God and the Engineer

[mossym]

A Pessimist: The glass is half empty.

An Optimist: The glass is half full.

An Engineer: The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

i like that...hadn't heard it before..

 

[simbrooks]

hehe
What is the difference between a Mechanical Engineer and a Civil Engineer?

Serious question or are you holding us in suspense for the punchline?

Yes i am a civil and can see the waste line through the rec area being so very true Also we are a general amalgum of parts nothing too precise, so He cant be a mechie or aero or the comp guy, has to be a civil, everything to the nearest bucket/truck full

Yes i wasnt being completely serious in the post above, but i also got David's "dirty" subtle joke. That is what i deal in all day, earth this, dirt that, with a little water mixed in to make mud/soup.

 

[dlndavid]

Mechanical Engineers build weapons, Civil Engineers build targets.

 

[simbrooks]

A few more jokes:

this one is particularly amusing as my GF is a soon to be surgeon:

Five surgeons were taking a coffee break. The first surgeon said, "Accountants are the best to operate on because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered."

The second surgeon said, "Nah, librarians are the best. Everything inside them is in alphabetical order."

The third surgeon responded, "Try electricians, man! Everything inside them is color coded."

Then the fourth doctor interceded, "I prefer lawyers. They're heartless, spineless, gutless and their heads and their butts are interchangeable."

To which the fifth surgeon, who had been quietly listening to the conversation, replied, "I like engineers. They always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end."

oh and this one is very true from what i have seen or architects:

An architect, an artist, and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress.

The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship.

The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, "I like both."

"Both?" asked the architect and artist in unison.

The engineer replied, "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume that you are spending time with the other woman, so you can go to the office and get some work done."

this does describe some of the stuff we say at our workplace:

Top Engineering Terms and Expressions - Part I
(What engineers say versus what they mean)

1. A number of different approaches are being tried.
(We are still guessing at this point.)

2. Close project coordination. (We sat down and had coffee together.)

3. An extensive report is being prepared on a fresh approach.
(We just hired three punk kids out of school.)

4. Major technological breakthrough! (It works OK, but looks very hi-tech!)

5. Customer satisfaction is believed assured.
(We are so far behind schedule, that the customer will take anything.)

6. Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive.
(The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.)

7. Test results were extremely gratifying! (Unbelievable, it actually worked!)

8. The entire concept will have to be abandoned.
(The only guy who understood the thing quit.)

9. It is in process.
(It is so wrapped in red tape that the situation is completely hopeless.)

10. We will look into it. (Forget it! We have enough problems already.)

11. Please note and initial. (Let's spread the responsibility for this.)

12. Give us the benefit of your thinking.
(We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with
what we have already done or with what we are going to do.)

13. Give us your interpretation. (We can't wait to hear your bull.)

14. See me or let's discuss. (Come to my office, I've screwed up again.)

15. All new. (Parts are not interchangeable with previous design.)

16. Rugged. (Don't plan to lift it without major equipment.)

17. Robust! (Rugged, but more so)

18. Light weight. (Slightly lighter than rugged)

19. Years of development. (One finally worked)

20. Energy saving. (Achieved when the power switch is off.)

21. No maintenance. (Impossible to fix)

22. Low maintenance. (Nearly impossible to fix)

23. Fax me the data. (I'm too lazy to write it down.)

24. We are following the standard!
(That's the way we have always done it!)

25. I didn't get your e-mail. (I haven't checked my e-mail for days.)

 

[simbrooks]

Does Santa exist?

Santa Claus: An Engineering Analysis
1.No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.
2.There are 2 billion children in the world (persons under 18). But since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload by 85% of the total -leaving 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at least one good child per house.
3.Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say, that for each Christian household with good children: Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc. That means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, move at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, at tops 15 miles per hour.
4.The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more then a medium sized Lego set ( 2 pounds ), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting the "flying reindeer" can pull TEN TIMES that normal amount, we cannot the job with eight, or even nine, We need 214,200 reindeer. This increased the payload- not even counting the weight of the sleigh to 353,430 tons.
Again for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth 5.353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. The lead pair will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake.
The entire reindeer team will be vaporized with 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa meanwhile, will be subject to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by a 4,315,015-pound force.

A bit stereotypical:

A guy was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The guy took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to his pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the guy took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I have told you that I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The guy said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend. But, a talking frog is cool."

Back to our topic about the Creator:

A physician, a civil engineer, and a computer scientist were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world.

The physician remarked, "Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken out of Adam. This clearly required surgery, and so I can rightly claim that mine is the oldest profession in the world."

The civil engineer interrupted, and said, "But even earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most spectacular application of civil engineering. Therefore, fair doctor, you are wrong: mine is the oldest profession in the world."

The computer scientist leaned back in her chair, smiled, and then said confidently, "Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?"

 

[TCDiver1]

Thirty MEs equal a lab. Two CEs equal a party!

Not at the school i went to. :knocked-o

 

[BabyDuck]

why is it that a)most divers except me and b)most of the guys i date (none of whom are divers) are engineers or computer geeks? asked in a loving way - i went to the north carolina school of science & math, otherwise known as geek central high school. is everyone out there in the world now an engineer or computer geek?

 

[dlndavid]

No, I work for a living.

 

[simbrooks]

Oh to be overworked and underpaid, good talent is never fully reimbursed:

Reaching the end of a job interview, the Human Resources Department person asked the young engineer, fresh out of MIT, "And what starting salary were you looking for?"

The engineer replied, "In the neighborhood of $75,000 a year, depending on the benefits package."

The HR person said, "Well, what would you say to a package of five weeks of vacation, fourteen paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased every 2 years - say, a red Corvette?"

The engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow! Are you kidding?"

And, the Human Resources person said, "Of course, but you started it."

 

[mossym]

why is it that a)most divers except me and b)most of the guys i date (none of whom are divers) are engineers or computer geeks? asked in a loving way - i went to the north carolina school of science & math, otherwise known as geek central high school. is everyone out there in the world now an engineer or computer geek?

well for a, look at all the equipment..engineers love gadgets!!