OT:Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

Hmmm... 'opinionionjournal' ! You do realise that the USA is very badly informed generally about the realities in Europe ? Also, I bet the writer has some spurious 'agenda' that influences his writing. It is simply *opinion* and badly informed opinion at that.

Graham

Don't the buttons have pictures of the food on them? In some overseas McD restaurants they have laminated cards with pictures of the food items on them so that illiterates who only know English and not the local language can order unhealthy food. I did some work for a major equipment supplier of a certain large clown related restaurant chain- they have very high standards on how simple the devices have to be to operate. I think the alphas are the ones at the counter- the epsilon-minus ones can, at times, if present, be found in back.

Thank goodness most of us use Arabic numerals at least sometimes, so most people on earth can understand them.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Now you've got me going on reminisces ;} A later class required design of horizontal sweep for an oscilloscope. I was lazy and asked myself what portion of exponential met linearity spec. Lab instructor came by to view my test data. He said "Oh you chose a Miller run up." I said "NO. Just an RC". That semester was fun. My father was a practicing EE even though is degree was ME. [Back in 20's an EE meant 60 cps power but an ME got more background in what we now consider to be EE. If he were still alive, he would enjoy this discussion.]

Yes. My point exactly. Without the pictures your standard McD drone would be dead in the water.

BTW, I don't go to McD's. Last one I was in was 12 years ago in Germany. I was down to dollars only and needed some D-Marks. McD's would take dollars and give back change in D-Marks, so I walked in, bought a cup of coffee and handed over a $20 ;-)

My favorite stunt in a checkout line...

Cash register total shows (e.g.) $20.26

Hand boy/girl $21.00

After he/she rings it in, hand over 1¢

And watch 'em squirm ;-)

...Jim Thompson

That's nothing. My computer screen, and all the programs I run, are covered with little picture buttons. You don't have to be literate to operate a word processor program!

John

You mean a woman low on estrogen and high on testosterone.

Sounds like your problems are more serious than you think; looking women over with a microscope at your age is indicative of arrested development.

The WSJ is a neo-con controlled publication-- like the Telegraph in the UK, only much worse.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Jerry Avins' tag line reads "Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. "

More's the pity. Remember when "Desktop Publishing" was introduced? It took a while for all the templates and so on to be introduced so that people were not shooting themselves in the foot with the new tools.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Hello David,

'tis how it's done.

One engineer on another newsgroup has a tag line that sums it up better. Something like "Engineering is the art of making things you want from parts you can get".

Regards, Joerg

informed

Did we read the same article? Or is it that leftists can't stand reading about themselves ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

Yeah. I couldn't find one who looked like a boy so I had to settle for Fiona:-)

Whew- now that's what women are supposed to look like-

Hello Richard,

MEs did enjoy a more practical background. I have a 1929 ME handbook from my late father in law. It contains chapters that describe how to set up cigarette manufacturing lines and breweries ;-)

Another book that I saw at a friend's house described radio frequencies as a "wondrous ether whose practical usage has yet to be determined". That was from the pre-cell phone days.

Regards, Joerg

Fiona:-)

I think one of them looks like a man.

I'm the one without the beard:-)

Yes- you guessed rightly- it is a picture of a man and woman. The woman is to the right-

Hello Phil,

Inflation adjusted, not lately (last couple years or so). We will have to accept at some point that there will be some evening out in the standard of living between the US and Asia.

There are some folks who sold at the peak a half year ago and are now waiting in a rental for the bubble to deflate.

Regards, Joerg

The social support model is entirely sustainable - most of the major European countries are running budget deficits of around 3% or less (half of the current U.S. level) - and what we lose on feeding our kids properly, we recover on reduced expenditures on imprisoning uneducated and in-educatable adults.

I don't know where you got your productivity figures. Go read Will Hutton's "The World We're In" ISBN: 0316860816 for a bunch of productivity figures that you won't like (and pleae do go back to his original sources - he cites them - before you complain).

The declining native population maybe a problem if the trend continues for a few generations - but even then, evolution would sort it out.

The immigrant population isn't illiterate. Their kids all go through the same education system as everybody else, and do almost as well as the natives, and many of the adults learn the local language (as I did in the Netherlands - it is no big deal). Europe does at least as well at absorbing immigrants as the U.S.A and Australia.

Us.

Lots of immigrant scholars. The social conditions you encourage to simplify the extraction of oil do make emmigration an attractive option for anybody who can practice their profession in another country.