Do We Engineers See the World Differently?

<...These folks take information, make their own interpretation and accuse people of things....>

"Barristers"?

The legal profession makes money out of other people's misery.

And some engineers make mince meat out of certain members of the legal profession!

I've heard plenty of lawyer jokes (usually derogatory) but never engineer jokes.

Oh, you have missed a whole world of engineer jokes, but these are never propagated by lawyers. They don't know enough about engineering to pour out a thimble full.

Sadly, most of the engineering jokes I know about are at the expense of Texas A&M Aggies.

Like the one about the fence building competition in Texas between University of Texas, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M. I won't retell it here unless someone has not heard.

Someone hasn't.

Most engineering jokes I know center on the fact that we're ridiculously practical people (i.e., the boys and girls halve the distance every minute; the blind golfers). Sometimes, they focus on the fact that we're practical to the point of myopia (i.e., the engineer and the talking frog; the engineer and the new bicycle).

Oh, go ahead.

The University of Texas got up first, and strung a really horse high, pig tight, and bull stout fence. They used advice from the physics professors, and aligned it with the north star.

Texas Tech boys came up next, and used high technology from the EE department to laser align and ultrasonically range the fence posts, they used some fancy actuator (no name given) to tension the wires, with an A+ result.

Texas A&M Aggies came up last, and they were looking at what had been done, were sweating how to best their competitors, and were obsessing on every detail. When they got to the end of the line, they noticed they had a small pile of dirt left over, so they decided to dig another post hole to put that dirt in, and so on it went. Last time any one checked, these guys were still building fence, and had crossed the Red River into Oklahoma, and on into Kansas!

An Engineer and a Scientist are walking through the desert dieing of thirst. (They fell out of their airplane ok?).

They come upon an old man at a gate and behind him is a tall cool glass of water. They approach him and ask him if they can have some water. The old man replies, "You can have all you want. But, each time you move towards the water, you can only get half way."

The Scientist throws his hands up and cries, "Oh my god! We'll never get there! We'll die of thirst!"

The Engineer walks through the gate and drinks the water, walks back out, thanks the old man, and raspberries the Scientist. The Scientist says to him, "How did you do that if you can only get halfway each time you move?"

The Engineer says, "I can get close enough!"

"I've heard plenty of lawyer jokes (usually derogatory) but never engineer jokes."

Here's an Engineer joke for you:

A Mechanical Engineer, an Electrical Engineer, and a Chemical Engineer were stanging around trying to decide what sort of Engineer God is, using the human body as a reference.

"God is obviously a Mechanical Engineer," says the Mechanical Engineer, "just look at all the joints and levers in the body."

"But what about the miles of wiring in the nervous system," replies the Electrical Engineer, "God is clearly an Electrical Engineer."

"God is a Civil Engineer," intones the Chemical Engineer.

...

...

...

... After an uncomfortable pause, the Mechanical Engineer says, "Okay, so how is God a Chemical Engi- wait, did you say Civil?"

"Who else would run a toxic waste pipe through the middle of a recreational area?"

Kudos to that one! Maybe that is why Eskimos women invented the word "Wahoo". If you don't know the rest of that old joke, don't ask, it is just nasty.

Long ago, an American engineer was touring France with two friends, an Englishman and a Frenchman. It seems they got into a lot of trouble, and all three were sentenced to death by guillotine.

The Frenchman was first, and he was asked if he had any last words. "Viva la France!"

The blade was released but it jammed just above his neck. The law was that if the machine malfunctioned, the prisoner was released.

The Englishman was next. His last words were "Long live the King!". Lo and behold, the machine jammed again and the Englishman was set free.

Finally it was the engineer's turn. "Do you have any last words?", asked the executioner.

"I think I see why the rope is coming off the pulley."

Wow, way to go American engineer. Talk about a good time to have the right to remain silent....

Good one, I prefer the variation with the Priest, the Gambler and the Engineer.

Priest goes first, asks to be executed facing up so he may 'gaze upon Heaven' with his last moment.

Gambler asks for face up since, after seeing the Priest released, "It must be good luck."

Engineer goes in face up, "Why break a trend" and before the blade is dropped says "I think I see why it's getting stuck."

The moral: It's all well and good to love your profession, but don't go losing your head over it.

