OT: Environmentalists

Tom Kunich said:

"A Muzi" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

no common sense any more.

This appears to be what happens when the education system is taken over
by the Marxists (who even told us they were going to do it) and then
most subjects are simply not taught any more.

At one time experience was valued. Now only education is valued and
often it demonstrates a sort of ignorance hard to understand by "normal"
people. I had to choose to hire between 15 college educated engineers
and I couldn't find ONE of them that actually could engineer anything.

You need to find better applicants:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

Winning team roster:
http://www.tartanracing.org/team.html

Jay Beattie said:

On Jun 7, 4:14 pm, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo. com> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

This appears to be what happens when the education system is taken over by
the Marxists (who even told us they were going to do it) and then most
subjects are simply not taught any more.

It's not the Marxists -- they did a good job and produced some first
class scientists, like Oppenheimer.
Dumbing down can much later with the shift to affective education in
the '70s, IMO. I was getting my secondary credential at the time and
was amazed at the shift from content knowledge and application to
feeling good about ones self. -- Jay Beattie.

The irony is that these changes were introduced with no science to back
them up, the idea that academic underperformance was (primarily) related
lack of self-esteem was never tested. By the time they got around to
that (recently), it doesn't appear there's a correlation. Current
evidence seems to support a negative correlation -- poor performers
often have unrealistically high self-esteem. Another case where "common
sense" was wrong.

Tom Kunich said:

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Tom Kunich said:

I blame it on the failure to hire good teachers.

I think blame lies with the attitude of students. One that the school
is responsible for their learning, hand feeding them with "facts", a
mode to which they have become previously accustomed. I also found in
my education that there are many students who can pass exams but are
not skilled in the application of the theory they can repeat for the
exam. The best engineers I met were seldom students at the top of the
honor roll.

I will completely agree with you that I've seldom found a good engineer
that was a great student. Most people that turn into good engineers are
a good bit more interested in things other than tests.

In general, school systems never have taught creative thinking. They've
been designed to teach elementary skills, obedience, and tolerance of
boredom. Very few people wind up in careers where creativity is important.

In technical fields, the sheer growth of the knowledge domain is
watering things down, breadth invariably means less depth, unless people
want to spend more years in the educational system. There are two main
consequences of this knowledge explosion: increasing specialization
(with attendant cross disciple chasms) and, at least for undergraduate
degrees, the reality that four years is enough to train a technician,
not an engineer.

All this was clear in the 70's, when I got my BSEE/ME. We only got 2
weeks of quantum mechanics, and that only in an optional solid state
physics lab.

Tom Kunich said:

A lot of it was directed from the forward desk. Because 90% of teachers
are just teachers doesn't mean you can ignore the 10% who are political
saboteurs. Communists announced that they would take over the schools
and teach socialism to our children and they simply did it.

I don't know what school system you're talking about. I live in one of
the most liberal communities (Newton) in the most liberal state (MA).
Both my kids (16/20) seem to be ardent capitalists, somewhat to my
dismay. I regularly preach on the (obvious) benefits of social
democracy, but those pinko teachers obviously didn't lay the groundwork.
Slackers!

Tom Kunich said:

This appears to be what happens when the education system is taken over
by the Marxists (who even told us they were going to do it) and then
most subjects are simply not taught any more.

Such as?

Quoted message said:

At one time experience was valued. Now only education is valued

By whom?

This implies our society is overeducated. I find that a tough position
to defend.

Tom Kunich' cyclintom@yahoo. com said:

"Jay Beattie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:[email hidden]...

Tom Kunich' cyclintom@yahoo. com said:

Quoted message said:

This appears to be what happens when the education system is taken over
by
the Marxists (who even told us they were going to do it) and then most
subjects are simply not taught any more.

Quoted message said:

It's not the Marxists -- they did a good job and produced some first
class scientists, like Oppenheimer.

Uh, which Oppenheimer are you talking about? Robert and family were
socialists. Franz Oppenheimer was also a socialist. Stephen Oppenheimer and
Frank Oppenheimer weren't politically loud so I don't know what their
politics were.

I was thinking of J. Robert -- although both he and Frank were
accused of being communists, which, as you know, is based on Marxist
philosphy. The way I see it, the Marxists working at U.S. colleges
and universities before the '50s (and the commie scare) were
intellectuals who had classical educations and who valued learning --
and expected their students to know how to conjugate their Latin
verbs, etc. Even if you were a good comrade, you would get your butt
kicked if you couldn't do the work. -- Jay Beattie.

