stressing out because it's getting closer to the next day, adds to the fact you cant sleep."
"Been there..."
- Zer0C00L321
Calculations
"Calculate how many hours of sleep I could at least still have if I was able to fall asleep at that moment."
- Adept-Elephant1948
"Same."
"It’s literally the worst because I end up priming myself for a day where I believe I’ll perform suboptimally; thereby ensuring I perform suboptimally."
"It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."
- Samson8765
"Being tired and having a sh*t day at work because you laid awake all night thinking about how you were going to be tired and have a sh*t day at work is the worst."
- OfficeChairHero
Not No Regrets
" 'Dream’ random scenarios in my head where I either could have done better or changed things, or I’m dreaming of scenarios I want to happen, either because they might or just because I want it in the future"
-Genderneutral_Bird
"So its not 'no regrets' it's 'some regrets?' "
-Acid_In_My_Eyes
"Every single day. They can be as small as ‘I wish I had just given x person x compliment’ to ‘I never should have told x person about x secret’ etc"
-Genderneutral_Bird
Happy Place
"I have found success in just accepting that I cant sleep, OK I GUESS IM NOT GONNA SLEEP RIGHT NOW...and then getting in to a comfy position."
"EYES WIDE OPEN, NOT TRYING to sleep. Just lay there and let my mind wander."
"I build what I call, happy places."
"What kind of life do I WISH I had? What kind of world do I wish this was?"
"I build the whole world, I usually have powers but no one knows."
"I'm rich. I'm single. The world is safe enough to leave your front door unlocked and no one goes in to your house."
"I just build and build and build the most kickass scenarios, and eventually I'll wake up and be like 'OH I FELL ASLEEP!' and after that I usually keep sleeping."
-finalglimmer
GiphyBed Time Stories
"I am really bad at falling asleep. Unless really tired and/or using alcohol."
"Since that's not an everyday solution I listen to an audiobook, in my case the Harry Potter series."
"I know the books so well that my brain, while focusing on the story, grows numb an I fall asleep."
"The audiobook, unless the device is shaken, will turn off after 30 minutes. I mostly fall asleep within the hour now and I have something fun to listen to."
"Haven't tried it using a story I don't know, but that will probably keep me awake."
-Mr_Zoelmond
"I do this with Forensic Files."
"It’s crazy, but I’ve seen all 20 thousand of them and the familiarity and voice puts me in a calm trance."
"It takes what it takes lol"
-Leading_Funny5802
Crash When You Crash
"Read, browse reddit, music, get some work done, daydream/think whatever u wanna call it."
"I don't adhere to a schedule, I just crash when I crash, get up when I get up."
"It's healthy trust me."
-69stuffstuff69
"Do u work or go to school right now?"
-Acid_In_My_Eyes
"School, and online. All it complicates is the occasional obligation. May not align for everyone, but it's what works for me and if it works for you it could be all cool."
-69stuffstuff69
Relish The Rare
"Turn off blue light on all devices an hour before sleep."
"Use a white noise app or something similar so your mind blocks out and focuses on only 1 sound."
"Reading or listening to podcasts."
"Turn a lot."
"Most importantly for me is to get comfortable and relish in that rare comfort."
"The times I'm not worried about my lack of sleep, the better sleep I get. I normally remember that being comfy and switched off from the world (even if it doesn't work) is much more preferable to being uncomfy, looking at a screen and working for 7 hours straight."
"If nothing else, Masturbate."
-VirgilVanDoink
Transporting Myself
"I’m going through chemo treatments right now and on Tuesday nights through Thursday, into Friday, I can’t sleep."
"I will get up, go to the living room, pour a cup of coffee and read."
"I’ve finished a few books since January and I’m running out. I’m taking in the peace and quiet and transporting myself to a different world for a few hours."
"Then, I’ll take a nap for a bit. Rinse and repeat every other week."
-PickleSmack
GiphyTurning Japanese
"I remember a few weeks back, I was quite nervous about my girlfriend's wellbeing as she was super stressed about things."
"That made me super stressed about things to the point I couldn't sleep."
