Popular misconceptions about your area(s) of expertise...

[StriderShinryu]

As someone who has worked extensively in the security field, there's no end to the stupid assumptions and misconceptions about what I do/have done.

 

[Lunar Shadow]

History student minoring in poli sci (specifically foreign relations). Pretty much anytime someones says Russia is in meddling somewhere for the oil. Not always wrong, but given that Russia is the #1 producer of oil of any single country. (second is Saudi Arabia behind about 300K bbl/day) beat only by multi country organizations like Arab League and OPEC which have alot of over lap it is wrong 99.9% of the time. Actually, people's conception of Russian and Soviet history in general.

 

[gyroscopeboy]

I've worked in photographic enhancement, and the number of times I've been presented with a shitty little thumbnail and requested to somehow turn it into a high quality, poster-sized image is beyond belief.

I'm sorry, this ain't CSI.

Yeah me too. Most of our clients are dumb asses, thanks to the advent of digital cameras, the pros are much harder to find these days.


I had one woman who wanted a 15kb thumnail blown up to A2 haha.

 

[username sucks]

As a student aspiring for a chemistry degree...
Chemistry isn't blowing stuff up or mixing acids and bases. It is math. But unlike calculus, it is actually applied to something, so I like it.

Nuclear power isn't bad. Seriously, i've heard people tell me that they can explode like an atomic bomb, some people have said that they actually explode nuclear bombs inside the plant and harness the energy (cause apparantly the buildings can withstand a nuclear blast from inside). Seriously, it's steam power. And if you want to fix the problems with it, you have to research it, NOT PUT SO MANY DAMN RESTRICTIONS ON IT.

Also, on a biology related note, Why do people have a problem with the first sucessful gene therapy(remove a bad gene such as sickle cell and replace it with a healthy gene). The only arguement I have heard is that its either not natural (Hey, guess what: Niether is any treatment for any affliction ever, so if you want to go without it, please do), or that it is immoral(Curing diseases without harming anyone is now immoral by the way), neither of which hold much weight.

 

[frizzlebyte]

As an artist I deal with tons of misconceptions about art. The big one that bothers me is when people say something like "I was just never talented enough to be an artist." No one was ever born with innate artistic talent. Becoming an artist means learning all the techniques for rendering an image, developing thematic and philosophical content, practicing a lot, and having the patience to work on a painting for the ridiculous amount of time that it takes to make a good painting. It's not talent, it's hard work, and it's frustrating to hear that get dismissed.

And while I don't work in pure abstraction myself, I do find it offensive when people outright dismiss artists like Pollock or Rothko because they don't understand enough about the art world to know how to look at them in the first place. Yes, there are some talentless hacks who have used abstraction to get away with being lazy, but that's no reason to dismiss an entire genre inhabited by some truly driven artists.

I actually like some abstract art. What I find maddening is when I see something like Malevich's Black Square and White on White in the portfolio of an otherwise talented artist.

If I tried to pass something like that off as Supremacist-style art, I'd be laughed off the planet.

 

[Voxgizer]

Only one I can think of off the top of my head is people thinking that being in a band is easy. It is not.

Wait...I thought of more!

People seem to think that the touring is easy. Nope. Spending more hours cramped in a shitty little vehicle with 3-4 other people than playing an actual show can be frustrating, even if they're your best friends.

In short: Being a musician isn't as easy as some people seem think.

 

[Imthatguy]

As a professional asshole it troubles me deeply too see so much amateurish asshole-ery in the daily interactions of humans.

 

[Saregon]

As someone studying a science degree, it pisses me off when some people seem to think that science is all about making random guesses and any implausible hypothesis farted out in the space of five minutes can be a "scientific theory", or that it's "all bullshit". I've even encountered this attitude in people who have taken a science A-level, no less.

True, you can never be sure in science exactly what is right and what will eventually be disproved, but that "bullshit" can still be pretty damn useful when it helps get your car to work every morning, grow the crops you eat for lunch, power the entertainment you consume and save your life when you have a heart attack.

Pretty much this. I subscribe to Popper's method of determining the validity of a scientific theory and hypothesis, which is pretty specific on how to go about it.

I'm also a pretty major history buff, modern war history especially, which makes a lot of fiction pretty annoying, when fairly "common knowledge" things are ignored, when it wouldn't be hard putting it in. Also, discussing it with people who take movies and such as fact. Stuff like Napoleon being this tiny little man, when he was actually taller than the average frenchman at the time.

