Solving Life'S Problems, Chemically

Nothing triggers an existential crisis quite like a PE license expiration notice. First comes the panic—because without that Professional Engineer credential, you're basically just a person with an expensive calculator. Then relief washes over you when you realize renewal is just a few clicks away. Until... the website is down. Classic engineering problem: the system designed to maintain professional standards can't maintain itself. Murphy's Law applies even to Murphy himself.

The duality of engineering careers captured perfectly! In peacetime, engineers are basically Squidward on a deserted island—relaxing, playing guitar, and wondering if anyone will ever need their expertise. But flip the switch to wartime, and suddenly they're King Neptune on a golden throne, surrounded by riches and importance. Nothing transforms an engineer from "budget cuts incoming" to "here's a blank check" faster than military necessity. The historical pattern is crystal clear: peaceful societies question why they need engineers; societies at war can't get enough of them. It's the ultimate career roller coaster—either stranded on an island or ruling the kingdom!

The academic credentials arms race we never saw coming. While Bill Nye has been explaining volcanoes with baking soda for decades, Dolph Lundgren was quietly collecting chemistry degrees like they were movie villain roles. Turns out the guy who played Ivan Drago could theoretically synthesize the performance-enhancing substances his character used. The irony is exquisite - one man built a career on being "The Science Guy" with a single mechanical engineering degree, while the other punched Apollo Creed to death and then casually earned multiple advanced chemistry degrees across three continents. Just another reminder that in science, as in boxing, it's unwise to judge based on appearances.

The defense industry's unofficial recruitment strategy in one perfect meme. Nothing says "qualified candidate" like someone who slept through the ethics portion of their degree! The beautiful irony is that failing the class designed to teach you right from wrong might actually be the perfect qualification for building weapons. Talk about failing upward—your moral compass might be broken, but your career trajectory is looking mighty fine. Next stop: designing things that go boom while your conscience takes a permanent vacation.

Turns out the fancy "self-driving car" is just a bunch of sensors in a trench coat! Strip away the marketing hype and you'll find the real heroes—LIDAR bouncing lasers off everything like a disco ball, and radar mapping the road like an overachieving hall monitor. Next they'll reveal the "AI" is actually three squirrels with calculators. The tech industry's greatest magic trick isn't the technology—it's convincing us it's magic instead of glorified distance measuring with fancy algorithms.

The ultimate scientific sacrifice play! Top panel shows a lab technician risking berylliosis (a nasty lung disease caused by beryllium dust inhalation) just to watch a metal ball oscillate at kilohertz frequencies. Meanwhile, bottom panel features James Webb Space Telescope engineer Michael Menzel who used beryllium for the telescope's mirrors—potentially exposing the team to the same health risks, but for arguably more noble reasons: creating humanity's most powerful eye into the cosmos. The perfect encapsulation of risk assessment in science—is your experiment worth potential lung damage? For JWST, history will say yes. For watching a bouncy ball? Maybe reconsider your experimental priorities!