h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Urban Dictionary offers one definition of an enginerd as someone who applies scientific knowledge to practical problems. I was wondering if anyone else does this.

When I say apply science to practical problems, I mean consciously, deliberately using the principles involved to solve your problem. I don't mean somehting like "I noticed the floor was dirty, so I used a mahcine which created a vacuum to suck all the dirt up."

An example of what I am talking about is an incident that happened today. My bike's rear wheel had been feeling weird all day, and it turned out it needed to be relubricated. When this was done, my hands were all greasy, and remembering last time this had happened, I did not want to use water as this was singularly inneffective.

Methylated spirits apparently work quite well, but the only meth I had in the house specifically said to keep away from skin. Eventually, I considered washing up liquid, since the detergent molecules are amphoteric - in other words, they are attracted to water at one end and repelled by it at the other. Since oil is also repelled by water, I figured washing up liquid applied straight to my hands would dissolve the grease - and it did! My hands were cleamn in no time.

Anyone else got a story like that?

You don't need to be a nerd to figure out that washing up liquid gets grease off things - that's what it's for. Nanette Newman et al have been telling us that for years

Whatever happened to Nanette Newman ?

Was her last major film role in The Stepford Wives ?

You don't need a special word "enginerding" for applying science to real life problems. There's already a word for it "engineering". That's what all engineers do, all the time. Engineers are simply people who apply science to the real world, solving problems and making the world a better place as they go.

You'd never guess that I'm an engineer, would you?

And Nanette Newman anyone ?

Dunno what happened to Nanette Newman, but I bet most people don't know she's listed as doing backing vocals on The Stones' 'You can't always get what you wan't.'

Nanette Newman now writes really good childrens books and the odd coookery book!

Blimey... I did wonder what had happened to her!

PS - coookery? Is that Lancashire for cookery?

Got to agree with Gnomon though... it's just engineering and applying knowledge.

That's like using the principles of leverage and knowing material strengths to create an engine lift out of your garage doors, propped open by spare parts, several lengths of scaffolding bar and their fixings, a big pulley and some rope - which me and my dad did once to get the engine out of a Volvo 340 .

I get amazed that people have lost the link between engineering and every day life - you wouldn't have cars, cookers, washing machines, electricity, gas, even clothes, without engineers .

Don't you call it coookery? Must be a Scottish thing!!!!

I had a quick nosy at Amazon and she's written even more books than even I thought!! My neices and nephew have lots of her books and love 'em.

[Broken link removed by Moderator]

Oooooh, that didn't work!!!

I'm having a blonde day today!!!

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Deakie, I've just yikesed your two last posts cos I think they break the House Rule about unsuitable links to commercial websites. The Mods might not agree with me and may well leave the posts untouched, or they might simply remove the url and leave the rest of the post as it is.

Here's why:
"Only include suitable URLs in your contributions. Links to websites we consider unsuitable will be removed, so if you are considering contributing something that contains a URL, please make sure that it adds value and interest to the subject of your entry, and isn't, for example, purely commercial."
<./>HouseRules</.>

I'm finding parts of that section of the HRs a bit vague and I've posted to Editorial Feedback for clarification here if you want to follow the convo F47997?thread=1581888&post=18351206#p18351206

Bloody hell, that was quick

Is there another, less commercial page you can find that has a list of the fragrant Miss Newman's books?

"figured washing up liquid applied straight to my hands would dissolve the grease - and it did!"


For really filthy hands, add sugar!

I use washing up liquid with no water when I've been making essential oils to get rid of the oil.

No probs, BH . I just googled Nanette and that was the first thing that appeared! I didn't think about the advertising aspect of it, I was just surprised that she'd written quite so many books!!!

Swarfega's the stuff if you get oiled up regularly. Doesn't seem to dry out your hands, like washingup liquid. Actually feels like it moisturises them. I'd love to know how that stuff works. And I love it's weird jelly like consistancy!

Tufanega! Yeah! That's the stuff you really want.

The full definition of 'enginerd' in the Urban Dictionary (the 'official' definition, if we take that to be the one with the most supporting votes) is as follows :

'A person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems, and is felt to be socially inept. This person can also portray symptoms of a large ego, knowledge of too many keyboard shortcuts, and overall addiction to his/her computer. Most are in denial of their enginerdiness'

So that's quite a few of us, right?

Erm.... yeah

I know a brilliant example - his knowledge of PCB construction and RF signals and suchlike meant he was able to build *from scratch* his own satellite decoder .

Now *that's* enginerding

As a card carrying geek, dork, nerd, dwebe and smart-ass bas#$rd, I must say that the criteria applied to the definition of"enginerd" apply to anyone of reasonable intelligence who has stretched beyond social boundaries in search of real substance, either socially or scientific ally.

everyone should have an enginerd as a best mate.....

someone who's only too happy to list off a ream of possible soloutions to your problem (you know the problem.. you're sitting at your ** (insert any electronic device here)** with wires and sockets everywhere, crying with frustration .. the operation manual is in broken english and has a list of the items and then a picture of the finished product and a massive paragraph telling you, in a japanese accent, how to put it together...

(in 24 days this will be me..).. i have a few of these people i can call upon in such times of desperation and i bow down to their superior knowledge..