The Vent and Rant Thread

[Wearever]

Glad you made it home ok too covingtoncat

[cromag]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

I had an interesting trip home last night. I'm not really complaining because it was an adventure that ended well.

I biked and bused to work. The reasons I do that, instead of just biking the whole way are the fact the bike is a bit of a clunky cruiser and I am not a strong cyclist. Doing part of it on the bus doesn't save me much time but it gets me past the more dangerous parts to bike.

Why don't I just walk to and from the bus? It is about 1/2 mile from my house to the bus and just under a mile (through the park) from the bus to work. I don't object to walking but I walk slowly and I can't really get to the bus home quickly enough and, when I walk, have to wait for the next one. It is every hard to make it to that bus by bike.

Anyway, several things happened to enliven said trip home. I left my phone charging in my office at work, the tires on my bike were slightly low (making it a little hard to "push"), and I missed the bus by *this much*.

I had several options at this point. I didn't realize I didn't have my phone until I was on the other side of the park, or I might have gone back to get it. However, at that time of night, security might have locked the outside doors, which I don't have a key to. I could have gone to the coffee house in the park and begged for a phone to call my mother but I made a different choice.

I knew I could probably get home in about the same amount of time with biking alone as I could with biking and busing, so I went for it. If any of you have heard news stories about the City of the Drowned Crescent Moon, you know we have crime here, so I was a little nervous but not too much, even though I did have to bike through a somewhat rough area. Anyway, I made it home safe despite biking in the dark and the prevalence of crime in NOLA. I feel that is an accomplishment.

Excellent! Now, don't ever do it again!

[ProDigit]

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

<snip Arthur's Theme>

I think I'm not getting the ranty part here?

Hitch

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I think I'm not getting the ranty part here?

Hitch

I don't think you want to know the ranting, so I just kept it woth the song

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

I don't think you want to know the ranting, so I just kept it woth the song

Try us.

The ranting is the purpose of this thread.


There have been some pretty ranty rants around here.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Try us.

The ranting is the purpose of this thread.


There have been some pretty ranty rants around here.

Yeah, hey? I signed up for some ranty rants, and I don't want no stinking cheerful song! If I wanted to be cheered up, I'd go read all the threads with technical issues from DIY'ers, and get a chuckle. Think of yourself as the handsome guy in the Fantastic Four:

RANT ON!!!

Hitch

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Oh, me, too. It's got to be generational. I don't get the fascination with zombies. Never did, whether it's Romero or now. Walking shambling/running icky dead things? Yick. And yes--one of the genres really hit hard by self-pubbing is Sci-Fi, (and romance and, er, "romantica"), particularly, and it's not necessarily in a good way. LOTS of, lemme see, how shall I say this?...hmmm..."homages" to earlier books abound.

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!)

STUPIDITY? I mean, really. I was so desperate to get AWAY from Expression Engine--my former CMS, which took suckage to whole new places (although it was fine when I first started to use it in '05-'06--just keeled over from old age, really) that I misunderstood the realities of J!. I looked at J! templates, addons, etc. and, no one to blame but myself, I failed to really understand the fundamental workings of the thing.

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.

Did you read Mudd's The Head Game? He made a simple but profound observation, which I parroted here in this thread: that by definition, fully half the people are below average. Yes, I know that it ought to be obvious; but I tend not operate keeping that in mind. I probably ought to quote it in big print and hang it under my big wall clock, in my line of sight.

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.

The idiot part of me continues to expect that my clientele will be like my clientele (former). And lo, by and large, they are not. This isn't to say that some of my clients are not geniuses or near-as, but holy crap, it's an entire new experience. I like to tell myself that I'll be a better person for it, but my inner cranky broad thinks that's BS, and thinks I'll have better luck improving myself if I light candles and burn incense.

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.

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

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

In fairness, what Mudd continued on to say, in The Head Game, was that all of us are below average AT SOMETHING. In other words, not everyone is below average all the time (although, arguably, some certainly are); but all of us, with few exceptions, are below average at some skill or comprehension or capability. I know that's true for me; I'm skilled at a number of things, but a total doofus at others.

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.

HOWEVER, yes, the IQ thing is also true, and that's enough to keep you in the fetal position for the rest of your natural-born life. And those folks VOTE, too. (no, mods, that's not a political comment).

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.

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.
______
Dennis

[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

[Katsunami]

In The Netherlands, we have a saying.

