Hi Terry,

Thanks for your attention.
Here's something from someone that explored the part of the world you live 
in: Lemuel Gulliver. In fact, this piece is the discourse of a Lord from 
Lagado explaining Gulliver some facts about his country:
"The sum of his discourse was to this effect:  "That about forty
years ago, certain persons went up to Laputa, either upon business
or diversion, and, after five months continuance, came back with a
very little smattering in mathematics, but full of volatile spirits
acquired in that airy region:  that these persons, upon their
return, began to dislike the management of every thing below, and
fell into schemes of putting all arts, sciences, languages, and
mechanics, upon a new foot.  To this end, they procured a royal
patent for erecting an academy of projectors in Lagado; and the
humour prevailed so strongly among the people, that there is not a
town of any consequence in the kingdom without such an academy.  In
these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods of
agriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all
trades and manufactures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall
do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials
so durable as to last for ever without repairing.  All the fruits
of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit
to choose, and increase a hundred fold more than they do at
present; with innumerable other happy proposals.  The only
inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to
perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably
waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes.
By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times
more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally
on by hope and despair:  that as for himself, being not of an
enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to
live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in
every part of life, without innovation:  that some few other
persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on
with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant,
and ill common-wealth's men, preferring their own ease and sloth
before the general improvement of their country."
retrieved today from http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/gltrv10.txt
Some things never change :-).
Happy Spring Equinox holidays,
Eduardo