Marvels of Engineering

[robrenz]

I have always though of brain memory being like static ram that can become ROM if refreshed enough. Also if the refresh includes hands on and experimentation it becomes ROM much faster.  A big AH HA light bulb moment is often indelibly burned into memory.

[Zad]

If you have a department with 100 engineers in it which all have equal input, it will cost a fortune to run and years to get anywhere. However, if you have one experienced and skilled bloke (or blokette) leading it, there will be a structure and an inherent division of labour, with good control over the process. This is where you earn your money as an engineer, rather than someone who just hacks stuff together. All the important projects are run by small teams which identify an architecture and then issue relevant specifications to teams.

It can't just be me who grew up wondering how things worked. For all the ease of use that the Internet has brought, nothing compares with reading through a "how it works" book to teach all sorts of engineering concepts. The first thing I would think when I saw something new was "if I were to design something like that, how would I do it?" which should give you a good starting point when studying the internals of something.