"I ended up trying to assemble basic sentences in Japanese for a few hours to take my mind off things."
-BagOfToenails
That Scrubbing Sound
"I really don’t know if this will help anyone, but I watch reconstruction videos of old vintage items and welding of items."
"Such as cleaning a old and broken PS1 and forging weapons from video games, hearing the sounds and the scrubbing at a low sound does help me sleep"
-Character-Ostrich-54
There you go, fellow insomniacs.
Now you've got a project list for the next time sleep decides it's not your friend.
Want to know more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
I wish I had had the capability to run around the computer systems of yore. I would've sent Madonna music videos to everyone's screens. That would've been more productive than PE. At least I think so.
Let's Play
Knight Ageofempires GIF by Age Of Empires CommunityGiphy"Installed Age of Empires Two on each PC."
Gaming the System!
"So many gaming memories from school computers lol. Shared resource drives were the bane of our high school's existence, because I'm pretty sure we didn't have any IT staff, or if we did, the students were just smarter than them honestly."
"Among other things I remember stashing: Halo PC LAN, a SNES emulator with a handful of ROMs, computer tech typing assignments everyone would just copy and slightly modify. One kid had the Paris Hilton tape on there and watched it very openly in art class."
Control+ Alt+ Down... Voila...
"Screen shot desktop make as background... hide icons."
"I did this, but went one step further. Back in the day of Windows XP (and maybe earlier), control+alt+arrow key would flip the screen orientation. I.e. ctrl+alt+down would flip the screen upside down. So... Take screenshot, rotate image 180 degrees, control+alt+down... Voila."
"Suddenly their desktop is right side up but all their mouse movements are all reversed and their "icons" no longer work. Once came back to find my roommates monitor in uni upside down. Forgot I did it to them over the weekend. Teehee/oops?"
People Share Their Unexpected Happiest Moments | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
While many of life's big events like weddings and births bring us joy, even the smallest of gestures or gifts can leave a lasting impression. Especially if y...The Backdoor...
"There was no internet when I was in school and MSDOS was the rule of the day, so no fancy hacking, downloading, or whacked out wallpaper. Instead, two of us were commissioned to write attendance software for the school. We put in a backdoor wherein any time either of us showed up as tardy or absent, the record was immediately deleted. We used but didn't abuse this privilege so as not to attract too much attention. It worked perfectly."
Nirvana
nirvana GIFGiphy"Late nineties, high school. I synced 5 computers to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in a round. Teacher wasn't happy."
Nirvana. Now that sounds like an idea. You kids already play too many games online. And don't they teach hacking classes in high school these days?
15 Minutes
Cbs Love GIF by LoveIslandUSAGiphy"Created a shortcut saying to not click it. When someone did, given like 15 minutes later, the computer restarted. Any unsaved work was deleted. They can't complain because they clicked the icon."
F5
"It's not really messing with the computer but I used inspect element to change the text in my school's website in detention and the kid next to me thought I was hacking and told the teacher, I pressed F5 to refresh and the teacher told the kid off for trying to get me in trouble, he looked so confused when everything was back to normal, also my friend once rearranged the keys to spell swear words, no one noticed for weeks tbh."
The Tortoise
"By giving LOGO's turtle random high numbers before leaving the computer class, so the little fella would go bananas and scribble at speed of light until it covered all the screen. Probably that could be stopped by just pressing a key but it used to drive the teacher insane, and hearing him yelling and cursing was the best."
- V02D
Shut it Down!
"I shutdown all the computers in the lab from my computer, including the teachers. Most in the class knew that I had done it but they didn't mention it."
- Charn22
"In the early days of computing, when they became small enough for one to be shared by multiple users on a college campus, it became sport to crash the whole system. The admins opened the machine and physically altered the machine (which was the way back then) to include a new "crash" command, which took all the sport out of it."
Death
robot computer GIFGiphy"I hid the taskbar, the icons and disabled a lot of basic settings. Then I put the blue screen of death as the wallpaper."
All it takes is a couple of innocent clicks and the next the you know... chaos. What a way to get through the day. Kids can be so devious. LOL.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.