Don’t call them Vernier’s
Today we are part way through Paul’s story about fish food (no engineering reference in case there was any doubt) when we are joined by Ben. He is another engineer interested and exploring the intersection between engineering and art, here to discuss ideas and what I am trying to do.
We watch my video where the no pointed needle appears and I have a number of stills printed out. I say it will be easier to work from the stills as I’ll be able to make measurements on the paper and I even have my own ruler. There is a burst of laughter as my green plastic, rather short ruler makes an appearance. I thought it would be good to make a visual comparison to the digital callipers that Derek uses. Lots of people still refer to these are Vernier’s (an older measuring system) which annoys Derek greatly unbeknown to Ben who immediate refers to them as said Vernier’s. I suggest that Derek have a ‘Vernier’s swear box’ for such occasions. Old habits (and terminology) die hard I imagine.
So many subjects, cross discipline dialogues and questions of ‘vocation and profession’ from today (and some CAD also), will blog them over the coming days as I unpick my thoughts.
Lastly for now, Derek did point out leading on from my last post about ‘finishing’, that engineering is another profession that doesn’t finish either. Each job or brief is the best one can do with the knowledge and resources available, which in turn presents new ideas to be further explored and tested. It’s the passion for the subject and exploration that means it’s never finished only periodic concluding points before progressing again.
