Indeed, and the early Bond movies based on his books had much better plots.
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Currently retired after being in the Nuclear Power industry for 34+ years. After completing a dual degree at the University of Illinois Urbana, BSEE, minor in business administration-finance. I joined a midwestern electric utility. What a ride, began as a start-up engineer, design engineer, engineering manager, maintenance manager, project manager. Mid-career completed an MBA at Northwestern. Wrapped up my career as a project manager for implementing Fukushima lessons learned contingencies based on NRC ruling.
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Lessons like: Keep the helicopter warmed up and ready to go?
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The nuclear power industry has always been interesting to me. I worked on new construction, refuel outages, off site spare and replacement parts machining and fab work for the last 40 years or so. The spent fuel and low level radwaste problems need to be solved and there doesn’t seem to be much advancement in those areas.
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I was thinking more along the lines that all safety equipment required for safe shutdown is unavailable, all fuel supplies are unavailable and off-site electrical power is unavailable for 14 days. All access to the facility is blocked, offsite plant personnel and supplies can’t reach the facility as the roads are impassible. The onsite debris field is such that vehicles can not move about. Chinook helicopters or equivalent are available to transport supplies in from one of two regional contingency support centers.
All on site personnel remain on site until relieved implementing recovery procedures. A nuclear accident is not something I joke about.
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Currently onsite fuel storage has addressed short term spent fuel concerns. Fuel is removed from the Spent Fuel Pool and stored in vertical casks. The French were on the right track with reconstituting the fuel and encapsulating the fuel pellets, basically conversion to a ceramic element. Breeder reactor technology burning MOX fuel, basically reconstituted spent fuel, could have addressed a large portion of the spent fuel concern. There would have been significantly less waste to store.
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Well apparently following the impressive list of scholastic engineers & degreed space brainiacs, I might very well be the forum village idiot. Well, I DID do a couple years of Chemical engineering but soon realized the desire to move back home to my relatively small town; my options would be limited to the sewage treatment plant. Crappy job. I also ran out of University finances. I always knew I couldn’t do a life of desk work – I need to design & build stuff with my hands. Been self employed since mid 80s. Night club DJ by night, car audio guy by day, (amazing how long the twenty-something body can thrive on 4 hours of sleep per night). Now I do vehicle fitups for the RCMP. Radios, lights, sirens, video, canine, coverts & unmarked… I make the cars & bikes go flashy flashy, woop woop. As a contractor tho, sadly no pension. Now when I see a police car lit up, all I do is visually inspect to see if all the lights are working and the flash patterns are correct… From PS Audio to Pioneer, I have 7 complete systems, about 150 random components (mostly vintage), a car system that rivals all but one of my home systems and I’ve just recently hurled myself down the hare-hole of high-end headphones. So after a lifetime of self-employment, single life fun, poor planning and live-for-today spending habits, I am actively seeking an elderly gal with a bad ticker and a healthy pension. If that doesn’t pan out, my backup plan is to retire at noon on the day of my funeral.
I’ll say it once again: Everybody has SOMETHING that they spend WAY too much money that makes everyone else raise an eyebrow and say “Pfft – You’re an IDIOT”!
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Dont feel alone. No college at all for this old man. I did teach a couple of classes on race car vehicle dynamics at the local university though. I even had an SAE paper published along those lines.
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Amazed at the preponderance of engineering backgound chez PS. At least given the response to the thread.
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10-4. I feel like I should be over in the corner wearing the dunce cap. Just like old times. 
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All in all, a fairly technically-minded group…
Interesting.
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Engineers are genetically inclined to answer a question once it’s presented to them. 
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Self select bias 
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I am an Artist, bruh!
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47 years old, engineering / business by trade and worked in automotive, transportation (train), and aerospace industries. Currently Chief / engineering head for sensing business unit, a niche market for aircraft / helicopter engine and gearboxes health monitoring / fluid accessories. Aerospace is pedigree driven and has “if nothing wrong, don’t fix it” mentality, however, product improvement / extension and next gen. R&D pivoted to industry trend / voice of customer become critical. Enjoy seeing impact to business and more importantly improved reliability, safety to aircrafts, passengers / operators. At the moment prefer to stay in trench and work on business development, team building and next gen. stuff. As of music, parents used to take me and my brother to classic concerts / art galleries when we were young. Wasn’t big fan till in college, It just suddenly grew on me. My dad loved music so much and bought a hi-fi system (ATC SCM20 + AVI S2000 series) and it was within family till very recently (My brother traded in ATC SCM20 with a pair of Spendor floor standing speakers, still powered by AVI S2000). Back in 90s auditioned PS Audio Ultralink II dac and was very impressed. Study / work / family / kids thus didn’t go into hi-fi till 2017 and glad to be part of this growing community.
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An engineer, a statistician, and a physicist are out hunting. They spot a buck, and each take turns to try and bag it. The physicist goes first. He pulls out his lab book and quickly calculates the trajectory of the bullet, assuming it is a perfect sphere in a vacuum.
The bullet falls 20m short of the deer.
The engineer goes second. He pulls out his engineer’s pad and book of projectile assumptions. After a few minutes he’s ready, he takes aim, and fires.
The bullet lands 20m passed the deer. The statistician leaps in the air shouting, “We got it!” 
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One profession that’s lacking is musicians. I know Elk is a part time pro, a few others have stated in other threats some musical background, but no full time musicians?
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I need to get my Wife on here to respond. She’s an artist as well and uses the gear as much as I do. She’s more of an end user, but does have opinions/observations. We just had a conversation about Focal Sopra 2’s and color choices. We settled on white for L&R and a black center. They will be here on Monday.
We do a lot of listening together and often spend time together trying to decide if we can hear the latest tweak. She keeps me honest!
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Sorry, I was busy Watering my Ground Rod. Won’t reveal my secret sauce, as it were.
Age: Filing for Medicare.
Early days - did a lot of part time jobs woodworking and refinishing, while being a part or full time musician in Top 40 bands around Detroit. First 30 years in Michigan.
Moved to Chicago in the late 80’s. Played in a band for a while, and did commercial, industrial and live concert video work. Then got hooked up to doing live video production road work for Ford around the country. Future Vehicle Market Research. 25 year account for me, which was rare-ish. A number of other Fortune 500 clients.
More money than in music by multiples, so it was a brain dead equation at the time. Not creative or particularly interesting except from a Video and Audio Engineering and live event problem solving perspective. So I guess I would say I’m an engineer.
Still late 80’s - met my wife, moved to the suburbs, had kids, etc. (chillins - if you are reading this on the interwebs lo, these many years hence - apologies. You know the Deal) She died untimely 6 years ago at 56. So - the “second half”/part of my life was in Illinois.
Taught audio and video production for a year at a local college. Over the past decade, primary client has been the American Concrete Institute. Still work 3-4 months of the year for them.
Moved to Boulder three years ago. Beginning again. Third Life, it feels like.
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Sorry for your loss. Reading this sent chills through me. I can’t possibly imagine what this must be like. If it wasn’t for my Wife, I’d be either homeless or dead. She keeps me sane and grateful.
Thanks for sharing.
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