Slashdot Mirror
How Do You Stay Upbeat Amidst the Idiocy?
Techdirt has a wonderful summary of how hard it is sometimes to stay upbeat when faced with some of the complete idiocy that intelligent, tech-savvy readers often have to deal with in their day-to-day lives. While the frustration will probably never go away, nor will the news calling attention to it, it does seem that opening people's eyes to problems helps things move in the right direction, so keep it up. "Yes, we're in the midst of a brutal financial mess — but that won't stop innovation. Yes, incumbent forces, with short-sighted plans and a desire to hold back the tides are annoying and disruptive (not in a good way) in the short run. But even they are finding they can't hold back progress. Robert Friedel has a wonderful book called A Culture of Improvement that details how we, as a society, are constantly looking to improve on what we already have. We add ideas and ingenuity to old concepts and build something better — not because of the desire to grab some "intellectual property," but because of the desire to improve our own lot, to build a better tool that we want to use. Incumbent short-sighted players have been able to hinder and harm progress, but they can't keep it down completely. That culture of improvement can't be stopped entirely."
Liquor.
I was going to blog about this very subject today, but I couldn't get onto my Journalspace for some reason.
And so you come to Slashdot?
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
So this question isn't dumb?
Everybody on Slashdot has far less brain power then me. I'm sure if you ask anybody else, they would agree that they too are smarter then the rest of Slashdot. Why do you think we all post here? We are all smarter then everybody else here. We merely exist to point out how much of an idiot people not like us are.
If you point out that *I'm* and idiot, you are wrong because remember I'm the smartest Slashdot poster here. The point of contention then becomes the fact that you cannot have two "Smartest Slashdot Posters" and so we debate.
However, since everybody but me is an idiot, they lack the mental ability to understand how smart I truly am. This thought, that I alone am the only Smart Person On Earth, makes me depressed. However, I'm no idiot like the author of this "Ask Slashdot". Smart people dont "Ask" questions--they already know the answers. Questions are for clueless sheep.
Obviously I do have the answer to the "question", but only an idiot would give it--it would reward asking questions and thus reward not knowing things. Never answer questions, people should learn on their own. Any Smart Slashdot Poster knows this.
From my perspective, everyone's right to be an idiot ENDS when I've told them not to do XYZ 7 times and they decide to do XYZ at 4:30pm on a Friday, knowing full well that every time they do that I have to work until 3am to freakin fix it while they get to take the rest of the day off.
This is the point where being an idiot becomes justifiable homocide.
I took freshman economics in college. I've studied differential equations (which those business weenies never had to). I've written in assembler. Economics *has* to be easy, those guys never had to study calculus based physics! Same with marketing--those guys never studied assembler like I did, so how hard could their profession be!? I mean, just show the clients a plain text file that highlights which features in our product are better, and which are not and let the client decide!
Word to the wise, if your girlfriend or wife is a nurse and you claim that your engineering degree was harder then their nursing degree because they never took calculus, be prepared to spend the night on the couch. Just a tip.
Still, my $TYPE engineering degree makes me more then qualified to do any profession. Why, with a few books from the library and maybe a couple Google searches I could probably give your friend that kidney transplant they need. How hard could it be anyway, those overpaid doctors never had to work with Laplace transforms!
I develop software for a living, but I was a bio-chemistry major with a love of hardware and software. Now instead of fighting bacteria and viruses with genetic engineering research, I'm fighting idiots and morons who seem to think an Oracle database on HP-UX with almost five million accounts is simply an Excel spreadsheet. Please just shoot me now.
If you really were the Smartest Poster On Slashdot, you'd be smart enough to know that in fact I was actually the Smartest Poster On Slashdot. Only I am smart enough to know that I am the Smartest Poster On Slashdot.
...and this is a prime example for why there should be a +1 sad, cruel truth mod.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
What should we think if everyone else is using Mac or Windows?
I just stopped reading any of the commentary on Slashdot. That took care of a huge chunk of my daily idiocy.
je bent een echte klootzak
As a New Zealander living in Texas I've been asked a few dumb questions:
Q:Do you have Thanksgiving in New Zealand?
A: No. The lack of pilgrims and Indians prevented us from doing so, plus our summer harvest would have been in March.
Q: Do you celebrate 4th of July in New Zealand?
A: No. We are a Commonwealth Country who has an allegiance to the Queen.
Q: So, because your seasons are different, you must have Christmas in July?
A: You are an idiot.
I bet you love when people ask you, "The computer guy" what you think about some computer topic you know nothing about. Obviously since you know about computers, you can help them install the game their kid downloaded for their RAZR, right?
Yes. I've never even seen a RAZR, but I know for certain that I could figure out how to install said game.
That's one thing that annoys a lot of us "computer guys". It's not that people don't know something. It's that people don't even try to figure out things they don't know on their own before asking stupid questions. If they come to me for help with installing a program on their computer I gladly help and show them how it's done. When they come to me a second time for help on installing a different program on their computer, I wonder why the hell they didn't think of trying the same pattern I showed them the last time. Find the setup.exe, and click "next" when told to. It's the same goddamn process, try it before assuming it's too complicated.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.