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Fun Visits - for your Coffee and Lunch Breaks only!
If you think you can do better - submit your attempts at humour to info@ismosys.com
Real Engineers...
Consider themselves well dressed if their socks match
Buy their spouses a set of matched screwdrivers for their birthday
Wear moustaches or beards for "efficiency", not because they're lazy
Have a non-technical vocabulary of 800 words
Think a "biting wit" is their fox terrier
Know the second law of thermodynamics - but not their own shirt size
Repair their own cameras, telephones, televisions, watches, and automatic transmissions
Say "It's 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 25 degrees Celsius, and 298 degrees Kelvin" and all you say is "Isn't it a nice day"
Give you the feeling you're having a conversation with a dial tone or busy signal
Wear badges so they don't forget who they are. Sometimes a note is attached saying "Don't offer me a ride today. I drove my own car"
Politics run towards acquiring a parking space with their name on it and an office with a window
Know the "ABC's of Infrared" from A to B
Rotate their tires for laughs
Will make four sets of drawings (with seven revisions) before making a bird bath
Briefcases contain a Phillips screwdriver, a copy of "Quantum Physics", and a half of a peanut butter sandwich
Don't find the above at all funny
Electrical Humor
What did the light bulb say to the generator? "I really get a charge out of you!"
How do you pick out a dead battery from a pile of good ones? It's got no spark!
A man with a hearing problem walked into a power plant for a tour. He arrived late and had to join the rest of the group already on the tour. The man was reviewing what he had just told the group. He told the group that they wouldn't move on until they answered this one question: What is the unit of power equal to one joule per second called?" The man with the hearing problem hadn't heard the question very well, so he raised his hand and asked "What?"
Why do transformers hum? They don't know the words.
What did the light bulb say to the electric generator? "You spark up my life!"
What did the baby light bulb say to the mommy light bulb? "I love you watts and watts!"
Why was the free electron so sad? It had nothing to be positive about!
What did Godzilla say when he ate the nuclear power plant? "Shocking!"
Why did the lights go out? Because they liked each other!
Two atoms were walking down the street one day, when one of them exclaimed, "Oh, no I've lost an electron!" "Are you sure?" the other one asked. "Yes," replied the first one, "I'm positive
Engineers Explained
People who work in the fields of science and technology are not like other people. This can be frustrating to the non-technical people who have to deal with them. The secret to coping with technology-oriented people is to understand their motivations. This will help to teach you everything you need to know. I learned their customs and mannerisms by observing them, much the way Jane Goodall learned about the great apes, but without the hassle of grooming.
Engineering is so trendy these days that everybody wants to be one. The word "engineer" is greatly overused. If there's somebody in your life who you think is trying to pass as an engineer, give him this test to discern the truth.
Engineer Identification Test
You walk into a room and notice that a picture is hanging crooked. You...
A. Straighten it.
B. Ignore it.
C. Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing a solar-powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often stating aloud your belief that the inventor of the nail was a total moron.
The correct answer is "C" but partial credit can be given to anybody who writes "It depends" in the margin of the test or simply blames the whole stupid thing on "Marketing."
Social Skills
Engineers have different objectives when it comes to social interaction.
"Normal" people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from social interaction:
• Stimulating and thought-provoking conversation
• Important social contacts
• A feeling of connectedness with other humans
In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational objectives for social interactions:
• Get it over with as soon as possible.
• Avoid getting invited to something unpleasant.
• Demonstrate mental superiority and mastery of all subjects.
Fascination with Gadgets
To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories:
1. things that need to be fixed
2. things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them.
Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
No engineer looks at a television remote control without wondering what it would take to turn it into a stun gun. No engineer can take a shower without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would make showering unnecessary. To the engineer, the world is a toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys.
Fashion & Appearance
Clothes are the lowest priority for an engineer, assuming the basic thresholds for temperature and decency have been satisfied. If no appendages are freezing or sticking together, and if no genitalia or mammary glands are swinging around in plain view, then the objective of clothing has been met. Anything else is a waste.