On Sun, 8 Jun 2008 12:47:20 -0700, in rec.bicycles.tech "Tom Kunich"

cyclintom@yahoo. com said:

What waste? By all means explain to us what "waste" a modern reactor has.

Please do not patronize.

By "waste", one usually means spent fuel. The fuel is the radioactive
substance that, by decay, produces heat... all reactors work thus;
although, it's an overly simplistic explanation. As the decay
proceeds, the heat produced diminishes by a logarithmic function. At
some point, it is no longer economically feasible to use it as fuel;
however, it is still quite radioactive from a public health
perspective and will continue to be for centuries to come. This is
the "waste" that all reactors have and will always produce.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Energy has an artificially low cost in the US. Keeping it thus
encourages further consumption, not innovation and conservation.

That's pretty funny. What is your position that you would be able to even
guess at the cost vs. the price of energy production?

I'm not sure that I understand your question. I don't usually give
out personal information; however, on Usenet, I assure you, sir, that
*everyone* is an expert on whatever topic is under discussion... thus,
you should assume that I (along with everyone else) am an expert.
Based on your patronizing tone, I take it that you, also, are an
expert and are offended that anyone else would dare to disagree with
you; am I correct?

Quoted message said:

What are you going to have to say when your parents freeze to death because
they can't afford natural gas heating?

That seems to be a non sequitur ... my parents were quite wealthy;
however, rest their souls, they passed in the late '80s, but thank you
for asking. But, to address your question, *if* that happened, than I
might say, "Golly, I just *hate* it when that happens!" I don't know,
I suppose I'd have to be there.

Now that I have answered three questions for you, let me ask you:
"What are YOU going to have to say when your parents freeze to death
because they can't afford natural gas heating?"

Actually, I remember the nuke projects in the early '70s when the
slogan was "Electricity that will be too cheap to meter" ... right!
Nuclear energy is by far and away the most expensive way to produce
electricity. Well, OK... you have to consider the cost of raping a
wild river or flooding a canyon, I suppose, to get a balance.

My position in the debate is that our energy costs to the consumer are
way too low. We tend to build infrastructure with general revenue,
mostly income tax. If we drove the consumer price up by loading the
actual cost of the infrastructure into a consumption tax, then, at
some point, consumption will drop. So, what about parents freezing to
death? My dad had a Hummer and my mom had a Cadillac, both of which
drank gasoline at an astounding rate. My point is that the price of
any commodity is only capped (in a free market) at the point where a
subsequent increase will produce unsold inventory.

In the US, we need to go on a diet, not find other ways to consume.

Jones

In article
<[email hidden]>,

Jay Beattie said:

Tom Kunich' cyclintom@yahoo. com said:

"Jay Beattie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:[email hidden]...

Tom Kunich' cyclintom@yahoo. com said:

> This appears to be what happens when the education system is taken over
> by
> the Marxists (who even told us they were going to do it) and then most
> subjects are simply not taught any more.

Quoted message said:

It's not the Marxists -- they did a good job and produced some first
class scientists, like Oppenheimer.

Uh, which Oppenheimer are you talking about? Robert and family were
socialists. Franz Oppenheimer was also a socialist. Stephen Oppenheimer and
Frank Oppenheimer weren't politically loud so I don't know what their
politics were.

I was thinking of J. Robert -- although both he and Frank were
accused of being communists, which, as you know, is based on Marxist
philosphy.

Not really. Communism predates Marxism.
Thomas More's Utopia [1516], for instance.

--
Michael Press

In article <45v3k.5588$LN.3026@trndny03>,

Peter Cole said:

Jay Beattie said:

On Jun 7, 4:14 pm, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo. com> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

This appears to be what happens when the education system is taken over by
the Marxists (who even told us they were going to do it) and then most
subjects are simply not taught any more.

It's not the Marxists -- they did a good job and produced some first
class scientists, like Oppenheimer.
Dumbing down can much later with the shift to affective education in
the '70s, IMO. I was getting my secondary credential at the time and
was amazed at the shift from content knowledge and application to
feeling good about ones self. -- Jay Beattie.

The irony is that these changes were introduced with no science to back
them up, the idea that academic underperformance was (primarily) related
lack of self-esteem was never tested. By the time they got around to
that (recently), it doesn't appear there's a correlation. Current
evidence seems to support a negative correlation -- poor performers
often have unrealistically high self-esteem. Another case where "common
sense" was wrong.

