"Reading about Pharma Lobbyists in the USA immediately made me thank heavens that we in the UK have the National Health Service (NHS). Most Brits love it. And advertising prescription drugs here is illegal.

"We also have an organization called NICE: http://www.nice.org.uk/ Among other things it tries to ensure that expensive drugs that are no better than cheaper equivalents are not prescribed. Of course Big Pharma lobbies against it, but I am happy to have my taxes used that way."

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Rob Koene [Rob.Koene@Fluor.com] has some comments on my article that technology is making us stupid:

"Although you are right on many points, I am not entirely agreeing with your statement about remembering telephone numbers, birthdays, and other calendar/address stuff.

"Many millions of people have been using agendas and 'black books' for ages. I guess that if we ever learn to read Cro-Magnon we may find out that some of the drawings on cave walls actually depict birthdays or hunting appointments. Cavemen must often have been in a hurry then too, to go hunting....

"What it comes down to is a phrase I read about people glorifying the 'simple life' of earlier generations, while for those earlier generations (aka the 'simple lifers') life was not that simple at all....

"I can remember (1952) the 1st television set to be moved into our living room with my father's lame excuse that he wanted to see the world news. At that time, the main delivery of the news was the newspaper. They were sent by slow planes and couriers and so it often took days before you knew about stuff happening outside your country.

"Starting with CNN and later Internet the whole dog-and-pony show became instantaneous. You will not hear me complaining about the good old days EVER. I would never want to go back to operator handled international calls, making engineering drawings on transparencies, almost getting killed by the ammonia of the blueprint machines, the cold war, no computers, kick start motorcycles, rusting cars, etc.

"The only good things were the low gas prices, no traffic jams and trust-in-your-government (since you did not know any better) and great music, of course."

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Gerry Shand [Gerry.Shand@jacobs.com] from Canada has this to say about people becoming obsolete:

"You've been discussing the importance of engineers re-inventing themselves because of the changing technical landscape. This is common with any high-profile or high-stress profession. Here are a few examples:

• Sports: When the body quits, so do you
• Movie Stars: yesterday's star, today's news, tomorrow's has-been
• Pop Artists: Same as movie stars
• Medical and Dental: Always new ways to perform surgeries, procedures requiring less or even no hospital time, faster healing typically without any scars
• Banking: who uses manual-entry anymore?

"There are several other examples of other professions and this is a common theme: Those who cannot adapt, learn new skills, or do not have a back up or succession plan to use their other resources wisely (brains, intellect and money) end up being broke and destitute. Quite a shock from when you were a celebrity.

"Why should the engineering field be any different?"

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