[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

My comment back when was "Zombies are the new Vampires", since Vampires were a last big thing.

The problem, of course, is what supernatural critters will replace Zombies as the new menace of the moment. It got discussed elsewhere, and a participant hoped for were-bears, preferably based on something like Paddington. I feared it would more likely be Smurfs. (Zap! You're small and blue!)

There seems to be a dearth of "new" monsters that catch on. And if you think there aren't any werebears, you aren't spending REMOTELY enough time on LousyBookCovers. Werebears and every other type of were-critter, and then some.

That's a killer. No matter how desperate you are to get away from the former solution, if you don't properly understand the underlying design of the new one, you will simply step into deeper and mussier waters.

I'm dealing with an effort at the moment in a different area which has quirks. I spent some time talking to a former developer on the project about underlying design, and he basically said there wasn't one - the original developers had just jumped in and started coding without a clearly defined spec and only a general idea of what they wanted it to do. This failure to invest the time up front to do proper design has required some sometimes amusing work arounds in use.

What kills me is: I know better. OTOH, I spent a silly amount of time looking at other CMSes, and ruled them out one by one. (FWIW, I'd spent an ABSURD amount of time assessing CMSes some years back, and it was disturbing to see that so many hadn't improved one iota). And, in fairness to Joomla, the part i find infuriating is made that way to ensure that know-nothings can use it to build a simple website. I wish that they had an in-between method of doing the same thing, because to my way of thinking, the way that they build nav menus takes longer to do than simply blooding coding them, the old school way.

I have not read it, but the concept is well known and widely quoted. The issue is the depressingly low level of "average" in most contexts.

Yes. I was actually shocked, when I first started biting the bullet about the stuff I write--mostly "how-to" articles, blog pieces, etc.--and writing them "more accessibly," I couldn't believe that to target it to average, you'd have to aim at a 4th-6th grade reading level education. That's appalling.

I'm well past that. I note as I get older that my patience is a lot thinner. I'm generally calm and don't ruffle easily, but that balanced demeanor is harder to maintain, and I spent a lot more time snarling privately to maintain a tactful and diplomatic public persona.

My idea of the best way to improve a lot of things I encounter tends to summary executions of those involved.

LOL, me too.

In one such instance, I was asked how I was doing, and said "I have no problems that cannot be resolved by hand cuffs, ball gags, and glow-in-the-dark dildos." The people who asked the question broke up. An attractive young woman seated on the floor near me looked up and said
"What do I have to do to be a problem?"
"Was it the cuffs, the ball gags, or the dildos that got your attention?"
"All three, really."
"We'll talk..."

______
Dennis

So, how was the date? :-D

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The trick is a realistic estimation of what you are good at and what you aren't. Most of the issues I deal with revolve around people who think they know more and have more skills at something than they actually do. This is often generational, with young folks unwilling to listen to older ones, sublimely convinced that they know better. It would be less annoying if more of them learned something when their ignorance bit them.


IQ is somewhat out of favor these days, and the Stanford Binet tests got knocked as flawed and biased because various groups did less well on them. These days, I think there are about a dozen different major forms of intelligence being spoken of, with people possessing a varying mix of them.

Oh, I dunno. I remember all the sociological fooferah about it, back when, how it was biased, yadda yadda. OTOH, I find it interesting that I'm only very, very rarely surprised when someone mentions their IQ--they always seem to fit about right.

The problem is that intelligence is domain specific: do you have enough of the type required to deal with the situation you are in? If you don't, you have problems. And the sorts of capabilities the Stanford Binet tests measure are the ones you are most likely to need to deal with a modern technological society. So while it's unfashionable to talk about it, folks with low IQs are likely to have problems because they have low IQs, don't learn as quickly or as well, and may simply not comprehend critical concepts.
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Dennis

Well, logic seems to be incorporated in the tests for IQ, and without logic, one is very poorly equipped in terms of problem-solving. I agree that the politically correct crowd have made it difficult to discuss.

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Hitch: Dunning-Kruger; hell yeah, abso-frigging-lutely. As someone who mostly was (and still is) regarded as a person with weird and arcane interests I'm quite familiar with that. (although I hadn't; prior to some threads here known the name of said misassumptions. Esp. the part with "Everything I have no idea about is simple and doable in 15 minutes." (Dilbert's pointy-haired boss) is something I heard more often than I have nerves for. Also accord with that we can't excel at everything - that never was my point. I'm e. g. a "total doofus" at math - that's my biggest idiot-spot.
The frightening part (the 'let me out of this asylum' one) is that in following the logical rule: One needs at least basic knowledge of whatever one tries to do. The bar for "basic knowledge" seems to be on the best way to subterranean levels. And that's not only for
"specialist knowledge" (like as knowing how to copy a file as some of your self-appointed 'computer-savvy' clients don't.) it's for daily stuff and/or common sense. I meet people not knowing how to write a letter (or properly address an envelope) I am at a point where I stopped asking myself how stupid or ignorant people can be, because the answer gets worse.

Dennis: nice "problem" story. Definitely a woman I'd like to have a talk with

(Men!)

Vis-a-vis the basic knowledge--that's certainly true. It boggles me that so much in the world is taken for granted. We've exchanged knowing how to do things for knowing how to dial a cellphone. There's definitely a disinterest in knowing how to DO anything, from changing a tire to painting a wall. it's worrisome. If the apocalypse comes, kids, those of us that still know how to do things will be in higher demand than our aged states (at least, for me and Denny) would normally warrant.

The folks managing to survive Castro in Cuba are an object lesson in that; they have very old cars, because they can still be repaired with a modicum of knowledge, instead of doing everything through a computer hook-up, and the same is true of their washers, dryers, gas ranges, etc.

PHB (Pointy-Headed-Boss) syndrome makes us all suffer, and I doubt that there's anyone here who hasn't had to live with one, at one time or another.

I recently acquired a new W/D set; honestly, I'm fairly sure that Apollo 11 went to the moon and back with less computing power than these two things have.

Hitch