My dad is a Master Electrician but he still asks me questions about his hotmail account and to resend a link to my Picasa albums. He deals with megawatts of electricity on a daily basis. I would hesitate to call him dumb...
Ditto for my stepdad, electrical engineer, holds more patents than I own books, and has put something on fucking Mars.
Still can't get his webcam to work, and keeps every document on his desktop.
It's just a matter of different knowledge domains. If you tossed me into the woods with experienced naturalists, they'd probably laugh every time I wiped with poison oak, too.
Thank. You. I'm glad you nipped that in the butt. Could have been very embarrassing.
I'm feeling snarky because it's 11:29 PM local time, and I'm about to ditch the trial server software I had planned to use and just write the goddamn things I need in Python, and keep it all in memory, so I can actually finish my shit this week. Fuck databases, fuck socket-server middle-ware, fuck best practice dogma (except when they really matter).
Yeah. I'm in the middle of the woods, helpless, surrounded by a bunch of naked men and women. Obviously my first instinct is to laugh at the only people that can keep me alive. :)
A slight exaggeration, but he worked on the mass spectrography unit at UT Dallas, and that was part of the Phoenix mission.
If you'd like to point out that it ended up having some problems due to an electrical short circuit and have a giggle, please do so now. :)
He also ended up clearing out the entire building one day, because I think he left some chemicals on a hot plate. Every time after that, when the fire department would get called for whatever reason, if the fire chief saw him wandering around, he'd bellow, "STEIN, WHAT DID YOU DO THIS TIME!"
I have no reason to believe your dad is dumb, and I'm not someone who thinks you're dumb if you're not computer savvy (such as your Dad).
That said, I've known and employed electricians whom I would call dumb, despite the fact that they can do their jobs. I'm not having a go at electricians, I can't do what they do, and I'm certainly not trying to make any point along the lines of "electricians are dumb except when it comes to their own area". Hell, I've known more intelligent electricians than dumb ones.
What I am saying, though, is that I don't think "dealing with megawatts of electricity" proves that someone is/isn't dumb. (And again, that's not me saying you're wrong in saying your dad isn't dumb.)
I think you could replace the word "electrician" in your quibble there with just about any other profession, with a corresponding change to the "dealing with megawatts" boast, and it could still be true.
I think you could replace the word "electrician" in your quibble there with just about any other profession, with a corresponding change to the "dealing with megawatts" boast, and it could still be true.
