It’s weird the way a word that used to be understood to mean one thing gradually comes to mean something else. Often, something very different.
“Gay” is a good example to make the point. It used to mean something entirely different than it means today.
How about “SUV”?
This is a word that has come to mean what we used to mean when we talked about 4x4s – by which was meant a vehicle with four wheel drive, usually based on a truck but without the bed. Also without much of anything else, such as amenities. Including carpet. A 4×4 was a rough-hewn and rugged vehicle meant to get banged up and dirty. And for people – men, really – who understood what it meant to “lock the hubs” (and why and when).
Today an “SUV” is often taken to mean a crossover – which is to a 4×4 what a “trans woman” is to a female; i.e., it is a false identification. A crossover used to be understood to mean a vehicle that looked like an SUV but wasn’t actually a 4×4. Meaning it wasn’t especially rugged much less rough-hewn and did not have four-wheel-drive. A crossover had either front-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive.
Which brings us to that.
It used to be understood that when you saw a “4WD” badge on the back of a vehicle or touted in advertising, it meant you were looking at or reading about a 4×4 or an SUV. Because at one time, that’s what that acronym meant. Now it can mean something else. That something else being all-wheel-drive, which is marketed in some instances as “4WD,” probably because of the more rugged connotations. The trick is that both 4WD and AWD are four-wheel-drive systems in that each can send the engine’s power to all four of the vehicle’s wheels. But another trick is that “4WD” – when that badge is affixed to a crossover rather than a 4×4 – usually means there isn’t a two-speed transfer case and no Low range gearing.
A 4×4 always has a two speed transfer case and low-range gearing. An AWD-equipped “4WD” crossover never does. It may have a gear-reduction-emulating function, but that is not the same thing as a 4×4’s transfer case. 4x4s are also almost always based on rear-drive layouts, like trucks – with their engines mounted front to back rather than sideways.
How about “emissions”?
This word used to be understood to mean an exhaust gas that causes pollution. This definition was the basis for regulating vehicle exhaust emissions, because pollution is unhealthful and so harmful. Then the meaning of the word was subtly broadened to encompass a gas that does not have anything at all to do with pollution, in order to regulate it. More finely, it was used to gaslight people into believing and accepting it is necessary to regulate the “emissions” of that gas, by imputing harm to its “emission.”
Meaning, get them to accept the necessity of winnowing down of engines from six to four and even three cylinders, with the ultimate end-of-the-road being no engines at all. Because that is ultimately the only way to curb the “emissions” of the gas that has nothing to do with pollution.
“Pro” is another word that no longer means what it used to mean – although it is used to convey the impression of what it once meant.
At one time, a person who was a “pro” was a an especially competent person. A professional electrician, for instance, was a guy who understood electricity and wiring. More finely, he was a guy who didn’t need help with wiring.
Then “pro” began to mean something else. Something quite the opposite – in the automotive context. “Pro” came into currency as a marketing term for some form of electronic assistance to crutch the inabilities of the incompetent. For example, “pro” parking assist. It as a system to aid people who have difficulty parking with that task, which is as such not a bad thing in the same sense that a walker is not a bad thing for people who have difficulty walking unaided. But no one (yet) talks about people who need assistance walking as being “pro” walkers.
Then there is “advanced” – a word that is taken at face value to mean better. But in fact it has come to mean a kind of regression in that it is regularly used to sex up some “technology” that serves to infantilize adults, such as advanced safety technology – which means something like a set of training wheels for a kid’s bike except for an adult’s bike. The kind of training wheels meant to never come off because the adult being trained is learning how to not be able to ride his bike – so to speak – without the training wheels.
Or the parental supervision.
Which brings us to “smart” – a word that used to mean intelligent; i.e., a person who is smart enough to make intelligent decisions himself, without assistance. Now the word means a device that is used to henpeck and control people who are presumed to be exceptionally stupid.
