A Quote by Rick Smolan

I'm not a computer person at all. I only know how to turn them on. I'm not a programmer. I couldn't program my way out of a paper bag. — © Rick Smolan
I'm not a computer person at all. I only know how to turn them on. I'm not a programmer. I couldn't program my way out of a paper bag.
I don't know how to plan my way out of a paper bag.
I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.
Before 'Dilbert,' I tried to become a computer programmer. In the early days of computing, I bought this big, heavy, portable computer for my house. I spent two years nights and weekends trying to write games that I thought I would sell. Turns out I'm not that good a programmer, so that was two years that didn't work out.
I created DonorsChoose by putting pencil to paper - literally - and sketching out each screen of the web site and how it would work. Then I paid a programmer from Poland $1,500 to turn my sketches and common-sense rules into a functioning website.
I'm kind of a tech person, a nerd. I've always been the person who, when we got our Christmas presents, knew how to work them and set them up; the racecars, whatever. Sit me down in front of a computer program, I'll be fine.
When you think about it, there's no way to input things into a computer. It's all... the holes only go out, right? Like you can plug a keyboard or a mouse in but that's a trick because the computer thinks the inputs are outputs. That's a programmer trick, basically magic. The key to the future is to make holes that go in too.
I used to want to be a computer programmer when I was younger. We got an Apple II Plus when I was, like, 11 and I wrote programs and BASIC on that, like I think a lot of people did, but I have no idea how to program in the current languages at all.
My dad grew up as a computer programmer, so he always had random computer software, and I started opening up editing software at age 12 and figuring out how to build websites.
One of the wonderful things about the computer is that it allows us to sit at home and either write a book or a computer program. Then we can send that program or book to companies that specialize in reproducing them and distributing them.
I went to Drexel University, majored in computer science. Drexel has a great program - they call it co-op - but its, like, mandatory to graduate to do internships. I loved it because it helped me figure out very quickly that I didn't really want to be a programmer.
When we take the position that it is not only the programmer's responsibility to produce a correct program but also to demonstrate its correctness in a convincing manner, then the above remarks have a profound influence on the programmer's activity: the object he has to produce must be usefully structured.
Pinball games were constrained by physical limitations, ultimately by the physical laws that govern the motion of a small metal ball. The video world knows no such bounds. Objects fly, spin, accelerate, change shape and color, disappear and reappear. Their behavior, like the behavior of anything created by a computer program, is limited only by the programmer's imagination. The objects in a video game are representations of objects. And a representation of a ball, unlike a real one, never need obey the laws of gravity unless its programmer wants it to.
Every time you turn on your new car, you're turning on 20 microprocessors. Every time you use an ATM, you're using a computer. Every time I use a settop box or game machine, I'm using a computer. The only computer you don't know how to work is your Microsoft computer, right?
I can't argue my way out of a paper bag.
I know how to turn it on [computer]. I know where the disc goes: in that little slot but I can't always get it out. And I have three genius-level computer savvy kids who save my ass all the time. I'll tell you what I don't do. I don't watch the news on TV anymore. I get my news online. And like all of you, I Google whoever I want.
The first five years as a writer, I didn't know how to write at all. I couldn't write my way out of a white paper bag. And yet, I did some remarkable things. And later on, there were periods where I got this mission to find an articulate voice with rewrites and all. There were periods where I was as dense as Faulkner.
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