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From: ned@brl-tgr.ARPA (Raymond Prenatt )
Newsgroups: net.consumers,net.analog
Subject: Re: power meters
Message-ID: <9495@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 26-Mar-85 09:36:53 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.9495
Posted: Tue Mar 26 09:36:53 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Mar-85 01:38:53 EST
References: <500@harvard.ARPA> <973@dual.UUCP>
Reply-To: ned@brl-tgr.ARPA (Raymond Prenatt (TANK) <ned>)
Distribution: net
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 46
Xref: watmath net.consumers:2054 net.analog:230
Summary: 

In article <973@dual.UUCP> paul@dual.UUCP (Baker) writes:
>> I'm looking for a gadget to plug into the wall that will tell me how much
>> power an appliance, lamp, etc. is consuming. My electric bill has recently
>> increased and I would like to find out where the power is going.
>> -- 
>> ----------------
>>   Marty Sasaki				net:   sasaki@harvard.{arpa,uucp}
>>   Havard University Science Center	phone: 617-495-1270
>>   One Oxford Street
>>   Cambridge, MA 02138
>
>I simply can't believe that someone from the scientific section of
>one of the U.S.A's supposedly leading universities doesn't know the
>answer to this.  Someone midway through high school physics should
>be able to answer this.  On the other hand perhaps education in the
>U.S. really as bad as Raygun says it is if we have science
>undergraduates or possibly graduates who don't that AMMETERS exist.
>
>Paul Wilcox-Baker.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

What you see above is an example of the kind of snotty, condescending,
insulting response that, I think, we see all too frequently on the net.
It harks back to the early days of microcomputing when it used to be
considered *cute* to have the computer respond with insults when the
user made an error.  Of course, this sort of childishness predates the
computer by millennia.  You know.  A kid's just gotten some new learning
and suddenly everyone who doesn't know something that he knows is somehow
*stupid*, or at least *ignorant*.  I guess I sorta went through that stage
myself back in grade school, and maybe a little even into high school.  It's
amazing how getting smacked in the mouth a few times (literally as well as
figuratively) encourages behavior modification.  I do think that most of us,
at we grow up, soon realize how really sophomoric such talk sounds.  It really
IS less a reflection on the person we're putting down than it is on
ourselves.  I've found that one thing that often really helps in overcoming
such an attitude is to concentrate on the many, many things that other
people know about THEIR fields, or talents or skills that they have in THEIR
areas of interest that I lack.  (Maybe I'm not interested in acquiring them
either, but that's beside the point.)

My apologies, Paul.  I'm sure that you're a fine person in many respects.
It's just that this has been building up in me for some time; I needed to get
it off my chest and you just happened to provide the last straw.

                                                          =Ned=