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. Yesterday almost 
nobody spoke to me. Since 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.)

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.

One of our project managers asked me what the difference between 
"tab-deliminted text file" and "pipe-delimited text file" is.

But so far, at just after 2PM, the current winner is this:

   "How can I convert milivolts to microsiemens?"

Post a reply to this message

> But so far, at just after 2PM, the current winner is this:
> 
>   "How can I convert milivolts to microsiemens?"

It could be worst: "How can I convert Volts to Sieverts ?"
Now, hide & run... farer!

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

"How can I convert Volts to Sieverts ?"

X-ray tube.

Post a reply to this message

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...)

Post a reply to this message

And lo On Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:20:28 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> 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

Post a reply to this message

> 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...)

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

>> (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...

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

>> 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...

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> I'm still trying to figure out why the hell she wanted to know, but 
> anyway...

Because a program asked, or someone asked her for the file in one of those 
two formats, etc.

-- 
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.

Post a reply to this message

> 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. ;-)

I'm still trying to think of any software that's capable of producing 
such files. (And, therefore, where the hell this person even found those 
names from...)

>> 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.

There's no possibility of that. I'm personally going there anyway, so...

> You're not even spelling it consistently, so who are you to argue? ;-)

*gasp* You mean some guy who was sent to a school for people with 
learning difficulties due to his total inability to read and write 
actually spelt something wrong? GIVE ME A ****ING BREAK! It's old, OK? I 
can't spell. We get it. Can we please move on now?

> And in this case the right answer is "multiply by ..." to convert the 
> units.

Fortunately, since I'm having this conversation with a scientist who 
comprehends how SI units work, I didn't have much difficulty explaining 
what the problem was. We both quickly concluded that there is no 
universal way to do the conversion, although in the specific instance 
we're looking at there probably is a conversion (but that doesn't help 
because we don't know what it is).

> 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.

As I say, this is the least-silly question I got asked. It's more in the 
relm of "dude, that's really quite random" than "that's a stupid thing 
to ask".

Post a reply to this message

On 21/06/2010 1:43 PM, Invisible wrote:
>>> 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?
>

Because hat's what linear means.

> It may be that the conversion is perfectly linear, but that the
> conversion factor depends on the chemical composition of what you're
> analysing.

For measuring mho's?

That is what you are measuring in the machine.

> So each time you analyse a set of samples, there is a linear
> conversion, but it's different each time.
>

Only if the cross sectional area or length of the sample is different.

You really need to read up on the physical properties of materials.


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 6/22/2010 2:55 AM, Invisible wrote:

> *gasp* You mean some guy who was sent to a school for people with
> learning difficulties due to his total inability to read and write
> actually spelt something wrong? GIVE ME A ****ING BREAK! It's old, OK? I
> can't spell. We get it. Can we please move on now?

I think he was just teasing ... hence the smiley. But, yeah, spell 
checkers and all :) <-- See the smiley ... no insult intended.

Actually, you spell better than most people on the net... (in general, 
here is another story, but the people here appear rather intelligent.)

-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

Mike Raiford wrote:

> But, yeah, spell checkers and all.

I have tried on multiple occasions to make the Thunderbird spellchecker 
work. It's not having any of it. I have no idea why...

(I also cannot make Firefox spell-check in English, only American. It 
doesn't seem to matter how many times I install the UK dictionary, it 
will not correctly spell-check.)

Post a reply to this message

On 6/22/2010 7:18 AM, Invisible wrote:
> Mike Raiford wrote:
>
>> But, yeah, spell checkers and all.
>
> I have tried on multiple occasions to make the Thunderbird spellchecker
> work. It's not having any of it. I have no idea why...
>
> (I also cannot make Firefox spell-check in English, only American. It
> doesn't seem to matter how many times I install the UK dictionary, it
> will not correctly spell-check.)

T-bird's spellchecking works for me, albeit sometimes the dictionary is 
a bit anemic.

