Re: DTV antennas?

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:56:45 -0700, JosephKK <quiettechblue@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

My worst experience was that i had to read my comments to another
engineer before they could understand them. The experience was
disgusting, the other engineer had a PE license. Functional
illiteracy is rampant, as is innumeriacy.

Not illiteracy. The problem is that different people have different
ways of learning things. Some do best if they read it from a book.
Some of today's computer addicted kids only learn when delivered via a
CRT or LCD. Some people have to have hands on experience or it
doesn't sink in. Others have to have it lectured to them. Still
others get it best via videos (infotainment). I've seen some that
will not believe anything, unless it came from someone with
substantial credentials and proven credibility. It varies
considerably and can also change over a personal professional
lifetime.

I have customers that are quite intelligent and probably have a
correspondingly high IQ. However they often just can't read
instructions on a computer screen. I find myself reading the manual
or the screen to them on the phone. Sometimes, I walk them through
what most would consider a simple ritual (such as copying digital
photos from the camera to the drive to the DVD). I've previously
attempted to "educate" them in different ways of learning new things,
and have always failed. My guess(tm) is that once you've developed a
preferred method of information transfer, all other atrophy into
uselessness.

Incidentally, I've been told that about 90% of tech support questions
are answered in the documentation or web pages. That implies the 90%
of the customer base has some form of written or on-screen learning or
communications problems.

Kinda reminds of a project manager that could only communicate via
written (or emailed) memos. In person, he was a disaster.

Incidentally, one of the better tech writers I dealt with, had a
serious speech impediment (stuttering) and required that everything he
heard be repeated exactly once. He never got it the first time as he
had to be deliberately paying attention. Yet, his writings and
apparently his readings, were superior.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: DTV antennas?
    ... the other engineer had a PE license. ... illiteracy is rampant, as is innumeriacy. ... learning a completely no concept quite painful. ... documentation", but there was no way I could have found it in there. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: DTV antennas?
    ... the other engineer had a PE license. ... illiteracy is rampant, as is innumeriacy. ... ways of learning things. ... I find myself reading the manual ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: motor emulation, modularity, feedback, prediction, and dreams
    ... model how the agent needs to react to the world ...". ... > neural nets and symbolic processing, ... What has to be done, is to engineer the learning technolgy, and to optimize ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: IEE or IEEE
    ... For my part, as a Systems Engineer, I have certainly learned a lot about ... Torque Measurements, Power Control, PLC programming, Forth Programming and ... day-by-day learning, whatever way they come to you. ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)
  • Re: An unresponsive publisher
    ... <snip me and Helen talking about learning second languages> ... condition of illiteracy in this nation was released by the U.S. ... Between us in this thread Helen and I have spoken of learning, ... second language learning got to do with illiteracy? ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)