Present buying? Engineer it.

Christmas is almost over for another year, and congratulations for surviving it intact. Or did you?

If you are anything like me, you may have failed miserably at the business end of the Christmas. The present buying. It's not that I don't 'get' or understand the needs of my other half, but I have concluded that when it comes to deciding what to buy, I am assaulted with too many options to make an accurate decision.

The question is, can I find a solution which may help me reduce the choices available?

Perhaps if we can firstly remove certain key variables? For instance, some couples set a ceiling to the amount of money which can spend on presents. By restricting the total spend you are solving a number of problems.

Since most presents really are not worth consideration unless you spend say £5.00, you are essentially restricting the amount of presents that you can buy. Also spending the bare minimum on every present does not offer up much of an opportunity to bestow upon your partner a fancy gift or two.

Therefore, I propose that the main present be determined [or enquired after] before shopping commences. It is also noteworthy to mention that blowing the entire budget on the main event is not preferable, as opening smaller, or lesser valuable presents is also part and parcel of a winning spread of gifts.

The question that remains is if you have set a price ceiling on the gifts [as determined by personal financial constraints], how much of that can you spend on the main event present? I propose that this is related to the amount of presents that you intend to buy. The amount of presents that you purchase must also be related to the amount of presents that your other half is set to receive from others. For example, if your girl friend is estimated to receive say 10 presents from her close family and friends, then this infers that you may be freed up to spend a larger proportion of the available funds on a single present.

Based upon the previous statements, I propose using the following algorithm.

First we must establish the number of presents which you should consider giving using the equation below:

Number of Presents N = [15-[A+0.5C+0.3P]] / 2

Where A = number of adults which are planning on giving presents to your partner.
Where C = number of children planning on giving presents to your partner.
P = number of pets in the household.

Always round down..

Once you have determined the number of presents, then simply apply this to one of the equations below:

Price Ceiling [£] x 0.75 and 0.25 for 2 presents
Price Ceiling [£] x 0.60,  0.30 and 0.1 for 3 presents
Price Ceiling [£] x 0.60, 0.20, 0.10 and 0.10 for 4 presents
Price Ceiling [£] x 0.50, 0.15, 0.15, 0.10 and 0.10 for 5 presents
Price Ceiling [£] x 0.45, 0.15, 0.15, 0.10, 0,10 and 0.10 for 6 presents

Example: Your partner is expecting presents from 4 adults, 2 children and the house contains no pets.


Therefore N = [15-[4+1]] / 2 = 5 presents.


The couple decided to spend only £75.00 on each other due to their financial situation.


Therefore each partner may spend up to £37.50 on the main present, £11.25 on 2 presents and £7.50 on the final 2 presents.

So there you go, use the equations wisely and perhaps you will have more luck than me next year. Well actually, I did try following the formulae - and I think that I decided upon the number of presents correctly.

Apparently cook books are still a no no though.

Merry Christmas and have a prosperous, and a very happy New Year!!


Engine[er]

Isambard Kingdom Brunel needs YOU!

You ever wondered what it would be like to own a Top Trumps pack full of the Greatest Engineers of all time? Yeah so did I. So I made this...

Top Trumps - The Greatest Engineers of all time

Well actually I created 35 of them. Each with their own statistics, but not wholly accurate at the moment. Since researching the lives of each and everyone of the chosen 35 Engineers lives or reading their biographies would have taken me years, then let's get a little bit of Christmas online collaboration going!?


[Stage 1]
I have already begun the task by naming the 5 attributes by which they are to be measured. Experience [in years], this represents the years which they were in the industry of engineering. Buildability [1-100], representing technical expertise. Creativity [1-100], how inventive and concerned they were with design subtleties. Business [1-100], did they run their own business? How successful were they? Inspiration [1-100], how well were they received by piers and the public. Did they inspire a generation?


If anyone has any better ideas, then please drop me a message!


[Stage 2]
The naming of the Engineers has taken me a small amount of research - and I did not want to name only Civil and Structural Engineers. Therefore I chose a representative sample of mechanical, product design, electrical and industrial engineers to cheer up the soiree a little. 
So here they are - please give me your input.
1.Isambard K Brunel    2.Sir Marc I.Brunel    3.Steve [Wozniak] 4.Sir James Dyson   5.Robert Stephenson    6.Eugene Freyssinet    7.Nikola Tesla    8.Archimedes    9.James Watt    10.Thomas Brassey    11.The Wright Brothers    12.Henry Ford    13.Thomas Edison    14.Leonardo da Vinci   15.Gustave Eiffel    16.Sir Henry Royce    17.Sir John Fowler    18.Othmar H Ammann    19.Sir Benjamin Baker    20.Anthony Hunt    21.Sir Ove Nyquist Arup    22.Alexander Graham Bell   23.James Brindley    24.Edgar Cardoso    25.Sir John F.Baker    26.Arthur Casagrande    27.Charles de Coulomb    28.Henry Darcy    29.Dr Oscar Faber    30.Clifford Holland    31.James Buchanan Eads   32.Joseph Locke   33.Thomas Telford    34.Fazlur Rahman Khan   35.Lillian Gilbreth

[Stage 3]
Once I have set the designs from the earlier stages, the final step [and most arduous] is to set some accurate levels for the each Engineer and their attributes. 
Doing this will take some effort. I suggest the best way to enable it is to set a maximum number of top level and lower level statistics. For example; only 5 individual attributes can be set at 100. We then decide which Engineer gets them. Then we set a total of 5 attributes at the lowest level of 10, and apply them to Engineers.


Finally we arrange each of the 35 Engineers in order of their perceived value for each available attribute. 

So please try this at home over the next few weeks of the holiday season. I will do the rest. 


Finally, the open poll and debate flooding the LinkedIn Engineering Groups dealing with Pay & Status will be concluded tomorrow [currently 99 votes / 88% voting not happy]. Watch out for that one.




Engine[er]




[update - Replaced Steve with Steve] Thanks Anon.