Nerd language barrier
Maybe you can ask somebody you know who's really knowledgeable in an area you're inexperienced with to explain exactly what it is they do. It'll be a load of complete gibberish to you and you'll be able to appreciate how it feels to be on the receiving end of information dumps.
Heh I need to pick somebody I have zero chance of understanding. Maybe street performers.
Maybe I'll just ask friends to pick a textbook & confuse me.
_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos
_________________
The mere fact that science may not yet adequately explain an object, event, or experience does not mean the immediate explanation should automatically default to a conspiratorial, extraterrestrial, paranormal, or supernatural cause.
AngelRho
Veteran
Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile
Anime, manga, writing stories, etc., are strikingly unusual activities for young people where I live. Well, I was exposed to those kinds of things back in the 80’s, so a certain segment of young people are usually surprised to hear me “speak their language.” What I end up doing, unlike on WP, is I suppress my enthusiasm and just listen to other people talk about it. I’ll ask a question from time to time to remind folks I’m in the room and listening. The effect is that people tend to see me as more important than I really am, and I get a cheap thrill from knowing I have that much influence.
Save speaking at length about your own interests for when you’re with your own tribe and you are passing information that people WANT to know. For everyone else, keep it simple and focus on the other person.
I guess my thread is mostly about inclusivity towards said tribe. I don't want anyone who cares about me sold short on what's to be learned about. Same reason I want to learn what they're doing.
I’m the same way, which directly bears on the length of my forum posts. I prefer to be thorough. And partly because I get so excited about everything.
But I also know if anyone actually cares what I have to say, they can put their tablets down, grab some coffee, and finish later.
F2F time you have a captive audience.
Let’s say you are giving a lecture or presentation. People are there for the purpose of hanging on your every word. You lose them when you stop talking. You do them a disservice by cutting it short because they don’t get the information they could get with more time. And if you are open to participation and Q&A, even better.
Otherwise, if you want someone to really be into you, that person has to be the focus of your interest. You have to forget about what YOU like and hold up a mirror to the other person that only shows the best parts of herself. The best conversations aren’t opportunities to express yourself. They are opportunities to listen. You only get to speak when the other person gives you permission by asking questions or making comments that require a response. But you also get to give your partner permission to speak, and those kinds of things are endearing.
It’s because people are vain. We ALL are. And it’s our vanity that makes us so easy to manipulate. And if someone can’t be manipulated, she’s “cold,” or “hard,” or “unemotional,” or “humorless.” You make friends and relationships by acting on their vanity. The people you enjoy being with the most will throw it right back to you.
The jargon thing works on people within the professional circle that uses said jargon. My wife rolls her eyes whenever I meet someone in the music biz and we start comparing DAWs. Or I meet a music theory student or professor and we discuss combinatoriality in Milton Babbitt’s music. Or if I’m talking to an electronic musician and we discuss Morton Subotnick and whether the Buchla synthesizer is still relevant.
But if I want to “date” my wife, it’s going to be about a song she heard on the radio, or some viral video or meme, or all the drama her friends and their kids are going through. I don’t care about any of that. But I do care about HER, so I’ll stop what I’m doing and pay attention and try to remember how all her puzzle pieces fit together. That’s really all there is to it.
Sweetleaf
Veteran
Joined: 6 Jan 2011
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Posts: 35,278
Location: Somewhere in Colorado
What's to be done o' wise geeks?
Well you don't have to go into all the details, of course that might be too much for people who don't know much about that sort of thing.
_________________
Tis the time to melt the Ice.
Sure, if you want somebody ordinary, adjust your language to their (probably extremely low) competence. The thing is, if a woman really appreciates you, she will try to hang on as much as possible. You will both get to know if she is really is interested and where her competence ends.
What's to be done o' wise geeks?
Well you don't have to go into all the details, of course that might be too much for people who don't know much about that sort of thing.
