Things that irritate me

[lokiuk]

Listening to some female (Labour) MP on the radio this morning, moaning about Brexit. She was speaking in Corporate jargon and throwing meaningless sound bites around to prove she was on top of her brief. She used the term “known unknowns”, which always grips my shit. If whatever issue you are banging on about is known, it’s not unknown ffs! Certain individuals in Army HQ used to love the phrase too. Makes my teeth itch. Blue Sky thinking my arse!

The phrase originated with Donal Rumsfeld, not the sort of person you'd usually expect a Labour MP to quote

 

[Bodenplatte]

Donald Rumsfeld

 

[ABNredleg]

The phrase originated with Donal Rumsfeld, not the sort of person you'd usually expect a Labour MP to quote

It actually has a legitimate history:

Rumsfeld's statement brought much fame and public attention to the concepts of known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, but national security and intelligence professionals have long used an analysis technique referred to as the Johari window. The idea of unknown unknowns was created in 1955 by two American psychologists, Joseph Luft (1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–1995) in their development of the Johari window. They used it as a technique to help people better understand their relationship with themselves as well as others.

The term was also commonly used inside NASA.[3] Rumsfeld himself cited NASA administrator William Graham in his memoir; he wrote that he had first heard "a variant of the phrase" from Graham when they served together on the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States during the late-1990s.[4] Kirk Borne, an astrophysicist who was employed as a data scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center at the time, noted in an April 2013 TED talk that he had used the phrase "unknown unknowns" in a talk to personnel at the Homeland Security Transition Planning Office a few days prior to Rumsfeld's remarks, and speculated that the term may have percolated up to Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials in the defense department.[5]

The terms "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" are often used in project management and strategic planning[6] circles.

Known unknowns refers to "risks you are aware of, such as canceled flights...."[7]

Unknown unknowns are risks that come from situations that are so unexpected that they would not be considered. "For example, prior to the invention of the personal computer, manufacturers of typewriters probably didn't foresee the risks to their business."[7] Contemporary usage is largely consistent with the earliest known usages. For example, the term was used in evidence given to the British Columbia Royal Commission of Inquiry into Uranium Mining in 1979:

Site conditions always pose unknowns, or uncertainties, which may become known during construction or operation to the detriment of the facility and possibly lead to damage of the environment or endanger public health and safety. The risk posed by unknowns is somewhat dependent on the nature of the unknown relative to past experience. This has led me classify unknowns into one of the following two types: 1. known unknowns (expected or foreseeable conditions), which can be reasonably anticipated but not quantified based on past experience as exemplified by case histories (in Appendix A) and 2. Unknown unknowns (unexpected or unforeseeable conditions), which pose a potentially greater risk simply because they cannot be anticipated based on past experience or investigation. Known unknowns result from recognized but poorly understood phenomena. On the other hand, unknown unknowns are phenomena which cannot be expected because there has been no prior experience or theoretical basis for expecting the phenomena.[8]

The term also appeared in a 1982 New Yorker article on the aerospace industry, which cites the example of metal fatigue, the cause of crashes in de Havilland Comet airliners in the 1950s.[9]

 

[Zemlyak]

It actually has a legitimate history:

Rumsfeld's statement brought much fame and public attention to the concepts of known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, but national security and intelligence professionals have long used an analysis technique referred to as the Johari window. The idea of unknown unknowns was created in 1955 by two American psychologists, Joseph Luft (1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–1995) in their development of the Johari window. They used it as a technique to help people better understand their relationship with themselves as well as others.

The term was also commonly used inside NASA.[3] Rumsfeld himself cited NASA administrator William Graham in his memoir; he wrote that he had first heard "a variant of the phrase" from Graham when they served together on the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States during the late-1990s.[4] Kirk Borne, an astrophysicist who was employed as a data scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center at the time, noted in an April 2013 TED talk that he had used the phrase "unknown unknowns" in a talk to personnel at the Homeland Security Transition Planning Office a few days prior to Rumsfeld's remarks, and speculated that the term may have percolated up to Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials in the defense department.[5]

The terms "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" are often used in project management and strategic planning[6] circles.

