I hope everyone's watching the genius of invention on bbc2 right now

[geoff]

Well dumbed down, but what do you expect ?

[Andy Champ]

Exactly what I expected. I have too much else to watch!

Andy

[Another John]

That's why I never watch such programmes these days: I really do not have the time to sit there and be talked down to tediously for an hour, usually with stupid gimmicks thrown in, when they could have told me what I wanted to know in 15 minutes! I think they call it infotainment.

J.

[Brian Gaff]

Better, we are not all morons, indeed even morons are not all dim at everything.

I was amazed that nobody in the street on a radio interview seemed to understand square roots any more.

Brian

[Steve Firth]

I gave a lecture at "a leading engineering company" a few years ago, the division I was visiting was concerned with building network kit. I mentioned that the network addressing for the systems they would be building used octal. There was some confusion for a moment then someone asked me what octal was. They also did not understand binary. Eventually one of them worked out that his calculator would do the conversions so they stopped worrying.

[Huge]

Some years ago, I had to explain hexadecimal to a Windows NT Admin.

Last week, I had to explain binary and 'exclusive or' to someone who works in the same team as me.

Both of these people should have known these things in order to do their jobs.

:o(

[Tim Watts]

On Friday 25 January 2013 07:59 Huge wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Why does that not surprise me :-o

Meeble...

[Tim Watts]

On Friday 25 January 2013 09:57 Tim Watts wrote in uk.d-i-y:

The thing that worries me is that I consider myself to be mostly competant[1] over a fairly wide domain of linux and networking related skills but I can stand next to people, eg at a Google interview[2] and feel completely and utterly stupid - even covering the same domain of subject matter.

[1] It seems I am destined to be good at grasping enough stuff quickly and sufficiently well to get sysadmin work done. But am equally doomed to be a specialist at almost nothing... [2] No I did not get it. But it was strangly gratifying to at least make it past the phone interviews and actually stand inside the building at Victoria. And they are indeed a very smart bunch of bastards ;->

And the workplace is like something out of Star Trek!

[Huge]

It surprised me at the time. It doesn't any more.

[Huge]

Yep, sounds like yours truly.

Jung ernyyl erthyneyl cvffrf zr bss ng gur zbzrag vf jura jr trg n ceboyrz, V qb fbzr erfrnepu gb znxr fher vg vf fbyhoyr, unaq bire zl abgrf gb gur bvx jub'f npghnyyl tbvat gb qb gur jbex naq trg gur erfcbafr "Vg qbrfa'g jbex", jura jung gurl npghnyyl zrna vf "V qba'g haqrefgnaq" be "V qvqa'g sbyybj gur qverpgvbaf". Be zber yvxryl, "Cyrnfr qb guvf sbe zr."

V'z jbexvat zl jnl qbja gung punva ng gur zbzrag, jvgu n pnyy gung fgnegrq "Ubj qb jr rapelcg n svyr ba Fbynevf", gb juvpu V ercyvrq "pelcgb vf ohvyg vagb Fbynevf". Pbzrf gur ercyl "Ubj qb jr qb gung?", fb V ercyl jvgu gur HEY bs gur qbpb cntr ba gur Benpyr jrofvgr. Pbhcyr bs qnlf cnhfr, gura pbzrf gur varivgnoyr erfcbafr "Lrf, ohg jung yvoenevrf qb jr arrq gb hfr, naq ubj qb jr pnyy gurz?" Fb, V ercyl jvgu gur HEY bs gur qbpb cntr ba gur Benpyr jro fvgr. V njnvg gur arkg dhrfgvba. Gur ynfg gvzr fbzrguvat yvxr guvf unccrarq ("Ubj qb jr unfu n cnffjbeq jvgu n fnyg va Wnin?") V raqrq hc cebivqvat gurz jvgu n pbqr favccrg, naq V'z abg rira n oybbql cebtenzzre (nal zber). Naq jr cnl gurfr crbcyr gb jevgr pbqr sbe hf.

Fvtu.

[Tim Watts]

On Friday 25 January 2013 11:14 Huge wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Should have double ROT13'd for extra security...

;->>>

Still it'll piss the DIYWanker and GoogleGroup users off :)

I seem to land a fair few problems that are "my fault" because it worked on the developer's laptop with a tiny test database. The fact that the fancy pantsy AJAX autocompletion is causing 500 SQL queries per web page (when the data set is so small that the application might have well have cached the interesting parts to RAM) is still my fault.

Except when I tell them to go away and optimise it.

I'm not Mordac though - I do offer to help by showing them how to analyse the system or where the relevant log files are and how to read them.

And they all get root on their project servers with a quick guide on "apt-get install". My predecessor apparantly would not let them do anything...

I am luckier than you in that respect. My lot are generally a good bunch and will generally accept their end of any blame (and I accept mine when I c*ck up, which does happen). It's usually more a case of not knowing about something at all, rather than knowing of it but not knowing how to deal with it.

[dennis]

Do they know the difference between xor and parity?

[Jim S]

I have no objections to 'dumbed down' as most viewers will be fairly dumb, but they may have learned something they didn't know before, which is all you can ask. True it was 'Blue Peter' style and as an ex physics teacher I wish I had all that gear to play with.

[jgharston]

I've been quiet this week because - shock horror - somebody's actually deigned to pay me to work! My workplace is "Moorfoot Building", and it's like the inside of the Minataur's Maze, the Doctor Who version. I'm sure the walls move when I'm not looking.

JGH

[newshound]

ROFL!

[jgharston]

The floor plan is Quinoline, 1-(3-bromopropyl)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro- and my office is the Bromine atom ;)

JGH

[Tim Watts]

On Friday 25 January 2013 17:40 newshound wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Sir - I see you are not a Slashdot reader...

[Andy Dingley]

I still use octal.

It's a web-related use that is pretty common, and makes some kind of sense that they chose it, but it still surprises me that octal is used for it.

[Andy Champ]

OK, there's one bromine atom. But aren't there multiples of every other species?

Hot desking?

Andy

[Huge]

that they chose it, but it still surprises me that octal is used for it.

Colour palettes?