Had someone contact me because a browser interface was ‘down’ and it was actually a cert issue. It surprised me that in an IT context, this person didn’t have a basic understanding of SSL certs. They didn’t even know how to add a cert exception.

It got me thinking, what basic ubiquitous things am I a dumbass about outside of IT?

Ive seen lots of ‘fun facts’ compilations, but it would be better to get a wide range of subject suggestions that I can spend 30 minutes each or less on, and become a more capable human.

Like what subjects would plumbers consider basic knowledge? Chemical interactions between cleaning products and PVC pipes?

What would an accountant or a landscaper consider to be so basic its shocking people can live their lives without knowing any of it?

For most areas of expertise, its difficult to know even what the basics are to start with.

  • z00s@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    A lot of the IT guys I know have little to no knowledge of mechanical stuff. Learn to fix your car

    • Toribor@corndog.social
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      8 months ago

      This is definitely a weak spot of mine although at this point it is somewhat willful. I can do some very basics like swap filters or change a tire but I’ve never found a need to grow beyond that considering my vehicle is reliable and regular maintenance like oil changes are so cheap and accessible.

      • z00s@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Lawnmower, whatever. Learn how to fix a tap / toilet / anything a round the house.

        • Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org
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          Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook.

          It will tell you how to iron your clothes, pick table linens, care for paintings, deal with water damage after a natural disaster, pick between a laser and inkjet printer, fix a cartridge faucet, and install a dimmer switch.

          The Army should issue it to new recruits.

        • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          Apart from tire changes, electric cars have few typical car problems.

          There’s no oil to change, a lot of the braking is regenerative so the brakes last a LONG time, they have very few pumps, hoses, filters and pipes just cables that don’t really wear out. No cam belts or spark plugs.

          Basically all I do is swap the pollen filter and wiper blades. There’s an occasional brake fluid check (not really a DIY thing for me) and I’ve had damages (busted mirror, broken charging cable).

          I’ve also done a battery swap myself, which does require a garage, but only because you can’t lift the thing by hand.

  • solarvector@lemmy.zip
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    8 months ago

    Processes

    Super generic, most people interact with them in some form all the time both at work and personal without a second thought. Very few understand what makes a good process, especially when there is a handoff involved.

    Oh also communication. Everyone does it so a lot of people must be really good at it right? Yeah…

    • ott@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Could you give a brief overview (or detailed if you want, I’m curious!) of what you think makes a good process? More specifically, what makes a good process and what makes good documentation for said process?

      • solarvector@lemmy.zip
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        8 months ago

        Mostly it’s about best practices I think, and getting a feel for them. Try starting with something simple, like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Describe how it’s done, each step. Think about where it’s efficient, where there’s extra wasted action, or time. By the time you’re done you’ll be considering if your butter knives are stored in the best spot, if you should get everything out at once, or one at a time. Do you have enough inventory? Is having extra inventory a waste? Is it worth washing knives afterwards or get extra so you can wash a batch at a time instead?

        Then, go back through from the perspective of a child that has never seen your kitchen. Do the steps still make sense? How can you make it more simple, less effort? Finally, when I mentioned hand off… How do you ensure that your child laborer is going to deliver a pb&j of sufficient quality? Who determines quality? Production time?

        Once you start thinking that way, everything is a process that could be considered, with inputs and outputs, quality control issues, potential waste, efficiency improvements, etc. It applies to data just as much as a sandwich for example, and office jobs are all about taking information, changing it a little and sending it on. Each step should transform in some way (capturing who does what, to what, at each step can help). Understanding the complexity instead of assuming simplicity so you can analyze it, but then distill it back down to something that is actually simple and understandable.

        Anyway, hopefully that helps some in thinking about it a little differently.

        For googling key words: quality management, process mapping, process analysis, lean, ?

        Unfortunately there’s a lot of corporate shit, buzzwords, and SEO that have accumulated so it can by hard to find good info (like everything else now?)

        • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          Ho boy, I’ve been working through Goldratt’s greatest hits, and just the question of inventory opens a whole rat’s nest of considerations. Like what even is inventory? I mean, -hits pipe- even time is inventory, man.

        • krash@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Thank you, this was a really interesting read. Would love to see a tutorial series on processes by you!

        • auzas_1337@lemmy.zip
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          8 months ago

          This is really interesting and a good way to think about a bunch of things. I’ll try it out. I do pay some attention to processes, but not to granular detail.

          This is a very rationalistic worldview though. Surely you don’t look at everything as a process?

  • Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Not really completely on topic, but there’s an app called Kinnu. It’s free, and gamifies learning- like Duolingo but for a really wide variety of topics. So far I’ve done the pathways on learning, ikigai (Japanese concept of reason for living/being), logic and cognitive biases. They have pathways on other things too, like history, various sciences, philosophies, even personal finance (probably the next one I do).

    It’s a great way to kill 2-5 minutes a day and Ive learned a ton.

      • Helix 🧬@feddit.de
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        8 months ago

        Oh most people can’t drive. Recently read an article 90% of drivers overestimate themselves. I know I’m above average but by far not a good driver. I still try to become better.

  • Helix 🧬@feddit.de
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    8 months ago

    Always use a one lead voltage meter when working on electricity. Don’t trust your breakers. Don’t trust light switches.

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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      8 months ago

      Are you talking about the meters that simply detect whether wires are still live or not? Definitely a good backup to double check that you’ve shut off the right breaker.

      If you’re talking about a single lead multimeter to measure voltage, I’ve never heard of such a thing and don’t know how that would even work.

      • Helix 🧬@feddit.de
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        8 months ago

        This one can detect voltage with a single lead and also works as a voltage meter if you use two leads: https://www.benning.de/products-en/testing-measuring-and-safety-equipment/test-equipment-voltage-tester/voltage-tester-duspol.html

        It also has an inbuilt motor to distinguish leaking voltage from continuous AC.

        Sorry if I didn’t use the correct English terms and that wasn’t clear enough.

        In Germany you simply call it a Duspol and every electrician knows what you mean. Didn’t research enough into the English description but it seems it’s a two pole voltage tester with one pole voltage detection mode.

      • JakenVeina@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        There’s literally no such thing as a one-lead voltage meter. Voltage is, by definition, the difference in potential energy between two points.

        Any tool that can give a voltage reading with one probe has a second probe you’re not considering, or is estimating voltage based on a some assumptions about current or some other factor being measured.

  • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    If people say ‘i have excel competence’, the difference could be between ‘i can resize fonts and do tables for my company forms because I don’t know how to do them in word’ to ‘fully modelling a business plan for a Telco, including it’s subsidiary units’. Make sure you test for the level of competence you’re after.

    Learn a new formula every now and then, or at very least learn to read other people’s formulas, then google what you don’t know. Literacy in any field is the result of a long process of learning.

    (Reread your question) Outside of IT: if an appliance stops working, it’s sometimes just a fuse that needs replacing. It’s cheap and easy to do.

  • Pulptastic@midwest.social
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    8 months ago

    Don’t use high heat on nonstick pans.

    Assuming we want the same internal temperature, high heat will cook the outside more than low heat. For bread you probably want a bit more heat to get a nice crusty outside. For steaks you want less heat to avoid overcooking most of the meat, then just a quick sear on the outside.

    Don’t overload your pan. If your food is cooking in a bunch of water that came out of the food you are boiling it, not frying it, and it’s going to suck. Put in less food so that water can boil off before it starts boiling your food.

    Don’t overload your cookie sheets either. The center of the pan will not get as hot due to all that cold wet food sucking up all the heat, so the fries on the edge will cook faster than the fries in the middle.

    Sear or roast your brassicas. They taste way better with some browning and lots of oil and salt.

    Measuring food by weight is much easier and much more accurate than measuring by volume with measuring cups and spoons. This is next level awesome if you’re trying to measure something sticky like honey or peanut butter, you can weigh it in the mixing bowl rather than dirtying a measurement device.

    Don’t overvook your meat. Use a fast read meat thermometer. Beef, pork, chicken, seafood, are all much better when cooked.to the proper internal temperature.

    I am not a cooking expert, I am a heat transfer expert with a strong background in chemistry and those skills transfer over to cooking.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      8 months ago

      Just adding to yours as I’m a nerd for gardening and it isn’t common knowledge: brassicas are vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, mustard, etc

      Also on the topic of brassicas, if you see the little white “butterflies” with a black dot on each wing, those are cabbage moths and the bane of a gardeners existence! Unless an entomologist can chime in and say why they’re actually great lol

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I find high heat in stainless steel pans is very good though? Like it works better to heat the pan and then add your oils. They’re so much better.

