And that have been my whole point with this discussion.

They mean different things to different people.

It was you who wrote:


You always have very strong views on everything. But always based on how YOUR need/use for something. When YOU don't think you need something, then you perceive that no one else does either. When you think one company have bad quality, you perceive that all companies has. When you see one lazy person, you perceive that all others of same age/race/... must be the same.

In your most recent post you wrote (about smart phones):

But have you ever visited an office at Cisco, IBM, Oracle, Google, ... and asked all employees (and maybe their bosses) if the smartphones was mostly for entertaining themselves?

If your view is based on people running around in the city on their spare time, then the percentage of entertainment will be way higher than if you would base your view on how people use them in their actual work.

The world managed to rotate around the sun for quite a number of years before we saw the first microcontroller born. Yet, you decided that you wanted to work with microcontrollers and see what advantages they could give. But for some reason, you have left that stage. You are no longer looking at new products, concepts, technologies and wondering what advantages there may be. That is fine by me, but you are also expecting that everyone around you should limit themselves to the technology/concepts/... that you have adopted.

I find it useful if my phone can tell me if a computer disk are going full. Or a backup have failed. Or a fan has a problem keeping up the rotation speed.

I find it useful to go through the new mail while walking to work.

I find it useful to be able to compare prices on products while I'm out moving around.

I find it useful to be able to check bus routes, time tables etc whenever/wherever I am.

But I don't care/expect others to be the same. Different people have different view on things. That should be obvious. You, Richard, expect a world of either mini-Richards or a working class of lesser people. The mini-Richards are the ones who have exactly your vies and values. The rest are the (lazy) working class of lesser (and dumb) people.

But the majority of all inventions in this world are made by people different than you. So if you got a chance to give an oppionion about them before first knowing their history, you would classify them as not useful people. A large percentage of the progress there is in the society comes from people who have a bit different view on things, and are willing to test something new. And are willing to follow through with ideas even if people around them don't believe in the ideas because that is not the "traditional wisdom".

Somewhere along the line, I think you have missed out on working with younger people. You would have seen things not going well and might have wanted to say "told you so". But you would have also seen lots of ideas turn out to great successs (wow, didn't see that one). True progresss comes from looking at problems from many different angles - lots of solutions are not found straight ahead after the beaten path.

To ask people to not disturbe others at the office is just a question of manner. Of course people shouldn't disturbe their work mates. But people must be able to find their own tools/paths/strategies when finding solutions to problems.

So to sum it up. You claim "Where you sit determines what you see." But it is the watcher who must figure out if they have selected a good watching spot, i.e. if the observations are worth anything or if a better watching spot must be selected. Many of your observations indicates that your watching spot is not so good. You see todays young generation as unintelligent and lazy, while genetics indicates that the intelligence can't take a quick drop within just one or two generations. So either you see just one part of the persons - their after-hours side. Or you walk/drive around in a limited geographical area that the bright people move away from. But there is obviously something wrong with your sampling methods. The young, lazy and unitelligent young generation still manages to get through university. They still get degrees. Some of them still become professors. Some of them still become managers. Some of them still become company owners. Or presidents.