The first time I remember correcting a teacher was when I was in third grade. All teachers (all people, really) make mistakes, but some of them just don't care to improve. If the "big boys" knew what they were doing, I wouldn't need to tell them how to do their jobs. I'm 24, btw.
Re:If you are so smart...
on
Cube Farm
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· Score: 1
It was a $30k/year school with a terrific name and a free ride waiting for me. For this field, MIT would have been a better (the best?) choice.
A developer who writes lousy code might be incompetent. Or, if he is competent and doesn't care, then he is unethical. My co-worker is a little bit of both - he doesn't know what he's doing and he doesn't care to learn more. He knows that he can skate by and get his paycheck. I'm not happy with that kind of life... which is certainly part of the frustration. I think I've just got high standards and expect everyone else to have 'em as well.
I understand what you're saying. It's not the perfectionist part of me that's frustrated. It's more the "we should design our entire site in tables with a 800 x 600 template" vs "let's get into 2004 and use CSS" kind of frustration. I'm the only one in the company that does what I do, so it's usually something bigger. Like my boss deciding that the client is always right and the employee should just do what the client say - even when the client contradicts itself.
Re:Disenchantment
on
Cube Farm
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· Score: 1, Redundant
I agree. Chances are, someone in that position is the problem. As they say with poker, if you can't identify the sucker at the table then it's probably you.
I should probably have tempered my statements. I'm the only one here who knows the people to whom I'm referring. I'm a little disappointed that my post was modded in such a way; I clearly wasn't trying to be flamebait.
I don't feel that everybody is incompetent... just a lot of the people I deal with frequently. I get to hear all kinds of ridiculous statements by people who are supposed to be my "superiors." I've always had a difficult time listening to a teacher who got facts wrong or a boss who created more work for me by telling me to do something the wrong way. How long can you put up with crap like that?
In school, I'd get in trouble for correcting the teacher. In work, I get yelled at for trying to do things a better way.
So maybe I am the problem because I want to do things better and nobody else does.
Re:Disenchantment
on
Cube Farm
·
· Score: 1, Troll
Thanks. Your kind words have been very comforting.
Let's look at some real-world evidence/examples that helped shape my view:
1. My IQ is in the high 99th percentile. This alone means nothing. It just sets the stage.
2. One of my professors taught us C++ - his background included a "Learn C++ in 21 Days" style book.
3. The same professor taught us Artificial Intelligence in two parts: "What is a Turing Test?" and "Hello World Programs in Scheme."
4. Only one professor (for a computer-related class) knew what he was doing. By the end of the semester, he had gone off the deep end because there were only three of us (out of thirty) that cared about learning the subject.
5. One of my clients insists that we do validation checks on the Name field in their registration form. That's right - he wants me to verify that it's a real person's name before we submit it. Not only is it a global site (so names might not be recognizable to me) but there's no way for us to verify any of the information anyway.
6. My boss went to a crappy school for a major she doesn't use. In my performance review, she argued that she had to work for twelve years (in a completely unrelated field and position) before getting my level of salary. I'm still below market average.
7. I watch my bosses get conned and manipulated by clients, vendors, and even each other... when I point these things out, they tell me to live with it.
My basis of comparison is a bunch of incompetent idiots. I look at schools like MIT and wish that I could have had that kind of environment. I look at employers like Pixar and Google and try to think of what I could do for them. I look at my future and, several months ago, decided to start forming my own company and stop worrying about sucking up to people who simply don't get it and don't care.
Disenchantment
on
Cube Farm
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I was disenchanted, frustrated, and paranoid in middle school (6th-8th grades). It got worse in high school. In college I gave up on learning anything in class because most of my profs were idiots. When I graduated, I got a job and realized that almost everyone I worked with, worked for, or had to suck up to was incompetent.
I complained about all this, and you know what they told me? Welcome to the world.
I've played a good number of Star Wars games over the years, from X-Wing to Dark Forces to Jedi Knight. There have been some great ones and some not-so-great ones. The best are the ones where you're given a role within the Star Wars universe... Jedi Knight 2 is still one of my favorite games because it was the first time since I was a kid (make-believe... before I had a computer, you know?) that I felt immersed in a game. Instead of just playing a game, I was really feeling involved. That was the fun part. Not a lot of games can do that for me nowadays.
