Before you flame me about this e-mail, read this disclaimer: what is in this may be construed as heresy to the religion of this mailing list. I'm not being heretical. I am a very curious person, and I like to deal with machines, sometimes even build my own. Below are my observations of society at large, and the explanations which fit. It does not reflect on classic computer collecting and other hobbies to which you may be partial. Original message from Bruce Lane: You mean, "it pushed companies". Home users used IMSAIs, PETs, Apple ][s, TRS-80s, and other cheesy, easily mass-produced machinery, and before that they simply didn't use anything. Well, consider that at a certain time, building computers was a trend. A lot of people did it, a lot of people enjoyed it. Now, certain other computer-related things are trendy, and a lot of people do them and enjoy them. I don't think that this can be blamed on the PC revolution, I think it should be considered the natural flow of things. By the same token, a lot of people now work on Web design. This will lessen when web design has evolved to a formulaic, mechanical task (it's already happening). Cheesy consumer-grade crap cannot be built on a kitchen table these days. Nobody would build a PCI VGA card when one can be bought for a lower price. For one thing, don't start blaming the problems of your hobby on public schools. Secondly; I haven't heard those labels at my school, mostly because they're not used. They're not used because it's no longer reasonable to BE a geek. Sir Lancelot was quite useful in his age, but if he came into an army recruitment center today, people would see him as Don Quixote. His approach is no longer valid. The fact that curiosity is discouraged is very true, and a very important point. The reason why is a blend. Most kids haven't a clue why they're forced to learn what they learn, and they say that they'll never need it again. When they become teachers, therefore, they have no idea why they're teaching what they teach. And so, when a student displays curiosity, the teacher sees it as his job not to harvest curiosity, but to make sure that the student is learning what he's supposed to, just for the sake of learning (I do speak from experience). When I have seen a piece of equipment which I wanted to know more about in my school's science lab, the teachers often display a strong desire to chase me out of the lab, or the entire school if it's after school hours. Of course, from a social viewpoint, this has an excellent use: it keeps people in power, it keeps corporations making money, without a whole lot of challenge. This has (or so I've heard) been different during the space race days, when it was necessary to have as many scientists as possible working on the rockets.