I'm more dumber than you!

Inspired by Iguana...

[akmac]

Reading Iguana's post reminded me of a time when I was a less savvy internet user-Tuesday.

I noticed that my site was extremely sluggish. 6-10 second page loads. So, very concerned, I emailed my host, wondering what error they had made that was affecting my site.

They responded (in about 2 minutes) mentioning that the site seemed to be loading quickly for them, and requesting a traceroute to help them figure the issue out.

I checked again, and it was loading normally. "Ha, I thought to myself. They fixed whatever it was and just don't want to admit their mistake."

Then I remembered that I had just emailed a 6 meg attachment to a printer. And... that... may... have... caused... the... problem...

Anyone else care to share a bonehead moment?

[BillyS]

I had a similar experience recently...

I just came back from Death Valley where I experimented with taking panaramic pictures. I had a series of nine pictures I was going to stitch together on my PC while I was working on my website.

The process took 42 minutes to complete, exhausted my swap file and brought my system to a crawl. I kept thinking about rebooting but figured the process was almost completed. It was like staring at a wall.

By the way, the output was a 150 meg file that could make a photograph 10 inches high and 39 inches long at 300 dpi.

[moltar]

The other day I was fixing someone's laptop and the person attached a Windows password on a PostIt for me to login. I was about to copy paste it, only to realise that it was a hard copy...

[john_k]

I was about to copy paste it, only to realise that it was a hard copy...

ahh.. that explains the white-out on the screen *~:)

[MatthewHSE]

I once tried to use my mouse cursor to playfully swat my brother on the shoulder...

He didn't feel a thing, by the way.

[john_k]

My first real paying job was working at a bowling alley. On my first day, the manager was showing me how to take care of simple problems with the pin setters. Those are the machines that set the bowling pins down on the lanes. He showed me the simple process for clearing an "out of range." Of course, he never said what an "out of range" was. And I didn't bother to ask.

Later that day a couple bowlers had a problem on their lane. One of the pins had slid over some and it was between two of the holes on the pin setter. So the pin setter was stuck(1).

"No problem" I said. I ran to the back of the lanes and turned their pin setter off. Then I crawled under the pin setter to free the pin. Laying on my side with one shoulder on the deck of the alley, under the pin setter, I had to kind of push up on the pin setter with my other shoulder while I hit the pin to free it(2).

Did I mention that the pin was the only thing holding up the pin setter?

Well, after the full weight of the pin setter came down on me, it took about 20 to 30 seconds for me to manage to wedge the pin back into place.(3)

After I crawled back out from under the deck and caught my breath, I then proceeded to clear the "out of range" in the correct manner.

As far as I know, nobody else knew it had happened. I never had the guts to ask how much one of the pin setters weighed (and nobody ever volunteered the info).

----------
(1) The point at which most people would have realized what an "out of range" was.
(2) The point at which even an idiot would have wondered if this was such a good idea.
(3) The point at which I knew what an out of range was and knew that this had been a bad idea.

[grandpa]

don't want to admit their mistake

You can't fool me, I'm a moron!

;)

[mcavic]

working at a bowling alley

One of my local movie theaters has a game room with a kiddie bowling alley. The balls are quite small and lightweight. And it works a bit differently. The pins are tied to the pinsetter with nylon cord. After you roll, instead of picking up the standing pins and sweeping under them, it just notices which cords are more taut, then lifts the pins into place.

Interesting idea, as it probably eliminates most of the jams. But the pins had a tendency to fall over as they were being placed. It made it a little hard to keep score.

[zCat]

I was setting up an Apple Macintosh of the pre-iBook era for someone who had just moved between continents and hence voltage zones (110v to 240v). I was explaining how PC power supplies work, i.e. they have a little recessed switch on the back to change settings.

"Look", I said, reaching around for a screwdriver with which to move the switch. "It works just like this."

BANG

Fortunately it turned out only the power supply was hosed. Unfortunately the only way of getting it repaired at the time was through a local Apple dealer...

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I once thought I had a telephone problem then realised that I was dialling the number on my keyboard numeric keypad.

Then there was the time when I was watching television and my wife came into the room and said something that I didn't hear. I absent mindedly pointed the remote at her and tried to "turn her up". The worst part of this was that she saw me doing so and told everyone we knew ...