"You see you say open source is not the same as public domain. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG."
Uhh... only public domain is public domain. Open source is NOT the same as public domain. He's completely correct in this statement.
GPL, BSD, LGPL, etc. are different licenses, true... but none of them are public domain. Public domain refers to a work that has no license attached to it because it was either released to the public domain or the copyright expired.
Parent is modded funny, but I think it's a serious point - I did this for my wife's grandparents so they would know how to get there. They don't know (and don't care) what the name of the browser is... all they tell me is "I click on the blue E to get there." When I replaced it, I also showed them how to use the tabbed browsing.
If the user doesn't know any better, you're not going to get them to understand the benefits of Firefox over IE. Keep in mind that my wife gets Nigerian Scam emails from her grandparents with a note saying "Is this real?"
That's the truth for me. It wasn't even a thought until I started complaining that I couldn't afford health insurance on my salary, which was already less than market average. Buncha bastards.
What's important to me is that there isn't a correct answer to the problem; every response will be different in the levels of detail, the steps taken, the ability to consider possible sources of the problem, etc.
It's akin to taking a help desk call: "My email isn't working." Everyone handles that call a little differently, but I've discovered that truly great support people are able to lead the person on the other end of the phone to the answer by checking and verifying those little steps here and there. That communication ability is crucial when doing phone support. I'm sure you know someone that can't explain how to do something - they have to take the mouse from you and do it themselves. That's the kind of thing you can't have as a help desk employee.
A light bulb might be out because it's burned out, the switch is broken, the power is out, the bulb isn't screwed in properly, the breaker is tripped, you hit the wrong switch, another switch is partially tripped (that magical half-way point where the light always stays on/off), and so on. It doesn't require an electrician to narrow down a problem to the source (but it may require an electrician to fix it). It's logic, problem solving, and communication.
There are other examples...
on
IT Literacy Test
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Many are familiar with the often frustratingly cryptic interview questions from Microsoft and others... my favorite (which I would certainly use if I were running a support department):
"You come home and flip the switch, but the lights don't come on. Describe in as much detail as you can how you would go about fixing the problem."
Most people I've asked respond with "replace the light bulb." While that might be the problem, I think the first thing you should do is try the switch again. Maybe you didn't flip the switch all the way, or you hit the wrong one.
The point is that it's a problem solving experience - and not just in technology. It doesn't require expertise in Microsoft Word. It doesn't take a techie to know this stuff. You can measure a person's aptitude for logic, problem-solving, etc. without ever testing specific examples of those skills. That's what I really like about that question. Hopefully, the ETS exam will take this perspective when developing such tests.
I don't think this was that good of a summary at all. I've never used ettercap and I've only heard it mentioned in passing. The story simply doesn't explain what it is.
From ettercap project page: "Ettercap is a suite for man in the middle attacks on LAN. It features sniffing of live connections, content filtering on the fly and many other interesting tricks. It supports active and passive dissection of many protocols (even ciphered ones) and includes many feature for network and host analysis."
That's a little more informative than "network protocol analyzer."
"IE is so often the 'lowest common denominator' when it comes to designing for the web."
I have to disagree at least a little bit. Several of my clients are in organizations which have supported Netscape 4.x since it came out. It's part of the standard image they install on every machine. Luckily, the worst one (a University) just abandoned NS4 in favor of standards-based design. I run Firefox - but we've had to keep NS 4.7 on at least one machine at all times. I think NS 4.x is still the 'lowest common denominator' for some people.
I'm not as informed on this subject as many others here, but didn't Intel's first integrated wireless chipset run 802.11b? And didn't it become a problem as soon as 802.11g hit the shelves? I'm not an Intel user, so maybe this is solved with some other mechanism (I dunno what, though).
Personally, I like the fact that I can upgrade my individual components and customize my machine. I'd rather my CPU not lock me into its integrate features when they might become obsolete.
