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

[McMullen]

snip

Yep. That sounds about right.

Once had a client ask me to make an animation, and he provided a basic storyboard. About halfway through I submitted a render of the progress. He said it was good and submitted another storyboard with many additional elements (including significant changes in the geometry of the scene) that had to interact with the existing elements, saying that he didn't send it at first in order to keep things simple.

The hardest challenge of my job sometimes is finding a polite way to explain to a person how they couldn't be more wrong.

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

Bass guitar is important

 

[Saulkar]

snip

Yep. That sounds about right.

Once had a client ask me to make an animation, and he provided a basic storyboard. About halfway through I submitted a render of the progress. He said it was good and submitted another storyboard with many additional elements (including significant changes in the geometry of the scene) that had to interact with the existing elements, saying that he didn't send it at first in order to keep things simple.

The hardest challenge of my job sometimes is finding a polite way to explain to a person how they couldn't be more wrong.

So you animated a whole scene and then he asks you to make drastic changes to the already existing environment and miscellaneous elements that have already been animated?!

I think he was getting the impression that everything is created procedurally, and layered like a drawing/traditional animation. >.<

 

[McMullen]

snip

Yep. That sounds about right.

Once had a client ask me to make an animation, and he provided a basic storyboard. About halfway through I submitted a render of the progress. He said it was good and submitted another storyboard with many additional elements (including significant changes in the geometry of the scene) that had to interact with the existing elements, saying that he didn't send it at first in order to keep things simple.

The hardest challenge of my job sometimes is finding a polite way to explain to a person how they couldn't be more wrong.

So you animated a whole scene and then he asks you to make drastic changes to the already existing environment and miscellaneous elements that have already been animated?!

I think he was getting the impression that everything is created procedurally, and layered like a drawing/traditional animation. >.<

Yeah, that's the impression I got too. Tried to contrast the reality of 3D animation with that in order to avoid dwelling on the "you're wrong" thing.

I think that's when I started explaining what I was doing in my email updates. Then one of my clients advised me: "Look, I don't mind, but your other clients don't care about how it works and don't want to care. They just want to pay you for something and magically have it be ready the next time they talk to you."

So I guess there's not much of a possibility for avoiding that sort of situation, aside from asking more tactful versions of "Are you SURE this storyboard doesn't leave anything out?"

 

[Saulkar]

"Are you SURE this storyboard doesn't leave anything out?"

I am getting the impression that I may have to use that very statement sometime in the foreseeable future.

 

[renegade7]

Failure to understand the scientific method, mostly when I hear some religious nut saying "evolution is only a theory" but there are other areas to. That just boils my piss.

Also, when people take 'good with computers' to mean 'magic wizard man that can fix any mechanical or electrical problem I ever have'. It's why I stopped telling people I am an electronics engineering student- I do not like people calling at 2 in the morning to fix their slow computer.

 

[Guffe]

Well not sure I'm an expert on too many things but:

WE DO NOT RIDE POLAR BEARS OR MOOSE TO SCHOOL IN FINLAND!!!
[sub][sub]Now I got that of my chest[/sub][/sub]

I thought that was my country, Canada's, stereotype.

Yeah, I've understood it's over there as well, but we're in the same zone so our countries have a pretty similar seasonings. But I've got it a few times... always as intruiging when people ask me that -.-

 

[White-Death]

snip

Yep. That sounds about right.

Once had a client ask me to make an animation, and he provided a basic storyboard. About halfway through I submitted a render of the progress. He said it was good and submitted another storyboard with many additional elements (including significant changes in the geometry of the scene) that had to interact with the existing elements, saying that he didn't send it at first in order to keep things simple.

The hardest challenge of my job sometimes is finding a polite way to explain to a person how they couldn't be more wrong.

I'm taking a 3D modelling class after school and I get that too many times.We aren't bieng taught animation yet,due to the large amount of idiots in the class,who think 3d modelling is just mashing some keys and coming out with a fucking dragon.
We were tasked with making a vehicle of some sort.Nothing particular,just a vehicle.I made the full chassis of a Russian military truck with every single little detail I could fit in,fuel lines,electronics,etc...
THEN the teacher comes in the next day,hands us a set of instruction with a Very specific ugly,blocky car with a tiny poly limit to make.What was worse,she scolded me for not paying attention in class and listening to what we should make,and told me to delete it and re make it.
I want to quit so badly.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

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.

Mine is that the term "scientist" means anything. No it means jack shit. It is NOT a protected term and your argument of "Some scientists did a test" means nothing to me unless i have credentials and details on that test. Also ONE test?! People are TERRIBLE at drawing conclusions from data. One test by itself is fucking worthless. Imagine if we did ONE test on medicine before we used it. People would DIE all over the place. You need MANY tests. You THEN need to graph those tests based on how accurate, well performed and comprehensive they are on the Y axis and THEN graph them by which were better than the placebo or worse than the placebo on the X axis and average out the point to show a conclusion. The graphs look like this:

Spoiler

Or my favourite the blobbogram:

The X axis should read "Results of test" or words to that effect and have a middle line for the control to show how the tests deviate from the norm either negatively or positively. This what real science looks like people. On the blobbogram the middle is the placebo. The middle of the horizontal lines represents what that test showed (worse or better) and the length of the line indicates how far the real result could deviate based on the limitations of the test.

