At 8:44 PM -0800 on 12/5/96, Timothy C. May wrote:
I'm not sure if Gilbert chemistry sets went off the market for liablity reasons, or for "lack of interest." The "4-banger" I had in 1961, supplemented with varius Bunsen burners, arc furnaces, Erlenmayer flasks, and whatnot, was amazing for its time. (And not terribly expensive, in case some of the "social democrats" on this list are thinking I lived a
I can provide a datapoint here. I started getting into chemistry when I was about 8, which was in 1981. I can't remember the brand name, but my first (and last, actually) 'value-added' kit was designed to keep kids from doing anything that could be dangerous, a fact tactfully explained on the packaging. To solve that problem, my mother gave me an Edmund Scientific catalog and a (severely limited, given my family background) budget for whatever I wanted. I ordered direct for supplies from then on.
* Generation 3: The computer generation. The 1970s-80s, who grew up with Commodore PETs and Apple IIs (and some later machines). These are the "new pioneers" of the 1980s-90s, the Marc Andreesens and the like.
I would have killed for a computer growing up. I finally got one, a Mac IIsi, when I went to college (I'm still paying off the loan I took out to buy it. I gave it to someone when I got another machine, and it will, if I'm not mistaken, retrieve this message the next time a certain someone checks mail. That helps me overlook the fact that I still owe more than the machine is worth... I learned my lesson.) There are many in my age bracket who play with non-computer science; the relevent fact being that whatever the field of study (I personally know folks doing research in bio, physics, chemistry and economics (arguably not a science ;)), they all use computers as a daily part of their work. You can run, but you can't hide.
(I could imagine expanding this to 4 or 5 "generations," but I think you get the point. Being 44 years old, and almost 45, I claim no knowledge about what the "latest generation" is all about. Maybe it's the "Beavis and Butthead" generation...I don't know.)
Yes, many of us are devoted to the study of Brute Force Insect Dissection. -j
--Tim May
-- "I'm about to, or I am going to, die. Either expression is used." - Last words of Dominique Bouhours, Grammarian, 1702 ____________________________________________________________________ Jamie Lawrence foodie@netcom.com