T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote
T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote
T i m wrote

but what if the next guy is 'better' at starting a fire to cook it on?
Do they also hold 'championships for that? Why shouldn't those
people also be recognised? How many of us could be 'champions'
at cutting in a metal back box into a brick wall? Why shouldn't
skills, honed over decades also be recognised thus?

I don't actually give a flying red **** about recognition myself.

No?

Nope, tho I realise that most do.

Don't you think it's 'nice' though when someone comments
on some work you have done and says 'nice job'?

Nope, I know whether I have done that or not,
I don't need anyone to recognise that.

I guess that may depend on if you are doing things
you are trained for (competition / experienced_at)

Not in my case. I designed and built my own house from
scratch, on just a bare block of land. I had never had any
training in anything like that or experience either.

I don't care what anyone else thinks, it suits me fine.

and I wasn't talking about 'need'.

Sure. I basically don't care if anyone else thinks
it's a good job or not I know if it is myself.

I'm not saying you / we do it for that but if you are
doing it anyway (because it needs doing rather than
you just waning to do it 'because' as such)?

I really don't care if it gets recognition or not.

I wasn't talking about that either.

I was getting that word from your original now right at the top.

It's not if you care but if you get any pleasure if
someone compliments you on a job 'well done'.

No I don't.

Especially if you respect that person
and their own skillis (in that field).

Not even then. I know if its well done or not.

I mean the difference between someone saying "nice job"
for a neat fence or car body repair rather than running 100m
to nowhere faster than the next guy? (Especially so when
they are 'experienced' in such fields themselves)? [1]

Nope, I know whether I did a good job or not,

'Always'?

Not always, sometimes, particularly with something I
have done for the first time, I can discover a downside
in the particular approach I have taken when it turns out
over time that there is a better way to do something.

and I also know when its worth putting more effort
into a better job and when its not worth the trouble
and when near enough is good enough etc.

It's that last bit I have particular trouble with (myself). Maybe
it's because I've spent most of my working life in IT Support
when the solution generally had to be 'perfect'.

No it doesn't, most obviously when doing a conversion
when something quick and dirty to do the conversion
of the data from one format to another is fine as long
as it gets the job done and there is no possibility that
it will have to be maintained over the long haul by
someone else and so needs to be reasonably elegant
and readable by someone else etc.

I don't even attempt to make something instinctively
obvious to others when it's a tool that I will only be
using myself, particularly when making it very obvious
and intuitive is a lot more work than not doing it that way.

For example I have just redone a timer to allow it to
do repeated alarms every say 3 or 5 mins etc until
cancelled, and its convenient to have that do other
similar stuff like act like a stopwatch and to have
a chime at 5 secs before the minute and on the
minute when resetting clocks after a daylight
saving change.

I cant think for the life of me whats an appropriate
label for the buttons that button that is the stopwatch
button and the one that lets you supply a number
of minutes before hitting the button. Both are superficially
best called timer and calling one of them stopwatch is too
awkward for my taste. So I have labelled the stopwatch
button Start before its pressed and Stop once its pressed
and the other one Timer. That's still unsatisfactorily less that
completely intuitive with the Start button, 'starting what ?'.

Since its just for me, I havent bothered to waste too much
time on that issue and have just left it like that hoping that
sometime a better label might occur to me. Its no big deal.

However, I'm no perfectionist, I just like
to gee a good and well considered job.

So do I, I just don't care if someone else agrees with me that it is that.

The most I sometimes do is wonder why a particular approach
does appeal to me but other hate that approach, why we differ etc.

Same with that other thing being discussed, why some don't mind
the sound of a primary school with the kids enjoying themselves
outside and other consider it to be less than desirable noise etc.

The most I ever do is notice they can be a bit noisy at times.

If I had done one of the more revolutionary ideas like Einstein had
done, the last thing I would give a damn about is something like the
Nobel Prize etc. That would just waste my time on a formal ceremony,
the sort of thing I really hate wasting my time on, and I would have to
field lots of phone calls from stupid journalists who wouldn't actually
have a ****ing clue about what I had actually done etc.

Yeah, I sorta get that one. Especially when it's stuff I've 'just
done' whilst doing what I do, rather than because I was trying
to acquire such recognition. Possibly why I don't get the "I've
always want to be an Olympic long jumper".

Yeah, the only thing I can think of is that they are such pathetically
inadequate people that recognition matters to them.

Tho that's a bit iffy with actors etc. Doesn't make much
sense to be an actor if there is no audience at all.

I wouldn't even give a damn about a standing ovation at a conference
of my peers that understood the significance of what I had done either.

Ok.

I might be interested in spelling out how I was treated in school
to try and put a bomb under the education system so others
wouldn't be treated like he was in school in the future,

Ok?

but that's a very forlorn hope even if you could find someone who
could spell that out to the world in a very effective and succinct way.