Unless data is correlated like this and involves EVERY test you can find that fits on that axis your conclusion will be flawed. People who take a single test (Im looking at YOU news article "X CAUSES CANCER") to try and show "Science" supports anything annoy me. Thats really shitty science.

 

[teebeeohh]

as an engineering student i baffles me how many people think we are some kind of technology McGuyver-wizards-doctor who can fix their [insert random problem here] with a bit of string and a pencil.

and just because i am a history buff does not means i have an intricate knowledge of every time period ever

 

[SextusMaximus]

I'm something of a Shakespeare expert[footnote]He said, while buffing his tweed jacket's leather elbow patches.[/footnote], with a couple of degrees, even. What really will get me forehead-vein-bulgingly furious is people saying someone else (like the Earl of Oxford) wrote Shakespeare's plays. It's almost always the result of some bizarre snobbishness that says the son of a glovemaker wouldn't be able to write like that.

Oh, and then there are the directors and acting companies that think the spelling and punctuation in the First Folio [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Folio] form some kind of SUPER SECRET ACTING CODE(tm), when five minutes of studying the history of the printing of the book will show that that's complete and utter nonsense. (I auditioned for one of those companies once. It didn't go well.)

Does it bug you more than people who think Shakespeare's work is garbage? Just curious.

 

[Megacherv]

Software Engineer here, and we're sick of people asking us to fix their computers. We can struggle enough fixing programs that we made ourselves, let alone programs made by other people. Also, we don't automatically know every language. There are languages that are similar (C++, C# and Java are all derived from C) but we still have to learn all those separately still.

Also we're not all uber-nerds, a lot of us look like normal people and drink like several.

 

[Loonyyy]

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.

High Five!

I'm doing engineering/science, and I keep having conversations with cranks with insane ideas about physics, which inevitably come down to "That's way too complicated" or "I don't get it", so they say it must be wrong and make up insane bullshit.

Upon being told to provide evidence, by way of data or mathematical argument, and submit it for peer review, they start banging on about free speech.

Science isn't about giving everyone's ideas respect, it's about what's most likely true, and providing ideas and then proving them. The amount of people who believe in the "Mad scientist" trope, and compare themselves to Galileo whilst making up nonsense drives me mental.

Most people are severely science illiterate, and have this insane mentality where they think their entirely uninformed opinions on it should be taken as worth something.

 

[Gabanuka]

Bass guitar is important

OT: I'm not old enough to be an expert on anything aside from Elder Scrolls 4. Though I do take RS in college and the amount of misinformation people have about Buddhism is mind-blowing.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Does it bug you more than people who think Shakespeare's work is garbage? Just curious.

It does, actually, because at least the people who don't like Shakespeare can be reasoned with. Anti-Stratfordians (the people who think Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare) are right up there with moon landing conspiracy theorists.

 

[Angie7F]

Massage therapists make a ton of money. Oh man, if only....

This is exactly what I was going to post.

Massage therapists can only make money if they sell a lot of cosmetics.
Sales is a talent that is totally unrelated to massage skills.
So, the best massage therapist could be making very little money where as a crappy one could be a great sales person and making more money than the other.

 

[oliver.begg]

having spent 3 years working as a cellphone tech, i'm still amazed at the people that think we really fix the componets of their phones, if its still in production its almost always cheaper to replace, and if its out of production, its out of warranty 90% of the time, so please give me $400 for labor.

basically the less you paid for it the more likely it can't be fixed

 

[Miles Maldonado]

My area of expertise is tanks and overall weapons.

It's amazing who thinks that a tank can survive several penetrating hits (there are some freak incidences, but if it goes through it kills), and I actually had to prove (not the hard way, mind) that a flamethrower only lasted ten seconds or less, as opposed to minutes.

 

[AnarchistFish]

This isn't really an area of expertise but I listen to a lot of music and I make sure I know a lot about the music's background and the genre's history. So it pisses me off to no end when I tell people I like dubstep and screamo and they get completely the wrong idea about what those are. Then I have to try to explain what those styles are and why the person I'm talking to is wrong and why Skrillex isn't dubstep and why Avenged Sevenfold aren't screamo and inevitably I end up trashing on those artists and end up sounding like a douchebag.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

I am a Director at a CBS affiliated news station. Two things absolutely piss me off.

1) More of an inner company issue. Just because its my job to make sure the show runs cleanly doesn't mean I can fix all your fuck ups on the spot.


2) I have no say on when Big Bang Theory, Football, or other shit airs. Nor do I control who anchors what show or have the ability to fire anyone. Please stop sending me emails with recommendations to do so.