This morning I had a lecture in experimental statistics. I'll admit, the topic sounds hard, but it really isn't. Before I get to the story, a little background about the course. The worst thing about the lectures is the professor who cannot teach. Everytime we get to something I don't understand and somone asks her for clarification her response is "It's not important...let's move on." Now, if it's not important, why are we learning it?
Today we are sitting in class, talking about random effect models, and the professor pulls this example out and starts talking. Basically, a textile company has a bunch of looms and wants to look at the variance in the fabric. About 4 minutes into this example a girl raises her hand and says, "I was wondering what a loom is?" (are you fucking with me?...seriously, are you fucking with me?) The professor immediatly blurts out, "I have a thread spinner!!" Then the professor realizes not only is that response not an answer, but an asinine thing to say to 50 some graduate students in an experimental statistics lecture., unless she tells us the predicted mean and variance of the thread spinner.
A little time passes while the professor thinks of how to best address this question. After careful consideration, this professor looks at the girl and says, "A loom is what is used to convert threads into fabric." I suppose that is a fair answer. Not a descriptive answer, but a technically correct. If you asked me "what is a computer?" and I said "What we use to convert words into blogs." You would probably look at me like a jack ass. Anyways, there is this ackward pause and the professor looks at the girl and says, "I never thought somebody wouldn't know what a loom is." The girl looks to here friend and says, "I must be stupid."
My thoughts on the matter are, 'yes, you are stupid.' Who doesn't know what a loom is?
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