Anthem 2015

Posted by strugatsky 9 years, 11 months ago to Technology
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Anthem 2015
75 years later, and the words written two generations ago come to life like a prophesy. To be sure, this was not a unique occurrence, nor have others been spared this over the decades, but some things are so striking, and the words are so completely from the script, that they deserve to be highlighted.
My wife and I own a small bakery. Baking bread is a very labor-intensive occupation and since we are both engineers, we designed a tool that reduces a part of the manual process, while tremendously improving safety (by eliminating any possibility of being burned by the hot oven). The tool is incredibly simple and so effective that we couldn’t even picture going back to the old method. We patented it and built them for sale to bakers. Obviously, we thought, that an excellent venue would be a culinary school – just like Apple, if the tool can be introduced to students, they will ask their future employers to buy it. So, we met with the chef in charge of the department at Sargent J. Reynolds Community College in Richmond. Introduced the tool, demonstrated its use and value and even offered him one free. He declined. The reason, he said, was that this is a new tool, not currently used in all other bakeries, therefore, when his students graduate, they may not have one available. And if everyone does not have it, he won’t teach with it or introduce it!

All Comments

  • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Woo! For possibly the first time in my life, I am 'cool'. And it is an allosaurus who says so. Wow. I gotta buy some wrap around sunglasses now so that I look the part.

    Jan, wearing a leather duster
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You have impressed me dino.
    I always thought people using an abacus looked cool. (That would only be movie actors in ancient settings).
    That means you'd look cool to me for using one of those things regardless of the setting.
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  • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Slide rules are great for multiplication and division, but not so good for addition and subtraction. However, I have also learned how to use the abacus, which is good at adding and subtracting (but bad for multiply or divide). So I am OK for going non-electric in a pinch. (But while I can use the tools, I am terrible at math and practical math...so I think I would just teach the skills to other folk.)

    Jan, bragging a bit (but then, how often does one get a chance to brag to an allosaurus about being able to use an abacus?)
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I never used one.
    I have nothing against slide rules.
    At least that teacher's weirdness with one was amusing.
    Slide rules may come back if we have some huge socioeconomic upheaval that turns the power off.
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  • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    My father had a small circular slide rule that he used in the cockpit - he kept it on his keychain. He said that it was much better than sliding something around laterally where there was little space and a lot of instruments.

    Jan
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  • Posted by strugatsky 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Part of a pilot's basic training (ground school). Some professions have to have a back up, and sliderules do their job well. But, yes, that Flintstones professor must have felt a rug being pulled out from underneath him!
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  • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yeah, dino. But slide rules are neat too. Do you still remember how to use one?

    Jan, geeking in the morning
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  • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    jlc... Funny you should say that... I had a blood draw for my GP yesterday and the phlebotomist removed the needle, told me to hold the gauze pad for a few seconds before she taped it to my arm and said "you're done."

    I said, "in the old days, you would have told me to apply pressure and hold my arm straight up for a minute or so and leave the pad taped on for four hours... Now it's 'hold the pad until I tape it on and remove it in an hour?!' What would my GP say?!"

    She replied, "yep, he'd still say that, but we don't any more."

    Progress sometimes happens...
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  • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    He is not rewarded by his bureaucracy for innovation. You might ask his 'management' how and why they encourage that... They might give that some thought... or not...
    In many, if not most cases, people's behavior results from how they're rewarded.

    Good luck, and discourage competition by routinely lowering your selling prices. It scares off competition and helps you really determine how large your markets are!
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    When old dino went to college a computer was something that filled a room.
    I'll never for get a pudgy science teacher who wore a sheathed slide-rule on his belt like a sword.
    He really loved to use that slide-rule to calculate a number before a class, always wearing a smug showoff smirk as he took time to do so.
    I thought of him when hand calculators were later first being sold. Bet he was heart-broken.
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  • Posted by strugatsky 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    As I was reading the comment above (Genez), I had the same question. Since you posed it - my two cents: I am amazed at the ability of the public schools to instill such blind trust in the students of everything that is fed to them. I have often tried to open their eyes to the facts, or at least to bring them to a point where they may consider other alternatives, but the bond is so strong that I feel that I am fighting nature itself. As the old saying goes, "if it's on tv, it must be true," likewise, if the teacher said so, it must be true. Even in the face of historical facts - like Lincoln, for example, who is portrayed as one of the best presidents ever, the facts notwithstanding. Not sure if Osama has surpassed him on that ladder yet, but getting close.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Old dino loves this board. I'm always learning something useful.
    I read some neat opinions too.
    PC is progressive crud.
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  • Posted by Lysander 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    As a teacher, poli sci and govt, I am constantly amazed that no students ask, say, challenge any idea! Is it the teachers,or the students that are dumbing down education?
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  • Posted by strugatsky 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Like Machiavelli before her, Ayn Rand did not so much "discovered" the secrets of human behavior, as much as told them as they are, without the coloring, flavoring and the associated smelly crap that is now called "political correctness." Some people are awakened by the naked truth; some become militant when their own hypocrisies, lies and machinations are exposed. So, yes, this crud is as old as human-kind. Progress, in my regressive opinion, is trying to eliminate this crud; progress in the progressives' opinion is trying to hide it.
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  • Posted by $ Genez 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I have never forgotten the MIS class I took as part of my business degree. I had a Commodore 64 in high school, was building PC's in college, etc.. But I had to take this class. The professor, early in the semester, had an open computer (old PC desktop box) and was pointing at components. He pointed to the crystal (which only has 2 wires in an out for those who don't know) and said that was the CPU. I knew for a fact that the CHIP with multiple pins in and out right next to it, was the CPU.. I didn't say anything and just kept my head down and did the busy work to get thru the class. Didn't learn a darn thing, except that at least part of my "education" was not worth the paper it was printed on. Now there were other classes that definitely were worth the time and effort, but that was definitely not one of them and showed me that you couldn't trust the teacher to be an expert..
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  • Posted by strugatsky 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The tool is for professional bread ovens. I am working on a home model - much shorter, with interchangeable heads for bread loaves and round pie pans. Here's a youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O8cKZUL...
    Another version that's I'm working on is for strapped (4 loaves) pan. Much more complicated. If this one would work for you, especially in schools, please let me know.

    I'll have to introduce my kids to Frank Zappa for them to get the appreciation of his wisdom!
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  • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Unfortunately, some kinds of stupidity are passed along by means other than inheritance. Or are self generated.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It's a law of nature (the Peter Principle) that any monopoly bureaucracy eventually will become, and stay, run by incompetent people. This is one of many reasons to privatize every possible thing that government does. And to prevent it from awarding monopolies to anybody.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 11 months ago
    There is a name for that sort. Tenured. Take heart to the worlds of Frank Zappa. If you want to get laid go to college. If you want to become educated read a book.

    As it happens my step daughter is preparing to become exactly what you are talking about. But in this country it takes a three year after high school degree called Licenciado. Her Mom has the same problem you propose to stop in her own kitchen. Ergo Sum. How do I order one. Better yet three. One for the budding culinary artiste, one for the mom unit, and one for the local school.
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  • Posted by $ sekeres 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    “I am convinced all of humanity is born with more gifts than we know. Most are born geniuses and just get de-geniused rapidly.”

    Richard Buckminster Fuller (US engineer and architect, 1895-1983 )
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