Unskilled and Unaware of It:
How Difficulties in Recognizing
One's Own Incompetence Lead to
Inflated Self-Assessments

Justin Kruger and David Dunning
Department of Psychology
Cornell University

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Selected Article
© 1999 by the American Psychological Association
For personal use only--not for distribution
December 1999 Vol. 77, No. 6, 1121-1134

<http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf>

--
Michael Press

Tom Kunich said:

I will completely agree with you that I've seldom found a good engineer
that was a great student. Most people that turn into good engineers are
a good bit more interested in things other than tests.

I think we're discussing different sides of the same coin. Ever since
high school for me (c/o 2001), "instruction" has been replaced with test
preparation. A few great exceptions to this rule have been Dr. Webster,
Dr. Sturm, and Dr. Leone of Georgia Tech's civil engineering program.

I imagine the No Child Left Behind Act only makes this worse.

I think I only had 1 real design project in undergrad -- design a
two-story concrete building. I was out voted in my senior design group
and instead of designing a greenway or a new stream bank stabiliztion,
we wrote a report on ethanol ::sigh::

--
Paul M. Hobson
..:change the f to ph to reply:.

"Peter Cole" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:1Qv3k.328$7A1.263@trndny04...

Quoted message said:

Tom Kunich said:

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I think blame lies with the attitude of students. One that the school
is responsible for their learning, hand feeding them with "facts", a
mode to which they have become previously accustomed. I also found in
my education that there are many students who can pass exams but are
not skilled in the application of the theory they can repeat for the
exam. The best engineers I met were seldom students at the top of the
honor roll.

I will completely agree with you that I've seldom found a good engineer
that was a great student. Most people that turn into good engineers are a
good bit more interested in things other than tests.

In general, school systems never have taught creative thinking. They've
been designed to teach elementary skills, obedience, and tolerance of
boredom. Very few people wind up in careers where creativity is important.

In technical fields, the sheer growth of the knowledge domain is watering
things down, breadth invariably means less depth, unless people want to
spend more years in the educational system. There are two main
consequences of this knowledge explosion: increasing specialization (with
attendant cross disciple chasms) and, at least for undergraduate degrees,
the reality that four years is enough to train a technician, not an
engineer.

All this was clear in the 70's, when I got my BSEE/ME. We only got 2 weeks
of quantum mechanics, and that only in an optional solid state physics
lab.

I would really have liked to have worked with people like Jobst, yourself
and Hobson. It would have been interesting to say the least.

"Peter Cole" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:pVv3k.1374$Mu.1289@trndny07...

Quoted message said:

Tom Kunich said:

A lot of it was directed from the forward desk. Because 90% of teachers
are just teachers doesn't mean you can ignore the 10% who are political
saboteurs. Communists announced that they would take over the schools and
teach socialism to our children and they simply did it.

I don't know what school system you're talking about. I live in one of the
most liberal communities (Newton) in the most liberal state (MA). Both my
kids (16/20) seem to be ardent capitalists, somewhat to my dismay. I
regularly preach on the (obvious) benefits of social democracy, but those
pinko teachers obviously didn't lay the groundwork. Slackers!

That's good to hear. But remember that I'm a resident of a town adjacent to
Berkeley and was here during the 60's.

Michael Press said:

In article
<[email hidden]>,

Jay Beattie said:

Tom Kunich' cyclintom@yahoo. com said:

"Jay Beattie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

news:[email hidden]....
On Jun 7, 4:14 pm, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo. com> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> > This appears to be what happens when the education system is takenover
> > by
> > the Marxists (who even told us they were going to do it) and then most
> > subjects are simply not taught any more.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> It's not the Marxists -- they did a good job and produced some first
> class scientists, like Oppenheimer.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Uh, which Oppenheimer are you talking about? Robert and family were
socialists. Franz Oppenheimer was also a socialist. Stephen Oppenheimer and
Frank Oppenheimer weren't politically loud so I don't know what their
politics were.

Quoted message said:

I was thinking of J. Robert  -- although both he and Frank were
accused of being communists, which, as you know, is based on Marxist
philosphy.

Not really. Communism predates Marxism.
Thomas More's Utopia [1516], for instance.

Very true, but I'm talking about BAD communism -- and not Biblical
communalism. Now that you mention it, though, I wonder if "I was just
following the Bible" was ever raised as an excuse in a HUAC
investigation. -- Jay Beattie.

Tom Kunich said:

I would really have liked to have worked with people like Jobst,
yourself and Hobson. It would have been interesting to say the least.

Whoa whoa. I'm no where near the same class as those guys. I move to
Portland in two weeks and start my first real/non-internship engineering
job there.

