We demand strict orthographic projection in all marketing materials!

But how many people with LA degrees have mastered these?

The idea that the aim of education should be professional mastery and specialization is very modern and has significant detractors, particularly among those who would say that it simply turns the University into a factory that produces graduates like goods.

Also this debate happens in the context of middle-class university education. The children of the rich are absolutely still getting rigorous liberal arts educations, as this seems to be a prerequisite for politics and leadership, for people who look forward to living rich and full lives, and not merely being a useful commodity for someone else to consume.

PS. On (3), I don't think it's any accident that the government of the People's Republic of China is made up of engineers to a large extent, or that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and many Iranian politicians are engineers, or that many members of the Muslim Brotherhood (including Ayman al-Zawahiri) are medical doctors.

STEM fields give intelligent people a way of working in the world that will not fundamentally challenge their philosophy or beliefs.

... employees with STEM degrees have critical thinking skills *and* STEM degrees. Just sayin'.

Hrmmm. Just some random thoughts, as someone with a film degree that also codes and has a highly technical job -- I am a sound designer and a recording engineer. I will to some extent generalize, but that's what we're doing here.

1) I've noticed that people can have really extensive technical knowledge but really not have any concept of social context or even the social utility of what they do. Indeed they'll often argue that the social utility is meaningless when compared to some teleological "search for knowledge," which is portrayed as valueless and objectively good, and questions of economy and competing interests are morally inferior.

2) STEM people can be total philistines. They'll often deride art and creative pursuits as somehow less essential or necessary than the cause of science and progress. They don't seem to understand that "progress" itself is a moral concept deeply embedded within a complex philosophical value system, and indeed a lot of STEM people know nothing of philosophy or epistemology, and think the entire enterprise of philosophy is some sort of academic scam. I love me some Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but he's completely put the foot in his mouth on several occasions when he thinks he's talking about philosophy of science, and I loved the new Cosmos but his depictions of certain historical events, particularly about Giordano Bruno, were glib and lacked rigor or sensitive knowledge.

3) I've noticed that a lot of people with an engineering or medical background are subject to many forms of woo, quackery and crank ideas. Whenever someone prints a list of "scientists" who oppose Evolution/Global Warming/Old Universe, take your pick, the list is generally chock full of engineer Ph.Ds.

4) Relatedly, I've noticed a lot of engineers are dilettantes who tend to see all problems in the world as simply problems of applied computer science, who don't respect professional expertise or knowledge, or respect the fact that things in the world can fundamentally differ in kind from the problems of science and engineering.

5) Some STEM people can be highly dogmatic, if you ever get into an argument with one over some point they will not let go of, eventually they'll resort to some form of scientism, and insist that the thing you believe is false because its existence cannot be falsified. An important part of exposing yourself to art and creativity is acknowledging that you can't prove beauty exists falsifiably, and everyone can argue over wether this or that tulip is beautiful, but beauty exists.

The sooner SpaceX gets away from reliance on government-as-customer the better. They are within a hairs-breadth of a dramatic drop in launch cost and if the effect of this is what I expect it to be, there will be an explosion of business in space as new regimes of space activity open up with SpaceX the primary transport.

It's easy to throw together a new language and compiler.

It happens often enough, but I don't know if I'd describe it as "easy."

enum Vertigo {
  case Uni
  case Dos
  case Tres
  case Catorce // FIXME
}

Go back to 2002 or so and s/Objective-C/Java. They're committed for the time being, but if they see people switching to Swift uniformly they'll dump Obj-C like a bad habit.

In addition, Tesla(whether or not you see this as an improvement is a distinct issue, it simply is so) sells cars much more like an enterprise IT hardware vendor sells hardware: at least within the warranty period, there is very much an ongoing interaction between the hardware and the vendor. System health information gets sent directly back, on site techs with specialized parts and firmware get sent out and so on. More traditional car companies are closer to buying a PC: the dealer will offer (often absurdly priced; but available) maintenance; and the vendor may become involved with certain warranty or recall cases; but they are otherwise largely out of the loop, with third parties handling the ongoing interaction with the hardware.

Something has to provide coordination and theatre-level intelligence for all deployed Highlander batteries, no?

NSW police arrest SWF for NSFW behavior. Lurid film at 11.

So, beyond our "I know you are, but what am I?" circles, what is there? I came from your dead POV into life.

I met the truth, and it broke me utterly. You can call me anything under the sun, but "shallow" is laughable. Faith, in the ultimate sense, is really all I have. All of the other materialistic mumbo-jumbo is transient.

If only you weren't so locked in your paradigm, you could see the truth before you. . .
(How is my impression of you doing?)

If you haven't known Christ, you haven't known liberty. Would that you knew what you're missing.