Management vs. Engineering (or any other technical discipline)

 
The Balloonist

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a man out walking below. He descended a bit more and shouted: "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don't know where I am."

The man below replied: "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground, between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an Engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the man, "how did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist: "Everything you have told me is probably technically correct. But I've no idea what to make of your information and the fact is, I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip by your talk."

The man below responded, "Ah, you must be in Management."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

The man replied: "Well, you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep. You expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met. But now, somehow, it's all supposed to be my fault."
 

Fun for lexophiles

 
I have learned a couple foreign languages in my time with varying degrees of success - I found French pretty easy but struggled with German grammar rules (and Irish was just awful). That said, I don't envy ANYBODY having to learn English as a foreign language and contend with so many subtleties, nuances and exceptions. Here are just some examples :-)

1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

2. A will is a dead giveaway.

3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

4. A backward poet writes inverse.

5. A chicken crossing the road; poultry in motion.

6. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

7. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

8. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

9. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

10. A calendar's days are numbered.

11. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

12. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

13. The short fortune teller who escaped from prison; a small medium at large.

14. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

15. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen the mall.

16. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

17. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

18. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

19. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

20. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

21. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He had too much pi.

22. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

23. She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.

24. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

25. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

26. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

27. Two silk worms had a race; they ended up in a tie.

28. A hole has been found in a nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

29. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

30. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

31. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center: "Keep off the Grass."

32. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, "no change yet."

33. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

34. Don't join dangerous cults; practice safe sects.
 

Cheap flights (Keeping the air fair - part 3)

 
Delightfully satirical ditty by singing/cabaret group, Fascinating Aida (wikipedia) (official site). Says it all really... can you guess who they're on about?


 

Life's rules

 
An e-rumour attributed the following comments to Bill Gates in an alleged speech to a group of US high school graduates. In fact they are the work of Charles Sykes and excerpted from his book 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn In School. He makes some interesting commentary on how feel-good, politically correct teachings have created a generation of kids with no concept of reality (personally I would also include respect and "fear") and how this concept sets them up for failure in the real world.

• Rule #1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

• The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

• You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

• If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

• Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.

• If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault. So don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

• Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

• Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

• Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

• Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

• Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

 

iStuff

 
Really bad joke that made me chuckle :-)

Got my son an iPhone for his birthday the other week, recently got my daughter an iPod for hers, was dead chuffed when the family clubbed together and bought me an iPad for Father’s Day. Got my wife an iRon for her birthday and it was around then that the fighting started...