Hmm, how do you get to the special characters on the iPhone?
[deleted]
Compared to you, most people seem dumb
41–50 of 147 posts
Re: Compared to you, most people seem dumb
#42The underlying issue is that people are afraid to try and explore. They form a mental model of how to do something, look for something that fits into that model, and then are happy. If they guess the wrong model, though, then they are stuck forever. Skilled computer users, on the other hand, don't let a failing model bother them. They just try something else. Most people will do this for anything but computers, thoug…
My grandma calls me up and says "I want to move my computer into the other room, will you come over and plug everything in for me?". I tell her "the plugs will only fit one way round into the correct sockets, you literally can't go wrong". She calls me back, saying that her mouse isn't working. I go over and take a look. She'd forced the USB connector on her mouse into an Ethernet socket with such force that she crac…
I once tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade someone from putting a floppy disk in a CD-ROM drive and shoving it closed with enough force to permanently break the plastic. This person then blamed me.
The lesson? I need to learn to write some people off as jackasses not worth dealing with. (My grandmother, on the other hand, is pretty cool. If she needs cables plugged in, I'll happily help.)
Re: Compared to you, most people seem dumb
#43I have above average intelligence, compared to me most people ARE dumb. Said in jest, obviously.... In all seriousness, this is a very common issue for "isolated" developers and designers. We all work in our little cubicles building what makes sense to us. We never think that we are our own most knowledgeable users. A feature that is obvious to us is most likely obvious because we put it there. It's also why in any c…
> A feature that is obvious to us is most likely obvious because we put it there.
Or it's not even obvious to us because it was written years ago. :)
Re: Compared to you, most people seem dumb
#44Re: Compared to you, most people seem dumb
#45Tech people, and especially the circle that is absorbed in the startup/techcrunch/combinator thing, have to be the most incredibly self absorbed, solipsistic bunch of twits in creation.
Most people are busy earning a living or living their lives doing something that actually matters, and the subtle nuance of details that tech startup types endlessly masturbate over is trivial background noise to most of the normal working populace.
To turn it all around, I have had the experience of explaining a legalism such as a specific application of labor or copyright law to a deep hard core techie. It's absolutely outside their universe and their frame of reference... does not compute... smoke starts coming out the ears... "Illogical! Norman, please coordinate..."
Re: Compared to you, most people seem dumb
#46Well, I wouldn't directly equate technical knowledge with intelligence.
However, the statement "compared to you, most people seem dumb" isn't necessarily wrong -- 'you' must just be very intelligent.
Re: Compared to you, most people seem dumb
#47The underlying issue is that people are afraid to try and explore. They form a mental model of how to do something, look for something that fits into that model, and then are happy. If they guess the wrong model, though, then they are stuck forever. Skilled computer users, on the other hand, don't let a failing model bother them. They just try something else. Most people will do this for anything but computers, thoug…
You can't break the computers as such but if you work with enterprise software you sure can run the wrong process at the wrong time, or with the wrong options and make a mess in the database. Sometimes that commits IT people to spending hours or days cleaning up. Lots of people still spend all day on these old school systems.
Because lots of apps are linked up (emails can be filed so Document management, which integrates with CMS....) users don't know where the boundaries are. So it's a small wonder that they get scared of the system. And I think that fear reinforces any uncertainty with computers in general.
EDIT: typo
Re: Compared to you, most people seem dumb
#48I've found a fairly useful analogy that helps most tech people. If you're into cars and the analogy doesn't work, just think of something you need to know about at some point, but probably don't know much about at all. Mostly this helps when a customer feels guilty about needing help, or someone in IT thinks "me > all" because they can enter a command line. I think of my role like this: Your average non-tech person p…
If you are changing your oil every three months then you are almost certainly wasting money. You should trust the integrity of the oil change shop about as much as you would trust an 'SEO expert.' There might be good ones, but most are looking to maximize profit at your expense.
This is just multiplying my inhibitions :)
It's a '94 Mercedes 500SL, so...better safe than sorry?
Re: Compared to you, most people seem dumb
#49My dad is a Master Electrician but he still asks me questions about his hotmail account and to resend a link to my Picasa albums. He deals with megawatts of electricity on a daily basis. I would hesitate to call him dumb...
Ditto for my stepdad, electrical engineer, holds more patents than I own books, and has put something on fucking Mars . Still can't get his webcam to work, and keeps every document on his desktop. It's just a matter of different knowledge domains. If you tossed me into the woods with experienced naturalists, they'd probably laugh every time I wiped with poison oak, too.
What did he put on Mars?
Re: Compared to you, most people seem dumb
#50Apparently you can book tickets, check email and do all sorts of stuff online without knowing that each website has a distinct address called a URL.
Yes. The days of DNS as a mainstream human interface are numbered.