Also, Frankenstein was the scientist, not the creature he created. I hesitate to say monster, because it was in many ways less of a monster than Frankenstein himself, and indeed, most people in the book.

 

[Truehare]

I am kind of a linguistics savant, and it just ticks me off how people often seem to think there's a "right" way of speaking and a "wrong" way, and that it's possible to hold language in stasis indefinitely by way of "grammar". Whereas grammar is merely a pond of stagnant water formed in a curve of the raging river that is a living language.

OK, I got a little carried away there, but you get the picture, right? Anyway, that's why I hate Grammar Nazis, and here in Brazil they are a worse plague than anywhere else as far as I know.

Also, I teach English as a foreign language here in Brazil, and it's amazing how many people believe translating is the key to speaking a second language, instead of learning how to think in that language. Sounds obvious to you? You'd be surprised by the number of people who don't get it.

EDIT: Oh, and of course, there's always: "Videogames are for kids. Or for weird people, the kind who will eventually kill someone. Don't you have any normal hobbies?"

 

[McMullen]

Graphic artist and geologist here, I'm on board with all that stuff too. Although sometimes in graphics I think it's funnier the things that are really easy to do that they don't know are easy, and are incredibly impressed by.

One thing that I got really tired of hearing while in California was the question: "So is California going to fall off into the ocean?"

If anyone watches Fringe, I really enjoyed it when I saw a map of the alternate United States and the coast of California was missing. I took it as the writers saying "Yes, in a universe where the laws of physics have been thrown out the window, California WILL fall into the ocean."

 

[Haunted Serenity]

As a partsman with a heavy engine and transmission repair and distributor it bugs me that people constantly assume I know exactly what part their machinery requires with out a serial number. Each engine is made with a serial number for a reason. It tells us what it is built with. Unless you start bastardizing the bloddy thing. I hate my job....

 

[Okulossos]

I am currently occupied with my research in computer science with an emphasis on network security.
Nearly every second I see people who won't even try to apply the simplest security measured to their devices. I see botnets grow, I see how effective simple XSS or CSRF (or even phishing) attacks tend to be because people won't listen. It's that "oh, that won't happen to me"-mentality that really makes me sick, because guess what: yes, it will happen to you, because it must happen to someone and you sir are an easy target...
But the worst are the mac users... Most of them really believe that their machine is completely safe and Apple keeps denying the truth. These machines are like honeypots at the moment, there is no notable security whatsoever and most people who operate such machines don't know what they are doing. Apple leaves its customers completely vulnerable and lies them in the face when questions pop up.

All in all I am about to change my field of research, because network security will just make me sad and bitter. It is like talking to a wall. There are so many good countermeasures against quite a lot of attacks and neither consumers, nor suppliers will ever listen. Nowadays it has to be all colorful and clicky and easy to use and companies are fast to throw away security for usability, because that is what sells. Google accomplished to make Android the first ever Linux to contain enough vulnerabilities to exploit, that every script-kiddie can hack that system right into the ground (so in other words they did to linux what apple did to unix). And don't get me started on facebook...

It is also all that tracking, all that collecting of data and statistics that makes my stomach turn. People just don't see what it means to have severs out there that contain terrabytes full of personal data of thousands of people. With just one successful attack, and those have happened in the past an attacker is free to choose which identity he wants to steal... and yes, this will happen to you too if you are not careful what facebook or google or any of those sites ask of you.

And guess who is held responsible if things go wrong? Yes, the security experts...

 

[klown]

You could call my expertise computer science. I really hate when people assume I know everything about every piece of electronic equipment ever. I swear if someone hears that I have built my own computer and am studying computer science, they ask me what stereo they should get in their car, or which TV would be better for their house...oh wait..sorry, not what people misunderstand about us personally..my bad.


I have to repeat the one about hacking. People think it's all screens that flash around and you type really fast cracking through firewalls and taking down the man! They think they can give me an email address and I should be able to hack the password in no time flat and give them full access to it.

 

[SecondPrize]

I guess the big misconception in photography is that anyone can do it. Your photos suck and you should feel bad. It's because you aren't even visually literate. You don't see illiterate folk writing novels do you? No you don't, because they can't fucking write. It's the same with you and photography. Stop handing a camera to your uncle Steve if it's an important event and hire a professional. Also, stop showing us bad photos.

 

[Yopaz]

"should of" when they mean "Should have."

Now I am not usually a grammar Nazi, but this one annoys me quite a bit.

OT: As a biologist almost every popular belief goes against the fact.

