back to article We imagine this maths professor's lecture was fascinating – sadly he was muted for two hours

Yes, we're still in the thick of a pandemic. No, we haven't seen anyone outside our immediate family for months. Yes, we're working from home. Bit boring, isn't it? That means videoconferencing remains the meeting-and-socialising method du jour, and plenty of opportunities for the less computer-savvy to screw it up so we can …

  1. Shadow Systems

    Hold up a sign.

    Big, bold, unmistakeable letters that read "Your Mic Is Off". If he still doesn't get the point then fire him & replace him with something smarter... like a plastic potted plant. =-Jp

    1. stungebag

      Re: Hold up a sign.

      Unlikely to work. He's probably screen sharing and has at best timy thumbnails of a small proportion of his auidence.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Hold up a sign.

        If they have the 49 screen view, then you each hold up one letter. Requires some coordination though!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hold up a sign.

          Otherwise "Your Mic Is Off" could appear as "Scoff I Rim You" or "Comfy If I Sour" or "Icy If Forum So"...

          1. JJKing
            Trollface

            Re: Hold up a sign.

            Ah, where can I find Scoff's "friend"? Um, err, oh yes, I am asking for a friend. :)

            1. TRT Silver badge

              Re: Hold up a sign.

              You are on mute could read Out your enema, so maybe not such a bright idea.

          2. IceC0ld

            Re: Hold up a sign.

            anyone recall Fawlty Towers, SitCom with John Cleese ?

            at the start, every week, the sign had Fawlty Towers shown

            then they started to mix it up, each week something different

            told my mum to watch out for it

            THAT week, THAT week

            Flowery Twats ........................ ffs

          3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: Hold up a sign.

            Otherwise "Your Mic Is Off" could appear as "Scoff I Rim You" or "Comfy If I Sour" or "Icy If Forum So"...

            Well, in this case, the forum was so icy, so that one would be OK.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hold up a sign.

      Maybe he's working under the same rules as UK teachers doing remote teaching from many state schools where "because child protection" the teachers are not allowed to see any pictures of their pupils who are (allegedly - who'd know if they wern't there if there's no picture) in the "class".

  2. karlkarl Silver badge

    Hah, it is very easy to do.

    Though, I imagine that some students are so unengaged with the whole remote-learning thing that they don't even bother to tell the lecturer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Seminar snoozers

      As an audience member, the great advantage of muting yourself is that no-one can hear you snoring!

      1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

        Re: Seminar snoozers

        Just make sure you also turn off your video too or your colleagues will record you snoozing.

        1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Seminar snoozers

          “A professor is someone who talks in someone else’s sleep”

          W. H. Auden

          1. Dave 126

            Re: Seminar snoozers

            It sounds like a UI issue... we're all used to the convention of a flashing red dot on a camera to denote video is being recorded, or a red light outside a radio studio to denote that a live broadcast is in progress.

            A similarly clear, unmissable visual element should be used by the teleconferencing software to denote that video - and audio - is being sent. Perhaps the audio indicator could take the form of a graphical 'recording level' indicator.

  3. ThatOne Silver badge
    WTF?

    Pray elaborate?

    > He had a kitten filter on

    What on earth is that???

    1. David Webb

      Re: Pray elaborate?

      I assume, and I might be wrong, but it's like a coffee filter except for cats. Instead of getting a nice cup of sort of hot coffee, you get a kitten in a mug?

      1. ThatOne Silver badge

        Re: Pray elaborate?

        Nah, the thing which separates the cat from its juice is called "kitty litter", not "filter".

      2. vtcodger Silver badge

        Re: Pray elaborate?

        it's like a coffee filter except for cats.

        My first thought was exactly the opposite. Surely a kitten filter keeps kittens out of your computer. I think most computers must come with one. And they seem to work much better than most tech as I can't recall the last time I saw a computer infested with cats.

      3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Pray elaborate?

        The whole point of the filter is that you don't get a kitten in your mug.

    2. Arthur the cat Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Pray elaborate?

      > He had a kitten filter on

      What on earth is that???

      I suggest you ask a handy child. (They may look like a kitten if online.)

    3. David Nash Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Pray elaborate?

      It's actually not a filter at all. It adds something to your image, rather than filtering something out.

      Probably named by someone who thinks that a red filter (ie. a real one, not an online video thing) adds red light somehow.

