What do you do at your job?

[jhoneycutt]

Some of yall have really cool jobs. I'm a flatbed truck driver... I was a crew leader for industrial cleaning company at a power plant. And 13b in the army before that though.

 

[hunter_le five]

I own a heating and air company. you may think owning a company means sitting around doing nothing. far from the truth. I work twice as much as my guys. I would love to hire a manager to do my job, but it is so hard to trust someone else to run something it took you 4 years to build up to actually being prophetable.

Word. My FIL owns a small HVAC company. He makes good money at it, but is always complaining about the workload and stress. Has mentioned selling the business several times so he can do something else.

It's tough when not only do you have to spend time doing the same grunt work that your employees do, but also have to wear other hats such as employee supervisor, business manager, marketing, bookkeeping, payroll, and all the other behind the scenes stuff required to actually run a business.

He's tried hiring managers that can take over a lot of that for him, but as you say, finding someone who is reliable and can be trusted is hard. It seems like in that industry, anyone who could successfully "run" an HVAC business for you could *almost* as easily (and would rather) start and run their own.

 

[m00ps]

We intercept photons that, 13.7 billion years ago, happened be heading in our direction from a point 13.7 billion light years away.

Dude, there's no such thing as billions of years ago. Jebus, read a bible...

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Created products for the telecommunication industry/ special effects for movies and audio editing which our team won an Oscar and Academy Award/ Playstation 4,nintendo, xbox and probably your smartphone/ mil aero for jets, tanks, helicopters and aircraft carriers. Currently working on new technology for autonomous cars, aircraft, motorcycles and the Robot Uprising.

 

[Rhumbline]

You're forgetting the expansion of the universe

Are you suggesting the universe expanded at greater than the speed of light? In that case, wouldn't we still be in the dark?

And don't bring religion into this. The mods will have to scrub the posts and we're not letting you off that easily.

 

[j1n]

i surf the internet and post on forums.

 

[MonkeyBot]

Are you suggesting the universe expanded at greater than the speed of light? In that case, wouldn't we still be in the dark?

And don't bring religion into this. The mods will have to scrub the posts and we're not letting you off that easily.

As far as I'm aware, yes the expansion of the universe was at some times greater than the speed of light. Also when I say "expansion of the universe" I don't mean matter flying out into a void after an explosion, there was more actual space being created causing distances between objects to increase which is what allows this to be possible.

I'm just an interested layman though, for a quick primer read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space

And now back to people's jobs!

 

[Biscuits]

I work at a 5-sided building in the Capitol region...and I post on HBT while I am at work.

 

[m00ps]

Are you suggesting the universe expanded at greater than the speed of light? In that case, wouldn't we still be in the dark?

And don't bring religion into this. The mods will have to scrub the posts and we're not letting you off that easily.

Sorry, sometimes my sarcasm doesnt get through to people

 

[Newsman]

Are you suggesting the universe expanded at greater than the speed of light? In that case, wouldn't we still be in the dark?

And don't bring religion into this. The mods will have to scrub the posts and we're not letting you off that easily.

There was a HUGE expansion of space during the big bang. I studied this back in college, before a lot of the "cool" stuff was known. Basically space went from smaller than the head of a pin to THOUSANDS of light-years in size in a micro-second. The way I understand it, there was nothing but glowing vapor for millions of years before space actually became "space" with stuff the size of grains of sand that eventually clumped together to make planets, galaxies, etc.
The CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) is basically the "echo" of the big-bang. And yes, space is expanding at something approaching the speed of light. There are galaxies that we can no longer see in visible light because the light they produced has shifted (think a train horn coming and going) so far that it is now no longer visible light. Instead it is radio waves.
Mind blowing! I keep up with this stuff via Discovery.com and other semi-technical sites that are able to dumb down the science to a level where I can understand it.

 

[bruteforce]

Which lab? What data?

Sandia national labs. Pretty cool place, but I can't really talk about the data.

 

[Newsman]

Sorry, sometimes my sarcasm doesnt get through to people

Yeah, you forgot your <SARCASM> and </SARCASM> tags on your OP.

 

[PlexVector]

Aren't all the photons emitted (from the big bang) on the edge of the universe heading away from us?

Think of it more like the photons are emitted by the particles that are heading away from and toward us. Like each particle is a light bulb shinning in all directions.

 

[Rhumbline]

The whole idea reminds me of...

