EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
EEVblog => News/Suggestions/Help => Topic started by: vk6zgo on May 20, 2011, 03:05:26 am
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I'd like to suggest a blog,or a rant on this subject.
Both on this forum & others (QRZ.com) there seem to be an increasing number of people who don't know the most
basic theory.
All right,we all get things wrong sometimes,especially oldtimers like myself,but some don't have the first clue!
The idea seems to be; "It's too hard to look it up,I'll just ask someone on a forum".
The problem is,that some of the answerers don't really know much more than the OP,while those who do,end up
arguing among themselves over ever more esoteric issues,leaving the OP none the wiser.
It isn't that hard to do a bit of study,so that your questions at least make sense,& you can understand the answers,
instead of asking silly supplementary questions.
Back in the day,most people who went into Electronics had enough interest to read up about it prior to starting any
formal courses.They even made stuff --from other people's designs,& got a feeling for how practical circuits were put
together.
OK I've had my rant,over to you! :D
VK6ZGO
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formal study? book and net/website reading. almost complete "know it all" practical? art of electronics. arguing about different discipline and field, but based on the same theory? here... eevblog. i always argued with the wifey, but in the end, i'll got two sensible different point of view.... next! :D
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vk6zgo - please resist the double spacing.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds this incredibly hard to read when reading a sentence with a massive gap to the next line.
As for basic theory, I admit got it wrong the other day in the RMS of a square wave with a DC bias. ::)
Brain could not see the wood for the trees!
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Ray- I've got used to the double spacing, as people on some other forums growl about single spacing. :D
I think that part of the 3rd sentence probably applies to you & me.
None of the rest applies to you!
VK6ZGO
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I'd like to suggest a blog,or a rant on this subject.
Both on this forum & others (QRZ.com) there seem to be an increasing number of people who don't know the most
basic theory.
VK6ZGO
...bla bla bla...*snip*
Whatever dude. Will you please just answer my homework questions?! ... ;)
And hey, all you have to do is claim the double-spacing is an "accessibility" feature and you are covered ;)
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What is QRZ.com?
Just kidding! I hold an extra class license from back when you had to pass 20wpm. Sorry, I agree with you whole heartedly, I just couldn't help myself with the stupid question.
_._
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I really don't have a problem with people asking really basic questions. Those topics should naturally be in the beginners forum, and if someone misposts, I'd hope the topic would get moved - so long as that happens, it's easy for those not interested in the basics to ignore.
For some people a forum like this might be one of the best or even only learning resources available. I think asking people to go off and study before they're allowed to post is counter productive, and somewhat elitist.
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posting back and forth, spoonfeeding sometime is more counterproductive imho. esp someone who's really lazy to make effort to find in the net and only expect good answers. for serious and fast pace study, i prefer looking for long/detail/complete article in the net or book. when i stumbled with confusion or no further direction, i'll ask question or suggestion in forum.
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I agree today with the internet and sites like youtube and wikipedia which offer solid information it is easier to get into electronics.
However I am particulary annoyed when I ask a question and someone tells me to google it and I then google it and find another post on another site asking the same question with some other asshat telling him to google it. It seems as if asking a simple question on the internet is the equilivent to jumping into a tank full of paranas and this seems to be a general truith regardless of the subject.
When I started the ammount of information seemed overwelming. I learned mostly off of youtube videos and sites like wikipedia. I also do various projects and whenever I encounter termonology I don't understand I simply look it up on wikipedia. Some people have reccomended books such as "The Art of Electronics" to introduce newbies to electronics, I have not read the book but I hear its quite solid.
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I'll stay away from the book, "The Art of Electronics" for newbies. It's kinda hard. Instead find as much beginner books are you can get from the library. One that I personally like is "Basic Electricity" by Van Valkenburgh, Nooger & Neville, Inc. I noticed that books that were once hard is quite simple after you had been messing around with electronics for a while.
Yeah, I have to agree. The amount of information is overwhelming for newbies. I've even learn while reading ebay's listing ;D
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People who answer questions become "particularly annoyed" when they try their best to give a sensible answer,& the person asking the question does not understand the subject,& asks sillier & sillier
follow-up questions.
Often,however,the questioner is innocent,& takes the brunt of people's pent-up irritation at having been asked
similar basic questions over & over by earlier questioners.
One problem I touched on in my earlier posting,is where some answerers bring up esoteric points which only serve to confuse the OP.
Others,in turn,query or refute the previous answers,so the thread takes on a life of its own,& the OP is left
bobbing in its wake.
