I wonder how much the "experts"suggestions influence the outcome? I loved that the farm boys wooped the L.A F/Xperts and the London bikers sunk the Royal Naval Engineers. Why did that happen? Does hands-on practical and pragmatic decision making rule over big bucks Hollywood productions and in-the-box engineering myopia? That was a hell of an oversight for the navy to miscalculate the length of the propeller or leave off a functioning rudder.

-- Lewis Gluck (lewgluck@frontiernet.net), January 13, 2001

Answers

It is really quite simple. The people that do things always are ablre to out do the theorists. Engineers design things but we with blue collars have to fix and use these things. Farmers and blue collar types often bodge things together just good enough to get the job done. The best example of his was the Amphibious Vehicles. The bikers were asked about the calculations they had made on wether the Land Rover would float. They looked at the presenter and said "Calculations?!". The RN engineers had a wonderful design and had they had two or three months to figure it out would have beaten the bikers. BUT that's not the contest.

-- Stephen A. Binion (Stephenbinion@hotmail.com), January 13, 2001.

I don't remember who said it???

"Give me a thinker and a tinkerer....and I'll put my money on the tinkerer."

-- John Gap (mindthegap64@hotmail.com), January 14, 2001.