Speaking in Codes

In my life I'd had the pleasure of learning a few codes. First, I was fluent in Gregorian Chant notation (code to most of us) then I think pretty well versed on more modern music notation, and then advertising that is full of codes and subliminal (almost) trip phrases and images.  I even learned a communication code for working overseas for some folks who shall not be named. A lifetime of codes. Some exact, some not.

Learning computer coding for websites isn't my favorite code learning experience. Frankly, I hoped I would die of old age before being forced into it but alas.  It is actually fun and off and on for the past 3 years I've become a novice.That has to be right or nothing happens.

Yesterday, however, I sat in on a session via Gotomeeting that had me reaching for cyanide.  As best as I could figure out, it had to do with some bizarre compilation of Internet advertising, ad-service, geo-plotting and low level math. So I listened politely for an hour until they got to one slide that named one exact number (177) and another number (1500). I can get the 177 because it is obvious that number wasn't drawn out of thin air. 1500 was. So that set me off and asked why they would use one good number and one "sorta" number. "So every final cost, every ratio, everything past that slide is just conjecture"?  The response was "I guess". That meant every number, real world hard number, that followed was a "guess".

So they were talking in code and one that wasn't very exact. It pisses me off a bit that folks talk in jargon anyway and when they have a chance to slip in something exact they don't see it as necessary. Makes me crazy.

Sorry to vent. Just, when I ask you a question, don't answer "sorta". Just say you don't know.