On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 21:42:45 -0500, Tom Watson wrote:

We've all bought bolts and nuts.

If you are like me, you don't think much about them.


Amazing stuff some of the things we take for granted or consider just
plain boring.

.... snip

I never did - until last Friday.

.... snip

Damn - assumptions are wild and terrible things.


I have two signs up at my cubicle at work:

"Assumptions are the mother of all screwups" and

"When looking for a reason as to why things went wrong, never rule out
sheer stupidity"


.... more snip
"It ain't rocket science"

Damned near is.


Nothing is as simple as it looks. Stuff we take for granted or think of
as simple, usually isn't.

.... snip

I finally did learn enough to be able to write to the Chinese engineer
guy in language that I hope is acceptable to him, which quoted a bunch
of standards, engineering tables, accepted tolerances, etc., etc.,
etc., - which ultimately came down to the fact that, "Your friggin'
hole is too big and your threads fit sloppy".


Lots o' work for a short summary, eh. But that's the best, most elegant
solutions: Lots of initial investigation allowing one to boil it all down
to a simple, succinct result.

.... snip

(watson - who thinks he now has a handle on why the engineering boys
at college didn't go out much on the weekends.)

... ayup, it wasn't because we weren't interested -- just always
finishing that homework assignment (engineering profs always believed that
because it was a weekend, there was that much more time to do more work),
getting ready for the next exam (which never bore even the remotest
resemblance to the material we had studied), or getting ready for finals
(which never bore any resemblence to either any of the previous course
material nor the previous exams). Lots o' fun it was.

... and then went and signed on to get a Master's degree.



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If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

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