Perhaps. I certainly don’t know the keystroke combination for every special character off the top of my head (hardly any of them in fact), but I do know how to find any special character by going to the character map in Windows. Although I hardly ever use Macs, I know there is a Mac equivalent that’s accessed a little differently and if I need to know how to get it I know I can just Google it and have the instructions very quickly without having to ask anyone to show me.
Point being: what makes people stupid isn’t not knowing the answer to a problem - it’s not having the mental capacity to figure out how the problem might be solved. There also might be an issue of self-reliance here too - I’m very self-reliant so I’ll do whatever I can to try and solve a problem on my own first before I ask anyone else. I get annoyed by others sometimes who simply don’t seem to have that same sense of self-reliance and will constantly ask questions that could be easily solved on one’s own with just a little bit of work.
I don’t think it is unfair to give the OP the benefit of the doubt on this point.
As much as I hate to be put in the position to defend Microsoft on this one, I think that only a very basic familiarity with Word is required to locate the degree symbol.
Insert–>Symbol–>Symbol Browser–>Degree Symbol
Furthermore, googling “degree symbol word” or similar variant works rather easily for me – takes no more than 30 seconds to find the answer for a variety of versions of Word.
Finally, doing a little work yourself (rather than always asking) when it comes to this kind of question is the only way you learn. I encourage friendly give-and-take, but discourage co-dependence.
The partly-shaded rectangle appears to be Alt+176. Alt+0176 is the degree sign, and just happened to be the first one I found when I opened the character map. Alt+248 appears to be the same.
I think the self-reliance factor is a big part of this perception. One of my co-workers asked questions nearly incessantly when he first started, but it wasn’t that he couldn’t figure things out on his own; he was just more social. Left to his own devices (or pointed in the right direction), he was quite capable of finding answers. When ribbed about his questions (good-naturedly; I was basically training him for a while), he’d respond “It’s easier to ask!” (only half-seriously).
I never encounter this situation because I always assume that if someone doesn’t know something, they haven’t had the opportunity to learn it. If someone asked me something that they could have easily looked up, I’d assume they were lazy, but not stupid.
I tend to view jumping to conclusions about someone’s intellectual inferiority as a sign of one’s own intellectual insecurity, and the need to feel better about oneself by letting others know how they are mentally deficient. If someone gave me the “how could you be so stupid” look, I would find that distasteful because they’re dealing with their own insecurities with poorly thought out passive aggressive insults.
If you don’t want people to get angry, don’t make them feel stupid.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that body language doesn’t count. It counts just as much as saying “how dumb can you be” out loud. Either get it under control, or stop believing that you’re smarter than people who ask easy questions.
I do the exact opposite. I always assume most people are much brighter than I am, and that I’m a near moron, so I’m always surprised when people need my help and think I’m an “expert” in something! (ha! me??? nuh uh) It also always takes me forever to figure out if/when a person IS actually dumb. So then there’s this slow dawning realization that that person isn’t too terribly bright. In my defense, I’m used to working around pretty bright engineer and science types, it’s not as if I’ve met droves of these stupid people. Just a handful, so it’s not like I have a good basis for comparison.
As to the stupid degree symbol…Oh GRRRR. It’s hidden somewhere in the “insert symbol” drop down box and ONLY for one or two fonts and DAMNED if @#$#@#!!! Microsoft doesn’t change the damned location with EVERY new software package. Sigh. I’ve given to simply copying the symbols that are difficult to find and then pasting them when I need one.
It’s not that I’m THAT dumb, I know where the damned symbol is SUPPOSED to be, but it takes a lot less time to go to a sticky on my desktop, and c&p the darned thing. Don’t get me started on MS and their constantly changing menus and tendency to change more and more tasks from keyboard activated to need-to-use-a-mouse activated.
I hoped it was, but I’m not sure (there was another like this a day or two ago).
Seriously, OP (if you are serious). Asking for instruction and guidance can be a sign of intelligence. I have several friends who I know are vastly smarter than me in many ways, and they still occasionally ask me for advice or guidance on something that is a little out of their field - sometimes the question is absurdly simple - but it’s just something they genuinely didn’t know at the time.
This is my first time I have sneak bragged, so excuse any mistakes please.
As a braggart, I am sometimes amazed at the things people don’t seem realize that I know how to do. Today it was how to make flashing “tesseract is the greatest” text in Word or other programs. And all too often my shock at the fact that people don’t realize how extraordinary I am shows on my face, and I get annoyed that their powers of perception are faulty. Now there are other people who are great, and I will admit that and sometimes also brag about those people, and I have made mistakes and given credit to someone else for something that I myself actually accomplished, but I am frequently accused of having an overwhelming number of astounding achievements. So if you have encountered this, how do you handle it?
