Sysadmin summoned to explain italics – to a user with at least two degrees ON CALL Welcome to another edition of On Call, the reader-contributed column The Register runs each Friday to share your tech support stories. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Darwin," who once worked as a sysadmin for a Wall Street law firm – the sort of outfit that charges four-figure hourly fees and justifies them …
Having a degree demonstrates skills in taking exams and writing papers. It does not say anything about the intelligence of the person.
In this particular case, we have stupidity combined with the kind of arrogance which only comes from daddy paying your way through an Ivy League university.
Example time. Almost all readers here are probably ignorant regarding the details of splicing wire rope: most are probably unaware of the fact that it can be done, and is routinely done for some use cases. Does that make them stupid? I'd say no.
I would start to question how someone managed to avoid knowing things they should have needed in order to go through daily life or do their job, like a parent who have no idea of how to change a diaper, Exactly how an lawyer, who should have written a large number of documents while at law school, managed to avoid understsanding italics is left as an open question.
Ignorance is not knowing. Stupidity is not understanding.
Dictionary definition, perhaps; "I was ignorant of that fact" = "I didn't know that, thanks for telling me".
However, around here there are two nuances. Being "ignorant" can also mean "I am deliberately avoiding learning about that fact" or "I know that fact but am deliberately ignoring it because <reason>". Hence the phrase "he's an ignorant so-and-so".
As for stupidity, the nuance is that it usually implies not just not understanding - a situation which can also often be rectified with some education - but not being able to understand, either through sheer lack of brain power (I don't think I'll ever understand more than the basics of quantum mechanics) or a sheer unwillingness to learn (maths is hard, so I won't try). In the latter definition, of course, it fully overlaps with the nuanced definition of ignorant I gave.
M.
The arrogance was assuming that the way to deal with the "problem" was by calling in some lesser paid mortal rather than "waste" his own time searching for "slanted text" online. The word "Italic" comes up quite frequently in search results (just tested).
Also, there are Ivy League schools and Ivy League schools. In the days of my youth, there was one in the middle of nowhere where drinking to excess was endemic ("What? That's normal uni behavior," I hear many UK readers say; not then, in the northeastern US, if only because the legal drinking age was 21 almost everywhere, the state of New York being a major exception.) There was also one in southwestern New Jersey where on occasion the students might lower themselves to speaking to their counterparts at the institutions in New Haven (Connecticut) and Cambridge (the Massachusetts one), but never the *shudder* other ones.
After many decades of grooming of future Ivy League undergraduates from competitive preschool acceptance onward, the snoot-to-decency ratio has ostensibly increased, but back in the late Pre-Cambrian, there were a lot of good, decent people at the one I attended. I was fortunate in that mine was the first entering class to have more graduates of public ("state," in UK-speak) high schools than private (fee-paid) ones. And even some of the preppies were decent people, too.... as long as we didn't try to join their clubs. But who (other than Mark Z.) would want to?
It is entirely possible this story took place in, say, the early 1990s. There are no indicators of the time period. Don't assume the well-indexed, post-Google internet was available as a resource. The lawyer's only alternative might've been delving into paper manuals, and trust me, those types of places employ techs specifically to read all the manuals so they don't have to.
If the person in question had been near anything even resembling a university (this was the US, I take it, and degrees there hold water approximately as well as toilet paper) then they'd know italics, used italics and not bloody well need to ASK what it was.
It's been around a while, after all.
I'm not disputing that. But the previous commenter dismissively assured us that the lawyer was lazy for not just looking up the answer on the internet, which makes an assumption at least as ignorant about the past as not knowing how italics work.
This whole global internet thing is an extremely recent idea, and the jury's still out on whether it's even a good one.
There are plenty of things that are difficult to [fully] understand; not understanding them does not make one stupid per se. I have found it a truism that the more I learnt the more I realized that there was more that I did not fully understand. I don't think I became more stupid.
Stupidity seems a bit like intelligence - difficult to precisely define, but to borrow from Potter Stewart - "I know it when I see it".
Wilful ignorance is, to my mind, different to stupidity (there are plenty of politicians that decide to remain wilfully ignorant of inconvenient truths - but not for reasons of stupidity) - but it is a close associate.
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I was at college with a lad that played in the front row at U21 rugby for the county. He had a story of playing hooker one day as a stand in, & once the scrum was formed, feeling a hairy forearm reaching into his shirt collar, down his back, & taking a firm grip on the back of his jockstrap. Then the pulling began.
By the time the scrum collapsed the waistband had reached the nape of his neck & he was left on the floor crying with his knees pulled up under his chin while all the other members of the scrum ran off to resume open play...
How does one manage to get through college, and law school without encountering italics? Or varying typefaces in general? That seems to me to be a secondary school sort of thing.