Oh this much technology exposure is overwhelming for everybody including myself but I'm still interested in sharing about what excites me. Glossing over technical trivia is one thing but I don't want my silence on the topic to be deafening. Wouldn't want my life to turn all 'black box' like a Microsoft/Apple loading screen. All this amazing stuff is happening constantly & I'd feel pretty rotten were I to exclude people.
_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos
I'm more interested in making *her* more comfortable regardless of comprehension, everyone gets up to speed sooner or later.
_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos
Luckily there's a baseline level of nerdiness in my circles, I just take it to extremes.
_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos
You remind me on something,
Somme years ago i went to graphic design shool. There was this one guy, he was the IT dude that had the burden to fix our class pcs, he always said hi and tried to talk to me. Well im very shy, would always look rater on the floor and being quiet. After some months past i made eye contact the first time but didnt speak. Well i was thinking how could i talk to this guy without to embaress myself and ive got this brilliant idea! Since he had always to fix our pcs i thought lets craft a prank virus. It was allot allot of efforts really! I had to research and actually study how to code this to make it as believable as possible, i even succeded to my very surprise. I would add a funny message to the end but well i was out of luck because that day i used to install the fake virus on the pc he wasnt there. At the end my little confidence forsake me anyways and i was deleteing it and thinking that it was embaressing anyways. But not every common pc user isnt intressted how it actually works etc. Just it can become quite complicated to understand and i know this of past friends that where programmers. Their passion is great but it can overload our simple brain with to many difficult things to understand. Im willing to listen and even to ask questions if there is patience this goes towards every subjects keeping an open mind and a certain dagree of curiousity for knowledge.
I think I've found I still get labelled a nerd if I express personal interests but glossed over the details. I like games modding like Bethesda stuff but I just try saying like "it's really easy", "they have special programs but they're extremely intuitive", "it's like magic, make whatever you want"
Technically aren't lies because once you're accustomed to the relevant programs it does get easier and more intuitive. The programs relatively speaking could be deemed intuitive when you consider that while it does take some time/effort you certainly don't need to be a programmer or a software engineer to actually be able to use them and modder created utilities are usually pretty good about ease of use. And random snippets I've read over the years about other companies game dev programs suggests they're way more esoteric and likely often do fully expect the user to be a programmer or a software engineer.
Custom animation gives a glimpse of this, as since modders can't use the havok middleware(Microsoft forbids its use. They licensed Havok for Skyrim/Fallout 4 but specifically forbid a release for modders) the only way to create new animations is the old fashioned way AKA the methods used by the very first 3D games.
Note: I am unsure about rule regarding posting in an inactive topic, regarding how long a topic can be inactive for before we should not post in it. Other forums would consider it a necro bump after anywhere from only a few days up to a week depending on activity but those ones have far more activity than here. Many have automatic archiving which locks topic or have a hard fast rule like 48 hours/72 hours/1 week. Also, can we PM a moderator questions like this?
Save speaking at length about your own interests for when you’re with your own tribe and you are passing information that people WANT to know. For everyone else, keep it simple and focus on the other person.
I guess my thread is mostly about inclusivity towards said tribe. I don't want anyone who cares about me sold short on what's to be learned about. Same reason I want to learn what they're doing.
I’m the same way, which directly bears on the length of my forum posts. I prefer to be thorough. And partly because I get so excited about everything.
But I also know if anyone actually cares what I have to say, they can put their tablets down, grab some coffee, and finish later.
F2F time you have a captive audience.
Let’s say you are giving a lecture or presentation. People are there for the purpose of hanging on your every word. You lose them when you stop talking. You do them a disservice by cutting it short because they don’t get the information they could get with more time. And if you are open to participation and Q&A, even better.
Otherwise, if you want someone to really be into you, that person has to be the focus of your interest. You have to forget about what YOU like and hold up a mirror to the other person that only shows the best parts of herself. The best conversations aren’t opportunities to express yourself. They are opportunities to listen. You only get to speak when the other person gives you permission by asking questions or making comments that require a response. But you also get to give your partner permission to speak, and those kinds of things are endearing.
