Why the British neon floodlight lamp were called NE/H

Quote from: James on January 22, 2023, 06:26:06 AM

What an honourable and delightlful reply! I know that I have also made similar mistakes in the past, unfortunately far too long ago to find again and be able to improve. Although my response did take this thread rather off-topic for which I apologise, I do prefer to avoid secrets and keep discussions in the open. Experience has taught that the private messages really have little effect at the necessary level. Some members continue to leave us, and other lighting resources are growing stronger at our expense.

A long time ago another of our former frequent contributors (Globe-Collector) helped me understand this situation, with his memorable re-introduction to the Dunning-Kruger Effect. That is a psychological learning curve which plots Experience vs Confidence. It applies to all of us and is rather well illustrated here:

In the beginning when we learn any new subject, we all start with zero competence and as such have little confidence. Some people just aren't interested in learning, and will remain at that level. Others proceed to acquire a small amount of knowledge, and naturally this results in rapidly increased confidence. Such people will begin to answer each other's questions as if they know what they are talking about - but invariably don't actually understand the half of it and will give misleading answers and ask what seem like ridiculous questions. This phase is known as the Peak of Mount Stupid. Different people suffer this to varying extents and for different lengths of time. Some of the most dangerous managers I ever encountered at work had clearly got stuck at that point, and such people are superbly illustrated in another wonderful article from Sylvania's former R&D Director John Waymouth - author of the revered book "Electric Discharge Lamps". If you have time to read his article to its conclusions about corporate management, see here.

Anyway, nearly everyone who persists with their learning then comes to the realisation that in fact the subject is a lot more complex than they initially thought - and they begin to recognise just how little they actually know. Despite increasing knowledge, their confidence tumbles and leads them into the Valley of Despair. Such people are enthusiastic and still want to learn but are scared by how much knowledge still has to be acquired. Eventually we all pass through this phase, and only afterwards do we genuinely begin to learn valuable information, and become more competent and confident. This is a necessarily slow process. It can take a whole lifetime to reach the peak of our productivity in terms of knoweldge. And unfortunately it doesn't end there - because old age then sets in, and with it comes forgetfulness which distorts our earlier memories and we become once again less confident despite having previously acquired a marvellous rich knowledge!

During my academic studies I loved the science and hated all the psychological and philosphical stuff that we were forced to learn (and then quickly forgot). Such as the importance of this Dunning-Kruger curve, which I had heard of 25 years before I was eventually reminded of its importance, again thanks to contacts made via LG. Only after several decades I begin to realise that actually, to be effective at what we do, we all need to have a better understanding of the psychology of how people work and how to maximise their own chances of learning. An understanding of phenomena like Dunning-Kruger can help us become more tolerant and welcoming. It is nobody's fault if we think they got stuck at the peak of mount stupid because years ago, we all passed through that phase. Instead it's our responsibility to help them learn enough to pass as quickly as possible through both that phase as well as the valley of despair. The problems on an international forum like LG are also compounded by language differences. English is a wonderfully broad means of communication, but completely lacks the depths of many of the emotions and interpretations that are built into the languages of some of our other members. Typical translation tools still fail dismally to capture their actual meanings. What might seem like blunt or rude statements are often anything but that. So rather than putting the onus on the writer to compose messages in impeccable English, I find it helps if the reader always considers that perhaps the words we are seeing might not actually be the same as people would state in their own languages. We should try to look past that before reacting too negatively and focus on the technical content - while at the same time recognising that none of us here know it all, and that a lot of what we all think we know is actually still fundamentally flawed. Sometimes I cringe when I read my own responses of just a few years ago, and recognise how easy it is to speak with apparent confidence but now see that I really didn't understand what I was talking about back then!

I've been wanting to say this for a long while. But I have lacked the words to do so. You put it quite well. And Max's addition to this statement prettymuch ices the cake. Some people fail to see that some members may have minds that function in quite different ways compared to their own. The amount of bullying I've seen here and there was one of the contributing factors in my recent absence. Among other things.