hmmm...my tin foil hat's power failed

[tw]

Originally posted by SteveDallas
I have the pleasure of being responsible for telephone systems in addition to computers... I won't even start to get myself lathered up by relating all the stories of incompetence in this area. And it's not just Verizon.

Read the Columiba Investigation report (www.caib.us). Top management cannot be bothered to know how the work gets done - resulting in murder. We graduate less engineers every year for well over a decade. In PA, the title of Chief Engineer for PennDot has been replaced by Chief Manager so an engineer need not run the highway department. They cost too much.

A classic example of technical incompetence is widespread in the computer industry. For example, how many computer experts can tell us what the power supply does. It has many more functions that just provide DC power. If all outputs from a power supply are shorted together, then the power supply is damaged - right?

Wrong. As was common knowledge even 30 years ago, all outputs from a power supply can be shorted and the power supply is never damaged. A properly designed power supply cannot even damage computer components. But too many computer experts don't even know that basic requirement. We now call 'power users' the 'experts'. That is what has changed. Too little basic knowledge in the field because the bosses don't know how the work gets done.

No wonder so many software engineering jobs are now going to India. How many software 'experts' can do a simple logical minimizations (ie Karnaugh Map). How many even know what a syllogism and propositional logic are? Basic tools that may be found overseas where experts first have to learn the basics.

I was just talking to Comcast installers. Their bosses had sort of described how to ground the cable. No idea why. As a result, they were installing it wrong in some locations - AND some did not even bother making that National Electrical Code required connection. It comes from not understanding basic electrical principals - even with the bosses.

We don't need know how electricity works. TV works just fine? Same kind of reasoning used by Linda Ham, et al to murder seven Columbia astronauts. Same kind of reasoning that a dogged engineer named Richard Roche confronted, repeatedly and in frustration, to save the Columbia. Its called the MBA mentality.