Known unknowns refers to "risks you are aware of, such as canceled flights...."[7]

Unknown unknowns are risks that come from situations that are so unexpected that they would not be considered. "For example, prior to the invention of the personal computer, manufacturers of typewriters probably didn't foresee the risks to their business."[7] Contemporary usage is largely consistent with the earliest known usages. For example, the term was used in evidence given to the British Columbia Royal Commission of Inquiry into Uranium Mining in 1979:


The term also appeared in a 1982 New Yorker article on the aerospace industry, which cites the example of metal fatigue, the cause of crashes in de Havilland Comet airliners in the 1950s.[9]

The first time I heard those phrases was from Rumsfeld, however, I got what he meant even though he got some stick for it. Being involved in construction and property, the provisional sums included in building contracts deals with what I suppose would the known un-knowns, and the sometime not enough contingency sum deals with “f*ck me didn’t expect that” event arising when opening up a structure or finding in the ground. Some sites closing down or being in delay due to Covid could come under that as well.

 

[Yokel]

It is the unknown unknowns that you need to worry about. They will blindside you. Irritatingly, the things you worry about and plan for do not normally happen. Therefore you should concentrate on known vulnerabilities instead of known threats.

It is the same with people not understanding their own limitations.

 

[overopensights]

Since coved I have stopped listening to the news, instead I listen to 'Classic FM' All mostly while I'm driving. There are government adverts on there that are a real windup. Every fifteen minutes four people come on to say 'I wash my Hands to protect my family' another says, 'I wear a face mask to protect my mates' another says 'I keep my distance to protect strangers.' It's a fecking windup and treats us as children. I mostly travel alone and don't often swear, but these four pricks get a loud "Fcuk Off" from me, the fecking irritating Bastards!!!

 

[Diogenes' limp]

Brexit negotiations!

Yes, I know this could go in the Brexit thread, or the BBC bias thread, but as a catch all:-

From the BBC

'But after another day of talks on Thursday, just before 19:00 GMT, things seemed to take a turn for the worse.
UK sources said the talks had "gone back 24 hours", claiming the EU has toughened its stance on an independent regulator to police what happens if the shared rules and regulations are broken, and things go wrong.
A senior government source told the BBC: "At the eleventh hour, the EU is bringing new elements into the negotiation. A breakthrough is still possible in the next few days but that prospect is receding." '

Any reporter/commentator worth their salt should be very well aware, and saying, that this is the standard EU internal negotiating model, used without fail in negotiating every meaningful treaty from day one. That the French are the masters of it and it isn't at the 11th hour, it is at one minute to silly o'clock in the early hours of the morning, against a usually artificial deadline, forcing the participants to negotiate through the night and then, just as the deal looks secured, introducing the completely unheralded demand that worn out negotiators concede to get it over with. Thus slips in the really damaging clause without ever having come under scrutiny.

Irritation does not come from the EU using its standard tactic, it's a predictable creature of its own habits, but from supposedly knowledgeable and neutral British Broadcasting Corporation 'reporters' who do not include that highly relevant fact.

Brexit: Have trade talks taken a turn for the worse?

 

[Yokel]

Brexit negotiations!

Yes, I know this could go in the Brexit thread, or the BBC bias thread, but as a catch all:-

From the BBC

'But after another day of talks on Thursday, just before 19:00 GMT, things seemed to take a turn for the worse.
UK sources said the talks had "gone back 24 hours", claiming the EU has toughened its stance on an independent regulator to police what happens if the shared rules and regulations are broken, and things go wrong.
A senior government source told the BBC: "At the eleventh hour, the EU is bringing new elements into the negotiation. A breakthrough is still possible in the next few days but that prospect is receding." '

Any reporter/commentator worth their salt should be very well aware, and saying, that this is the standard EU internal negotiating model, used without fail in negotiating every meaningful treaty from day one. That the French are the masters of it and it isn't at the 11th hour, it is at one minute to silly o'clock in the early hours of the morning, against a usually artificial deadline, forcing the participants to negotiate through the night and then, just as the deal looks secured, introducing the completely unheralded demand that worn out negotiators concede to get it over with. Thus slips in the really damaging clause without ever having come under scrutiny.

Irritation does not come from the EU using its standard tactic, it's a predictable creature of its own habits, but from supposedly knowledgeable and neutral British Broadcasting Corporation 'reporters' who do not include that highly relevant fact.

Brexit: Have trade talks taken a turn for the worse?

