Endless Computers Introducing $299 "Hack" Laptop To Teach Kids To Code

[Candy]

What we learn here is the following situation:

A company that tries to sell an underpowered computer, to have a desktop run on it, which specs edges on the bare minimum, that this kind of hardware offers.

To be honest:

You can't make any money with software development these days. The comments sections on countless job portals and forums tell you stories about how desperately people search for an employment somwhere to make a living out of it.

Rather than wasting the time with IT, it may be interesting to also learn something based in the handwork (craft) section. Learn electrics, barber, crafter, carpenter or something like this. In worst cases you can open an own shop and offer your workforce for money. Software these days don't pay you anymore.

[skeevy420]

A company that tries to sell an underpowered computer, to have a desktop run on it, which specs edges on the bare minimum, that this kind of hardware offers.

You just described almost the entire netbook, Chromebook, and Android tablet markets. At least this doesn't come loaded with Google Spyware, and, since it's Linux based, you have a $300 distro hopper tinker toy.

This isn't a product for people like us. It's for people who want their kids to be like us and don't know where to start.

I'll just tell you right now, since I'm a welder and craftsman by trade, that it isn't something I'd encourage in a broad manner. Only very specific jobs anymore. A lot of those jobs are being replaced by robots as I type this and you'll need software programming experience to, well, program your welding robot or framing robot.

If you like PC's and geeky stuff, go with software or whatnot...random tradesman jobs pay less on average, have less to no benefits, and you really wear your body out. Occasionally I have to jackhammer...20 minutes of doing that and my right wrist swells up and I can't play games or use a mouse for a week (If I wasn't ambidextrous it would screw me hard). Basically, if you know beforehand that either way you'll have a shitty job, then be smart and pick the job that won't destroy your body before you're 40.

I'd recommend becoming a mechanic if one's gonna do that route. Almost all of us drive and a good amount of drivers can't fix their vehicle, and so many vehicles are different from each other that it's hard to standardize for a robot to do. If I had the money I'd switch from ornamental iron & fence to automotive exhaust, brakes, tires, and basic maintenance...I don't wanna rebuild transmissions and whatnot... Heavy equipment operator is also a good one to get into...let that jackass out there do the heavy lifting while you drive around and play with joysticks...

I'm 33, 34 next month, and I shouldn't have a lot of the aches and pains that I have other than the fact that I've done some really hard jobs in the past and I wouldn't recommend them for anyone (metal roofing, brick and block work, USMC infantry, framing, residential construction, every type of fence, landscaping, decks, custom iron gates).

Barber is maybe the only thing listed where a robot won't take our jobs in the next 15 to 20 years (or around when the target audience for this produce will enter the workforce).

[sykobee]

$300 is not exactly cheap, it's probably the highest possible budget for the target audience. maybe a bit too high. And what's more it probably has crap hardware too.

It's based around an Asus E406MA

• 14 inch laptop
• FullHD
• 1920x1080
• RAM: 4GB
• Color: Star Gray
• Up to 14 hours of battery life
• Weight: 2.86 lbs
• Ports: MicroSD, 2x USB 3.0, Headphone combo jack, HDMI

So it's a Celeron with 32GB eMMC - so I presume an Atom-based Celeron. It'll probably suck even for Minecraft TBH. They'll be asking for a proper console within a year, but at least they'll be able to type up their homework and do internet research.

How much was the first computer your parents bought you? $299 seems more than reasonable, assuming that what they are promising actually happens - otherwise you might as well just buy the original hardware, pre-customisation.

[Candy]

[...] be smart and pick the job that won't destroy your body before you're 40.

You have no insight of how large enterprises in the IT sector work. They usually hire young people, exploit them, let them do all kind of stuff and then drop them. In worst cases some of them get burn-out, depression or other mental issues. In the middle of the 30's they get laid off, suffer from mental illness for many years, get coverage from the wellfare system. Once they get their brains back, they've then being told that the unemployment system threats them as "uneducated" ones because they've been out for too long from this job. I've seen all this in my entire worklife for one of those large enterprises.

One of my former coleagues even had suicide thoughts because his boss heavily exploitet him - the work council has sent that guy to hospital to get mental coverage. His boss threated him like shit because of the different cost value structure. He was once hired as "application developer" - but due to internal changes and changes in the management, things changed and people got shifted all over the place. The application developer was forced into systems integration, the network specialist turned into an application developer and so on. After that guy came back from hospital he got disassembled by his floor boss and the management. Basicly they made him quit the job by his own by opening the poison cabinet.