      • Pulptastic@midwest.social
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        8 months ago

        Definitely. I agree that in stainless, it is best to get hot first, then add oil, then add food. It is also best to let the food sit still for a bit on the heat, as it browns it will naturally start to detach to flip or remove. Same works for cast iron but easier

  • boatswain@infosec.pub
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    8 months ago

    If you’re pulling on a rope really hard, don’t wrap it around your hand to get a better grip. If it starts to pull away from you, you won’t be able to let go, and if someone runs up to help and starts hauling on the end, your hand is going to be in a world of pain.

  • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Microbial pathogenesis here. This one’s a fun one for me, especially since COVID revealed just how illiterate the average person is about diseases. Here’s a couple that I think should be common sense

    • Not all bacteria cause disease. In fact, very few bacteria cause disease. Many bacteria are even helpful to us, so you should really weigh the pros and cons of taking antibiotics if you’re considering using antibiotics.

    • Antibiotics don’t work against viral infections. You’re getting all the downsides of killing helpful bacteria and getting none of the benefits

    • Do not blindly trust your immune system. Your immune system works 100% of 50% of the time. Many white blood cells take the philosophy of murdering everything in sight just to be safe. This can and often does include killing important cells in your body that just happen to be nearby the site of infection. Even if you survive the infection, you will be weakened as a result. If you can avoid getting sick in the first place, avoid getting sick.

    • Vaccines work. I don’t really know what else to say about this one.

    • Viruses and bacteria aren’t hard to kill. There’s many compounds that can kill viruses and bacteria. But humans aren’t hard to kill either. The tricky part is figuring out how to kill viruses and bacteria while also keeping the human alive. Basically: don’t drink bleach. It will kill your bacteria or virus but it’ll kill you too

    • watersnipje@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      8 months ago

      Could you say something about why it’s bad to eat moldy food, and why it’s bad to kill the good bacteria in your body? I know your intestines can function less well, is there anything else?

      • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Regarding moldy food, it’s because you’re taking a gamble on what exactly the mold is. There’s many types of mold, and some can produce very toxic compounds. Eating the mold can poison yourself. Of course, if you know that it’s a safe mold, then you can eat it (that’s how cheese making works). But as with all things in microbiology, things tend to be complicated very quickly, and it can be pretty hard for amateurs and even professional microbiologists to accurately distinguish between safe and unsafe molds.

        With regards to killing helpful bacteria, you are correct that one of their uses is that they help improve the efficiency of digestion. This is a very young and growing field (and also not entirely in my field of expertise), so many things I say might be outdated. The second most obvious downside to killing helpful bacteria is that they prevent actual harmful bacteria from growing out of control. There are several bacteria (in particular, C. dificile) where taking antibiotics actually makes the infection worse, since the antibiotics kills off the helpful bacteria that were helping to contain the infection.

        Scientists also have found semi-recently that bacteria in your intestines have an incredible amount of control over you as a person. Your body even has a sort of hotline that connects from your intestines directly to your brain, called the vagus nerve, and the bacteria in your intestines use this to communicate with your brain. For instance, scientists have found that the type of bacteria in your gut can influence the onset and severity of autism symptoms. One current hypothesis for autism is that the body, during development, somehow messes up the composition of bacteria in your intestines, and that in turn messes up the development of the brain. I seem to recall reading papers that linked bacteria to other neurological diseases and disorders, but I don’t remember completely.

        Another is that the bacteria are known to be linked to obesity. Scientists have found that if you give 2 people the exact same foods in the exact same amounts, one can develop obesity and one won’t. Whether someone develops obesity or not is highly predictable based on the composition of the bacteria in their intestines. As a matter of fact, scientists have even found that if you replace an obese person’s bacteria with bacteria taken from a healthy person, then the obese person will begin to lose weight, even if that person hasn’t changed anything else.

        The bacteria in your intestines are also known to be in constant communication with your immune system. I believe the immune system uses the bacteria in your intestines to train when you’re young. But this back-and-forth extends well into adulthood. Scientists found that bacteria can control the development and activity of white blood cells. That, of course, leads to differences in things like fighting off infections and killing cancers.