No, almost as bad. Environmentalists!

Being a neurosurgeon working in R&D for a company that manufactures medical devices, my colleagues in this department are a mechanical engineer, two bio-engineers, a pharmacist a Dr. in organic chemistry and a industrial engineer. Every Thursday morning we have a meeting to follow-up the projects we work in, and I must say it is fun to see how each of us focuses on different angles of the same problem: the mechanical engineer has an explanation for everything, knows more about medicine I do ... and is always right (at least, that is what he believes). The bioengineer and the pharmacist always see new problems in what we are working at, and their replies are sort of: hmm, er, but, or "not possible" due to ISO 13485, GPM, or whatsoever.... the industrial engineer has his feet on the ground and a more conciliatory approach, while the opinions of our organic chemist are usually so complex that no one has a clue on what the heck she means....

getting people with those varied backgrounds together there has to be comprise to get to the goal. Voicing one's opinion is one thing, but not considering the other professionals goals out is another.. Not everyone protecting their own little island.

must be difficult working with arrogance.

That is like a room full of deaf people all talking about how an elephant sounds! Very funny, indeed. Good luck all of you in finding your common ground from which to progress.

That almost sounds like another Engineer joke right there:

A Neurosurgeon, a Mechanical Engineer, Two Bio-Engineers, a Pharmacist, An Industrial Engineer and a Doctor in Organic Chemistry are driving down Route 66 in a beat up Volkswagon Caravan when a State Trooper pulls them over. "I'm sorry, Gentlemen," the cop says, "I'm going to have to cite you for having too many characters in this joke."

Besides what you may think of our meetings, let me tell´ya they are quite productive and it makes fun to work with these characters!

Yeah, most people have no idea about the technology they are using.
I hate it when people start hypothesizing about why their mobile phone or PC isn't working... and then they talk to me like I'm the one with no idea.
I'm retiring mid September and then I shall deny all knowledge of any telecoms after that point...
Ignorance is possibly bliss...
Del

Congratulations are in order before you leave telecoms. Does that include data transfer? anyhow.. That's a bold statement. Is there a going away party? a long catnaps dream.

I might try to treat these people as experts of technology. Saying to yourself ..hmm.. this person is obviously at the top of the field in cellular technology. I had no idea the problem could be that? Then tell that person how 'right they are' and 'what a tech genius they are' etc. You might hear something humorous.

Same thing when my wife starts telling me "My computer is frozen, and not working". I usually quip: "I assure you it is above the freezing point in there." And that is where I usually leave it. She will be to the point of sending the computer off for repairs, then she will remember installing X, Y, or Z, then go back and uninstall whatever (17th version of anti spyware or anti virus) and her computer will mysteriously start working again.

I have learned it is best not to become involved in her social worker take on computers.

Whenever my wife's computer acts up, she just calls me over. I stand behind her for a few seconds, it starts working again and she thanks me.

That is about how it goes best for me. When I keep my mouth shut, and just use it for a feeding orifice.

We sure do use our filters to "see" the world.

A little on defending our position. Someone once told me that most of us get into trouble when we're around people we respect. We'll fight tooth and nail to keep the respect and most times the fighting makes us look worse in their eyes.

some people are "builders" some are "destroyers"

As engineers, we all agree that the symbol for Titanium is Ti. 2+2=4.

As humans, we may not agree on much else about it.

Everyone interprets what they perceive differently, unless it is a well established fact.

Even then, as nick says, some will argue well established facts. Tommey Reed, where are you?

Can we all agree that, at least for native English speakers, It is impossible to say "Lake Titicaca" with a straight face?

Actually, it sounds a lot better in French...

What molecule contains two Titanium atoms and two Calcium atoms?

I don't get it....not really!

Is that where the Tit mouse and Tit bird are from?

What - no picture? There has to be a picture!

<:-(

Honour is satisfied. :-)

I'm wondering if we engineers get more bothered when we hear made someone trying to pass off a made up story as fact. What do you think?

It might be due to the fact that as Engineers, we spend a lot of time 'fact-checking' ourselves before we speak. So when someone is spouting nonsense as fact, especially when we can see where it is nonsense,it grates on our nerves, and forces us to fight down the reflex to Gibbs-smack them and say "You idiot, didn't you look this over before you opened your mouth? It's wrong here, here, here, and here. And this part contradicts ITSELF."

