View Poll Results: How wouold you describe yourself
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Engineer/scientist
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68 |
56.67% |
Artist/writer etc
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3 |
2.50% |
other
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49 |
40.83% |
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08-14-2009, 01:36 PM
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#41
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: North Oregon Coast
Posts: 16,483
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FUEGO
Spending money on that stuff is suboptimal.
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Not if it helped you attract a spouse who had a lot of money and/or a high-paying job. Then it's a good "investment"....
__________________
"Hey, for every ten dollars, that's another hour that I have to be in the work place. That's an hour of my life. And my life is a very finite thing. I have only 'x' number of hours left before I'm dead. So how do I want to use these hours of my life? Do I want to use them just spending it on more crap and more stuff, or do I want to start getting a handle on it and using my life more intelligently?" -- Joe Dominguez (1938 - 1997)
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08-14-2009, 02:38 PM
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#42
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 7,746
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Hmmm... that is an adjustment to the system constraints. We might need to re-run the model.
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08-14-2009, 03:19 PM
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#43
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 335
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Applied mathematician turned brain-ologist by accident.
Edit: and I love differential equations -- parabolic ones in particular. Linear algebra, of course, every mathematician has a very soft spot for.
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08-14-2009, 04:59 PM
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#44
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: East Nowhere, 43N Latitude, NY
Posts: 9,037
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If I say saddle point, nice and sloooooooowwwww, who's gonna start salivating ?
__________________
"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." - Walt Disney
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08-14-2009, 05:06 PM
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#45
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Austin
Posts: 1,142
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08-14-2009, 05:23 PM
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#46
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: East Nowhere, 43N Latitude, NY
Posts: 9,037
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I wonder what the rest of the forum members are thinking about this thread. Something along these lines?
Truth of the matter is...I'm not much of a theoretical person. I couldn't derive my way out of a wet paper bag.
I was the person who the theorists went to for designing experiments, getting the components all together, doing the data collection via lab equipment control programming or doing imaging and capture, analyzing the results, and then asking the geeks theorists to fine tune their boundary conditions. Rinse and repeat.
I wrote the majority of the published papers as a co-author because I was really good at it.
I was the "put together the connections" person. Give me a piece of digital test equipment and a user manual and I'd figure it out in under 30 minutes, tops, on a bad day. That was the FUN part and it was all self taught.
This is the only stuff I miss. But I've gotten over it.
__________________
"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." - Walt Disney
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08-14-2009, 06:43 PM
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#47
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 4,872
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Want2retire
I loved differential equations, and still do. I enjoyed all my calculus classes, too, and linear algebra was really cool! But diff eq was more challenging and so much fun. I still have my old textbooks and I think they have half the answers in the back of the book, so I can have a lot of fun re-doing all those problems.
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Differential equations were ok, but when they started to throw in integral equations too in magneto-hydrodynamics I decided I'd reached my mathematical limits. It was at the same time that set theory got really hard and I retreated to the lab.
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08-14-2009, 08:24 PM
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#48
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 619
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Senior Systems Analyst for megacorp. I turned in my pocket protector on the way out.
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08-14-2009, 09:03 PM
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#49
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 274
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I never really thought about this before, but I think you've got to love thinking analytically to really succeed in accumulating a bundle of money. Avoiding income tax by understanding the details of the tax code is another area. Someone who is able to grasp the details of the tax complex code system and fit them together to cut your income tax will save a lot of money.
I love to play with the laws of physics and the laws of income tax code just to see how I can get the best possible outcome. Designing a building is just as challenging as tax planning. I get a real sense of satisfaction if I can figure out a better, and cheaper way to solve an engineering problem. I get the same satisfaction out of using the tax code to save money.
BTW, theoretical mathematicians may be in the same family as engineers, but distant cousins. I've got to picture things in my brain to solve a problem - and infinite vector spaces were too abstract for me. Thanks to linear algebra I changed from a math major to a civil engineer in college -
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08-14-2009, 09:10 PM
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#50
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: New Orleans
Posts: 47,468
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My brother is an M.B.A., C.P.A., former C.F.O/V.P. and his net worth is many times mine. As a little boy, he was the kind of kid who never spent one penny out of his 25 cent per week allowance. He put it all in the bank. He loved money and he loved to save it.
But anyway, he did not pursue engineering or science.
__________________
Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities. - - H. Melville, 1851.
Happily retired since 2009, at age 61. Best years of my life by far!
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08-14-2009, 09:18 PM
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#51
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Chicago
Posts: 13,149
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hobo
From what I saw with this sub-prime mortgage mess, most Americans (including artist and writers) can't do even the most basic economic calculations.