Maybe you have found your life's goal? ;-)

Nar, the most I do recognise when I stumble over someone that effective.

We've got one that does that with health issues.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/.../healthreport/

He's another one of yours that's ended up here.

Just as you might only be good at say 'building stuff', they aren't, but
they may be good a vaulting over a pole (however useless that may
be today. H&S won't even let you get on the roof that way any more!).

There is nothing to stop me doing it again.

?

H&S get no say in anything I did building my house.

During the summer I just wore a pair of shorts and
what we call thongs and you lot call flip flops.

The only time that caused me any problem was when I was
up a ladder arc welding the steel verticals that the flat roof
barge boards are bolted to onto the steel roof beams, over
my head. Blob of molten metal fell off and got jammed
between my toes. I didn't bother wearing boots after that,
just a nuisance.

In fact I did all the electrical wiring and got licensed
electrician to claim he did it all, completely illegal here.

I'm sure most of us (here especially) have done similar where it was
'appropriate' to do so. Like, I ran all the gas, water and electric in
this place 30 years ago because all you had to be was 'competent.
Now I couldn't (officially) to lots of it.

I don't even think its got that much to do with exercise either.

Well, only that we can indulge ourselves in such
high calorie foods and then burn it off afterwards

Turns out that the obese kids get just
as much exercise as the skinny ones.

Oh really? shrug

Yeah, surprising statistic.

(or were you talking about 'sport' as such)?

Nope, just activity in general.

Ok.

I think I heard suggestion of their being
more cyclists on the roads these days?

Yes, there certainly are, but that's not due to the olympics.

Ok.

There are certainly a hell of a lot more walking for exercise
on the roads these days too, but again that's got nothing
whatever to do with the olympics or any sport at all either.

Ok.

Not sure if that is because of exercise or just a side
effect of the 'cutbacks' as such?

It must be the exercise, because we haven't had
any of the cutbacks ourselves, we didn't even get
a recession because of the complete implosion
of much of the world's financial system.

Ah, ok, I forgot you weren't 'here'. ;-)

There you go. That's where some of that
'Olympic' money could have gone.

True. We have had some added recently, but that was because
the govt decided that we might see some effects from the
complete implosion of the world financial system and they
started spending money to try to avoid that result.

Better than nothing then.

Yeah, they are mostly in the higher traffic areas, near the
schools etc and plenty of kids still walk to and from school.

Its still **** all of the roads that people walk on, wouldn't even
be 0.5% of the roads.

Ok. Mind you, you have probably got a lot of roads over a pretty large
area.

Yeah, it's a lot more spread out than most of yours.

There are a few two story houses, but they are certainly
the minority and most are detached houses too.

It's the same reason I believe ISDN 'took off' in places
like Germany (large towns, spaced well apart) compared
with the UK (smaller towns all over the place)?

Dunno, you didn't get that effect in the US for some reason.

hehe Not sure if I'd agree if it was just a hobby
for them, or they just did it for fun, for themselves.

Sure, but they don't devote their lives to it, its
just a small part of their lives. That's not true with
olympians, except when they have retired etc.

True.

But then I'm not into 'Live entertainment' much either

Yeah, I've never bothered with any of it myself.

K.

The most I ever bother with is air shows etc.

Yeah, same here, or military shows and the like, but then that's 'kit'
not people eh. Even watching the likes of The Red Arrows it's more
about the planes and what they do more than the who is doing it
(although that comes into it etc).

That's one area where the real thing can leave the
same thing on video for dead, like when the F/A 18
flys over at 50' and then heads straight up in the
air with the jet exhaust pouring into the crowd etc.

Or a Harrier bowing to you 100' away, 50' from the ground. ;-)

I can still remember a Vulcan doing it 40 years or more ago now.

We hung about after a show just to watch the Herc take off (after
walking though it earlier).

I've been into light aircraft for a hell of a long time now.

Hilarious watching a Herc being backed into its parking
spot under its own power with one of the crew walking
around behind it with a long trailing lead to his headset.
Looked like he was towing it back like a dog on a lead |-)

The other event that was worth a personal visit was the
mega hot air ballonfest we had here one time on that
mega multilevel oval thingo. Hilarious watching the
little kid hanging on to the long leader thing they
run out from the top of the balloon when its still flat
on the ground with the hot air being blown into it.

He must have been all of 6 and appeared to believe
that without him it wouldn't have worked.

(it often seems 'flawed' which of course it is). I don't
mind a film where the bad bits have been edited out.

Sure, you can certainly get a much better view in video
than you ever can in real life with lots of things.

I watched the (an) Olympic torch being carried past the top of our
road from the comfort of my PC. You saw more of the mechanics of
the whole thing than the small glimpse you would have got, standing
on the kerb. Not sure I got any of the 'spirit watching it that way mind
but I didn't miss it as it all leaves me pretty cold in any case.

Never played darts, cards,

I did when I was a kid, but don't anymore.

At least you 'have'.

raced yer mate to the pub

Nope, don't bother with pubs, I prefer to drink
at my place or a mates place and preferred that
even before I started brewing my own beer.

Similar here (although I have raced mates to the
pub and even made the mistake of 'winning'). ;-)

or yer kids across a park?

Doing what kids want to do is different.

Ah! ;-)

I certainly don't give a damn about who wins etc.

Quite. However, 'you took part'. ;-)

I did manage to infect quite a few of those I knew with the
house building bug when I built my own from scratch tho.

I wonder if there was any 'competition'
there to do it better, quicker or cheaper?

Not for me. I know I did mine much better than they did.

Like I said, they took part. ;-)

But just because they wanted a house themselves.

Only one of them actually physically built most of the house
himself like I did and he's not a patch on me quality of work wise.

We all have our own skills.

The best one could manage was to paint the outside of the
concrete block place using quite literally a bucket and a broom.

This was the bugger that damned near killed himself at work
when he decided to hose out the place with the big growth
cabinets in it that had the refrigerators and controls in a metal
mesh bay under the cabinets, with the power still turned on.

One of my mates is better than I am at stuff done on a lathe etc
and can make you a handgun out of metal out of the rack any
time you want one etc. Leaves me for dead at that sort of thing.

Quite! I love my Myford ML10 and have been
able to turn my way out of issues many-a-time.

But he's completely hopeless at anything electrical or electronic,
just doesn't get it with stuff he can't actually see. In spades with
computing.

Now I'm also ok with most of that as well (I was an
electronics tech and PC man for most of my career).

Yeah, me too, but further back that that too, DEC minis as well.

Including a full OS for the PDP-9, very similar in concept
to what later showed up as TSX for the PDP-11.

Did a fancy screen editor for the 11 in Teco too,
one of the world's classic write only languages.

Mostly from the hardware / support POV than design
as such (although I have done a bit of mix_n_match).

I did both, everything from PDP-8s thru to Vaxes and
all the PCs etc and stuff like VIC-20s and C64s etc and
mainframes as well.

Still, the same can apply, even in the burbs (and as you mention
elsewhere with people on the road dawn / dusk etc). Take the
Olympic money and make a dual-use pavement for real
everyday people to help them get about better and safer?

Yeah, that would certainly be a much better use of the money.

And another mate of mine got run over when walking and
that pretty comprehensively ****ed over his life for a long time.

I bet. ;-(

We don't want a huge sports stadium
we want free gyms across the country.

We do have something like that.

We do?

My town, not yours.

Ah, yes, I forgot. I live in Nth London so we now have all the stadium
I didn't want and will probably never use. ;-(

The ****ing great multilevel mega oval has a heap of exercise
machines out in the open that you are free to use any time you like.

Where is this then?

Country town in Australia, population 25K.

Oh, ok.

I don't even ride a bike myself.

Never have or just not since a kid?

Not since a kid.

I cant anymore, smashed my kneecap so that leg doesn't bend
as well as it would need to anymore. Fine for walking tho.

[1] A tiler, here to do another role spotted my tiling and asked who
did it? I said 'me' and he added 'nice job but I bet that took you a
while?' (It took me whatever time it took to do a 'nice job'). ;-)

I did find it hilarious when the local council told the builders in
my town to look at how I had done the reinforcing mesh for the
concrete slab for the house, because that's how it should be done.

WEG, Yup, it's nice when that happens eh. ;-)

I just did it the way its sposed to be done with bar chairs holding
the mesh up so it ends up at the right level in the concrete.

Seems 'sensible' to me?

Yeah, tho its not hard to **** it up with the level the mesh ends up at.

The bar chairs don't cost much. Bit of a nuisance to wire them in tho.
There's fancy gadgets that twist the wire auto when you pull on them.

The local builders don't bother with them and just hook the
mesh up with a long metal hook thing as the concrete is
poured. The council hates that approach because they can't
check what height the mesh is hooked up to at pour time.

Nope.

I know if I did a good job or not, I don't need anyone to tell me that.

Like I said before, I wasn't talking about 'need'.

I don't care if it happens or not.

[2] And I don't just mean some patch of tarmac behind
an industrial estate, I'm talking a proper (say) skate park,
properly manned and maintained.

We don't man ours. The only one of ours that's manned is the pool.

Maybe if there were any big / professional grade places that were big
enough to attract plenty of people then it might not need manning.
Over here there is often plenty of bullying / crime going on in the
smaller places so the nice kids keep away.

Don't get that much here.