you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 63 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Technology is weird though. Schools can brag about technology resources despite a total lack of integration into anyone's lesson plan.

My aunt is a elementary school teacher. They have like 10 3D printers. Nobody was trained on what to do with them or how they work. When I was in high school (2005), the district rolled out a Microsoft Sharepoint system. Not only did none of the teachers ask for it/know how to use it, there was a default-config directory page that was left on for months that had every student's name and confidential student ID number.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 18 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    When I was in high school in the late '80s there was a rumor that the school owned an electron microscope. The school was in a fairly affluent area so it was certainly within the realm of possibility, but I certainly never saw it and didn't know anyone who had.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Affluent enough someone could spend a couple M in the 80s?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    Or they're bought a used one from a nearby fab. Though the service contracts are no joke cost wise.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    The 80s were wild man.
    The company I work for now balks about $6k for the annual employee appreciation. Back in the 80s they spent $50k (in 80s $$) on a float for the small town's annual parade.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    See one of those is marketing. The other is effectively payroll. Companies will spend a ton of money on useless marketing because it has a 0.0001% chance of increased revenue... but will refuse to pay a penny more than they are required to employees because that's always an expense.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago

    I didn't finish public school, but where I went to college, you could graduate without ever touching a computer unless you were pursuing an IT degree and, even then, you only had to use one occasionally.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago

    We had 2 full classrooms with computers, a big deal back then (the swedish "Compis" computer with floppy drives and one hard drive in one of the classrooms). Our class got to use them once (1) in 3 years.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 13 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    When I was in high school I was in a electronics program. They won a grant for a ham radio station with repeater and everything. It was valued at about 150k around 2000. It sat in a backroom never set up. The school would not spend the $150 in bolts to mount the antenna to the roof.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    At one of my early IT jobs, admittedly not a school, one of the PMs ordered (IIRC) four Xserves.

    When I started there, they had sat untouched for several years. When I left there about four years later, the boxes were still unopened.

    That was well over a decade ago and I would not be surprised to learn they were still there.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago

    A recent job literally had a cabinet filled with keyence microscope lenses. Each one probably between 500-3000 dollars. Someone bought them, then left and they were given to someone else, I "inherited" them, then I left and I assume someone else was given them. There was probably atleast 50 of them of various focus lengths, magnification, mounting etc. None of them compatible with any microscope I saw while while working there... Corporate waste is on a whole different level in my experience.

  • source
  • parent