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Optimist, Pessimist, or Architect?

Readers' Queries Online

ORIGINAL QUERY:
Date: Tuesday, 1 April 2003
From: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Editor in Chief, Nexus Network Journal

To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the architect, the glass is not big enough.

After receiving so many wonderful abstracts for our consideration for the
Nexus 2004 conference, I'd like to add to that list:

To the NNJ reader, the glass will be the subject of his (or her) next presentation at Nexus.

Would anyone like to add to the list?

[Kim thanks Bahram Hooshyar Yousefi, http://yousefi.persianblog.com, for the original quote]

Comments 

 
#1 John Howe 2010-08-08 16:54
To the mathematician the glass is of his or her own construction.
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#2 Brant Matthew Tate 2010-08-08 16:55
To the mathematician, the glass is [(pi)*r(2)*l] while the water is [(pi)*r(2)*l]/2, where r=inner radius of glass & l=inner height of glass.

To the architecture historian, the glass is not yet of interest. Once the water evaporates however....

To the engineer, the glass is over-sized for optimal containment efficiency.
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#3 Addieg Robert 2010-08-08 16:56
To the Quality Assurance-Quality Control Director, the glass shown on the drawings doesn't agree with the glass shown in the specs (and believe me I see this every day)
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#4 Jørgen Holten Jensen 2010-08-08 16:57
To the building historian the glass was made of parchment, glimmer or linen, anything but glass!
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#5 John Ochsendorf 2010-08-08 16:58
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be!
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#6 Matthew Landrus 2010-08-08 17:02
To the mathematician, the glass is (2 x π x r x l) + (2 x π x r x r)

To the architecture historian, the glass is minimalist

To the engineer, the glass is tubular

To the web designer, theglassis.
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#7 Gyorgy Darvas 2010-08-08 17:03
To the physicist 99,999 per cent of the mass in the glass is made of wine, and only 0,001 per cent of the mass is the air.

(I'll drink to that).
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#8 Susi Knight 2010-08-08 17:04
To the dreamer...what glass?
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#9 Tomás García Salgado 2010-08-08 17:04
To the perspectivist, the glass is vanishing.
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#10 Dag Nilsen 2010-08-08 17:05
To the engineer, I believe the glass is superfluous - you get the same result quicker and cheaper by drinking from the bottle.

I recall having read somewhere a rather precise observation on the distinction between architects and engineers - Alan Holgate, I think it was, engineer partner of Ove Arup, after having struggled with the Sydney opera house: If an engineer finds out that there is a surplus in the construction budget, he will happily run to the client and tell him - if an architect discovers the same, he doesn't bother with the client, but immediately starts thinking about how to spend the money on design improvements.
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