Did you make sure the language selected is English - UK? Sometimes I 
wish the English - US dictionary accepted both spellings of words, such 
as realize vs realise, since I'm constantly tripped up by the "z" 
spellings of such words, I prefer the "s" spelling. Though for things 
like color vs colour, I prefer dropping the unnecessary "u" ;)

-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

>> I have tried on multiple occasions to make the Thunderbird spellchecker
>> work. It's not having any of it. I have no idea why...
>>
>> (I also cannot make Firefox spell-check in English, only American. It
>> doesn't seem to matter how many times I install the UK dictionary, it
>> will not correctly spell-check.)
> 
> T-bird's spellchecking works for me, albeit sometimes the dictionary is 
> a bit anemic.

Nope. Every time I spell-check something, it tells me that *every* word 
is mis-split. (I.e., the dictionary is empty.) No matter how many times 
I install a dictionary, I can't make this work. I've given up trying.

> Did you make sure the language selected is English - UK?

 From what I remember, sometimes there's an error and the dictionary 
doesn't even install, and sometimes it does install but then there's no 
option to select it or any evidence that it was ever installed.

> Sometimes I 
> wish the English - US dictionary accepted both spellings of words, such 
> as realize vs realise, since I'm constantly tripped up by the "z" 
> spellings of such words, I prefer the "s" spelling. Though for things 
> like color vs colour, I prefer dropping the unnecessary "u" ;)

Sometimes I think we should just nuke the whole English language and 
design something that actually ****ing works.

Unfortunately, this is impossible.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> I'm still trying to think of any software that's capable of producing 
> such files. (And, therefore, where the hell this person even found those 
> names from...)

Excel? Pretty much every program that exports tabular data can do it with 
tabs, and most UNIXy programs wind up putting pipes in when necessary. 
(Basically, systems that generated tabular data intended to go over the 
internet as email before the abomination of using XML for that became common 
has an option to use pipes.)

> There's no possibility of that. I'm personally going there anyway, so...

So she was asking if she should bring it so you can sign it there, or 
whether you're going home first. Seems easy.

>> You're not even spelling it consistently, so who are you to argue? ;-)
> 
> *gasp* You mean some guy who was sent to a school for people with 
> learning difficulties due to his total inability to read and write 
> actually spelt something wrong? GIVE ME A ****ING BREAK! It's old, OK? I 
> can't spell. We get it. Can we please move on now?

It just makes it hard to look up what the question is when you don't spell 
the critical word right, is all. :-)  If he was actually asking how to 
convert volts to seimands, yes, it would be silly. :-)

> As I say, this is the least-silly question I got asked. It's more in the 
> relm of "dude, that's really quite random" than "that's a stupid thing 
> to ask".

And my point is that there's almost no question that's a stupid thing to 
ask. There's only literal interpretation of questions that someone is asking 
without enough information to know what question they should be asking. If 
you think a question is stupid, it's because you already know the answer. So 
give it to them. :-)

-- 
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.

Post a reply to this message

On 6/22/2010 7:50 AM, Invisible wrote:

> Sometimes I think we should just nuke the whole English language and
> design something that actually ****ing works.
>
> Unfortunately, this is impossible.

Didn't they try that with Esperanto?

Oh, yeah ... you did say impossible. Improbable is probably more 
accurate. ;)
-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

>> I'm still trying to think of any software that's capable of producing 
>> such files. (And, therefore, where the hell this person even found 
>> those names from...)
> 
> Excel?

Excel can *import* text files with all sorts of strange delimiters. 
However, it seems to be unable to *create* anything except CSV or 
tab-delimited; there's no option for pipe-delimited.

>> There's no possibility of that. I'm personally going there anyway, so...
> 
> So she was asking if she should bring it so you can sign it there, or 
> whether you're going home first. Seems easy.

Given that she already knows that I'm coming home, the answer seems 
pretty self-evident.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> So each time you analyse a set of samples, there is a linear
>> conversion, but it's different each time.
> 
> Only if the cross sectional area or length of the sample is different.
> 
> You really need to read up on the physical properties of materials.

Well, sure. I mean, it's not like the resistence of a diode varies with 
voltage.

Oh, wait, actually that's exactly what it does. :-P

So what makes you so certain that passing a current through a sample 
can't cause some kind of chemical reaction that affects its electrical 
characteristics, given that we don't even know what the hell this 
machine is or what it does?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:15:30 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Excel can *import* text files with all sorts of strange delimiters.
> However, it seems to be unable to *create* anything except CSV or
> tab-delimited; there's no option for pipe-delimited.

