I don't mean to intrude here, but I have been somewhat following along with
this thread.  although for the life of me, I can't recall now how it all
began.  But then, that happens to me a lot.  ;-]

The reason it peaked my interest was because it reminds me of my husband and
myself.  ;-)   We have such vast differences in some areas.  Dh is an
engineer, majored in math and physics.  Although I'm certainly not
*educated*, my interests have always laid more in the literary area.

When we first got married, I thought I could spark an interest in dh to
*read* the same sorts of books I so enjoyed, so we could *discuss* them.
Dh, on the other hand, seldom to never read anything but textbooks,
technical books that pertained to his field of work.  I'm led to believe
statistics is a very difficult course, which dh of course aced with a
perfect score on every test, quiz, final exam, etc.  Actually, he had
'better' than a perfect score, because somehow, by doing *extra stuff* that
raised his grade above *perfect*.  ;-)   In fact, in all the years we have
been married, I've never seen him score anything less than perfect in
various post graduate courses he's taken.

I have not yet succeeded in getting him to read a novel though.  He will
read and devour books on everything from gardening to the construction of
masonary walls.  What ever he wants or needs to do, either for his
employment or home improvement or gardening, he reads, studies, and
accomplishes on his own.  Be that wiring a generator so we can *survive* the
next ice storm or hurricane or build me a beautiful handmade armoire to
display my collections.  He appears to have an insatiable *need* to learn
whatever it is he wants to master.

I've learned to appreciate our differences.  :)   If I happen to read a
really good book and just have to discuss it with someone, I tell him about
it and see if I can perk his interest to discuss it with me simply by my
explanations.  And other times I 'think up' stuff I'd like to have, change,
improve around our home.  If necessary, I'll order him a couple books from
amazon on the subject matter, and get him busy on it!

It works for us.  We've managed to come to a balance in our lives that is a
happy medium between an extremely intelligent man and a kind of Dharma-ish
wife.  In fact when our kids first saw Dharma & Greg on TV, they said, "mom,
dad, that's you!"

td  < over and out, continue on, I am enjoying the banter >

Wow, for someone supposedly so intelligent, you have a great deal of
difficulty understanding the trivial.

My curriculum did not require literature, fortunately, or if it did,
it was only a semester's worth. I would have performed a core dump of
that information the moment I signed my name on the final, as the
majority of that information is useless to me.

Try not to think too hard. You'll see the result of Sobel filters
everywhere. Got any books with artwork on the cover? The results of
performing operations with Sobel filters is there. Ever see any
advertisements on TV? They are usually packed full of effects
generated by using Sobel filters. Google's logo is merely text with
each character having a different hue (I believe the saturation and
lightness components are equivalent for each character), but the drop
shadows and the highlights are created as the result of a Sobel
filter.

Now *this* is my kind of reading, although when I initially read up on
this subject, as well as others related to the field, I read it from
paper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobel

You'll find a few simple examples of Sobel filter utilization at the
bottom of the page.

And yet I've managed to survive without that. Can't be too important.

Not in my opinion.

Good. Now have you used that book to create jobs? The techniques I
from the books I've read have created employment, at above our state's
average wage, for a number of people.

And yes, I got a great deal of enjoyment and happiness from the book,
the techniques I learned from it, and the opportunity to provide
decent wages for a decent quantity of people. I believe I an extremely
fortunate individual to have been given the gift of turning the
printed word into a large number of jobs.

References are the tool of my trade. Of the 25books I've purchased in
the last six months, 10 are tutorials (but they have really KICKIN'
reference sections) and the remainder are reference only.

A reasonable number of those books came with a CD-ROM that has a
machine readable version on it. That CD-ROM immediately comes out of
the book, and the machine readable version is copied to a 4gig thumb
drive that rides on my key chain when it's not in use. The paper
volumes get shelved, never to be opened again. :-)

Then you have done a most excellent job, IMO. Congrats!

I didn't ask how many people you have educated; I asked how many jobs
you've provided.

I tend to over-snip when I do, since I use a databased news reader.
I'll keep this in mind, though.

<snip>

Until the prior post, I had no idea about your career.

<snip>

No, because I found material I enjoyed reading more than fiction.

<snip>

Yes, I have, and as a result, I've learned that I want to stay away
from as much of the population as is possible.

You know what? I haven't even tried.

But I'll bet I've been directly responsible for putting more food on
people's table than you have. I had a *blast* doing it, and even got
paid very well for the trivial amount of effort.

I'd also be willing to bet that the efforts performed by the people
who filled those jobs is in AT LEAST one location in your house, and
perhaps hundreds. So, by extension, my work is in your house. Is any
of yours in mine?

<snip>

I'm an a.s hole, and I'm bored at present. :-)

ROTFLMAO. You just don't get it.

Without people like myself, you wouldn't have televisions, magazines,
newspapers, or film. The only way you would be able to share your
precious fiction would be by sitting around the camp fire in the cave
grunting the story to your fellow neanderthals, or by passing
hand-written scrolls around.

Where would your career be without the printing press?

Your type needs my type far more than my type needs yours. For without
my type, literature would not exist no matter how much you wanted it
too. Remember that the next time you crack open a volume.

Uh, dude, I've played rolls in more than one of the industries you've
listed.