Whether you are a neuroscientist, a programmer or a barista there are preconceptions about what it is you do for a living. What are the things people don't realize? Maybe it's not your career that is misunderstood but rather a hobby or another aspect of your life.
What don't people realize?
Could end up being a topic for our next #tngpodcast.
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http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs-v4ltGRK07THnfiR3163A?feat...
hiss, I successfully resisted the stock-photo urge :)
Working with garbage is fun as hell. Everyone looks down on garbage men, but really its one of the better jobs. I cant speak for the guys that collect the garbage in he bins outside your house, but the guys that drive the roll-off trucks love their job. If we have a box at some random or weird location, instead of dumping it at a landfill (or wherever it is meant to go), we will sift through it for some cool shit. Always great when you find some neat stuff that other people thought was garbage. In this sense, it is one of those jobs that is always changing - you'll never have the same day twice. I have a different perspective than most, but the guys I have talked to love their job.
I really enjoy this Portlandia skit about dumpster diving. I'm not bashing it in anyway, I love dumpster diving. There are so many treasures that people throw away. Some of my best furniture has been found on the side of the street.
Thats hilarious! The guys rat tail is great haha. But yeah, minus my bed, everything I had in my room was from a dumpster. Dumpsters are very weird. Once something is in a dumpsters, its like that thing increases in potential value. I will throw something away because I dont have a need for it anymore. But if I were to find that thing in a dumpster, I could think of so many ways it would be reused.
Hahaha, that's awesome. Do you watch Portlandia regularly? Also, do you live in an area where a lot of rich people throw out really nice things?
I have never heard of it before you linked it. And yeah I do, but the business is located in a city and doesn't bother with home remodeling or anything like that. Most of the business comes from special waste (asbestos) and random construction sites, so when interesting things do come in its usually from sites that are demolishing an old factory or house. And sorry for the late reply, I have been busy with my last essay of the semester.
I don't think I've ever walked past trashcans and not wondered what would be inside. If I'm alone, sometimes I do take a peek. Some people throw out the most amazing stuff! My family has trash-picked 5 TV's and a working PS2 (poor kid) among countless bits and bobs and pieces of furniture. I love playing the mental game of "What could I make with that person's garbage?" Sometimes I just think about making a giant cardboard fort but sometimes I come up with interesting things out of it.
I know a guy that makes beer money selling stuff he finds in the trash on university campuses. In the UK, the law states that organisations have to throw out electronic waste in a special bin that is taken away by a special disposal company. So by each department there are these large boxes you can just rummage around in if you want. I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for it. EDIT: This law is called WEEE. Ha ha ha.
Wow, I wish that law existed here... I bet my university throws out loads of stuff I could salvage and build into robots (totally not designed for world domination). Large institutions are huge boons for finding random free things. The German ministry of Education even threw out 190,000 euros worth of computers. Could you imagine finding hundreds of computers that work perfectly and just need a new HDD and OS?
Yeah, I suppose the issue for these institutions is that the red tape and labour costs associated with fixing up these computers exceeds the cost of buying new ones. Also, computer deprecate pretty quickly. It's a shame, but sometimes the economics of these things works out so that shit ends up getting wasted. I also wonder about making robots using this stuff, me and some other people have been thinking of starting a robotics society at our university. I am nearing the end of my penultimate year so time is of the essence. It's going to be hard finding people to join us if we haven't got a clear idea of what we're going to do. Something tells me some serious planning's going to happen this summer...
It's incredibly frightening when you factor in that most/some of these disposed electronics end up in developing countries where they get melted down for metals. Melting plastic and heavy metals without any protection is pretty horrific. I try to hang onto technology as best I can, reselling and reusing whenever possible. I think at this point every TV at my parent's house has an old computer hooked up as a media server. I wish you luck in starting the society! There are a lot of different options there from competitive groups that built autonomous subs/planes/cars/etc to people you just like to tinker with arduinos and such. At my university we have a society dedicated to building things, whatever the students want, so we've built a wind turbine (30 feet tall) and are starting on a hovercraft. If you're at any sort of technical institution I can't imagine it will be hard to find loads of interested people.
It's not only electronics. In many parts of the world burning trash is just what people do. One time I was at a little beer garden in Vietnam and my eyes started burning and watering and it was getting hard to breathe and there was this weird smell. I walked around the corner and this old man had a huge pile of styrofoam (polystyrene) and was in the process of throwing more gasoline on it to get it to burn faster. Didn't even finish my beer.
Yeah, my parents' house has loads of computers in various states of disassembly. I remember people used to be surprised when I'd say that we had about five computers. They're cheap as shit now, though. Oh well. I feel sort of inclined to keep them running, but the energy usage... I wonder if one could plot a graph showing negative environmental impact of disposing of old computers and getting a raspberry pi to replace them (more energy efficient) and keeping the old things running. It would be interesting to see where those two lines intersect. One other idea is to scrap the society idea (I will have a dissertation to write, I suspect it might be too high-maintenance) and join the local hackerspace. Especially because they'll have CNC machines and 3D printers... rubs hands together gleefully So many ideas, so little time.
This seems like a badass idea for a blog. I bet you'd have a cult following just blogging about and listing the interesting things you find.If we have a box at some random or weird location, instead of dumping it at a landfill (or wherever it is meant to go), we will sift through it for some cool shit.
Yeah it could be a great blog - I'd definitely follow it. Unfortunately I'm at school and don't go to work with my dad too much. And sorry for the late reply. I have been pretty busy with this last essay of the semester.
When I left for college, my grandpa said to me, "I don't care what you do in life, you can be a garbage man, a doctor or a lawyer, it doesn't matter. Just be a professional." It's not always what you do, but how you do it. Are you a garbage man? Is this what you do? What are some of the cool things you've found? In this day and age of TV shows like Pickers, I'm surprised there's not a reality TV show about garbage men and what they find. -I bet it would be very popular.
No I'm in school, but my family owns a garbage company so I grew up around it. Instead of daycare, my parents put me in the truck with some of the drivers haha. But most of the cool things we find come from repurposed factories or office buildings. Most of the construction companies couldn't be bothered with keeping the stuff for some reason. I think my favorite pick was when we got a dumpster full of candy. A company managed do damage the boxes that they ship their gum in so by law they had to throw it away. We set the dumpster down in the parking lot and all our workers took home boxes of rand gum and candy products. For about a year we had one of those promotional stands filled with gum and other stuff. It was a great pick haha. And then another good pick was when we found boxes of old playboy magazines. I think some of them are worth quite a bit. I would love to watch a show like that, but I feel like there wouldn't be enough drama. Most of the business here is very friendly. Instead of competing like you would see elsewhere, the owners are all friends and help each other out. If one is too busy to handle a new customer, they will recommend someone who is able to help. Even when there a bad day and a truck breaks down, you can ask a friendly company to do you a favor and help out until you have that truck running again. Things could have changed since I havent been to work with my dad in a while, but I remember being amazing that he wasn't trying to destroy his competition. Sorry for the late reply.
Lattes are fine if nonfat, same with cappucinos. Flavored lattes add another 100-200 calories. The new problem is our new food. We used to have a turkey and swiss sanwich. 11g of fat, not terrible and less with no mayo. New sandwich? Turkey havarti, 15g of fat or more. Its not good man. Just another thing you can't have I guess.
When students hear about the course in communication skills that I teach, they think it means mostly writing reports and maybe some public speaking. They stumble into class thinking 1) that it will be easy; 2) that they will be bored; and 3) they should probably try and get over their fear of presentations. They don't realize that there is even a subject called "interpersonal communication," which comprises about 70% of the course, and that awareness and skill in this area will change their lives.
That deep down, everyone wants to be a nice person and there's most likely a reason a person might be acting negatively, even when they don't want to.
I would say in response to this, 'people don't actually realize that not everyone is concerned with being a nice person.' I knew an older Jewish women who walked with Dr. King. (She had an NAACP card that was older then I was) She was an awesome soul, and used to teach death row inmates collage level stuff. She thought the same as you at first. That deep down everyone truly thinks they are a good nice person, that murderers and rapists all had something happen to them that 'turned' them bad. (Like a bad childhood etc.) I'll tell you the same she told me. "I used to think down deep in each person was a kernel of some thing good, that it was just buried for some people. I no longer believe that. Some people are just evil, and are proud of their evil, and have nothing 'nice' or 'good' about them." Some people act negatively not because there's some situational reason that turns them from being a nice person. Some people are sadistic, hate-filled evil and have no qualms about being a 'nice person'. Not because of some abusive drunk step-father, but just because they enjoy luring shy girls into their apartment to rape them. I think this line of thought is more an expression of naiveté then anything else. Making statements this broad about all of humanity is usually a bad direction, even if it seems intuitive.
I work as a programmer. To other programmers that means i know some technologies and languages. To non-programmers (muggles as i call them) it means that I know all electronic devices and how they work. Software and Hardware. Let me just compare what I get asked on a regular bases with my uncle who is a plumber. We both have a specialized set of skills but the main difference is that his is understood by people in general while mine is not. They know that if a pipe is leaking in their attic and they call my uncle to fix it then he will perform some work and will get paid for it. If the roof was falling in then they wouldn't call him as they know a plumber doesn't fix roofs. In contrast when someones computer starts "acting strange" then they assume I know exactly what is wrong and can fix it immediately for free. I was once asked to fix a computer by a friend of a friend which had stopped working abruptly when a cloud of white smoke came out of it.... I regularly get asked to fix computers that have become slow, are throwing blue screens etc. I'm expected to spend hours looking at a broken laptop that no longer opens Word or Excel. Rather than try to charge people I instead tell them I don't know how to fix their problem (which is a lie and also bruising to my inflated sense of intellect). I do this to avoid spending hours removing adware from dells. Plus if you help one, more will come. I instead direct them to a professional PC repair shop which will charge them. "Oh" they say, "will it be expensive?". "About the same price as fixing a leaky pipe" i think to myself.
Ha, you did but I'm really sort of ashamed to have had that effect on your posting habits. Though on the other hand, one of your posts did have a vaguely NSFW image embedded (and by vaguely I do mean vaguely - I work at the corp. hq of a major insurance provider, browser discretion very much required). Segue of the century, there. What people don't realize about insurance is that in many cases, if you didn't buy it, you're not covered for it. Insurance is criminally misunderstood and there's no one like an agent to actually sit down and take the time to explain it to you. I'm proud of the work I do on behalf of agents (providing them with an attractive and efficient web presence so they don't have to spend hundreds-thousands of dollars each month on a scammy SEO vendor) and of the many agents I've met, the vast majority are educated, kind people who give a shit about the health and well-being of their customers and their community.
Slightly on topic; That the different phases of the moon are NOT caused by the shadow of the Earth. I'm surprised how many people don't realize this. Going back to my always present Space-Passion-Rants on Hubski, it's the closest body to us, and every knows it's there, everyone sees it, but they don't know even the most basic shit about.
thenewgreen I'm really surprised that this song was nowhere to be found in your submission. People don't realize that Engineering and Science is not as glorious as it's made out to be in popular culture and through history courses. It's a lot of work, and a lot of failure.
Thank you! You can bet that if this becomes a podcast that will be a song that is prominently featured. It might just be a perfect song.
A lot of people don't understand that learning, like any other skill takes some time to master and in fact, a good teacher will teach their students how to learn and will work with students to get them to take the initiative until they can carry the brunt of the "work" of learning.
One of my instructors told me yesterday over a beer that mastery is the realization that one can never become a master.
I've heard that too. I'm no master, but I'm pretty good at a few things and at the very least I can tell when I'm further along than some of the others I meet who are also involved. For me this really means that there is no ultimate level of mastery, though there may be a range that an observer might consider to be mastery.
Exactly. And to have a the mentality of a master is to realize that you'll never be a master since there are an infinite number of things to master.
Another thing this just made me think of -- just dropping links left and right this evening; work is slow and shitty as usual -- How Van Halen Explains the U.S. Government, by the ever-interesting Ezra Klein.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IxqdAgNJck this is david lee roth explaining the brown m&ms
Thanks, that was great. If you are at all a fan of David Lee Roth, I posted David Lee Roth Will Not Go Quitely a couple of weeks ago as well as this video of him training herding dogs, both of which I thought were pretty interesting. Dave's a smart fella and he was one hell of a frontman back in the day.
the multitude of republicans commenting ruin it for me
The article that flagamuffin links to is a great example of "You can't judge a book by its cover". It is a thoughtful article that reminds us all to pay close attention, conduct sound research, and only then move forward in informed protest. Your comment is antithetical to the point of the article. Mr Klein is telling us to carefully consider viewpoints and reasoning of others. That includes Republicans. I believe your complaint with the commenters is more about their attack of the writer without participating in intellectual discourse, not about their political position.
This twitter account sums up my feeling on the matter :P
You wouldn't listen to someone named Bonerman26 in real life. Don't read the comments -awesome.
When I read your comment I did go back and read some of them... :/ There's just something about news comment threads that attract very special kinds of nutters. I like the Guardian-style comment generator. The Guardian is a centre-left-wing newspaper, typically aimed at middle class British people (private piano lessons, houmous, etc).
Good read thanks. I was familiar with the Van Halen story and the rationale behind the M&M's, but wouldn't have considered it for this topic. It's perfect, thanks.
I was going to go off on a more abstract line about how the biggest thing people don't realise is that they don't realise, but then I saw the bit about career or hobby or other aspect of life. People don't realise that feet are not inherently unhygienic. In fact, feet are only smelly and unhygienic because people insist on wearing shoes - warm, moist, sweat foot-dungeons, that cause unshod feet to smell awful and that nurture bacteria and fungi.
Hey TNG, it looks like you have lots of submissions on this possible future podcast. Here's another thought: People don't seem to realize that so many things we take for granted in Canada/USA were fought for: the five-day work week, workplace safety, not putting five-year-olds to work in mines, freedom to join one religion or another, freedom to buy birth control, freedom for women to have a job other than teacher/nurse.... and on and on...