No more delays, everybody speaks for himself

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This part of a the thread started somewhere else (http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=72279#post72279), but since it has nothing to do with the original subject i decided to move it here. It is my first major decision as a fresh moderator and time will only tell if it was right. But I sensed some deeper thoughts here and the need for expression by some well known members of this forum and I think it is worth reading. Fell free to present an alternative POV.

Peter Daniel.
Moderator :cop:

Now I give it back to Grey:


.......Sounds like the kind of thing that should be brought to the attention of the regulatory agencies. There's no need for you to have to build a piece of equipment just because some <i>non compos mentis</i> can't be bothered to get the signal right.
I've been dealing with morons here for the last twenty years. Take any five average South Carolinians and add their IQs and you'll be lucky if it equals the wattage of the lightbulb in the ceiling (it's no wonder that SC is at or near the bottom of the list every time they publish SAT scores, etc.). Rattle some cages. Make them miserable until they get off their rumps and fix the problem.
If you're a paying customer, then you should expect a certain minimum amount of service.

Grey
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2002
average South Carolinian

If any other "moron South Carolinian" member reading this modus tollens is half as P.O.ed as I am at your condesending and insulting post, I hope he will speak up too. My IQ is 110, what's yours? I don't think it would take too much smarts to move from a state that I hated long before for twenty years of de profundis. Perhaps the moderators would be interested in your ipse dixit.


Stultus est sicut stultus facit,

Bobby
 
Bobby,
Good, glad to hear that you're not contributing to the problem.
The trick, of course, is not to be an <i>average</i> South Carolinian.
Many citizens here lack the perspective to grasp that there is...or even can be...anthing better. I used to work with a woman who bragged that she'd never been out of the state. Ever. She'd react poorly when anyone pointed out that things were so bad here, but lacked any referent for comparison.
People shouldn't tolerate mediocrity, else how will things ever get any better. Complacency is the rule. Couple that with knee-jerk reactions (the stories I could tell about the school systems...) to real world problems and you've got a recipe for ongoing, generation-to-generation ignorance and stupidity.
I understand your reaction, but look at the facts before you start castigating me. In general, SC is among the lowest three (West Virginia and Mississippi being the other two the last time I looked) in SAT scores. Economics, of course, follow, so we're also a poor state. How's a kid with no thoughts in his/her head going to get a decent paying job? The economics then tend to perpetuate the cycle. People blame all sorts of factors (it's always the <i>other</i> guy's fault, natch), but the fact remains that until people deal with the problem--and denying that there is a problem won't make it go away--it will continue.
Case in point: myself. Educated in Spartanburg (which at that time supposedly had some of the best schools in the state). Went through a succession of moves that ended up with me landing in the high school in Chapel Hill, NC. I was <i>three years</i> behind. Three years! And NC was <i>not</i> the top of the heap in the education field (how far SC is/was behind the front-runners doesn't even bear contemplating); in those days, they were about 27th or 28th as I recall. I dug in my heels and caught up. Finished near the top of my class, in fact, then went on to UNC and did the college thing. Then found myself back down here. Hmmm. Nothing like a bucket of cold water in the face.
You're insulted?
<i>GOOD!</i>
Now, do something with that energy.
Educate someone. Still got energy? Educate someone else. Break the cycle!
Our eldest was the first kid to ever get a 4.0 at the Govenor's School (the science and math one in Hartsville, not the arts one) in their junior year.
Don't shoot the messenger...realize that there's a problem and do something about it. While you're at it, slap someone else around and get them moving, too. It ain't going to change until people change it themselves. It's for sure the government isn't going to do anything but spew platitudes and cliches. After all, they're...<i>South Carolinians!</i>

Grey

P.S.: My IQ is about 130.
 
do anything but spew platitudes and cliches

"You're insulted?
GOOD!
Now, do something with that energy."


Boy........ I feel really stupid now. I thought the pretencious latin thrown carlessly about in by post and the follow up post were a dead give away about my motives and intentions. I taught my self enough latin to sound impressive in ten minutes at:
http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~melmoth/latfrms.html
Highly recommended for my fellow would be psuedo intellectuals.