A “smart” appliance, for instance – such as a refrigerator that badgers you with insipid-sounding chimes if you leave the door open to long for its liking. Or a car that is more like a device because it is controlled by apps over which you have no control. Or a “smart” city in which everything is controlled by people who assume you are extremely stupid and must for that reason be controlled, by them.
Because they are smarter than you.
. . .
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I remember, before about 1990, everyone that I knew called (what we call now) SUVs “off-road vehicles”
Regarding the term “SUV”, and please check this in case I missed something: I believe the origin of the term “SUV” had to do with the introduction of the Chevrolet K-5 Blazer. Up until that time the choice for a 4WD vehicle was basically utilitarian: either a jar your fillings out pick up truck or the original galumpfmobile, the 4WD Suburban.
As the Jeepsters started having s-tons of fun rock crawling, dune jumping and other “off road” activities, the pressure began to build on GM and Chrysler to come up with something more “fun” than the utility pickups. Hence, the Blazer; a rugged 4WD “pickup”, but with some “sporty” amenities. It was a success, and such a one that GM took the galumpfmobile, cut 18 inches off of it and made the 4WD Tahoe. So, while the 4WD Tahoe had all the 4WD capabilities of the 4WD pickup, it was a LOT nicer to ride around in, and, it had 4 doors and a cargo hatch as well. Hence, the “SUV” moniker for the Tahoe.
Unfortunately, the usual suspects, better known as “the marketing guys” barged in, took over the term, and now, every fwd shitbox with some fakey crap stuck out the back to pretend to be “4wd/awd” is now a “suv”. Why did this happen? Station wagons is what happened. Just as mini-vans screamed “married with children”, stationwagons screamed stogy, out of style, no performance, etc. So, stationwagons were dumped by the wayside, while jellybean shaped fwd shitboxes with fake 4wd were rebranded as “suv’s”. So, the totally clueless could have a “stationwagon” without the stigma of “stationwagon”. Whew!
Read an old slide rule manual, if you can find one.
A “computer” is a person — i.e. one who computes. The person who sits there & does math.
Kind of puts things into perspective, a little bit.
The language has certainly slipped.
>Read an old slide rule manual, if you can find one.
I still have my trusty K & E log-log decitrig. 🙂
My first full time job, our meteorologist used a Friden Electro Mechanical Calculator
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/kyQAAOSwuVFngt6j/s-l1600.webp
I never learned to use one of those, because the age of computers had arrived.
But, everything was still mainframes, and time sharing was a big deal.
Software development was painfully slow, because batch processing using punched cards was the most common way of doing things (gnashing teeth).
Back in the day, billing statements included a punch card to send back with your payment. If you had trouble with a merchant, cutting an “extra” hole into the punch card would most certainly get a human’s attention. I resolved more than one issue with a merchant doing just that. The “extra” hole in the punch card require a real human to intervene.
The original steam engine pumped water out of the coal mines.
Back in 1769, James Watt redesigned the engine and the efficiency improved by 80 percent. You could build a steam engine and run a factory.
Call it a boiler room operation.
Some coke, iron ore, some molds, voila, steam locomotives that can pull 100 cars full of cattle making their way to Chicago.
Steaks, brisket, chopped ground round for Chicago-ans.
Eventually, deisel electric engines replaced steam locomotives, head two steam engines at full speed and crash head on, Roosevelt and Hoover collide at the Iowa State Fair in 1932.
Now, jets fly 39,000 feet up in the sky and move at 483 mph.
300 years of building engines from steam to ICE to Pratt and Whitney jet engines, some metallurgy, should be able to get something right. You can be at the rocket stage, some of those fail, though.
1712 the Newcomen steam engine arrived.
You don’t want to go back to live a life in 1712, it won’t be much fun.
What more do you want? Eggs in your beer?
Some electricity helps.
Lights up your laptop screen.