After I've got about five years of experience under me, then we can
start talking about my skills being worth anything at all*.

*Academically, I think they are -- real world, not so much.

--
Paul M. Hobson
..:change the f to ph to reply:.

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:59:16 GMT, Peter Cole <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Tom Kunich wrote:
How about a couple million grammar-school-age boys (like me) who had a
small container of liquid mercury and played around with it often?
Metallic mercury is relatively inert - it's the active compounds which
are dangerous.

no common sense any more.

http://www.pcij.org/i-report/2007/mercury2.html:

"St. Andrew’s was the Parañaque school where early last year at least 24
students, mostly aged 13, wound up in the hospital as confirmed cases of
mercury poisoning. Investigation showed that the students were poisoned
after they were allowed to play with 50 grams of mercury intended for a
science experiment. The school had to remain closed for months while
local and international experts cleaned up and decontaminated it."

Fascinating -- one of my profs dropped and broke a half-pint jar of
mercury. He scooped up all he could, sprinkled about a pound of
sulfur flowers around the room, and locked it up for a week. I
shudder to think what response a similar accident would require now.

Pat

Email address works as is.

"Paul M. Hobson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Tom Kunich said:

I would really have liked to have worked with people like Jobst, yourself
and Hobson. It would have been interesting to say the least.

Whoa whoa. I'm no where near the same class as those guys. I move to
Portland in two weeks and start my first real/non-internship engineering
job there.

After I've got about five years of experience under me, then we can start
talking about my skills being worth anything at all*.
*Academically, I think they are -- real world, not so much.

Paul, what makes you think that you have to be top of the heap to be very
valuable to a company?

Tom Kunich said:

I would really have liked to have worked with people like Jobst,
yourself and Hobson. It would have been interesting to say the least.

Whoa whoa. I'm no where near the same class as those guys. I move to
Portland in two weeks and start my first real/non-internship engineering
job there.

After I've got about five years of experience under me, then we can
start talking about my skills being worth anything at all*.

*Academically, I think they are -- real world, not so much.

--
Paul M. Hobson
..:change the f to ph to reply:.

In article <[email hidden]>,

A Muzi said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Tom Kunich wrote:
> Well, a report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency is
> saying that all we need to combat global warming is for every
> American family to be taxed $600,000 and that will be enough. For now.

Quoted message said:

"Bill Sornson" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

> Hopefully EVERY American environmentalist will gladly step up to the
> plate and pay his share starting right now.
If not too busy doing this:
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm#flourescent

Tom Kunich said:

I wonder what these idiots think about when someone tells them that we
used mercurochrome as an antiseptic for half a century.

How about a couple million grammar-school-age boys (like me) who had a
small container of liquid mercury and played around with it often?
Metallic mercury is relatively inert - it's the active compounds which
are dangerous.

Agree that the horribly toxic stuff are the Hg compounds.

Hg has a high vapor pressure, it enters the organism
through inhalation, and build up of Hg is harmful.
Best to keep away. No cause for panic. Hg spills
in an enclosed space _must_ be attended to. Hg can
settle between floor boards and become a long term
source of Hg vapor.

Quoted message said:

no common sense any more.

Any toxicologist will tell you the poison is in the dose.
Problem with heavy metals is the we do not have natural
mechanisms to excrete them or denature them. They remain
and continuously do damage.

--
Michael Press

Tom Kunich said:

Paul, what makes you think that you have to be top of the heap to be
very valuable to a company?

I just don't have much practical experience yet; that's all. So even
though I made good grades as an undergrad and manage to scrape by with
mostly B's in grad school (heavy teaching + research load), it remains
to be seen if I can put any of this stuff to use yet.

\\paul
--
Paul M. Hobson
..:change the f to ph to reply:.

In article <[email hidden]>, !Jones

Quoted message said:

My position in the debate is that our energy costs to the consumer are
way too low. We tend to build infrastructure with general revenue,
mostly income tax. If we drove the consumer price up by loading the
actual cost of the infrastructure into a consumption tax, then, at
some point, consumption will drop. So, what about parents freezing to
death? My dad had a Hummer and my mom had a Cadillac, both of which
drank gasoline at an astounding rate. My point is that the price of
any commodity is only capped (in a free market) at the point where a
subsequent increase will produce unsold inventory.

In the US, we need to go on a diet, not find other ways to consume.

Jones

Well put. Disassociating and isolating costs and consequences from
activities, e.g., subsidizing driving and energy costs with revenue
from the general tax base, leads to irrational use patterns. Look no
further than America's agricultural policy.