        The bacteria in your intestines are incredibly important, and we’re only just now beginning to understand what they do for us. That’s why I say that you have to weigh pros and cons. If you think you’d be fine without it, I recommend not taking antibiotics. But if the infection is severe, then it’s worth dealing with the downsides. Talk to your doctor if you’re unsure - he probably knows more about what situations are severe and which aren’t. But what you definitely don’t want to do (which I know many people tend to do) is to pressure the doctor into prescribing antibiotics. Antibiotics aren’t a wonder drug, and people shouldn’t be immediately jumping to antibiotics as a solution to their infections

      • BaumGeist@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        I am not a Microbial Pathogensist, so I’ll just use the internet’s preferred method of saying something confidently that is probably wrong on some pedantic level and having actual experts climb out of the woodwork to correct me, but…

        Mold isn’t a single organism, it’s actually a colony of many individual microbes that work together, most of the time; there are exceptions since the word “mold” is a lay term as much as it’s a scientific term, and the common usage doesn’t have the same rigor applied (“if it’s slimy/fuzzy, it’s mold” kinda reasoning).

        The colony aspect is important, because you’re probably inhaling mold spores and eating tiny amounts of mold every day. The microbial aspect means that eating a whole colony has the potential to infect you even if your body kills off 99.9% of the microbes.

        As to why an infection is dangerous depends on the type of mold. Some take up resisdence in specific organs and starve the organ cells of vital nutrients, others are carnivorous and eat your tissues/cells, others may eat beneficial bacteria or starve them of vital nutrients, some secrete toxins that are relatively harmless in small doses but deadly with a full-blown infection—penicillin is a great well-known example of this: it’s the chemical the mold uses to kill off bacteria competing for the same resources—, sometimes it’s just the immune system’s response that’s dangerous.

        If you want an example of what such an infection does on our scale, look up everyone psychonaut’s favorite: Ergotism. The Ergot fungus grows primarily on cereals/grains and secretes chemicals that are psychoactive in humans (one of which is the precursor that Dr. Albert Hoffmann first derived LSD from). Unfortunately besides mind expanding insights into the nature of reality, it also comes with a nasty infection that can cause convulsions, painful burning/tingling/freezing sensations, diarrhea, vomiting, gangrene, psychosis, and more.

        That all being said, if you accidentally swallow a bite of moldy bread, you probably don’t need to freak out and call poison control/EMS; just don’t regularly eat moldy food and expect to have your immune system stave off a full-blown infection for long.

      • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Not worth the risk, to be honest. You don’t know how deep the mold has penetrated into the cheese, and without a microscope, you will never know if you’ve shaved off enough to fully remove the mold.

        Also, mold spores are all over the place. They float around in the air. You breathe them in all the time. If you got visible mold growing on a cheese, there’s a good chance that there’s not-yet-visible mold growing in other spots, too.

    • bob_lemon@feddit.de
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      8 months ago

      you should really weigh the pros and cons of taking antibiotics if you’re considering using antibiotics.

      Is that a choice you can make where you’re from? Here in Germany, that is entirely the physician’s choice to make. You cannot get them without a prescription. Although I guess you can ignore the doctor if they tell you to take them. But if you don’t trust your doctor, get another doctor.

      • breakingcups@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Hello neighbor! I’ve had them prescribed, but when asked if it was really necessary or if I could give it a bit longer to see if my body could deal with it on its own, my doctor got a big smile and told me he could. Then he said that the dominant demographic in my area is very persistent and pushy in demanding antibiotics for the slightest thing so he’s gotten a bit too used to prescribing them.

    • wellDuuh@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The real body of the mold is an invisible network of roots that tunnel through the core of the food. Even if you cut off the fuzzy portion, you’re still eating most of the mold.

      What?!

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago
      • Viruses and bacteria aren’t hard to kill. There’s many compounds that can kill viruses and bacteria. But humans aren’t hard to kill either. The tricky part is figuring out how to kill viruses and bacteria while also keeping the human alive.

      Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1217/

        • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          We usually refer to petri dishes as being for bacteria. We do grow cancer cells in dishes, but these ones are specifically made to grow mammalian cells. We just call them dishes

    • idiomaddict@feddit.de
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      8 months ago

      Can you explain the E. coli point a little more?

      Is it that because it’s hard to kill, it’s a good indicator of the initial contamination, meaning it’s essentially stickier than other bacteria and leaves a longer record that there was contamination?

      Because otherwise being hard to kill makes it seem like it would be a bad indicator to me, in that it would return a lot of false positives (though maybe that’s the goal in this case).

      • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
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        With regards to food and water safety (really, this applies to all safety regulations), you would rather get false positives than false negatives. It’s better to be overly cautious than to be under-cautious. Because if we’re under-cautious, then someone might get sick. So we actually want to pick a common, hardy bacteria that’s easy to grow. There’s several other reasons why E. coli is such a good indicator bacteria, such as:

        • it grows quickly, so we can get test results quickly

        • it’s remarkably easy to distinguish E. coli from other bacteria, so much so that you don’t really even need a microscope. The less technical expertise is required for water testing, the better.

        • they’re usually safe, which lowers the amount of training required for water testers, and also lowers the risk of disease in case a test gets mishandled

        • they’re generally more resistant to water treatment than other bacteria, typically being the last to die. So if we killed E. coli, that’s a good indicator that we’ve also killed the other bacteria

      • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I think false positives are preferable in that context. I’d rather have a lot of false positives than any false negatives at all when it comes to poop water

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Basic computer competency starts with reading the error message.

    I’ve worked in IT and you’d be amazed how many people are stuck with some problem that would be fixed if they just read the error message on their screen.

    For example, it might say:

    Error! The green button needs to be pressed. It’s on your keyboard. It’s green. It also has lettering on it that says PRESS HERE.

    People will bring their computer in, at a total loss for what to do.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The customer service manager sent not one, not two, but three emails in one hour demanding our engineers fix this login error that a high valued customer had.

      The error was “username or password was incorrect”.

      I fixed it by resetting their password.

  • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nzOP
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    8 months ago

    What we need really is a skills tree for real life. Then it would be much easier to spot the things you’re level 1 in.

    • krash@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      I work in IT and I need this. This field is vast and sometimes it’s hard to know what you don’t know, or how well you know what you know.

      Sure, there’s certs, but they just show how well you’re familiar with that particular field (or worse yet, that you know how to pass that particular test).

  • Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 months ago

    This is typically why education and experience are still needed if you’re self taught.

    I know from learning programming that people online don’t explain “common sense” problems. So many times you’ll look up a problem and see people talk about huge refactors or complex niche fixes when in reality you misplaced a single line of code.

  • Bigoldmustard@lemmy.zip
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    8 months ago

    It’s really easy to understand diabetes but it’s not something a lot of people grasp quickly if it doesn’t affect them.

    First, when you eat carbohydrates they are converted into sugar by the body. Your cells want that sugar, but they don’t want too much. Too much sugar in the blood can damage blood vessels, leading to all sorts of issues ranging from annoying to fatal.

    Insulin is like UPS, it delivers the sugar to the cells, also facilitating its entry into the cells. Normal people’s pancreas release an appropriate amount of insulin to match the amount of sugar in your blood and keep your blood sugar in a safe range (70-120, guidance on this varies this is not medical advice).

    Type 1: Pancreas is damaged, often by the body’s immune system, and can no longer produce insulin. It’s genetic, and it doesn’t usually present after adolescence. The only treatment for type 1 is insulin. If you don’t have a pump you take a 24-hour insulin for a baseline and then a short-acting insulin for your meals. You usually have a carbohydrate to insulin ratio. 1 unit of insulin to 15g carbs is pretty common for a starting point. If you have a pump it just releases a slow drip of insulin as a base and then you program your ratio for meals.

    Type 2: Your cells become insulin resistant and your pancreas responds by upping the amount of insulin it produces. Eventually it can’t keep up and your blood sugar rises. There is a period of time where you can avoid developing type 2 with diet changes. There is a period of time where you can just take pills. The final stage is using insulin injections like a type 1.

    Finally, insulin is really expensive (or was, I think there’s legislation lowering prices in my state). The retail price without insurance of 2 insulins, needle tips, and blood testing supplies can easily be $1200/month. That’s the price you pay to eat without dying as a type 1.

    I’m just a simple guy but if making that much money off people who literally have no other choice isn’t evil I’m not sure what is. Do we deserve to be able to eat? Tough call I guess.

  • 1D10@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    When you understand that in the grand scheme of things we are all profoundly ignorant, everything becomes much more interesting.

    Anytime I think " fuck I don’t know how to do that" I remind myself that I can learn it, and then learn at least the basics.

    While I may not be the font of all knowledge, I am the overflowing urinal of useless information.