SYLLABICATION: sat·ire
PRONUNCIATION: str
NOUN: 1a. A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit. b. The branch of literature constituting such works. See synonyms at caricature. 2. Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin satira, probably alteration (influenced by Greek satur, satyr, and saturos, burlesque of a mythical episode), of (lanx) satura, fruit (plate) mixture, from feminine of satur, sated, well-fitted. See s- in Appendix I.

I actually am not in or from South Carolina. I was born in NYC and dragged around Europe and the US as the son of an Air Force pilot. If our German house keeper, who loved me as if I were her own, had only kidnapped me I might have had the chance to be raised as a German. My first friends as a very small child were French wino's (a married couple) who came by to collect wine bottles from our trash. This was followed by a spotty education at remote Air Force bases all over the USA. And then my parents moved us to AKANSAS, the hilbillly heaven of the entire USA! And yet, some how I managed to be exposed to the music of Mozart, the literatue of Herman Hesse (a clue....) and the films of Satyajit Ray. Then it was off to Razorback U. in Fayetteville, Ark for more Hesse, the films of Fellini and Bergman and my first speaker construction project, a transmissio line with KEF drivers teaching me the difference between high pass and low pass filters. After flunking out of engineering I went to Texas to go to Devo Institute of Technology and worked up nerve to finish my EE degree at the University of Texas at Arlington. And here I am in one of the technology centers of the US, unemployed as hell after fixing a potential 50 million dollar product recall ( a million boards a year by the way) for a French based intenational Telecommunications company. The gratitude I got from the designer who's monster I fixed? He told people how difficult I was to work with behind my back and probably cost me another three
months of employment before being laid off.

SO MUCH FOR EDUCATION, LOCATION, AND STICKING MY NECK OUT TO DO SOMETHING RIGHT AT THE RISK ******* SOMEONE OFF!

"While you're at it, slap someone else around"

Well when I fight mediocrity, pretense, laziness, and the lack of a sense of humor here I am banned, sort of like my last job come to think of it. Maybe not such a good policy after all but not an excuse for being a bastard to people I will be the first to admit. I sometimes think of this forum as group therapy session and I think I might not be the only one here who feels that way. Lets face it folks, High End is not a hobby. It is an obsession, a fetish, and addiction that has unhinged plenty of people. As my hero Hermmann Hesse said in Steppenwolf about the magic theater, For Madmen Only! Sorry for the length and ranting but Damn that was cathartic and I sould have done it a long time ago....

The name of Bobby Roberts is a composite of the names of two Arkansas doctors (surgen and internal medicine guy) I know and admire. It sounded like a good ol boy is why I picked it. They are smarter and better read than I will be if I lived another 200 hundred years. Another couple of docters in Arkansas saved my mothers life last year with two difficult heart sugeries. One is an Oriental gentleman named Tyrone and has a delta accent that would make you would laugh out loud at if you heard it. He had offers to practice just about anywhere he wanted to. he is biliant and saved my mothers life by the way. There they are in Arkansas. I would let these guys cut me before anyone in Dallas. Location indeed....... right there in Arkansas.

Done ranting for now,

Harry-Ren-Art-Guy-Virgil-Theodore-Alice-Joe-Bobby-Elwood

I hope I have left any body out....
 
