Post #260,225
6/27/06 11:46:59 PM
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Re: Y.. P.. B..
We have an employee that has, more than once, printed all or part of a PDF file, then asked me to scan it and turn it into a PDF file for her.
She also once entered a column of numbers into a spreadsheet, then added them up on her calculator and typed in the answer at the bottom.
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #260,230
6/28/06 1:04:52 AM
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Re: Y.. P.. B..
I worked for two people who probably fit the bill here.
First one was an insurance man, and his secretary had broken her leg and couldn't come in. So he told me to locate a specific file she had made, but wouldn't allow me to call the woman to ask her method of naming files, or possibly the name of the file in question. I tried to explain to the man that there was no way on earth I could possibly know what she named a given file, and it would take me some time to search for it by guesswork. (this was in the days of DOS and they were using Word Perfect). He became irate because I couldn't just "know" what she had named them.
So I started searching her files looking for the file in question, and then he came back in and told me to forget that for now, and to draw him a circle. I said say what? Draw you a circle where? He told me to draw him a circle using Word Perfect. I told him Word Perfect didn't have that capability, and if he wanted me to draw a circle, I needed software that did. He yelled till he was red in the face, claiming I was an idiot and didn't know anything about computers, and I promptly quit. I wondered for weeks if he ever found his file, or got a circle drawn. I only lasted with him for three days.
The other was even better. I was working with a woman at her home who did hospital records and such, and used an Apple IIE. Only she wouldn't let me touch certain buttons on it that would serve as short cuts for me, claiming her son told her not to touch those buttons. But I explained to her they would make my job easier, and that if she would let me, it would be fine. She wouldn't budge, so I had to work around all the open-apple key combinations because she wouldn't let me use the key. When I finished my first day on the job, I turned the computer off and drove home.
Before I even got home, she had called my mother shrieking that I had broken her computer, and I had to get back and fix it immediately. I was boggled, but drove back to her house. She was ranting and raving about the computer, and I went in and turned it on and said what's the problem, it's fine? Apparently she had never turned it off ever, and was convinced when I did I had destroyed it. I told her I quit and wanted my money (pay for one day's work). She threatened to call the police on me and I said call them, I'll tell them you didn't pay me. She paid me and I left. Weird weird woman.
Brenda
"When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over your life." -- By Geoffrey F. Abert
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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind, don't matter - and those who matter, don't mind." -- By Dr. Seuss
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"Sometimes it takes a whole lot more strength to walk away than to stand there and fight." -- By the character of John Abbott: said on Young & Restless on 5/19/06
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Post #260,231
6/28/06 1:12:29 AM
6/28/06 1:26:58 AM
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Hey, it's nothing new.
In the late 1800s the Germans had developed a "brace winch" technolgy that allowed a 275 foot sailing ship hauling 3,600 tons of cargo at 13 knots in gale force winds to be managed and tacked by a crew of 4 or 5 without breaking a sweat.
After World War I (the war to end all wars) several of these ships had been captured and given to English captains. One Captain just couldn't figure out a way to tack the ship (90° across the wind) without using the brace winches, so he insisted on wearing the ship (280° the other way around) instead, taking 3 times the crew and 10 times the time - but he didn't have to use the brace winches.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #260,237
6/28/06 4:53:55 AM
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A mere bagatelle, when you consider
Sir Isaac N., in light of his (lately, somewhat documented) aims, quite beyond mere fluxions and calculus pastimes. It's apparent that he'd grokked the fact that the Alchemists' cover story re "transmuting lead to gold" - was just that: cover, lest the mobs with torches descend. No wonder he was circumspect.
While he may have made modrin physics calcs possible (but also Economists' Machiavellian machinations) - what he was 'into' was metaphysics / transcending the World of Appearances. Bored already.. with the mere nuts/bolts engineering.
Love. It.
(Try and teach about That, in a school in some toney suburb of '06 Murica)
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Post #260,248
6/28/06 8:57:42 AM
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Cover for what?