... and I couldn't turn her down :(

[mcavic]

explaining how PC power supplies work

Oh, that reminds me. Okay, here's mine. I was in an electronics class in high school. We had individual projects we were working on, and mine was an adjustable power supply.

I had just purchased a transformer, and was about to plug it into the wall in the classroom. I wanted to test the amperage, but at that time, I didn't understand what amperage was. I just wanted to see how many amps it would do. So, I connected the ammeter across the secondary coil.

The meter read 3 amps, and slowly rising. I of course didn't realize that it was a short circuit. A few seconds later, the transformer blew. I probably should have tested the voltage instead.

[akmac]

Grandpa-
"You can't fool me, I'm a moron!"

PERFECT. Do you mind if I keep that one? Priceless ;-)

[AWildman]

In shop class in high school, we had to make a wood clock. I had cut out and sanded all the parts and was ready to stain it. I had never done anything of the sort. I asked my teacher where the stain was. He showed me the stain and gave me a brush. Off I went to stain the parts. I would hold down the piece in one hand and stain it with the other. I wasn't wearing gloves and I wondered why the heck my hands turned red...

[digitalghost]

I took a summer job with a bricklayer because I wanted to learn how to lay brick and he offered to teach me, but I had to start out as a hod carrier. Three bucks up in the air, the scaffolding was connected at the corners by nothing more than a 2x12 walkway. Across which I tried to push a wheelbarrow full of mud (mortar).

I ran the wheel off the board and was pulled off the plank by the weight of the mud in the barrow. I landed in the mud (real mud), hard. Other than having the breath knocked out of me I was fine. Except for the torment I had to endure for the rest of the summer. 'Hey, there goes the guy that thought he could walk on air'.

Long before I tried to walk on air, I offered to work at a dairy farm over Spring break because I thought the owner's daughter was really cute. 4:30 in the morning, every morning, getting slapped with manure-encrusted cow tails seemed a fair trade for getting to talk to his daughter every day.

The daughter I didn't see for those two weeks except when I left for the day. I caught a glimpse of her swimming in their pool, talking to her friends, etc. The day before Spring break ended, she was walking up the driveway as I was leaving for the day. She was immaculate and smelled fantastic. I was dirty, sweaty and disheveled. We spoke briefly and then she said, 'Well, if you weren't working for my dad the whole break you could have been swimming with me'.

[teylyn]

OK, here's mine.

I had my first Mac experience in '92. Up to then I had never seen a Mac, just PCs, or "IBM compatibles" as we used to call them at the time.

I wanted to copy a file from the Mac notebook onto a floppy, so I pushed a floppy in the notebook's floppy drive and dragged the file icon onto the floppy icon. Great. Easy enough.

Then I wanted to get the floppy out of the drive. But I could not find the button to release the floppy. I searched the whole darn notebook, but no go.

Finally, I went to one of the computer guys and told him that I could not get the floppy out of the drive. "No problem," he said. He straightened a paper clip and stuck it in the emergency release hole next to the slot where the floppy was in. Of course, the floppy came out straight away.

I was aghast. "Is THAT what you have to do every time you want to get a floppy out of a Mac?" I asked in disbelief.

He gave me a blank look and then it slowly dawned on him. "Uhmmm, you DID try it the normal way first, didn't you?"

He then showed me how to drag the floppy onto the trash bin symbol to release it from the drive.

Duhhhhh

teylyn

PS.: To my credit, I must say that with all the hype of user friendlyness of Apple computers, this one struck me as really not logical. For me, the trash bin symbol was for DELETING, and I did not want to delete anything, did I?

PPS.: A comparable illogic can be found with Windows, where you have to click the START button to shut down the system.

[deejay]

*pppfffttttt*

[webmasterworld.com...]

Message 25.

I rest my case.

Y'all are just amateurs.

[texasville]

>>>>and I couldn't turn her down :(
<<<<<<

I'm laughing so hard I can't stop! Geez I wish I had one of those sometimes...don't tell my wife I said that. She is mean as a snake.

[saoi_jp]

Is THAT what you have to do every time you want to get a floppy out of a Mac?"

OK, opposite story: My first Windows experience, I put a floppy disk in, and sat there for ages waiting for the icon to appear on the screen.