CEO salaries track the S&P 500 pretty well, which is their primary job duty. They aren't all evil, they are just the ones who benefit the most from a broken system.

The biggest problem in the world is that there exists a certain class of "people" called corporations that don't need to worry about national borders. Humans have a large number of restrictions on where they can live and work, corporations do not.
Companies are making record profits, and thus rewarding CEOs, because they can get money from anywhere on Earth. In fact many US companies generate more revenue from outside the United states. Humans are shackled to their own nation and can't reap the rewards of an expanding global economy the way multi-nationals can.
A few of my engineering friends who have been lucky enough to find ex-pat jobs live like kings. Foreign countries place a high value on their qualifications and experience. Unfortunately, those opportunities are limited because no country wants foreigners to come in and take away their jobs.

Don't forget many classes grade on a curve. So the more idiots there are in the class, the better a mediocre student will appear.

I was an engineering major and there were a couple of people who most felt probably didn't belong, but we didn't care because the majority in class were very intelligent.
Then one semester I took an introductory astronomy class just out of curiosity. The class average after the first test (multiple choice even), was 55% - and those students would get a "C" because they represented average. I received 115% on that test. After that I realized how low the bar was to get into college.
So if you think your fellow engineering students are lacking in performance, just imagine how inept those sociology, anthropology, and other non-tech students are.

Fixed it for you
Universities have literally been lowering their entry requirements as they have found they can get more money from more applicants

I wonder if it's an indication that the skill requirement of domestic engineers are changing. I haven't seen many issues with design or layout engineering jobs going overseas. I have seen the jobs for engineers responsible for field engineering, implementation, and test are going to where the production is happening.
It doesn't cost anything to send layout files overseas for building and testing, but it can be expensive to send boards built in another country to the US to test/debug.

Hmmm, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to code the stuff I learned in: Microwave Measurements, Photovoltaic Solar Energy Systems, Optoelectronics, Antenna Theory and Design, Semiconductor Processing, and Microelectronics Packaging.
I guess I could always fall back on my first year C programming class. I'm sure there are plenty of companies who need somebody to make their embedded device say "Hello World"

I agree, but a CS should have some understanding of the functions of their tools. As in your quote, "astronomy is not about telescopes" but one would expect an astronomer to have a basic understanding of the principles of telescopes, radar, etc. Even with modern technology where an astronomer is sitting at a machine and looking at the data produced by the telescope, he should still comprehend tool related causes of aberrations in his data.

I'm not a CS, EE, or computer engineer, so I'm not completely knowledgeable about the subject, but I've worked with different systems that used ARM or embedded controllers that had to deal with interrupt requests.

In my experience they are becoming more specialized, but paradoxically more interconnected. My degree is in Materials Engineering, but to accomplish my job I'd often have to learn skills from other disciplines like chemistry, programming, and statistics. Mathematicians can't just rely on pencil and paper, they need to understand computers to accomplish their goals more efficiently and effectively. And a molecular biologist probably has an interest in learning about cows if it displays certain preferable characteristics that they look to understand and mimic.

You're probably right, but if that is the case, the person should have enough understanding to take a methodical approach to solving the problem, not just shrug their shoulders.
It shows the problem the original poster was talking about. Something that is relatively simple and widely used in the real world is ignored in formal academics.
Personally, I think there should be more time allotted for apprenticeships in college. The semester I missed to take an 8-month internship greatly complimented all the information I learned in school.

Mechanical watches are really just fancy pieces of jewelry. Their value has more to do with fashion and limited supply than quality or precision.

Go pixel-by-pixel? Damn you were lucky.
To get that one stick I'd have to type:

]Look
You see a pile of sticks
]Examine pile
You can't examine that you're not a doctor
]Look at pile
It's a pile of sticks
]Grab stick
There's dozens of them, which one do you want?
]Search Pile
You move the sticks around neatly spreading them out. One oddly shaped stick catches your eye
]Get oddly shaped stick
You tell the stick a joke, but it doesn't understand. Guess you just don't get each other
]Pick up stick
Now is not the time for games
]Pick up oddly shaped stick
You gather the oddly shaped stick and place it in your pocket. You get a sudden burst of intuition that it might be useful sometime in the future

Was thinking the same thing. Kickstarter seems to be where people who want to make late 80's-mid 90's type games.
The developers there are making spiritual successors to Master of Magic, Planescape: Torment, adventure games, and other retro genres.

Master of Magic = Civilization + Magic the Gathering - LOVED IT
There's a Kickstarter project called "Worlds of Magic" that is intended to be a spiritual successor to the original MoM

Dear Fellow Scientist,

It has come to our attention that you are looking to find an academic journal that not only presents the most cutting edge information, but one that embodies world class professionalism.
JCRS has a long history publishing innovative and informative articles that have furthered human knowledge in a number of disciplines. Among the organizations that subscribe to our journal are: Bethesda University of California, Bakke Graduate University, EUCON International College, and Pacific Islands University. These universities are all members of Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, which is recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
We are also pleased to include submissions from Bob Jones University. This is highly regarded institution who provides some of the leading curriculums for children in home schools, and has been approved for some state funded schools in the state of Louisiana.

Thank you for your time and we look forward to providing you with some of the most sophisticated research available

Best Regards,

Dr. Flat Earth

I'd expect somebody in the computer field to tinker around with machines, and it's not like IRQs are windows 98 specific and are never used anymore.
I might not expect a biologist to be able to milk a cow, but they should at least have an idea where the milk comes from.

To play devil's advocate, it seems that those running this project don't fully understand the problems of order fulfillment
If they are shipping from overseas (I'm assuming since the alternative is sending by boat), you run into customs and logistics issues. There are all sorts of crazy limitations, duties, paperwork and other overhead when transporting commercial goods by air that are minimized when you send by sea. For example there are seemingly arbitrary container requirements for shipping certain items by air, which limits how much you can get on each flight. Then there are restrictions on the number of units/volume a plane can take based on the classification of the goods and the type of flight that is carrying it. Additional headaches are proportional to the value of commercial goods being handled, the more valuable the shipment, the more hoops you have to jump through for the authorities.
Most people don't run into issues because the value and quantities they ship are small.

The insanity of commercial shipping obviously is going to be compounded when you have business customers that require you to coordinate their deliveries at the same time. Otherwise one retailer will be pissed off that their competitor got product before them.

I'm also a watch geek and I like the functionality of electronic and modern tech watches (I own a meta watch that I like to mess around with).
However, I have a special appreciation for classic mechanical watches. I think it's the mixture of art and engineering that intrigues me. They are also much more stylish, though I think smart watches will eventually catch up in this regard.

Sad how far Sonic has fallen. Did anybody think "Sonic Tour of the Brain" would be any good at all?
Yeah it's better than Sonic GBA, but still it's terrible