Sadly I have to confess I never had a cardboard cut-out of anything but I used a soft toy of my daughter's (or was it my wife's - not sure).
Talking to a teddy bear had other therapeutic effects as well, although I am not sure that I want to talk about them in the open. :-) Regards Carl -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jon Fairbairn Sent: 27 October 2005 16:01 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Carl Chilley; 'Walter Milner'; discuss@ppig.org Subject: Re: PPIG discuss: Problems sitting on the seat (acquiring the seat) while Programming. On 2005-10-27 at 14:53BST John Sturdy wrote: > >>>>> "Carl" == Carl Chilley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >writes: Superman syndrome. Idea from the 80s whereby you > >have a full size cardboard cut-out of Superman standing > >behind you, over one of your shoulders. > > This is the one I knew as the "Rubber plant effect", in > which explaining your problem to a potted plant was > helpful in clarifying it. (Apparently it was earlier the > "expert programmer effect", and the potted plant > originally used was a rubber plant called Dijkstra.) The rubber plant "Dijkstra" stood in room 208 of the Computer Laboratory, a room with about eight PhD students in it, including Stuart Wray (I think it was his plant, but am not sure) and myself. While we were fond of invoking "The expert programmer effect" and the /idea/ of talking to "Dijkstra", I'm not sure anyone ever actually spoke to the plant, as there were plenty of real people about. We were very conscious that explaining a problem was often sufficient without any response from the listener. Jón -- Jón Fairbairn [EMAIL PROTECTED] 31 Chalmers Road [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cambridge CB1 3SZ +44 1223 570179 (after 14:00 only, please!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
