Regarding the 3D printing, check out the American Ceramics Society Bulletin this month. Their cover story is a nice intro to the topic. The common terminology in the field is "additive manufacturing", although there are several forms of it such as fused deposition modeling, laser sintering, etc.

No one has ever been misunderestimated more often than Detective Colombo, my wife's favorite TV character.

Biofuels won't scale up for $ unless you make chemicals from them. Biofuels are revenue neutral, but they could be used as a backup or interim to anything that Galt or Ellis Wyatt might do longer term in Atlantis.

FIT does have an online graduate program, too.

Lockheed Martin might not be an ideal Gulch job, but maybe a good Shrug job given that they do a lot of looting through their military contracts.

Lockheed Martin is hiring here in FL right now.

I'll add you to the list. I don't have a whole lot that EE's like yourself would be interested in in the newsletter. I sent the newsletter out yesterday. Download http://my.fit.edu/~jbrenner/aiche033114....
for yesterday's newsletter. I'll have you on the list for next weekend's issue.

I will. I considered going to FIT. "won't cost me any more work" = "no me cuesta más trabajo". I lived in FL for 20 years. Many FL sayings sound more natural to me in Spanish, probably b/c of the Spanish-speaking population there. I'm from Madison, but I spent some formative years in FL.

Outfoxing the looters sounds like something Ragnar might do. The book said that we probably wouldn't need any judges in the Gulch. However, we do have need in the Gulch discussions of an arbitrator on occasion. Up for it?

Oh, you're gonna love TIG... the possibilities are endless, the welds amazing, and once you've got it down, the work is pretty pretty stuff, kinda like welding art! ;-)

we here have recently added a tig welder to the fold, which is a wonderful machine (Eastwood, so we could afford it) ... you must have lots of fun!

If I could give > 1 thumbs up, I would do so to Plusaf here. As a non-electrical engineer who didn't do significant electrical work prior to grad school and then had to wire an entire lab full of experiments, I learned how to solder properly from the guy who forced me to take all of my electrical tape off and put heat shrink tubing on instead. I now buy used lab equipment on EBay and LabX and repair it myself rather than write grant proposals like my colleagues. They look at me as odd, but that is the handicap I put on myself so as to not be a moocher.

The key to electrical soldering is to cut your wire on a 30 degree angle to get the wire tip sharp. Interestingly, something very similar to that is important in "cutting" Pt/Ir wire for scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tips for my nanotech minor that I will have the webinar for next Thursday. However, instead of cutting the wire for STM, you need to actually pull the wire at the 30 degree angle.

ok, what the hell...

One of my first jobs was a 'maintenance man' (or janitor) at a community pool I'd belonged to as a member previously. Great education on how people perceive you based on your job.

Spent a few summers as a technician at Lockheed Electronics in NJ, helping test circuits and implement solutions in a massive test system they were building for the US Navy. Pissed off more than a few engineers by solving problems they'd been beating their heads against the wall, pretty much by observing them and asking a few questions.

Quality Control inspector at what might have been the birthplace of Gavin Electronics. After a short time, I proposed to management that I could/should TEACH some of the assemblers 'how to solder' so that I wouldn't have to send so many parts back for rework. Almost taught myself out of that job before returning to college.

Semiconductor Applications engineer on power transistor components and circuits. Envisioned and helped build several pieces of test equipment which became 'lab standards' for our group so people would stop arguing over which test method gave the most accurate and 'true' readings. Mine. Collaborated with a team to build a multiple-testing unit which, interestingly enough, we called "The Galt 1 Test Set." We had several AR fans in the department, including the guy who introduced me to AS.

Then, marketing engineer for a power semiconductor line starting up at a company in Silicon Valley. Manufacturing couldn't fab a stable product and I came close to being fired when the field sales teams criticized me for 'writing bad specifications' for the product.

Moved to another division back when an entire division could be focused on computer terminals. In a few months I helped write several parts of a service manual for a forthcoming terminal as well help the design guys change some innards to make servicing faster and easier. Final coup was to discover, on my own, the root cause of a problem which had been costing millions of dollars in repairs and service calls on one particular model of our terminals. Unfortunately, for my solution, the product was being obsoleted by then. Should have started earlier.

Moved into Sales Support and product training for a minicomputer division and participated in the evolution from 16-bit computing to 32-bit architecture as well as RISC. Got lots of plaques and awards for being 'best teacher' over several years.

Was morphed into Product Manager on the sales side in 'the factory' for most of the RISC sub-product lines. Gave wonderful product overviews for major customers and sales reps. Something about being honest about what I knew and didn't know and trusting customers to understand that 'our plans may change, but this is what they are now...' , unlike most of the marketing folks creating the new products. Had lots of battles with management over that.

Offered a 'too good' retirement package and went home in 2002. Designed and had several home remodeling things built... a custom deck, kitchen layout and family room design. Then, of course, sold the house and moved to NC.

Designed my woodturning workshop for the crawl space under the house and helped solve some construction problems during the build, and for the past 3-4 years have been doing wood turning. When i'm not doing small maintenance and repairs around the house.

My forte's have tended to be Pattern Recognition suitable for problem identification and solution and good Visualization Skills for picturing the solution and helping implement it.

Virtually nobody seeks me out for such help, though I've become a sort of guru/consultant over the years for friends and neighbors.