Fortunately, that's pretty easy to work around with a scripting 
language.  Export tab delimited and then use something like awk to 
replcae the tabs with pipes = job done.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>> Excel can *import* text files with all sorts of strange delimiters.
>> However, it seems to be unable to *create* anything except CSV or
>> tab-delimited; there's no option for pipe-delimited.
> 
> Fortunately, that's pretty easy to work around with a scripting 
> language.  Export tab delimited and then use something like awk to 
> replcae the tabs with pipes = job done.

Oh, sure, I'm not disputing that. I'm just wondering where the hell some 
random user who can barely operate Notepad has heard of pipe-delimited 
files from...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:22:10 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Excel can *import* text files with all sorts of strange delimiters.
>>> However, it seems to be unable to *create* anything except CSV or
>>> tab-delimited; there's no option for pipe-delimited.
>> 
>> Fortunately, that's pretty easy to work around with a scripting
>> language.  Export tab delimited and then use something like awk to
>> replcae the tabs with pipes = job done.
> 
> Oh, sure, I'm not disputing that. I'm just wondering where the hell some
> random user who can barely operate Notepad has heard of pipe-delimited
> files from...

Probably a vendor that they interact with who said "we need/will provide 
files in this format".

I interact with a company that delivers exams and a company that tracks 
exam results and certifications; the typical user of the systems they 
provide is non-technical, and they provide data in that type of format - 
it's actually fairly widely used because "|" isn't often part of actual 
data.

The perhaps surprising thing is that Excel and oocalc both don't have an 
option built in for exporting files in that format, given that they are 
so widely used.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Am 22.06.2010 16:46, schrieb Darren New:

> If you think a question is stupid, it's because you already know
> the answer. So give it to them. :-)

Nice point ;-)

Post a reply to this message

>> Oh, sure, I'm not disputing that. I'm just wondering where the hell some
>> random user who can barely operate Notepad has heard of pipe-delimited
>> files from...
> 
> Probably a vendor that they interact with who said "we need/will provide 
> files in this format".

I got the impression that she created one of these files by mistake, and 
then whoever else she was interacting with rewrote the spec to match. 
Which still leaves the question "how the hell did you manage to do this 
in the first place?" Oh well.

> The perhaps surprising thing is that Excel and oocalc both don't have an 
> option built in for exporting files in that format, given that they are 
> so widely used.

Yeah, I had assumed it would be there...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On 22/06/2010 6:19 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> So each time you analyse a set of samples, there is a linear
>>> conversion, but it's different each time.
>>
>> Only if the cross sectional area or length of the sample is different.
>>
>> You really need to read up on the physical properties of materials.
>
> Well, sure. I mean, it's not like the resistence of a diode varies with
> voltage.
>
> Oh, wait, actually that's exactly what it does. :-P
>
> So what makes you so certain that passing a current through a sample
> can't cause some kind of chemical reaction that affects its electrical
> characteristics, given that we don't even know what the hell this
> machine is or what it does?
>

For a start you know what units it measures and you can research how to 
measure “admittance”.
Of course passing a current through a material affects its properties. 
Even a resistor will change its resistance as you pass a current through 
it and it heats up. The trick is to use as small a current or voltage as 
will work and let the material reach its working temperature.
Electronics is not all zeroes and ones, you have to think physical 
properties as well.

As for a material having a chemical reaction:  If it were to have a 
reaction that changed its properties adversely then that is the wrong 
way to test it. Someone who understands the problem will come up with a 
solution.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 22/06/2010 7:07 PM, clipka wrote:
> Am 22.06.2010 16:46, schrieb Darren New:
>
>> If you think a question is stupid, it's because you already know
>> the answer. So give it to them. :-)
>
> Nice point ;-)

There are no stupid questions only stupid answers.
Or as I often say, ask a stupid person, get a stupid answer.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> There are no stupid questions only stupid answers.

There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people asking questions.

-- 
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.

Post a reply to this message

On 22/06/2010 10:08 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>> There are no stupid questions only stupid answers.
>
> There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people asking questions.
>

I might argue the *"Only"* if I were that sort of person. ;-)

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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