Lack of basic knowledge.

[2porscheguy]

^^^"...put icing on the cupcakes and called it a day." ROFL SiberianDVM!!


Speaking of inlaws.....I posted this story in some other thread awhile back but it's totally relevant here...

A few years ago my then 55 yr old BIL B's hot water heater pilot light went out one cold Sunday evening in January. So what does he do?...In a panic he calls his 77 yr old mother for HELP!! She offers to call (and pay for ) a service call from an LNG technician.....off hours I believe it would have been about $200. Fortunately my other former BIL S, who was living with her at the time (it's a looong story...) takes the phone and tells B to check the water heater as it should have a decal that explains how to re-ignite the pilot light. B confirms with S that there is such a sticker however he's "just way too stressed out" to deal with it at this time ..."Can you ask my mom to go ahead and call the tech?"

Thankfully S decides to drive out to B's place...about a 20 min drive...and it takes him all of about 30 seconds to get the pilot light lit.....wtf!

[rfuerst911sc]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

First thought:

Man that is funny right there !!!!

[HardDrive]

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance completely changed how I think about mechanical things.

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance completely changed how I think about mechanical things.

It took me much longer to get good with people than it did for me to get good with objects.

[URY914]

Don't even get me started with people that think they know how to jump start a car.

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by URY914

Don't even get me started with people that think they know how to jump start a car.

I helped a guy get his E type home once after he blew the alternator.




Had to tell a guy how to take his hubcap off once.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Get to the bathroom first.
You are a good man to put family harmony above technical correctness. Family harmony will break down as toilet loads increase, but you did your best. Once the situation gets critical you have a chance to be the hero. Just say, "Wait! I think I can make this work!" Grab a spatula from the kitchen and a leaf blower out of the garage, make a bunch of noise, switch the valves, and voila!, you're a MacGyver grade hero.

My BIL is one of those people who is never, ever, wrong, about anything.

When he does not understand the topic he will just shrug it off as unimportant rather than admit he has no clue.

Willful ignorance is something that really gets under my skin.

I don't understand people who don't want to learn something new.

Especially when your willful ignorance and arrogance results in massive inconvenience for 9 other people when it does not have to.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by pavulon

The an unspoken lesson of video games is that mistakes have virtually no consequences.

Apparently you don't remember watching Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner cartoons. They taught the subliminal message to the young children long before video games.

Originally Posted by 2porscheguy

B confirms with S that there is such a sticker however he's "just way too stressed out" to deal with it at this time ..."Can you ask my mom to go ahead and call the tech?"
Thankfully S decides to drive out to B's place...about a 20 min drive...and it takes him all of about 30 seconds to get the pilot light lit.....wtf!

So who is the idiot? The blood sucking leech that was getting free repairs (because he refused to even try to do something simple) or the mom that was willing to pay and the BIL that wasted an hour of his life? I would have encouraged mom to let B have cold water until his stress levels came down.

That said, we should try to be careful to not judge people because they can't do something we can. Some people just don't have the mental skill to do repair. They may be brilliant with numbers or sales but mechanical things just look like Greek to them. We shouldn't be so critical of people because WE can do something they can't. I am sure that the tables can be turned in other areas.

[pavulon]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Apparently you don't remember watching Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner cartoons. They taught the subliminal message to the young children long before video games.

I own the complete set. They drove the message home early for kids who preceded VHS/DVR and the like which also made TV potentially interesting to kids for about 4 hours a week (Saturday mornings) and the message to me was cartoon characters a)are not real and b) are a lot of re-runs.

Video games are a different thing. You control what happens and the consequences of poor choices is effectively nothing more serious than some mild disappointment. Further evidence of the difference is the potential for addiction to video games. They can and have become part of a lot of people's identities.

[2porscheguy]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Apparently you don't remember watching Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner cartoons. They taught the subliminal message to the young children long before video games.



So who is the idiot? The blood sucking leech that was getting free repairs (because he refused to even try to do something simple) or the mom that was willing to pay and the BIL that wasted an hour of his life? I would have encouraged mom to let B have cold water until his stress levels came down.

That said, we should try to be careful to not judge people because they can't do something we can. Some people just don't have the mental skill to do repair. They may be brilliant with numbers or sales but mechanical things just look like Greek to them. We shouldn't be so critical of people because WE can do something they can't. I am sure that the tables can be turned in other areas.

My BIL B wouldn't know which end of the hammer to use, can't play golf worth shat, wouldn't know how to set a campfire, or put together a two man tent BUT...his impersonations are second to none! His favourites are Rodney Dangerfield, Ronald Reagan, Johnny Carson and he can impersonate ALL Monty Python characters and he has all their skits locked in memory...he can recite them all word for word!...that's just his thing!

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by pavulon

Video games are a different thing. You control what happens and the consequences of poor choices is effectively nothing more serious than some mild disappointment. Further evidence of the difference is the potential for addiction to video games. They can and have become part of a lot of people's identities.

That's unintentionally intentional.

A by product of rule #1 in building a good game. It's the same as pretty much anything else in life that people enjoy.

Don't make the player do things that have no reward. They should never think, "why am I doing this?"

Everything has to have a payout.

[VincentVega]

Interesting stuff. I dont know a lot of things, but I sure am interested. I grew up having to work on stuff or watching my dad do the same. I really didnt enjoy working on the car in the driveway, it just needed to be fixed. I can only thing of 1-2 friends that do even the most simple things on their car or house. One interesting thing I've seen is using youtube as a know everything, end all. I watched the video so I can... works great for changing a headlight in the car, redoing plumbing in the house, not sure...

Wait. After calling 2-3 plumbers I finally got one to come to the house. His estimate was so high I bought some tools and asked everything I thought might know something a plumbing question. Sure it wasnt fun but I did it. Looking back it might have been a little nuts but I learned not to talk to a plumber about digging a new drain line in the crawlspace. I dont know many people dumb/stubborn/cheap enough to do that.