You Might Be an Engineer

The top 0001 0100 signs that you might be an engineer….

1. You have no life and you can prove it mathematically.
2. You’ve actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
3. You chuckle whenever someone says “centrifugal force”.
4. You know vector calculus but you can’t remember how to do long division.
5. The sales people at the local computer store can”t answer any of your questions.
6. You bring a computer manual / technical journal as vacation reading.
7. You know the glass is neither half full nor half empty; it’s simply twice as big as it needs to be.
8. You think in “math”.
9. You consider ANY non-engineering course “easy”.
10. You can translate English into Binary.
11. A three year old asks why the sky is blue and you try to explain atmospheric absorption theory.
12. It is sunny and 70 degrees outside, and you are working on a computer.
13. At an air show you know how fast the skydivers are falling.
14. You can recite the value of pi to one hundred digits.
15. You have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work.
16. The “fun” center of your brain has deteriorated from lack of use.
17. You carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of a test that only takes five minutes to run.
18. You can type 70 words per minute but you can’t read your own handwriting.
19. You assume that a “horse” is a “sphere” in order to make the math easier.
20. You understood more than five of these jokes.

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The Exponential Function

I have been too busy with school lately to write anything. So here is some filler content, my favorite math joke.

The cocky exponential function e^x is strolling along the road insulting the functions he sees walking by. He scoffs at a wandering polynomial for the shortness of its Taylor series. He snickers at a passing smooth function of compact support and its glaring lack of a convergent power series about many of its points. He positively laughs as he passes |x| for being nondifferentiable at the origin. He smiles, thinking to himself, “Damn, it’s great to be e^x. I’m real analytic everywhere. I’m my own derivative. I blow up faster than anybody and shrink faster too. All the other functions suck.”

Lost in his own egomania, he collides with the constant function 3, who is running in terror in the opposite direction.

“What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you look where you’re going?” demands e^x. He then sees the fear in 3’s eyes and says “You look terrified!”

“I am!” says the panicky 3. “There’s a differential operator just around the corner. If he differentiates me, I’ll be reduced to nothing! I’ve got to get away!” With that, 3 continues to dash off.

“Stupid constant,” thinks e^x. “I’ve got nothing to fear from a differential operator. He can keep differentiating me as long as he wants, and I’ll still be there.”

So he scouts off to find the operator and gloat in his smooth glory. He rounds the corner and defiantly introduces himself to the operator. “Hi. I’m e^x.”

“Hi. I’m d / dy.”

Courtesy of Komplexify

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Auburn vs Alabama

Well, the greatest game of the year has come and gone. It seems that Saban, the god of Alabama according to Bama fans, could not conjure up any sizable miracles for this meeting. But there were a few instances of divine intervention during the game. One that stands out was the pass interference call which eventually led to Alabama’s only touchdown. Even Helen Keller would call bullshit on that penalty.While it is always glorious when Auburn wins, nothing can quite compare with how sweet the tears of the “Sabanation” taste. What I find amusing though, is that the Textbook 5 were re-instated for the game.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The NCAA reinstated five Alabama players who were suspended for improper receipt of textbooks, making them eligible for the regular-season finale at Auburn.

The NCAA ruling followed a report submitted this week by the university regarding its ongoing investigation into the case.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

If Alabama had any decency the players would have received much stiffer punishments. In all honesty though, I can’t frown only upon Alabama for having these miscreants on their team, a lot of athletic programs these days conveniently over look this sort of delinquent behavior when winning is on the line. But, that is another topic in itself for another day.

In case anybody happened to miss Saban’s eloquent rant last week regarding Alabama’s recent losses, here is a recap:

Coach Nick Saban described the humbling defeat in almost apocalyptic terms Monday, mentioning the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Pearl Harbor in talking about how his team must rebound like America did from a “catastrophic event.”

“Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event,” Saban said. “It may be 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, and that was a catastrophic event.”

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

Wow, I am giddy with anticipation for his upcoming remarks regarding the Auburn game. Maybe he can find something even more inappropriate to compare it to! Nevertheless, Bama fans will manage to pull some excuse out of their asses regarding the loss. With all sincerity, I don’t know if I am more ecstatic about the outcome of the game or the fact that Brandon Cox is finally gone after this season.

Six in a row!

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Courteous Shopping

Black Friday seems to be a fitting day for this post.

You know what makes me so mad that I could slap a nun? People that turn into a botched lobotomy recipient as soon as they enter a shopping store. In case they haven’t noticed, there are other people in the store trying to shop as well. From my experience Wal-Mart seems to claim responsibility for the majority of these knuckle dragging wastes of space. Here is a novel concept, your shopping cart is not the USS Eisenhower, so please don’t turn that son-of-a-bitch sideways in the middle of the aisle like you are coming in to dock. I understand you may be having trouble making the most important decision of your day about which snacky cake will taste the best when you inhale it, but for the love of god please leave more than a six inch gap for me to squeeze my shopping cart through.

Every time some retarded swamp donkey deems it necessary stop right in front of me in the middle of the store like a beached whale, it’s a struggle of biblical proportions to resist the urge of stabbing them in one of their sweat covered fat rolls on the back of their neck with one of my car keys. I often wonder if these cruel jokes of mother nature are really this oblivious to their surroundings or if they just don’t give a shit.

I realize that the two-way radio on your cellphone is really cool and everything, and that there is some self fulfilling need to let the rest of the world know that you have one, but that bastard has a private button for a reason. I have no problem with someone talking on their phone while shopping, but I don’t want to listen to Bubba tell you all about the sweet deal he got on his naked lady mud flaps at trade day this morning. Nobody wants to hear that shit.

Have some courtesy for other people please.

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The Chain of Stupidity

You know what makes me so mad that I could punch a kitten? The fact that some people still haven’t figure out how a traffic light operates. I mean come on, it’s really not that hard. While it does piss me off when some douche bag can’t seem to find the gas pedal because they are too busy text messaging, daydreaming, or just simply being a dumbass, the situation is exacerbated when more than one of these mistakes of nature are in the same lane. You know what I am talking about. You are about fifteen cars back and the light has been green for what feels like an eternity, yet you haven’t moved an inch. I like to call this “the chain of stupidity”. The time it takes to start moving increases exponentially for every asshole not paying attention between you and the light.

While I am sitting at a green light awaiting my turn in the “chain”, I make it my mission to press the gas as soon as the otter toothed sweat hog in front of me finally decides to start moving. But, what really sends me into a grandmother slapping rage is when the dipshit ahead of me believes idle speed is a sufficient rate of acceleration. Have some courtesy, the slower you go, the fewer cars can make it through the light. I don’t have any tangible data to support my theory, but I seriously believe this group of bottom feeders to be the same people that can’t be bothered by using a blinker.

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