Not just that but media weasels like Simon Jenkins saying we should give our fishing grounds (and presumably anything else) to Brussels for being nasty and leaving, and the media lampooning Gavin Williamson (not hard really) for saying we are a great country.

As ever the better not types, the cringing sycophants who think we should bend over whenever someone from abroad wants to take things, the miserable wretches with a perverse fetish for telling the World how evil and pathetic we are......

Line the guilty bastards up against the wall.

 

[CrashTestDummy]

Car driving wankers who think it amusing to sound their horn as they pass a TV news interview.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

The Argos telly ad with the bint from oop North and the way she says "99" and as every item they sell has a price tag ending with "99" - grrr........

 

[don't tell him pike]

Jamie fuckin Oliver popping up on tv plugging his new Christmas cooking show, he starts of by saying ‘I want to help you in the best way I know how to’ what, like staying off our tv screens you fat fuckin mockney cnut?

 

[Provost]

Car driving ******* who think it amusing to sound their horn as they pass a TV news interview.

Quite. Very lazy. Camera bombing the interview with a full moony displays a different order of commitment.

 

[Yokel]

Quite. Very lazy. Camera bombing the interview with a full moony displays a different order of commitment.

I may have mentioned the BBC South West coverage of the 1999 solar eclipse, and seeing folk festivals and seeing someone who looked like someone I knew lifting up her T shirt and flashing to the camera. I recorded the historic event on videotape, and if you paused it at the right time you could get a look at her nipples and shapely boobs.

 

[Wightsparker]

I may have mentioned the BBC South West coverage of the 1999 solar eclipse, and seeing folk festivals and seeing someone who looked like someone I knew lifting up her T shirt and flashing to the camera. I recorded the historic event on videotape, and if you paused it at the right time you could get a look at her nipples and shapely boobs.

Don't stop now......

 

[Yokel]

Don't stop now......

Erm....well...

Moments before flashing she was dancing to folk music and bending over and thrusting her shapely bum towards to camera, and wink before smiling at the camera and reaching for the bottom of her T shirt and revealing her smooth complexion.....

It did look like someone I knew, and the green T shirt and black trousers, and folk music, seemed like her.

Sadly I can find no clip online.

 

[Wightsparker]

Erm....well...

Moments before flashing she was dancing to folk music and bending over and thrusting her shapely bum towards to camera, and wink before smiling at the camera and reaching for the bottom of her T shirt and revealing her smooth complexion.....

It did look like someone I knew, and the green T shirt and black trousers, and folk music, seemed like her.

Sadly I can find no clip online.

You lie like a cheap NAAFI watch......................

 

[Yokel]

You lie like a cheap NAAFI watch......................

I did try to find a clip of that once in a lifetime event, but with no luck. The BBC South West news programme was and still is called Spotlight.

I find it annoying that I cannot find that programme, also other things from local TV in the nineties. I imagine they are in an archive somewhere.

 

[RangdoOfArg]

Since coved I have stopped listening to the news, instead I listen to 'Classic FM' All mostly while I'm driving. There are government adverts on there that are a real windup. Every fifteen minutes four people come on to say 'I wash my Hands to protect my family' another says, 'I wear a face mask to protect my mates' another says 'I keep my distance to protect strangers.' It's a fecking windup and treats us as children. I mostly travel alone and don't often swear, but these four pricks get a loud "Fcuk Off" from me, the fecking irritating Bastards!!!

BBC R3 could come to your rescue. Be warned: the other week they had a guy on playing a piece on a top notch violin, and one on a fifty quid job. Spot the difference. I couldn’t. Mrs R asked what took so long, and my answer was ‘car park’. I sat there in the car park for ages and blamed it on the traffic.

 

[Wightsparker]

I did try to find a clip of that once in a lifetime event, but with no luck. The BBC South West news programme was and still is called Spotlight.

I find it annoying that I cannot find that programme, also other things from local TV in the nineties. I imagine they are in an archive somewhere.

Hmmm.

OK, but you said: " I recorded the historic event on videotape "

You have mislaid the video? For your own credibility, you need to put in a Freedom of Information request to BBC SW.

 

[721CXT]

Hmmm.

OK, but you said: " I recorded the historic event on videotape "

You have mislaid the video? For your own credibility, you need to put in a Freedom of Information request to BBC SW.

Stretched to buggery..... the tape, that is, too much time on pause.