One afternoon, an engineering student was riding across campus on a shiny new bike. He ran into a friend of his, also an engineering student, who said, "Wow! That sure is a great bike. Where did you get it?"

"Well, the darndest thing happened," said the first engineering student. "A girl came riding up to me and got off the bike, threw off all her clothes, and said that I could have anything that I wanted."

"Wow," remarked his friend. "That's great. Good move. Her clothes probably wouldn't have fit you anyway."

Winner! Joke improvement department at Lyn-Dor Industries has struck again!

Engineers see the world for all practical purposes, while others theorists see the world as an omitted variable in a 128 rank partial differential equation (for just modeling the flow of a river or something), and physicists see the world as an arbitrary constant tacked onto the integral, that ends up being the whole topography, and always end up off by a factor of 2, or by h, in either case, it is a good thing their favorite sport is horseshoes.

So, these people have a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority?

Sounds like Dunning-Kruger effect.

Happens all the time, someone hears a half truth & repeats it. That then gets passed on as stone cold fact. Not just gossip but engineering or scientific information as well. When the time comes for it to be told to someone who really does know the truth, the storyteller gets all defensive in embarrassment.

Like climate deniers.

Is there any?

"Sorry mate but there is no climate! Forget it! Its all weather!"

I have been trying to deny the climate all my life, but it still gets butt cold in the winter, and hot as hell in the summer.

My situation is similar, but the outcome will definitely bet different. The person who told the story has a group of blind followers. She tells them a story and they pass it around with many changes. By the time it's through the rumor mill, the person (or company) on the other end is the devil. I'm not sure how much this bothers others, but it sure gets my goat!

A famous American once said:

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

Let me guess, it was Barack Hussein Obama. Note that the O is not hyphenated. He is most definitely not Irish. Funny thing, I use "normal" words that are in common use in the English language, and they get tagged for spelling check. Not one hint of that while spelling B.H.O.'s name.

A young engineer was leaving the office at 6pm when he found his boss standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Listen," said his boss, "this is important, and my secretary has left. Can you make this thing work?"

"Certainly," said the young engineer. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.

"Well done, Well done!" said his boss as his paper disappeared inside the machine. "I just need one copy."

According to my wife, I do. She knows what works while I analyze why it works.

Yeah, but is that the difference between men and women or engineers and the rest of the world?

Probably the former!

My better half and I get into some pretty interesting conversations. When it comes to mechanical stuff, she likes to think she knows something, but she's pretty clueless. When it comes to finance, she doesn't pretend and she admits she's very poor at it. When it comes to music, she amazes me. We'll be watching some 1930's movie and she starts singing along. Or it could be a new movie and she's singing some hip hop stuff. She can't play an instrument, but she has some memory for music. When it comes to social stuff, she's like a butterfly going from person to person. Even when she doesn't know people!

For us, it works pretty well - we both know our strengths and weaknesses and she'll always let me think I'm right when it comes to my topics - I guess she's pretty smart, because there are times when I realize I was wrong and she still gave in. Maybe much smarter than I am!

want an example

See my post #96.

I was on a jury some years ago and one of the other jurors (who worked in something allied to TV production) though that the evidence given by the accused was so literally incredible that one couldn't make it up and it therefore must be true or to put it another way it sounded so untrue that it must be true! He'd made up a whole scenario based, not on the evidence, but on what he thought must have happened. This guy wasn't just at odds with us engineering types. Luckily the trial was aborted as he wasn't listening to anyone.

I had a similar experience on jury duty, we retired to reach a verdict & one juror announced that the whole story was a gypsy conspiracy. This apparently based on the accused's surname. She was outvoted.

I'm sure it was very exasperating at the time - at least we got a funny story to tell out of it.

In my case we needed a unanimous vote (12:0) and after a day or so the judge allowed 11:1. Now I may as well mention the other out of step juror who just seemed to be maliciously voting against the other 10 of us - my take on him (and something I accused him of) was, as a retiree, he was extending the process for the sake of the daily jury allowance ($$$).

Then there were others falling apart at the seems - I could go on ...

As I say, lucky the trial was aborted as there was potential for bigger crimes within the jury. Anyway, we all "had a beer" afterwards and were all smiles again - amazing!

