I suppose I technically fall under the "Gen Z" category. I'm currently an undergraduate, if that says anything.
It never fails to amaze me how stupid my high school classmates could be. I don't claim to be anything special, but at least I know why it's a bad idea to eat a tide pod or short out an outlet.
Of course, when I took Circuits I the biggest thing I learned is that apparently ohm's law is too much to ask of a first-year EE student (!). This wasn't just one person struggling for half the semester with this concept, it was a considerable portion of the class. I've never seen so many people struggle with a 3-variable equation.
The fact that kids are deliberately shorting mains outlets is rather disturbing, however. Apparently arc flash training needs to happen in kindergarten.
It never fails to amaze me how stupid my high school classmates could be. I don't claim to be anything special, but at least I know why it's a bad idea to eat a tide pod or short out an outlet.
Of course, when I took Circuits I the biggest thing I learned is that apparently ohm's law is too much to ask of a first-year EE student (!). This wasn't just one person struggling for half the semester with this concept, it was a considerable portion of the class. I've never seen so many people struggle with a 3-variable equation.
The fact that kids are deliberately shorting mains outlets is rather disturbing, however. Apparently arc flash training needs to happen in kindergarten.
There are some "professional" speaker gurus here who struggle with Ohm's law.....🙂
P.S. They aren't young
P.S. They aren't young
The freaky thing about it though is that Calculus I is a prerequisite for Circuits I...
The "stupidity" goes back over a century and it was stupid adults. The US(/CAN) socket-plug is *barely* safe when used very carefully. Opportunities for excitement and disaster are many.
It may be safer than what we used before: screw-lamp sockets and screw plugs.
There was no deliberate decision to use that type blade-plug. Over a dozen designs were on the market. This one was cheap and that may be the deciding factor.
FWIW, I was taught to put my sockets ground pin up, so if you had a ground pin it might deflect tinsel or other metal falling behind the plug. Of course so few plugs today are 3-pin.
I'm not going to say what I have put behind plugs.
We have 240V plugs which are equally exposed.
Most US(/CAN) plugs are either a century old design or closely based on old designs. Certainly the "new for 1996" 4-pin stove plug will give you a 250V 60A shock: it's just a fat version of a 1910 plug. The twist-lock type *may* not have live blades until seated--- it's way more expensive than we would pay for. (I have several of each on my generator, which makes it the most expensive electricity around.)
The US was shocking people when we were more likely to die of horse-kick or scarlet fever than electricity. When we noticed the danger it was too late to change. The UK (and others) smartened-up (or had to re-wire war damage) before too many plugs were in use. I think the BS plug is vastly OVER-designed, but I don't think that is a bad thing. The linked Schukos seem to be recessed enough that you can't get a finger on a live pin?
Uh-huh. And don't forget all the eggings. 😀.
Now I didn't blow up the mailbox but my friend did.🙄 Oh the fun that could be had with a can of black powder in those days. 🙄 The "homade" fireworks......an errant model rocket engine with a powerful report attached, that resulted in a small crater in the neighbors lawn (Oops! fortunately they weren't home at the time😛). Exploding pumpkins.... Halloween used to be so much fun, LoL. A point of note about gasoline, never underestimate the explosive power of that substance. 😱
Sneaking out all night to drink beer and hang out at the billiard room. BB gun wars conducted in the local woods and neighborhoods. (Disclaimer - Word of advice here is to wear eye protection, layers of clothing, and certainly a cup😀) Spelling out obscene words in the grassy hillside with swimming pool clorine powder. And the list goes on and on of the fun things that you can't get away with today. And as for bicycle helmets, your a$$ was kicked if you were spotted in one. Exception may have been tolerated whilst jumping old tires with the dirt bike.
Shockingly, I made it to adulthood in one piece and stayed out of jail.😀
@PRR: when I was at school, the older buildings were still wired with 3 pin unfused round plugs. The 15A and 30A versions of these are still used for stage lighting but the 2A was often found. Problem was you could get adaptors from the 2A up to the 15A and then plug a kettle into a circuit intended for a desk lamp. Thankfully regs mean that has all gone now.
