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Things you're shocked people don't know

I knew the difference. I brought it up because of your reaction to someone who didn't. It was just too far.

It's RoJo, I was just giving him a hard time.

In the case of the Hindu/Hindi thing, I seem to think it's something I learned at some point in my life, but I just never had any reason to remember. I usually have to learn something twice before it really sinks in. Again, I've never met anyone who was Hindu, and I have never been taught about that area of the world. I guess the question I have (and this extends beyond this question) is: why would you expect people to know these things? Why is it obvious and idiotic that I didn't know?

Because I'm not talking about it in the sense of randomly quizzing people on the street, I'm talking about people who have used the words interchangeably. You keep mentioning not knowing someone who is Hindu when really, that's not my point at all. I don't expect people to know anything about Hinduism. I'm surprised that people don't know Hindi is a language. This is not something that only Hindus speak. It's the language of India. Then again, I suppose people don't really know what people in that region of the world speak, unless to say something like "Russians speak Russian".

And this just seems weird to me. Why should a Star Trek fan be any smarter than a non-Star Trek fan? We weren't all nerds sitting at home reading encyclopedias. When I wasn't in school, I spent my childhood outside playing kickball.
Because the people on TBBS have demonstrated, on average, a much higher knowledge of current events. There have even been threads about things like reading encyclopedias. I don't expect Star Trek fans to be smarter, but the people here on this board in general have shown more interest in learning than those I have met in RL.
 
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."--Mark Twain.

I can forgive people for not knowing stuff. What drives me nuts is when they hold forth on subjects about which they know nothing!
 
I'm shocked that most of the posters in this thread don't know that North America and South America are considered separate continents due to them being on different tectonic plates!
 
Of course I was speaking of the Wellington in South Australia ;) It's sort of like Springfield here in the US...every one has one, right? ;)


Hey, my Geography degree is from '72 cut me some slack :lol:
 
I'm shocked that most of the posters in this thread don't know that North America and South America are considered separate continents due to them being on different tectonic plates!
Well, if we're going to use tectonic plates, consider this: The 48 contiguous States are on the North American plate, except for the sliver of land west of the San Andreas Fault, which lies on the Pacific plate. So does that mean California is on a different continent from the rest of the country?

Of course, a lot of folks think it's on a different planet!
 
the appalling state of American education shocks me.

country besides Denmark who's name
emot-laugh.gif
 
Because I'm not talking about it in the sense of randomly quizzing people on the street, I'm talking about people who have used the words interchangeably. You keep mentioning not knowing someone who is Hindu when really, that's not my point at all. I don't expect people to know anything about Hinduism. I'm surprised that people don't know Hindi is a language. This is not something that only Hindus speak. It's the language of India. Then again, I suppose people don't really know what people in that region of the world speak, unless to say something like "Russians speak Russian".
Maybe I misunderstood your frustration. Truth be told, I knew what Hinduism was, but the term "Hindi" had just never come up.

And this just seems weird to me. Why should a Star Trek fan be any smarter than a non-Star Trek fan? We weren't all nerds sitting at home reading encyclopedias. When I wasn't in school, I spent my childhood outside playing kickball.
Because the people on TBBS have demonstrated, on average, a much higher knowledge of current events. There have even been threads about things like reading encyclopedias. I don't expect Star Trek fans to be smarter, but the people here on this board in general have shown more interest in learning than those I have met in RL.
Well, in that case, I guess I should feel lucky that the people I meet in real life seem a lot more intelligent than the people you meet in real life.:p
 
I think Timby might be suggesting that you should have used whose instead of who's.

Timby might also be suggesting that the who pronoun should refers to people not countries.

Personally I would have said something like

Give me a name of a country, besides Denmark, that starts with D.

Timby can tell me if my sentence is correct.
 
Just watched this video and thought it might be appropriate for this thread:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYoTJItSPt0[/yt]
 
Working in the barcode industry, I'm shocked that a lot of people whose job it is to work on barcode scanners don't understand what a serial port is or how it works. They'll take a barcode scanner, plug it into their COM port, and except the data to come up in Word or Notepad like they typed it on the keyboard. They'll take a serial scanner and try to plug it into their VGA port. Or, they'll try to open two or three different applications all looking at the same COM port at once. [Morbo] COM PORTS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! [/Morbo]
 
Working in the barcode industry, I'm shocked that a lot of people whose job it is to work on barcode scanners don't understand what a serial port is or how it works. They'll take a barcode scanner, plug it into their COM port, and except the data to come up in Word or Notepad like they typed it on the keyboard. They'll take a serial scanner and try to plug it into their VGA port. Or, they'll try to open two or three different applications all looking at the same COM port at once. [Morbo] COM PORTS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! [/Morbo]

I thought COM ports had gone the way of the Dodo. None of my computers have them.
 
I thought COM ports had gone the way of the Dodo. None of my computers have them.

We're actually one of the few industries still using them. Just about everything we sell has an option for serial connection, and in fact it's required for things like firmware upgrades on certain units.

I think we're moving away from COM ports but not within the next 5-10 years it looks like.
 
I'm shocked they never made programming the clocks on VCR's easy enough for more people to know how. I plugged one (a VCR) for the first time in a decade to watch something this morning and that thought dawned on me; this clock has never said anything but 12:00. Why was that always so hard? (It'll probably shock someone else that I'm too dumb to have figured it out lol.)


-Withers-​
 
I'm shocked they never made programming the clocks on VCR's easy enough for more people to know how. I plugged one (a VCR) for the first time in a decade to watch something this morning and that thought dawned on me; this clock has never said anything but 12:00. Why was that always so hard? (It'll probably shock someone else that I'm too dumb to have figured it out lol.)​


-Withers-​

In the UK, it was remarkable easy to set the clock if you bought a VCR that could read the time directly from Teletext. The VCR usually set itself without needing you to go to the setup menu. I guess those people still using VCRs may have a problem after the switchover to digital TV.
 
I thought COM ports had gone the way of the Dodo. None of my computers have them.

We're actually one of the few industries still using them. Just about everything we sell has an option for serial connection, and in fact it's required for things like firmware upgrades on certain units.

I think we're moving away from COM ports but not within the next 5-10 years it looks like.

LOL, reminds me of something that happened at work.

On the cruise ships we use laptops at the pier for check in day with magstrip readers attached by serial port to swipe credit cards. Well, these laptops had been getting pretty long in the tooth being pentiums with 512ram. The main office had been promising new laptops for the entire fleet for a while when they finally got them in. At the main office they preconfigured the laptops for us and started shipping them to the various cruiseships. My ship happened to be the first one to get it's shipment.
Well, got the boxes into the computer room and hurriedly opened one to look at our new toys. SHINEY!. OOOh lookey lookey! Um, wait, hold on!?! Turns laptop every which way opening every conceivable panel and door. NO FREAKIN SERIAL PORT!!

Mind you, these were Panasonic Toughbooks costing around $4000 each, times 40 per ship, times 15 ships roughly. Each one had been removed from the box and preloaded with the software load out at the home office. Not one person involved had thought to try and plug in a magstrip reader.

I am sure someone got fired that day after I sent out the email to the office, but it wasn't me.:devil:

(and no, a serial to usb adaptor did not work. we ended up replacing the magstrip readers for the entire fleet after the new laptops sat collecting dust for 4 months)
 
Just watched this video and thought it might be appropriate for this thread:

interesting video, but i resent the claim Canada's been America's most reliable ally in Afghanistan. 250+ BRITISH families would like to point out their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers have died fighting that war and another several hundred families are coping with having their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers coming home permanently crippled from war wounds.
 
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