The Aussie Justice System never ceases to amaze. Really? That is a reason to dismiss, and release the jury? No jury in the U.S. is ever allowed to arrive at a verdict, unless it is unanimous...or at least anonymous LOL

Re "That is a reason to dismiss" - no, it wasn't. The trial was aborted I believe by the prosecution - we were not told the reason (nothing to do with the jury).

Plus, he did not follow the judges direction. As a juror, you are suppose to come to a decision on the evidence only. Not conjecture.

If there is an error in the evidence presented, and you know it is in error, are you still expected to acquiesce to the "evidence" as presented?

Actually, when the jury's are excused for a decision, if there is a question such as you stated. The jury can write it down and have it past to the judge it and have it explained.

Because an error in evidence is no evidence.

Not in the UK, you have to judge on the evidence provided in the courtroom, good or bad. Any explanation would require the court to reconvene to allow both sides of the case to present their arguments.

We also have this thing in the US called "reversible error" to be considered in any appeals process. Certainly, an entire verdict can be thrown out this way, usually by some error the judge made in a ruling, rather than actions taken by the jury.

I am sorry that in Merry Old, the jury is not "allowed" to think. For that matter why bother even having a jury at all, or a defense? You Brits seem bent on persecuting the innocent anyway (at least in most television dramas), especially so in the 18th and 19th Centuries when your legal prejudices against the unwashed were at the highest and most onerous levels. Do not think this escaped the purview of the rest of the world. It is part of the propulsion of colonization elsewhere in the world by former British subjects, including here. God rest ye merry, we do forgive and forget.

Depending if the case is over, in the USA, one can not be put in Double Jeopardy, unless your innocent, then I believe an appeal can be made.

If "you" are innocent, there is still no allowed Double Jeopardy, i.e. being tried twice for the same crime with the same charge. This does not prevent the legal justice system from trying someone for the same crime with a different charge the second time around.

Appeals happen with essentially every homicide conviction, especially for Capital Murder where other felonies are compounded with the homicide, and the death penalty has been issued.

The only thing that makes my brain hurt about this is that the criminal was able to make a permanent decision about someone's worth, their life, over a temporary "problem", want or desire, yet the state must deliberate any such decision over the criminal for years before actually carrying out the final aspect of the sentence.

I have about decided that the death penalty is way too easy on most criminals. I think there should be a special prison (inescapable) for the most violent of felons. Just drop them in by parachute, and let them duke it out. The sole survivor gets a special treat - a .3006 Lapua bullet fired from M24 from long range. All is well that ends well. Bears need to eat.

There's actually an organization called the Innocence Project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project

Am aware of it. One of my colleagues here where I work was simultaneously (and previously) volunteering on the Project. I am a firm believer in their work, and think it is a real blessing to those wrongfully convicted by a jury of their peers. Mistakes will happen. Sometimes what seems as solid proof is not unique at all. Other times, juries will totally miss the points being made by the state's attorney, and let a criminal walk free. That is the nature of the beast.

Sometimes, convictions come from a weak defense attorney and the assumption by the DA that they're all guilty. I've seen innocent people plead guilty, because their attorney scared them into it. If you don't take the plea, you could spend the rest of your life in prison.

Then there is always some case where the defense attorney is just old, and falls asleep during the trial. Hey it's hard listening to all the verbage sometimes.

"I think there should be a special prison (inescapable) for the most violent of felons."

It's really hard to make an 'inescapable' building, even an island out in the middle of nowhere still allows methods to get away.

Death is pretty inescapable, we haven't seen anyone get away from that⁽¹⁾.

Notes:

1. Yes there were those two Jews, but one of them, Subject L, walked out of his tomb, and lived for a while, but he ended up dying AGAIN, they just didn't write about it. The other, Subject J, reportedly DID escape Death without dying a second time, but He's kind of a special case. Also note that in both cases, it took literal Divine Intervention to escape Death, and you don't see that going on too much these days.
   

They usually try to remove engineers from the jury if at all possible. They don't want jurors who can think for themselves.

Anybody dressed in a suit will usually be excused.

Around here, the only ones who can afford suits are the lawyers (hang 'em all, let God sort them out), the judge (really can't tell since they were robes), and the defendant.