My 15+ years old teevee is dying and I’m finding it impossible to get a new one that’s NOT a “smart” tv. Probably going to have to check out yard sales and Craigslist to find a newer one that won’t be spying on me.
Also you’ll be disappointed in the modern screen quality, my beloved Sony XBR died after 16 years. That TV had the best picture then and now, I’ve ever seen. Live local news broadcasts were eerily lifelike. You actually got something better for the money.
I spent the extra money for a high end Sony (X93L) hoping to replicate the XBR. Nope. They can crow about variable mini LED, enhanced this, enhanced that, HDR, on and on. Took me days of tweaking in MANUAL mode to get an acceptable picture still not the equal of the old XBR. Any of the picture presets are a joke, you’d need welding goggles to watch TV. You can turn off the mic in the Sony, and does not have a camera built in.
Like cars, the TV screen now just another commodity.
Don’t connect it to the internet, and it won’t spy on you. Costco is a good place to buy a TV because they force manufacturers selling through them to not require any kind of online activation to use the product. It’s why you see slightly different model numbers being sold in Costco. I recently bought a Sony TV there, which has “Google TV” as its OS, and it works fine as a dumb TV without internet. I’ve got my HDMI inputs and nothing else, and the Google TV part of it is simply unused.
Amazon devies can “phone home” even if not connected to the Internet using other Amazon devices located within WiFi range, including those belonging to your neighbors.
Read your Amazon terms of service.
Anymore, with 5G phone systems becoming the norm, I don’t make any assumptions about a device being unable to communicate with hive mind on the Internet if it has a built-in 2.4 GHz transceiver. Using “unlicensed” spectrum is part of the 5G standard.
Resistance is futile.
(My prefered line from that episode is “Incorrect strategy, Number One.”)
Good advice OP. I do the same.
The old televisions are out there, eBay has plenty of old Sony Trinitron televisions for sale. 170 dollars buys one, a 13 inch screen. Some are 4400 dollars all the way to 6200 dollars. Plus tax and shipping.
I have one Sony 21 inch Trinitron.
I’m surprised you didn’t also include the word VACCINE in your article, Eric. That term was redefined by the CDC in 2021 when it became too obvious that the COVID vaccines DIDN’T prevent someone from getting the dreaded ‘Rona. IIRC, the original definition of vaccine was that it was something that prevented someone from getting a particular disease but it was redefined to justify the claims by corporate media & the Biden Thing that the COVID jabs didn’t prevent COVID but “reduced COVID symptoms”.
Another word that has been redefined is FASCIST or FASCISM. Fascism was originally defined as the merger of government & corporate power, but over the past 9 or 10 years the Democrat Party has resorted to endlessly calling Donald Trump a FASCIST & claiming that FASCISM was coming to America under his presidency, while conveniently IGNORING the fact that we’ve been living under fascism since at least as far back as the W administration, and Joe Biden actually ACTED like a Fascist during his 4 years as “President”. Remember the attempts to MANDATE that people take an experimental Big Pharma product? Pepperidge Farm does.
Education and the MSM has been used to dumb down the general populace and if you attempt to inform someone they denounce you as a conspiracy theorist whilst expecting you to burst into flames like a vampire being dropped into Holy water.
It’s really quite sad how people would rather cling to their lies than realize that you can’t begin to improve your situation in life until you learn where you are in the present.
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas. – Joseph Stalin
Hi Landru,
You may like this clip from the Jimmy Dore Show. Someone on Twitter broke down how corporate media outlets somehow say the exact same things on various issues, be it COVID, Trump, the Ukraine War, or something else….
https://rumble.com/v6idnf1-trump-is-short-circuiting-the-media-narrative-control-system.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
Hi John. I’ve see these clips before and yet many people say their flavor of MSM is better. 🙂
Hi Landru,
They’re probably the same people who say things like “Safe and Effective vaccines are settled science!”, “Climate change is settled science!”, “Follow the Science!”, “Vote blue no matter who!”, or STILL think the Democratic Party fights for the working class against oligarchs, never mind the fact that the Democratic Party has their own oligarchs.
By the way, who would have guessed that one day the Democrat Party would be DEFENDING Big Pharma!? Just look at the way many DEMOCRAT Senators treated RFK Jr during his confirmation hearing to be President Trump’s HHS Secretary. Those Senators made it appear they wanted to keep the status quo of American adults & children paying LOTS of money for health care but having lousy results compared to other countries around the world.
My job as a young buck was to go knee deep in mud & lock the hubs of an old farm truck we had. At the time I thought it was daddy just being fun. Oh no. We were stuck & he didn’t want to get muddy.
My first bike, at six years old never had training wheels. Dad thought only girls should have those. After falling and hurting myself numerous times I quickly learned how to safely ride a bike. My sister [a feckless cunt] on the other hand spent her entire life with training wheels, bike helmets, and rubber-baby-buggy-bumper equivalents. To this day she and her offspring exemplify the worst aspects of safety cultism.
Dad died last weekend. I thank all the luminaries in heaven for the handful of important life lessons he taught me. May he rest in peace.
My deepest condolences on the passing of your Dad, Norman.
So sorry to hear about your dad, Norman. Blessings to you and your family.
Sorry for the loss of your Dad, Norman. He taught you well.
My dad died last April. My mom followed him ten days ago.
As for your learning to ride a bike story — all of us learned around age six. Yesterday a teacher told me about taking a group of middle-schoolers to Japan. The itinerary included a bike outing. Some of the 11 and 12-year-olds never had learned to ride. Others’ riding skills were so sketchy, they didn’t feel ‘safe’ on their own.
She was gobsmacked; floored. As was I …
Thanks you all. I deeply appreciate the camaraderie we all share here.
Hi Jim,
Very sorry to hear about your mom’s passing. I hope you were able to be with her during he finals days. We send our thoughts and condolences.
Sorry to hear about your mom, Jim.
Mine has been gone for about a year and a half now. It’s still hard to believe at times. I had a brother just pass away as well from cancer.
Tomorrow is promised to no one. All the more reason to enjoy ourselves today, “safety” be damned.
Sorry for your losses, BaDnOn.
My condolences.
>Tomorrow is promised to no one.
You have got that right.
We’re captive on the carousel of time.
Thanks, Adi.
My condolences on the death of your Dad, Norman.
Hey Norman,
I’m sorry to hear about your dad. I just had a brother pass, too. Rough times.
Man- sorry for the loss. Sounds like a great father !
Sorry Norman. May he rest in peace.
Saving the climate, climate change, environmentalism.
This is propaganda supported by the government that has nothing to do with climate.
It is yet another thing the government lies about to effect some form of behavioral modification. Specifically, to convince people that things are happening.
The beneficiaries are those who make or take money for actions (research, activism, recycling, and various occupations) that do nothing that actually further some goal of saving or preserving anything.
Just as cars aren’t significantly safer than they were 30 years ago, we “feel” like they are, no one can show how the climate is being saved or change by human intervention, but we “feel” like it is.
It is a giant grift.
‘At one time, a person who was a “pro” was an especially competent person.’ — eric
In syllable-based Japanese, ‘pro’ is pronounced puro.
Whereas its opposite is pronounced amajah [amateur].
In the space of half a century, social leadership by competent puros has been swept aside by a motley cadre of rank amajahs. In no field is this more apparent than in so-called journalism, no longer practiced by its institutional outlets. JHK explains:
‘It was revealed this week that the Reuters News Agency, the Associated Press, The New York Times, the WaPo, and around 700 other news outfits altogether had been receiving financial support from USAID, the CIA, and other governmental entities. Now do you understand why Democratic Party voters are so obdurately deluded and deranged?’ [posted today at Lew Rockwell’s site]
Corrupt The Feed with fake news, and you can unhinge the whole anthill.
