"It's a poor workman who blames . . ."

Think about the first caveman discovering a sharp edge on a rock, and finding it made him more skillfull at killing his prey than did the older, blunt edged rock. It's been going on for way more than a century.

Charlie Self "Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy." Edgar Bergen, (Charlie McCarthy)

Adirondacks (I think) ad.

And your point is? I used to live in and around the Adirondacks, but that was pre-yuppie, so we weren't up on wine tasting. We just drank it if we liked the flavor, served it to someone else if we didn't.

Charlie Self "Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy." Edgar Bergen, (Charlie McCarthy)

On 06 Dec 2004 14:28:55 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.comnotforme (Charlie Self) calmly ranted:

Then how come I have a "Measure Once, Curse Twice" sign in my shop?

Right. How EVER did cavemen get along over a century ago? ;) (/editor humor)

========================================================== CAUTION: Do not use remaining fingers as pushsticks! ==========================================================

Pick one.

Seriously, I said the skill is increasingly being shifted into the machine. Not that it's completely there yet, or perhaps ever will be.

--RC

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

However

I'd suggest a different perspective. Is the skill being shifted to the machine OR are we developing different needed to use the machines most efficiently? 21st century wrecker has problems using his electric planer that 19th century artiste never had using his. FoggyTown "Cut to shape . . . pound to fit."

foggytown notes:

Because that "19th century artiste" was a trained joiner who would have punched someone's lights out if they called him an artiste?

Charlie Self "Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy." Edgar Bergen, (Charlie McCarthy)

However, he would have smiled if you called his outfit "quite gay" at a holiday gathering. Nowadays, it's the other way around.

Barry

Seriously, whenever you have a tool that can learn, come back and talk to me about its "skill," a learning/learned phenomenon. And self-adjusting is _not_ learning, because it has preset limits.

Barry responds:

How 'bout dem Gay 90s and WWI's Gay Paree?

Charlie Self "Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country." Ambrose Bierce

Learning is one important attribute - "Value" is another. The ability to 'care' about the work and apply that care to this squirrelly piece of wood that, in one set of hands looks like a piece of trash with tearouts all over the place, but in another seems to literally flow into the piece.

I know of 'learning' machines, I don't know of any that 'care'. There are some that are governed by policies - policies set up by people. Policies that are expressed in some form sufficient to the task originally conceived but inadequately expressed and unable to be self-modifying enough to call it 'caring'. It is the self-modifying aspect that is a long way off (if ever) in machines - do you really want a machine to be self-policing? - Sounds like Terminator ('course he's governor now isn't he?). In people it's called free will...

TWS

It does. The mistake many people make is that they think that they need to look only at the most recent one to predict consistency.

Have you noticed the lyric change to "Deck The Halls?" It's now our "bright" apparel in the music supplied to schools.

Pressure from cross-dressers, I guess.

Unfortunately this is not true. In complex systems, and modern microprocessors and software are quite complex, errors do occur and performance is not entirely deterministic. To state otherwise is to be hopelessly naive.

-j

Quite true. However the learning curve tends to be a lot shorter today.

Consider the difference between forge welding and modern welding techniques. Modern welding is definitely a skill, but it takes less time to learn it and it is easier to produce consistent results. If you look at a lot of blacksmith-made stuff, you'll see that they went to considerable lengths to avoid welds in applications where failure could threaten life. For example eyes in hooks were usually punched rather than welded.

Or look at cutting dovetails. For all the complaining about how long it takes to learn to set up a dovetail jig, it's still faster than learning to cut dovetails of the same quality by hand.

--RC

Projects expand to fill the clamps available -- plus 20 percent

You're using a more narrow definition of 'skill'. I'm using it in the sense of 'ability to achieve a given result'.

What's happening is that the 'skill' is designed into the machine. It's not something it 'learns.' (Of course that also means that the machine is limited in what it can do, but that's another issue.)

--RC

Projects expand to fill the clamps available -- plus 20 percent

Ever see a movie called "Tough Guys" with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas? If you haven't, look for it--there's a scene in there that I think you'll appreciate.

The answer you pretend to quote is, in fact, "hopelessly naive," but it's not the one I gave. Why did you change it while continuing to pretend it was mine ?

Maybe we should send them to a "skill center" (voc ed facility) to pick some up?

Guess not, until they could actually learn one.

I'll stick with AHD on this. skill (sk¹l) n. 1. Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience.