Educating Annoying Ignorances

[Hipsy_Gypsy]

Snip

Oh, wow; what age is your auntie? I was always under the impression that Finland was always generally very accepting towards the fairer sex from what I've read. Would love to visit some day.

She is 52... You can't use her to make general assumptions about our population since in my opinion she is a narcisissistic, ignorant idiot.

Oh, my word; really? This woman here is sixty!:


And don't worry; I know better than to do that, haha.

Finland, overall, has been and still is very accepting towards women. Equality is somewhat omnipresent in our society, although during the recent years some ugly xenophobia has lifted its head. However, even if we have been very accepting towards women during the last century when equality did not have as strong of a footing as nowadays, we still had our share of problems which includes a very high rate of domestic violence.

Awk, that sounds like a real pity. Mind you, there's some of that no matter where you go, huh? Generally, I've heard pretty good things about Finland, although I've heard about this stereotype of how many Finns carry around knives and/or are complete mutes. I've heard that they're generally quite quiet but that doesn't bother me at all! I just get the impression they enjoy their peace and quiet!

In Finland you will not find sunny beaches or massive tourist locations, but we do have our own attractions. If you can appreciate silly, small things like the beauty of nature, you may find the experience to be rewarding.
And for lolz:

Spoiler

Oh, I know but there's always the Northern Lights and, from what I've heard, the fresh air and lovely wildlife. I'm always up for a wee dander across the greenery, haha. It sounds like just my thing. I've heard about the 24 hour sunlight from... May was it? until about early/mid-July. I'm sure that would be strange, if not, at first.
A couple of friends and I are hopinh to visit Finland in August (hopefully being the key word, mind you!), and the plan was originally to Helsinki because it's the capital and all that jazz, but Jack knows somebody from Oulu I think, so perhaps in the middle instead of the south. I wouldn't mind going to Lapland at some point either. I've began contemplating on trying my hand (or feet, rather) at snowboarding for some reason. Knowing me, I'll probably end up breaking my legs trying to attach myself, haha.

I don't know exactly how common either of these are anymore, but just a few years ago I couldn't seem to escape them.
*A-chem*
British is NOT shorthand for English, there are three whole other countries in there.

On a similar note, for the love of God DO NOT make the mistake of thinking the WHOLE of Ireland is part of Britain, ESPESSIALLY if you are talking to someone actually from Ireland.

Ohh, it bugs me when people say "North of Ireland" as opposed to "Northern Ireland" because the north of Ireland consists of counties Donegal and Monaghan, haha. Mind you, I'm a wee bit tolerant of people saying I'm Irish, but usually only whenever they're referring to the whole island. I'd prefer to live down south anyway! That reminds me; I'm suppose[d] to be heading to Kent in the summer months as part of a film crew but I've been hearing things about how the mainlands won't accept Northern Irish money. It's absurd though, because it's the same currency. Apparently Scottish folk have the same problem. I hope that doesn't happen but it'll be their own fault if I hand them all my change! Where are you from, out of curiosity?

 

[New Troll]

Everyone is ignorant when it comes to certain things. Take for example me when it comes to vehicles. I have little idea what car is what when it drives by me on the street. And even less of a clue what I'm looking at once a hood has been popped. So a lot of people's ignorance can be taken lightly. But then there's the stuff that's just extremely annoying...

Like the misconception of the term "iPod." I work retail and I swear every single customer either believes iPods are different then MP3 players, or don't even know there's an electronic device called an MP3 player. And even MP3 player is slang! Or really just an obsolete description. Now it's Digital Media Player. An iPod is a brand of MP3 player, just like how Kleenex is a brand of facial tissue and Q-Tip is a brand cotton swab and Coke is a brand of soda. But every day I will get customers asking for "Sony iPods" or "generic iPods." Every single time.

My bold.

Are you implying that your ignorance of cars should be taken lightly but that others ignorance of the nature of digital media players should not?

Because speaking as someone who knows about cars AND digital media players, I'd say either relax about both (as I do), or take both seriously (if you are so inclined). Either way stop being a fucking hypocrite.


If this was not your intent, and I have infered the wrong thing, then I apologise.

