{"id":13132,"date":"2013-02-12T03:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T08:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/?p=13132"},"modified":"2013-02-12T03:00:11","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T08:00:11","slug":"youve-got-a-dead-cricket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/13132","title":{"rendered":"You've Got a Dead Cricket"},"content":{"rendered":"

The discussion of jargon<\/a> has reminded me of a story told to me by a colleague. As this is at least a third-hand accounting, I will cast this as fiction, but based on a (probably) true story, and given that I have either forgotten or was never told the names of those involved, their anonymity is protected. (I am sure I have forgotten some details and it undoubtedly contains some embellishment.)<\/p>\n

This story involves a teaching assistant working in an advanced lab class involving electronics, helping the students with their lab projects as needed. A student was having some trouble with his circuit and after unsuccessful attempts to diagnose the problem, went to the TA for help.<\/p>\n

Student – “I’m stuck. Something isn’t working right.”<\/p>\n

TA – “OK, let’s have a look” (TA checks a few things and then finally traces it to the power supply and opens it up and pokes around). “Ah, here’s your problem: you have a dead cricket.”<\/p>\n

At this point the student undergoes an attitudinal phase change: “Oh for &@%#’s sake I am SO sick of all this @!$*& jargon! What the hell is a dead cricket? Can’t you just speak some plain English for a change? You physics people make this all too confusing! What do you mean it’s a dead cricket?”<\/p>\n

At which point the TA show the student the power supply, and points to the dead bug \u2014 a cricket \u2014 that was connecting the + and \u2014 electrodes inside and was shorting out the power supply. “I mean it’s a dead cricket.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The discussion of jargon has reminded me of a story told to me by a colleague. As this is at least a third-hand accounting, I will cast this as fiction, but based on a (probably) true story, and given that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lab-stories","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}