GUARD #1: Where'd you get the coconut?
ARTHUR: We found them.
GUARD #1: Found them? In Mercea? The coconut's tropical!
ARTHUR: What do you mean?
GUARD #1: Well, this is a temperate zone.
ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin
or the plumber may seek warmer climes in winter yet these are not
strangers to our land.
GUARD #1: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
ARTHUR: Not at all, they could be carried.
GUARD #1: What -- a swallow carrying a coconut?
ARTHUR: It could grip it by the husk!
GUARD #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple
question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound
coconut.
ARTHUR: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master
that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here.
GUARD #1: Listen, in order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow
needs to beat its wings 43 times every second, right?
ARTHUR: Please!
GUARD #1: Am I right?
ARTHUR: I'm not interested!
GUARD #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!
GUARD #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European
swallow, that's my point.
GUARD #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that...
ARTHUR: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court
at Camelot?!
GUARD #1: But then of course African swallows are not migratory.
GUARD #2: Oh, yeah...
GUARD #1: So they couldn't bring a coconut back anyway...
[clop clop]
GUARD #2: Wait a minute -- supposing two swallows carried it together?
GUARD #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line.
GUARD #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a standard creeper!
GUARD #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
GUARD #2: Well, why not?

Back to the topic of prior jobs, I spent a few years as a nuclear arms control inspector, made several trips to the Soviet Union and spent way too much time staring at nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles.

 

[btbnl]

That's what I'm getting at. Photons are massless and thus MUST travel at the speed of light, while Earth has mass and CANNOT travel at the speed of light (thank Einstien and special relativity math for that). If the assumption here is that they all started at the same point, how did we creatures of mass catch up with those speedy photons?

Emphasis mine; it isn't.

The Big Bang isn't a gigantic explosion at a single point in space and time, but rather the creation of an entire space-time. The space created is either infinite, or finite but without any edge (curved back on itself). In either case, an observer at any point P in that Universe's space, and at any time T in that Universe's history, can intercept exactly and exclusively those Big Bang photons that were created at any point T light-years* away and that happened to be launched towards P at time zero**.

*Actually it isn't quite T light-years because of the dynamics of that Universe; rather, it is the distance photons have traveled in the age of that Universe.

**Actually it isn't quite time zero, but the time at which that Universe first becomes transparent to photons, which also depends on the dynamics (expansion => cooling).

 

[btbnl]

Sandia national labs. Pretty cool place, but I can't really talk about the data.

LOL - I understand.

 

[BlueEyesBrewing]

I work as an RF/Microwave Engineer for a defense contractor. The group I'm in focuses on electronic warfare systems. My current role is to get a system that we've designed through its verification testing, which means that all 200+ requirements are met and verified either by design, analysis, inspection, or test. I'm working on the test procedure for that now and getting all the equipment necessary to start testing at the beginning of next year. The other tasks are dealing with any failures that happen from either the unit itself or any of the components inside and determining what caused the failure and how to fix it and how to prevent it from happening again.

The other type of work that I've done, that I like doing more, is designing and modeling receiver systems. Basically I design the path from the antenna inputs to our digital receiver. I have a model that I've built that is very detailed and complex and can run multiple paths at the same time automatically.

 

[Ridire]

Emphasis mine; it isn't.

The Big Bang isn't a gigantic explosion at a single point in space and time, but rather the creation of an entire space-time. The space created is either infinite, or finite but without any edge (curved back on itself). In either case, an observer at any point P in that Universe's space, and at any time T in that Universe's history, can intercept exactly and exclusively those Big Bang photons that were created at any point T light-years* away and that happened to be launched towards P at time zero**.

*Actually it isn't quite T light-years because of the dynamics of that Universe; rather, it is the distance photons have traveled in the age of that Universe.

**Actually it isn't quite time zero, but the time at which that Universe first becomes transparent to photons, which also depends on the dynamics (expansion => cooling).

Yeah...pretty simple, really

 

[passedpawn]

Emphasis mine; it isn't.

The Big Bang isn't a gigantic explosion at a single point in space and time, but rather the creation of an entire space-time. The space created is either infinite, or finite but without any edge (curved back on itself). In either case, an observer at any point P in that Universe's space, and at any time T in that Universe's history, can intercept exactly and exclusively those Big Bang photons that were created at any point T light-years* away and that happened to be launched towards P at time zero**.

*Actually it isn't quite T light-years because of the dynamics of that Universe; rather, it is the distance photons have traveled in the age of that Universe.

**Actually it isn't quite time zero, but the time at which that Universe first becomes transparent to photons, which also depends on the dynamics (expansion => cooling).

I figured it would end like this. I guess we'll have to just agree to disagree.

Haha, J/K! I knew eventually I'd have to accept that my traditional education left me hopelessly bound to Newtonian physics. Expanding universe is one thing, expanding space/time is another. The last chapter in my Univ physics book covered Lorentzian transformations, upsetting the stable world I though I knew. It was like the last book of the bible covering atheism.

