What’s something you’re not good at?
Asked by
bob_ (
21940
)
May 11th, 2022
from iPhone
Complicated or not, what’s something you struggle with?
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43 Answers
In my younger days I was an athlete. I could master any sport I set my mind to….except slalom water skiing! AHHHHH!!!!
Parking my car. Gahh, I’m terrible at it. I’m lucky to get between the white lines. At a curb, I often end up with one wheel on the curb. Rarely actually parallel; rather, a pretty noticeable angle to the curb between front and rear. In parking lots, I often bump into the little concrete barrier in front of me. Last time, I chipped two chunks off the barrier.
Map reading and seeing birds that others see.
Cooking. I can do basic cooking, but nothing fancy. And by fancy I mean more than 3 ingredients.
Hand/eye coordination sports. I ski double black diamond runs with aplomb; I can hike/backpack for miles, slalom water skiing is a cake. But I don’t catch well, and I was never that good at racquet sports.
Guilt.
And financial planning.
I should probably feel bad, but I can’t afford to.
Flying a plane, student for one week . . . nobody died or were injured.
Remember that scene in The Office where Michael picks Stanley to be on his team because he’s black, then realizes he can’t even dribble a basketball?
That’s me.
Using a compass. Parellel parking. Object oriented programming.
Getting married. But it’s not a bad thing.
Swinging a bat, racket or golf club.
I have always been athletic – running, bicycling and swimming. But my swinging skills have are poor.
Drawing, Singing, every sport
Hand-eye coordination, sports like baseball.
Delegating.
Being patient.
Patience is a good one for me too. When I see a problem I tackle it then and there. I have no patience with people who procrastinate on their end then whine because it didn’t go down like they wanted it to. AND blame someone else.
Foreign Languages.
Grew up with Italian speaking people, took two years of middle school Italian, been to Italy twice, been with my multi-lingual wife for 30+ years… and I can’t speak barely a lick of Italian.
I simply do not have a head for learning languages.
If I told you then I’d have to do you in.
Returning bought items, I feel kind of guilty? So I only return stuff when there is something wrong with it.
Differential equations. I’m generally very good at math, but differential equations have always been a pain. Not being an engineer, I never use them, so it’s cool.
Understanding lyrics. Particularly in English, partly because it’s not my first language, but my sense of hearing in general isn’t the best.
Letting go.
Understanding lyrics
Tough for me, too, as is poetry. My theory is that my mind is entirely captured and controlled by rhythm and I have no extra horsepower to process semantics.
@YARNLADY Drawing
I had a photography teacher who greeted us on Day 1 with, “we’re all here because we cannot draw, correct?”
Correct.
Assembly language… I hate it so much.
What is assembly language?
^^Put tab A into slot B??
Why use assembly language today?
What IS it??? Following directions?
@Dutchess_III It’s to do with programming and was an older way of giving the computer instructions before running the actual program. (Hope I’ve got it right.)
@Dutchess_III, no. More like telling the computer what to do in its own language. JCL is a couple of levels above that, your formal, prescribed, almost-English way of giving instructions on what program to run and what parameters it needs. It invokes the program that in turn invokes the machine language, the assembly language, which turns it into the hexadecimal ones and zeroes that the computer understands. Like that, more or less.
Or at least that’s what it was like 50 years ago. Does anyone still use JCL?
@Jeruba described it so well.
And I have to master this language to pass it’s exam to complete my course, what a bummer! This is unlike anything I have learned so far.
Yes, I know. That’s what I was answering. Using JCL is like pushing the button on the elevator. The assembly code is more like what drives the elevator itself.
JCL was known as OCL on some IBM computers—operator control language. We used to enter it on punched cards or else type it right into the console. It would say things like this:
// LOAD INVOICE3,D1
// FILE NAME-DAILY3,LOC-D2,ERASE-Y
// FILE NAME-CUSADD,LOC-D1,TYPE-P
// FILE NAME-INVOUT,LOC-D2,SIZE-360,TYPE-T
// PRINTER INVOICES,TYPE-5440
// PAUSE ‘LOAD INVOICES’
// RUN
I just made this ^^ up, and it’s not right at all, but again, that’s like a memory from five decades ago. Anyway, that would set the job going, engaging the program and files and output devices to run customer invoices. Nowhere near assembly code, which was working way down in the depths.
~ Humility, but it’s not my fault, because I am perfect. I 1,000,000 times humbler than anyone else.
@Jeruba I used my teletype and punched it out on paper tape. Ran it through the tape reader and printed the checks out on the drum printer. Great Program!
I just made this ^^ up, and it’s not right at all, but again, that’s like a memory from five decades ago.
It’s very good pseudocode! Very nice explanation.
When you write a quick sketch of a task to show how it will be done, making it kinda like actual computer code, but only meant for human eyes, that’s pseudocode
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