Steppenwolf's Blog

When asked " what is your level of computer expertise " ( for instance Zone Alarm asks this question before moving on to the next page ) i generally say intermediate. But clearly this answer is subjective....at one point in my life i realized that the more i learn, the more i know, and the more that i know the more i realize that i know less than i think i know. How can one be humble in accessing their own knowledge?

In basic training ( Army ) there was a guy from NC who slept in the bunk next to mine who had a very interesting saying. Besides the physical training we also had classroom training on everything from first aid to chemical biological and nuclear warfare (CBN)  Since there is no educational qualifications for serving in the Army ( especially when there was a draft ) it was common to find a large number of men with little or no formal education; some couldn't read or if they did it was just enough to get by. So this guy from NC used to say, generally after class: " The more you study the more you learn, the more you learn the more you know, the more you know the more you forget; so why study?" His posit was interesting enough to get a laugh if nothing else and ironically i never forget it.

The Garden Guide may seem like an odd place to mention this story but what made me think about it was the time i've spent looking for an answer to a question that i think i should know but don't. And i will admit that i spent some time looking around the forums and blogs to see if i could find a definitive answer but have to admit that i didn't find one although i think i came close; a "blog" is like a journal? But beyond that i didn't find an answer as quickly as i might have liked to. Not limiting my search just to this website i Googled it and found dictionary definitions which did not exactly clarify the difference so i Googled further and found something that seemed clear enough for me to repost it here. If this definition sound accurate enough maybe it can be re-used here to clarify for those of us who think we're intermediates but don't know as much as we think we know.

Here's the link: http://www.nevon.net/nevon/200
4/10/blog_vs_forum_w.html

Here's a snippet:  "With both blogs and discussion forums (or newsgroups, chat groups, discussion threads... there are many different names for essentially the same thing), you can post a comment, and comment on other comments and so develop discussions. In both cases, you can leave comments which may or may not be moderated; and usually (but not always) you have to identify yourself with a name and email address."

Feedback is not only welcome but desired.

S. Wolf