      1. cdrcat

        Re: Pray elaborate?

        A camera “star filter lens” adds starbursts to bright point source lights.

        Camera filters can add, not just filter. I am sure you can suggest a better analogue filter example where the filter adds to the image... maybe a border?

      2. ThatOne Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Pray elaborate?

        > It's actually not a filter at all. It adds something to your image

        Thanks. I now see what it might be.

    4. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: What on earth is that???

      In the days before Zoom it would be a flap on the back door with an aperture too small for the average Mog to clamber through.

    5. Richard Pennington 1
      Coat

      Using the kitty filter

      He should have pressed the paws button.

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Using the kitty filter

        Surely a quick Google search would have told him what he needed. Even pouncing on the I'm feline lucky button would probably work. It's a sad tail but there's not a whisker of doubt that the solution is purrfectly straightforward.

  4. lglethal Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Not just online

    Had a live and in person lecture at my Aussie uni once many moons ago (again maths), the lecturer was a Pakistani lecturer who, to be honest, we had always had some trouble understanding, so when he started into the lesson and we couldnt understand what he was talking about no one thought to much about it. After about 10 minutes, a student towards the front of the class managed to get the lecturers attention and said "Ahhh sir, I can understand you fine, but I dont think too many other people here speak Farsi. Perhaps English would be better?"

    We all had a good laugh and the lecturer saw the funny side of it, so all good.

    So lecturers and students not being able to understand each other goes back long before Covid. And it was still just as funny back then...

  5. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Dong Wang.

    ( Paris has perked up )

    1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      and he made a c**k-up of the lecture....nominative determinism at work methinks

      1. Charlie van Becelaere

        "nominative determinism at work methinks"

        and soon to be accusative!

  6. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
    FAIL

    Much more embarrasing: hot mic

    When you thought you were muted but you're not.

    I've had to train the missus not to immediately start talking to me if she walks into the home office and I have my headset on; now she waits until I indicate it's all good. (No cameras in defense so she comes and goes as she pleases; so do the kids getting paper for schoolwork.)

    Side story: I had a bit of trouble a couple weeks ago. When trying to unmute the headset (USB) another chat/softphone program thought I wanted to make a call and I got a nice loud dial tone that covered everyone else and I couldn't talk through. Tried to go into the headset software to disable the offending program (and the dial tone completely), but it wouldn't uncheck. Kept having to close said program every time I had a meeting with either of our audio/screen meeting services (one for internal, another for customer). Resolved itself for reasons unknown.

    Now they say the internal meeting software is becoming our primary softphone, replacing the IP phone back on the office desk. Hopefully things still work nicely when that change happens.

    1. JJKing
      Thumb Up

      Re: Much more embarrasing: hot mic

      My daughter works for a company that has some fairly extreme but justified security so I made a sign she could put on her door that advised she was in a Zoom meeting so we wouldn't accidently interrupt one of these top secret meetings. It works well and no need to train any potential interlopers.

      1. druck Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Much more embarrasing: hot mic

        I've got a Raspberry Pi Zero with a small screen that can monitor the router for video calls to computers in the home office, and display a red "ON AIR" sign.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Much more embarrasing: hot mic

          I reckon that would be a nice little earner if you can commercialise production quickly enough to capture the home office brigade.

          1. Kane
            Happy

            Re: Much more embarrasing: hot mic

            "I reckon that would be a nice little earner if you can commercialise production quickly enough to capture the home office brigade."

            I'm just...er...I'll...uh...I'll be right back!

            Promise!

          2. druck Silver badge

            Re: Much more embarrasing: hot mic

            It would be, but it's a bit too specific to my set up, relying on guessing the video traffic from IP and port numbers in the router's connection table.

    2. Brad16800

      Re: Much more embarrasing: hot mic

      I did have a close call like this early in lockdown. Wife came in naked (you know, wanting sex) while on Zoom meeting with video. Nothing was seen but was very close, she leaves me alone during work hours now.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'll be honest...

    I was on a very boring compulsory training course via Zoom a couple of weeks ago when the trainer muted himself by accident. Nobody mentioned it then, and nobody has mentioned it since.

    Lockdown has some advantages, being able to sleep through HR-mandated bollocks being one of them.

    1. Roger Greenwood

      Re: I'll be honest...

      On a recent H&S training course every single video the trainer wanted to play failed. Fastest course ever - would recommend.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: I'll be honest...