Yesterday, I messed up while making grilled cheese. You see, in flipping it, the bread came off and it landed exposed, cheese down, on the hot griddle. This made a terrible mess of my sandwich.
I have no idea how to go about reversing the polarity of a grilled cheese sandwich. The mission was immediately aborted and I was forced to start over.
I just had a flashback to an early Counter-strike bot. Now picture a 400-lb, shotgun-wielding robot bunny-hopping (you can't hit him), running with a knife (because it's faster!), and shooting at your legs (they do the same damage).
Obviously there's a benefit to buying a copy on Ebay (auction closing in another seven days, plus 7-10 days for transaction and delivery). I mean, why wait four whole days when you could wait two weeks?
What might ruin that great story for you, aside from special effects and profit-maximizing changes, is the nature of books themselves... your experience is unique. Translating one person's experience or interpretation of a book into a film is a dangerous act; you run the risk of alienating fans that didn't have the same experience. You also influence the experience of future readers by giving them a glimpse into your own vision of the story.
When I read Stephen King's The Stand a few years ago, there was a foreword where he said that he wasn't sure he'd ever make a movie version of the story. He cited "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as evidence of the damage a movie can do to a book. As fantastic as the movie is, it isn't the same (and does not hold the same kind of value) as the original text. If you see the movie and then read the book (as I did) you will never be able to get Jack Nicholson's performance out of your head as you read the character. Unfortunately for me, I also saw the movie adaptation of The Stand before reading the book.
I felt this way about LOTR, but was happy to see that it matched up with my expectations pretty well. Plus, it depicted what I had failed to visualize - Ents. I just couldn't figure out what they would look like.
What you're saying is that if you can't demonstrate a basic level of intelligence, you shouldn't be able to shoot/own a gun or get pregnant. I'd take it a step further and say that if you're too stupid to care for your kids or respect the power of a gun, you should probably have your kids taken away and your gun can be used to remove you from the gene pool.
At least, that's what my scary, gun-toting, overly cynical co-worker says we should do.
Slashdot Mirror
The first time I remember correcting a teacher was when I was in third grade. All teachers (all people, really) make mistakes, but some of them just don't care to improve. If the "big boys" knew what they were doing, I wouldn't need to tell them how to do their jobs. I'm 24, btw.
It was a $30k/year school with a terrific name and a free ride waiting for me. For this field, MIT would have been a better (the best?) choice.
A developer who writes lousy code might be incompetent. Or, if he is competent and doesn't care, then he is unethical. My co-worker is a little bit of both - he doesn't know what he's doing and he doesn't care to learn more. He knows that he can skate by and get his paycheck. I'm not happy with that kind of life... which is certainly part of the frustration. I think I've just got high standards and expect everyone else to have 'em as well.
I understand what you're saying. It's not the perfectionist part of me that's frustrated. It's more the "we should design our entire site in tables with a 800 x 600 template" vs "let's get into 2004 and use CSS" kind of frustration. I'm the only one in the company that does what I do, so it's usually something bigger. Like my boss deciding that the client is always right and the employee should just do what the client say - even when the client contradicts itself.
I agree. Chances are, someone in that position is the problem. As they say with poker, if you can't identify the sucker at the table then it's probably you.
I should probably have tempered my statements. I'm the only one here who knows the people to whom I'm referring. I'm a little disappointed that my post was modded in such a way; I clearly wasn't trying to be flamebait.
I don't feel that everybody is incompetent... just a lot of the people I deal with frequently. I get to hear all kinds of ridiculous statements by people who are supposed to be my "superiors." I've always had a difficult time listening to a teacher who got facts wrong or a boss who created more work for me by telling me to do something the wrong way. How long can you put up with crap like that?
In school, I'd get in trouble for correcting the teacher. In work, I get yelled at for trying to do things a better way.
So maybe I am the problem because I want to do things better and nobody else does.
Thanks. Your kind words have been very comforting.
Let's look at some real-world evidence/examples that helped shape my view:
1. My IQ is in the high 99th percentile. This alone means nothing. It just sets the stage.
2. One of my professors taught us C++ - his background included a "Learn C++ in 21 Days" style book.
3. The same professor taught us Artificial Intelligence in two parts: "What is a Turing Test?" and "Hello World Programs in Scheme."
