On Wednesday 21 January 2009, Ed Nisley wrote: >> now we have your write up to learn from > >Well, you want to start out with somebody a whole lot better >looking than me, that's for darn sure...
See how you are? >> how much of it is the age of the current exhibitors > >That's the way I see it, alas. And Amen! >Machining is becoming a lost art and all the practitioners >(the ones with magic in their fingertips from a lifetime of >experience) are headed for that big swarf pile in the sky. And sadly, many will take that lifetime collection of tips & tricks with them, having found no one interested enough to hang around, learn and become useful. That certainly will be the case when I toddle off. In nearly 60 years, I have actually had two, maybe 3 worthy of the name 'student'. I got stuck addressing a bunch of 8th graders touring the tv station as part of the spring field trips from the local schools, with instructions to tell them how tv works. I simplified it greatly by telling them it was the same as pointing a flashlight, and swinging it in a scanning motion, reading the light that was reflected, and converting it to a signal that was transmitted to their tv's, where a beam of electrons (no lcd's back then) was swung back and forth, repainting the scene on the face of the tube they were watching. Then I finished off with "and someday I will retire, and when I do, I want to see one or more of you in the front room filling out an application to take my job away from me. The job pays well, and its actually fun most of the time." I shoulda been a standup comic cuz they all laughed like crazy, & one smartass boy in the front said "why would I want to do that?" Something was terribly wrong with the picture I got of the present schooling available to these kids. Dumbed down beyond rational belief IMO. >We have few young turks to replace 'em and very few of >those were showing off their wares; some of 'em were in the >EMC booth, eh? Sharing knowledge seems to be becoming a thing of the past, way too much of this "Imaginary Property" to stand guard over I guess. >On the other paw, until you become an Olde Farte, you don't >have enough time to play with this stuff, sooo maybe that's >some of it, too. Guilty. But I don't spell it so Fawncy. >> You looked like you were having a ball, but there was >> obviously room for more tables in that room. > >It's performance art, that's for sure... Yup. Explaining the same thing to a new face every 20 minutes can get old. >I don't have any numbers, but the show seemed only slightly >smaller than last year and plenty of folks were walking >around sight-see-ing. The tables were pretty much >end-to-end throughout the whole arena, with not many empty >spaces on top. > >Sherline was conspicuous by their absence. The good folks at >Village Press said they did enough biz to justify the trip, >which is excellent news. Plenty of vendors around the edges >seemed to be doing decent biz, too. > >A good time was, methinks, had by all... Wish I had been there Ed, if for no other reason than to counteract your denegration of your looks by giving you something to compare to that is probably worse. Some of your Notes to Self are a hoot. Certainly enjoyed. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) SEMPER UBI SUB UBI!!!! [ Always wear underwater ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
