You Know You're an Engineer When...

We're asking you to complete this sentence: "You know you're an engineer when..."

Your input could be featured in an upcoming article on ImAnEngineer.com, Newark element14's newly launched website celebrating the ingenuity and impact of engineers!

We'll be choosing three of the most insightful and entertaining responses to send a much-sought-after bag of element14 swag to, between now and the end of July (don't worry if you're post is already in, we'll still consider it as an entry). T's & C's are here, and remember that you can drive the competition by casting votes for your favorite entries using the "Like" button on each post.

To bag your swag:

Step 1: Think deeply about the kind of traits that you feel typify the engineer's personality (and then check out the obligatory terms and conditions for the comp).

Step 2: Register, log in and comment on this discussion to tell the world about your favorite engineering personality quirks/disorders/idiosyncrasies.

Step 3: Make yourself a coffee and spend an enjoyable hour picking out the inspired (mostly hilarious) insights into your engineering identity, and hit the "Like" button on those that really resonate.

D_Hersey over 11 years ago

'Cursor' was the word I was looking for, the glass slidey thing with the cross-hair is called a cursor. The best ones IIRC came from Switzerland and were fabbed from bamboo that was enamelled white somehow. The high-end models had these cylindrical lenses cemented atop them to scooch out a little more precision.
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D_Hersey over 11 years ago

I always thought one made of Invar with a two-stage magnifier would be cool.
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D_Hersey over 11 years ago

The circular ones avoided this one type of annoying overrun. Speciality ones were published for trades. The civil defence racket had one for when one should poke one's head out after the big one. Mechanical computing was/is interesting.
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D_Hersey over 11 years ago

The experts had tricks like interpolation and verification tricks like casting out nines. I know the basics of the slide rule. Great way to learn about, get a feel for, analog enumeration.
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Workshopshed over 11 years ago in reply to balearicdynamics

I missed out on slide rules but we did have booklets of tables to lookup trigonometric functions
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mcb1 over 11 years ago in reply to Workshopshed

We might need to change the title of this discussion.
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balearicdynamics over 11 years ago in reply to Workshopshed

Andy this is a news for me. I had no idea that it was and frankly never though to search for something like this.

This is mine, bought around the first '70s. In that period there was already the first electronic calculators but was very expensive and absolutely impossible to use at school (was something like scary monsters, especially during exams). I was very able to use this and my professors was too young to know the real power of this incredible tool. I was at high school in that period and I have used it everywhere without difficult. They always though this was just a sort of strange ruler.
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Workshopshed over 11 years ago in reply to Workshopshed

http://www.mathsinstruments.me.uk/
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Workshopshed over 11 years ago in reply to jw0752

You know when you are an engineer when you are excited that there's a slide rule preservation society http://www.oughtred.org/history.shtml
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jw0752 over 11 years ago in reply to COMPACT

Hi Compact,
I only beat you on that one by a minute. For me it is goodnight. 2 AM here and the flames on both ends of my candle are about to meet. See you later in the day.
John
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