4. Only one professor (for a computer-related class) knew what he was doing. By the end of the semester, he had gone off the deep end because there were only three of us (out of thirty) that cared about learning the subject.
5. One of my clients insists that we do validation checks on the Name field in their registration form. That's right - he wants me to verify that it's a real person's name before we submit it. Not only is it a global site (so names might not be recognizable to me) but there's no way for us to verify any of the information anyway.
6. My boss went to a crappy school for a major she doesn't use. In my performance review, she argued that she had to work for twelve years (in a completely unrelated field and position) before getting my level of salary. I'm still below market average.
7. I watch my bosses get conned and manipulated by clients, vendors, and even each other... when I point these things out, they tell me to live with it.
My basis of comparison is a bunch of incompetent idiots. I look at schools like MIT and wish that I could have had that kind of environment. I look at employers like Pixar and Google and try to think of what I could do for them. I look at my future and, several months ago, decided to start forming my own company and stop worrying about sucking up to people who simply don't get it and don't care.
I was disenchanted, frustrated, and paranoid in middle school (6th-8th grades). It got worse in high school. In college I gave up on learning anything in class because most of my profs were idiots. When I graduated, I got a job and realized that almost everyone I worked with, worked for, or had to suck up to was incompetent.
I complained about all this, and you know what they told me? Welcome to the world.
I've played a good number of Star Wars games over the years, from X-Wing to Dark Forces to Jedi Knight. There have been some great ones and some not-so-great ones. The best are the ones where you're given a role within the Star Wars universe... Jedi Knight 2 is still one of my favorite games because it was the first time since I was a kid (make-believe... before I had a computer, you know?) that I felt immersed in a game. Instead of just playing a game, I was really feeling involved. That was the fun part. Not a lot of games can do that for me nowadays.
...and conclude that it's less trouble to buy Microsoft. Everyone loses in that scenario.
And Microsoft loses...how?
"You see you say open source is not the same as public domain. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG."
Uhh... only public domain is public domain. Open source is NOT the same as public domain. He's completely correct in this statement.
GPL, BSD, LGPL, etc. are different licenses, true... but none of them are public domain. Public domain refers to a work that has no license attached to it because it was either released to the public domain or the copyright expired.
Unfortunately, they're AOL customers. Lucky for them/me, they don't use the integrated browser.
Parent is modded funny, but I think it's a serious point - I did this for my wife's grandparents so they would know how to get there. They don't know (and don't care) what the name of the browser is... all they tell me is "I click on the blue E to get there." When I replaced it, I also showed them how to use the tabbed browsing.
If the user doesn't know any better, you're not going to get them to understand the benefits of Firefox over IE. Keep in mind that my wife gets Nigerian Scam emails from her grandparents with a note saying "Is this real?"
That's the truth for me. It wasn't even a thought until I started complaining that I couldn't afford health insurance on my salary, which was already less than market average. Buncha bastards.
What's important to me is that there isn't a correct answer to the problem; every response will be different in the levels of detail, the steps taken, the ability to consider possible sources of the problem, etc.
It's akin to taking a help desk call: "My email isn't working." Everyone handles that call a little differently, but I've discovered that truly great support people are able to lead the person on the other end of the phone to the answer by checking and verifying those little steps here and there. That communication ability is crucial when doing phone support. I'm sure you know someone that can't explain how to do something - they have to take the mouse from you and do it themselves. That's the kind of thing you can't have as a help desk employee.
A light bulb might be out because it's burned out, the switch is broken, the power is out, the bulb isn't screwed in properly, the breaker is tripped, you hit the wrong switch, another switch is partially tripped (that magical half-way point where the light always stays on/off), and so on. It doesn't require an electrician to narrow down a problem to the source (but it may require an electrician to fix it). It's logic, problem solving, and communication.
Many are familiar with the often frustratingly cryptic interview questions from Microsoft and others... my favorite (which I would certainly use if I were running a support department):
"You come home and flip the switch, but the lights don't come on. Describe in as much detail as you can how you would go about fixing the problem."