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I don't know if you are representative of engineers or other tech types. But, if so, then I'd say that engs tech types are extremely poor observers of their fellow man, at least artists and writers.
__________________
"I wasn't born blue blood. I was born blue-collar." John Wort Hannam
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08-14-2009, 11:15 PM
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#52
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: the City of Subdued Excitement
Posts: 5,588
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Quote:
I also feel that engineering is basically a young person's game.
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Yeah, but some of us never grow up.
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I have outlived most of the people I don't like and I am working on the rest.
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08-15-2009, 12:20 AM
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#53
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 35,712
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Lordy, lordy...
I don't see how these geeky people can ever retire. In fact, it sounds like some of them are ready to head back to work, the way they talk about it.
I disagree with many of you about geeks being financially savvy. Among my own geeky circle, it is the reverse that's true. We were so engrossed in our work that I am the most financially literate among the geeks that I have worked with, and that should tell you something. I only got involved with this stuff in recent years after I already downshifted to part-time work and was able to have some free time.
The LBYM philosophy and the bull market in the 1990-2000 decade helped me, although I could have done significantly better had I took some time off from my work to spend a bit of time with my investments. I was lucky to have some equity exposures during that long bull market run, the era of "irrational exuberance".
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"Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man" -- Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
"Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities" - Voltaire (1694-1778)
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08-15-2009, 05:58 AM
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#54
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Northern Illinois
Posts: 16,543
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Engineering background - part owner of Civil Engineering/land surveying/planning/landscape architecture firm with business degree. I work almost entirely on highway geometrics and land acquisition / land surveying projects for new highways
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08-15-2009, 10:44 AM
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#55
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Eastern WV Panhandle
Posts: 25,290
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Quote:
I don't even know what a differential equations is (and don't want to). Does it bite?
This is the guy who had to take Algebra 1 twice in HS.
But I always liked taking machines apart, working with tools, fast machines like airplanes and motorcycles. I never had problems understanding the basic concepts, but when I came to doing the math I froze.
__________________
When I was a kid I wanted to be older. This is not what I expected.
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08-15-2009, 10:51 AM
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#56
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: the City of Subdued Excitement
Posts: 5,588
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Walt,
Stay away from differential equations. Yes, it bites.
__________________
I have outlived most of the people I don't like and I am working on the rest.
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08-15-2009, 12:18 PM
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#57
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Pacific latitude 20/49
Posts: 7,677
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Although I have a Master's degree in Process Engineering, after automating an Exxon refinery, I switched into sales and then executive management, so I answered Other.
__________________
For the fun of it...Keith
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08-15-2009, 01:52 PM
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#58
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 7,733
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kcowan
Although I have a Master's degree in Process Engineering, after automating an Exxon refinery, I switched into sales and then executive management, so I answered Other.
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I always have a dilemma when answering these questions for a similar reasons. Despite an EE degree, I only spent 5 years as pure engineer, before transitioning into marketing. I always kept one foot in the technical areas, mostly because my friends told me that engineers who became marketing pukes had to have a full frontal lobotomies . (Their descriptions of what was required to move from Engineer->Sales or Journalism were even scarier ).
Once I got my MBA, I submitted to the procedure. I found it relatively painless and it had two surprising benefits. First and foremost a lobotomy fully qualifies you for management and second it erase all the painful memories of differential equations, except remembering the class was at 8 AM, the professor was boring, and that I was never as happy to recieve a C- as I was for that class.
Since retiring, I have rediscovered my inner geekdom and I so I end up selecting Engineer on the poll.
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08-15-2009, 01:58 PM
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#59
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Oahu
Posts: 26,855
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freebird5825
I wonder what the rest of the forum members are thinking about this thread.
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Spouse says she has no idea what came over me, but she doesn't sound like she's complaining!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed_The_Gypsy
Yeah, but some of us never grow up.
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I don't miss the "staying up for 25 hours to get this finished" parts.
__________________
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Co-author (with my daughter) of “Raising Your Money-Savvy Family For Next Generation Financial Independence.”
Author of the book written on E-R.org: "The Military Guide to Financial Independence and Retirement."
I don't spend much time here— please send a PM.
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08-15-2009, 06:24 PM
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#60
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: East Nowhere, 43N Latitude, NY
Posts: 9,037
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kcowan
Although I have a Master's degree in Process Engineering, after automating an Exxon refinery, I switched into sales and then executive management, so I answered Other.
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Red Rover, Red Rover, we call "kcowan" over.
We need all the geeks on this side that we can get our hands on.
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"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." - Walt Disney
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