What I will say, however, is that people, all people, no matter how smart, are ignorant. Nobody knows everything about everything, and this means they're going to have glaring levels of ignorance when around those who know about subjects they don't. So we should all just chill out about it until it becomes a direct and tangible influence on our lives... For example - Michael Gove (current Education Minister in the UK) does not know a damned thing about Education. This bothers me because I'm about to go to Uni to study teaching, after which I intend to become a history teacher.

His ignorance affects not just me and my future career, but every single teacher, and child in education, in Britain. This is the kind of ignorance to get pissed off about... Whether or not he can tell the difference between a Zune and an Ipod is irrelevant.

Heh, you basically asked me a question and then answered it for me. I'm saying everyone has ignorance and it can be annoying to others, so I was just asking what ignorances annoy you personally.

And yes, I know for a fact my ignorance when it comes to vehicles annoys my step-dad and step-brother to no end since they're both car enthusiests. But then I have to go set up their DVD players for them so we're even.

 

[Loki J]

Another thing that always frustrates me to no end... Full Frame vs. Widescreen! Even now when all TVs are made widescreen and 99% of DVDs are made widescreen, I still get customers who demand Full Frame because they claim widescreen chops the tops and bottoms of movies off. Full frame was the worst term ever thought up, for ignorant people see the word 'full' and jump to the conclusion that means 'complete.' I even get a lot of customers who believe Full Frame and Widescreen are the exact same picture, just widescreen has been stretched to fit misshapen TV sets. And I hate getting the deer in headlights look from them when I try to explain how movies (and now most TV shows) are made wide, just as how a movie screen is wide in the theater. Goes right over their heads.

100% agreed. I work in the cinema & A/V industry and have had to explain this same thing dozens of times to my friends and family and they still ***** about 'black bars' when they see a movie filmed in Scope (ultra-widescreen) on their HD TV.

They're beginning to make 21:9 ultra-wide TVs now, but you'll still get the 'black bars' on the sides when you watch a movie that's filmed in Flat (~17:9, usually chopped slightly to hit 16:9).

I think the worst part is that my family is buying HD TVs (finally), but don't have HD cable, so they use the Stretch option to get rid of the 'black bars' so 'it looks right'. *facepalm*

...I'm beginning to think some of them do it just to troll me...

Z

 

[Zen Toombs]

Because most of the time you hear of it, it's either creepy cultists who want several wives 'cuz all women are inferior, cuz they told me in church', or a few people who if questioned more about it have a dysfunctional relationship but won't either break it up or talk it out and then flee from that problem by wanting another partner.

Point accepted with the "creepy cultists" & "dysfunctional relationships". However, there are otherwise [sub]quote[/sub]normal[sub]quote[/sub] people who don't think that sexual exclusivity is needed for a relationship.

You might find it offense, but I don't believe polyamoury exists. Obviously people feel attracted to more than one person who fits them, but pursuing a relationship with several at the same time? No, I don't think that's healthy.

How is it not healthy? To steal from the polyamorous handbook, how is it healthy to fly into a jealous rage if your partner thinks another human being is attractive? How is it healthy to not be okay with the love of your life doing what makes them happy? Et cetera, et cetera.

[Polyamory] must be denied because otherwise in no time emancipation would be destroyed because people are allowed to have harems of several women again.

Erm, how? For one: most of the people that I know of that are Poly are women, not men who want a constant "3+some". B: a basic premise of polyamory is that everything is consensual. Three or C: so long as everything is consensual, how are women's rights involved with this? And coming in a very low four, or D, or that little (iv) in brackets they use in footnotes: Wine.

 

[Gatx]

I can relate to that. I dont like when people say that anime is only made in Japan or asian countries. Thats probably because one of my favorites is French.

I can relate to that. I don't like it when people think that manga isn't manga unless it was made in Japan. Frédéric Boilet might be French, but his comics give me more of a manga feeling than many Japanese mangaka.

And let's not forget that the only really established meaning of the word manga is "comics." Not "big-eyed comics," or "comics read right-to-left," just "comics." So when I get into an argument about that kind of thing, I tell people that. And add "So when I say that the word "manga" can be used about this comic, I've got over one hundred million Japanese people who agree with me. You think you know this stuff better than the entire population of Japan?"

