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On Tuesday 05 February 2008 18:15, Julian Hall wrote: > Clare Shepherd wrote: > > Not always, Paul. After all Sir Frank Whittle, the inventor of the > > jet engine,was English., as were many important inventors. It can > > appear so today because in the *)s we seemed to give up on > > engineering, largely. > > > > Clare > > As a general rule innovation and invention in the UK is, and always has > been, hamstrung by lack of vision in those holding the purse strings. > Many inventions have been claimed by other countries, where the actual > inventor was British, but went overseas because the UK wouldn't fund > development. Same goes for the engineers themselves. Over here a good engineer is often seen as a threat to management - who would want to work with someone who actually understands what 'synergy' is when you merely want to bounce it a round as a buzzword to sound cool as a manager. I used to work for BT at their research centre (Martlesham Heath Robinson it was then - several million spent changing the name to what sounds like Arshole park to avoid embarrassment) and, while I didn't realise it at the time I was actually one of the top CAD (for uchips) engineer in the world. I went to visit a chip manufacturer in the US as we were using their fab to make chips and was amazed at how primitive the setup was computer wise. Most of the really smart guys were brits. After BT got privatised and I got redundancy from BT I could have gone over there but the work ethic is really weird there: At BT I'd get in, get me work done and head off asap. 37 1/2 hr week and 5 weeks holiday. Productivity V high. In the states 2 weeks holiday and 100 hr weeks. Mostly doing nothing - just being there seemed to be required. Productivity v low. You'd think engineers would have heard of impedance missmatch wouldn't you? Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html