(no subject)

[luminairex.livejournal.com]

User: My computer isn't working. *turns on LCD screen* See? Nothing happens.
Me: *turns on CPU tower*
User: What?!??!?!? That button turned off the hard drive! You mean I have to turn that back on to use the computer?
Me: I turned the computer on, and yes. That button will both turn it on and off if you hold it down.
=============================
(can't remember if I posted this or not)

Computer science graduate student (yes, seriously): I want to connect this serial cable to my laptop, but it doesn't fit in the port. The port is female, and so is my cable. Do you have an adapter or something I can use?
Me: *thinking it odd that a modern laptop would have a serial port* No, that's a video port.
CSE Grad: Are you sure? It's a serial port. See? The connector is the same shape. I just need an adapter.
Me: No, really. It's a 15-pin VGA socket, which has three rows, 15 pins, and is female. It's also colored blue. Your cable has two rows, 9 pins, and also female. Even with a gender-bender, it will not work.
CSE Grad: Are you sure there's not an adapter I can use? I really need this cable to do my assignment.
Me: No, use USB or get an older laptop.

I wasn't sure if I was more disappointed that a computer science graduate could not identify a video port, or that he thought he could use it to communicate with an advanced circuit board.

Comments

[heidl.livejournal.com]

you should have told him, that there are usb-rs232 adapters out there.

[mogaribue.livejournal.com]

As a network guy, I always keep one in my bag for consoling.

[japester.livejournal.com]

and the best part about most of them is that most (but sadly not all) will just plug in and work on any OS X or Leeenux box.

(but never on Windoze. They always want drivers)

Which is why I always carry a powerbook. The words 'it just works'

[commonsensehere.livejournal.com]

um yeah

cliff

dive

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

Quote:

you should have told him, that there are usb-rs232 adapters out there.

.. why?!?

[heidl.livejournal.com]

hm, let's see...

maybe because he's a tech whose job is it to help people with their computer stuff.

and not to make fun of them to have something new to post in this "oh-so-smart" community.

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

I have dealt with aggressively clue-resistant people in the past. It is not fun.

And if you don't like this "oh-so-smart community" there are many others.

[heidl.livejournal.com]

don't get me wrong
this community is funny to read and all, but sometimes there are entries that make me think, that some tech guys only make fun of their users, to have something new to post.

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

"but sometimes there are entries that make me think, that some tech guys only make fun of their users, to have something new to post."

What? No, no, not at all. The mere thought is inconceivable!

*whistles*

.. what?!? Stop looking at me like that!

[heidl.livejournal.com]

;-)

[asbrand.livejournal.com]

*boggle*



-Az

[rbos.livejournal.com]

compsci doesn't have a whole lot to do with actual computing practice, really. You can do an entire degree without evening touching a physical computer. Discrete mathematics, algorithms, compiler theory, data structures, proof techniques, none of this particularly needs a physical machine.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Much in the same way a MBA doesn't require a connection to reality.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

What degree program does?

[hikari-neko.livejournal.com]

Physical sciences?

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Engineering?

[kayfox.livejournal.com]

I have met engineers at Boeing that have not actually seen the parts they design.

And then, theres the ones that keep a pile of them on their desk and use them for things like paperweights. And have a chunk of that 777 that Boeing broke apart in 1995 in the infamous Ultimate Load Test.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Have to admit, if I had occasion to draw up designs for CNC parts, I'd definitely want a few samples of them* to keep on my desk. :D Things like that are great conversation starters. LOL

(*this would be for parts smaller than, say, the desk .. while a gear strut or a trunnion would be a visually striking ornament for an office, it would make an impractical paperweight. :D Although I know of at least one person who collected worn out Bell 412/UH-1 tail rotor assemblies for a while .. heh)

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Given the way Boeing designs things these days, it's not surprising that a lot of the engineers have never seen the parts they design. You would be surprised how much engineering goes into carefully bent and fitted pieces of plumbing, or inspection/access panels that are CNC milled out of aluminum alloy billet (and they use a combination of very large multi-axis CNC mills and abrasive waterjet cutting machines even for parts you would expect to be formed out of aluminum sheet!) or literally about a million other details that aren't so much parts as carefully planned ways of fitting parts together and eliminating interferences ..

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Remind me to tell my story of a geophysics professor with more letters after his name than in it, trying to do carpentry, with a crowd of his students watching. It was a bizarre and vaguely disturbing sight.