I suppose the lesson here is that experts in one field can be totally ignorant in [any] other fields. Examples include Dr. Ben Carson, a brilliant pediatric brain surgeon, who demonstrated his ignorance as secretary of Housing and Urban Development during Trump's first term
You know, the legal "profession" is very attuned to a single typeface to be used everywhere: Courier (or some related monospaced, serifed typeface). Yutzes who generate the mountains of paper upon which the "profession" feeds might never encounter an italicized Courier font.
Creativity in presentation is not encouraged in said "profession"....
You may have noticed that the legal profession is one of the last where they still have secretaries and other clerk types. It really seems to insulate the lawyers from the outside modern world that the rest of us inhabit. Its fun to watch them try to interact with the rest of us unwashed masses and not exactly get the same responses that they are used to getting when they are in the office.
$WORKPLACE is a bit of a Oxbridge alumni-fest, and is definite proof that expensive schools and prestigious universities can often add up to someone who is not only an unpleasant prick but gives the impression that their mother still does up their shoelaces at 30 years of age. It produces entertaining results when the arrogant pricks also lack any level of competency. I'm one of a handful in my particular part of the business that doesn't have a degree, I think there are perhaps two others. Needless to say you get used to pushing back at people who look at you with their nostrils. Thankfully they are now firmly in the minority as the business evolved.
Others meanwhile despite having clearly been born with silver spoons stuck in various orifices are perfectly pleasant and kind people who are happy to defer to your knowledge. I don't mind them but it is amusing how often you find yourself being the adult in the room....!
For my sins (well, those of my parents really), I was sent to a private school as a child, ostensibly because the local comprehensive was appalling, but in all likelihood, it was really for bragging rights on the parts of mater and pater. What I discovered there, was that most other children weren't there because of the better quality of education (and it was better, because class sizes were smaller, the school had better equipment, and the teachers were well paid), but were there because of money. Believe me, rich parents breed a sense of entitlement that you can't get through raw talent alone, and the experience taught me in no uncertain terms exactly what is wrong with your average rich-boy Tory.
Fast-forward to university, and I picked one that has a reputation for taking the rejects that couldn't get into Oxford or Cambridge; not because I couldn't have got into either of those, my exam results were certainly good enough, but because this one had the course I wanted to do, with a good reputation, and I liked the city. What I discovered here was that the rich boys (and girls) with money and privilege infest all walks of life, and wander around with an utterly unearned sense of entitlement. Those who could have got into Oxford or Cambridge at least had intelligence and a good work ethic, those at my chosen alma mater did not.
Now, it is by no means a given that all rich kids are arseholes, but there is a certain kind of arrogance and casual disregard for others that can only thrive with a ready supply of money, and once you learn to recognise it, this is a skill that will serve you well throughout life. Don't bow down to these people, offer them undue deference, or do their bidding; what is unearned is undeserved.
I agree with you mostly, but university wise you assume that Oxford or Cambridge you need to bright to attend, I think a lot assume and the feeder schools (private schols) that those who attend are bright and the best.
Having worked with those who have and the business who trumpet this, Id say they are no better than most university in the 2.2 or above category, its just the label - like fashion that they get the easier ride and sadly same is for both university full of mummy and daddy trust funds there as they donated to the colleage and same or even worse with Ivy League, as the reason Zuck and co can build companies at uni there, is that lots of the work is multiple choice that if you feed enough knowledge or spin the wheel you can pass, lots of academic around the globe - remove this and rely on independent learning and working together to show the application of learning - hence a lot of a* drop out in the uk - where they are great at tests, but come living on your own and having to learn independent without just crapping out the knowledge learnt for 9 months isn't the answers, thats why SATs, GCSE, A Levels really don't tell you much about a persons intellectual ability are is just hen hutching knowledge in a and crapping out as performance measures for schools.
I agree smaller classes do make the difference, but also pleased to see that private schools are seen for what they are a service and not a charity, where the rich can dodge paying tax like a lot love to do, as Tice said Tax is a moral choice for the wealthy, but really is not the case, just they have access to have expensive dinners and access to ways to dodge the system the rest of us, have to pay or get the heavy hand of the law.
So, no said Oxbridge live its private feeders - as lets not pretend its there for all as state kids are allowed in as tick box measure and very likely actually talented and bright to get there, rest are discounted for the sports teams and because trust funds add a new wing and piss up the chance, but mummy and daddy max sure old boy network keeps their sporn in power with an mba and run around every 2 to 3 yrs working round as manglement in business.
(same AC here)
I agree that Oxford/Cambridge (I can't bring myself to type "Oxbridge" without wincing) have an over-representation amongst private-school kids, for whom "exam training" is available, and the quality of the degree very often does not correlate to the loftiness of the institution; I'm sure my degree from A N Other Russell-group university was every bit as well taught as that I might have got if I had chosen to go to Cambridge instead. To be honest, the main things that put me off Oxford and Cambridge were the collegiate system, which felt anachronistic 30 years ago, and the pompousness. By that point, I'd had more than enough of being around the overprivileged.
