Item — HN Reader

Grady Hillhouse is (per his /about page) a professional civil engineer. He just did a YouTube video on a screw-up that has launched a fleet of big-money lawsuits. He has a wife and little kid. If he is making sure that he won't be the target of any deep-pocketed legal action...that sounds pretty rational to me.

Also, I've noticed that we (computer professionals here on HN, roughly) don't always think that the general public is particularly rational in their choices about computers. Perhaps most professional civil engineers have similar feelings about the public being rational in their own area of expertise?

3 comments

After the article about how moving the mouse around actually made Windows 95 load faster[0], and modern computers that do irritate users by changing settings on their own, I would say that engineers should probably listen to users more often.

0. https://www.extremetech.com/computing/294907-why-moving-the-...

> Also, I've noticed that we (computer professionals here on HN, roughly) don't always think that the general public is particularly rational in their choices about computers.

Hah, how’s that for an understatement. Most devs definitely see the general public much as Joe Wilkinson sees Fabio.

From my limited experience Civil Engineers tend to find the public frustratingly shortsighted - although that was water infastructure which yeah, is underinvested as evidenced by the lead stories, let alone the taste.