Yes, but you don't live in Japan, do you? One word can mean different things across cultures. "Pants" means pants in American English but means "underwear" in Japanese. Consider even the different meanings that words like "biscuit" and "pudding" have in British English.

So yes, while "manga" means "comic" in Japanese, as a loanword it means "Japanese comic."

Separate issue: Midi-chlorians does not equal "The Force," they are just the middle-man between living things and said "Force." George Lucas, no matter what else he may have done to ruin the Star Wars franchise, he did not retcon a mystical energy field into microscopic bacteria.

 

[him over there]

I get really annoyed at the over reactive ignorance of people who vent about colloquial phrases that are technically incorrect as if they are totally incapable of understanding them. I can't stand anyone who doesn't understand how to record a screen and somehow thinks that their ignorance makes it okay when they record a screen with a camera and put it on the internet.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Those stupid "Top 100 unexplained or whatever" lists annoy me to no end. Containing such jaw dropping questions like "Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?" or "Why do they execute criminals with sterile needles?". Ugh. Also old wives' tales. No, mother, I'm not going to die if I go out with wet hair.

I get that kamikaze pilots need to protect their heads until it's time for impact, but I don't get the needles thing. Why do they use sterile needles?

The doctor who uses the needle could accidentally sting him self.
If the needle wasn't sterile, he could have problems.
Also, you want them to die peacefully. There is always a possibility that something can go wrong, the poison won't even come to the body and they will delay the execution. You don't want them to die slowly and painfully from some disease.

 

[Yureina]

I am pretty forgiving when it comes to "ignorances" that people have. Probably because I have quite alot of them due to my general disconnect from popular culture and society as a whole, though i've gotten much better over the past year. All that really matters is that people are at least functional enough to not let minor lacks of knowledge get in the way of their daily lives, or at least that they make a conscious effort to figure things out that they don't quite understand.

Basically... just live and let live, you know?

 

[Agayek]

I don't mind intensive purposes, in that I remember much mocking of a guy who said that while trying to impress us with his write wordy skills.

Generally, eh, I could care less.

Can't tell if serious or trolling.

 

[AndyRock]

Mine are generally tech ignorances that I get annoyed at, but thankfully I have yet to meet someone who is unwilling to learn a new thing or two about computers. It helps that the people I meet regularly think that I know alot about computers. This means that when I tell someone something about computers I need to make sure it's correct, misinformation is a sin in my eyes that does nothing but breed ignorance.

 

[New Troll]

Well my dad thinks that computers hard drive's size determines how good the computer is, its a good thing he asked me to help him buy a new laptop.

I get this a lot too! I find it amusing trying to inform a customer about what they're spending hundreds of dollars on and all they seem to care about is the least expensive piece in the whole unit! I may not know diddly squat about vehicles, but I'm not going to walk onto a dealership and ask for any vehicle as long as it has at least two cup holders. Screw those one cup holder pieces of junk!

 

[GenericAmerican]

I drives me insane when I hear someone say clip instead of magazine. Or that the tube 'magazine' on a shotgun is actually a second barrel. . .

Or that warning shots are a good idea.

Or that aiming for anything other than center mass on a hostile moving target is a viable option with a side-arm when you have just split seconds to take a shot.

Or the idea that a firearm can be reliably used for less-than-lethal applications; instead of something designed for that, say a tazer, or pepper spray.

 

[Thaliur]

I think AMV is supposed to mean "Anime Music Video," though I can't remember where I heard that.

Fair's fair, AMVs were "anime music videos" first - I'd never even heard the term with "animated" before I read your post but I'm presuming that's the current compromise.
Not that AMVs with western series weren't around beforehand, they just didn't go by that name.

Still, since "Anime" is actually just a Japanese short version of the English word "animation", the meaning remains the same, no matter how you interpret the abbreviation (Since "Anime" is itself an abbreviation of "Animation").

 

[brainslurper]

Carrying on with the iPod name theme.
A lot of computer novices call the actual computer itself the "hard drive".