Once upon a time, my ex-wife came to me and said that her friends 'felt bad' because I used words they didn't understand. She asked me not to use big words. I said no. I will not dumb down the way I speak (I write the same way I speak). I would not do it for her, nor will I do it for Fred (yet another name that Harry/Ren/et. al. travel under...perhaps even his 'real' one, who knows?).
'Pretencious,' by the way, is spelled pretentious.
Sesquipedalian: given to or characterized by the use of long words.
I love that word; the fact that it is itself a long word tickles me. I am a sesquipedalian...and proud of it. I read a lot. As I read, I pick up words. Some of them turn out to be useful later on.
I used to volunteer to go teach classes in schools around here when the kids were smaller. Why kites fly, astronomy, writing, what-have-you. I still try to teach people things when the opportunity arises. Fred is different from me. He belittles people who ask questions, cuts them down, criticizes them, then calls it humor. Maybe it's funny to him--it's a lot easier when you're dishing it out than when you're taking it. But what does that say about him as a person? Nothing good. I grew up with someone like that and learned to roundly despise them. Somewhere down inside they know they aren't much, so they try to make themselves comparatively bigger by trampling others down. The weaker their victims are, the easier they are to crush.
I stand by the things I write. Fred doesn't. He says,"It was a joke...can't you take a joke?" He runs from taking responsibility for his words and actions. He hides behind a succession of names that are not his own.
Fred lies. He has told the moderators time and time again that he would leave the site. That he understood that he had caused trouble. Then, within hours, he comes back under yet another assumed name, peddling the same attitude (which sadly, a handful of others find amusing...because they're not the butt of his <i>soi disant</i> ['so-called' in French] 'humor'...note that this doesn't reflect well on them, either).
I stand by what I wrote above. It is not a 'joke,' it is not 'satire,' and I'm not whining "you didn't get it." People here in SC are poor and poorly educated. There are numerous reasons, but given the availability of free public libraries, I feel that it is each person's responsibility to educate themselves if their parents or school system did not do so.
Note that I did not criticize Zoom. I took his cable company to task. I stand by that, too. If you're paying for a product, you should expect that it be delivered intact. Given the general level of competence in these parts, it may take more than a gentle nudge to get the job done.
Peter,
Can't say that I've met many people from West Virginia, but I enjoyed touring the Greenbank radio telescope facility (the idea of that big telescope coming down in pieces is mind-boggling), and can attest that they have some seriously beautiful territory in one of their parks that I drove through.

Grey

P.S.: Fred--fired because you were difficult to work with? Really? Gee, can't imagine why...
 
You two take the cake!

To Grey - I'm surprised and disappointed that you would make such statements - "I've been dealing with morons here for the last twenty years. Take any five average South Carolinians and add their IQs and you'll be lucky if it equals the wattage of the lightbulb in the ceiling "


I take offence at that statement for myself and on behalf of my fellow SCarolinians - We are not perfect but we are not deserving of your comments.

If they included social graces and tact in the IQ test I suspect you would be much lower on the scale.

Maybe your IQ of 130 isn't worth as much as you might think or you would have realized the obvious, that you were responding to a troll and been trolled twice under different nyms in this very short thread and apparantly only realized you were being trolled after the troll went public.


To HH - you did leave several nyms off your list - Chance Gardener and Frank Morris. That now gives you 12 nyms that you have posted under - 14 if you count the different spellings of two of them.

Where does it end? You made what I can only call an elegant and informative post "putting up resistance". I saw that and thought maybe there is hope. Then I see you trolling in this thread.

Trolling is not funny. Cannot be so in the end. You want to bring some humour to this site? Then do so at your own expense not the expense of others. The problem with humour is that we do not all share the same sense of humour, so sometimes it has the effect of being mean and vicous even if that is not your intent.

While you're at it, why don't you take the same advice you offered to Grey
--'"In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. "---

Besides, your mother said it so you should do it anyhow.

You must want to be a part of this site, you continue to return.

Then I challange you - Join this site under your own name, take responsibilty for your posts, your words and your actions and live with what the site owner and moderators ask of you - just like the rest of us do - they're not perfect, nor is the world - but they're not that bad - nor is the world, nor is SC regardless of what Grollins says.


