...During the invasion of Iraq I saw a Pentagon schedule for a project to train people in Middle Eastern languages....
Well, as far as I can remember, in the early pre-attack phase there were about 7 people in the US who understood the Iraqi arab dialect. But to UNDERSTAND, was not the agenda. What it was: Your guess. Say: Project YOUR imagined way into difficult territory. (Even if -- as the saying in my small environment is: THEY(!) speak five languages, but do not know the way) This ofcourse is a metaphor for understanding anything of deep complexity, as I suppose You imply. In the proper context, the complex can be quite simple, even trivial. Guenter ________________________________ Von: Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> An: [email protected] Gesendet: 20:07 Sonntag, 22.Juli 2012 Betreff: Re: [Vo]:Migrant Workers in China Face Competition from Robots Alain Sepeda <[email protected]> wrote: In corporate engineering you notice that relative regression. >Data can be exchanged in seconds, designs can be simulated in days, >however the regulation has became so complex, the "workflow" so long, >involving so many fearful executives, so higher executives, that things get >slow, until all is technical and planed. >then it take 18 month. > That is a big problem. In the 1940s and 50s when the Air Force was flying the X-series aircraft, they implemented design changes in a matter of weeks that would take years nowadays. That was partly the lingering effect of WWII, when people made decisions rapidly. During the invasion of Iraq I saw a Pentagon schedule for a project to train people in Middle Eastern languages. They were holding preliminary meetings, circulating plans and so on. It was going to take years before the first person sat in the first classroom. In comparison, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army set up Japanese-language classes within a matter of weeks. Thirty years later I learned Japanese from some the people who set up those courses or learned from them. Regarding Franklin and the speed of communication, I wonder if the Proceedings of the Royal Society for 1750s are on line? Franklin wrote to Collinson on Feb. 4, 1751. It would be interesting to see how long it took Collinson to report it to the Society in their regular correspondence. I am pretty sure Collinson found this news important enough to report. It was probably the first time anyone was nearly killed by artificially produced electricity, as opposed to lightning. In those days the Society proceedings resembled this forum rather than a modern journal. They were a catch-all discussion group for anything of interest to Natural Philosophy (science). - Jed
