Random abuse

7 Comments

Topics: Daily Life, The Little Things    

Maybe this comes up more frequently for me than most of our readers, but I want to ask if it bothers any of you when people use the term "random" to describe the actions of a computer.

For example, in the office today I overheard someone bemoan the fact that the computer was "randomly" skipping over records that it was supposed to process.

I just prefer a more accurate description, along the lines of "I can’t figure out the pattern behind which records are being skipped" or even "the computer is occasionally skipping records".  There is always a reason that the computer if working in the way it does, and just because you can’t figure it out doesn’t make it random.

Posted 22 Jul 2008

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7 Responses to “Random abuse”

  1. Shefaly on July 22nd, 2008 7:52 am

    Like beauty, randomness is in the eyes of the beholder, no?

    So if your colleague does not understand the process, and calls it random, I think it a perfectly valid term to describe a SNAFU.

  2. Quirky Indian on July 22nd, 2008 1:02 pm

    Here’s what it really is:

    “The computer was randomly skipping over records.”

    Translation: “For the life of me I can’t figure out what the hell’s happening to the damn machine….to absolve myself of any complicity in this SNAFU (thanks Shefaly :-) )let me describe this phenomenon as random”.

    And so it was that this term came to be.

    Cheers,
    Quirky Indian
    http://quirkyindian.wordpress.com

  3. Conall on July 22nd, 2008 7:55 pm

    @ Shefaly

    I suppose it makes sense that one has to use terms according to their personal definition, but it sure makes accurate and clear conversation difficult!

    @ Quirky Indian

    I think your interpretation is spot on.

  4. Shefaly on July 22nd, 2008 8:34 pm

    Conall (I notice it is the other brother :-)

    Isn’t random a bit like marmite? Some get it, some do not..

  5. Shefaly on July 22nd, 2008 8:36 pm

    uh-huh.. I meant some get the process, some do not. So those, who get the process, do not call its outcome ‘random’; others do. Sorry..

  6. Liam Dempsey on July 22nd, 2008 10:14 pm

    What really irritates me about ‘random’ is when i-Tunes plays songs at ‘random’ but for some reason unknown to me, plays only about 15 songs of the hundreds that I have on the computer. How is that random?

  7. Shefaly on July 23rd, 2008 7:37 am

    @ Liam:

    Does it? You know that comes as a relief. :-)

    I am so worried that I will hear the wrong kind of song if I play random numbers on iPod – which will then annoy me, distract me or have me singing and therefore waste my time – that I make lists and play only those..

    I will try that randomiser just as soon as the current deadline is over…

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