BL> The grammar... and other stuff I can't be bothered looking up.

 FM> I always spell and grammar check my documents, and consider
 FM> each "rule" violation carefully. The one I most often ignore is
 FM> "Consider using *that* instead of *which* as the relative
 FM> pronoun" (but I still consider in each case) - I think that's
 FM> probably an American thing.

  I found it so inadequate to be useless, and in any case, I often
*want* to break the rules of grammar, for effect.

 BL> I wrote something that loads 32K at a time as you page down and
 BL> up. It was a bit jerky on the old 386 but on the 486 is works
 BL> quite well.

 BL> This is the point I was making... 40 years ago I could predict
 BL> where I would end up (not as it turned out, in fact) but today
 BL> there is no way to know. I suppose the 60s were the end of
 BL> predictabilty.

 FM> My point is, and why I think "nothing's changed" is that I
 FM> didn't know in 1966 what I wanted to do either.

  In 1956 prediction was easy. I am not discussing kids such as you
were, who don't have a future clear in their mind. This will always
exist, and may make one career-change after another, or may never
settle. I am discussing the basic *impossibility* of choosing any
careeer that will last longer than 10 years.

  In 1956, once I decided to be an electronics engineer, I did so
expecting it to be a lifetime's work. In fact I got about 40 years out
of it without actually having to swap careers. Manufacturing died in
Australia after 25 years, and the last 15 has been a slow collapse.
Now electronic engineering no longer exists in Australia. What remains
is programming and backyard buggery. Engineering, it is not.

  The kids who followed me into electronics in 1970 were caught out.
Some went to production engineering, sales, computers, ofsshore... but
whatever they did, they had to change career. Today, this is normal.
Paul reaches his pinnacle at the age of 28, and by the turn of the
Century programming will no longer exist. Hi-tech careers bloom and
vanish inside 20 years.

  So what Tertiary qualification do you choose? Do you go for
something specific or something broad? A broad qualification will
never let you build expertise you can sell and salt away as cash; a
narrow qualification will need renewal and a new start... just around
the time your expertise is valuable and convertible into cash.

  I was years ahead of my time. I saw this coming in my 20s. One needs
to generate a high earning capability and run it for a few years, to
store nuts for the coming winter... when your skill is worth peanuts.
I got a long-enough run to save money, but what happens now, for kids
just starting out? Will they ever get a long-enough run to convert
skill into cash?

 BL> I don't think there is a danger in a narrow education. You
 BL> learn as you go along anyway, and mostly you learn how to
 BL> learn, but the waste is prodigous!

 FM> I don't think there is a danger in a vocationally-oriented
 FM> education either - for some. We need to reverse the travesty of
 FM> Dawkins, and have proper tertiary (and secondary for that
 FM> matter) technical schools which can teach the higher levels of
 FM> the trades like engineering, law and medicine.

  I think so too. I think universities have run their course. The
polytechnic seems the way to go, to me.

 FM> And we need to have true universities where knowledge is the
 FM> objective. Perhaps there's only one faculty - philosophy. :-)

  Yes... perhaps that. Privately funded...

 BL> Personally, I think the answer is a shortened non-Uni education
 BL> that finishes High School at 16, and goes on to a polytechnic
 BL> for 4 years. I can't see that universtities have a function any
 BL> more. A profession will no longer be recognisable after 20
 BL> years, and if this is so, the Uni will always be teaching 10
 BL> years out of date!

 FM> I agree with the first sentence above. But pure, non
 FM> goal-directed learning will enhance the long-term potential of
 FM> any society which embraces it.

  Okay. I see no problem in one *true* University per 5 million
population. Universities have become sausage machines trying to serve
a population with no use or need for philosophy in a hi-tek world.
Thsi is best done by a polytechnic. My University would not be for
philosophy, it would be for pure research, and take the best of the
Polytechnics. We need philosphy in 1997 like we need bigger dicks.

 BL> The C13-urea breath test is used to diagnose presence of
 BL> helibacter pylori, and yoghurt is used as the medium to deliver
 BL> the antibacterial goop to the gut where it does the most good.

 FM> You've become a real expert in medical technology, haven't you!
 FM> :-)

  I don't trust the bastards, so I ask questions.

 BL> I wonder if cardiology might go the same way. I notice a
 BL> similarity to ulcers... too many known causes, an undefiend
 BL> genetic link, stress, food... and it turns out to be a bloody
 BL> germ! One effect, one cause.

 FM> Yeah, and these "known causes" are so often a statistical wank.

  I didn't realise it at the time, but my ulcers were part of this
research 13 years ago. At the time, the doctor wanted all my family
history, because the Lawrence funny-stomach was famous. To anyone, it
seemed genetic. It's actually cooking. The fucking germ gets passed
around families because of the foods they like... nothing to do with
genetics at all.

  I have of foods I avoid, foods that help, minimise stress, I live on
Mylanta (acid as the cause)... a statistical wank aimed at symptoms.
The similarity to heart disease is striking: cholesterol is the cause,
stress, blood pressure, genetics, food, fat... and nothing really
makes sense until they find the germ, or whatever it is. 

Regards,
Bob
 
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