In article <ee8j0p$8ps_001@s856.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,

In article <ebHNg.44$b5.46@news.uchicago.edu>,

In article <1158101637.503114.93370@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, "Edward

Green" <spamspamspam3@netzero.com> writes:

jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

In article <1157904416.697779.207410@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
"tadchem" <tadchem@comcast.net> wrote:

Edward Green wrote:

...according to Forbes Magazine, is Angela Merkel, chancellor of
Germany. Chancellor Merkel holds a doctorate in physics from the
University of Leipzig.

Imagine! A world leader who may understand the second law of
thermodynamics.

Technical competence does not necessarily translate to leadership
competence.

James Earl Carter was a BS nuclear engineer from the US Naval Academy.

I always thought that a cause of his adminstrative problems was
due to his science training: he required all the details which
can bog you down w.r.t. decisions if you're the head of anything.

I don't know if that has any correlation with scientific training:
that's "micromanaging", and it's quite possible to do this without any
scientific training at all.

I also wouldn't put a naval "nuclear engineer" on the same page as a
doctorate in physics: his was a very goal directed and pragmatic kind
of technical education.

And, the belief that scientific training translates to "requiring all
the details" is quite false.

Point.

On the contrary, it is a matter of
recognizing which details matter and which can be ignored.

Sure. [here comes the but ;-)] Don't you have to look at
all the details before you can ignore them? This takes time.

When you enter a room in your house, do you've to check every item to
verify that it is in its right place, or do you just glance around,
noticing when soemthing is out of place?

So, no, not only I don't have to look at all the details, but I've to
avoid looking at all the details. Wouldn't get anywhere otherwise.
I've to make a judgement call, based on general knowledge, prior
experience etc., which details may be relevant and concentrate on
these only. If it works, fine.

If a serious discrepancy shows up,
the discrepancy itself may point the way to what additional details may
be relevant.

In article <9eVNg.3$45.146@news.uchicago.edu>,
mmeron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:

In article <ee8j0p$8ps_001@s856.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,

In article <ebHNg.44$b5.46@news.uchicago.edu>,
mmeron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:

In article <1158101637.503114.93370@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, "Edward

Green" <spamspamspam3@netzero.com> writes:

In article <1157904416.697779.207410@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
"tadchem" <tadchem@comcast.net> wrote:

Edward Green wrote:

...according to Forbes Magazine, is Angela Merkel, chancellor of
Germany. Chancellor Merkel holds a doctorate in physics from the
University of Leipzig.

Imagine! A world leader who may understand the second law of
thermodynamics.

Technical competence does not necessarily translate to leadership
competence.

James Earl Carter was a BS nuclear engineer from the US Naval Academy.

I always thought that a cause of his adminstrative problems was
due to his science training: he required all the details which
can bog you down w.r.t. decisions if you're the head of anything.

I don't know if that has any correlation with scientific training:
that's "micromanaging", and it's quite possible to do this without any
scientific training at all.

I also wouldn't put a naval "nuclear engineer" on the same page as a
doctorate in physics: his was a very goal directed and pragmatic kind
of technical education.

And, the belief that scientific training translates to "requiring all
the details" is quite false.

Point.

On the contrary, it is a matter of
recognizing which details matter and which can be ignored.

Sure. [here comes the but ;-)] Don't you have to look at
all the details before you can ignore them? This takes time.

When you enter a room in your house, do you've to check every item to
verify that it is in its right place, or do you just glance around,
noticing when soemthing is out of place?

If nobody else lives there, a glance is necessary. If other humans
are involved, a more careful scan is required.

So, no, not only I don't have to look at all the details, but I've to
avoid looking at all the details. Wouldn't get anywhere otherwise.
I've to make a judgement call, based on general knowledge, prior
experience etc., which details may be relevant and concentrate on
these only. If it works, fine.

Right.

If a serious discrepancy shows up,
the discrepancy itself may point the way to what additional details may
be relevant.

But, Mati, isn't the other word for politics decrepancy? It sure
seems like the job is juggling descrpanies all the time.

In the case of politics, those details are human-based and subject
to change depending on the phase of the moon. And sometimes, a
"no" about one thing is a 180 degree turn of the same thing in a different
department.