(Condensed version: circular saw with plywood blade isn't a good choice for trying to cut a 4x4 even if the blade is sharp, and when it's dull, half an hour's effort will give you a lot of noise and a cloud of smoke but leave the board more or less intact .. and students watching their professor screw up aren't about to risk his wrath by trying to correct him. I was sorely tempted to go grab the saw from the back of my car that had the good carbide blade on it, finish the cut for him in about two seconds, and give his students a knowing wink. Or breaking out the Sawzall and doing it even faster. :D Seeing as how the professor was part of a department that had taken over part of our building (completely different department) and was a royal jerk about dealing with us library rabble, never mind the fact that the building had been custom built to our specs and there was more mechanical expertise among the three or four library staff than the professor had on his entire staff, it was sorely tempting indeed.)

[rbos.livejournal.com]

oh snap.

[manuka.livejournal.com]

It amazes me that in 2007, there still people who call the computer the "hard drive".

[hikari-neko.livejournal.com]

I read a comparison of a PC running Ubuntu and a Mac running OS-X recently. The guy doing the OS-X portion wrote something along the lines of, "you plug the CPU into power socket" and I found myself thinking "...I really hope you don't".

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

This is one of the surest ways there is to put me in the "I'm only going to do the bare fscking minimum to get you off my phone" mood. Whether I get out of that mood and become more helpful depends a lot on how persistent the person I'm talking to is in referring to it that way and whether they argue with me when I try to explain that the device they're talking about is, in fact, the computer itself.

But that falls into the general category of "stringing buzzwords together to try to sound smart but really just speaking pseudo-technical gibberish", another thing that is guaranteed to make me as minimally helpful as I can possibly get away with, especially since it usually goes along with "tech-insecurity-complex-driven need to feel smarter than the tech support guy" and the inevitable pissing contests that usually drags me into ..

[manuka.livejournal.com]

one of the things I love about having to call Tech Support for VMWare is that the techs on the other and assume a certain level of clue on the end user's part.

One reason for this is that as a user, to get a real live body on the phone, you have to have a support contract. There's a significant cost barrier to doing that.

The other is that the product is not likely to be used by someone who doesn't already have a serious level of clue about server infrastructure and how to manage/operate it.

When they say "Let's do a webex", all you get is the URL, the webex conference number, and they wait for you to show up in the webex room. None of this tedious walking through the filling of the web form.

When I'm calling other software support, I hate having to be walked through every step, but I at least understand why the tech has to do it (never assume anything abotut the user, especially if he TELLS you he has a clue) and don't give him any crap about it.

Besides, those of us who've been in the trenches know how to convey that we are technically savvy to the tech without actually being blatant about it. It's like the secret handshake or something.

.. and then when it turns out to be something really stupid, we are mortified :)

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

I have actually had the experience of having to talk to a front line tech and find a way to make them understand that I had indeed actually isolated the problem to a failed hard drive by opening the disk management utility and confirming that the drive did not show up on the bus. I also had the experience of going back into the case (because the product I was calling on was supported by my employer and it needed a repair, and this needed to be done by another tech and not me) and reading the tech's notes. *shudder*

Most of the time it's not that hard .. it's a matter of answering the questions right, and *not* just saying "it's not working", or "yeah, I did that and it didn't work". Most of the time, when you say "I did X, and the result was Y, which implies Z (with a slight possibility of Q but it's unlikely)" they get the hint real quick that your analysis is up to speed and you basically just need them to do the admin stuff on their end. :D

[canray.livejournal.com]

Back when I was dealing with Wireless Router/Cable Modem combination units (Called "Gateways" for some odd reason. Most unoriginal name I can think of), a number of callers kept calling them "Routers", "Switches", and "Hubs".

(This is, of course, ignoring the ones that called it "The box with lights on it".).

One caller was pissed off because he had to fight to get transfered to my department for support.

"Did you call it a Router?"

"YES!"

"That's why, we don't support Routers as we do not provide them."

"Well, I'll call it what I damn well please, and it's a ****IN' ROUTER!"

"OK, Sir, it's a Router then. And, since we don't supply Routers, then it can't be one of ours, thus you'll have to contact either the store where you got it or the company that made it. Or, you know, read what it has printed on it and call it by it's real name so there's no confusion in the future."