 

[VApatriot]

i surf the internet and post on forums.

So which branch of the Federal Government do you work for?

 

[rmyurick]

I'm a chemical engineer, currently working at a refinery on safety system design (pressure-relief systems, specifically). Through my career I've worked at a large scale brewery, various chemical plants, a rubber parts manufacturer. Worked on projects for cereal manufacture, beer, and various chemical processes including titanium purification. My work at the brewery was in starting up a new "starting cellar", which in their process is where the wort is hot-settled, 'aerated", cooled, cold-settled and then oxygenated on the way to the fermentation (primary) cellar.

 

[hezagenius]

Emphasis mine; it isn't.

The Big Bang isn't a gigantic explosion at a single point in space and time, but rather the creation of an entire space-time. The space created is either infinite, or finite but without any edge (curved back on itself). In either case, an observer at any point P in that Universe's space, and at any time T in that Universe's history, can intercept exactly and exclusively those Big Bang photons that were created at any point T light-years* away and that happened to be launched towards P at time zero**.

*Actually it isn't quite T light-years because of the dynamics of that Universe; rather, it is the distance photons have traveled in the age of that Universe.

**Actually it isn't quite time zero, but the time at which that Universe first becomes transparent to photons, which also depends on the dynamics (expansion => cooling).

.

 

[spittybug]

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.

Retired (semi actually since I still dabble) petrochemical salesman, product manager, consultant. I've sold millions of dollars on single contracts, approved $100s of millions of sales and plant expansions and consulted on BILLIONS of dollars of new projects, many in the Middle East. I've travelled to places I never want to go to again and many that I would love to visit as a tourist. The world is a changed place however and I'm glad to be on the sidelines these days.

 

[btbnl]

I figured it would end like this. I guess we'll have to just agree to disagree.

Haha, J/K! I knew eventually I'd have to accept that my traditional education left me hopelessly bound to Newtonian physics. Expanding universe is one thing, expanding space/time is another. The last chapter in my Univ physics book covered Lorentzian transformations, upsetting the stable world I though I knew. It was like the last book of the bible covering atheism.

Part of the difficulty with cosmology is simply that our terrestrial existence hasn't equipped us with the concepts necessary to think about the entire Universe a a single entity, and any analogy we employ is always going to be incomplete and inaccurate.

As a science, cosmology is also only a century old (General Relativity is 100 this year). Nevertheless we tend to pronounce with great certainty theories which are almost certainly going to be disproved - as Lev Landau put it, "Cosmologists are often in error, but never in doubt".

To me though, this is a great illustration of the difference between science and religion; scientists believe in a method, and accept whatever that implies, even when it turns their previous world view on its head*. I saw this in 1999 when measurements of distant supernovae indicated that the expansion of the Universe was accelerating rather than decelerating; nobody was expecting that, all our theories were based on the inevitability of deceleration under gravity, and yet almost overnight they were all tossed out and replaced with new theories that better fit the new observations.

* At least in principle; in practice scientists are people with vanities and prejudices too, and persuading someone to let go of their pet theory can be a lifetime's work.

 

[Rhumbline]

I respect both points of view. My observation is that they both require a huge leap of faith and suspension of disbelief.

But I know where I'm putting my money.

Another prior job. Setting up trailers in Florida. Crawling around under them in the sand, covered in sandspurs and fire ants and sweating my B@!!s off. One of my first jobs.

 

[kh54s10]

For my job I have to figure out what someone, who has no clue of how to do their project, needs to do the project that they have no clue on how to accomplish. I then have to give them some advice on how to do their project, that they have no clue how to accomplish. And they don't have enough of a clue about the project to understand the advice I am giving them to do the project.

 

[k1ngl1ves]

I'm an engineer in a steam plant for a tiny hospital. It's a great job, but you have to be able to handle pressure...

 

[Maylar]

I'm a software developer that works on software to program smart cards. All those fancy new credit cards you're getting with the chips in them? Not that new, I've been doing this for 15 years.

I did that for the last 18 years for HID. iClass, Mifare, DESFire etc.

I'm an electronics engineer or more specifically and embedded systems engineer, which means I design things that have computers in them. I design the analog and digital circuit and then write the firmware that drives the hardware.

And that's what I'm doing now, for a company that makes pressure and temperature measurement systems. Because I'm an EE and I can spell "C".

 

[MonkeyBot]

I did that for the last 18 years for HID. iClass, Mifare, DESFire etc.

I have worked with Mifare and DESFire cards but these days it's almost all EMV implementations on various flavors of Java cards. JCOP has made it so much easier with a (somewhat) reliable standard these days.

 

[seefish]

Civil Engineer. I make sure S**T is flowing downhill...bad things happen otherwise.