When I went to university, which was in the mid '90s, the entry process for many universities wasn't based only on exam results; there was a process where you would take a day off school, visit the institution, they would look at your predicted grades, give you an interview and then would give you your entrance criteria. This was useful for both the student and the institution, because the institutions could nominally filter out the worst of bullshitters, and the students could work out whether they liked the place or not. On this basis, I managed to eliminate one from my shortlist, because I'd taken the day off school and, instead of visiting had "done a bunk", yet despite me not turning up for the interview, they still gave me a (pretty low) offer anyway.
Oxford and Cambridge were notorious for having much more formal, and harder, entrance criteria, not only in exam results, but also in interviews. I'm sure this is still the case, and I'm sure this also favours those from a more privileged or moneyed background, who could be imbued with the skills required to do well in interviews via things like private coaching. I don't know if it still the case, but they also had different exam requirements at the time, ISTR Oxford would want you to sit their own entrance exam, and for the degree I did, Cambridge would want you to have taken the "special" paper at A-level, colloquially known as the "S-level", which on top of the A-grade, could give you a "merit" or "distinction"; I can be reasonably sure I would have been accepted into Cambridge, since I took these extra papers in two subjects, gaining "merit" in one, and "distinction" in the other. My reasons for doing so were personal ones, and nothing to do with university entrance though.
As for private schools; well... Firstly, it has to be said, there are private schools, and then there are private schools. On the one hand, you have places like Harrow and Eton, which are breeding grounds for the parasitic class, and then you have the much larger number of small, local private schools, with probably a handful in each town and city. I was sent to one of these, a local boys' school, and I have to say, it's not really an experience I would recommend. Apart from the deeply unnatural environment of a single-sex space, which socially puts children at a real disadvantage, these places are stuffed with people where money really does take precedence over talent. The children might well gain a much better "education" in terms of academic subjects and opportunities (I doubt the local comprehensive gave anyone the option to take Classics as a GCSE), but as an introduction to the "real world" they probably offer less. As you say, the whole system is kept going by the "old boys' networks," and really the system is pretty well set up to give an advantage to those whose parents had an advantage and little more than that. I'd like to see an end to private education in this country, and these places opened up to all, alongside a massive boost of money into state schools. I'm a firm believer that everyone should get the same opportunities, and if they squander them, that's on them.
I think you've got the extra requirements slightly mixed up. S-levels were Oxford's extra exam: Cambridge's were called STEP and the grades, from best to worst, were S, 1, 2, 3. My offer from Cambridge in 1999 was AAB1.
One thing which is often overlooked in discussions about state vs independent schools and Oxbridge is that you don't have to be from a rich family to go to an independent school. I went to a local mixed boarding school as a day pupil with two thirds of my fees paid by a scholarship and the remaining third by a bursary. Due to rounding errors, my father paid 1 quid a term. The league tables give independent schools a new motive to grant scholarships to children who are likely to perform well in exams, but they had scholarships and bursaries before that too, for historical reasons which also explain why until recently they were considered charities. E.g. my school was originally founded for the sons of non-conformist ministers, who were ineligible to attend the other schools available at the time. In short, there's a selection mechanism other than parental wealth which explains why independent school pupils would be overrepresented in the most desirable universities.
As to the quality of teaching: the supposed advantage of Oxbridge is the supervision (Cam) / tutorial (Ox) system where you get one-on-one or one-on-two contact in addition to lectures. In my experience it was a bit hit-and-miss. I had an excellent supervisor for physics in the first year; but a lot of the supervisors were PhD students who didn't know how to teach. In some subjects the supervisions were a waste of time, and afterwards I'd go to a common room with my supervision partner and explain to them what the supervisor hadn't managed to communicate. Some people might get very lucky with their supervisors, but your observation on the quality of teaching at other Russell Group universities is very fair.
Actually, there was one specific advantage of the boarding school, although it was an advantage after admission and I'm not aware that it helped to obtain admission. Because the authorities wanted to keep the boarders busy, there was school on Saturday mornings and shorter terms than state schools. Cambridge has eight-week teaching terms and at least in the sciences it has Saturday morning lectures. Most of my peers were unhappy at that, but it was normal to me.
>” but university wise you assume that Oxford or Cambridge you need to bright to attend,”
Not a bad assumption these days. Remember it wasn’t that many years back that Oxford and Cambridge had to decide whether they wanted to continue being a finishing school for public school boys (yes boys, not girls) or actually be academically elite universities. A consequence of that decision is why they have massively increased the numbers of undergraduates from state schools and overseas and improved their support of such students to help them complete their degrees.
The were two lads in my Comprehensive School 6th form who both got offers from Oxford.
One, whose father was a local Judge, was offered one 'E' (not quite unconditional, but effectively so).
The other, whose father owned a plant Nursery, was offered 4 'A's (for a relatively similar course).
Both attained the required grades, but the second decided to go somewhere with a better course! Good for him!
