Re: Re: All HP still not created equal....???

Posted by Steve - IN on January 06, 2003 at 22:10:51 from (12.222.17.160):

In Reply to: Re: All HP still not created equal....??? posted by Wayne on January 06, 2003 at 18:41:24:

Wayne,

Glad you liked the hamster. Only thing I could think of that was about 1/750th of a horse.

Couple of points, though:
1. Even a reasonable guy could argue that there are not enough engineers in the world. After all, an engineer is only trying to make a living by designing a product you'll BUY to make your life more fun, easier, or more productive - nobody ever says you have to buy it. Now contrast that to a lawyer, a politician, or a government bureaucrat type -- the USDA people they're talking about above -- for example. They literally take your money, or force you to buy their service, then turn around and send you stupid forms and make up often times crazy rules telling you how to live your life. So if we had more engineers, we might be more productive, have more fun and free time, have more liberty and pay fewer taxes. -- just a wild a$$ed wish that may never come true. But hey, if it weren't for engineer and inventor types, we'd all still be behind draft horses pulling plows and smelling Clydesdale flatulence all day long - and surely couldn't talk to one another by computer.

2. I've been involved in fixing stuff like you, but I've also been involved in designing and making stuff, too. So I've cussed some unknown engineers, but also know that when you get down to it, the good engineers know they're just trying to make something that will work and sell, and will make money for his company - and pay his salary. You've gotta know that there are a whole lot of trade offs involved to make something produce-able, useable, sell-able, profitable and yet make it a little bit fix-able (and to some extent, you know every maker hopes that when the first widget breaks, you'll just go out and buy a new one -- everybody likes more money).

3. If I were an SAE, auto type, engineer today I think I'd go nuts. I'd guess over half the design work done now isn't something the customer demanded to make a better product; it's something you're doing because of some government type made a rule or law or edict -- or some fear of a trial lawyer, injury lawyer problem from stuff like hot, spilled coffee and other idiot stuff. Take the CAFE rules for example, they're due to go up in '06. Pick up trucks and SUV's may be dead meat then because of fuel economy. Why? Because some idiots think we're running out of oil, so we have to get better mileage. Now if that's really true - the guys who own the oil wells and the guys who refine the stuff have to be the dumbest knuckle draggers on the fact of this green earth. If you adjust the prices they get for inflation - oil hasn't gone up at all in 30 years - the taxes have, but not the oil itself. People are paying a lot more per gallon for bottled water at the grocery store -- and that is the most plentiful da~ned substance on the face of the earth. If we truly are going to run out of oil soon, these guys who make and sell the stuff should triple their prices tomorrow - or maybe even make it 7 bucks a gallon like bottled water. They don't - 'cause it's not true. The problem is that a bunch of idiots who never turned a wrench - and have never stopped to think that nobody even had a car or a tractor 100 years ago, are worried because we have a 200 to 300 year reserve of oil. As if in all the planet there was nothing else that would explode or make power besides oil. Give me more engineers, or even wild a$$ed inventors, so we'll have hydrogen fuel cells or nitrogen power something-or-others even sooner to power our pickups, or tractors, or cars to drive all day long without costing us squat for fuel.

So glad you liked my history ramblings - and maybe my rant. Guess my real lesson is that history shows at least half - maybe 80 per cent - of the the guys telling us things to worry about today will be proven dead wrong 20 years from now. Around the time of James Watt, there was another famous English guy named Thomas Malthus who was sure we'd all be starved to death today because the land could never produce enough food. Guys like Watt and other crazy inventors and engineers proved him wrong. I'd like more of those guys, please.

take care,

Steve

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