Death to the Lügenpresse.
It’s really been an eye opening week. The left is outraged that we found out about the waste of our hard earned money. I would love to ask the democrats on the left who are yelling and screaming about losing USAiD. Are you really sorry, or are you just sorry you got caught?
It began with the depreciation of the title “engineer.”
At one time engineers were on par with doctors and lawyers as far as pay, respect and social status. But as projects got more and more complicated manufacturing demanded more and more engineers across the board. Engineers in design, production, designing production, quality assurance, and even in sales to assist the customer in purchasing the products. Businesses didn’t want to pay doctor-level pay, so they began working on destroying the profession. Make engineers into nerds with pocket protectors. Put them in subservient roles while propping up sales and marketing. Make them into a punchline instead of the people who created modern society.
BTW, the doctors and lawyers saw what happened to the engineers and quickly figured out how to avoid the same fate. They inserted themselves into pop culture as heroes, taking advantage of the new technological wonder of mass media (created by engineers) to look like miracle workers, with trade groups like the AMA actively involved in Hollywood production (a tactic still used today). General Hospital wasn’t just selling soap, it was there to put doctors on pedestals.
By the 1970s, the term engineer became a joke. The most obvious was the so-called “Sanitation Engineer” banging your garbage cans at 6:00am. My first job for a Fortune 100 company was “Video Engineer,” even though I was a college dropout and hack musician who knew how to connect up equipment. I was always embarrassed to call myself an engineer, knowing that my father actually was one -with the sheepskin and state license.
Today there are a few places where engineers get some modicum of respect. I think Apple still seems to respect engineering, although product development is firmly in the hands of marketing and the whims of the c-suite. Crowdfunding/Kickstarter has made it possible for a few people with a good idea to put out a prototype and see if it gets traction. And of course in Asia, although I wonder for how long, given the masses of engineers their schools are producing.
‘At one time engineers were on par with doctors and lawyers as far as pay, respect and social status.’ — RK
LOL, I wish! At age 18, I also believed this rock ‘n roll myth to be solid, peer-reviewed history:
Well, you know in the old days
When a young man was a strong man
All the peoPLE, they stepped BACK
When a young man walked by
— The Who, Young Man Blues
I shoulda learned to play the guitar … 🙁
I shoulda learned to play the guitar … 🙁
Money for nothing and your chicks for free
LOL! I was thinking more about the age of steam, not the aerospace era.
Badly designed steam engines and boilers killed people. Improperly operated steam engines destroyed factories and wrecked up the place. Poorly laid out rail lines meant derailments and death. Collapsing bridges cost lives and money.
We forget that the various engineering codes, regulations and “obvious” designs were largely due to trial and error, and engineers cleaning up the mess and bloodshed. A good electrician is only as good as his NEC reference book, written by engineers years ago who figured it all out.
Guess I’m on the right wavelength, I thought of old time train engineers while reading your 1st comment.
…No, ‘smart-wool’ for them.
Just put on regular wool mittens, stick ’em in a bucket of warm water from the engines & clap their hands in the icy cold Winter air until the temps equalize & their fingers get close to numb from the cold & they’re ready for a day of working the controls.
…Oh wait, that was ‘fishermen of old’ in the North Atlantic.
There’s no such thing as, “warm gloves”. Especially when it’s time to lock the hubs in Winter. …Channel locks. Money for nothing. Little Red Corvette/FJ40.
Just thinking out loud. Hab a nice day.
Not entirely true. The NEC is not perfect, by any means…
Actually the NEC is also influenced by manufacturers, a case in point, the requirement for AFCIs (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters) in all residential living spaces. Although the operation of AFCIs has improved, there are still many false trips. Plugging in a motorized appliance can and will still cause false trips. In my humble opinion, they are still “not ready for prime-time” but are still forced on us by the NEC in collusion with the manufacturers of these devices.