Living off investment income and savings and Social Security now, doing anything I damned well please and not depending on anyone (else) for anything.

I love brainstorming and helping find solutions to problems, though I also have a poor record for 'implementation.' Good part of a team if you can stand occasional impatience and bluntness.

Owned a website I called "Blunt Consulting" for a while, as a lark.

Oh, and I like blogging and participating in conversations online. Particularly where I can ask questions other folks don't ask or downright don't WANT to be asked!

Oh, one more thing, sir.... Detective Colombo drove an old Peugeot...or was a Reneault... I forget. He certainly blended in though.

I went on strike 25/4/2007 from a career in student accommodation management.
Though the actual moment was when having shrugged from that role and actually taking a week of holiday with the children, i took them to a poor suburb in our major city and our spending money was stolen on day one. What did it for me was the accom receptionist telling me the poor people would make good use of it.

I made a deliberate plan in shrugging to reinvent manager-me into an administrator.

Now i am a low level admin.

In the gulch i would be with Susanne producing the food in the garden. Not mucking about with pretty flowers. Growing food. we need her bees.

And if you kill the meat i will gut and dress and cook it.

If you want to compete - race me. I do a mean 5km and 10km by foot and a not-bad orienteer. On the day of the worst of our earthquakes i did a shit load of running. Then i ran home. Cars and buses sure werent going anywhere. I did.

I know lots of us are into engines, but, y'know.... Feet.

Is it time for a musical lock tuned to the oath?

I have them. They are not unattractive, horizontal and I think maybe they are more for hurricanes. no matter. I feel safer. but you are only as safe in your house as the weakest spot. as db tells clients about patents, you realize locks can be compromised, right?

I'll go from Systems Engineering/Enterprise Architecture to Bee Keeping, no problem.

You do see bars on windows in some cities. In Florida where I am at, there are some gated communities, and a few people put hurricane panels on the windows, but nothing like what is in other places in the world.

Wow! I haven't seen a Citroen since I went to Europe in 1984!

Although technically "retired", my husband, a CPA, and I are always busy. He continues to work three days a week in finance for an international manufacturer. He says he does not know what else he would do. However, he still tills a mean garden, while I freeze the products. In the past we have added a raised covered cedar deck to our homes, ourselves. This year, we went Usonian and redid our kitchen walls in cedar and stone, he does good woodworking. I do mean stone work. That finished, he changed the color of the soffits while I did the same with all the window frames. Before I retired, I worked in computers, then in accounting and finally in journalism. We still run a very small business at home for accounting, where I am the IT person.
My dad always said "Don't own anything you can't work on." Well, cars have moved beyond the days I changed my old Vette's breather element, but the philosophy is a good one. The more we can and are willing to tackle, the more we are free. I also am the toilet fixer. I sew also.
In a the Gulch, I would be known as one who spreads the word about history repeating itself if one fails to remember it, while doing anything that needs done. My husband is the same way. Need it done, he is there to give it a try.

Economics and poli science instructor...now!
Fruit tree tender, grafter and pruner. Would be willing to teach the new generation.

Pre-moocher - worked in a number of private businesses. Unfortunately, most of the owners were not business minded, and shops fell more often than not. Tried a couple times to float a loan to buy the failing shops, but the banks said I was too young or too inexperienced, and my folks told me that since most businesses fail, I was better off... (Ahhh, were I not so young, and especially naïve, eh??)

So, to keep me from that "folly", my folks applied some pull, called in a few favors and got for me a civil service career position, where, of course, I started as labor - yes, the poor downtrodden abused union member - started making friends and applying my own pull from favors, and mooched my way to Supervisor.

Then... thank God... I found a copy of a book I'd been "forbidden" to read as "subversive" in High School. Overnight (almost literally - I'm a fast reader!) , it absolutely shook me to my core, changed me in ways I had forgotten over the previous decades... it was my mirror, and I saw within it what I had become, and what had to change, much as meeting Hank Rearden changed Tony.

Fast forward to Now. I *do* still work in Civil Service, tho as a producer, not a moocher (something I'm *very* proud of, BTW.) We (my other half and I) took our "retirement savings" and bought an 1870's forge (and 1970's cabin) and using skills I learned decades ago working for other people, I started a small side business repairing (and making) custom machinery. It is slowly but steadily growing, and in the meanwhile, we've taken up Beekeeping for fun and the sweet gold of Honey, with the intent of a meadery later this season... We're expanding the "forge" to take on new projects (most recently, pre-war car and machinery repairs - fun stuff!) and the dollars are growing.

Some look forward to retirement as a time to sit back, collect the free money, and spend their waning years in relaxation and idleness... I look forward to it as it will give more time to plunge our business ahead, at light speed, into a prosperous and profitable future. ;-)

neil, my man! you can teach me bridge any day...my attention span is a leetle short

I'm pushing 65 and semi-retired, currently own two duplicate bridge clubs. I can certainly continue in that vein, directing and teaching the game, as well as other careers I've had in the past: chauffeur, sailing captain and instructor, commercial pilot with multi-engine and instrument ratings, photo-journalist, television producer, radio producer and DJ, musician (sax, clarinet, piano, guitar, and bass) and stage actor. I'm also a certified firearms instructor, and if there's a need for it, I have enough firearms and ammo to supply a decent-sized platoon. (Or a crew of pirates!)