It's apparent that he'd grokked the fact that the Alchemists' cover story re "transmuting lead to gold" - was just that: cover, lest the mobs with torches descend. The "lead to gold" story was the cover? Or that was the goal and they had a cover for that, which I haven't heard? ===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #260,333
6/28/06 11:19:55 PM
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for funding of course, the medieval version of the american
cancer society.
thanx,
bill
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 50 years. meep
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Post #260,274
6/28/06 1:39:18 PM
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Unless you know something about Newton that I don't...
he accepted the goals of alchemy wholeheartedly. Like all alchemists, he thought that lead to gold was a step along the way to completing the Great Work: which was to create a Philosopher's Stone.
As for being circumspect, there were plenty of mundane reasons to be circumspect about alchemy. Secrecy was an alchemical tradition. Which was encouraged by the fact that it was illegal (though it became legal during his life). And there was a belief (which Newton shared) that it was dangerous to let the world know how much you knew on the subject.
Cheers,
Ben
a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. -- Warren Buffett
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Post #260,307
6/28/06 5:30:43 PM
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There's very little I 'Know' -
(on this or any other subject) I trust that you glimpsed the PBS presentation on the topic (?) I've not further delved into verifications of the claimed source material. Yet. I note though, that he was not given to soul-baring self-analyses for the amusement and edification of contemporaries or posterity. As to he accepted the goals of alchemy wholeheartedly. Like all alchemists, he thought that lead to gold was a step along the way to completing the Great Work: which was to create a Philosopher's Stone. The last belief I'd advance, from 2006 - is that I 'understand': the deepest mindset of a one such as this Man. No, you cannot say, "wholeheartedly" any more than I can pretend assurance of his level of awareness of the esoteric aims (of at least some..) of the 'alchemists'. By that I mean: that the lead/gold plot was for these ones, merely a cover for their delvings; a necessary ploy for keeping at bay, the (variants of) Church Censors and er, incense censers / the pecksniff Ashcrofts and Foulwells du jour. Still, since any regard at all of the 'Philosophers Stone' is an inherently metaphysical quest - I do not think it presumptuous to imagine that such an intellectual Giant as Newton would have been quite aware of the metaphors he was immersed in: and to suppose that he was seeking not merely.. some mathematical thesis next to 'prove' - on the scale of the physics of the phenomenal world. But that will forever-be: a Guess. (We shall not ever explicate the mind of Newton, much as anyone would wish to - he be daid.)
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Post #260,310
6/28/06 5:51:23 PM
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It was more than cover...
For many alchemists it was a source of funding as well. They would get people to fund their experiments on the hope of having it pay off. Often said funding was derived by using tricks to convince someone that they had already succeeded on a small scale, but they needed supplies to do it on a large scale.
Cheers,
Ben
a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. -- Warren Buffett
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Post #260,345
6/29/06 1:13:14 AM
6/29/06 1:26:28 AM
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Concur.. pre-TheDonald entrepreneurs; er, {ugh?}
Edit PS: of course no one can estimate the motives, %scurrilous/serious of practitioners, though I'd suppose that there has been sufficient interest all along to guesstimate roughly today, with a bit of research.
'Cover' applies only to the ones I'd deem 'serious' obv. But the gullible are ever with us, so we Know there must have been some Duesys of scams; those might be quite more fun to read about than the serious ones, I wot. After all, should a one discover something of a metaphysical 'Truth' -?- s/he couldn't directly transmit/communicate that realization to someone else, anyway!
{Love schemes that render Capitalizing impossible.}
Edited by Ashton
June 29, 2006, 01:26:28 AM EDT
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Post #260,404
6/29/06 12:12:34 PM
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Kewl...a medieval 409 scam!
jb4
"So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't."
— Stephen Colbert, at the White House Correspondent's Dinner 29Apr06
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Post #260,413
6/29/06 12:34:30 PM
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Ye Summe of Ten Thousande Golde Doubloons
of which thou wilt Obtaine near to Three Thousande after we have completed ye Transaction, Good Sir.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #260,430
6/29/06 2:16:44 PM
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Ye verily, human nature is unchanged
a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. -- Warren Buffett
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Post #260,289
6/28/06 2:34:57 PM
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**chuckle**
jb4
"So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't."
— Stephen Colbert, at the White House Correspondent's Dinner 29Apr06
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