[PenultimateManStanding]

Engineers are supposed to be our saviors in the coming energy crisis. We rely on their knowledge and skill for our very lives. If they should falter, should prove not up to the task that we ask of them, we will slide back into a dark age indeed. Who are these guys? (I say guys, because though there may be more women scientists than there used to be, I suspect that engineers are still almost all men). The first thing to recognize about engineers is that they get short shrift. Politicians, lawyers and salesmen get a better deal in life, more money and more esteem. Second is that they are stunted in the overall human equation. They are the tinkerers, the nutty ones, and like Rodney Dangerfield, they don't 'get no respect'. They lack intuitve knowledge of other humans and themselves as well. It is by neccessity, for their field requires them to concentrate not on the human equation, but on the world of inanimate things and their workings. It was they who put man on the Moon. They built this world and they get no thanks for it. We aren't turning them out like we used to from the Universities. Kids don't want to do it. We have to import engineers because our own kids aren't sublimated enough, or something like that. I speak in generalities, of course, and over at the Oil Drum, there seem to be all kinds of engineers who are pretty smart. Overall, I guess what I'm saying is that engineering is headed for decline, like everything else. The Dark Age is upon us soon enough.

[OneLoneClone]

you make them sound like aliens...I'm here to say that engineers walk among us

they sometimes pass for normal

[PenultimateManStanding]

Engineers are aliens. We take them for granted, is what I'm saying. But they are freaks. Engineering is inhuman. The modern world is inhuman. You can trace it back to where it started with fashioning obsidian into intruments of death. The human race is an abortion, and engineers are the midwife of the stillborn monster. Have a nice day. (how's that for doomer cultism?)

[jaws]

India turns out more engineers per capita than any other nation on Earth. That's per capita in a country of a billion people.

So I don't think there's going to be any shortage of engineers. The problem with engineers is that they are completely clueless and have to be babysitted to get them to do any valuable work. That's why NASA today is a fucking mess.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', ' ')The problem with engineers is that they are completely clueless and have to be babysitted to get them to do any valuable work.

[PenultimateManStanding]

I think that people fail to recognize the role that engineers play. Read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and realize how our world hangs by a thread. Peak Oil will snap the thread.

[Kingcoal]

Actually, engineers who are not lazy are in great demand. Being an engineer myself, I find the problem is that many engineers are lazy. They want a 9-5 desk job where they are shielded from politics, customers and other real world things. They pay dearly for this sheltering.

[Specop_007]

Nice to know I'm appreciated.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'I') think that people fail to recognize the role that engineers play. Read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and realize how our world hangs by a thread. Peak Oil will snap the thread.

[Madpaddy]

Don't worry.

I'm sure everyone will feel alright once they know that I too am an engineer or whingeneer as they call us in our organisation.

Here are some of the PO projects I have implemented where I work;

- Installed a 20 sq m solar system for domestic hot water as part of a 250year old building refurbishment job.

- Installed solar and geothermal system on new office building

- Taken 70,000 litres of waste oil that we used to pay someone to take away and use it for heating workshops

- Reduced our monthly refuse bill from €18,000 to €3,000 by installing a recycling and cardboard baling facility

- Installed PIRs and energy efficient lighting throughout

- Currently planning to install 2 x 500 kw wind turbines for onsite electrical generation (I fear that this is the rock I will perish on as objections are sure to come thick and fast from local planners)

- Replace old single glazed windows with new double glazed units. The new ones cost a fortune as they have to be in keeping with the original 200 year old frames.

We have an awful long way to go, but at least where I work we are on the right road !!!

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Madpaddy', '
')Here are some of the PO projects I have implemented where I work;

[Madpaddy]

Thanks Doly,

And, the best part is that where I work is an island with one bridge route onto it, so if TSHTF, my family and I can live in my office.

Anyway, shouldn't we be all doing our best.

PS: My emoticons aren't working but I'm winking at you.

[The_Toecutter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he problem with engineers is that they are completely clueless and have to be babysitted to get them to do any valuable work.

[Ludi]

I'm more impressed by seat-of-the-pants, McGyver types who can make something useful from a pile of junk than I am by the "slide rule boys."

[OneLoneClone]

Bah - Slide Rule Boys (Gramps?) Rule!

My grandad and uncle are slide-rule engineers, so I have to step up and defend the nerds of the old school. Making usefull stuff out of a pile of junk is also great... but engineering an elegant solution to a problem in your minds eye (or on graph paper/computer) brings us the good custom solutions to special problems.

I have my grandfathers slide rule, calipers, compass and other tools of the engineering trade circa 1950s. I wish I was a mechanical engineer instead of an IT guy sometimes. It just seems like making something physical would be more rewarding than making software.

Maybe I'll retrain someday...but I'll probably use my solar scientific calculator instead of grandad's slide rule...

[pip]

Most common degree among CEO's is engineering.

http://www.spencerstuart.com/research/articles/876/

[The_Toecutter]

But that does not mean most CEOs are engineers.

In fact, if you check the educational background listed in this study, only about 20% of CEOs have engineering degrees. Much more have practically useless degrees in subjects like Business, Economics, and Accounting. They don't usually even know the basics about how products are developed and all the work that goes into them, but just how to push papers and make money, and as we've seen, many aren't even capable of doing that when we begin to look at major industries like the auto and dotcom companies that have been going bust...

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he problem with engineers is that they are completely clueless and have to be babysitted to get them to do any valuable work.

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', 'B')ut blame society for making the wrong choices in priorities, not the engineers.

[jaws]

It was from my personal experience working with engineers.