"Uh uh uh..."

"You're dealing with a bunch of people over the telephone that cannot see what your equipment is. You could have a Router hooked up to our equipment, and we couldn't know. If you don't use the proper terms, printed right on the equipment in question for ease of knowledge, then we can only go off the information given to us. That information is that we do not provide Routers. We do not support routers. If we tried, and anything happened other than it working, we'd be held responcible for said screwup. If it DID work, we'd be held responcible for placing an unrealistic expectation in your mind that we *DO* support Routers and other equipment."

Problem was that his kid hit the "Reset" button on the back. Got in through the Desktop, got new security set up for the wireless, set up the laptops, had a good call after that.

Idiot kept calling it a Router, however.

[rbos.livejournal.com]

I tend to call those routers, too. They're not, they're boxes that do switching (sometimes layer 3 switching) with wireless capability and NAT and blah blah blah, but "router" is faster. :P

It seems to have become the generic term, and it's not TOTALLY inaccurate.

[canray.livejournal.com]

No denying that. But you know that if someone were to go, "Huh, we don't make those", to quickly check the box and read out the full name and whatnought and correct yourself I'm willing to bet.

As well, it was a crappy call centre job that I had when I first moved to this city and had no connections or better alternatives.

Not that I'm doing that great now. :-(

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

They CONTAIN routers, but they have other functions as well. :) (In the purest sense, what I think of as a "router" is a two port device .. it's the all-in-one types like Brand L makes that have a switch built into their downlink side that confuse people. :D Then there are the "wireless routers" that contain a WAP in addition to a NAT router and a switch. And there was one that until very recently had a 56K modem in it and could be set up as a **dialup** router, although it only had a WAP, not a switch.)

I've grown to hate the all-in-one DSL modem/router/WAP/kitchen sink combos with a passion, even though I don't support them, just because the symptoms of their failure modes mimic so many things that could otherwise be OS problems, and entirely too often their DHCP doesn't play nice with the machine's IP stack. (About the only thing good about those is that *most* people have the sense not to do silly things like hook up VoIP phones to them ..)

[canray.livejournal.com]

You'd think that, wouldn't you?

I hate VoIP with a passion now because of the calls I've gotten about it.

Telephone by Cable TV Company? Same deal.

I can't suggest them to *ANYONE* at all.

[wowgrilledcheez.livejournal.com]

My master would only consider one if it was his backup line. he states that his 'net connection is on a phone line to begin with, so getting VoIP is silly.

(He'd respond himself, but he's... occupied. *whips and assorted screams in background*)

[commonsensehere.livejournal.com]

"I've grown to hate the all-in-one DSL modem/router/WAP/kitchen sink combos with a passion, even though I don't support them, just because the symptoms of their failure modes mimic so many things that could otherwise be OS problems, and entirely too often their DHCP doesn't play nice with the machine's IP stack."

huh?

[forge.livejournal.com]

that'll be me after,oh, say 2-3 months I am sure. I just took a position at as tech support for a company that supplies DSL gateways.

[hikari-neko.livejournal.com]

And now you see why asking for degrees in CS is a dumb idea when you want someone who knows about computers :) It's not that anyone with a CS degree doesn't know anything about them, it's just that it doesn't mean they *do* know anything about them.

I think my favourite quote about CS comes from the SICP lectures that Sussman and Abelson did for HP in the 80s; it's from the course introduction at the begining of the first lecture, something along the lines of: "Computer Science, what is it? Well for a start, that's a really bad name for it. It's not really a science. And it doesn't really have anything to do with computers."

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

A CS degree means that someone has been *exposed* to a broad selection of theory more or less applicable to computers, and possibly some abstract exercises in programming. (It doesn't necessarily mean they absorbed any of it, just that they were able to cram hard enough to pass the tests and the final exam.) It doesn't imply much of any actual practical experience even with *using* computers themselves, and it damn sure doesn't imply any significant amount of experience (above the average luser level, anyway) with hardware .. :)

(I get asked by a lot of customers if I have a CS degree, and my answer is always that I'm about 98% self-trained and about 2% trained by my employer in specifics of the OS and hardware I support. Usually I get that question when I'm on the third or fourth attempt to get Grandma to do something complicated like make a selection from a menu using the mouse ..)