IT became an hostile environment, where people use their elbows to get a piece of the pie. Therefore I recommend people to go back to roots by learning something in the craftsman area.

Yes: You may destroy your body before 40. But in the IT you destroy your soul and mental health.

[skeevy420]

How much was the first computer your parents bought you? $299 seems more than reasonable, assuming that what they are promising actually happens - otherwise you might as well just buy the original hardware, pre-customisation.

It was $1400 (mom got ripped off bad), some Pentium 2, maybe 512MB of ram, Windows 98, I don't really remember its exact specs, I was 11 or 12. 7 years later, for $800 (I bought it), it was a 2.4ghz Athlon x64 based system, 2GB ram, 512mb Nvidia 8400GS. Found a C2Q Q6600 with 4gb ram in a dumpster a few year later (with an identical GPU 8400GS no less, but they sucked in crossfire), slapped in a new 2gb R7 260x because it was cheaper, better, and was probable to get AMDGPU, so an almost free upgrade (and I did the FSB mod, too).

Current -- Spent $300 on used eBay parts a little over 2 years ago and random crap I had laying around for my current PC, a Dell T5500 with x2 Xeon x5687 & 48gb ram ($160 for the T5500 and the rest on ram and the processors). $300 isn't really all that bad for what they're offering...but you can spend that same $300 on eBay like I did and get a real workstation or a better spec'd used laptop...still using that same R7 260x right now...not a top of the line card, but a damn good card for a KDE desktop, moderate native\wine gaming between 720p and 1080p, and perfect for console emulation up to PS3 at 1080p.

[Vistaus]

Plus, I'm a developer and I would be thrilled if my daughter took an interest in software. It's certainly not a bad thing to encourage either.

But I would only encourage it from 12 years (maybe 10) onward if I ever have kids. No tech for them until they reach that age.

[Vistaus]

$300 is not exactly cheap, it's probably the highest possible budget for the target audience. maybe a bit too high. And what's more it probably has crap hardware too.

Ah, one of the "Linux hardware is too expensive!!!" persons has showed up again. What does it matter what the price point is? If it was $1, you'd still be screaming that it's too expensive, just like the rest of the anti-Linux-hardware crowd.

[Vistaus]

You can't make any money with software development these days. The comments sections on countless job portals and forums tell you stories about how desperately people search for an employment somwhere to make a living out of it.

I beg to differ. In my country, there's more demand for software developers than we can offer, so they have to hire foreign people to do it, but even that's not enough. So yeah, in the right country, you *can* make money with software development. Barbers lol, well, in my country, there's a barber/hairdresser every three houses or so (not literally, but you get my point). So no need for those.

[microcode]

That's cute, I'm sure some parents will toss one of these to their kids, and some of those will get a first step into this stuff. I got my toes wet with the Firefox JS console window right before Firefox 2 came out (and then Wikipedia told me about assembly, so I downloaded MASM and tried that); and I'm sure this will do a better job of getting that point across for some kids.

[microcode]

But I would only encourage it from 12 years (maybe 10) onward if I ever have kids. No tech for them until they reach that age.

If you make it self-contained and not so fun that it's distracting, it could be fine to have it earlier. Just make sure to drag them outside to a nature reserve every now and then and it'll do no harm. I got my start in software at age 7 when I discovered the Firefox JS console window (which was pretty shite) and "dhtml" snippet sites, and by the time I turned 8 I already had MASM installed.

I would definitely caution against exposing your kids to YouTube though, it's just too easy for kids to get into an autoplay trance with those creepy psychedelic product placement kids videos of which there are literally hundreds of millions on YouTube. But by the same token, it could be good to have some curated subset of the videos which are of an informative nature (rather than the usual kids content on YouTube, which is akin to crack cocaine).

I think I could set up a computer to be wholesome and safe enough for my seven-year-old self, even today; it would just take some more care. Books are technology too, as are library directories, cameras; and all of them can be as unwholesome as some web content. I think it's more a matter of being the good censor for those crucial years without stifling discovery. I accessed a lot of very mature Wikipedia articles when I was a young kid, but the tone and context of the encyclopedia allowed me to grasp the concepts rather than simply becoming depressed or damaged; I don't think that's any less true today.