When I was a college kid I thought similarly so, but that is not really true. In fact it is a very typical arrogant position that many science people, or rather people who are fans of science but don't actually study it themselves, tend to make; in reality it is a small-minded position.

For example my wife is finishing her PhD in history, specifically medieval art. Granted it is a PhD and not undergrad, she has had to master many things else she would be, as you said, fucked. I remember once she was told to learn German the next semester - not like take a class, but learn German to read old-ass academic and literature text. I am a scientist and I know there is no way I could learn a foreign language like that. She reads through medieval Latin text; that was a skill that if she didn't master she would fall behind.

Again, this is my wife's situation and it is all I know besides my own experiences. However, to simply say if you don't study STEM programs then you don't need to build on fundamentals is just simply a naive thing to say. And, ironically, a not very scientifically-minded statement.

I started college as a pre-med biology and chemistry double major. I got through two years of undergrad and just got burned out. Lots of hours in the classroom, laboratory and studying. I dropped the chemistry major but my GPA already got hurt so the med school thing was a long shot. By the time I graduated with my B.S. in biology I had no desire (at the time) for graduate or professional school. I took a job as an analytical chemist and did that for nearly ten years working my way up to a PhD equivalent type of position (Principal Investigator and Study Director type of roles).

Something that people who are not in the sciences do not seem to realize is that science jobs really suck, for lack of a better term. The locations are very fragmented (I had to move halfway across the country to move up the industry ladder), if you don't have a PhD you are capped, and even at that many - if not most - PhDs in the industry are doing basic bench-work alongside folks with their B.S. The pay is just terrible as well. So you work your ass off in school taking difficult and time-consuming classes to make crap money in an industry that lays off tens of thousands of people each year (just look at the M&A in pharma and industrial chemicals). And people wonder why students don't want to go into science.

Chemical engineering is another story - that is what I should have gone into if I knew then what I know now.

. . . and 'real' engineers everywhere weep. Obviously every case may be unique, but calling yourself one thing which has a set of implications does sort of slander professionals in the field whose titles you are trying to snag.

I'm sure part of their strategy is to target small companies and attempt to bully them in paying a few grand to "license" the technology. I would imagine that these guys know this case will be thrown out once a defendant with resources goes to court. I'm not going to claim to be a patent expert, but I do know a couple of things: 1) The patent has to be actively protected. So if it was filed in the 90s and not enforced until today, from my understanding they essentially forfeit the right to later lay claims to the patent. 2) If it is known to "someone skilled in the art of" as the next logical step, then the patent is null. I obviously have no clue what all of those patents exactly cover, but I'm going to run that with prior art in wireless transmission in radio and television that there is a precedent that data transmission via an industry standard would be a next logical step. These asshats need to be nuked with a low orbit ion cannon.

I wonder if science "fans" would also find this document useful.