Old Forum Issue Reports

[Bob Faulkner]

Originally Posted by Mike Smith

I'm sure I can try One of the hardest parts about being a techie is how to cope with non-techies It's all about communication

I was playing on the fact that it's very hard to communicate with someone about a subject you know a lot about, with someone who doesn't know much about it.

Take a cpa and have him/her explain tax regulations to me and I'm quite lost as it's not a subject I'm familiar with.

Likewise, if I were to explain the difference between a time division multiplexer and a full adder, or a bipolar-junction transistor and a field effect transistor to the cpa, they would likely be totally lost.

Communication requires a common set of known values. I'm so indoctrinated with computer and electronics related knowledge due to my having a passion for it from youth that I will rattle off something like "12 hex" without any consideration of whether the person I'm talking to knows hex is short for hexadecimal, and beyond that if they know hexadecimal is a base 16 numbering system. So they look at me confused, thinking I mean 12 decimal, when I really mean 18 decimal.

That is the frustration that comes from trying to communicate with those who know nothing about computers. It's the same frustration they feel when they try to communicate with me about something they have extensive knowledge about that I don't.


My primary interests in life are computers(electronics in general and general science to a lesser extent) and bass guitar. Those are my 2 modes of operation. Mode 0, and mode 1.