"Believe me, rich parents breed a sense of entitlement that you can't get through raw talent alone, and the experience taught me in no uncertain terms exactly what is wrong with your average rich-boy Tory."
Being rich, arrogant and entitled is by no means restricted to being a Tory. Neither does being a Tory mean that someone is rich, arrogant and entitled. Chip on the shoulder perhaps?
Not over-represented in; represented by. The purpose of conservatism is to conserve wealth and power.
It's pretty much the original definition of the right wing.
For the record, you have summarised the reasons my kids were sent to the local comprehensive.... Plus more kids from my local comprehensive end up in Oxbridge than from the two local private schools combined.... And for science and maths, Oxbridge degrees are tough. No idea about PPE....
@AC
I, as a working class kid (in the days of full grants) went to a uni (St. Andrews) with a lot of Oxbridge rejects. I chose it as it was a long way from home, by the sea & had flexible course structure (helped by a 4 year degree course) as had great grades so Oxbridge was an option. The students from very wealthy / privileged backgrounds varied in personality just like any other group, some were decent, some unpleasant. I recall one particularly unpleasant posh ex public school lad who was making corrosive remarks about a (female) friend of mines "A" level grades* compared to his & saying she was not fit to be at uni (she was also from a poor background & grades were OK, more so when factoring in her background & relatively poor quality comprehensive school education)... so I asked him what his results were, then told him mine & asked why he was attacking someone when his results were nothing to get excited about (long since forgot what his grades were, they were OK IIRC, but unfortunately for him I had 5 high grade "A" levels & a special paper grade 1**)
But plenty of the posh folk were OK, at the end of final exams one of the (pleasant) posh lads on the course (who I had helped over the years by explaining a few things to him until he understood (he was a bit like the "Tim, nice but dim" Harry Enfield character, though was more intelligent) was enthusing about how I was amazingly clever *** & would have a great career ahead of me... I gently reminded him that "cleverness" meant little carerr wise (especially when you have Asperger's (back then it was not reclassified as part of ASD) & so struggle on the social side of career progression (& even more so with the lying & backstabbing skills sadly needed for real progress in many spheres) and gently got him to remind me how much he would earn in his first year at his "city" job (this was already lined up via his dad who worked in finance). I told him that when I reached retirement age I would be unlikely to be earning as much as he would do in his first year of work. Sadly, with retirement only a few years away, that dark joke turned out be a more accurate prediction than many "city" finance folk manage)
* Back when in the UK, only small % of people went to uni & "grade inflation" was not such a thing (so a far smaller fraction of school leavers got multiple As at "A" level than these days - 3 As or better was about 4% then and over 15% now)
** No idea if Special papers still exist as an exam these days
*** I definitely was not! A couple of my uni drinking mates were maths PhD students, one was a high standard chess player (as a hobby, always wondered what he would have done if he took it seriously) and would play blindfold chess (opponents allowed to see the board) against multiple decent student opponents and still invariably win .. that's the sort of mental gymnastics (mentally keeping track of multiple boards) that I call clever (in addition although my maths skills were OK back then (my degree was not maths, though one of my A levels was), some of their PhD level maths was definitely way beyond my abilities)
> their mother still does up their shoelaces at 30 years of age.
Don't be absurd,
Mater would never stoop to tie our shoelaces, that was always Nanny's job.
Which reminds me, must get Pater to give me the number of the Agency; Nan's bows still hold all day long but yesterday the daft old bat fell off her zimmer whilst tying my cravat. Time for some new blood in the household. Tally Ho!
Mater would never stoop to tie our shoelaces, that was always Nanny's job.
...and in households who could not afford nanny... well, let's just put it this way; offspring and class finished sixth form and headed off various ways. Offspring had phonecall* from friend the day after they were left at their digs by parents, "I'm hungry, can you tell me how to boil an egg?". Couple of days later, "I've bought a chicken breast from Tesco but I don't know what to do with it."
Notable for two things, first that neither parents nor school had managed to teach this very basic level of survival skill. Second that said friend called my offspring rather than their parents.
And lo-and-behold, two years later exactly the same thing happend to offspring's younger sibling!
State schools, down-to-earth families, not at all the "entitled" set.
*ok, it probably wasn't a phonecall, was probably a Snapchat message or something.
.
"Others meanwhile despite having clearly been born with silver spoons stuck in various orifices are perfectly pleasant and kind people who are happy to defer to your knowledge."
In my experience, those who are born into long standing wealth and position are generally brought up knowing how to deal with it and how to behave towards others, the parents who bring them up having been through the same process themselves (and their parents before them and so on). They are usually very good people to know, work for, be friends with or whatever.
It generally seems to be those familiies which have come from nothing (so-called 'New Money') who are most often the arrogant, entitled and upleasant ones.
It's certainly a theory, but not one I necessarily subscribe to. You only have to find one counter-example to call it into question (and according to contemporary parodies of the Sunday Sport, he was living on a London bus on the Moon after killing the nanny and fleeing).
