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Seen, Heard, Said

Things I’ve seen, heard, or was told by someone. Item in this category usually originate from the Internet.

Funny Spam

I laughed1 a bit at this piece of spam that managed to slip through:

Subject: Life is too short to have a shitty watch

If you buy a Submariner SS watch, it will be the best purchase in your life

That’s the entire message. No link either. I guess they want me to Google it. For what it’s worth, I have a Casio Waveceptor watch that’s battery backed solar powered. It receives and synchronizes to the NIST time signal nightly, thus ensuring that anytime I’m late for an appointment it’s actually my fault.

  1. hopefully because it was actually funny, and not because I’ve been up all night and now I’m losing it ↩

Principles of Economics, Translated

This is actually a pretty hilariously funny video and worth your 5 minutes and 21 seconds:

I really wish someone would come up with an engineering version of this. I’m not quite sure what it would look like, but it would be just as funny. I promise.

Also of note, the guy, Yoram Bauman, is from the Seattle area and does shows on most Tuesday at Non-Profit Comedy…the next show is tomorrow. Could be worth checking out.

via The Old New Thing

An Engineer Says What?

Amanda sent me this list of Engineering Speak. Having used most of these phrases at one point or another, I can vouch for their accuracy1.

From humour.200ok.com.au:

Engineer says: A number of different approaches are being tried
Engineer means: We are still grasping at straws

Engineer says: Major technological breakthrough
Engineer means: It works OK, but looks very hi-tech

Engineer says: Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive
Engineer means: The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch

Engineer says: Test results were extremely gratifying
Engineer means: We are so surprised that the stupid thing works

Engineer says: The entire concept will have to be abandoned
Engineer means: The only person who understood the thing quit

Engineer says: It is in process
Engineer means: It is so wrapped up in red tape that the
situation is hopeless

Engineer says: We’ll look into it
Engineer means: Forget it! We have enough problems for now

Engineer says: Please read and initial
Engineer means: Let’s spread the responsibility for the mistake

Engineer says: Years of development
Engineer means: One finally worked

Read the rest at http://humour.200ok.com.au/engineer_speak.html

Found via Amanda Walton(@AmandaWalton / TeslaSaysHi.com)

  1. more or less ↩

T-Shirts I’d Consider Wearing

Someone in my Advanced Robot Control class was wearing this t-shirt:

Engineer's Motto: If it isn't broken, take it apart and fix it.
Engineer's Motto: If it isn't broken, take it apart and fix it.

I had a really good chuckle because that’s totally me. Curious as to where my fellow engineer purchased the shirt, I did a bit of Googling and found a whole slew tshirts that I thought were entertaining to at least look at. I think realistically, I’d really only wear one or two of the t-shirts listed below. So enjoy some engineering humor while I procrastinate this essay as much as possible.

Scientists Dream. Engineers Do.
Scientists Dream. Engineers Do.
Engineer: The glass is twice the size it needs to be.
Engineer: The glass is twice the size it needs to be.
Never question the engineer's judgement.
Never question the engineer's judgement.
Think outside the box
Think outside the box
Engineer Inside
Engineer Inside

Engineering Should Come With a Warning Label

Someone I know at school, Islin Moy, posted this note. I felt compelled to share it because it’s basically what I’m feeling right now.

From www.facebook.com:

In your senior year second semester, you will experience stress levels not felt since failing your first test, over a prolonged period of time, at the same intensity.

This is due to senior design and the “random” decision of professors to double your workload, including the ones you took courses from before.

Senioritis and the general decline of your attitude towards school also doesn’t help.

The question is, do you really want to graduate?

If the answer is YES, then forge ahead and take your sleeping pills/other methods to fall asleep at night to wake up 4 hours later! Only 72 days left!

There is no such answer as NO. You got this far.

And it’s actually only 66 days left now. I’m glad to hear other people are in the same boat I’m in.

It’s About Error Recovery

Wow, I just finished watching Randy Nelson, the Dean of Pixar University, give a ten-minute presentation on Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age. The presentation is definitely geared toward media types. However, I think at least 99% is applicable to my life and what I want to do as an engineer. Among other things, Nelson talks about looking for people who are interested rather than interesting and how collaboration is not the same thing as cooperation.

I think my favorite point was: “The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance.”

I would recommend you take 10 minutes out of your day to watch the video.

via Kottke

Life Tips

I’m posting this because I agree with them and because I want to remember them. I especially like number 6 (about failing), and it’s been part of my unofficial New Years Resolution to fail gracefully more. This is author Nassim Nicholas Taleb list of top life tips:

  1. Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.
  2. Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.
  3. It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.
  4. Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act – if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.
  5. Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.
  6. Learn to fail with pride – and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error – by mastering the error part.
  7. Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).
  8. Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants… or (again) parties.
  9. Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.
  10. Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.

The TimeOnline also did a great article that’s worth a read: Nassim Nicholas Taleb: the prophet of boom and doom.

via BoingBoing