Useless Truth

Here is an example story that has various incarnations on the web:

A manager was commuting to work in his personal helicopter. Unfortunately a thick fog rolled in and he was late for a meeting. The manager realized he was lost. He eventually spotted a tall building and saw somebody standing on the balcony of one of the floors taking a break. So he pulled up next to the balcony and called out:

Manager: "Hey, do you know where I am?"

Person on balcony: "Yes, you are in a helicopter hovering 30 feet from this building between the 27th and 28th floor."

Manager: "You must be in I.T. Your response was technically accurate, but completely useless!"

Person: "And you must be in management. I gave you a detailed, accurate answer as best I could based on your vague specifications, and still I get chewed out for not reading your goddamn mind!"

While this story is funny (perhaps the first time you hear it) does it really have any useful lessons for us?

Nonsense; many find it quite useful. Something doesn't have to be useful to everybody to be considered useful. You might think it useless--your prerogative--but that doesn't make it useless to me. And--like gravity--the fact that you think it's useless doesn't mean that it doesn't apply...
It is an anecdote to illustrate that techies often focus on accuracy in their descriptions, when understanding the perspective of the audience may have a larger impact on the effectiveness of the results. It's an illustration of KnowYourAudience.

See TopOnTypes. JohnReynolds definition of types may be just such a UselessTruth.

I'm not sure anyone will ever bother to read that acrimonious ThreadMess.

I never said it was useless, I didn't even say it was wrong, or that it didn't apply. I just observed that for someone who hasn't been following it from the start you get about 1/4 of the way down and give up. There's no coherence, it's a huge ThreadMess. That's not a value judgement, it's an observation. I am informing you that there are people who won't read it because of its form. I might find it very useful, but I can't get past the form it's currently in. You may choose to ignore what I tell you, I don't really care. If you do care about having information here, and accessible, then you might want to consider distilling anything of value so it's easier to read, easier to follow, easier to digest, easier to understand, and easier to contribute to.

[The "nonsense" remark was for top, not you... I agree that TopOnTypes is an acrimonious ThreadMess; of course I've contributed my share.... I reordered the above prose to make that clear. DeleteWhenCooked]

Another tale stolen from weblore:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip; they set up their tent and fall asleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes up his faithful friend.

"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see?"

Watson replies, "I see millions of stars."

"What does that tell you?"

Watson ponders a minute. "Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Time wise, based on the constellations, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow! What does it tell you?"

Holmes is silent for a moment, and then he speaks. "Watson, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent!"