The idea that those with hereditary wealth are all "good eggs" and it's the nouveau riche who are the problem sounds an awful lot like an attempt to preserve hereditary privilege to me. I prefer to subscribe to the belief that those who have vastly more wealth than they can possibly spend, but who choose not to do good with it are all scum, regardless of where the money originated. I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule here and there, but I'm struggling to think of any rich people I genuinely admire.
> You missed the word 'generally' in my post (which I used twice) ;)
You'll find they often do that, along with using phrases like
>> You only have to find one counter-example to call it into question
when they hear an idea about any group of people they personally dislike, as though a description about human behaviour is in some way akin to a mathematical proof and can be entirely dismissed by a single counterexample relevant to an individual instance.
I can find more examples of people with hereditary privilege being wrong'uns if you like, but I think I might have to charge you my hourly rate, since I'd be doing your research for you.
I have oft heard it quoted that those "old money" are more decent folk than those with "new money". I have rarely seen it backed up by any actual facts though. Like most "accepted wisdom", it shouldn't be immune to challenge. A lot of what is wrong with this country can be put down to people offering deference to those who have not earned it; for example, people are ready to blame the poorest and most underrepresented in society for the lack of housing, jobs, or opportunities, but seldom look to those who own the housing or control the jobs and opportunities. "Old money" owns 30% of the land in the UK, and this is a vanishingly small portion of the population as a whole. If they were decent people, they'd not be hoarding resources.
You also used the word "usually", indicating that you believe your generalisation to hold true in most cases. It should have been pretty clear that my response was a generalisation too. Did you read the bit where I mentioned that I'm sure there are exceptions (but that I couldn't think of any)?
I'm happy to accept that my post was a generalisation, and be challenged on it, for example, with counter-examples. That would be a productive conversation, and if you were able to skilfully put forward a good argument, you might even change my mind. if you're going to make genereliased statements, though, you should be ready to be challenged on them, the fact that yor statement was a generalisation grants no immunity to question. Thatw ould be a logical fallacy, although I can't be arsed to go and look up exactly which one it is.
If you think you can wave your hands and say "but I was generalising", doesn't that just indicate that you recognise that you made a poor generalisation that you aren't willing to defend? If that's the case, then I'm afraid you have assigned to your post all the weight of someone saying "I'm just asking questions here," and I'm sorry to say, I'm not too fond of people who use weasel-words.
I did my postgrad (Maths Tripos Part III) at Cambridge – my money (what there was of it – I got there on a scholarship) – was neither Old nor New. Funnily enough, while there I got to know a greatn grandson of Charles Darwin (his surname was Darwin). A toff, certainly, an Old Etonian IIRC, but a thoroughly nice and extremely smart guy, and not at all arrogant/entitled/ignorant – quite the opposite. I also met some appalling human beings of both the Old and New Money persuasion.
I find that in some social contracts the insecure ones are the arseholes, because they're worried people think of them as jumped up little people - and we do, but only because that's how they act.
In general, decent human beings tend to be decent regardless of wealth, and arseholes are arseholes whatever their bank balance. On the whole, though, decent human beings tend to get on ok in life and are more likely to be reasonably well off. Apart from a handful of scammers and crooks, everyone I've ever met with money has been nice to deal with , and that's clearly helped them make it to the level they had.
Your experience doesn't match mine, where I have noticed little correlation between the age of wealth and people's willingness to be smug or unpleasant about it. Admittedly, I have less experience than some of those posting here, but I've had chances to meet members of both groups and found that some of them are nice and some unbearable regardless of whether they made or inherited their cash. The only "generally" I'd be prepared to make is that those being unpleasant about inherited wealth have different ways of doing it than those being unpleasant about non-inherited. However, of these differences, the old money unpleasantness tends to grate on me slightly, though not meaningfully, more.
You have to wonder just how poor a lawyer this pleasant fellow really was. It is extremely common for lawyers to refer to other legal cases or acts of parliaments, etc, in order to reference their findings or interpretations, and these are usually written in italics when cited in documents. It sounds llike Darwin should have referred him to the case of Arkell v. Pressdram…
[Hey, what sort of lousy red-top rag is this, that it doesn't support <cite> tags? ;-P ]
I am a Certified IT Professional (CITP) with decades of Continued Professional Development (CPD) to maintain that certification.
I am frustrated when people who have degrees in Arts try to tell me how to do things.
I patiently listen, as rarely they have a good idea, but I then have to spend time to effectively teach them in order to get their buy in to the correct and feasible solution.
But what if he knows that he knows not that he knows not?
With apologies to the proverb, my way of determining the stupid from the uninformed is to try to teach them something and see what happens. If they learn, they were uninformed and we're fixing it. If they try to learn but fail, then they were uninformed and still are, either because I'm not teaching well enough or they need something I can't provide. If they don't try to learn, then they're either willingly ignorant or stupid. I prefer someone who wants to understand, even if they lack the necessary intelligence, over someone who could but chooses not to, because someone who wants to understand recognizes that they don't.