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

A CS degree is also a good weapon (along with various certs) to hold over the head of people trying to downplay the knowledge of a female tech (been there, done that and laughed at their expressions when I could show that I had more knowledge of computers than they knew existed, oh those were fun times).

[jupiter9.livejournal.com]

If you can get a CS degree without writing programs, then there's been a seismic shift since I went to school. Which may be true, since it's been a long time.

Yes, there is some theory, but it's not just chatted about. It's worked through. Shell sort? Write it. Hash table? Make one. Operating System? Write the simulator.

A CS degree, if it's a good one, means you've learned what the parts inside a computer do (memory, CPU, disk, bus, video, etc), how to write both simple and complex programs including several different kinds of languages from Lisp to Assembly, what an OS is and how to talk with it both from the command line and within its GUI (if it has one), what pointers are, what a database is, what normal form is and how to make your database conform to it, how to write a recursive procedure, how to read and write to/from memory, file, screen, I/O or a database, what a stack is, what a heap is, why some people consider GOTO harmful, what a device driver is, what Ring 0 is and how it can be dangerous, how to use a hash, what order to nest your IF statements in for maximum efficiency or should you use a CASE statement or will the optimizing compiler make that a moot point, bitwise versus logical OR and AND, how to make anything out of NAND gates, why the program compiled but the link is failing, how to use the debugger, what that error message means and how to find it in the documentation or on the web. Etcetera.

I suppose it's possible to fake your way through a CS degree. You'd have to have someone else do your projects for you, and cram or fake your way through the exams.

There's no reason a tech couldn't be just as big a fake. There are bullshitters everywhere. I could name a few techs I've worked with who had even less savvy about a serial port than this programming student. As in, "whut?"

What a CS degree doesn't mean is that you know everything about the details of the physical PC you're using. Why? Because you're spending your time figuring out why argument4 has a zero in it when it should have your input value instead, or why the program crashes when you click on "OK" or the robot sees its own arm.

That's not stupidity, it's a different focus. Having done both, I don't think it makes sense to belittle either side. What you do is something a lot of CS students probably don't know how to do. But what they do, you probably don't know how to do either.

If you wanted, you could learn. So could they, and will, if shown.

I suspect this specific example is one of those, "but can't you make it work" things that people say when they realize they're screwed and don't have what they need. It's the cry in the wilderness.

It's not because all CS students are stupid or doomed to ignorance.

[erikarn.livejournal.com]

I'd love to do a Computer Science course here in Western Australia. Trouble is, none of the universities actually offer one.

Touching actual physical hardware isn't a requirement in the CS course at the universities here. You can get away with learning just Java and a bit of Haskell. The Operating Systems course isn't a pre-requisite, all the useful algorithms stuff is in third/fourth year, and they're dropping the interesting (to me) units like Neural Computation, replacing them with "game theory." Think "OpenGL game" theory.

What irks me is when in a discussion about performance, $CS$ guys decide that a few tens of transactions a second is fantastic for a high-end server. Someone asks me what I work on and how fast it goes (as I can't really stifle giggles at this point) the answer starts with "content routing" and ends with "10,000 transactions/sec/CPU"; they then boggle and wonder how you achieve it in Java.

I know they're completely seperate fields to be comparing fruits with, but the level of practical knowledge someone needs to pass a CS^IT programming course these days just frightens me. And I'm not all that old.

(Queue how a group of us passed a 4th/honours year EE lab/practical test by scoring in the top 5% over the EE students who had been there 4+ years, played with all the kit, and still couldn't do basic stuff like read a CRO, or know what a resistor in an LED+Battery circuit does, or figure out what the heck a single straight line in a frequency graph translated to as a real waveform. Hint, fourier transformations in both directions involves sine waves, lots and lots of them.)

[erikarn.livejournal.com]

And yes, its Cue not Queue; my mind was in algorithms mode again.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Nowadays, video ports do talk to the monitor, enough to identify the make and model, plus special features.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Unless the monitor's DDC channel is confusing the video card and has been shut off as a result. XD

My Master is still occupied. *snicker*

[wowgrilledcheez.livejournal.com]

Yep, although my master has not seen that is a very very long time; usually from someone hooking up a monitor that does not have DDC support on it (aka something from the 1st Gen of the VGA spec) or is brain damaged in some other way.

[commonsensehere.livejournal.com]

For some reason I am getting the feeling you gotta case of the know it alls.