Judge in US v. Google trial didn’t know if Firefox is a browser or search engine::Google accused DOJ of aiming to force people to use “inferior” search products.

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11 points

Not sure why “old+judge” automatically equals “tech illiterate.” The judge in another high-profile Google case taught himself to code

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11 points

The article you link says the judge already knew how to code beforehand.

He’s been coding in BASIC for decades, actually, writing programs for the fun of it: a program to play Bridge, written as a gift for his wife; an automatic solution for the board game Mastermind, which he is immensely fond of; and most ambitiously, a sprawling multifunctional program with a graphical interface that helps him with yet another of his many hobbies, ham radio.

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2 points

Yes, because he taught himself.

“At some point, I looked at the BASIC book and decided I would learn that.” He taught himself straight from the book, which he recalls was “pretty straightforward.”

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4 points

It’s because these things work by probabilities. Generally when you think of older people who aren’t working as IT professionals, you wouldn’t expect them to be great with computers - and you’d probably be right.

Do you really think that a judge that taught himself to code would be common-place and would be the norm? That judge is awesome, but he is very clearly an outlier lol

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1 point

I think the probability of somebody who had to pass a Barr and likely worked as a lawyer in 2005 knowing the difference between Google and firefox is pretty damn high tbh

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7 points
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I really don’t mean to be rude however I don’t think there’s any polite sounding way of asking this, have you worked in IT? You would be surprised how many lawyers, doctors, etc all kinds of genius professionals absolutely do not know how computers work, and even who don’t care to learn them.

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1 point

Knowledge of one field doesn’t imply knowledge or even common sense in another.

If you’re ever back on reddit, check out ‘tales from tech support’.

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-1 points

Knowing how to code doesn’t mean you know the difference between a search engine and a web browser.

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