Most people I've asked respond with "replace the light bulb." While that might be the problem, I think the first thing you should do is try the switch again. Maybe you didn't flip the switch all the way, or you hit the wrong one.
The point is that it's a problem solving experience - and not just in technology. It doesn't require expertise in Microsoft Word. It doesn't take a techie to know this stuff. You can measure a person's aptitude for logic, problem-solving, etc. without ever testing specific examples of those skills. That's what I really like about that question. Hopefully, the ETS exam will take this perspective when developing such tests.
I don't think this was that good of a summary at all. I've never used ettercap and I've only heard it mentioned in passing. The story simply doesn't explain what it is.
From ettercap project page:
"Ettercap is a suite for man in the middle attacks on LAN. It features sniffing of live connections, content filtering on the fly and many other interesting tricks. It supports active and passive dissection of many protocols (even ciphered ones) and includes many feature for network and host analysis."
That's a little more informative than "network protocol analyzer."
Or the explanation of what it does? It's a security tool. That's all I know about it.
./-ers won't RTFA... what makes the submitter think we'll head on over to Google for more info?
Most
Ok, I'm off to Google to figure out what ettercap is.
"IE is so often the 'lowest common denominator' when it comes to designing for the web."
I have to disagree at least a little bit. Several of my clients are in organizations which have supported Netscape 4.x since it came out. It's part of the standard image they install on every machine. Luckily, the worst one (a University) just abandoned NS4 in favor of standards-based design. I run Firefox - but we've had to keep NS 4.7 on at least one machine at all times. I think NS 4.x is still the 'lowest common denominator' for some people.
I'm not as informed on this subject as many others here, but didn't Intel's first integrated wireless chipset run 802.11b? And didn't it become a problem as soon as 802.11g hit the shelves? I'm not an Intel user, so maybe this is solved with some other mechanism (I dunno what, though).
Personally, I like the fact that I can upgrade my individual components and customize my machine. I'd rather my CPU not lock me into its integrate features when they might become obsolete.
Yesterday, I messed up while making grilled cheese. You see, in flipping it, the bread came off and it landed exposed, cheese down, on the hot griddle. This made a terrible mess of my sandwich.
I have no idea how to go about reversing the polarity of a grilled cheese sandwich. The mission was immediately aborted and I was forced to start over.
Where's Alton Brown when you need him?
I just had a flashback to an early Counter-strike bot. Now picture a 400-lb, shotgun-wielding robot bunny-hopping (you can't hit him), running with a knife (because it's faster!), and shooting at your legs (they do the same damage).
They said it wouldn't invade my privacy. And if you can't trust Microsoft, who can you trust?
Obviously there's a benefit to buying a copy on Ebay (auction closing in another seven days, plus 7-10 days for transaction and delivery). I mean, why wait four whole days when you could wait two weeks?
What might ruin that great story for you, aside from special effects and profit-maximizing changes, is the nature of books themselves... your experience is unique. Translating one person's experience or interpretation of a book into a film is a dangerous act; you run the risk of alienating fans that didn't have the same experience. You also influence the experience of future readers by giving them a glimpse into your own vision of the story.
When I read Stephen King's The Stand a few years ago, there was a foreword where he said that he wasn't sure he'd ever make a movie version of the story. He cited "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as evidence of the damage a movie can do to a book. As fantastic as the movie is, it isn't the same (and does not hold the same kind of value) as the original text. If you see the movie and then read the book (as I did) you will never be able to get Jack Nicholson's performance out of your head as you read the character. Unfortunately for me, I also saw the movie adaptation of The Stand before reading the book.
I felt this way about LOTR, but was happy to see that it matched up with my expectations pretty well. Plus, it depicted what I had failed to visualize - Ents. I just couldn't figure out what they would look like.
What you're saying is that if you can't demonstrate a basic level of intelligence, you shouldn't be able to shoot/own a gun or get pregnant. I'd take it a step further and say that if you're too stupid to care for your kids or respect the power of a gun, you should probably have your kids taken away and your gun can be used to remove you from the gene pool.
At least, that's what my scary, gun-toting, overly cynical co-worker says we should do.