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Knowing that Jupiter is the 5th planet from the sun is practical knowledge for how many people? edit: (HN wont let me reply again) I understood your point. I

by daten 16y ago

Knowing that Jupiter is the 5th planet from the sun is practical knowledge for how many people? edit: (HN wont let me reply again) I understood your point. I think in the context of the article the only irony is you think the technical fact that astronomers label Earth as a "planet" is necessary knowledge for every field of engineering or anyone with an advanced education. Yes, I learned about the solar system in elementary school too but I wouldn't judge someone who didn't. It's not much more useful than trivia to most people. Discussion around another recent article on HN comparing C programming to a carpenter using a hammer demonstrated that even people with computer science degrees and years of experience writing software might no nothing about HTML or SQL.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Way to totally miss my point. I guess I wasn't being obvious enough. This highly educated Engineering graduate student didn't know that they lived on a planet. Its ironic.
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  Don't take this the wrong way, but ... > This highly educated Engineering graduate student > didn't know that they lived on a planet. Its ironic. And assuming you're reasonably well educated, and reasonably well informed, and reasonably intelligent, you didn't know, or care, that "its" as you've used it should've had an apostrophe. When you write "Its ironic" the "Its" is an abbreviation of "It is". There are things that just don't matter in people's lives. For many, increasingly, traditionally "correct" usage of the apostrophe is one of them. For others, it is irrelevant that the word "planet" has a technical definition, that Jupiter and the Earth are examples, and Pluto no longer is. Most people don't know that a sizeable proportion of the mass in wood comes from the air, or that the Earth goes round the Sun (in the simplest model of the Solar System) or that Google is not a web browser. These are things removed from people's concerns, irrelevant to them. Before a few years ago I didn't know that Bach pre-dated Beethoven, even though I listened to their music all the time. Why should I care? No doubt I'd be laughed at by the self-declared "cultural" people, and then I'll ask them to quote the second law of thermodynamics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures
  - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
    Ok, I am a holdout on the "its vs it's" issue. One is not superior to the other; they are a compromise due to 'battling syntax rules', posessive vs contraction. Following convention would be useful for the reader, yes, but I bet you weren't confused by my text. And not knowing you live on a planet is not a "technical definition" problem - its a fundamental ignorance. I didn't go into it, but I'm thinking another sentence from me may have sorted out the flat-vs-round issue in their mind as well.
    - RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
      I'm afraid I disagree with much of what you've just said: > I bet you weren't confused by my text. Actually, I was. It took a number of tries (where the number in question is strictly greater than one) to work out what you meant, and finally I had to read it aloud. I was trying to work out who or what it was that owned the "ironic", and what the ironic was that was owned. I've just read that capitalization matters, because there's a bug difference between helping Uncle Jack off a horse, and helping Uncle jack off a horse. > not knowing you live on a planet is ... > a fundamental ignorance. I disagree with what I think you're trying to say. For that person it's irrelevant knowledge. Consider - do you know the atomic number of strontium, or the proof of the Banach-Tarski theorem? Not knowing such things is also fundamental ignorance, but you don't care about that because you don't think it's important or relevant. Why should someone else be forced to know that the Earth is a planet, or that the Sun travels around the galaxy at about a million miles a day? Why should they know that as you travel 8km the Earth drops away by 5 meters, or that the distance to the Moon is about 284 megameters? Why should they know that light travels about 1ft/ns, or that sound travels about 1ft/ms? These are things that I consider people ignorant for not knowing, but I accept that they don't need to know them. I also accept that others will think I'm ignorant. I'll get laughed at for not knowing the characters in a Shakespeare play, or for not know who the latest contestants are in X-Factor, or America's Top Model, or Dancing With the Stars. I'll help people learn, and I'll explain why I think it's important, but I won't laugh at their lack of knowledge. I'll appreciate that they know things I don't, and while I might not care about those things, I won't condemn them for doing so. And finally, there are perfectly usable physical models in which the Earth is flat. To say otherwise is to display ignorance of the context in which they are useful, more useful than the more complex spherical model, which in turn is less accurate than the oblate spheroidal model, which in turn is not as accurate as the one I use in other parts of my work.

by daten 16y ago

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

Way to totally miss my point. I guess I wasn't being obvious enough. This highly educated Engineering graduate student didn't know that they lived on a planet. Its ironic.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
Don't take this the wrong way, but ... > This highly educated Engineering graduate student > didn't know that they lived on a planet. Its ironic. And assuming you're reasonably well educated, and reasonably well informed, and reasonably intelligent, you didn't know, or care, that "its" as you've used it should've had an apostrophe. When you write "Its ironic" the "Its" is an abbreviation of "It is". There are things that just don't matter in people's lives. For many, increasingly, traditionally "correct" usage of the apostrophe is one of them. For others, it is irrelevant that the word "planet" has a technical definition, that Jupiter and the Earth are examples, and Pluto no longer is. Most people don't know that a sizeable proportion of the mass in wood comes from the air, or that the Earth goes round the Sun (in the simplest model of the Solar System) or that Google is not a web browser. These are things removed from people's concerns, irrelevant to them. Before a few years ago I didn't know that Bach pre-dated Beethoven, even though I listened to their music all the time. Why should I care? No doubt I'd be laughed at by the self-declared "cultural" people, and then I'll ask them to quote the second law of thermodynamics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  Ok, I am a holdout on the "its vs it's" issue. One is not superior to the other; they are a compromise due to 'battling syntax rules', posessive vs contraction. Following convention would be useful for the reader, yes, but I bet you weren't confused by my text. And not knowing you live on a planet is not a "technical definition" problem - its a fundamental ignorance. I didn't go into it, but I'm thinking another sentence from me may have sorted out the flat-vs-round issue in their mind as well.
  - RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
    I'm afraid I disagree with much of what you've just said: > I bet you weren't confused by my text. Actually, I was. It took a number of tries (where the number in question is strictly greater than one) to work out what you meant, and finally I had to read it aloud. I was trying to work out who or what it was that owned the "ironic", and what the ironic was that was owned. I've just read that capitalization matters, because there's a bug difference between helping Uncle Jack off a horse, and helping Uncle jack off a horse. > not knowing you live on a planet is ... > a fundamental ignorance. I disagree with what I think you're trying to say. For that person it's irrelevant knowledge. Consider - do you know the atomic number of strontium, or the proof of the Banach-Tarski theorem? Not knowing such things is also fundamental ignorance, but you don't care about that because you don't think it's important or relevant. Why should someone else be forced to know that the Earth is a planet, or that the Sun travels around the galaxy at about a million miles a day? Why should they know that as you travel 8km the Earth drops away by 5 meters, or that the distance to the Moon is about 284 megameters? Why should they know that light travels about 1ft/ns, or that sound travels about 1ft/ms? These are things that I consider people ignorant for not knowing, but I accept that they don't need to know them. I also accept that others will think I'm ignorant. I'll get laughed at for not knowing the characters in a Shakespeare play, or for not know who the latest contestants are in X-Factor, or America's Top Model, or Dancing With the Stars. I'll help people learn, and I'll explain why I think it's important, but I won't laugh at their lack of knowledge. I'll appreciate that they know things I don't, and while I might not care about those things, I won't condemn them for doing so. And finally, there are perfectly usable physical models in which the Earth is flat. To say otherwise is to display ignorance of the context in which they are useful, more useful than the more complex spherical model, which in turn is less accurate than the oblate spheroidal model, which in turn is not as accurate as the one I use in other parts of my work.