Think about it - Both of you

Ken L

No smilies here - serious post
 
Ken,
Agreed on most counts.
Yes, I realize that both Elwood and Bobby are Fred/Harry/pick-a-name. That's why I said what I said in the manner I said it.
I offered my IQ because he asked. Actually, it's more like 136 or 138, but I rounded down because I can't recall for sure. It's just not that important to me. My ego lies elsewhere.
I <i>still</i> stand by what I wrote above. Education in this state won't get better until we make it better. It begins with acknowledging that there's a problem. Don't argue with me, look up the facts. This isn't tubes vs. transistors, or MOSFETs vs. bipolars. These are cold, hard facts. They're also sad ones. But we've got a problem here and we should do something about it. I work at the University of South Carolina, in the Computer Services Division. It's absolutely pathetic to see people in there who don't know how a computer works. Ugh.
If I phrase it gently, people respond in predictable ways:
--Denial. "Oh, it's not that bad. Why, my child just got an A in math." Oh, yeah? And how does that math course compare with what others are learning elsewhere?
--Sour grapes. "SATs are just a test. Everybody knows they don't measure anything." There's a grain of truth to this one, in that tests often have trouble measuring what they try to measure, but it's still the closest thing we've got to a national standard.
--Sugar coat it. "Oh, but test scores in our school went up an average of thirty points this year. It's getting better." Sure they did. But so did everybody else's in the nation and we're still seriously behind.
Etc.
If I can rouse five people, then perhaps three out of the five will take the trouble to go look up the numbers and see that I'm right. Perhaps one of those three will get involved.
Come on, Ken, pitch in...

Grey
 
Everybody?

The computer ate my rather lengthy reply... I hate it when that happens. I was laid off by the way with thousands of others in the local telecom industry. It is a realy grim scene and I am damn lucky my wife has a decent job. Some of my friends were not so lucky.

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
- The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

I am rather suprised by the discourse with the sinner that dare not speak his names. Be careful who you talk to lest you suffer the consequences......

Later, maybe...

Frank
 
Here is my two cents worth

Grey,

I believe that this forum is not the proper place to express your feelings about the persons in the state of South Carolina. Lets stick to the subject of audio and the pleasures that building equipment can bring. I hate reading this kind of derogatory stuff. Keep these kinds of feelings to yourself, and if you feel strongly enough about your perception of such a problem, then become active in solving the problem you mention in your community. Become a problem solver not a problem maker.

John Fassotte
Alaskan Audio
 
Hmmm. The original thread trifurcated. Originally a cable problem. Then I commented that, given the poor education here in SC (it happens that the person seeking a solution was from here in SC) it might be difficult getting it resolved. Then Fred (aka HH) showed up under not one, but two different monikers. Some confusion resulted because I replied to Fred under whichever name he was using at the time. I will henceforth call him Fred, which is as far as I know, his real name. Perhaps this will create more confusion. Perhaps less. We shall see. The original problem with a delay between the A and the V parts of an AV signal from the cable company remains where it was--which is as it should be. To the extent that it was I who took the thread "off topic" I plead guilty. To me, the problems (poor education and cable signal quality) seem linked, but it ballooned out of proportion to the original question and threatened to take over the thread. Now, Peter has done surgery and created a new thread. That's cool by me. I will now try to explain how I see this as being linked to DIY electronics so that it's not such a <i>non sequitur</i>.
John,
Reread the above. I <i>am</i> involved and will continue to be involved. (When the kids were small, I pointed out to them the idea that the area under a curve has its uses. They were pre-loaded with the concept when calculus came up later and no problem grasping the intent. What I had not forseen was that algebra could be a conceptual leap, too. Oh, well.) I had, in fact, considered going into politics to try to fix some of the problems on that end, but realized that there would have to be deals made, compromises made, backs scratched, etc. Things would probably end up about where they are now and I would have wasted my time. Besides, I view politicians (regardless of party affiliation) as scum and am not anxious to become one, myself.
The topic has more than a glancing application to DIY audio in that we are trying to teach people. This is good. The scary part, and something that gets talked about 'backstage' by the moderators is the very real potential for a lawsuit if someone gets hurt doing this stuff. Part of it boils down to a question of common sense and personal responsibility. Okay. But...what about people who are incompetent? They exist, you know. Trying to pretend that someone who hasn't got the wit to wield a soldering iron isn't a potential danger to him/herself, to others, and by extension to this site, is foolhardy.
If you've never lived in South Carolina, you do not know whereof you speak. The contrast between this state and others is painful. Part of the unspoken pact is that you turn a blind eye to the problem--deny, deny, deny...but it effects us all, not least in ways such as Zoom was reporting in the thread from whence this one sprang.
Note that the US as a nation is in danger of falling behind in comparison to the rest of the world, so my comments can also be seen as a plea to those in other states to get involved on their end. It's something we all need to work on, just some more desperately than others. SC is one such place. Don't pretend it isn't so...look at the facts. I repeat...look at the facts!
Oh, forgot one of the most common responses to gentle prods about education-related problems in this state:
--Misdirection. "He didn't do very well on his test? Oh, but he's so <i>nice!</i>" Note that this point has already been raised--albeit from the other side of the coin--in this very thread. But wouldn't it be better to be nice <i>and</i> mentally alert? I don't see that it has to be an either/or proposition.
I am not suggesting that we administer a test to people coming in the door--this hopefully to forestall those who would begin screaming "elitist" at the general tone of what I'm saying. The objective is not to keep out those who would learn. The objective is to teach. I once outlined a University of Audio metaphor. I view this site as being a valuable--perhaps crucial place where people can come to learn electronics. But we must not forget that some will come in needing 'remedial courses' to bring them up to speed. The answer is not--as some have done--to scream at them and send them running. The answer is to teach them Ohm's law and not to play games with AC line voltages. There's a knife's edge to be tread here between teaching people and trying to get them to be creative, while at the same time restraining them from doing something unwise. My hat's off to real teachers who do this sort of thing every day for a living. It's harder than it looks.
Again...don't deny that there's a problem. Try to help fix it. With luck, we can help educate people here. We're not just talking about fly fishing, we're talking about something that can actually utilize a non-trivial part of the brain. Math lurks behind many of the things that we do here. It's pretty good way to sharpen minds. Then there's the physics, and if you delve deeply enough, chemistry, metallurgy...
Trying to destroy newbies is a bad thing from several angles. One of them being that if they don't learn, they could get hurt or killed. Then their family could quite easily decide to come after Jason and this site with pitch forks. Just something to think about.
Ignorance doesn't <i>have</i> to be forever. Let's fix it.
Step one--admit that it exists. From where I sit, it doesn't look as though we've gotten past this step.
Step two--teach clearly (and without yelling and other such abusive nonsense).
Step three--have fun along the way so that they come back for more. (They won't come back for more abuse. Believe it.)

