Re: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?

[voxwoman <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I used to be able to tinker under the hood of my car. But with the advent of
"intelligent automotives" (i.e. the engine CPU) it has become increasingly
difficult to do these things oneself. The diagnostic equipment required now
is prohibitively expensive, for one thing. However, there is probably a
wonderful market for tech writers to write the repair manuals for the
professional mechanics (this is an industry in which I've never worked, so I
don't know what kind of documentation they have). I can replace a tire, a
headlight and a wiper blade, but beyond that, I take it to my mechanic. (I
could probably handle an oil change, but there isn't a convenient way to
dispose of the old oil around here, so I let the pros deal with that).

-Wendy

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Dan Goldstein <
DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com> wrote:

> It would be great if everyone had basic knowledge of the technology that
> we use every day. For example, any reasonably intelligent person should
> know the basics of car repair, but I don't -- which is good news for my
> mechanic.
>
> On the other hand, if Auto Mechanics were a required course in high
> school, that might be good news for some tech writer!
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: voxwoman
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 9:19 AM
> > To: Daniel Ng
> > Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> > Subject: Re: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?
> >
> > You'd get a very similar response if you asked (for example)
> > my brother about how his car works. And he's a Magna Cum
> > Laude graduate from Yale Law School. He can tell you how the
> > *Constitution* works, but not anything remotely mechanical.
> > There are just some people (even educated ones) who don't
> > care why (or how) something works, only that it does. (as an
> > aside, he uses WordPerfect instead of Word).
> >
>
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Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help  
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

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