Having a degree demonstrates skills in taking exams and writing papers. It does not say anything about the intelligence of the person.
That depends al ot on the degree and the "quality" of the institution conferring it. There may well be degrees where all you really need is skill in taking exams and writing papers - but really, I find it hard to believe that even the best blagger could manage that without having learned at least some of the subject matter.
But for many degrees, mine is in engineering, if you haven't learned the concepts and how to apply them, then you don't stand a chance getting one. As an aside. one of the reasons engineering degrees open up opportunities in so many other fields is because (non-idiots) recognise that engineers have learned how to apply concepts/rules/calculations to new problems - and that makes them better than (say) someone who has an in-depth knowledge of how todays's finance systems work, but might have s.f.a. idea how to cope with next year's tax code changes.
Sorry, I know that sounds a bit "I've got a degree, respect me". It's not, it's pointing out that there are "real" degrees, that really do test your ability to understand and apply concepts.
"Future President of the USA right there."
His first executive order would be to ban the font for being unamerican or re·christen the font amerique.
How anyone with the least pretension to literacy could be unaware of iltalic (or oblique?)
"With at least two degrees" — presumably "ignorance" and "pigge ignorance" both dumma cum laude in obnoxious.†
† my obvious typo for summa but also works.
The current US administration did decide to have a fight about fonts. I'm convinced they can find an ideological disagreement in basically anything.
Just glorified multi choice - but you pay a high entry fee to enter the US old boy network like the UK, just even more chance of being a moron than the UK, which at least tries to filter out by making them actually learn independently and not rely on such joke of tests.
Thats why there is more drop out and start up, as they have so much free time that they can get mum and dad fund up there latest brain fart and then extend out to the family wider network.
Don't bet on it.
The one Ivy League football game I actually saw part of left me thinking that the level of play would get a Texas high school coach fired. To be sure, at that time the schools could not offer athletic scholarships, and the whole "name-image-likeness" trade may have some effect. But I think that the Ivy League is attempting to control NIL spending.
First time I came across those was on the M20. I had a Saab at the time that had a dirty EGR that would manifest itself as an engine fault - now speed limited to 50mph.
I was going on the M20 and then the engine light came on. Came to a sign for roadworks and speed cameras - OK. I was driving along, stuck at 50 and all these other vehicles were busy over taking me and I was "where are the speed cameras ? I can't see any", but I did see what could be the TomTom camera / traffic detectors but on the pole it looked like a globe or 3 leaves.
Came home, even going downhill the car still stuck at 50. A few weeks later and I had to go into the office again. The EGR had sorted itself out inbetween these trips into London so I was quite happy going in and then, as I approached the M20 it struck. Once again miles of miles of 50mph being over taken by the local snails and tortoises. More cursing and swearing and still no "speed cameras, just Tom Tom's"
I then decided to look these new "TomTom" cameras up and found they were average speed cameras. No mention of that on the M20 - just "Speed Cameras".
Never have I been so glad of an intermittent issue on a car and wonder how many people were caught speeding as they were unaware (lots by the look of it)
A few years ago I was driving along a fairly straight road in the local town at the posted 30mph, as I do. A car came roaring up behind then overtook me doing, I estimate, well over 40mph - the speed camera van was around 50 yards ahead! Assuming they did clock him* I'm hoping he got more than the offer of a speed awareness course given how fast he was going and the dangerous manoeuvre.
*When I received my one and only speeding ticket for doing 37mph in a 30 limit my brother, who was following me, got away with it - he was too close behind for the camera to get his registration!
With all the Flock cameras around it would be pretty easy for them to determine average speed between two points even those very far away. So even traveling on very deserted roads in low population areas with no law enforcement to worry about where you could go really fast for sustained periods could get you in a lot of trouble. If you pass a Flock before you turn off onto that road, then appear at another Flock 100 miles away when you exit that road an hour later, it is pretty much an open and shut case that you were exceeding the speed limit.
I haven't heard about such tickets being issued, but I wouldn't be surprised. Fortunately (at least as far as legal concerns) I no longer have a yearly trip deep into the sand hills of Nebraska, where there are counties that have a population density of less than one person per square mile. Once I exited the 17 mile long one lane road upon leaving my destination, I had an 80 mile state highway that never had any cops, and sometimes I'd see only two or three cars in either direction. Needless to say that section took around 45 minutes, depending on how many cars I encountered and had to slow to a more reasonable speed for. I suppose in that case I'd be fine since there's unlikely to ever be a Flock until exiting that lonely highway just outside North Platte so there would be no "start time" for them to measure with.
Many French Autoroutes have toll gates, with card tickets issued at entry and handed in when leaving so as to work out the total to be paid. It was common for the gendarmes to check the time taken and issue tickets of a different kind should the time taken be impossible at legal speed. These days ANPR cameras are more common, but you still have to pay at the end of the section.