      You mean you don't get some god-awful thing which makes you watch a video and click the answers and you can't stick it in the background or take too long to respond otherwise it decides you've cheated?

  8. Jeffrey Nonken

    This is probably a stupid idea, but...

    Everybody log out for 5 minutes except the one guy holding up the sign.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Recording Prohibited

    In the top left there is a big notice that says:

    Recording of this hearing or live stream is prohibited. Violation may constitute contempt of court and result in a fine of up to $500 and a jail term of up to 180 days.

    So who is getting charged?

    1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: Recording Prohibited

      Certainly a feliny was committed.

      1. Bill Gray

        Re: Recording Prohibited

        But was it the purrfect crime?

        1. Kane

          Re: Recording Prohibited

          It would certainly give me paws for thought.

    2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      Re: Recording Prohibited

      I think BBC said on air that the judge in the case made the decision to release this recording. It might be in their clip.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56010156

      "Tweeting about the incident, Judge Roy Ferguson, who presided over the session, said it showed 'the legal community's effort to continue representing their clients in these challenging times'."

      1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

        Re: Recording Prohibited

        Your honor, I wish to appeal the verdict based on the fact that I was represented by a kitten.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One of the benefits of home tutoring, surely, is the ability to record the lectures for future reference. This is something teachers should be doing as standard. (I realise that might not help if the mic is muted, but it would be a great benefit to students.)

  11. FlippingGerman

    "debug their hard drive"

    Flew right by me, and I clicked the link in curiosity. Ew.

    1. VeganVegan
      Facepalm

      Re: "debug their hard drive"

      The funny part is that the folks in the zoom session was doing an “election simulation”.

      He turned it into an “erection stimulation”.

  12. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    Back in the day...

    When I were a lad, teachers would periodically challenge pupils during lessons with questions to see, not so much whether they understood a topic, I suspect, but more to see if they were awake or not.

    1. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Back in the day...

      That's not how education post-school works.

      In college/university, you're expected to learn of your own accord, and lectures are there for you to be lectured at... not in a negative way, it's literally just watch, follow on, absorb the complicated material in the overview that you're given in a lecture, then study after that to understand what the hell he was going on about and why he skipped over certain parts.

      Only the UK and the US cling to the "teacher-led spoonfeeding" kind of education you describe past any significant age. Everyone else presents the material, explains it from a distance, and then it's up to you to study and understand it.

      It's why many people never make it past that point, because they lack the ability or self-discipline to learn on their own.

      I know a few Italian professors, some of whom now teach in prestigious London universities, who decry quite how spoonfed everything is in the UK compared to how they teach in Italy. They refer to it as "the American system", almost spitting the words, and see it as a dumbed-down education. They also still do things like put pupils back a year if they're not performing to standard. We stopped doing that decades ago.

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Back in the day...

        This is true for some institutions, programs, and courses, but not for all. As usual, a generalization proves to be wrong as often as it is right.

        In my three decades of post-secondary education, none - not a single one - of the courses I attended or taught were recitations. They were all interactive. I don't think I ever sat through (and certainly never gave) a lecture that lasted more than half an hour, and even that was unusual.

        As for "the American system", it sounds like your Italian professors don't know much about how higher education works in the US. Or perhaps they're thinking of other countries in the Americas?

      2. onemark03

        ... how they teach in Italy

        I'd be interested in more detail on how they teach in Italy.

      3. CrackedNoggin Bronze badge

        Re: Back in the day...

        At least in some US universities (if not most), in large lectures, with up to hundreds of students, the professor lectures, but for the same course in a different timeslot there are multiple smaller "classes" or "tutorials" usually led by by graduate students with up to (say) 20 students, the point of which is to encourage interactive discussion, and sometimes includes real time lab work or working out or analyzing problems in real time as a group. Those smaller sessions are intended to be the OPPOSITE of being spoon fed - I think - but then the definition of "spoon fed" is rather subjective.

        1. ThatOne Silver badge

          Re: Back in the day...

          I guess it depends heavily on the subject: Some lend themselves to lab work, others not so much. I can't imagine math, for instance, being taught otherwise than by somebody filling a blackboard and explaining what (s)he's doing.

          Medicine on the other hand is necessarily as much hand-on as possible, you really want students to know the reality of what they are reading about, and not discovering it on their first patients...

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