Sometimes you GOTTA wonder...

[m4xwellmurd3r]

wow, and just when I thought mc donalds crappy food couldn't get crappier.

 

my mom had one of those moment where I just looked at her trying to figure out what she was thinking.

we came home from the store (me driving) and she couldn't figure out how to get the door open and told me to unlock the door (you know, with the pretty little auto unlock all door button) and I just told her

 

"why don't YOU unlock the door"

"How?"

"The little lever that unlocks the door"

"The what?"

 

yeah, my mom has never known how to unlock the doors with the manual lever, and not with the button. at least she knows how to unlock the doors with a KEY. my friend freaked out saying she couldn't find the remote for her car to unlock it, and I yelled at her saying to just use the stupid keys.

"What? you can do that?

.....people these days.

 

Maybe it's just my ability to take in any information set out in front of me, store it, and recall it later on. Instead of trying to do things without thinking much (Like mister engineer on the plane) I'll sit there and stare at something for a while, then try things out and see if it works. I tend to watch more than I do, so when I finally do it, I don't have much problem's

[zguy36]

I had a coworker that was an Industrial Engineer, working with me, he was going for his masters in ME. One day at work he was studying for an exam, or thesis, or something, and he called me over to his cubicle and asked me what's the difference between a screw and a bolt. Now, mind you, I grew up in a machine shop and operated milling machines at age 8 so I was slightly ahead of the game when I got my ME degree, but this guy opened up my eyes. He also had some problems to solve involving part design simplification. He could not for the life of him figure it out. I looked at the parts and had them instantly redrawn with about half the machining steps taken out of them.

 

 

It's not "what you know" anymore...

 

I am convinced that the brain is a bucket. You spend the early years learning common sense, the middle years learning facts, the later years learning a specialty. Somewhere North of grad school comes time to make more room in the bucket; out goes the common sense. Learn to kiss ass, you are now management material!

 

 

You would be suprised how many people don't know the difference between a screw and a bolt. By the definition, a fastener can be either depending on how it is used in application.

[maichor]

I'll chime in here. I agree with a lot of what has been said. I have two brothers, both of them engineers of sorts. My older brother only finished 2 years of a ME degree before hitting the job market. He works for an audio/video company.

 

My younger brother is an ME by degree and works for Hamilton Sunstrand designing jet turbine engines. I like the way they operate there. He rotates about every 4-6 months to a different portion of the project. Design rotates to build supervision/QC, then to testing and back again. Teams change up with fresh ideas coming in. And, if you don't like the way someone is handling something, it will be your turn next.

 

Both of these guys are common sense, free thinking problem solvers. Brother #1 hobbies doing things like mating up two transfer cases for his 4X4 and machines his own parts at a buddies shop. Brother #2 has more education/continuing education, but both have a few things in common.

 

1) They aren't afraid to try things.

2) They grew up, playing with Lego toys, not video games.

3) They aren't too proud to learn from either camp, (academia as a base and experience/common sense to refine their thinking)

 

Just found out my 6 year old scored 134 on his IQ test. Apparently, that puts him above 99% of the kids out there. I'm just bugged that he can't tie his shoes yet! So, my solution based on my observations above are no video games during the week and buy some legos. We actually started doing both of those 2 weeks ago.

[cygnusx1]

also get...tinker toys, erector sets, lincoln logs, and some AFX track!

[maichor]

You know it! Thanks Cygnus, I had forgotten about Tinker Toys. We used to build some killer forts out of giant Tinker Toys. They made pretty good lightsabers too. Rubik's cubes are also great.

 

Seriously though, I try to keep up on some of the neuro develpment literature as part of my continuing education. I am no expert on the subject, but I find it interesting. The brain actually develops far more pathways based on use, especially in early childhood. Some of the best brain exercises are music, language, spatial problem solving (puzzles) and fine motor. All of these things require you to do something, even learning a language takes practice speaking, pronouncing words out loud. Just reading for recall (updading the software) is not the best way to improve the hardware (brain) so to speak.

 

 

1) Learning to play an instrument uses multiple senses, takes a lot of cognition, coordination and inspires creative thinking. One of the best.

2) Play Chess with your kids, spouse, whatever. Rubik's Cube fits into this cateogory too.

3) Learn how to use chopsticks instead of using a fork. Learn to do things with your non-dominant hand.

4) Learning another language takes a lot more time, but excellent as well.

