Amazon orders 100,000 electric delivery trucks,

[rbowman]

Maybe. I'm not arguing but just curious. Back in the day I knew several people who were illiterate. Obviously there was no social media in the '70s but I don't know if their lifestyles would have included Facebook even if it existed. 50 years later is there a significant slice of the population that hasn't adopted technology? I don't know. I've been isolated in the tech world too long.

I'm excluding people like some of my older relatives who are computer illiterate and still depend on newspapers and magazines. Is there anyone under thirty that doesn't have a smart phone?

[rbowman]

Isn't that always the problem? We want the pepper, not the fly shit.

[rbowman]

Purely anecdotal but I grew up in an era when cars had the aerodynamics of a barn door and in the summer you rolled the window down and drove with your arm resting on the door sill.

I had a '82 Firebird with a .32 coefficient of drag which was the slipperiest car GM had ever built. Even the C4 generation of Corvettes only got down to .34.

By comparison my Toyota hatchback has a .29. However if I roll the window down there is an uncomfortable amount of turbulence at speeds over 45 or so so I'm thinking their wind tunnel / computer modeling assumed you weren't going to open the window except at a Wendy's driveup.

The Toyota also gets in the 36-38 mpg range unless I'm running at 80+, when it drops off markedly. I certainly haven't tested it with the window down at that speed. I like my ear drums intact.

Maybe not minivans as much but I can believe with all the fine tuning of the sedan aerodynamics to increase the fleet mileage rolling down the window isn't a good thing.

[invalid unparseable]

I never knew any. The closest I have ever got was when one younger fella asked me in the supermarket if the bottle of metho was metho, he was clearly going to drink it. Not clear why he was illiterate or even if he had gone blind from drinking metho. That was in the 90s.

Likely not.

Yep, I do know one or two that can't do phone texting, and just one who refuses to have anything to do with cellphones. He does use a landline phone tho.

Yes, but they read more than just the headlines and street signs.

Only the ones too young for one, but even those do play with their parent's smartphones and can load the stuff they want like games etc.

[Ed Pawlowski]

They were about $3000 new. I know where you can get one though, about $80k. Been in the same garage for 40 years that I know of.

[Ed Pawlowski]

You hang out with the wrong crowd. When I was working, we sometimes used unskilled temp labor. Some could not write their own name. Sad because they were actually decent workers and with a little education could do much better.

[Ralph Mowery]

Some could be like me. I have an associate degree in electronics from around 1970. Been around electronics for years and am a ham radio operator . Even had a license to work on broadcast radio and tv stations when that was required by the FCC.

With all that I am not sure how to send a text on my smart phone. I get very little use of it and may make one or two calls on it in a month.

It is just that I do not care about the phone and what it will do. I do have a land line phone that I use and I may be tempted to give it up but the wife does not want to use her cell phone much either. She makes one call a week to me to pick her up when the beauty shop finishes her hair.

I have a friend that just turned 80. He worked for Western Electric and Bell Labs. Very smart man, but seems to be almost stuck in the 1950's. He does have a computer but can hardly use it. I just think he does not care to learn about them. He is a ham radio operator too. He can take the older tube stuff down to individual components and put it back to gether with no problem and repair what ever is wrong with it. He still has a flip phone instead of a smart phone.

One of the funnier statement I heard was a few years back a congressman was talking about the new medicare rules. When asked about how the people could find out about them , they said 'just look it up on the internet' . I doubt that 20 % of the people that are over 65 at the time would even have a computer let alone how to work their way through the medicare pages.

[invalid unparseable]

Nope, I hang out with a very wide variety of people and have always done.

Never come across anyone like that. And that's nothing like the large percentage originally claimed by Frank either.

Sure.

[invalid unparseable]

Fark. No one I know who cant text is like that. One of them gets me to do what needs to be done with a multimeter when that would be useful for him.

He's a pretty decent mechanic tho, used to sell the bombs when he was working.

I get and make all my calls that way now, Much more convenient to have everything in one place and for it to keep working wherever I am.

Mad, its much more convenient than the alternatives.

I don't even use cash anymore, pay for everything with the smartphone.

Much more convenient to do everything on the cellphone.

Yeah, there are a few like that.

< people that are over 65 at the time would even have a computer

But plenty would have a smartphone.

That's a different issue.

[Ralph Mowery]

I worked at a company and there was a fellow that called me and said his machine would not start. I told him to press the green button labled START instead of the red one.

He did finsih high school and could read and write.

Good old boy (man about 50) but almost as dumb as a box of rocks. They said he could shoot a mean game of pool.

It is amazing how stupid or dumb the general public can be if you work around them long enough.

Just remember if you take the IQ scores half the population is average,

1/4 is below and 1/4 above.

