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by rdtsc 4787 days ago
Very inspiring!

My dad is an engineer as well -- a mechanical engineer. He designs, repairs and maintains large refrigeration equipment.

He taught me to:

1) be curious -- I used to take everything apart, and he would encourage it. He invited me with him at a site once, where there was a Soviet built fax machine. It had a ton of mechanical and electronic components. A goldmine of strange boards, a tape deck, large capacitors etc. I spend the whole day taking it apart. It was great fun.

2) be patient -- when stuff gets hard and things seems impossible step back a bit, take a breath, go for a walk and come back to the task.

3) do everything to the highest (but realistic) level perfection -- don't half ass stuff, make others look back and say 'oh that is the work of so and so, i recognize it by the high quality'

I never took a liking to mechanical stuff. But I ended programming but the same principles apply. So I am always grateful to my dad for the things he taught me (and is till teaching me) and I like reading stories like this.

I hope I am just as good of a dad for my kid and they look back and think of me the same way...