Every month or two since 2009, someone has sent me a copy of a particular comic from the webcomic Cowbirds in Love. Here is today’s example, from @benk_at_work on twitter:
Sigh.
There is, of course, only one appropriate way to respond in a situation like this: with another comic.
Back in 2011, I wrote an era-appropriate semi-autobiographical rage comic, that I could use as a standard response when people sent me that comic.
Joking aside, we really do spend a lot of our time engineering— and many of our friends and colleagues are bona fide engineers. On the other hand, I love to cook, but that doesn’t make me a chef either.
The problem with the original comic isn’t its failure to understand the boundary between science and engineering. The problem is an epic failure to understand mad scientists.
Seriously.. asking a mad scientist to expound on the principles that make their death ray work? That’s like asking a typhoon for moisture. Monologuing is the defining feature of the class. You have to shoot them a few times to make them shut up.
A writer who can’t crank out a rant long enough to make Ayn Rand say, “enough already,” has no business talking about mad scientists *or* engineers.