When you get deeply involved in the minutiae, you can fail to appreciate that others fail to share your obsession. I’m pretty lax, but an occasional verb tends to assist in communication.
Every occupation has its own jargon, but rarely produces people capable of translating into the standard languages. I always hated it when sales guys would insert jargon into their pitch, because too often they didn’t know what they were talking about, and when you start using jargon, tech people will switch to jargon, and no one really knows what was decided.
NSA was compartmentalized, which reduces the security risks if you do have a problem, but also helps to limit the extraneous comments that don’t apply to your target of interest.
As when old sergeant asked, “If you guys know so much about this, why are we wasting time with this mission?” That at least got them to discuss what they wanted to know.
]]>Occasionally you would run into one of the theory guys at NSA headquarters, and that was a challenge for a linguist. The words definitely sounded like English, but the syntax was not consistent and you always felt there was someone you couldn’t see or hear taking part in the conversation. Common words obviously had uncommon definitions in this alternate world, which I assumed was caused by usually seeing these guys in the common area, where they were taking a break, but still working on something in their subconscious.
It was always simpler to just take the results and plug them in, than to try to understand why. I have dabbled in that sort of thing, and it leads to obsession, so I avoid it.
]]>One comment that I enjoyed and hartily agreed with (as I felt the same way after Cambodia) from his impressive bio is:
“Unlike some other specialists in the natural sciences, I have a wide exposure to the social sciences. In addition to my Master’s degree in Entomology, I have two Bachelor degrees, one in Wildlife and Fisheries and another in Political Science. The latter degree helped me understand that the political process does not work, especially on the international scale. It was politicians who sent me to Viet Nam, and many is the day I wished they were there with me.”
Oh! And this gem:
“The I Hate Computers e-Newsletter began in 1991 (as “Bits & Bytes”) as an informal attempt to convey my limited knowledge of computers to several University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service specialists and agents that I worked with. I was finally persuaded in 1994 to go big time (The Information DirtRoad). I had to change the name of my e-Newsletter to something else, as “Bits & Bytes” was used by at least two other publications that I was aware of. So on 1 July 1994, the I Hate Computers Newsletter was born. At the same time I applied for an International Standard Serials Number from the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress not only awarded me my very own number (1076-7967), but requested that my IH8PCs Newsletter be made available on-site for their visitors. I am not sure, but I think this is where Newt Gingrich, Al Gore and other government leaders got much of their wrong information about computers.”
He’s probably right! π π
Thankfully, we have the ‘Internet Archive Wayback Machine’:
I Hate Computers archives!
As for the whole date thing… *shrug*. I worked in MI and IT. I never saw anything logical about either, so the calendar issue never bothered me either. π
]]>That’s true, Hipparchia. I knew a couple of kids who had the very complicated families that result from divorces and re-marriages who manged to stretch out the gifts from Thanksgiving to VD. Greedy little sods – probably became Republicans.
I cheat, Steve. I have a script/macro/function that does it for me, and I would have to look at it to figure out what the necessary changes are. I use the PhP functions, and generally the functions in whatever language I using to avoid having to learn the changes, because every platform is different.
]]>otoh, it’s a grand excuse for celebrating more holidays too.
.-= last blog ..I [heart] Taco Bell =-.
That’s to “save” a digit, the justification for always starting with zero.
Let’s face it, all calendars are more or less arbitrary. January 1 was a week after the winter solstice when Julius Caesar introduced his calendar, which is why everyone celebrates everything on the December 25. Despite his decree that it would be the start of the new year, everyone went back to the vernal equinox, March 25, in short order, and Gregory had to restate the rule on January 1.
Today there are a half dozen major, and no one knows how many minor, calendars in use around the world, making conversion programs a cottage industry. The Semitic groups change the date at sunset, while most other groups have an artificial target in the middle of the night. That was covered by the various “eves” or evenings, that have been attached to holidays.
It’s enough to make you want to chuck the whole thing and become a hermit.
]]>Badtux, they rarely make out of the parks in the Bay Area. A bit annoying stepping over the bodies. Actually it wouldn’t be as bad if so many hadn’t sworn up and down that a Chicago politician was the Second Coming and everyone was going to get a pony, or some such absurdity.
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