Michael,
>
> /"...the decision to use hydraulic lime was based on what the academic 
> and trades education staff considered to be best practice.."/
>
> When I read things like this I wonder if I have stumbled in Bizzaro 
> World. It reminds me of an old Steve Martin comedy routine where he 
> speculated about how much fun it would be to teach your kids to talk 
> wrong.
>
well put

There is something else here going on w/ Rudy's blog that I am concerned 
the discussion of to lime or not to lime will obscure.

It is how does one get an education, as in learn about what one does not 
know, and in particular, how do trades working in the field get educated?

Unfortunate that academics and trades education staff so often seem to 
have an overriding stake in the dissemination of knowledge but very 
little direct responsibility for how it is received or used in 
application. Or worse yet that their prorogation of bad information 
creates restrictions that do more harm, than good... and we need to keep 
in mind, I suppose, the do no harm mantra. So as I see it the wider 
difficulty, that you somewhat allude to is the maintenance and 
dissemination of knowledge. And as Rudy steps out of the comfort zone of 
timber framing into masonry he needs all the help he can get, lest he 
end up on the dark side.

One thing that I remarked to Rudy back channel was one time my doing a 
peer review of an APT Bulletin article on lime mortars. I freaked out 
when the author got into recommendation of lime mortars on steel and 
glass curtain walls in NYC. This is NO joke, and one of the reasons that 
I have problems when asked to review APT articles is that I almost 
always seem to end up with whacko papers. I feel dismal over the powers 
of stupidity and guilty over my rarely having encouraging responses and 
of late I have been ignoring the requests to review articles as a 
result, which brings up other discussion as to how that process of peer 
review itself is restrictively asymmetrical.

Harry Hunderman enlightened me when as he was president of APT visiting 
an IPTW he asked me, as I paraphrase, "How can we be assured of the 
veracity of the information shown here?" Well, that is a good question 
and I feel an ethical responsibility, at least in my own small position, 
to encourage everyone to do their best to assure the veracity of the 
information that is spread around.

Rudy has an opportunity here w/ the TB blog to encourage a "learning 
experience"... sort of like having a beer between friends. _I encourage 
EVERYONE that is interested to leave comments on his blog page. _The 
more comments that are left there... and I am encouraging Rudy to 
comment back and make a noise, the more likely that someone, somewhere, 
if not solely Rudy, will have an educational experience.

Ken

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>