Reminds me of a training course I did once for a group of customer engineers (all with at least one degree, many with doctorates).
I was explaining gas flows in a system and used the word "downstream". One guy looked at me and said "what do you mean?".
A bit strange I thought, but whatever and I explained in terms of where the gas flow was coming from and where it was going to.
More confused looks, so I tried with the example of a river, and got even more confused looks back.
A third try was then had, at which point I could see the rest of the class was getting restless (not sure if it was frustration with the guy or just trying to hide laughs) so I carried on.
It's a story that's still told to this day (the event was a few years ago), and comes up whenever I go back there to do the same training for newer customer engineers.
Aforementioned guy was very much one of the "I already know everything, and am better than you" types, and for some inexplicable reason, no longer works there...
Unfortunately a lot of modern education is 'teaching to the test'. Both students and teachers have to hit metrics to avoid sanctions and that, along with multiple choice tests (easier to administer and grade) means that the students primarily know how to pass the test, not understand the material.
The days when students would get hit with nasty little exam questions like "Estimate the mass of a soap bubble"** are for the most part well behind us.
(**Yes, it was a real question on either an Oxbridge entrance exam or a 'S' level paper. The examiners weren't interested in the 'right' answer ('estimate', geddit?) but were interested in the candidate's approach to solving the problem.)
This is where a suggestion from Tyson (Neil, not Mike) makes sense: Back to oral exams. Let them learn with whatever, even AI can work good if used right (though avoid those general LLMs...). An oral exam tests actual knowledge, in contrast to the best-guess multiple choice crap.
Your soap bubble example is right on spot! But how big is the bubble, and is it round? I don't knowAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa........
(How do you know so much about soap bubbles? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.)
My answer would be: this is an estimate, so we can consider the bubble to be a sphere.
The part that is soapy water will have a mass that is one sphere's volume minus a very slightly smaller sphere's volume, multiplied by some density.
We can approximate the density to that of water and so calculate that.
Now, is the mass of the soap bubble just the soapy part or does it include the air inside... I would argue it does include the air inside, so add the volume we removed from the soap volume back again, multiplied by the density of air.
so: something like M = ((pi.r³) - (pi.(r-δ)³) ) * λᵣ + (pi.(r-δ)³) ) * λₐ
where:
λₐ = density of saturated air
λᵣ = density of water
r = external radius of bubble
δ = thickness of soap wall
Areas of approximation:
- air pressure will change the volumes a lot
- humidity will change the density of the air
- the bubble is likely not a sphere
- the bubble wall is likely not of consistent thickness
In summary this is likely a very poor approximation.
> credentials that suggested a certain intelligence and worldliness
Only to people who have never encountered individuals with such qualifications certificates. In the real world I would venture they merely suggest a good memory and the drive / obsession to succeed.
While they would not specifically exclude having people-skills, I reckon many holders of such paper would not count that as a high priority.
Many highly intelligent people are pretty awkward outside their specific field of expertise, like about living life in general.
One of my wife's PhD colleagues once had to take the tube to go to a meeting. She asked around for tube timetables... not maps for directions, mind, she really wanted to know at what time did the tube depart from the U's closest station.
That could maybe just have been genuine ignorance about how metro systems work, if they had never used one before [1] and were only familiar with main line trains, which do run on published timetables. Or it could be a sign/symptom (apologies if terminology is wrong or inadvertently potentially offensive) of being on the autism spectrum and "needing" that level of detail/certainty in order to be capable of and comfortable about planning/undertaking the journey?
[1] I grew up in the sticks and while reasonably familiar with train travel, I had never used a bus (other than the school bus) before moving to the city. I literally would never have managed my first bus journey (fortunately most parts of the city were well-served by urban rail, but the neighbourhood where I was living at that particular time was closer to bus routes than railway lines) without the help of a more experienced friend who had always lived in the city: this was around 30 years ago when bus stop information was mediocre to non-existent, there was no bus information on the internet, you wouldn't even know where to go to actually acquire bus timetable leaflets unless you already knew, bus destination boards listed obscure suburbs on the other side of the city, etc. I had no idea which bus(es) would take me where I wanted to go to in the city centre (and which ones wouldn't), I had no idea of the prices (which, it turned out, seemed to increment in perhaps rather too finely-grained a way every 4 or 5 stops), I didn't even know how you were supposed to ask for a ticket (I would have naively thought that you would ask for your destination, although local(?) custom and practice was to say the fare price instead (which you would find out as you made your first journey, and regarding which the driver would quiz passengers again when there were fare increases, to make sure they were then paying the correct new fare!), etc, etc. There are a lot of things that we all do that only seem easy because we have done them before!
Disclosure: rail fan since age 6... but there are Tube timetables! London Transport used to publish them in book form when I was a lad, I've still got the maroon Metropolitan Line one I was given free at a ticket office in 1965. Nowadays they are on line, and your wife's colleague could, for example, see that Monday to Friday there is a Bakerloo services northbound from Oxford Circus at 10.09½. There was one at 10.05½ and there will be one at 10.13, and so on. They try to stick to the times as much as possible, but there can be delays or disruption, and the public perception of the Tube as a 'turn up and go' service is a valid one.