Where are these people so that I can stab them and feast on their corpses?

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I don't mind intensive purposes, in that I remember much mocking of a guy who said that while trying to impress us with his write wordy skills.

Generally, eh, I could care less.

Well this leads me on to mine. It's "I couldn't care less" as in you already care the least you possibly can therefore can't care less. If you could care less you have to care at least a little.

 

[Thaliur]

As an ex-soldier who happens to be a marksman I can hit a fist sized object from 50 meters away or a torso sized object from 300 meters away easy. Or twice smaller objects if they're immobile.

I know that wasn't your point, but you just drew my attention on the phrase "twice smaller". What's that even supposed to mean? Smallness can't be measured. There just isn't a value or unit for it. You might be able to define one by saying that smallness=1/size, as we do with resistivity or conductivity depending on the situation, which would mean that "twice as small" actually means "half as big", but even that would be incorrect, because you actually said "twice smaller". So the object would be smaller than the other one by two iterations. Since I live in a metric country, the basic iteration for length would be a meter. That would result in (since you were comparing to fists) about -1.8 meters (for a large fist). That is not possible, so, as an engineer, I presume the next likely iteration: 1 millimeter. So you can shoot something a little smaller than a fist (keeping with the "large fist" I proposed, about 18mm) if it is not moving.

The same happens all the time. People even say "twice larger" or something like that if they mean "twice as large". Supposing their basic increment in this case was the size of the object, what they actually said was "three times as large".

#2. Shooting a person in the leg is just as likely to kill them as shooting them in the torso. The Femoral artery is a very large artery in your leg. So much as nicking that will cause a person to bleed out in a few minutes. If the bullet hits the bone, it could shatter and send shrapnel throughout the leg. Seriously, shooting a person in the leg is potentially just as deadly.

Now I'm no medic, but from what little I know of first aid external bleeding can usually be stopped pretty quickly and efficiently and people can survive amputated limbs, no such luck with torso injuries. While a leg injury could potentially be deadly so could the common cold, just because something is as possible doesn't mean it is as likely.

I got a pretty good education on emergency medicine, and internal bleeding, no matter in which bodypart, is almost certainly deadly unless the injured person undergoes surgery within a few minutes. It does take a while before someone goes unconscious from a leg wound, though, so even with a badly damaged leg artery, they can still be quite dangerous, despite being doomed to die. I think that's what he was referring to.

What ignorance drives me crazy? "Carbon"

Ignorant people around the world are trained to run in fear every time they hear about "carbon emissions." I'm tired of hearing, "everyone knows carbon is destroying the planet." To illustrate, I give you an actual anecdote of cringe worthy carbon ignorance.

Now I understand that people don't want to destroy the planet and I applaud them for that, but I do wish they would understand what they were talking about before getting passionate.

This also work in the other way. People keep fighting for "organic" food. I never really understand why. So far, no one I know ever proposed using anorganic materials as food. "Organic" means everything that contains carbon, and seemingly no one gets it right.

On a similar note, food producers seriously started selling "gene-free" popcorn in a store nearby. "GENE-FREE"!!! I don't think I want to know what it was made of. Obviously not corn seeds. All plants contain genes, after all.

There does seem to be a much larger variety in American cartoon styles than Japanese manga character styles. Hm.

It bugs the hell out of me when people don't know the difference between "electrician" and "electrical engineer." As an EE major, I can't wire your house up, because I don't know all the complex rules for doing so. I can, however, design all kinds of fancy electronics. These are completely different things, even if their core theory is the same.

Ooooh, yes...
In my first semester of EE, I used some free time on a youth weekend I helped organise to study for an exam. We "only" did DC and digital circuits that semester, and one of the other helpers that time was learning to become an electrician. When I sat there with my 8-transistors-grid, setting up the proper equations (I think it was the internal circuit of an OP-Amp), she started talking to me about light fixtures and such, and said that I can't be very good at my subject if I don't know if the live wire is connected to the threading or the spring in the part that hold the bulb. I still don't know if there is an official rule, but I made myself a pretty sensible one I think. Whenever I put a switch somewhere myself I make sure it cuts the live wire (most switches only work on one of them), and when connecting light fictures I try to connect the live wire to the flat spring part in the middle (so that the threading is still safe in case you forget that the bulb is just broken, but the power still on).