For instance, we bought tape drives from STC, put our logo on it
and sold them with our systems. One day, STC had reps in the
north end of our building, signing a deal with us. They also
had reps in the south end <ahem>discussing a lawsuit about the
same thing. Meanwhile, the VP could be making a decision that
countered both.

I can imagine that foreign policy combined with national
politics combined with local politics combined with the lastest
bullet shot by our military would produce a bigger spaghetti
mess. If you're a detail President, you would need to know
the whys and wherefores of each instance. This takes time
even if your staff has prepared a Reader's Digest version of
the novel.

Note that I'm still trying to figure out how a country is run.

On Wed, 13 Sep 2006,

mmeron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:

And, the belief that scientific training translates to "requiring all
the details" is quite false.

[cut]

On the contrary, it is a matter of
recognizing which details matter and which can be ignored.

Sure. [here comes the but ;-)] Don't you have to look at
all the details before you can ignore them? This takes time.

Yes, it takes time, but often very little time. To look at the details of
the details is what takes lots of time.

In my when-I-had-more-time chess-playing days, perhaps the deepest (ie the
most moves) combination I ever played was 7 moves deep (ie 7 moves each,
and that's what I analysed). I usually find that about 3.5 moves, given 3
or so plausible moves each player each time (already a severe pruning of
details that can be ignored) is about as far as is practical. Oddly, this
7 move combination - which was a queen sacrifice, so I felt I should make
sure it was productive - was in a 10 minute game (ie we each have 10
minutes on our clocks). This was only possible because the main line was
very straight-line - if my opponent took the queen, the best move was
very obvious for about those 7 moves - no branching. Again, this is
pruning of details. The biggest pruning was not looking in detail at the
possibilities if my opponent didn't take the queen. At first glance, it
didn't look like it would be a bad position, and given the psychological
element that my opponent would think it a blunder on my part, and was
skilled and experienced enough to be likely to see the possibility of a
queen capture, it just wasn't worth the time to analyse in detail - this
was rejected in seconds, as it needs to be in a 10 minute game.

This is the paradox of science. Some attention to detail is required. New
advances arise from anomalies. Too much attention to detail means that
nothing gets done.

This is just a reprise of the ultraviolet paradox!
There must be some cut-off point beyond which it doesn't matter, else
approximately all effort is wasted on details that don't matter.

On Sun, 17 Sep 2006 19:17:06 GMT, hanson wrote:

Technical competence does not necessarily translate to
leadership competence.

This "leadership" goal is for a politician in USA.
Someone whose only use is in getting some asked-for
thing done, be it jingobatic or not, tribal or not. A
politician in other countries is more than a leader. In
what you do "more" than leadership you can find good
use for a physics background.

ahahaha... When you compare the "leadership goal
for a politician" on the **same inter-cultural level***
you won't see any appreciable difference. It's the
same for the politician in the USA, as it is for the ones
in the EU... and.... ahahaha... in the Arab league.
Don't be so sanctimonious. Mehram, ahahaha...

No. If you were correct then all CIA needed to do was
to bribe the European politicians against policies that
would/could condone the spread of communism. But CIA
used _businesses_, not the politicians. It distroyed
the top business owners who didn't budge to their
pressure (like that Italian oilman) and heavily bribed
the ones that did. This was enough because the
politicians of Europe are different from politicians of
USA. In Europe a politician works for _all_ the major
businesses, not the one who pays more.

Hassan, you've been in Europe. Dickheadedness is an
integral part of any American. That's how you missed
the right picture.

Do you think, that Germany is going for 'the bomb'?
(Far behing US, UK and France) Hope not, :-)

MathFreak NoMore skrev:

Oh Germans've got better things to do, you know, like
living. They've got that luxury. And they've been ahead
of Americans in that. A lot of valuable things appearing
in USA to enhance quality of life were direct
imitation of what Germans had and did first.

Mehram you repeat the mistake that so many other critics
make, here comparing the USA with Germany. You compare
here an elephant with a cow.

In the adopted norm of living, that is. Sure :)

Germany with its 137,826 sqm.
is half the size of Texas (7% of US) which sports 268,581 sqm.