Yeah, that happened to me at age 5. Still remember the flash and burned fingers. LoL
There is something about wall sockets that are irresistible to a child. When I was about 5 I managed to find a two pronged fork, goodness knows what it was for, that fitted perfectly in the live and neutral of the old unshuttered 3-pin socket. That was exciting
All generalizations are false - except this one.
I don’t think the young-uns are stupider- just smarter in different ways. I’ve long thought my millennial son has more “emotional intelligence” and people skills than the 55yo factory supervisor at my former work - and as my wife is wont to remind me, certainly far more than do I. And our daughter continues to amaze us - we definitely won the gene pool lottery twice in 2 years.
The outlet remained blackened until the house was remodeled when I was maybe 14, we finally got air conditioning and we lived in Miami. The only thing I vividly remember were the little balls of molten paper clip bouncing around on the cement floor.
I went to public school in Maimi Florida. There were almost 5,000 students in my high school, in Miami before air conditioning. Except for electronics class, myself and several friends did not want to be there. Here you find up to 35 people in a classroom, some were highly intelligent, while others didn't even speak English. The teacher was often not qualified to teach the subject that was required for the class. One of their favorite tricks was to play an audio tape or 16 MM movie about the subject, then give the class a test on what was covered in the movie.....no movie, no test. No movie....no problem, just wrap some solder around the prongs on the projector plug. When the teacher plugs it in, she gets a BIG surprise, screams and there is no movie. Blackened outlet to remind her that I was there. After a few of these incidents, along with a couple of spontaneously combusting trash cans, and I and to of my friends get evicted from the class....with a PASSING grade!
All the houses in Miami had concrete foundations built on the ground. My grandmother lived near Atlanta in a house (re)built right after Sherman torched the place during the Civil War. I thought it was neat that you could crawl up under the house and find neat old stuff. That's when I learned about wooden insulator dowel wiring. Never went under that house again. Their old house only had single phase 110 volt power. There was two bare copper wires running under the house, a hot and a neutral. The wires went up the wall and into the fuse panel which contained three fuses. Turning on the box fan in the window caused the house lights to dim.
I wouldn't know anything about that ….🙂
Mischief, I might have been involved....evil stunts, Not for me. Mixing up a smoke bomb (hint, some black powder, match heads, lots of sugar, and a box of strawberry incense crushed up) to cause a school evacuation during standardized testing.....OK, Dumping a whole box of BB's down the stairwell during class change. No way....but I couldn't talk the A$$ hole out of it and several people went to the hospital.
I think the distribution of smart and stupid with a good bit in between is still about the same. My daughter had some smart, and really stupid friends in high school. I see the same thing with the grandkid's generation. It's just the things that are important have changed, and there are far more distractions available today.
article in the NYTimes a few days back -- high schoolers cut up plastic frogs and cats because the scalpels we used are too dangerous and formaldehyde.
Look at pix of the chemistry sets we had 50 years ago, or the "Knight-Kit 100-in-1 Experimental Kit" (Allied Radio in Chicago) which plugged into a wall outlet.
Dennis Miller podcast says he won't go to church anymore because tasting communion reminds him of testing 9V batteries with his tongue!
Look at pix of the chemistry sets we had 50 years ago, or the "Knight-Kit 100-in-1 Experimental Kit" (Allied Radio in Chicago) which plugged into a wall outlet.
Dennis Miller podcast says he won't go to church anymore because tasting communion reminds him of testing 9V batteries with his tongue!
In 4th grade I gave a class demo as to what happens when you connect one of those little series Xmas tree bulbs directly across the 110V AC. Used some large GE limit switch (my dad brought home from work) to activate and of course had teacher and school maintenance guy's approval. Standing O!