"If you can't do anything and know nothing, go into management."

It seems to be true. I've checked on some people who were co-workers in my former workplace.

Half of them has moved on to a position of teamleader, supervisor, or manager, at either that company, or somewhere else. Most of those weren't the brightest people I've ever met...

The other half is now working in some technical field (IT, software engineering, mechanical engineering, etc...); not holding a management position, and as far as I can determine from vacancies, earn less than the former group.

The one thing that sticks out as a sore thumb is that everyone (E-VE-RY-ONE) in the first group has no education apart from high school, and everyone in the second group has an education of at least bachelor level (BEng, BICT, BSc, or MSc).

That just irks me. It just looks like companies always select the best talkers to do the management instead of people actually having a brain and a track record of being able to complete something that requires a decent amount of effort and intelligence. (I just assume/hope completing does prove that...)

And obviously, I'm in the second group.

[Freeshadow]

It just looks like companies always select the best talkers to do the management instead of people actually having a brain

You so want to read Susan Cain's 'Quiet'
This world doesn't like introverts.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

That just irks me. It just looks like companies always select the best talkers to do the management instead of people actually having a brain and a track record of being able to complete something that requires a decent amount of effort and intelligence. (I just assume/hope completing does prove that...)

The underlying issue is that the essence of management is communication. Management and engineering are different problem domains requiring different skill sets. I've rather lost track of the number of good engineers I've seen promoted to poor managers.

There was extensive discussion elsewhere about the travails of high tech conglomerate HP, which has fallen into difficult times these days. The participants in the discussion were largely engineers, and some old timers rhapsodized about the days when Hewlett and Packard started HP in a garage, building test instruments they sold to other engineers. The assumption was that if the engineers were still running the shop, HP wouldn't be in its current troubles.

All I could say was "No. It would already be belly up and out of business. The engineers lack the skills needed to successfully run a big, multi-national conglomerate like HP."

An example of an earlier business that arguably was run by engineers and no longer exists is Digital Equipment Corporation, once the second largest computer manufacturer in the world. It missed the implications of PCs, and its core market was rapidly eroded as customers discovered they could do the same things cheaper with other kit. Why spend $250,000 US on a VAX minicomputer, when you could do it almost as well on a $25,000 super micro running a flavor of Unix? DEC belatedly got into the super micro game, but couldn't stem the bleeding as the VAX market dried up well enough weather the switch. (Ironically, what was left of DEC at the end is now part of HP.) DEC had superb engineers that designed highly advanced products, but the assumption seemed to be "If we build it, they will come", and the great idea wasn't accompanied by a clear idea of who might buy it and what they would do with it when they did.

When you get up into that range, the required skills for top management all revolve around money. You are probably a publicly held business with shareholders whose interest is in the value of their holding. You are a custodian of Other People's Money, and your job is to preserve and increase the value of their investment. You may have a degree in engineering. You better have one in finance, because that's where your efforts will be concentrated.
______
Dennis

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by cromag

Excellent! Now, don't ever do it again!

Thanks! I don't intend to.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

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.

I also encounter another aspect of Dunning-Kreuger - the assumption that something is simple and easy because it is for the person making the assumption. I have that discussion fairly frequently with my SO, who makes it about stuff simple and easy to her. "But that's easy!" "For you. Don't assume you are representative, because you aren'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.

I had an old friend back when who was nominally a college graduate, but could not do simple arithmetic without a pocket calculator. He was an example of why I'm happy cash registers these days calculate change (and people increasingly pay for purchases with credit/debit cards), because check out clerks can't do the math in their heads.

But then, I was learning to use a slide rule back when I was being taught square roots, and never did learn to do them on paper - it was too easy to pull out the slipstick and and get an answer to three places that was good enough. I had a co-worker at a bank in the 80s who got out of a graduate finance exam because his calculator died. He actually could do the math on paper, but not quickly enough to complete the test in the required time. The good part was that he understood the underlying concepts, which was the point of the test. The number of folks I meet like my old friend, who don't understand the concepts and rely on what the device tells them can be frightening. "Sorry, but the answer on the device is incorrect. It did the calculations properly, but you didn't understand what was needed and asked it to calculate the wrong thing."

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

I was deeply amused. We never did have the talk, but that's fine. There are folks turned on by being bound and gagged. I am not turned on by doing it.
______
Dennis