One aspect of the NEC that I vehemently disagree with is the requirement for refrigerators, freezers, sump-pumps and alarm systems to be on GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) circuits. This is a recipe for disaster, as a false trip will result in spoiled food (refrigerator or freezer) or a flooded basement (sump-pump).
If I am required to comply with the above for an inspection, I discreetly inform the homeowner that once the “inspection” is complete, it is advisable to remove the above systems from GFCI “protection”.
This is but another example of common sense not being followed.
This is from a retired electrician with over 50 years experience.
Once a regulation is in place, it will be subject to regulatory capture.
Wire size is pretty straightforward stuff. Breaker panels are set up the way they are for a reason.
The fluff and filler that’s added on over time is because no one complains. Or the lawyers get involved. Either way the engineers who did the base work were treated better than the modern equivalent.
Amen, Anarchyst!
I plug my garage fridge & freezer into the non-GFCI ceiling outlets (also used by the garage door openers), instead of the GFCI wall outlets.
>Badly designed steam engines and boilers killed people.
So have poorly designed dams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mulholland
For the majority of my “career” as an electrical “engineer,” I was tossed aside, kicked around and otherwise needled by sales, marketing, manufacturing and purchasing departments. That continued for about 15 or 20 years. I didn’t do a whole lot of real engineering work and did more administrative functions. That probably suited me as I am admittedly not a very good engineer to begin with. As the 2000’s dawned, there became fewer people in the profession, but automation ironically increased non engineering tasks that were performed by others (admins, secretaries, tech writers)
As the 2000s wore on, even fewer joined. Salaries and respect have gone up a little. The job hasn’t really changed and I am nearing “retirement age.” Due to the continual layoffs, rough periods and inflation, I really don’t have much to fall back on, so I will likely die at my desk or in a ditch somewhere, but I am still better off than many.
What I do see going on is that this country is headed for a collapse despite or maybe because of the Orange Man.
Hopefully my ticker will stop before my paycheck. I don’t want to have the utilities cut off and the house repoed.
In the meantime, will the last person in DC shut out the lights?
This the pisser about the modern job market. Go get a degree in Engineering which at least in olden times, was no cakewalk. Hire on somewhere, and hope you survive without layoffs for the first five years. Keep up on tech, better get good with CAD CAM or adios. Even then you get bounced by the H1B system. Then get bitter realizing all that work and smarts is ignored by corporate they just want it done cheap.
Observe what “going on the cheap” did to Boeing, once one of the world’s premier aircraft manufacturers.
Hell, Boeing can’t even retrieve its own astronauts…
H1b’s hah!
Part of the problem is that, in English, we use the term “Engineer” to mean many different things. So, for example, someone who designs bridges is called a structural engineer, whereas the guy who operates a railroad locomotive is also called an “engineer,” as is the fellow who designed the railroad, or the locomotive. It all goes back to calling things by their proper names. Words matter. I get a laugh every time I see the firefighter who operates the pumps on a fire engine referred to as an “engineer.”
In German, which is a notoriously more precise language than English (ahem) there is no such confusion. Someone who uses ingenuity to solve technical problems is referred to as der Ingenieur, oder der Techniker, whereas the guy who operates a railroad locomotive is know as der Lokomotivführer.
Additionally, it is important to draw a distinction between those occupations which require a state professional license, and those which do not. Your employer may award you the job title of “customer engineer” without your having any specific professional qualifications, but you had damned well better not use the term “professional engineer” unless you have passed the state licensing exam in your specialty.
Nearly all civil engineering graduates will have sat for the state licensing exams, in order to be able to stamp and seal construction documents. Electrical engineers, not so much, unless their specialty is power distribution. Ditto mechanical engineers, unless their specialty is HVAC.
The problem with a PE stamp is government grift and corruption inherent in the licensing process.
The problem when I was young was deciding between being an automotive engineer or becoming a HVAC engineer which was what I was doing during college.