[gfretwell]

The mid 70s and early 80s cars were a tough sell but once technology caught up, the newer computer controlled EFI engines are attractive on their own. The performance is a lot better and maintenance has dropped off to virtually zero. The cleaner burn even pushes the oil change interval out. I wouldn't own an old technology car and it has nothing to do with air pollution. If I hit the lotto and wanted an old Corvette or something I would take the body off and drop it on a late model chassis.

[gfretwell]

These days the computer just juices up the engine a little when the A/C comes on. You will see the instant MPG number move if you have that display.

[gfretwell]

I would like it if it was an interstate deal and California would send you firefighters when you get a big fire. We have that among power companies down here. After Irma we saw bucket trucks from all over the south and my lineman neighbor used to go all over when other folks had trouble. The deal was really sweet for the workers tho because they get a lot of overtime and live on full expenses. He came home from a couple of those redneck riviera hurricanes with enough money for his and hers jet skis one year. He was sleeping on straight time and working on overtime.

[gfretwell]

Probably not in Montana but if you are up in the North East where 35 is the typical speed limit for a country road, speeding tickets is an important revenue source and in town you are stop and go for an hour, I doubt rolling the window down does anything but let in more air pollution.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Many new AC compressors no longer have a clutch but rotate all the time. Somehow the valves are controlled to make it work. So smooth you won't feel it come on so I don't know if you will notice a change on the mileage gauge.

Older cars also increased the idle speed when the AC went on.

[rbowman]

In the '70s I had a maintenance guy who was functionally illiterate. I got a clue when he installed an electrical panel upside down despite the sticker that said 'This Side Up'.

One day I sent him into town to pick up a Hilti from a tool rental place. To get a powder actuated tool you had to fill out a form that was basically a 10 question safety quiz. He came back empty handed and said I'd have to pick it up myself.

For most of the jobs around the plant illiteracy was no handicap. He'd picked up quite a few skills along the way and could perform most tasks with no problem.

I also knew a woman who couldn't read. I'd take her shopping and it was clear she was going off the pictures on the labels. There used to be those generic goods that didn't have anything but writing on the label and those weren't going in the basket. It was the same deal. She was a good cook and housekeeper. She wasn't dumb she just never learned to read.

Twitter would be out but that might not be much of a handicap today. I've bought a number of devices with extremely limited instructions. You fire them up and poke at the icons until you figure out how it works. I come from the RTFM generation but now there isn't any effing manual unless you can find something online.

[rbowman]

We would have people come in for a job and bring a spouse or girlfriend to fill out the forms. If you're hiring a forklift driver it doesn't matter much. They could easily differentiate between product even if they weren't exactly reading the boxes.

I don't think anumeric is the proper term but I never knew a person with limited reading skills that had a problem with numbers. In fact their basic math skills were better than some of today's kids that can't make change without a screen prompting them.

You get by. When my wife went to Japan she was completely illiterate in that environment. Fortunately many of the restaurants had plastic models of the meals on offer so she didn't starve.

[rbowman]

It might have been more prevalent 40 years ago and I have no idea what the percentage is today. I haven't been involved in day to day manufacturing operations in decades. Programmers more or less literate by definition but don't expect great spelling or grammar skills.

[rbowman]

We all have our moments. I was installing a molding system in Trois Rivieres Quebec and had to go back to the states for parts. I got back to the factory about 8PM and the machinists were gone.

There was a note on the control panel -- in French. I'm not literate in French but when I started the hydraulic pumps to do some testing I figured out it said the equivalent of 'Don't start the press. I removed that valve that's been malfunctioning'. A 20 gpm hydraulic pump can spew quite a bit of oil before you realize you've screwed up.

[rbowman]

I don't text that way but we use Slack at work, which is an instant messaging product. You can use a browser to access it but I prefer to use the phone. With most of the people working from home and a couple of people on client sites it's a great tool. One of the younger programmers made a snide comment when I started using it but it's no different than email.

When I was in NH I was a IEEE member but mostly went to Boston for the seminars or meetings. Almost everyone was in some sort of computer related field.

I went to a get together of the NH chapter where the membership was all classical electrical engineers that worked for Public Service of New Hampshire. They were talking about organizing some sort of remedial series to figure out how to use those computer thingies.

My brother was literally the rocket scientist in the family and had worked for Boeing before transitioning to Thiokol when he was working on the BOMARC project at Redstone. By the time computers made inroads he was well up the management tree and had no interest at all. His wife knew enough to go online to find recipes but that was about it.

One of my cousins worked for IBM all over the country and she's not even too adept with basic email.

I take what I need from technology and leave the rest. I very seldom make or receive phone calls but I've adapted to using a smart phone for a number of things besides a phone. It's great for streaming the Amazon Music '60s channel into the Bluetooth radio in the car.