On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Tim May wrote:
On Jan 1, 2004, at 8:51 AM, Tyler Durden wrote:
I'll tell you a story.
Back in the late 1980s I taught at a notorious HS in Bedford snip snip
Second, we are fast-moving toward a society and economy where only those who _wanted_ to study math and science by the time they were in high school will have anything more than a menial, makework job. Now whether they go the full course and get a college degree or advanced degree is not so much the point as it is that they were intrinsically interested.
Shoot, Sign me UP for that menial, makework job. For the first time in YEARS, I finally saw ditchdiggers at work, Guess it's finally cheaper again to use "guest workers" than to rent a ditchwitch. The equipment rental houses aren't too happy about that I'll bet. So much for the information super-hiway. The "guest workers" were pulling conduit for fiber through the muck. Mom always said I was going to be a ditch digger, I was cool with that. Turns out, that it made more sense to build equipment that did a much better job at ditching in less time than manual ditching. Nearly half a century later, I ended up a network administrator. Kinda like digging ditches, but not as healthy. Now, thanks to the Best and Brightest, The elite, and the fundamental masters of the universe, where all folks get what they deserve, Good honest, hard labor, that was so hard to find, -because it makes so much more sense to take that "can-do" redneck tool-spinning attitude and put it to work building equipment rather than wasting it on the task better served by equipment- is now back, and back in force, because, we finally get slave, indentured servants who will either take the 90 cents and hour or be deported. For a short while, it was almost possible to earn a living wage doing real work. Oh well, that's all over now. As for math and physics, I like to say I "audited Feyman's freshman physics lecture series" because I bought the CDs and listend to them alot, but without a good functional understanding of physics and math, you are not as able to do good, productive physical work, be that swamping, or ditch digging. On the other hand, I have always thought that someone who can sink a 16d nail in 3 swings of a hammer is a damned site more useful in a *society* than yet still another chip designer. We got to the fucking moon without chip designers, and what have we done since? nothing worth remembering.