A background that prizes intelligence, critical thinking, and physical excellence above all, ironically. It's paid off in spades for members of my family, being predominantly engineers, doctors, and officers, some members being two of the three.

And to answer the former of your two questions, no, I can't recall ever venting on an inanimate object. Seems rather childish. Do you throw your console controller to the ground when you lose a match in a video game? Perhaps you pound your keyboard when you are behind schedule on an assignment? Or maybe you hurl a hockey stick at the ground when you've lost a match?

There is a limited number of occasions which may call for violence, self-defense being the only one I've ever had to use to justify my actions. Child-like tantrums and rage? Not so much.

You may be confusing belief in imaginary nonsense with the figure of speech known as apostrophe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(figure_of_speech)

Can't recall ever thinking that an inanimate bottle cap is somehow venting some sort of rage against me by magically altering its physical properties such as hardness and tensile strength just so lucky ol' me has a hard time removing it from the bottle to which it is affixed. Can't say I've ever understood this primitive "instinct" that inorganic material objects somehow develop personalities and violate the fundamental laws of physics just to vex me of all beings. I call BS.

That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!

It matters a lot. My fridge, dishwasher, and car can all be repaired by hand. It's nice to be an engineer with knowledge and experience in the trades. Also, my BB and Nokia phones don't become useless after a single short fall.

I recall bringing up a hypothetical question along the lines of this topic only 2 months ago. What if some drunken lowlife crashes into your car and you lose an arm?

Let's say the jury only awards you a measly $200,000 for a ruined life, and you are a professional who relies on you being in full control of your body (ie: surgeon, engineer, optician) and your annual salary is close to the court-awarded amount. What if a bionic prosthesis is available that could get you back into your old profession again, but costs $5,000,000. What is your stance on the drunkard being forced to work for the rest of their life and pass on the debt to his/her descendants to pay off the procedure?

I, for one, would love to see this sort of scenario play out (not the injury to the victim of a drunk driver). We are approaching the point where certain physical harm CAN be repaid, but at much higher a cost than juries would normally approve of.

I generally tend to agree with this sentiment, save for the case of my current employer, with whom I've stuck around for several years. First time I've worked in an environment where all managers have bachelors and masters degrees in engineering, physics, or biochem; and either a Ph.D. in engineering or an MBA. Best place I've ever worked at, and could not be any closer to the polar opposite of the typical Dilbert-style office.

Doesn't your university offer coops or internships? A few months of work in industry should help, even if the wage is shit.

No no, I agree. You can attempt to make measurements before 2 hours have passed, but they will be wildly inaccurate.

So would this be ShiverBurn or FreezeFlame I? So long as I don't have to run up the volcano without touching lava once, I think I'll be fine.

And I, for one, would just like to say: "Welcome, new a galaxy!!"

That is correct sir!

http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/

The Facebook program was FOUNDED by the CIA. Sheesh!!!

The capacitor banks in certain analysis instruments (ie: high precision impedance analyzers) take at least two hours before they are ready to take measurements. The primary reason is that they have to build up the power slowly to avoid stressing the components. Also, they don't want to introduce too much ripple or overshoot, so the charging circuit is effectively overdamped, and has virtually no ripple when fully charged.

Why something that just pumps out such large amounts of juice needs that long a startup cycle though, I have no idea. My best guess is limitations on the components themselves. Maybe the energy storage elements suffer from charging too quickly, or maybe it has to store plenty of energy in advance to maintain a full-power beam over extended periods of time.

Ahh. Well, in that case, I'll concede on that point.

SLapt-get does the job just fine.

Source plus CheckInstall if you want to manually build from source.

Slack-current via FTP/HTTP/torrent if you want something newer than the latest official release.

@swanzilla: For all I know, the boastful statement I made (after reviewing the thread a few hours later) probably irked a number of readers. Sure, I could have reworded it in a third-person perspective, but I'm not going to lie about a friend doing so well in my place just so I don't annoy less fortunate readers. That is a pretty harsh assumption on your part though. Most engineers I know are socially adept, athletic, and happy with their respective lots in life.

@phantomfive: I know that I'm not helping my case any, but I've been pulling in just shy of six figures since age 25, as is the case with a handful of close friends. Also, we all do straight-up engineering work, not sales, management, etc. I think that settling on that is a very acceptable deal at such an age. Also, each of us did our own independent business start-ups during our early undergrad years (we met up at a business plan competition), so we did more than just drink beer in our spare time during our undergrad years.

It really drives me bonkers when I read post after post on /. where there is a general sentiment that engineers are chumps that pull in minimal pay, and sales/marketing/management types take home the big bucks. If people are willing to teach themselves additional skills (ie: a new spoken language, business plans, speeches and presentations, extracurricular technical skills) during their regular degree program, they will excel far beyond their peers. In the case of my friends and I, we effectively flew past about a decade of climbing up the corporate ladder thanks to enduring a few years of hell.

Yes, I'm aware that a halfhearted acknowledgement of one boastful post by replying with another doesn't really serve to boost my karma points, but I have plenty to spare, and I stand by my earlier comments. Learn something well, reap the benefits.

Considering I generally host generously and travel a fair bit, yes. Go back under your bridge.