Wind turbines used to absorb a power surplus?

It is less genetics than familiarity. I came across a study done in Apartheid S Africa where they evaluated competence in basic industrial practice. Overwhelming the people who did best irrespective of race were those whose parents understood and could handle machines. It is terrifying how STEM inept I have seen intelligent bright children become whose parents were ArtStudents. They expect to fail.

That's just part of how DNA works. The epis are mostly heritable too.

If learned skills are epigentically inherited, which they likely are, engineering talent will really run in families, like math and music and athletics.

That always was the case. RPI had sort of a remedial English class for some of the freshmen and it wasn't geared toward foreign students.

My brother, who was the actual rocket scientist in the family, couldn't spell for sour owl s*it. You didn't want him to be the guy painting slogans on the missiles.

Yeah, like my family. Like many working class families the first kid to go to college was going to be an engineer.

The common wisdom when I was in school was if you wound up with an Indian lab partner let them handle the paperwork. They were extremely good with theory and a danger with a screwdriver. At least at that time upper middle class Indian kids didn't spend their childhood working on the family jalopy like most American kids who wound up in an engineering school.

I assume that has changed since the '60s as India developed diverse industries. The talent is there but wasn't encouraged by the British colonialists. India is building better Royal Enfields that the Brits ever did :)

I think the caste system associated manual labor (which includes manipulating physical objects, even on drawings) with lower classes. So we got a lot of superb Indian theorists and fewer actual product designers. I don't know if that is still the case.

A guy near here has a new Royal Enfield. Is that made in India? It's beautiful in the classic British thumper style.

It's interesting that you don't see the electronics diversity or semiconductor industry in India that you see in China. The Indians do tend to be good at magnetics.

A neighbour here is the worts driver I have ever been driven by. He is or was a Brahmin. I gave up seeing him after my attempts to be kind were accepted as simply his due as a higher caste being than myself. F*ck that.

I had an Indian car mechanic for a while. Utterly superb, would *make* parts from scrap to get old cars going. We used to sit and drink beer together. I miss him.

Welcome to the 21st Century. I'd bet $21 that most U.S. engineering students didn't spend their childhood working on anything besides their video game scores.

Just ask older engineers who have had to work with those fools.

Agreed, but the other big one in the same week to go down had assets in crypto. Trillions have been wiped off the value of crypto in a matter of months and at one time this was purchased with real money. Even with the failure of FTX (valued at 32 billion and then to zero in a few months) it's come to light that that fund managers from more respected companies probably didn't perform any due diligence before investing. You cannot lose when the bubble is expanding but when it bursts...

Yes, I haven't been following that one too closely but it seems the problems may have been there before 2008.

alan_m snipped-for-privacy@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote

What was fixed at the time was the liquidity crisis.

But we still can't do chips that allow monitoring of where the chip is and have it small enough to be inserted using a hyperdermic and have it self powered for decades.

Not convinced about that. Even with little kids, its obvious which ones have the mechanical and electrical aptitude and interest.

That's overstated with the railways particularly.

Dunno, we currently have a Brahman in another group who is into both the theory and physical product, in his case high tech rail guns. Corse he is a complete nutter who claims to have invented what google does so well, believes that Einstein got it wrong and that the moon landing never happened and was faked.

No idea how good his rail gun is, but our military isnt interested.

I wouldnt bet that.

It's hard to beat chemical explosives for energy density.

It fun, tragic fun, to interview the average EE recent grad. Whiteboard a 10 volt battery and a 9K:1K voltage divider, and ask for the drop across the 1K. Panic.

Or ask them about their senior project. That can be hilarious.

The FIRE people are extremely good at sawing off the branch they're sitting on. Every time they're rescued they promise they'll never do stupid things again. That lasts a few years if we're lucky.

Yes. After Independence India chose the Bullet for the Army's motorcycle. As years went on the bikes were assembled in India, but eventually they bought the tooling in the '60s. Over the years the quality improved and they now are using new designs after they bought Harris Performance. In a turnaround the 650cc's are now the best selling bike in the UK.

British Royal Enfield closed in 1970.

Unlike Ewan McGregor's films, there was no support group. He demonstrates the technique for some of the shots. Ride up the pass, prop the camera up, ride down, and ride up again to catch it of film.

They're trying. The government is a little more focused than Biden's attempts. Enough firms are getting nervous about TSMC that they may be able to attract significant investments.