It’s because people are vain. We ALL are. And it’s our vanity that makes us so easy to manipulate. And if someone can’t be manipulated, she’s “cold,” or “hard,” or “unemotional,” or “humorless.” You make friends and relationships by acting on their vanity. The people you enjoy being with the most will throw it right back to you.
The jargon thing works on people within the professional circle that uses said jargon. My wife rolls her eyes whenever I meet someone in the music biz and we start comparing DAWs. Or I meet a music theory student or professor and we discuss combinatoriality in Milton Babbitt’s music. Or if I’m talking to an electronic musician and we discuss Morton Subotnick and whether the Buchla synthesizer is still relevant.
But if I want to “date” my wife, it’s going to be about a song she heard on the radio, or some viral video or meme, or all the drama her friends and their kids are going through. I don’t care about any of that. But I do care about HER, so I’ll stop what I’m doing and pay attention and try to remember how all her puzzle pieces fit together. That’s really all there is to it.
This kind of thing is extremely fascinating to me and the way you put it actually helps me understand it to some degree. I found your post length perfect although I do notice if my own post length is too long it becomes significantly less likely that others will reply, which tells me that likely they stop reading at some point.
From just observation I'd say hard fast rule is probably 100 words max, maybe 2 or 3 times the max length of a Twitter message. A little bit more leeway for the opening post of a topic but too much will very likely mean 0 replies.
_________________
My account is often forced to do Captchas so I may be slow to reply or perhaps even unable to reply.
Just know your audience.
Think of short hand ways of explaining things to the nonexpert.
In fact, even before having conversations, imagine yourself having conversations (with a hawt chick you meet, or with old friends or your mom) about some new exciting thing in your interest. Think of a "short answer" and a "long answer" to questions about stuff you're expert in. Even ask folks which answer they want. Lol!
Most people really don't care to hear the minutia of your hobbies and/or interests. In fact the little that you say the better, they will ask probing questions if they want more info.
A side note: at work one year, an aide would ask me questions about various things that interest me and see long he can get me talking about it. I caught on when it qas apperent that he was asking me questions he knew.
So yes, long rambling explanations about your interest rarely appeals to normies.
It’s a form of manipulation. I make no bones about it. The most successful people out there do it all the time, though, and most people are purely instinctive with it.
What you’re SUPPOSED to do is turn it around and probe the person engaging you that way. Someone who is disingenuous, I.e. just trying to see what he can get out of you, will either shut down on you or they just won’t stop talking. You learn to watch what you say around those people. You end up finding out that person is a complainer or a gossip.
The less you say, the better. If both people are playing this little game, it turns into an equal give and take. Quid pro quo. You are equally interesting to each other.
To me, that’s what dating is more about. You do best when you can show interest in everyone. It has the effect of making you look more interesting than you really are. You’ll end up finding that one person who is as much interested in you. Not necessarily someone into your same hobbies or music, but loves you more in terms of character. You can have almost nothing in common with someone and still be into them, and the only common ground is each other.
Plainly I have much to learn of palace intrigue.

Angel is actually off on a slightly different issue. Its okay to talk about yourself and your interest if you do it right.
But if you wanna know How to Win Friends and Influence People its also true that its wise to get others to talk about themselves. In fact that's one of the first things Dale Carnegie teaches you in his classic book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" ( a book prolly every aspie should read).
Since I'm trying to invite people (in this case women) to explore more about all this technology everywhere more deeply I guess a better segue might be finding better ways of asking how they relate to it personally.
_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos
What's to be done o' wise geeks?
Whether you want to believe it or not, you've chosen to speak the way you do.
The same applies to me and others.
You're intelligent and capable of speaking other ways even if it by means of poor imitation or emulating popular styles. But it is your prerogative, and of your free will to decide what is right for you. This does not, as you no doubt know, demand that people respect you or adore you for how you communicate.
The choices are simple - adapt to a different way, or accept those who will accept you in your current state (however few they may be).
_________________
Yours sincerely, some dude.
