Re: energy in UK

On 13/04/2025 5:58 pm, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Sun, 13 Apr 2025 07:46:22 +0100, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
(Liz Tuddenham) wrote:
 

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
>

On 13/04/2025 4:16 am, john larkin wrote:

>
https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/10/uk_ai_energy_council_meets/

>
The UK still suffers from an old decision to base it's civil service on
a misunderstood version of the Chinese civil service.
>
Chinese orthography is horrible and it took a lot of effort for anybody
to get literate and stay literate. Entry to the Chinese civil service
depended on proving that you could read and write, and any other
expertise was secondary.
>
The UK imagined that the candidates were being tested for pure
intellectual power. Being able to read and write English wasn't
difficult enough to test this, so they tested for competence in Latin
and Greek.
>
Science was despised - the civil service formula was scientist on tap,
not on top. When it comes to technical matters like generating and
distributing electric power cheaply, the English are still behind the
game, because the crucial choices are still made by some classically
educated mandarin who doesn't understand the problems in any detail.

>
Excellent summary.

 Well done, Bill; you got something right for a change!

Getting approval from Cursitor Doom is a very mixed blessing. His enthusiasm for the absurd is well established.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney