I remember something that my dad used to say

[Garethp]

He used to say "Ask a silly question, expect a silly answer".  I just got asked if an else if would work, with the asker under the presumption that I would save him testing. I was on the verge of saying "I'm a 17 year old caffine deprived teenager who forgot to sleep last night. If I can write a funtion in 5 minutes to help you, then you can damn well test the code yourself". Ofcourse, I wasn't that rude.

 

But I am thinking of implementing the above rule. In such a case, my answer would be "Well, it depends, have you enabled the flux capacitator in the configuration file? Did you set the multithreading support to loop through all cases of possible proccesses that may be processing your else if?". What say you all to my idea?

[akitchin]

you're over-simplifying the issue:

 

http://www.break.com/index/understanding-the-turbo-encabulator.html

[Garethp]

Good lord that was awesome. There's no way I could say all that without stumbling all over the place

[Mchl]

Just in case, you're not familiar with this joke:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboencabulator

[Garethp]

Actually, I wasn't familiarized with it, but I did notice it was a joke XD There were some obviously made up words

[Daniel0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboencabulator

 

=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technobabble

Authors and others who wish to convey a feeling of technical sophistication may write or talk in technobabble. They may use jargon without considering what it actually means to give an impression that they know things that their readers or listeners do not.

 

I used a similar strategy for writing papers when I was in high school. I didn't use words I didn't know what meant, but I always chose the most advanced synonyms I (and the thesaurus!) could think of. It seemed to work quite well.

[corbin]

He used to say "Ask a silly question, expect a silly answer".  I just got asked if an else if would work, with the asker under the presumption that I would save him testing. I was on the verge of saying "I'm a 17 year old caffine deprived teenager who forgot to sleep last night. If I can write a funtion in 5 minutes to help you, then you can damn well test the code yourself". Ofcourse, I wasn't that rude.

 

But I am thinking of implementing the above rule. In such a case, my answer would be "Well, it depends, have you enabled the flux capacitator in the configuration file? Did you set the multithreading support to loop through all cases of possible proccesses that may be processing your else if?". What say you all to my idea?

 

 

Eh, you could have said something about it without being rude.  People usually don't get offended by a simple "Errr... why don't you just try it?"

 

 

It's annoying how often questions like that pop up though.  It seems like there are a lot of people out there just afraid (or too lazy) to try things.  It's weird.

[.josh]

I used a similar strategy for writing papers when I was in high school. I didn't use words I didn't know what meant, but I always chose the most advanced synonyms I (and the thesaurus!) could think of. It seemed to work quite well.

 

...or when telling the boss "no" on something that is technically possible but extremely difficult/complex to do

[Zane]

you're over-simplifying the issue:

 

http://www.break.com/index/understanding-the-turbo-encabulator.html

LMAO..

 

don't you just wanna smack him and say "It's not a girdle spring! It's a a floxy chute!".

[Garethp]

I used a similar strategy for writing papers when I was in high school. I didn't use words I didn't know what meant, but I always chose the most advanced synonyms I (and the thesaurus!) could think of. It seemed to work quite well.

 

...or when telling the boss "no" on something that is technically possible but extremely difficult/complex to do

 

When I was younger, my dad set up the home network so that there was a spare computer in his office which he claimed was "The Server". So when he left, I became the tech expert in the house. In order to stay attached to ethernet connection, and not to have to go wireless, I claimed that the network needed a server for everybody else to get onto the internet, and my computer was that server. I said it would be too difficult to explain how to manage a server. I despensed of that a while ago because I got bored of it. I still stay on Ethernet connection, because I explained that wireless was not suitable for me.

 

Also, whenever they want me to fix the router, I'll try various "methods" which generally include doing something else while they aren't watching me, and I'll have it all fixed within an hour or so. God I love technology

[akitchin]

you're over-simplifying the issue:

 

http://www.break.com/index/understanding-the-turbo-encabulator.html

LMAO..

 

don't you just wanna smack him and say "It's not a girdle spring! It's a a floxy chute!".

 

an interesting study done in the communications faculty at my university had a few of us in the chem department discuss the basic principles of operating and troubleshooting an NMR spectrometer, as well as how to spot common spectral features that will point to an issue with the analysis. they recorded it and played it back for the students in a communications class.

 

over 40% of the social sciences faculty students that heard it thought we were just making shit up, 5% thought it wasn't even english. made me realize the degree to which jargon is at once both useful and confounding.

[Daniel0]

Is that study available somewhere? Preferably with the chemistry gibberish.

[Mchl]

A friend of mine was using my PC to write a paper on econometry (or whatever). Once he left the document open, so I sat down and added a page or two of gibberish in similar style to what he was writing (except I was making stuff up). After he had got back, he said he had hard time finding out where his work ended and mine started.

[akitchin]

Is that study available somewhere? Preferably with the chemistry gibberish.

 

unfortunately not, it was a rather informal study done by some undergrads as part of a project. i can point to some papers or textbooks that cover the topic though, if that's what you're interested in?

 

i'll be honest, some of the terms that were probably considered "jargon" were some simple science or technical terms that weren't chemistry-specific, just sufficiently buried in the dictionary that your typical social "sciences" student wouldn't have come across. if you can't tell, i don't place much stock in the "science" portion of most social sciences.