In desperation,the OP will often latch onto the most convoluted explanation,& ask a series of progressively more
confused,supplementary questions.
Googling is good,as is Wikipedia,but the best way to learn is from an old-fashioned book!
Check your local library for such books as the ARRL Handbook & the RSGB Manual.
Absolutely the worst way to learn is from Internet Forums,because,as I said in my earlier posting,some answerers don't know much more than you,or they may be mistaken,or may misunderstand the question.
It is also fairly difficult to show diagrams,or use mathematical conventions to indicate square roots & suchlike,
so we try to describe things in words,which makes the explanation more drawn out & possibly, boring
Once you have a basic background,these forums become more useful,as you can understand the answers
without them having to be long & ponderous due to having to include basics.
VK6ZGO
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I encourage the curious kind to come forward and share their questions no matter what their background. Forums have two special characteristics: 1) You have no clue of the previous knowledge/understanding of the person that asked a question, and 2) The hierarchy is (almost) flat, i.e. it is difficult to trust one answer more than the other solely based on who gave it.
With #1 I find that after one or two questions I have a pretty good idea of the background knowledge and I can answer appropriately. With #2 you can try writing down your thinking process. Sometimes you need to let them find you were right the hard way.
There is however one kind that winds me up, those who just want the answer or the magical solution or are simply asking you to do it for them without any interest in the process, and they do so while undermining the entire subject.
I think this is the type vk6zgo refers to. For those I send a formal F.O. letter knowing that tomorrow they will give up and try something else. This type is common outside forums too.
Alex
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The people who annoy me most are those who believe in energy for nothing and rant on about conspiracy theories when they're proven wrong by others who know about the laws of thermodynamics.
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It is not only that a certain kind of people is to lazy to even learn the basics. They also think the whole world has to revolve around them, and everyone has to be their servant.
Google is too hard? The first result is not what you expect? Fuck, who cares? Search harder, don't steal other's time.
You want information, but then give a fucking fart about what you get, because you don't like it? Like the idiot in that other thread who asked if some unknown Chinese oscilloscope probe is good enough for 1.2 kV. When told no, he comes back with something along the line of "I don't care, I just ordered it!" Fucking asshole behavior. Pay a whore if you need someone sucking you the way you like it.
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You want information, but then give a fucking fart about what you get, because you don't like it? (...) Fucking asshole behavior. Pay a whore if you need someone sucking you the way you like it.
Hahaha straight damn right!
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Another thing which would be good,would be if we read the original question fully & answered it,instead of wandering off riding our own particular "hobby-horse". :D
The Guitar amp dummy load question could have been answered fully in two or three postings,but instead,we went off at a tangent.
All very interesting,of course,& exhibited our considerable erudition,but had little to do with the original problem.
VK6ZGO
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Another thing which would be good,would be if we read the original question fully & answered it,instead of wandering off riding our own particular "hobby-horse". :D
Why? I don't see that the people here have to be a precision answering service. We aren't a helpdesk. If someone needs to have reliable, timely answers they should pay for some professional service. Then they have someone who is obliged to fulfill their wishes. We, however, aren't their servants, standing by 24*7 to read their minds. Especially not if it is obvious that it is just a drive-by poster who otherwise doesn't care at all.
They might feel they are entitled, e.g. this drive-by wanker complained because he didn't get any answers at all:
Wow, Dave was right, this is a great place for learning. In just under 24 hours, I've already learned that I need to find another place to ask my questions. Thanks, guys!
The thing is, people like Ged aren't entitled. It is the duty of the original poster to write an interesting, precise, short, easy to read and follow, mostly correctly spelled question. Instead of treating us as servants who have to produce the desired material PRONTO.
(NB, of course there are always those with a helper complex who, when someone like this Ged farts in their direction, submissively hurry to provide an answer. Instead of telling the guy to shove it. Their problem, not mine. However, it teaches the wankers that their behavior is not only acceptable but successful and attracts more of them.)
All very interesting,of course,& exhibited our considerable erudition,but had little to do with the original problem.
Which just means the original problem wasn't interesting enough to inspire a longer discussion of the subject.
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Jeez! you're even grumpier than me!
There are definitely people who ask really silly questions & don't pay any attention to your answers,or get aggro when you suggest they do a bit of study!
There isn't a lot we can do about that,except to leave them to stew in their own juice,& not waste any more time on them.
It tends to annoy me,though if people answer some other question,& start rabbiting on with a lot of unrelated
issues,often only half understood by themselves.
Even if you're a grumpy old sod,your technical answers always make sense.Your grumpy ones are,well,grumpy!
