The Anti-FOLT Page

Welcome. This page is devoted to exposing a situation that can be a nightmare for computer enthusiasts (the politically correct form of "computer nerds") through their academic career. This situation is when the student knows more than the teacher, and the teacher is angry at that fact. I myself have experienced this, including once recently at my high school.

What's a FOLT?

FOLT acronym. Fat Old Librarian Technophobe. A title given to an educator (not necessarily a librarian) who teaches about technology, but knows little more than his/her lesson plan. Obesity and age are not a prerequisite for being a FOLT; the term stems from the original case of a FOLT, described below.

Disclaimer

This web page contains true stories which can be confirmed by eyewitnesses. These eyewitnesses' e-mail addresses are available via a request to each story's author. All contributors to this web page will be required to authenticate their story with at least one witness. The author of this web page, Jason Weill, is a proud supporter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's attempts to bar government censorship of the Internet. Although these stories are real, the names have been removed to protect the inncoent.

A Librarian Turned Fearful

by feedback@weill.org

If you've ever drawn ANSI or ASCII screens, you've probably heard of extended characters. If not, here's how they work. Let's say you have to type a sentence for Spanish class, and want it to look really cool. The sentence means "I like French." Here's how it would look:

Me gusta el francés.

See that "e" with an accent on it? That's an extended character, and can be accessed in most word processors by holding down the ALT key, pressing 1 3 0 on the numeric keypad (press and release each key as you hold down ALT) and release ALT. This will work with any number from 128 to 254.

This leads me to my story. While at my high school library, I was teaching one of my friends to type extended characters. I'm very comfortable with my experience typing characters, so it sounds like "CLICK-clikclikclik" over and over on those super-clicky IBM keyboards that they have. Not that this was a problem; the library was a fairly noisy place in the computer area. So then, a definitive FOLT came over to us and started actually teasing and mocking us. This guy had to be at least double our combined ages, but he started mocking us by banging playfully on the keyboard and literally cursing at us. Before he told us to leave, he told me that if I wanted to use extended characters, I could "go home and play with [my] Nintendo." That's an actual quote from him. Imagine, a paid educator who has taught many classes the wonders of the library, getting really, really pissed off because someone else knows more than him about a keyboard. He now regards me as evil, and thinks that I'm secretly trying to hack into the library's computer system by typing words like película (Spanish for "movie") into the computer system. What if someone had to do a report on the Río Grande for American History class? Or search for a book written by a woman named Renée something-or-other? A few librarians are nice and welcome knowledge, but this particular one regards others' knowledge as evil beyond belief. To him, it's his way or the highway.

For those of you familiar with George Orwell's novel 1984, wouldn't you consider this to be an example of the "Thought Police"? Think about it: the librarian doesn't want anyone more knowledgable than he to use the computers. Although it has some safety precautions implied, there are some actual uses for the technique I was demonstrated. I guess I'm just too smart for him. :(

Try and Try Again

by davidwei@UVic.CA

I know your kind of story just too well. I was in Computer 12 a while ago (grade 11) and I got a mark of 84%. I thought, "Maybe I can get a higher mark if I retake it in grade 12." I tried it again, this time with a different (read: dolt) teacher who DIDN'T know what the hell is the proper way to program a computer. What could be WORSE than restricting the creative mind of a school kid in Computer programming by ORDERING them them to program exactly the way you wanted? (i.e.: procedures, how I should do things, how I should do meanless things, and other crap.) I BLEW THEM BACK, and after a while, he backed down a bit. When I graduated, I got the "new" mark of 76%. Ugh. That instructor is the one who DIDN'T know what he is instructing. Nor did he know HOW to instruct.

How to Deal With FOLT's

by Bcameron@seaside.net

Here are a few tips from an old, retired rebel from the sixties. Following are some ways to get someone fired from a socially sensitive job, drive them to financial ruin and make them crazy at the same time.

1. Sign them up to receive mail and blatant publications from NAMBLA.
2. Ditto for the local chapter of the KKK.
3. Ditto for the local Freemasons.
4. Ditto for the local Jehovah's Witnesses
5. Ditto for the local chapter of the Illuminati.
6. Ditto for any and all underground, satanic groups.
7. Put a raw egg in his gas tank. It will nickel and dime him to death. A half a bottle of iodine will explode the tank at 30 M.P.H, but that's a bit drastic.
8. Write his name and phone number with a provocative invitation in all bus stations and bathroom walls.
9. Sign him up for any chain letters you can access.
10. Sign him up for any and all publications and subscriptions that you can find cards for.
11. Find a really diseased, scuzzy person and have them check into a VD clinic under the FOLT's name.
12. Have the scuzzy list the principal's wife, the local banker's wife, and the local Chief of Police's wife as contacts.
13. Have any all pregnant girls in town name him as the father. Also any pregnant dogs, cows, sheep etc.
14. Report him to the IRS as having a secret 900 Sex line that he's not reporting income from.
15. Post his picture in all post offices as a probable bomber/pedophile/rapist etc.
16. Hack into American Express/Mastercard/Visa etc. and destroy his credit rating.
17. Order everything on the Home Shoppers Network and have it sent to him. This is a variation on the order for 50 pizzas.
18. Have a stripper delivered to his house on his birthday/anniversary/Father's Day etc. Be sure that she knows and calls him by his first name.
19. Fill his garbage cans with sardine cans, and round up all the stray cats in town and drop them off in his alley.
20. Collect fleas, ticks, lice and crabs and release them into his car/briefcase/shorts.

Use your imagination, son. You don't have to put up with that kind of deprecating [expletive deleted]. Don't get caught.

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