Speeding up their ignorance

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/3 ... vis-hanson

"Americans now have more computer power in their smart phones than did the Pentagon in all its computer banks just 30 years ago. We board a sophisticated jet and assume that the flight is no more dangerous than crossing the street.

The downside of this complete reliance on computer gadgetry is a fundamental ignorance of what technology is. Smart machines are simply the pumps that deliver the water of knowledge — not knowledge itself.

What does it matter that millions of American students can communicate across thousands of miles instantly with their iPads and iPhones if a poorly educated generation increasingly has little to say?

The latest fad of near-insolvent universities is to offer free iPads to students so that they can access information more easily. But what if most undergraduates still have not been taught to read well or think inductively, or to have some notion of history? Speeding up their ignorance is not the same as imparting wisdom. Requiring a freshman Latin course would be a far cheaper and wiser investment in mastering language, composition, and inductive reasoning than handing out free electronics"...

Good thread. While I find instant access to the internet awesome, I notice it does make me more distracted. I will be reading a book and decide to research a topic they are discussing. And after reading about the topic, will be drawn into another area and a couple hours will pass before I get back to my book.

This is like that old "give a man a fish..." saying replaced with an Ipad.

Give a man an Ipad and you feed him information, give a man knowledge and he has wisdom for life.

(I just composed that and VL can't use it)

Ok, I have to share this. I'm a database admin for a retail company.

I just spent a day putting together a series of reports for a person (an induhvidual) who wanted information on inactive customers. The four reports requested each returned in the neighborhood of 2.1 million rows of data because she did not want to put a constraint on the last purchase date (we have data going back to 1997). The only way I could produce the data was in flat files, which I zipped up and sent to her with the warning to a) don’t try to open them in notepad, it’ll puke (each file was nearly a gig) and b) if you want the stuff in a more readable format give me a date constraint.

I just got an email back from her that she couldn’t open the file on her iPhone… She says “I don’t need to see the files anyway, can you just send me the record counts?”

<banging head against wall>

Reminds me of this. Note the date.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

"I, Pencil
My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read
RP.1
I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.*

RP.2
Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that's all I do.

RP.3
You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery—more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, "We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders."

RP.4
I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that's too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple."...

intheaspens wrote: Ok, I have to share this. I'm a database admin for a retail company.

I just spent a day putting together a series of reports for a person (an induhvidual) who wanted information on inactive customers. The four reports requested each returned in the neighborhood of 2.1 million rows of data because she did not want to put a constraint on the last purchase date (we have data going back to 1997). The only way I could produce the data was in flat files, which I zipped up and sent to her with the warning to a) don’t try to open them in notepad, it’ll puke (each file was nearly a gig) and b) if you want the stuff in a more readable format give me a date constraint.

I just got an email back from her that she couldn’t open the file on her iPhone… She says “I don’t need to see the files anyway, can you just send me the record counts?”

<banging head against wall>

Having spent 35 years as a programmer and having done what you are doing, I learned a long time ago that end users rarely know what they really want and I almost ALWAYS gave them more than they asked for which helped prevent back and forth, running around in circles types of incidents like this.

The only time my personal "rule" didn't work very well was when working for government. They didn't want you to be forward thinking, they bristled at anyone who tried to think out of the box and they certainly didn't want you to be overly helpful. You couldn't even modify a line of code without 3 months of meetings and having every stakeholder in the process sign off on it. Simple changes that would take seconds turned into months.

I would just do what needed to be done and no one was ever the wiser.

I worked for the city and country of Denver once - right out of college while I was hunting for other jobs. It was a very menial job but it paid my rent. It was incredibly boring work so I made a game out of it - see how much I could do in a given amount of time and then try to "beat the clock". I got called on the carpet for that and got written up. I was told that I was making the other employees look bad.

You're right about end-users, and I generally follow what you outlined - give them more than what they want. In general that does work very well. But then in my 30+ years of IT I can safely say that I've NEVER had anyone try to open a 2 million row file on an iPhone! Sheesh!

ScienceChic wrote:

intheaspens wrote: Ok, I have to share this. I'm a database admin for a retail company.

I just spent a day putting together a series of reports for a person (an induhvidual) who wanted information on inactive customers. The four reports requested each returned in the neighborhood of 2.1 million rows of data because she did not want to put a constraint on the last purchase date (we have data going back to 1997). The only way I could produce the data was in flat files, which I zipped up and sent to her with the warning to a) don’t try to open them in notepad, it’ll puke (each file was nearly a gig) and b) if you want the stuff in a more readable format give me a date constraint.

I just got an email back from her that she couldn’t open the file on her iPhone… She says “I don’t need to see the files anyway, can you just send me the record counts?”

<banging head against wall>

Thank you for sharing intheaspens, though I sympathize with your frustration, it made me laugh out loud that someone could be so clueless. I won't even open simple pdfs on my phone, that's what laptops are for.

agreed