[hughdogz]

My roommate in college was also an M.E. This guy was super-brilliant (book-wise).

 

He was going from his BSME straight to a PhD, had an internship at Sandia Nat'l laboratory doing weird FEA CFD on how bubbles form...

 

Anyway, we started talking about cars one day, when I said I had to go change the oil (myself for the '78 Celica). He said although he is a great M.E. he knows nothing about working on a cars (no biggie).

 

Then he said he's always wondered why there are different types of fluids in a car (oil, coolant, brake, tranny, etc.) and why can't we use just one type? I got a kick out of that...explaining that hey, the fluids need to have different material properties for various reasons.

 

[Edit: TonyD, here is my take on the situation...

 

1) There are some people that know nothing about everything (meaning, they are a "Jack of all trades" yet they are not an expert in anything in particular)

2) There are some people that know everything about nothing (meaning they are so specialized that they cannot even tie their own shoes or clasp a safety belt, change their own oil, etc.)

3) There is a balance in between...Yasin knows what I'm talking about (thanks again Yasin

)

Later, -hughdogz ]

[Calgary280ZT]

During the flight, we strike up a conversation... I'm expecting him to be some sort of marketing guy, you know?

 

Tony, so what did we marketing guys ever do to you dumb ass compressor techs, anyway??? LOL

[Tony D]

I was away from my office just now, and picked up the #2 combo meal from McDonalds on the way back. I just unwrapped the second cheeseburger. Guess what. No burger. Just cheese, onion, ketchup, and buns. Bahhhh. I'm probably better off without it anyhow. Sometimes you GOTTA wonder.

 

If nobody has said it yet:

 

Joe Pesci's Character, "Leathal Weapon", Rant about Drive-Throughs and 'What they do to you at the drive-through'...

 

Am I a clown, do I amuse you? Do I make you laugh? LOL:biggrin:

[Tony D]

Hey, Marketing and Sales are two different specializations.

You never hear someone in the Maintenance department ask 'Is that another damn Marketing Guy?'

 

No, they universally despise the salesmen! LOL

 

Maichor makes three great points as well, my son while little got 'hand me down toys'...Seriously! He got my father's erector set to play with (circa 1938), as well as my father's "American Logs" (apparently times were tough that year and Grandpa cheaped out on name brands...or they hadn't been sued by the Lincoln Log People yet), and my father's Deluxe Tinker Toy Set---again circa '39 or '40 at the latest. We have Kodachrome movie reels of my dad playing with these things at their original christmas unveiling. Now....My dad? Mechanically inept as my brother. Which explains the SUPREME CONDITION of the Erector, Tinkertoy, and American Log sets. They didn't get a lot of use. I mean, we are talking about an erector set with an OPEN FRAME 110VAC squirrel-cage induction motor to power it. I'm talking the real good set something that a product liability lawyer in a corporate environment would NEVER let get to market today (lets blame this all on Lawyers, shall we? LOL)

 

But when the other kids in the neighborhood came over to 'play' with him, the first thing they did was turn on the T.V. and ask where the Nintendo was...My kid was hauling out a large wooden crate filled with these hands-on toys.

 

In many cases he had to show the kids how to use them!

 

I had a game when I was a kid that I absolutely LOVED called 'feely meely' (SHADDAP!) It was basically a large cardboard box, with innertube stretched over hand-sized holes on each side of the box. You had small plastic toys, like a farmer, a pig, a cube, a marble...two of each. The idea was you picked out one, then stuck your hand back in after putting it on the top of the box, and went back in (blind, only by feel) and grabbed the same matching piece.

 

Some of them were really tricky, like the four prospectors. They had the shovel across their body (relatively flat) but one went diagonally left to right, the other right to left. Standing up straight, it was really difficult to tell them apart unless you could feel their nose or which hip their pistol was handing off of!

 

I made one for my kid and he loved it as well. His friends hated it and thought it was dumb and refused to play it because he was so good at nailing the pieces in the first grab. LOL

 

(For Markham)

 

"Some are destined to make things, others are destined to market them, and finally some are just going to make a buck any way they can selling an amalgam of items to whomever crosses their path!"

 

BWAHAHAHAHAHA. The gunfire on Wednesday was revealed to be an attack on the LNG loading jetty, about 300m from our offices here. 9 Militants dead. Happened just after the last personnel bus left for the day. Woo Hoo, having fun here!