#32490: Martin Wagner — 07/20  at  03:41 PM
He'll be missed. The fifty million puns about his being "beamed up" that are appearing all over the planet will not, however.

#32491: PZ Myers — 07/20  at  04:02 PM
It's not actually witty enough to qualify as a pun, is it?

#32501: Martin Wagner — 07/20  at  08:41 PM
Puns are witty!?

#32503: — 07/20  at  09:30 PM
According to http://www.thefreedictionary.com a pun, 'a humorous play on words', may be a 'verbal wit'.

“Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words” (Dorothy Parker).

Another engineer icon quit our enterprise. He will be missed.

#32512: — 07/20  at  11:41 PM
He never looked engineer enough to me. He never consulted books, manuals, never did calculations, carried no small hand instruments or tools we real engineers love to have around. He never took a minute to think. I never understood what he was doing. But people accepted him as engineer, probably because of his accent. I liked him because he looked decent, professional and took part in no intrigues.

#32524: — 07/21  at  09:48 AM
Maybe I miswrote. I meant to say that he was a cultural picture of an engineer, much like the Mad Scientist. There are precious little engineers in the cultural discourse.

"Captain, I'm giving it all I've got."

#32533: — 07/21  at  10:59 AM
That's not fair, jaimito. He did consult the StarTrek equivalent of books/manuals and also had his share of hand gadgets. His calculations did seem a lot more hand-wavy than Spock's - but part of that was job inflation so he could claim credit later for doing it in/with less.