Whenever people have yard sales and either have nothing but garbage or overprice everything. Give the stuff to salvation army and lower the price or don't have a yard-sale. Also people who have a yard-sale every week, throw the stuff away or donate it, I'm pretty sure their is a law about it.

Aaaaaaargh!!! It's! Not! That! Difficult!!!

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

[Polyamory] must be denied because otherwise in no time emancipation would be destroyed because people are allowed to have harems of several women again.

Erm, how? For one: most of the people that I know of that are Poly are women, not men who want a constant "3+some". B: a basic premise of polyamory is that everything is consensual. Three or C: so long as everything is consensual, how are women's rights involved with this? And coming in a very low four, or D, or that little (iv) in brackets they use in footnotes: Wine.

How do alcoholic beverages matter in this case?

 

[Eventidal]

Anti-furry ignorance is one I'd like to destroy. People act like every furry is some messed-up zoophile or something. It's just plain wrong, and statistically most furries aren't even into the "yiff" stuff anyway. The really freaking creepy ones (AKA the only ones that ever show up on TV by some magical media manipulation) and the people who post dirty stuff in completely unnecessary places make us all look bad. Then a bunch of furs come out of nowhere when someone bashes the fandom or makes a joke at its expense (which I usually join in the laughter about, myself...) and they make terrible fools of themselves trying to argue with others.

Whenever I see the whole "kill it with fire" thing because the term "furry" happened to come up, I Ultra-Facepalm. It's just ignorant, and stupid at that. There are quite a few creepy furs out there, but that's nowhere near the majority of us.

 

[ChadSexington]

Atheists who attack organized religion, well, religiously. They talk about how they get religion rammed down their throat, completely unaware that they are doing the exact same thing.

I myself don't believe in god or the after life and all those other religious things but I don't think you should put someone down for being religious. Don't like religion? Don't be religious.

 

[theevilgenius60]

I got two: people using rediculous for ridiculous. Key word ridicule, not diculous again. Also, at work I sell Behr paint. The logo has a huge fucking bear next to it, yet 95% of people ask for "that Brrr paint". Nails down a chalkboard, both of them.

 

[Saulkar]

For me it is the dumb-ass customers I have to deal with at my job. When we receive stock at my store location we are at the mercy of an incompetent warehouse that does not ship items within the ideal shipping date. Sometimes a couple days before its expiration thus during its two day trip it expires thus is no longer viable to sell on arrival or we get bananas that are hard as rock and require several more days of ripening before we can even think about putting them out. (sometimes the bananas are picked too early and are given an accelerated ripening in a humid, hot chamber so that they turn ripe before they are even ready because they are so immature that they will rot before they ripen)

Now why is this important? Because so many damn customers believe that all products are shipped to the store en-bulk straight from the producers and that the people growing this shit are not only local but are employed directly by us and thus it is within our power to get a carambola within the day or cut the pay of the ones producing it. Seriously? A carambola growing in Saskatchewan in January? A fleet of farmers nearby employed by us to provide us year round with tropical fruits? That is not just ignorance, that is blatant stupidity.

Coming back to the aforementioned incompetent warehouse, we cannot control the quality of the shit they ship us and thus we may put out produce that is slightly past its prime and the customers even after having it carefully explained to them assume that the quality of said produce is SOLELY our responsibility, while in large part it is, we cannot control every aspect of its journey to us. Adding onto that many customers blatantly tell us to throw away sub-par products that are still technically good for sale ignoring the fact that others may still want to purchase it since it is in stock or the blatant fact that throwing away such a massive amount of stock whenever it does not suit the customers whimsical expectations would be a financial loss nightmare!

One last thing: Asking us to discount products upon request is not allowed and is grounds for immediate termination for us because if it is good enough to draw your interest then it is good enough to sell at full price. The whole point of the discount is to draw your attention to expired products you would have otherwise overlooked entirely, in a last ditch attempt to sell it before it is tossed.