Tyler Cowen, Average Is Over.

He talks about exactly this problem. You get two populations, a highly skilled but small group that gets paid for providing all the stuff for everyone. And burger flippers.

Ever been to the UK?

Guy who drives a train: Engineer
Guy who fixes your fridge: Engineer
Guy you call when internet stops working (asks you to reboot) : Engineer

When I studied EE, you'd learn about circuit and filters and such. You're taught about how lithographic processes work, and how quantum theory works. But it's not the everyday work of most EEs. You'd also be expected to do a lot of software type stuff. For instance, a lot of VLSI design is done in what is essentially a programming language. Unsurprisingly, this meant that EE folks could transition into software relatively easily.

At the moment there's a lot of hype about software, and not so much about hardware. Perhaps the EEs are simply moving to where demand is.

Pure speculation though.

A buddy of mine wrote an essay in his international relations class about how airplanes could be used to take down the towers, a couple of weeks before it happened.

But obviously those kinds of thoughts would be going through the head of someone who was doing a module on terrorism at the time. Just like it was going through the heads of the guys who actually did it.

Same thing with "precognition" of relatives dying. The thought crosses everyone's mind at some point. Now and again, it coincides with reality.

"That may be a different issue: the Dunning-Kruger effect [wikipedia.org]. Unless social grace can be considered an "expertise", which is an interesting philosophical notion."

I think it is. Among all the people I know, the really smart ones tend to be the humble ones. You almost have to drag it out of one of them that he got a top (they rank you numerically) degree at Oxford and a robotics phd from Cambridge. One of those guy's who'd be able to teach you a new concept after the two of you had just read the same few pages. Once the cat is out of the bag though, he gets the dual benefit of being super smart as well as being seen as a humble guy.

I reckon people who really are intelligent will follow this strategy. Because sooner or later, if you work with someone, you are going to ask them about their background. If you're credentialed, people will find out, and they will know that you were confident they would be impressed.

Less smart/credentialed people will need to rely on how people generally think:
1) In polite conversation, it's wrong to shoot down someone you've just met. So the idea that you're smart needs to at least be entertained even without the creds.
2) Social proof/bluffing. Someone going around claiming how smart they are has probably been told so by a lot of people, otherwise they'd be humble. So maybe other people have done the hard work, and the assessor can rely on that. Right? :-)

Anyway, rambling on a bit, I tend to take note when someone claims they are good at something. Particularly if they claim high intelligence. Unfortunately of late I've been right. Or Dunning and Krueger have been.

The question is whether we expect the car to ever reach the point where something bad happens. It's possible the stresses are so low it's unlikely ever to be driven to wherever the failure point is. Whoever designed it must have considered that bringing in cars to have them checked is expensive and inconvenient. Alternatively, whichever part will fail might be cheap enough that it can just be swapped at a regular service. Would be cool if somebody knew.

Read with less jaded eyes. I didn't ever say people shouldn't have these cars. Totally up to them. I just pointed out that it's mostly a matter of taste, not necessity. There aren't that many farmers that half a mall car park can be full of pickup trucks with nothing in them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_limit

Useful graph. The wording "no limit" can be a bit confusing to people who haven't done a materials course. In this case, having a limit is good.

Isn't there a massive oil boom going on in the US and other countries at the moment? I heard the shale oil thing is huge.

My thought as well. It's totally baffling that this beast is the world's top selling car. I'm a European currently visiting the US, and my wife and I are constantly pointing at what to us looks like a monster truck. I actually took a photo of me standing next to a random US pickup truck to demonstrate the ridiculousness of a car whose roof I can barely touch.

The pickup idea is also completely foreign to me as a European city-dweller. Maybe it's because I have a family I can't see why they don't just put in a row of folding seats. I've never needed to carry anything that my Freelander couldn't handle.

I love the names though. They really know how to name the giant vehicles. Ram, Silverado, Expedition, Armada...

http://heatball.de/en/

Yes. The average American is of recent European descent, speaks a European language, and lives under a system derived from European thought history.

Is he financially better off by giving away stock?

Looks quite green. What do they get up to there? Big agro / natural resources?

What's 1980s algebra?