I had some GE amp and tuner the guy next door gave me; had a pair of 6V6s. I used to use that to burn up little radio, walkie-talkie and other paper cone speakers by turning it up all the way. (mustve had a lot of gain somewhere). I'd roll 6L6s into it; one shoulder style tube turned a brilliant white inside under who knows what conditions - probably burning another speaker. The amp always survived.
Much later in life I demo'd how a small speaker could survive a 120 VAC burst of 1/2 and 1 cycle, using a Chroma programmable AC source. I'm surprised more kids dont plug their speakers into the wall outlet. Much safer than a penny -
I had some GE amp and tuner the guy next door gave me; had a pair of 6V6s. I used to use that to burn up little radio, walkie-talkie and other paper cone speakers by turning it up all the way. (mustve had a lot of gain somewhere). I'd roll 6L6s into it; one shoulder style tube turned a brilliant white inside under who knows what conditions - probably burning another speaker. The amp always survived.
Much later in life I demo'd how a small speaker could survive a 120 VAC burst of 1/2 and 1 cycle, using a Chroma programmable AC source. I'm surprised more kids dont plug their speakers into the wall outlet. Much safer than a penny -
I remember in high school I refused to participate in the dissection unless they bought new scalpels that were actually sharp enough for the task at hand. The teacher's argument? "that would be too dangerous".
Not five minutes later someone snapped a scalpel blade off in one of the pigs being dissected.
I think the allure of computer based reality leaves actual reality wanting - in a similar way to a teacher's complaint that they just cant keep up with the pace of razzle-dazzle offered by computer games.
Hopefully we'll gind a way to achieve a better balance between the two, despite the allure of AI powered conversational in-computer-game reality.
Even simulation tools. One engineer told me a guy's circuit burned up on the bench. "It worked in pSPICE" was his remark. When they went back to the simulation, one component had 10K amps through it. He could have used seeing the "what happens to an electrolytic cap when plugged into the AC line" demonstration by my high school electronic teacher.
Hopefully we'll gind a way to achieve a better balance between the two, despite the allure of AI powered conversational in-computer-game reality.
Even simulation tools. One engineer told me a guy's circuit burned up on the bench. "It worked in pSPICE" was his remark. When they went back to the simulation, one component had 10K amps through it. He could have used seeing the "what happens to an electrolytic cap when plugged into the AC line" demonstration by my high school electronic teacher.
I ran the service department at an Olson's Electronics store in 1971 and 1972 (age 18 and 19). After sending some defective speaker drivers back to corporate as defective, and getting some of them returned to the store, I made it my policy to ensure that all speakers returned as defective, were indeed defective. I had a special test fixture, wall plug on one end, alligator clips on the other. Nothing passed my test.....never sharpen both ends of a wood pencil and "test" it.
We had a cheap 12 inch Olson branded coaxial that would last for maybe a half cycle, but the tweeter would play on for several minutes letting you hear all the noise and spikes on the line until the crossover cap exploded. A corded electric drill plugged into the same outlet made for some cool sounds.
The big 15 inch Olson branded Eminence woofer would produce a loud buzz for a few hundred mS before blowing out. My brother and I made quite a few big thumper boxes for the disco crowd using these. About 3 Cu Ft, no midrange or tweeter, just BASS. None were ever blown, but these were the days before multi gigawatt amplifiers.
There are college frosh going into engineering programs (because of the high starting salaries in STEM) who have great SAT's but have never tuned a radio.
Way back when...8th grade science and time to build the volcano... everybody was doing a coke bottle covered in paper mache with vinegar and baking soda. My partner and I built ours with mortar over a chicken wire form. Potassium permanganate and glycerine for the eruption, kick-started with black powder mixed with airplane cement, to be lit with a match. Lots of fire, mushroom cloud, red bubbling crater- big round of applause. Fortunately we had enough sense to tell the teacher we should do this one outside.
I don't think that would go over so well nowadays. Of course, back then they also turned us loose with bows and arrows in P.E.