Most of the rest of the jury were a pretty smart bunch which went against the stereotype I'd known.

The jury was way ahead of the prosecution. We'd picked up their mistakes on several things well in advance of their corrections/clarifications.

For example our architect constructed a house plan from a bunch of room photos so we could check the sight lines against witness evidence.

Which "they" is that? The lawyers involved?

The terrifying thought that runs through every defendant's head:

"My fate is being determined by twelve people TOO STUPID to get out of Jury Duty."

Food for thought.

Another way to see it.

Attorney: "To make sure your trial is fair, we want you to be judged by people like you. Those people are your peers"

Defendant: "I get it. That guy over there got suspended from high school with my brother. I see that lady over there at the welfare office every week. And that guy there; I see him when I take my mom to the unemployment office"

Anybody with me that inventors should be judged by a jury of their peers?

i.e. the patentability of their inventions -

I don't want to be judged by that bunch of nutters.

Certainly engineers see the world differently; I think we are known by spouses to be difficult to live with.

However, what you describe is a personality problem. His behavior is what sucks, not his engineering skills.

I'll post the facts of my story in a few minutes. I'm wondering how tolerant non-engineers are to speculation (the type where there's very little logic).

Well engineers must be different. A recent story on Fox news stated that since a lot of the male terrorists who are college graduates have technical/engineering degrees our different way of thinking makes us dangerous to the rest of society. Who would have thought that trying to solve problems by applying logical thought and conducting tests and experiments constitutes a threat to world order.

Fox "news"?

Shirley, you jest!

Can you say oxymoron?

Never mind, you saw it on the internet it must be true.

"have to agree that repeated exposure to some "engineering personalities" makes one tend to entertain destructive thoughts"

How many toys have you destroyed when you were still a toddler, Not an engineer yet? I tend to believe a destructive nature is always part of an individual. It is possible that exposure to such environment may also enhance that nature, as they say in Sociology.?

Most Engineers in a discussion panel maybe more convincing in Indulging the listeners since they posseses not only the theoretical background to explain but also the ability to physically demonstrate the subject matter if need be...

The term is analyzed.

True, but I couldn't spell that when I was a toddler.

Carry on then...

"have to agree that repeated exposure to some "engineering personalities" makes one tend to entertain destructive thoughts"

Would you not agree that exposures will works both ways?

Engineering exposures will encourage one to develop both destructive and constructive thoughts! And the surrounding environment may influence and enhance those thoughts as well..

"Most Engineers in a discussion panel maybe more convincing in Indulging the listeners since they posseses not only the theoretical background to explain but also the ability to physically demonstrate the subject matter if need be..."

I remember an old saying that the sign of Intelligence is the ability to Entertain a thought without Accepting it.

As Problem Solvers, Engineers can look at a bad idea, think it through to its horrific conclusion, work out all the steps in detail how to commit such an atrocity, and then say "But that would be bad," and walk away as if they had never even contemplated it in the first place.

Some other people, upon exposure to a bad idea, immediately have to implement it, and continue to 'stay the course' even after they see the horrors they're bound to unleash.

The critical word is "SOME".

As a young lad I had hero's. Most of my friends were into sports and cowboys & Indians. My hero's were guys like Barnes Wallis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Wallis

When my mates saw "The Dam Busters" they all wanted to fly planes and drop bombs. I saw the real fun in having the opportunity to figure out the best way to achieve the goal. The research was more interesting than the application.

I loved to pull things apart. My Mother thought I was a wrecker. It took her a long time to realise that all my toys were in working order but I had fixed them so you could see how they worked and most of them worked better with out all the extra weight.

Most of my career was in Power Station Demolition. Remove all the Toxics, remove all the asbestos, recycle all the metal and other recyclables and pull it apart and some times blow it up in a very succinct and controlled way.

My Dad was my other hero. He told me that the difference between a terrorist and a patriot is who's side your on.

If one guy drives a truck full of explosives into town and detonates it and another flies over the town and drops the same weight of bombs that explode the main practical difference is the the price tag and maybe the amount of personal determination.

BAB

I watch that movie every time it comes around.

Just saw a 2 documentaries on the dam busters. One and what happened, and the second was a modern day reconstruction... Pretty cool.