I sent an invite to someone I knew from high school who serves/served (looks like it's past-tense at this point) in the Navy, so I'm curious what the opinion will be of these monstrosities
(though I'm honestly expecting the invite to be declined)
Speaking of which....
I gotta go with Ace on this one. IQ =/= ability to draw SB style ships. I know any number of folks with very high IQ's who could not draw an SB ship to save their lives.
Said acquaintance of mine probably wouldn't be able to draw accurate ships
despite having served on a Flight IIA Burke for some two to three years (and I should add, went to Annapolis on a scholarship). Like I said, there's an element of
training involved too. Your
engineers are going to have the training, that's what they go to university and ultimately get paid to do - otherwise it's a matter of being self-taught. All of my training, for example, is a combination of self-taught and leveraging off of engineering principles from an entirely different field of study...that I kinda-sorta dropped out of from college, to boot. Which means that there are probably a lot of things crappy about my high-end ships too that I'm unaware of. My brother is a lowly civilian electrical engineer, and his drawings would probably suck too because once again he lacks the training needed to understand specifically
naval engineering (and he doesn't give a damn about ships anyway). Now there
are people extremely qualified in naval engineering on this board - RP1 has publically provided the credentials in that area, for starters, so I'd PM him on legitimate engineering questions (of course for the very reason of his engineering skills, he's a bit busy).
I don't know how else I can emphasize the importance and difference between
intelligence and
knowledge and especially
training. In one of his earlier books Mark Twain actually had a great quote: "The difference between a turnip and a truffle is a matter of training. Cauliflower is merely cabbage with a college education." (an aside/fun fact: Mark Twain actually invents the concept of fingerprint forensics in this very same book) Yes, I'm more than well aware of Einstein's quote "imagination is more important than knowledge." In my current field of study and work, it's something I emphasize on a daily basis.
But when it comes to engineering principles, you can't do jack-squat without at least some training."
Let it be known that Shipbucket is a great training tool for self-starters, though.
Now, I wholeheartedly agree with pointing out some of the sillier things that some have drawn, but to gratuitously insult them and predetermine they must be in a vegetative state because they don't know the finer points of ship design? That is crossing the line, in my opinion.
That's true, and see above.
...on the other hand there are some drawings that suggest that they've never even stared at a picture of an actual warship. On the gripping hand however, other drawings highly suggest a very deliberate and carefully-laid sci-fi aesthetic. Those drawings actually suggest a very high degree of skill and understanding for what they are. (also an extra cookie for anybody who gets the sci-fi reference I snuck in there)
The thing that bothers me the most about the NS crowd is not the lack of knowledge for how ships are drawn but rather the attitude that our site serves as a Lego bucket for them to use at their will, and crediting and contributing is always secondary.
I think at this point it's just going to be a fact of life we're going to have to deal with. A lot of people who are on here are aware of Shipbucket primarily through NS - hell,
I'm one of them.