My original comment:"Learn some basic theory--please!"applies to some of the answerers as well as the questioners.
I don't know if it's just me,but it seems like people shun learning such things as Ohm's & Kirchhoff's Laws,
& fill their heads up with a lot of half understood IEC standards,& stuff like that.
OK, standards are important stuff,but I could teach a Pink & Grey Galah to spout IEC standards whilst hanging
upside down from his perch. :D
Here in Western Australia,& as far as I know,in the rest of Australia as well,there is a thing called;
"Outcomes Based Education",which seems to be set up,so that if you can perform certain "monkey tricks"
at the end of a course,all is well.Whether you have actually learnt anything apparently doesn't matter! ::)
I've run into people who supposedly have done an "Advanced Certificate",or a "Diploma" in Electronics,to
whom Ohm's Law is a new & startling concept!
VK6ZGO
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Sorry, AcHmed99,but none of the comments in the above posting were in any way directed at you,especially the "unrelated issues,only half understood,etc" bit.
Both you & Hero 999 made valid points,though your suggestion;
"In the future just place your current limiting resistor at LED cathode and the other leg of the resistor at ground",
is hard to apply in the context of the OP's circuit ,which was just a 9 volt battery,a resistor,& an LED
in series without a "ground",as such.
The point of my comments in that thread were originally to point out that the OP was asking a simple question,which was adequately answered by an earlier posting, & the more advanced topics were likely to confuse the OP,who evidently was a beginner,by definition,& by the nature of his question.
OK,I apologise for the "red herrings",that was needlessly abrasive.
The stuff in this posting is just an answer to "Bored At Work",& a follow up to my original posting in this thread,which AFAIK predates the one you are referring to.
VK6ZGO
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OK,I'll try not to nit pick or "whine",hows that? :D
VK6ZGO
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It tastes like shit. But seriously some of you need to consider decaf!
It's a forum everyone who plays within the rules is entitled to ask or reply stupid. Repeat offenders are best deterred by the absence of a response. If the forum doesn't meet your expectations ask for your money back, ask for double.
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I was going to say :-
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html (http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html)
should be required reading.
But it is really just spelling out common sense and if you are dumb enough to need to read it you are probably too dumb to understand the answers you would get.
It is also a sad fact that many people treat internet forums (and so the people participating in them) with as much respect as they treat internet search engines.
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Well all forums seem to have their "types" and the same types are found in all forums, it's just that there are varying amounts of each type on different forums. In the beginning this was a forum where we didn't have to talk about ohms law because we were way above that in topic material but over time the users have come in from all backgrounds of knowledge from "none" to very successful. One of the reasons i started to go less to "that other forum" was because the quality of questions were getting worse and worse, with ever more misguided people trying to do things well beyond their non existent abilities and then so called experts just taking the piss or having a punchup over more advanced thing relating to the original question.
I think even a simple question is a valid one if posed honestly with the intention to learn. Homework questions stick out a mile and I'd just tend to ignore them. Having a basic background in electronics is essential i think to take part in forums. The basics are available and don't need teaching on a 10 to 1 basis, you should know that stuff already when you ask hopefully more constructive and interesting questions.
If someone can't be asked to learn the basics well, their loss, they will just wallow out of dept in the answers we give, hopefully that will encourage them to learn and then ask.
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seems to me like you are asking dave to do what you yourself ought to be doing.
how hard is it to just typ the words: 'go learn some basic theory'?
this problem cannot exist without your consent.
you yourself chose to pay attention and you can walk away at any time.
besides, is there is one thing u can depend on in life besides death and taxes,
it is that there will never be a shortage of idiots on the internet.
also there are plenty of videos on youtube on basic theory already, and
if all of them don't work, i doubt adding one will make a difference.
understand this: if you are of average intelligence, at least half the people on the planet will be dumber then you are.
if you are of above average intelligence, well then you are doomed to watch the world be destroyed by stupidity until you die.
there is no escape.
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"how hard is it to just type the words: 'go learn some basic theory'?"
Well,actually,I did,in slightly different words!
I did however,notice that Dave's blog "Buy a real Analog Oscilloscope--Please!! did seem to steer quite a few people away
from "pretend"Oscilloscopes,so it just seemed possible that the same degree of success might be obtained in this case.
Re: People being "dumb.--There is a lot of difference between stupidity & ignorance.
If we can convince people of the necessity to learn,they can overcome their ignorance,(although I don't have your faith in the educational value of stuff on youtube).
Stupidity,however, like diamonds,is forever. :)
VK6ZGO