Love of Star Trek
Engineers love all of the "Star Trek" television shows and movies. It's a small wonder, since the engineers on the starship Enterprise are portrayed as heroes, occasionally even having sex with aliens. This is much more glamorous than the real life of an engineer, which consists of hiding from the universe and having sex without the participation of other life forms.
Dating & Social Life
Dating is never easy for engineers. A normal person will employ various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a false impression of attractiveness. Engineers are incapable of placing appearance above function.
Fortunately, engineers have an ace in the hole. They are widely recognized as superior marriage material: intelligent, dependable, employed, honest, and handy around the house. While it's true that many normal people would prefer not to date an engineer, most normal people harbor an intense desire to mate with them, thus producing engineer-like children who will have high-paying jobs long before losing their virginity.
Male engineers reach their peak of sexual attractiveness later than normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos in their mid thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples of sexually irresistible men in technical professions:
• Bill Gates.
• MacGyver.
• Etcetera.
Female engineers become irresistible at the age of consent and remain that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death. Longer if it's a warm day.
Honesty
Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and human relationships. That's why it's a good idea to keep engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other people who can't handle the truth.
Engineers sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say things that sound like lies but technically are not because nobody could be expected to believe them. The complete list of engineer lies is listed below.
• "I won't change anything without asking you first."
• "I'll return your hard-to-find cable tomorrow."
• "I have to have new equipment to do my job."
• "I'm not jealous of your new computer."
Frugality
Engineers are notoriously frugal. This is not because of cheapness or mean spirit; it is simply because every spending situation is simply a problem in optimization, that is, "How can I escape this situation while retaining the greatest amount of cash?"
Powers of Concentration
If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything else in the environment. This sometimes causes engineers to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high-tech areas have started checking resumes before processing the bodies. Anybody with a degree in electrical engineering or experience in computer programming is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if he or she snaps out of it.
Risk
Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can. This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one little mistake, the media will treat it like it's a big deal or something.
Examples of Bad Press For Engineers
• Hindenberg.
• Space Shuttle Challenger.
• SPANet(tm)
• Hubble space telescope.
• Apollo 13.
• Titanic.
• Ford Pinto.
• Corvair.
The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like this:
RISK: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people.
REWARD: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame.
Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain.
If that approach is not sufficient to halt a project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: "It's technically possible but it will cost too much."
EGO
Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers:
• How smart they are.
• How many cool devices they own.
The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to declare that the problem is unsolvable. No engineer can walk away from an unsolvable problem until it's solved. No illness or distraction is sufficient to get the engineer off the case. These types of challenges quickly become personal -- a battle between the engineer and the laws of nature.
Engineers will go without food and hygiene for days to solve a problem. (Other times just because they forgot.) And when they succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego rush that is better than sex--and I'm including the kind of sex where other people are involved.
Nothing is more threatening to the engineer than the suggestion that somebody has more technical skill. Normal people sometimes use that knowledge as a lever to extract more work from the engineer. When an engineer says that something can't be done (a code phrase that means it's not fun to do), some clever normal people have learned to glance at the engineer with a look of compassion and pity and say something along these lines: "I'll ask Bob to figure it out. He knows how to solve difficult technical problems."
At that point it is a good idea for the normal person to not stand between the engineer and the problem. The engineer will set upon the problem like a starved Chihuahua on a pork chop.
