We imagine this maths professor's lecture was fascinating – sadly he was muted for two hours
- Reference: 1612968305
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/02/10/lecturer/
- Source link:
That means videoconferencing remains the meeting-and-socialising method du jour , and plenty of opportunities for the less computer-savvy to screw it up so we can laugh at them.
[1]
Like lawyer Rod Ponton who turned up to a hearing of Texas's 394th Judicial District and had to tell Judge Roy Ferguson: "I'm here live. I am not a cat." He had a kitten filter on and didn't know how to disable it.
[2]Youtube Video
[3]
UK media made hay this morning, with the story leading BBC Breakfast , ITV's Good Morning Britain , and Radio 4's Today as mainstream outfits tie themselves in knots to bring folk news on anything other than coronavirus deaths and cases.
But it's not just the normies who struggle. "Tech journalist can't work tech" is a recurrent quip that bounces around the back alleys of The Register 's Slack server whenever someone's audio misbehaves or, worse, the pitching hack forgets to unmute themselves.
Do we jump in to let them know? Of course not, we just sit there rolling eyes into our webcams for 30 seconds or so until someone groans: "You're muuuuuuuted." Fortunately, no one has debased themselves so as to debug their hard drive while still on camera – but the same can't be said for [4]New Yorker staff writer Jeffrey Toobin . Mucky man.
Yet there is another recent vid-chat gaffe that has dodged the gimlet gaze of global news orgs, and it's soul-destroying in a different way.
If you think 30 seconds of muted waffling is bad, spare a thought for Dong Wang, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore's Department of Mathematics, who charged through his lecture for two whole hours with his mic disabled.
A YouTube video uploaded last week captures the dawning realisation that neither he nor his students will ever get that time back. Poor bloke.
[5]Youtube Video
Though you can hear his class breaking the bad news at the end of the session – "Uh. Hi Prof, actually you were muted all the while. So we couldn't hear anything from you since 6:08pm" – the [6]Malay Mail reports that students were more proactive than the average Reg staffer.
Azusa Chan, who attended the lesson, explained: "Class started at 6:00pm and he muted himself from 6:08 onwards. Students tried all sorts of things to get his attention by unmuting and even calling his phone number. However, he did not respond and continued with the lesson."
Wang signed off by telling his charges that he will repeat the lecture at a later date.
[7]
Vaccines are glacially rolling out, virus variants are running rampant and the end of the pandemic seems as distant as ever. So long may these screw-ups continue. Just check your mic icon before you open your gob, yeah? ®
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[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_xjbagNhIE
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Re: Hold up a sign.
Unlikely to work. He's probably screen sharing and has at best timy thumbnails of a small proportion of his auidence.
Re: Hold up a sign.
If they have the 49 screen view, then you each hold up one letter. Requires some coordination though!
Re: Hold up a sign.
Otherwise "Your Mic Is Off" could appear as "Scoff I Rim You" or "Comfy If I Sour" or "Icy If Forum So"...
Re: Hold up a sign.
Ah, where can I find Scoff's "friend"? Um, err, oh yes, I am asking for a friend. :)
Hah, it is very easy to do.
Though, I imagine that some students are so unengaged with the whole remote-learning thing that they don't even bother to tell the lecturer.
Seminar snoozers
As an audience member, the great advantage of muting yourself is that no-one can hear you snoring!
Re: Seminar snoozers
Just make sure you also turn off your video too or your colleagues will record you snoozing.
Re: Seminar snoozers
“A professor is someone who talks in someone else’s sleep”
W. H. Auden
Pray elaborate?
> He had a kitten filter on
What on earth is that???
Re: Pray elaborate?
I assume, and I might be wrong, but it's like a coffee filter except for cats. Instead of getting a nice cup of sort of hot coffee, you get a kitten in a mug?
Re: Pray elaborate?
Nah, the thing which separates the cat from its juice is called "kitty litter", not "filter".
Re: Pray elaborate?
> He had a kitten filter on
What on earth is that???
I suggest you ask a handy child. (They may look like a kitten if online.)
Not just online
Had a live and in person lecture at my Aussie uni once many moons ago (again maths), the lecturer was a Pakistani lecturer who, to be honest, we had always had some trouble understanding, so when he started into the lesson and we couldnt understand what he was talking about no one thought to much about it. After about 10 minutes, a student towards the front of the class managed to get the lecturers attention and said "Ahhh sir, I can understand you fine, but I dont think too many other people here speak Farsi. Perhaps English would be better?"
We all had a good laugh and the lecturer saw the funny side of it, so all good.
So lecturers and students not being able to understand each other goes back long before Covid. And it was still just as funny back then...
Dong Wang.
( Paris has perked up )
and he made a c**k-up of the lecture....nominative determinism at work methinks
Much more embarrasing: hot mic
When you thought you were muted but you're not.
I've had to train the missus not to immediately start talking to me if she walks into the home office and I have my headset on; now she waits until I indicate it's all good. (No cameras in defense so she comes and goes as she pleases; so do the kids getting paper for schoolwork.)
Side story: I had a bit of trouble a couple weeks ago. When trying to unmute the headset (USB) another chat/softphone program thought I wanted to make a call and I got a nice loud dial tone that covered everyone else and I couldn't talk through. Tried to go into the headset software to disable the offending program (and the dial tone completely), but it wouldn't uncheck. Kept having to close said program every time I had a meeting with either of our audio/screen meeting services (one for internal, another for customer). Resolved itself for reasons unknown.
Now they say the internal meeting software is becoming our primary softphone, replacing the IP phone back on the office desk. Hopefully things still work nicely when that change happens.
Re: Much more embarrasing: hot mic
My daughter works for a company that has some fairly extreme but justified security so I made a sign she could put on her door that advised she was in a Zoom meeting so we wouldn't accidently interrupt one of these top secret meetings. It works well and no need to train any potential interlopers.
Hold up a sign.
Big, bold, unmistakeable letters that read "Your Mic Is Off". If he still doesn't get the point then fire him & replace him with something smarter... like a plastic potted plant. =-Jp