Why the dumbing down?

I bought a recent issue of U.S. News & World Report because the cover story was the future of energy in the U.S. It drove me out of my mind. It must be written at a fourth grade level. It's so simplified and over-explained that it seems as if the writers are assuming that you have no background in just about anything. My wife said it read to her like a high school term paper, which made me wonder if the people at U.S. News had actually written it or just bought it off the Internet. This was once the news magazine to which my father subscribed; it kept him up nights worrying about the economy. These days I guess they would explain what the economy is before writing about it.

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On a different topic, a get email notifications every week or so about the "Coffee with Caleffi" weekly Webinar series. The one for April 15 at noon CDT is about the firm's solar controls. Most of Caleffi's Webinars are taught by Bob "Hot Rod" Rohr and, while they may be about Caleffi's products, what I like about Caleffi is the generic training material that they have about solar and other hydronic products. Get hold of a copy of their iDronics publication that comes out about twice a year. They have some of the best generic schematics about how to design and hook up a solar thermal system that you can find anywhere. Check out the Caleffi Web site at www.caleffi.us. They archive all of Hot Rod's previous Webinars and, if you look down the right hand side, there's a link for iDronics. Volume 6 is on solar thermal combination systems. Great stuff. There's no such thing as too much industry education.