Grey

P.S.: So now Fred's reduced to issuing veiled threats? Predictable. It's what I've learned to expect from bullies.
 
Hi Grey. It's been a while. I don't post often these days because of pre-occupation. Admittedly, as I age, I find it difficult to maintain my skill level with the English language. Please pardon this shortcoming.

So you noticed that the US is slipping into Third World status also. We lost our sense of direction years ago and are now beginning to suffer the consequences. It took the bursting of the stock market bubble to make the situation obvious. I noticed it several years ago though.

I also believe that the mind is man's advantage in this world of living things and change, two complicating variables. Education is the way we can pool our individual intellegences in cooperation to make the best of circumstances. If we are content with degression to a population of "feral children", no one will know how to maintain, much less advance, present society. Man's intellengience is based on past learning and culture. It would be a waste to enter an unprecedented age of darkness, perhaps after the delicate social structure collapses rather like a house of cards.

Not being exceptionally smart myself, I rely on people like you to have the moral insight to keep society going, while I just try to do what I know how. The whole thing is very complicated; I see my neighbor with a toddler whose IQ I estimate as 160, and wonder why the parents can't seem to nurture this great gift. The dad sees the child as recalcitrant, but what I see is a mind longing for direction and purpose. The mother is so adverse to outside advice that I decided I could no longer risk to offer any. She sees it as a threat and a personal attack. I guess I may have been the same way at that age. The main thing for the kid anyway, is to have a healthy social conscience, so he will not use his intellience to harm society.

Keep being that voice crying out in the wilderness. We need it sorely.
 
Variac said:
One of the amusing things about this world and life is that smart people don't necessarily set good examples of moral behavior. Even considering that the definition of moral behavior can be argued.

Maybe, because sooner or later they realise that so called moral behaviour is defined by set of rules created by "not so smart" people. And the rules, being rules, are always asking to be broken.;)
 
subwo1,
You have caught the gist of what I was saying quite precisely. Indeed, you have phrased it better than I did. Don't belittle yourself.
bob4,
Zoom's original thread still stands (I think). By all means, if you've got an idea toss it in the pot.

