Responding off-topic from something in Fenspace...

[Bob Schroeck]

Well we DO have some talent... it's just distracted constantly.

*Fox attempts to write*

*Fox's dad bellows*

Fox: *Pam Dawber impression* Really, Mork, what earth concept are you misunderstanding THIS week?

I'm coming to understand your frustration with your dad rather well, Logan.  Since my dad passed away, my mom and I have been on the phone a lot, and I've realized that for someone who always seemed so on the ball as I grew up, who held an office in local government, and took care of my dad in his last years almost single-handedly, she has some very strange holes and misconceptions in her knowledge.  In the last couple weeks alone, she asked me how the Apollo astronauts stayed on the moon when it disappeared from the sky, made it clear she didn't understand that remote controls had batteries in them (and thought that my instructions for opening up the battery compartments were "too complicated"!), and doesn't want a DVD or VCR because she doesn't understand how to work them.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Foxboy]

I appreciate the sympathy and reciprocate it. However it DOES have some benefits, like being able to do something as simple as connecting a VCR to a TV without a tuner due to old age and restoring the ability to change channels... and being viewed as a tech god.....
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Wiregeek]

that's not nearly enough of a benefit to put up with this shit.

My personal Nemesis has a bachelor's in computer science, built his own garage, and can shoot the tip off a moose's tail at 300 yards.. but he can't read the god damn screen on the god damn laptop and write down what it says.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Black Aeronaut]

You think that's bad? Try explaining a piece of Navy hardware (i.e.: behavioral quirks of a Mk45 Mod 2 LWGM) to a JO that's spent most of their time gazing vapidly into a computer screen.

Okay, most of ours are ahead of the curve, but we've had a few on the mighty USS Stethem. With some of the ones that recently made Lieutenant (O-3) I was able to get away with giving them excerpts from our tech-pubs (preferably the ones with visual assistance) in addition to the nickle tour... But that was on their third go at their boards. Later, the LTs in question came back and thanked me very much.

...One advantage of making a military career is that putting up with things like that are definitely worth it in the long run; if you come across such a person again, they tend to cut you a lot of slack because they know that you know your shit.