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In article <uAvGe.31$45.6266@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
<mmeron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>In article <dcdocj$3j4m@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin) writes:
>>
>>There is the old one about a trouble-shooter who is called
>>into a plant which is not working. After looking around,
>>he takes a wrench out of his toolkit, and hits a pipe, and
>>everything works. He sends them a bill for $2500.
>>
>>They object to paying that much for what he did, and ask
>>for an itemized bill. This is the bill:
>>
>> Hitting with the wrench $ .25
>> Knowing where to hit $2499,75
>>
>Quite right:-)
>
>>What the students are being taught is how to swing the
>>various types of wrenches, but not how to understand
>>problems to the extent that they can "know where to hit".
>>--
>Unfortunately I see lots of this, and it can be worse than useless,
>creating unwarranted delusions of competence.
I saw a story fly past one of the engineering newsgroups. An EE was
consulting for a company, and redesigned a particular circuit that was to
be mass-produced so that it was simpler and had fewer parts, was cheaper
to make, and would save the company some large number of dollars over a
production run. And the manager could hardly believe that he wanted his
consulting fee-- there was hardly anything there!
--
"Out of the way, you slime, a physicist is coming!"
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