non-joke of the day - due to no misc.forum

[Minni]

Hi, consider this rhetorical. Far from being "joke of the day", this is actually a serious post (for lack of a misc.forum). I'm hoping to clarify the concept of "retrospective perspective". Please pass it on, as it may save time and grief for zillions of people, by helping them realize that it makes sense to explain stuff holistically to people who are in the dark. (Somewhat similar to explaining visuals to blind people. Picture Helen Keller's Aha! moment.)

RETROSPECTIVE PERSPECTIVE​

This is based on my real life experiences, but without a doubt, there were way more which i can't remember.

(1) Long ago, on various forums, i'd been agonizing over which sink strainer to get. As I recall, some people had been sorta flippant (or confused?) as to why I was making a big deal over a relatively minor issue. That had frustrated me, because:
for one thing, I didn't realize you can use any cheapo strainer with any drain, so what if i invest in a strainer-plus-its-drain-underpart, only to realize afterward that the strainer bothers me? and:
secondly, I didn't realize that it doesn't matter if tiny bits of stuff escape down the drain (thus my concern over strainers which turn clockwise to Open/Close, because small bits tend to get trapped between outer rim and drain, and:
thirdly, I hadn't yet experienced those cheapo screen-type strainers nor had i experienced non-odorous p.v.c. drains. At the time, my rusty-metal drains were extremely odorous. Once I changed them to p.v.c., it didn't matter when I put a cheapo-screen strainer, because there was nomore odor.
So from all the above, and what follows below, you can now deduce how to imaginatively anticipate many possible scenarios which "he or she" may not realize. As in "hmm, perhaps she doesn't realize that she can use any junk strainer with her drain? Perhaps she doesn't realize that the above part isn't called a Drain but rather a Strainer? Perhaps she doesn't realize that it's OK for small particles to escape thru the outer-rim in those strainers which turn clockwise? THAT must be why she's agonizing, so instead of poking fun, let's go thru all the possible angles she may not be realizing.

(2) My relatives had been laughing at my giving them a microwave dish-cover. Like, duh, who the heck needs this thing? I was confused because I had thought it's supposed to prevent wetness from shooting everywhere & making a mess.
But now in retrospect - i realize the opposite is true - which they didn't think to explain to me!
Because of that, I basically had decades of frustration from wet microwaves all because i followed instruction manual!! See, the instruction manuals constantly discuss covering and uncovering food within the microwave. So I thought, hey, i probably can never go wrong keeping food covered when cooking in microwaves, as long as i keep the Cover-Vents open sometimes.
Surprise, surprise. Recently, when i came across some instructions about cooking macaroni easily in a microwave, that's when i finally finally realized how i'd have been better off not using a microwave cover for most foods all along, and to use parchment paper around corn-cobs and so forth.
...So why don't microwave instructions explain these things better, geared to dummie cooks?

(3) My long-ago typing teacher failed to explain that to achieve Capital letters, you need to hold the Shift button simultaneous with the text-letter. For some reason, everyone else figured it out, except for me, which caused me intense embarrassment at not catching on to what everyone else did. The way I did it, was first press Shift, then release it, then press the text-letter. How was i supposed to know? Teachers need to anticipate that one person who is different; that one person who doesn't learn by "tinkering or osmosis" the way so many seem to do.

(4) Here are two "mouse" stories.

The 1st mouse story was long ago, when my computer screen was acting ornery. So online techs were for the most part advising that it sounds like it needs a new board or something to that effect. The thread dragged out thru various posted advices. Eventually i figured it out, by testing it directly using the laptop-fingerpad, rather than mouse. It turned out to be either the mouse, or else the green/purple adapter connected to the mouse. That's what fixed the problem!

The 2nd mouse story, is when i read about a couple who thought accusatorily about their neighbors, thinking they were dirty and therefore mice were tracking crumbs around from the neighboring apartment into theirs. So after many fruitless bouts with exterminators (who themselves were confused) the couple finally moved due to jittery frustration. It turned out, that they owned some footwear with a cheaply-produced rubber sole, which shed pieces that looked exactly like crumbs!
Guess what - my having read that story saved me the SAME EXACT grief. Because initially, i felt very accusatory at someone for tracking crumbs in my bedroom UNTIL i remembered that story, and sure enough, voila, the soles on my clogs had gotten extremely crumbly from extreme heat.

(5) As a child, I used to look downward while walking. I thought that otherwise, i'd trip over potential obstacles in my path. Clear thinking, isn't it (even if it's not experimental-thinking?
See, nobody ever explained to me the concept of peripheral vision. In fact, one of the teachers at the school decided to take matters in hand aggressively. She gave me dire threats, after which I began staring at the ceiling, afraid to look downward due to her threats.

As a 4-year old child, I was asked if I want to be a flower girl.
I assumed I'd be sent away to some academy for that, so I yelled "NO! I don't wanna be a flower girl!"
I guess nobody at the time bothered to define what "flower girl" entails..

Yet another childhood tale:
My friend was with me on a seesaw swing; we were seated across from each other. I boasted that I know which is my right hand & left hand. I said, "see? this is my right hand." So she retorted, "No!! this is my right hand!"
We proceeded to frustratedly "correct" each other, not realizing we were BOTH correct from our own perspectives, seated in opposite directions...
I guess nobody ever explained that to either of us...

In summary, I'd be surprised if others here don't have at least one or more similar stories out of their near or far past.

 

[FullySprinklered]

It's a man-thing, darling.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Minni]

whatever that means...I remembered another Retrospective Perspective on the part of someone else, which i read about in the old days. There was this young woman who had become blind. In years prior to that, she'd been very close to an autistic brother, who used to get all excited over an amber shard of glass which he had found, and which he kept among his treasures in a bag. Following his episodes, she would humor him his ecstasy.

Then her brother passed on, and later, she became blind. During a period of depression, she was rifling through her deceased brother's bag, and at one point put his amber shard up against her eye (which she may have remembered him doing). To her shock, she suddenly could see again. So she experimented removing, then replacing the glass within her line of vision. Sure enough, it was that amber glass which was responsible for her being able to see. After consultations with doctors, it came out that she probably had some sort of genetic visual condition which ran in the family, and which can be remedied by just that color. (Irlen Syndrome comes to mind, but I don't recall for sure).

The point here, is this story proved that her brother actually wasn't silly in the least; it didn't warrant being humored. Rather, he knew exactly what he meant, despite being non-verbal. He had been trying to communicate about his "magic glass" which worked such wonders.

But her Retrospective Perspective first came to her after his death. Not that it didn't achieve anything, because this way she had the story published and brought to public awareness.

 

[CheesecakeLover]

Fascinating stories. But "retrospective perspective"? I have not heard that term before. Is that a term that is used often?

I think it all boils down to knowledge. What knowledge do you have? What knowledge do you need? With the right knowledge, you can avoid all kinds of pitfalls. But getting that knowledge takes time, effort, commitment, and of course it helps to have a competent teacher.

The following truisms are very important and, well, true:

• "Knowledge is power."
• "You don't know what you don't know."
• "Practice makes perfect."

I find it amusing when I hear people exclaim: "Well, you should have told me that! If I knew THAT, I wouldn't be in this pickle." Yeah no kidding. But if you don't even know what information you're missing, then you can't expect somebody else to read your mind, notice the blank spot, and conveniently drop that exact nugget of helpful knowledge into your brain. A good teacher is one thing. But a mind-reading teacher doesn't exist.

It takes me so long to do any DIY plumbing job because 99% of the time I spend just thinking instead of doing. I read so much stuff online because I'm afraid I'll do it wrong. If I already had the knowledge, the job would be done in a few days. Instead it takes months. Wife is pissed.

You look at pipes and at first glance everything seem so simple. You have a rudimentary understanding of the purpose of a "trap", and a "vent". Water flows down hill. Crap flows down hill. Right? Wrong. It's not so simple. That's what I learned.

Just try to build a bathroom correctly, knowing that an inspector is gonna come to check out your work and make you rip it out if you did it wrong. It's a lot more complicated than it looks at first glance. "You can't put your shower stall there because it needs to be vented and you can't run a vent like that!"

There's just so many potential pitfalls when you're trying to keep compliant with the code. There are a hundred different fittings and pipe sizes and material types, and each one has a specific application and restrictions on where and how they can be used.

This is why plumbers go to school and apprentice. They spend years learning this stuff, and that's why we pay them. If you want to commit years of your life to learning this subject, then you too will be able to do everything quickly and correctly. But until you obtain that knowledge, you will either struggle or you'll have to pay someone else to do it for you.

As for me, I've learned that the amount of stuff that I don't know is a lot more than I originally thought.

And as for a joke: Keep in mind that the following was installed by a professional licensed plumber.

This is the breakroom sink at my work. Ever since it was installed (like 5 years ago) it has been very slow to drain. Every 3-4 months they call in a contractor to unclog it. So today I figured I would kneel down and take a look under the cabinet.

• Flexible accordion pipe.
• Using a vent-tee to drain waste water.
• Yes, that's not an optical illusion -- the trap arm IS going uphill. This causes particulates to settle in the trap.
  
• No vent at all. I believe this would be considered an "S-trap".
  
• There is a drinking fountain on the opposite side of the wall. The drinking fountain gurgles and acts as the only source of air admittance to this sink drain.

 

[Minni]

when u say "uphill" i guess you mean what's visible at left-most pic...
I know near zilch about plumbing, vents, etc.etc. so you run rings around me.
I did become adept at using one of those As-Seen-TV wires to clear the drains sometimes. I love it, even if plumbers don't.

Also, by way of demo, allow me to respond to two of your comments with this demo:

Demo:
DUH, you didn't grasp what i mean by "retrospective perspectives"?
(that's also in response to your comment about dropping a helpful nugget. Because I wasn't just saying that, I was also saying how people assumingly poke fun, as in my demo with the Pink Rolleyes.

So now, here's the less-assuming response :
uh, i guess i myself may have coined that phrase. Retrospective means "reviewing the past issue in retrospect". Retrospect is like hindsight.

 

[hj]

quote; Retrospective means "reviewing the past issue in retrospect"
Isn't that circular logic, defining a term by using the term? Retro by definition is "from the past".
My experience has been that plastic drains are MUCH "smellier" than metal ones. A handyman, which I hope the installer of that drain was , would say, "What's wrong with it? It works doesn't it?"