When interviewing with HVAC company i commented about the time it would take to get my PE. Was told not to worry about it – company president sat on the state PE licensure board and that all my prior work experience would be counted immediately.
A PE license has become the same as a medical license, or any other license. Just a way to erect a barrier to entry, minimize competition, and increase costs to customers.
Glad I decided on automotive. Did a whole lot more interesting data acquisition, testing, and design than I would have at the HVAC gig. I love cars. Hard to get too excited about HVAC’s!
You are correct about licensing schemes being used to “keep (otherwise qualified) people out.
Here in Michigan, until approximately 20 years ago, it was possible to sit and take the P. E. exam without any prerequisites.
Not any more…the “schools” bitched about it and the “rules” were changed. Prerequisites (only available at colleges and universities) are now required.
That being said…
In the 1960s and 1970s, in the Detroit area, there was a well-known proprietary electronics school that turned out fully capable electrical engineers in two years. There were no “fluff courses”. The emphasis was strictly on the subject material at hand–engineering. This proprietary school was so well-regarded that its graduates were immediately hired by major employers. Newspaper ads for engineers mentioned “college degree or RETS (the name of the school) required”.
That would never fly today with the state of education being what it is…
USAF technical schools for communications and radar were very similar back in the 80s. No idea how they are today but assuming must be similar.
Spend a year of schooling 8-9 hours a day to cover theory and troubleshooting and the rest was on the job training.
Churn out a competent labor pool without all the theoretical “engineering”.
I spent a good portion of my professional career using the same USAF half-split troubleshooting techniques to do engineering problem solving – to the amazement of the book smart types that couldn’t seem to solve real world problems efficiently.
Amen, Anarchyst-
Many – probably most – professions require some formal knowledge and the rest is experiential (and talent). But this business of having to have a four year degree in order to work as a journalist, for instance, is absurd. There are eighth graders with sufficient learned skills in grammar and so on – and the rest is . . . talent and experience. Childhood into the late 20s now….
How about this Adi, the teamsters union has horses in their logo but good luck hiring union teamsters that can work with horses, other than a very rare exception.
>good luck hiring union teamsters that can work with horses
I’ve heard some of them are pretty good with concrete, though. 🙂
Maybe they should change their logo…
> But as projects got more and more complicated manufacturing demanded more and more engineers across the board.
There are also varying levels of expertise which can be acquired in different ways. I am told that in the aerospace industry, experienced draftsmen with industry specific knowledge gained by work experience would be given a job title such as “design draftsman,” and the responsibility for some design work under the supervision of a degreed professional. Similar situations occur in other industries, such a process piping design and steel detailing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_detailer
>Practitioners of this occupation in the U.S. may range from degreed, and possibly licensed, civil/structural engineers to those with little or no formal academic training who nevertheless possess extensive industry experience. Certification of structural steel detailers is not required in the United States.
I owned and operated my own one man steel detailing business from 1996 until 2022. I did indeed work with qualified detailers whose formal education ranged from high school dropout to degreed engineer, as well as interfacing with the licensed design engineers who had stamped the drawings. Our skills complemented each other.
There are also co-op programs, which combine “theoretical” knowledge with practical industry experience. Northeastern University in Boston, which I believe is Mike in Boston’s alma mater, is famous for its co-op program. Another famous school in eastern Massachusetts has as its motto “mens et manus,” meaning “mind and hands,” and its seal depicts one guy with a book and another with a hammer and anvil.
I am a big fan of combining theory with practice, because, as we all know, in theory, theory and practice are the same, whereas in practice they are not. 🙂
It was easy to spend $500.00 to repair my “dumb” as in not annoying refrigerator as opposed to replacing with a $2,500.00 annoying “smart” refrigerator.Same philosophy also worked with my 2001 Silverado. Be “green” and save some green, repair.
Oh hell yeah. That’s an easy one. You can’t find a refrigerator under $1800 today. They are all terrible.