one time i saw someone on here complain about something that they said some piece of software should do, and i told them "we've known since the 70s that that's literally impossible. there's no protocol that allows you to do it". they said to me "i don't care about math shit, it's the nerds' job to figure it out"

and that has coloured every conversation i've had about computers since. "do you understand computer science as a series of problems that can or cannot be solved, or do you think computers are nerd magic"