From: aaron@space.ualberta.ca (Aaron Humphrey)
Subject: Re: More of Nathan being Depressed. (feel free to skip this)
Reply-To: aaron@space.ualberta.ca
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 17:55:00 GMT

lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals) writes:
: StM asks (facetiously, and smiling as he says it) "Does that mean that the
: attitude of most Caltech students toward biology majors is justified?"  Looking 
: more serious, he says, "Calculus isn't really that hard.  I suspect you had
: professors who didn't know what they were doing.  If you'd like a tutor to help
: you get a better understanding of calculus, I'll be glad to help, and at my
: standard rates (including the Callahanian discount:  Normal rates: $20/hr. 
: $0/hr if the student is a Callahanian).  I've got what's pretty much an
: intuitive undestanding (as well as the formal understanding) of up to what
: would, at most colleges, be a third-year calculus course (i.e., I can tell you
: not only what the formalism says, but what it means).  I've tutored quite a few
: people, all with pretty good success, and TAed economics (What?  You don't see
: how economics requires calculus?  Clearly you've never taken an economics
: course at Caltech 1/4 :-)).

Alfvaen speaks up to say, "I could do that too.  One of my ongoing projects is
explaining math and physics to my wife, in purely conceptual terms.  My wife
is a library tech and a writer, never took calculus, never took Physics past
Grade 10, etc.  My rates will probably be competitive with StM's...for the
modern physics stuff, a good book is Physics For Poets, which I believe is by
Fredrick March.  (First name I'm not sure of, but last name's definitely
March.)"

: >'No problem.  All you have to do is feed the energy through the matter
: >transducer, recalibrate the delta-Q of the mainframe directional chips
: >to take care of any parabolic inertial forces, and then simply maintain
: >the field strength. Easy!'
: >
: >	"Sounds like science, doesn't it?  Well, it's bullshit, and
: >so is your argument.  Trust me, friend, you are NOT stupid or unintelligent.
: >You just have different interests and opinions.  Let's hear some of those,
: >huh?"
: 
: "Well, let's see now.  Transducer:  Something that converts a physical
: phenomenon to an electronic signal and vice-versa.  AHA!  We're talking about a
: transporter, a la Star Trek!  Delta Q.  Oh, we've redesigned a resonant circuit
: so it has a smaller (or larger) resistive component, right?  Mainframe.  Hmm,
: nobody uses those anymore, except to oversee a disk farm.  Directional chips? 
: Afraid you've lost me there, Grant.  Seriously, though, those scientific
: discussions I've seen here generally involved people who DID know what they were
: taliking about.  Believe me, if I'd seen someone just using buzzwords, I'd've
: spoken up right quick (DM, do you REALLY call your guide stars fubar stars?  It
: seems appropriate, but just too good to be true!).

"Actually, the whole speech reminds me of Star Trek.  I always get a big kick
out of watching TNG when they're having one of those engineer conferences and
they're throwing around all this impressive terminology.  It probably
bamboozles some of the audience, but a fair number are probably like me, either
giggling or just saying, 'Who do they think they're trying to fool?'

"Seriously, it's quite funny, what they're really saying."

--
---Alfvaen(a.k.a. Aaron V. Humphrey, Page of Newts)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
"The bullroarer churns a Moebius strip of sound..."  Anna Amabiaca
Current Album--The Clash:London Calling
Current Read--C.J. Cherryh:Merchanter's Luck
Newsgroups: alt.callahans