To be honest, it’s because we simply never felt the need to make a flashing “tesseract is the greatest” banner in Word. Otherwise, we would of course have asked you.
It is ironic that you didn’t actually know how to do the degree symbol and instead used an imperfect work around. Your sense of intellectual superiority is misplaced it seems. If you are going to go around feeling superior you’re going to want to make damn sure that you really are as good as you think you are.
Having said that, the main issue is nothing to do with intellect but social competence. A perfect person wouldn’t have negative thoughts to hide, the rest of us need to control our outward appearance so that not every one of our feelings is written on our faces. When I was in my late teens a friend of mine made passing comment that I had a knack for making people feel really stupid. It turns out I tend to be quite sarcastic to people who say dumb things. I’ve fixed this in general and I think I give off an air of patience when someone asks me something but if I want to cut someone to shreds I still can.
So try not to feel superior in the first place, you may not be, as your degree sign example showed. If you do feel superior, try not to let it show. Hint: Smirking is an unfortunate consequence of a battle between the brain and the face muscles, try not to do it.
Is that the same thing as the little drop down box when you select “insert/symbol”? I called it the drop down box, but we may be speaking of the same thing. It looks sort of like a little keyboard with symbols in rows? At any rate, the degree symbol is never easily found in the map unless it’s been recently used. Which, if you’ve just installed the software, or opened a new template in word or excel is half the darned time.
It’s not on the first page, or the second page or the 19th page. It’s on the 11ty first page of the 90thousandth font I try! Grrr
Ah, see, that response would never have occurred to me. There is an actual º sign, no superscript code needed, and in a Spanish keyboard it’s the unmodified result (i.e., no “shift” or “alt” involved) you get from pressing the key to the left ot the 1 once. When I’m on a non-Spanish keyboard and I don’t have authorization to convince the computer that the keyboard is, in fact, Spanish, I use the character map.
Yours is a fine solution, but it would simply have never crossed my mind due to a difference in cultural background.
As for glass faces, I do have one, but I don’t get a negative opinion of someone for not knowing a tidbit most of the time, and when it does happen I ask about it (“I’m surprised, I’m an engineer as well and not only did I do a lot of dimensional analysis in college, but back home we started doing it in 6th grade… is it not required here?” - apparently it wasn’t). The oohing and aahing that accompanies my own questions turns the situation from “oh you’re kidding me, you don’t now how to do something that’s fucking basic?” into a nice conversation and a learning opportunity.
No, it’s a separate Windows Applet (at least up to and including WinXP) - Start>Programs>Systems Tools>Character Map - it enables you to see all of the available characters for any given font.
I agree with this. I have always taken being “smart” as pot luck just like being tall. The fact that I used to have a phenomenal memory and a really inquisitive nature meant that I was a huge storage tank of information. Someone at work was recently asked “what did we ever do before the internet?” He answered, “we just asked don’t ask.” And that was pretty true about lots of things, but I figured it was my job to help out because one of my favorite teachers used to tell us “it isn’t important to memorize anything if know where to find the answer.” And because I had no airs and graces about helping out other people I got to do it a lot. From tutoring friends in high school to helping to solve other people’s problems at work.
It’s just like the tall woman who helps the short guy at work by getting down something from the top shelf. She doesn’t look down on him for needing help. Although, of course, she does look down on him in a literal, if not figurative, sense.
If you’re arrogant, it’s because you haven’t challenged yourself enough. Pick something you’re bad at (or have been avoiding because you secretly know you’re bad at it), and pursue it. If it’s a sport, join a team or take lessons. If it’s an intellectual pursuit, take classes or try to get a degree. It’ll beat that arrogance right out of you.
Don’t excuse your jerkish behavior with “but I’m smarter than everyone else”. Cuz you’re not.
This is a fine example of one of the advantages of asking rather than figuring it out for yourself. People who are good at something will often give an answer that does much more for you than the answer you thought you were requesting. Isolating an issue like exactly what steps do you use in this word processor to type or insert this symbol does little to broaden your knowledge or help you figure out how to insert that other symbol in that other software package. Finding out about Character Map probably lets you solve related problems wherever you encounter them, exposes you to symbols you didn’t know existed, gives you the idea to look for similar little applets, and in the end makes you much more self reliant (or at least gives you some of the means).
It’s probably best to have a wide range of approaches, including asking, and digging into it yourself, and reinventing the wheel, and giving up and writing “degrees” instead. Each of these has its advantages and is sometimes the best choice. The more practice you have at switching between them, the better.
OK, having been scathing about intellectual posturing both here and in the other thread, I will admit that there are brief, bright moments in life that fleetingly make me feel above average.
Today, it was me in a long queue at the supermarket, and the man joining behind me exclaimed in a loud (and I have to say, not bright-sounding) voice: “Why do I always have to join the back end of the fucking queue?!”