Okay, morals...now there's a tough one.
Are morals absolutes handed down from the deity of your choice, or are they rules of thumb adopted by mankind for getting along with one another?
If they are from the gods, then yea verily I am a sinner. But at least I'll have plenty of company in hell.
If they are arbitrary contrivances created to grease the social wheels, then we have an entirely different set of cirumstances.
As told to me years ago: A man is driving down the road in his new Cadillac. He's on top of the world. A kid appears at the side of the road and throws a rock. The rock strikes the car--scratches the paint, in fact. The man stomps on the brakes, screeches to a halt. Jumps out and runs at the kid with murder in his heart.
The kid says,"Gee, I'm sorry I scratched your car, mister, but my brother's in the ditch over here and he's hurt bad and it was the only way I could think of to get you to stop."
As with so many other stories you've heard, this one brings you to a full stop. Who's right? And from what point of view?
Some people (and with a certain amount of justification) view 'situational ethics' with the gravest suspicion. Does right and wrong really change with the circumstances? Can things be justified in one instance that should not be allowed in another?
A thorny issue.
My view--and this is just me talking--is that the kid who threw the rock has a point. Adults tend to ignore kids waving from the side of the road. Might just be admiring the man's new car, you know? I'd give the kid full marks for getting the job done. Others might, justifiably, see things differently.
But the honorable thing to do is for the kid, or perhaps better still his parents to offer to pay to get the scratch fixed. Call it part of the price of an emergency ride to the hospital.
Now, clearly, I've upset some people. In one sense, I didn't mean to cause such upset. I'm not here to upset people. In that sense, I apologize.
But in another sense--and subwo1 correctly understood my point--I'm throwing a rock against someone's complacency; metaphorically speaking, their car. It's the only way I've discovered to draw peoples' attention to a very serious problem. Elseways they just 'drive on by.'
Situational ethics. Am I justified in doing so?
Opinions among the moderators seem to be split. Some are upset. Others seem to understand where I'm trying to take this. Some folks feel that perhaps I should be SinBinned. Others feel that I'm saying something that needs to be said, even if it isn't politically correct or comfortable to hear.
I stand by the things I write.
You folks talk about it a bit. I'll abide by your decision. If I am to be SinBinned, I'll just chalk it up to the price of fixing the scratch in the paint. That's cool by me.
But my brother's still over here in the ditch, and he's still hurt. Would you mind too badly if we talked about this on the way to the hospital?

Grey

P.S.: I suggested backstage to Bernhard that we consider adding some links to sites for mathematics and other sundry topics that, while peripheral to DIY electronics from one point of view, are crucial from another. Anyone got any ideas along those lines? Let's get some education going, here.
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2001
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Peter Daniel
And the rules, being rules, are always asking to be broken.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think we already know that problem very well .......(by bob4)



Yesterday 20th October I posted a message that Grey should get a sin bin for making derogatory comments about South Carolina people.

******************

remp
diyAudio Elder
Registered: Nov 2001
Location: New Zealand 10-20-2002 11:51 AM

Two weeks sin bin for Grey.
He has to live by the same forum rules as the rest of us.

******************

Today I find that my post has been removed by person or persons unknown.

I have no quarrel with Grey. I have observed for a long time his insight and word skills are very good and informative.
I fully support his call for more education and safety. Paramount issues of course and if Grey looks into the matter futher he will see I pressed the safety issue really hard with Jason the owner resulting in an inclusion of a safety paragraph in the forum guidelines.

My point was that Grey should fall in line with the forum rules same as the rest of us have to.

What I find very disturbing is that my post on the matter was removed. No notification. No explaination. Nothing. The only persons with ability to remove posts as far as I know are the moderators.

Is that the way that moderating is done here. Just remove a post if it happens not to fit the moderators line of thinking.

Perhaps it was a computer malfunction.
Perhaps someone thought they were protecting Greys good name.
I think this is a very dangerous situation.
An explanation should be made.
 
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