I spent from 1993 to 1998 supporting anything shared - mostly Netware servers - around LUL. We met up with others in our company and they would ask what our site was. We just pulled out a tube map.
A seasoned Underground rider will walk down the platform so that when they arrive at the destination, they are close to the exit they need. They can also stand and read a broadsheet newspaper while the train is moving.
Don't confuse lack of "people skills" with the sort of casual arrogance that comes from privilege. You'll find these people very much have "people skills" when it comes to dealing with those they deem useful, or more "important" than themselves.
Contrast that with those of us who are neurodivergent in one way or another, who may genuinely lack communication skills, but still manage to be respectful and considerate to others when it matters.
When you do IT Support you realise there is a correlation between how much somebody earns and there actually intelligence. Yes they may be the master of the field they work in but take them out of it and they really haven't got a clue about real life and paradoxically the money they earn protects them form life.
Give me somebody on the bread line, its a to second fix and they usually learn how to fix it themselves should it happen again.
It's one of the abiding memories of my time in academia (7 years picking up various degrees along the way).
The number of professors I met in the department (Physics, which probably explains a few things in itself) who were pleasant chaps (at least all the ones I encountered in this category were male) and world experts on their particular specific field who you wouldn't trust to do something like make a cup of tea was frightening.
Their own worlds and reality on planet Earth only had very occasional cross-over and interaction.
Told this one before but I worked for a couple of years in a university department that had amongst its faculty a v distinguished professor (who subsequently appeared on The Simpsons).
Knock on my door and a woman (who I knew to be a recipient of a PhD) comes in to say that the printer next door is only printing black squares and she's got an urgent document to print. When I enter the room I can see a large amount of smoke coming from the rear of the printer and a brief look at the back confirms that it is indeed on fire. I hit the fire alarm and forcibly usher her out of the room whilst she's still asking the question "Do you think that it's printing black squares because it's on fire?"
A colleague told me of a query he got from a Professor of mathematics.
The Professor phoned up saying we was using his computer, and none of the windows will open.
My colleague went to the guys office and verified what was happening. About 30 seconds later, he noticed why.
The professor had put a pile of books on his desk, and one of them was sitting on the escape key.
Italics and slanted characters aren't necessarily the same. I could believe that someone with a very specialised mindset (like a lawyer) might look at, say slanted non-serif characters and not recognise them as being the same in principle as italicised versions of the serif characters he normally sees. People can be very limited in areas outside their specialisation.
TFA> demanded to know how italics happened
But the Lawyer *knew* he hadn't been writing in Latin and only Latin is magically[1] turned into italics...
[1] i.e. his secretary went through the text before it was actually allowed to go any further than his outer office
It seems implausibly stupid, but I've seen people do enough stupid things that I concede that plausibility is not a barrier. If the font was very different than the ones they were using and italics were turned on for the entire document, maybe that would explain it. I'm certainly not confident enough that I can declare this definitely didn't happen.
Qualifications aren't worth the paper they're written on.
Only yesterday I had to deal with a line manager who has an MBA as to the role and function of HR within a business. They didn't really appreciate that in order for IT to create a user account for a new employee that HR must direct them on that. It's not enough for the line manager to demand the user's account to be created.
"That's called italics," Darwin replied, then watched as the lawyer got angry and demanded to know how italics happened.
"They're caused by fluctuations in the ambiant RF environment by sunspots. But no worries, here's an easy fix: I'll just tilt your monitor to compensate, by putting some papers beneath the right side of your monitor's base ... like this. Now the italics are level!"
I worked for a telecoms company in my first real job after university.
We had one exceptionally bright gentleman who worked in R&D. He would regularly get confused and ask who we were and where was he. Not really dumb questions, he really did forget who were were, and couldn't find his way around the office.
He was a remarkably pleasant person to work with (if he noticed you were there at all), very kind and gentle, and if you got him on his own (not coping with crowds of people, something I can struggle with too; in his case 4 was about the limit) he would take the time to explain some of his ideas at a level some of our best engineers could just about keep up with...
When he joined the company he already had a PA, who would do the usual PA tasks, However, really her job was to collect him from home in the morning and deliver him back from the office at night, make sure he was dressed in something appropriate for the office (not a dressing gown) and ensure that he would make it into the office alive (he didn't drive, and could be lost in taught and walk into the road - he really wouldn't cope with a bus or train).
Sadly, he died before I really got to know him, 4 years later when I left the company, we were still catching up with his roadmap, implementing his designs.
In my circle of friends and associates there are quite a few that have been through the "King Edwards" path of education where as i just went to your normal comprehensive, I'm quite chuffed that i have done much better in life than they have.
You cannot teacher common sense.
