Feeling Really Dumb!

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taxlady said:
I know how to turn off the predictive typing. :rolleyes:

"Outwit, Outplay, Outlast". I subscribe to "Survivor Mode.". Was trying to beat the little sucker at it's own game.

Most times, I like predictive typing.
 
this is probably not the right thread where to pose my dumb question, but it's the first one (dumb thread) i came across. this comes up every once in a while, and i think i know the answer, but not the science behind it. when i use close or out of date milk to use it up in a recipe, am i buying more time for this, now chemically altered, milk? or am i in danger of contaminating the dish i am adding it to, by drastically shorting this new dish's shelf-life too?
 
use by / sell by / best buy . . . dates are the manufacturer's / producers / <whatever> estimate of when the product quality will decline to a consumer unacceptable level.

an unopened carton of milk is not good on (day -1) and lethally poisonous on (day +1)
just doesn't work that way.

dairy products (and many others...) are at risk once the package/container is opened. bacteria from the environment can enter the previously 'controlled' and/or 'sterile' environment.

milk and cream are pretty dang easy to judge - if it smells bad and/or is gloppy, throw it out.
it is not at all impossible to have an opened milk container go bad _days_ before it "expires"

cheese - I like to keep a number of varieties on hand. I keep the original wrapper on the cheese and I'm always trying to avoid touching the cheese I'm not cutting off and scarfing down.... bacterial from the hands/fingers gets on cheese and bingo - day or three, got mold there.....right there!

"dry goods" - well, they get stale.

meats - anything ground up should indeed be used by its date - or as soon as possible, frozen.
for example, the interior of a roast is "sterile" in terms of the usual &common nasty bacteria - e-coli, etc. the _exterior_ is a different issue - that's what gets "contaminated" - grind everything up into a nice bloody mass, the (potentially contaminated) exterior is now mixed all through the interior.
 
thanks, dcsaute--good to know about needing to avoid transferring bacteria from my hands to the cheese, by touching it. i now know why chunks of my perfectly good cheese became suddenly, inexplicably taken over by blue mold--won't happen again....
 
Don't worry i'm equally as clueless when it comes to these new acronyms. I consider myself to still be quite young, I feel sorry for older people living in this age. They must wonder what the hell is going on.
 
:stuart: ¿ʇɐႡʇ ʎɐs noʎ sәʞɐɯ ʇɐႡʍ ¿sn ¿ɹoɯnႡ ɟo әsuәs әɹɹɐz!q

Is it bad that I could read that without standing on my head almost as quickly as I can read normal text? Also, because I'm too tired and lazy to speculate, test, search, etc. how did you do that and would I be able to rewrite my signatures like that? Because, um, you know, they need to be weirder...:alien:

I agree with Fiona; the only dumb question is the one you don't ask.

I wish I could agree with this but I used to work tech support ("My son put his peanut butter sandwich in the cdrom tray and now the cd's stick in it. Is this normal?") ... :ermm: And in my current job I've had to deal with tech support (Me: Hi, I'm calling about a server that is not getting power. Them: Well are you able to turn it on?)... :glare:
 
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Is it bad that I could read that without standing on my head almost as quickly as I can read normal text? Also, because I'm too tired and lazy to speculate, test, search, etc. how did you do that and would I be able to rewrite my signatures like that? Because, um, you know, they need to be weirder...:alien:



I wish I could agree with this but I used to work tech support ("My son put his peanut butter sandwich in the cdrom tray and now the cd's stick in it. Is this normal?") ... :ermm: And in my current job I've had to deal with tech support (Me: Hi, I'm calling about a server that is not getting power. Them: Well are you able to turn it on?)... :glare:

I see Tech Support as a completely different animal, same with most customer questions and I'm one of those customers that can ask some real doozies.
 
I see Tech Support as a completely different animal, same with most customer questions and I'm one of those customers that can ask some real doozies.

Lol. I could discuss it more but it would have to go in the "Venting" thread. I'll just summarize by saying that "stupid" questions, in my experience, come from three sources:

Those who honestly don't know and don't have any experience with what they are asking about. I'm cool with these questions, have all the patience in the world.

Those who are just genuinely having difficulty learning about whatever they're asking about. Again, I'm cool with these because I know the person is trying and I really fight any impatience or frustration answering these because I know different people have different talents.

Those who are mentally lazy. Sure, anyone can have a mentally lazy moment or just a general "duh" moment from not thinking before asking, but then there are the ones who never want to think for themselves. These people ask the questions that I consider true stupid questions and they drive me crazy!
 
Lol. I could discuss it more but it would have to go in the "Venting" thread. I'll just summarize by saying that "stupid" questions, in my experience, come from three sources:

Those who honestly don't know and don't have any experience with what they are asking about. I'm cool with these questions, have all the patience in the world.

Those who are just genuinely having difficulty learning about whatever they're asking about. Again, I'm cool with these because I know the person is trying and I really fight any impatience or frustration answering these because I know different people have different talents.

Those who are mentally lazy. Sure, anyone can have a mentally lazy moment or just a general "duh" moment from not thinking before asking, but then there are the ones who never want to think for themselves. These people ask the questions that I consider true stupid questions and they drive me crazy!

Dad was a Service Engineer for Mass Spectrometers and equipment like that. He got to go to New Orleans, San Francisco, Boston and other locales to plug in equipment, flip a switch, unstick a key on a keyboard...
 
There's only one type of dumb question in my book... a disingenuous one. One whose answer was meant to be ignored in the first place. Sometimes, it's easily recognized as a blatantly obvious leading question. Meant for the questioner to disrespect the answer and argue for what he/she believes the answer should be.

It's okay, however, if the questioner ignores my reply because it was I who gave a dumb answer. :rolleyes:
 
I used to be an electronics repairman on B-52s, KC-135s and HH somethings (can't remember) in the Air Force. Tempers get very short in North Dakota towards the end of winter, especially if you have to work on the flight line where there is nothing to block the wind. We'd get service calls where we had to go out to the aircraft just before takeoff because NOTHING was working. I don't know how it works now (I was 19 at the time, I'm 56 now, do the math), but much pilot/nav equipment was sound cued. I was afraid of my shadow (the only woman working on the flight line), but the guys just loved to sneak up behind and already tempermental pilot or navigator and turn the volume on the headsets, really, really high!

I believe most questions aren't stupid, but do agree on spork's disingenious comment, when someone is manipulating you by pretending to be unknowledgeable, be it from trying to trip you up or people who pretend ignorance to play up to someone of the opposite sex or get out of work, or in the above case, just plain mental laziness.
 
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the dumbest classification for a question is the one where

question is asked, good / sound / reasonable / appropriate answers /advice given, but all suggestions are deemed not acceptable by the questioner.

the onliest more worser situation is where the questioner, having rejected all ideas and suggestions, returns to demand more answers-to-be-rejected-out-of-hand.
 
There's only one type of dumb question in my book... a disingenuous one. One whose answer was meant to be ignored in the first place. Sometimes, it's easily recognized as a blatantly obvious leading question. Meant for the questioner to disrespect the answer and argue for what he/she believes the answer should be.

It's okay, however, if the questioner ignores my reply because it was I who gave a dumb answer. :rolleyes:

I believe most questions aren't stupid, but do agree on spork's disingenious comment, when someone is manipulating you by pretending to be unknowledgeable, be it from trying to trip you up or people who pretend ignorance to play up to someone of the opposite sex or get out of work, or in the above case, just plain mental laziness.

the dumbest classification for a question is the one where

question is asked, good / sound / reasonable / appropriate answers /advice given, but all suggestions are deemed not acceptable by the questioner.

the onliest more worser situation is where the questioner, having rejected all ideas and suggestions, returns to demand more answers-to-be-rejected-out-of-hand.

Fortunately, the only one of these I've run into very often is the mental laziness one. The few times I've run into the others though, "frshin rfin urgin grrrrrrrrrrr, I'd bite you if it wasn't a health hazard. For me.":glare:

I'm also fortunate that most of my current customers will go out of their way to help me get their stuff fixed and are very appreciative of my efforts. They're pretty cool people in general and are just so happy that they're not being forgotten about on thirds that I could ask them to stand on their heads and sing the hokey pokey and if it would help, they'd do it. Seriously, I got told this by one of my customers. Laughed so hard I had to pee when the call was done. It totally made my night. :LOL:
 
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