What has the size of country got to do with how the
individual lives. I guess for you quality/norm of
"living" is just an extension of a family's total gross
income. I'm not talking about that. The size of
individual humans in both countries are about the same,
if you want to insist on size.

If you look a bit deeper then you'd see that there was & is the
same luxury and the same valuable things at the same time in
an equal size portion of the USA as there is/was in Germany.

Oh I doubt that.

Your faux pas may appear to you because there was/is always
far more inter/exchanges between the US and Germany then
is/was with your knack of the back woods.... ahahahaha...

That should not have much to do with the point I made.

Whenever I hear you rail against the US it becomes apparent
that when you visited the US you must have had some unhappy
encounters with some of our back wood folks... ahahaha...

Hehe :) Quite the opposite. I was impressed, rather.
But I met the Americans first time in Texas. Perhaps
that's why. Texans offer the best that Americans have.
One example is the outstanding and adept President that
you're having right now. Imagine what it takes to get
the right things done via totally Zionized bodies of
various Washington functionaries. A whole gigantic
repertoire of Pro-Israeli minds and means. He did a
stunt in Texas as well before that.

But, why do you whine about that when you sneer
about us and ours in exactly the same ways as they
did upon you?... . AHAHAHA....

MathFreak NoMore skrev:

Say, nice physics books :) Nice microbiology or chemistry
books. Very comprehensive and elaborately done. Quite
expensive but available, and more than anything that an
individual could ask for in learning those stuff. In
USA this type of books did not exist outside the
confines of corporations a decade or two back. But
Germans had them already by 1960. For everyone! This
may look like one little example but it says and points
to much more.

[hanson]
ahahaha... AHAHA... ahahaha...now that is a truly profound
indicator of "luxury and quality of life"... but hey, whatever
floats you boat, Mehram... ahahahaha...

I knew that example wouldn't get my point across to
you. But I was saying it to someone else.

Germans know how to live with each other.
So do the French. Americans proper, on the other hand,
still have that frontiersmen culture in them. They
can't rest or live no matter how "successful". Is Bill
Gates living? Did he really live the years from 1974 to
now? I think he's been on adrenaline rush since. That's
not a German way of living :)

Again, Mehram, you make the same parochial and
pedestrian, invalid comparison.

It is actually a delicate point Hassan's Son.

From Sea to shining Sea
the US stretches in comparison to a Eurasian dimension
from Ireland to Iraq and from Spain to Norway and from
France to the Russian Urals. So how do *they* live together?

Pose yourself the proper question and ask:... "where did/do
these different ethic groups live in better harmony amongst
each other, ... in the US or in Europe?"

Don't change the subject. Americans may not have war
between themselves (Yeah, right) but they don't know,
each, how other people around the world live.

I bet you won't understand it but the closest that an
American faction has gotten to actually live in USA is
your minimum-wage Hispanic Wetback faction. I also
observed some newly arrived Africans who also had that
understanding. The rest of you are running around like
lunatics and thinking that's enjoying the heck out of
life!

How can one live in retrospect? This is the bottom
line.
Gray-haired Bozos, having just bought their first
"sports car" are all over USA. What a sad scene.

I said it once here that an Indian who's defecating at
the side of a street in Bombay lives better than you,
"lives" more! More of his time is his.

US had 1 war amongst them, 150 years ago. OTOH how
may times did they kill each other off in Europe over the
last 150 years?... the last one, in the Balkans, just happened
a decade or so ago.... ahahahaha...

Germans lived better than Americans even during the
war! Hehe :) Your utter confusion about my point is
amusing. "Bombs" don't change the norm one has for
life. One just continues living in between them.

There is a rarely mentioned reason why the Amis still do have
that "frontiersmen culture in them": Even today, each and
every immigrant is still a "frontiers(wo)man" on his/her level.
These folks (and there descendents) who come here do
have a tad more adrenaline going then do those nice and
placid folks who stayed behind in the old countries.
"We are Iranians, Germans &... etc, etc..." ... AHAHAHA....
Do you get it, Mehram?...
ahahahaha... ahahahanson

Yes I get it. And I agree. But not each and every one
of them. The Wetbacks, while still carrying their
features before adopting the Americans' fever are not
like that. They know how to live even with the little
that USA offers to them. While, you don't.