The definition of 'helpiness'

[lanfykins]

It looks like help, without actually being in any way helpful.

Today's case in point:
Me: Where can I get second-hand coursebooks for S276? I know it's only a month and a bit until I get my own, but I need to start studying them in August because I'm busy revising in September. Alternatively, does anyone know how likely it is that they'll be sent

Comments

[bopeepsheep]

I dunno, they've revised your "month and a bit" up to "two full months" there. Not addressing your questions directly, but not un-useful information either.

[lanfykins]

I'm not seeing any obvious way to make use of it, I gotta say.

[bopeepsheep]

Eh, for me it'd be the difference between "it's only a month and a bit, I'll just wait" and "two full months? I'll try to get the books now". But I'm lazy that way.

With all my advance reading lists I started out owning ~50% of the books anyway, so I could take my time acquiring the others... there are some advantages to EngLit. :D

[lanfykins]

But I had obviously already made the decision that I couldn't wait, even when it was just a month and a bit :)

[bateleur]

My favourite example of this effect is when I ask some tricky question and someone responds with Google results. Because it's genuinely very helpful in the parallel world where I either haven't bothered to to this myself or have chosen a worse search than they did.

And then there's the closely related problem where someone asks a tricky question and I do a quick Google search and the answer seems to be right there. And then I have to work out whether to ask why this answer is no good (and risk looking like an asshat if they hadn't in fact seen it), whether to innocently present this answer as fact without mentioning I just searched for it 10s ago or whether to just say nothing even though it might actually be helpful. (Problem made doubly tricky if the question asker is someone who I know perfectly well has interwebz fu.)

[venta]

Of course, the flipside of this is when you have a very tricky question and you Google for it, only to find someone asking the exact same question on a forum somewhere in a concise and sensible manner. And, on further investigation it turns out the asker is yourself, two years ago, and no one has replied :-)

[bateleur]

I seem to recall a previous LJ entry of yours relating exactly this experience!

The problem I get with searches is when there are 10000 hits all linking to (but not explaining) the perfect answer... but the site they link to is no longer up. This then makes it impossible to find anything else on the subject. Thanks PageRank. :-(

[venta]

Have I LJ'd about it previously? I'd no idea :) I think of it as something hjalfi whinges about a lot.

[beckyc]

Even HELPIER question: do they have to be paper copies, or would electronic ones do?

[lanfykins]

That's not helpy, that's exceedingly pertinent :)

Someone else on the forum asked the same question, with the result that I now have an Entirely Legitimate PDF of the first book. Which I am struggling to avoid starting on right now this instant :)

ROCK! :)

[beckyc]

Hurrah! Glad you're sorted :-).

I am most disappointed not to have electronic copies of S330, but I think most of the other modules I've done (S283, S276, S339 and S369) have had electronic copies, which were usually very useful. (Except for the ones you couldn't search, which were spectacularly annoying when you were trying to remember where it was you'd read something).

I'm afraid I don't recall - what is (are?) your October exam(s?)?

[lanfykins]

Yeah, I've been quietly downloading them all to my iPad for future reference :)

The October exam is S282. Because stars are awesome, and being able to do astronomy without the rest of physics is great :D