At work the lecturers have a widely varying range of computer and IT knowledge. Some teach programming and one guy doesn't even just look like a complete uber-nerd, he indeed replied with "250 dash <complete name> Hello" when I greeted him with "EHLO". If this just makes you think "WTF", google for SMTP and telnet client or console. SMTP is still the standard protocol to send email and the commands are in plain text.
Of course there's also the direct opposite of such people. The kind that does have no idea at all and needs help connecting a projector or playing a DVD. The worst kind of all is none of that, but has instead a very thin and scattered knowledge, yet thinks to have the skills of a professional. When something does not work as they expect it, it is obviously defective, because they already tried "fixing" it. Fixing here just means to change anything they can without paying attention to labeling and common sense. The result of that is of course simply more work for anyone who was basic knowledge about technology and also the slightest bit of common sense. Having to select the right input for the projector again after telling that you have to activate your VGA out to see a picture is harmless, I expect at least completely fucked up picture settings. "No signal" obviously means you might have the wrong color balance or contrast selected, doesn't it?
Of course the list of those kind of people is widely known among staff and from all of those there is one guy that stands out even from those. Let's call him Schnitzer here. We have some connections to China and he was taking part in an exchange. Clever as he was, he did some shopping there because tech stuff is cheap in China...
When my lovely co-worker called me for help because she had trouble with a thumbdrive, I wasn't expecting to get a good laugh soon. When I saw that Schnitzer was standing besides her I expected some fuck up from him, like saving something in a format that I have never heard of. The drive was shown as being completely empty, but with a filesystem and after silently sighing, I asked him to come with me and see if a real PC does read it properly. The girls nearly all only have thin clients and USB redirection has never worked properly with those.
When I looked at the drive I was getting suspicious. It said it would be a 400GB model. Not 256, not 512, not even 384, but exactly 400. And the last I heard of was something way smaller that also cost a fortune.
Me: Wow, 400 gigs, that thing must have been quite expensive.
Schnitzer: Actually not. I bought it in China.
*Alarm bell rings widly*
Schnitzer: The seller initially wanted 80 bucks for it, but I got him down to 20.
Me: Well, then you have been ripped off because this thing is just a scam.
Schnitzer: No, I tested it, this thing is totally OK.
Sure. Somebody sold you flash memory worth a hundred bucks for twenty. And also packed it on a PCB with a controller chip and into some housing. Someone here is an imbecile and despite the education standards I have the feeling the Chinese guy is not it.
Me: I'm willing to bet half a month's income that this thing does not have 400GB. If you don't take that bet, I offer you to bet about a beer it does not even have 4GB.
Schnitzer: Seriously, plug it in and you will see that it has 400GB.
I did, could read the filesystem and yes, it of course said 400GB. His data just weren't lost because there only were a mere 5MB on it.
Me: So I guess you are not aware of the fact that the capacity information is provided by the controller chip, not the actual data storage. That chip likely just writes over the same dozen megabytes again and again if you put more on it than the maybe 512MB it really has.
Schnitzer: How is this possible?
Me: USB controller chips are often programmable.
Schnitzer: I mean how can it store 400 gig in a dozen megabytes.
Me: It cannot. Your data goes to hell.
To make this shorter, he was absolutely convinced that this thing was not fake but a thumbdrive as big as a laptpop hard drive for a price lower than a bad blowjob. I offered him to demonstrate it, copied his files to somewhere else and started to put a complete DVD on it. Of course the cheap controller was slow, so we decided he should come back after holding his lecture. He did and of course neither any of his files were readable nor any of the ones from the DVD.
He was totally breathless and just wouldn't want to believe he had been ripped off like the dumbest jerk ever. When he then started whining about his lost money, I told him that I'd have to go to the server room for something and he should just write it off as an educational expense and get a real one. After the door behind me shut I turned up the AC to maximum load and laughed dementedly for at least 5 minutes.
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