[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

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.

Spare me. I know they are out there. I just doubt they'll become the Next Big (Dead) Thing.

I do my best to avoid LousyBookCovers. I'm a former print designer, with some notion of what a proper cover design is, and too much of what I see in the Indie/Self Published world is "Gouge out eyes with a spoon after viewing." I can do a pretty good job of spotting an indie/self published offering just by glancing at the cover. The best offerings aspire to mediocrity and don't quite reach it.

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.

It's probably possible to bypass the menus and hand code, but how you do so it likely buried where you need a backhoe to dig it up.

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.

See my earlier comment about the college graduate friend who couldn't do simple arithmetic without a calculator.

Part of the problem is that many (and possibly most) folks never learn to view reading as fun. It's a chore, done because they have to, and they acquire the bare minimum proficiency required.

So, how was the date? :-D

Non existent. I was spoken for, and as mentioned, while there are folks who enjoy being tied and gagged, I don't especially enjoy doing it.

The people I had in mind when I made the comment were some (male) co-workers on the event I was helping to run. Life would have been far easier had they been cuffed, gagged, and locked in a closet for the duration. (One special case might have gotten a glow-in-the-dark dildo as well.)

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.

Folks who mention it likely have a tolerably high one. Folks who don't won't talk about it.

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.

Somebody's ox will be gored, no matter what stance you take.

I was in discussion elsewhere on the general topic, where a chap mentioned basically sailing through course work and getting high marks in school. He was complemented on how hard he must have worked to do that, and he was mystified. He'd barely worked at all. He was one of the really bright kids who Got It very quickly. I understood, because I'd been him years previous, and would read the assigned texts in the first two weeks and twiddle my thumbs in boredom thereafter. (I was introduced to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings by an English teacher who decided that if I was going to read something other than assigned texts in her class it should be something good, and handed me the Ballantine PB editions of the Trilogy. Bless her.)

But in our current society, we celebrate those who are more attractive, better athletes, better singers/dancers/musicians and the like, but shy away from the notion that some folks are simply smarter than others. I haven't quite reached the point of telling some complainers "You aren't good enough. You don't have what it takes. Those you complain about do better than you because they are better than you. Deal with it!", but the temptation is nearly irresistible

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.

<shrug> I'm reasonably capable because I'm mechanically inclined, and like knowing how things work and how the pieces fit together. I just like knowing things in general, and have a magpie mind full of all sorts of odd bits of information.

(My SO once got me a calligraphed button saying "Ohhh! Shiny facts!" after watching me dive down various Google rat holes. My biggest skill is probably knowing how to Look Stuff Up. That can be a mixed blessing. I am currently a director of a small company whose CEO is an old friend and decided I should be one. My actual role is "Guy who Bill calls whenever he doesn't know something, assuming I will." Generally, I do, but the conversations have sometimes been surreal.)

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.

You'll see similar things in places like Africa.

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 learned over time to nod politely, tell PHB what he wanted to hear, then do what I thought should be done, assuming he wouldn't know the difference.

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.

Almost certainly. I'm pretty sure my old Palm TX PDA has more computing power than what went to the moon in the capsule. My desktop my well match the ground stations at mission control.
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Dennis