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Invisible wrote:
> But so far, at just after 2PM, the current winner is this:
I dunno. None of those sound like silly or stupid questions to me.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
that the code does what you think it does, even if
it doesn't do what you wanted.
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"How can I convert Volts to Sieverts ?"
X-ray tube.
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Darren New wrote:
> I dunno. None of those sound like silly or stupid questions to me.
What's the difference between tab-delimited and pipe-delimited? Well,
let me see now... one of them is a file who's fields are delimited by
tab characters, and the other uses pipe characters instead. What, you
couldn't figure that out all by yourself?
Should you leave the card for me to sign? Actually no; just hand it over
blank. It'll be fine, right?
The final question is less stupid. Although trying to convert milivolts
to microseimens would be like trying to convert miles per hour into
pounds per square inch. (But in SI units at least...)
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And lo On Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:20:28 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> did
spake thusly:
> There's something very special about today. I have all but lost count of
> the number of stupid questions I've been asked so far.
Have to agree with Darren, I've heard stupider.
> Yesterday almost nobody spoke to me.
> Since thing the day before.
Have I missed something?
> But today, everybody seems to want to ask silly questions.
>
> My mum called me to ask whether to leave the birthday card I haven't
> signed yet at home so that I can sign it. (Duh.)
Or should she fake your signature so as to get it in the post, or shall
she bring it down to you, or should she give it to X to pass on to you.
Context is king.
> My grandad phoned to ask where my mum is, but I was driving, and by the
> time I'd stopped driving and had a chance to call him back, he'd found
> her anyway.
Hardly stupid unless you were out of the country to which the answer would
be "How the hell should I know?"
> One of our project managers asked me what the difference between
> "tab-deliminted text file" and "pipe-delimited text file" is.
Again if you know what delimited means you can guess, but if you don't
"what's a pipe?"
> But so far, at just after 2PM, the current winner is this:
>
> "How can I convert milivolts to microsiemens?"
Well, we all have off days.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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> Have to agree with Darren, I've heard stupider.
Oh, sure, I've heard _worse_.
These aren't stupid on the scale of Verizon Math Fail, but stupid on the
scale of "for goodness sake, go away and stop pestering me!"
>> Yesterday almost nobody spoke to me.
>
>> Since thing the day before.
>
> Have I missed something?
No, but I apparently missed a couple of keys on my keyboard.
(That should of course be "same thing the day before".)
>> But today, everybody seems to want to ask silly questions.
>>
>> My mum called me to ask whether to leave the birthday card I haven't
>> signed yet at home so that I can sign it. (Duh.)
>
> Or should she fake your signature so as to get it in the post, or shall
> she bring it down to you, or should she give it to X to pass on to you.
> Context is king.
Well, since I'll be home in an hour or so and I'm coming to where the
card needs to be taken... it's fairly self-evident that leaving the card
there is the thing to do. (The alternative I suppose is to take the card
over there blank and I'll sign it when I get there - but this seems less
optimal.)
>> My grandad phoned to ask where my mum is, but I was driving, and by
>> the time I'd stopped driving and had a chance to call him back, he'd
>> found her anyway.
>
> Hardly stupid unless you were out of the country to which the answer
> would be "How the hell should I know?"
Well, you know, I almost *never* know where the hell my mother is. Why
ask me? Phone her! (In retrospect, maybe they did. She never ****ing
answers anyway...)
>> One of our project managers asked me what the difference between
>> "tab-deliminted text file" and "pipe-delimited text file" is.
>
> Again if you know what delimited means you can guess, but if you don't
> "what's a pipe?"
I'm still trying to figure out why the hell she wanted to know, but
anyway...
>> But so far, at just after 2PM, the current winner is this:
>>
>> "How can I convert milivolts to microsiemens?"
>
> Well, we all have off days.
This was the least-stupid question of them all, IMHO.
(It turns out we have a machine that takes measurements in microseimens,
but some software we use needs a value in milivolts. And while they are
completely different dimensions, if you knew the properties of the
machine, it's conceivable that a constant conversion factor actually
exists...)
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On 21/06/2010 11:41 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
> (It turns out we have a machine that takes measurements in microseimens,
> but some software we use needs a value in milivolts. And while they are
> completely different dimensions, if you knew the properties of the
> machine, it's conceivable that a constant conversion factor actually
> exists...)
You have a machine that displays measurements in microseimens.
Internally it will probably measure them in millivolts or milliamps. For
conversion you need to make sure that the conversion should be linear,
it might not be.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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>> (It turns out we have a machine that takes measurements in microseimens,
>> but some software we use needs a value in milivolts. And while they are
>> completely different dimensions, if you knew the properties of the
>> machine, it's conceivable that a constant conversion factor actually
>> exists...)
>
> For
> conversion you need to make sure that the conversion should be linear,
> it might not be.
Given what the machine does, it seems plausible that the conversion is
perfectly linear.
A more important question is whether the conversion factor is *constant*
or not...
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On 21/06/2010 1:27 PM, Invisible wrote:
>>> (It turns out we have a machine that takes measurements in microseimens,
>>> but some software we use needs a value in milivolts. And while they are
>>> completely different dimensions, if you knew the properties of the
>>> machine, it's conceivable that a constant conversion factor actually
>>> exists...)
>>
>> For conversion you need to make sure that the conversion should be
>> linear, it might not be.
>
> Given what the machine does, it seems plausible that the conversion is
> perfectly linear.
>
> A more important question is whether the conversion factor is *constant*
> or not...
If it is linear then the conversion factor must be constant. Not taking
hysteresis into account.
You need the input specs for the software.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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>> Given what the machine does, it seems plausible that the conversion is
>> perfectly linear.
>>
>> A more important question is whether the conversion factor is *constant*
>> or not...
>
> If it is linear then the conversion factor must be constant.
What give you that idea?
It may be that the conversion is perfectly linear, but that the
conversion factor depends on the chemical composition of what you're
analysing. So each time you analyse a set of samples, there is a linear
conversion, but it's different each time.
> You need the input specs for the software.
It turns out the software itself can do the necessary conversion, so
problem solved...
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Invisible wrote:
> What's the difference between tab-delimited and pipe-delimited? Well,
> let me see now... one of them is a file who's fields are delimited by
> tab characters, and the other uses pipe characters instead. What, you
> couldn't figure that out all by yourself?
If one doesn't know that "pipe" is a character or that the file has fields
or whatever, then no. Plus, of course, the question isn't "what's the
difference" but "which should I use?" If you haven't figured out that
mapping of "what I asked" to "what information I'm looking for", then *you*
are the one that's silly. ;-)
> Should you leave the card for me to sign? Actually no; just hand it over
> blank. It'll be fine, right?
Better than if it arrives too late perhaps.
> The final question is less stupid. Although trying to convert milivolts
> to microseimens would be like trying to convert miles per hour into
> pounds per square inch. (But in SI units at least...)
You're not even spelling it consistently, so who are you to argue? ;-)
And in this case the right answer is "multiply by ..." to convert the units.
Again, you're thinking the question asked is silly, while what's actually
likely to be happening is you are answering the question asked rather than
providing the information requested. I used to be really bad and did this
all the time, until I figured out that every time someone asked a "silly"
question, what they wanted was for me to figure out first what confusion
would cause them to ask that question, *then* answer the question they
*should* have asked.
The right answer to *this* question is likely "what are you trying to do
that you would need to convert those units, because I can't think of any
measurement that would involve both sets of units."
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
that the code does what you think it does, even if
it doesn't do what you wanted.
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