Top 20 of Engineering Terminology
- A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES ARE BEING TRIED
We are still pissing in the wind. - EXTENSIVE REPORT IS BEING PREPARED ON A FRESH APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM
We just hired three kids fresh out of college. - CLOSE PROJECT COORDINATION
We know who to blame. - MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH
It works OK, but looks very hi-tech. - CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IS DELIVERED ASSURED
We are so far behind schedule the customer is happy to get it delivered. - PRELIMINARY OPERATIONAL TESTS WERE INCONCLUSIVE
The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch. - TEST RESULTS WERE EXTREMELY GRATIFYING
We are so surprised that the stupid thing works. - THE ENTIRE CONCEPT WILL HAVE TO BE ABANDONED
The only person who understood the thing quit. - IT IS IN THE PROCESS
It is so wrapped up in red tape that the situation is about hopeless. - WE WILL LOOK INTO IT
Forget it! We have enough problems for now. - PLEASE NOTE AND INITIAL
Let's spread the responsibility for the screw up. - 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've already done. - GIVE US YOUR INTERPRETATION
I can't wait to hear this bull! - SEE ME or LET'S DISCUSS
Come into my office, I'm lonely. - ALL NEW
Parts not interchangeable with the previous design. - RUGGED
Too damn heavy to lift! - LIGHTWEIGHT
Lighter than RUGGED. - YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT
One finally worked. - ENERGY SAVING
Achieved when the power switch is off. - LOW MAINTENANCE
Impossible to fix if broken.
Why Engineers Don't Write Recipe Books
Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Ingredients:
1.) 532.35 cm3 gluten
2.) 4.9 cm3 NaHCO3
3.) 4.9 cm3 refined halite
4.) 236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride
5.) 177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H22O11
6.) 177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H22O11
7.) 4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde
8.) Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein
9.) 473.2 cm3 theobroma cacao
10.) 236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)
To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two and three with constant agitation. In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogenous. To reactor #2, add ingredient eight, followed by three equal volumes of the homogenous mixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add ingredient nine and ten slowly, with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction. Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown. Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25C heat-transfer table, allowing the product to come to equilibrium.
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How can you tell if your child is going to be an engineer?
Watch for these tell-tale warning signs:
-You buy your child an educational software program, and she asks which authoring tool it was written in.
-Your child has torn apart his teddy bear and is studying the chemical composition of the filling.
-She can program you VCR, while you haven't been able to get it to stop blinking "12:00."
-He has removed the voice box from his Talking Elmo doll and reprogrammed it to recite the periodic table.
-She has replaced the arms and legs of her Barbie Doll with bionic limbs.
-He is picked last on every sports team.
-You take her to see Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame," and all she's interested in is the computer animation.
-He has Bill Gates posters in his room.
-She believes that if she's really good, Santa will give her a client/server network for Christmas.
-He throws a temper tantrum every time you refuse to take him into Fry's.
-She has accepted a scholarship to MIT. And she's only five.
-He gets in fights in school because he owns a PC and the other kids use a Mac.
-He has defeated the "child-guard" software on your Web browser.
-Forget Dr. Seuss and Beatrix Potter. She wants you to read her Carl Sagan.
-When he is asked to play the Star of Bethlehem in the Christmas pageant, he asks, "Am I a white dwarf or red giant?"
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New Lyrics to Beatles Song - "Yesterday"
Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be.
And there's a milestone hanging over me.
The system crashed, so suddenly.
I pushed something wrong,
What it was, I could not say.
Now all my data's gone,
And I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
Yesterday,
the need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.
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College Essay
This was actually an essay written by a college applicant applying to colleges/universities. The author of this essay now attends NYU
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IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles.
Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.
I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prize winning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
But I have not yet gone to college.
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Five Surgeons
Five surgeons were taking a coffee break and were discussing their work. The first said, "I think accountants are the easiest to operate on. You open them up and everything inside is numbered." The second said, "I think librarians are the easiest to operate on. You open them up and everything inside is in alphabetical order." The Third said, "I like to operate on electricians. You open them up and everything inside is color-coded." The fourth one said, "I like to operate on lawyers. They're heartless, spineless, gutless, and their heads and their butts are interchangeable." Fifth surgeon said, "I like Engineers...they always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end..."
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The Car
There were three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a Microsoft engineer.
Suddenly, the car stops running and they pull off to the side of the road wondering what could be wrong.
The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault may have occurred.
The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.
The Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, came up with a suggestion. "Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, and open all the windows and see if it works?"
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The Balloonist
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a man below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The man below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet about the ground. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.
"I am," replied the man, "but how did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."
The man below responded, "You must be a manager."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "how did you know?"
"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are exactly in the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."