Discussion about what is a fruit and what is a berry is kinda silly since fruit is the general term while berry is the specific one. Berries, nuts, drupes are all fruits.

Evolution is a turf where almost everyone who believes in it don't really understand it. Now I wont go into details into this one or else someone who knows less than me will try to tell me I'm wrong about it.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

My main area of expertise all of my life has been prehistoric life and prehistory in general, and WOW there are some damn misconceptions there.

Listen well, people:

The Ice Age did NOT come right after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

All Dinosaurs did NOT live at the same time.

Tyrannosaurus COULD see non-moving prey.

And dear god:

THEY ARE CALLED PTEROSAURS, NOT PTERODACTYLS!

 

[Syzygy23]

Lets see:

The majority opinion about the field of engineering seems to place us as glorified fix it men

A runner-up on that farce is the opinion that we're those people that drive trains.

Even those that know what we do tend to assume the field is exclusively technical in nature, ignoring the creative and artistic aspects.

What? No. We don't believe that at all!

All engineers are soft spoken men from Texas who hit things with wrenches and hate spies.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

You could call my expertise computer science. I really hate when people assume I know everything about every piece of electronic equipment ever. I swear if someone hears that I have built my own computer and am studying computer science, they ask me what stereo they should get in their car, or which TV would be better for their house...oh wait..sorry, not what people misunderstand about us personally..my bad.


I have to repeat the one about hacking. People think it's all screens that flash around and you type really fast cracking through firewalls and taking down the man! They think they can give me an email address and I should be able to hack the password in no time flat and give them full access to it.

This happens to me All.The.Time. I didn't finish college (not a valid person?) but I make a living fixing computers, cleaning them out/optimizing them, and training people on how to use them. I'm also a webmaster/IT for a small business.

I get all those questions almost everyday, like "you do computer shit, is this a good stereo for my living room?" The #1 question is "You play games and do computer shit, can you find out why my 360/PS3 doesn't read discs?" For one, I don't know why that's an automatic assumption. Two, I'm not wearing a shirt that says "can I fix any problem you may be having?" I'm a nice guy, but I make a living doing this stuff and spending time to help someone I barely or don't know is money lost just to save you money. Also, if asking for help comes before asking what my day was like, or even a tiny amount of small talk, forget about it.

I can count it on both hands, but I've certainly been asked a number of times to "hack someone" that they're pissed off at. Why would I break the law for you? What exactly do you mean by "hack them"? And what am I supposed to do with just a link to their facebook account, anyway? Yeah, the general populace is great fun. I vote to create "Escapist Island". Hopefully we'd get some shit done and not just talk to each other and play games while "create infrastructure and civilization" is on the back burner : )

 

[Syzygy23]

As an artist I deal with tons of misconceptions about art. The big one that bothers me is when people say something like "I was just never talented enough to be an artist." No one was ever born with innate artistic talent. Becoming an artist means learning all the techniques for rendering an image, developing thematic and philosophical content, practicing a lot, and having the patience to work on a painting for the ridiculous amount of time that it takes to make a good painting. It's not talent, it's hard work, and it's frustrating to hear that get dismissed.

And while I don't work in pure abstraction myself, I do find it offensive when people outright dismiss artists like Pollock or Rothko because they don't understand enough about the art world to know how to look at them in the first place. Yes, there are some talentless hacks who have used abstraction to get away with being lazy, but that's no reason to dismiss an entire genre inhabited by some truly driven artists.

f

How can you praise artists for hard work and then get pissed that people don't like Pollack in the same post?

Pollack pissed on a canvas and sells it for a bajillion dollars. A smart man? Yes. Talented? Objectively no.

And not ALL artists have to use hard work to get where they are. Prodigies exist for painting/drawing just like with musical instruments, mathematics, etc.

 

[klown]

"should of" when they mean "Should have."

Now I am not usually a grammar Nazi, but this one annoys me quite a bit.

OT: As a biologist almost every popular belief goes against the fact.

Discussion about what is a fruit and what is a berry is kinda silly since fruit is the general term while berry is the specific one. Berries, nuts, drupes are all fruits.

Evolution is a turf where almost everyone who believes in it don't really understand it. Now I wont go into details into this one or else someone who knows less than me will try to tell me I'm wrong about it.

You are wrong about evolution man, it was aliens man...

-snip-

I get that one about why doesn't my ps3 or xbox read disks anymore at least twice a week at work now that they know I'm a gamer. Like I'm going to know why your ps3 doesn't work right from 30 miles away, while you use describing words like "I don't know, I put the disk in and everything."