In article , Mike Coslo writes:

I sometimes wonder what these people "do" spend their time thinking about.

Other things! Isn't modern life complex enough?

True! like who's on "The Simple Life" tonight, or that insulting talent
search show - lotsa important stuff like that.

Exactly.

Modern life has always been complex enough, always has been and always
will be!

The question is whether the complexity makes life better or worse. Here's an
example:

Suppose a person goes for a job interview and things go well. Usually the next
step for the interviewee is to send a thank you letter to the interviewer.
Pretty simple task, right? And it hasn't changed much for decades.

Many years ago, a handwritten letter would be appropriate. You had to know how
to write legibly. And you needed pen, ink, and paper.

Then came typewriters, and for such business correspondence a typewritten
letter was standard practice. You had to know how to type, even hunt-and-peck
style. But typewriting did not replace writing legibly. You needed a typewriter
and paper, which was more of an investment than pen and ink, but a typewriter
lasts a very long time.

Then came personal computing, word processing, and printers. And the standard
for the thank you business letter went up another notch, as did the necessary
equipment to do the job. And the learning curve to use it all. Plus the PC did
not eliminate the need to write legibly or type.

And the equipment's life cycle is much shorter - remember daisy-wheel printers?
dot-matrix printers? fanfold paper with holes in the side? How many different
computers, peripherals and software packages have come and gone in the past,
say, 20 years?

Yet the basic function remains the same: Send a thank you letter. But now we
need all this equipment.

Of course a PC is far more than just a word processor, but you see the point.

You might also enjoy this site:

http://www.fybush.com/site-021219.html

Interesting history of W2XMN, the past, present and future of a famous
site. Click on the links to see how far ignorance can go.

Cool! I just heard about the tower this past weekend, and here you come
along with a link to it Good timing, Jim.

bwaahaahaa

...ze barracuda knowz whean to sterike...

It's a little scary at first
sight, but a magnificent structure nonetheless.

I've seen it from a distance but never up close. It's on the list. (I've
been
to W1AW and operated there. Also visited NIST in Boulder and the
WWV/WWVB transmitter site in Fort Collins.)

As for the concerned residents of Alpine, they might want to chuck
their cell phones if they are so worried about RF exposure - though of
course I'm sure they never use them! 8^)

"Inverse square law? What's that?"

But frankly, they strike mer as being less than smart.

hehe, nothing like me talking about people being stupid and making my
own typo in the sentence!!! 8^)

HAW!

Do not underestimate folks like that. Look at the BPL mess. Did you see the
Wall Street Journal article?

No I didn't.

It was reprinted here. Might be a link on the ARRL website.

Education and intelligence does not make a person smart. I always
thought that one of the things that makes for smart decisions is to be
able to extrapolate consequences.

That's one definition.

Remember that whenever someone describes ham radio as "a hobby", they are
giving the BPL folks an argument against us. If amateur radio is "just a
hobby", then why should it be any more important than anyone else's hobby,
such as downloading pr0n via BPL?

And I do like the term "McMansion"!

We have some of them around here. Big houses, big price, tossed up quickly
by cheap nonunion labor. CC&Rs out the ying-yang.

The average mobile home has better construction methods, and often
better hardware, cabinets, etc. than those conspicuous consumption hovels.

You mean "manufactured housing", I think. And I agree.

Of course there *is* quality construction going on, but it's not cheap.

73 de Jim, N2EY