Irritating Acronyms

I am looking on Calagator this morning to see what's going on this week and I find there is an EMC Symposium at PSU next Monday. Okay, what's EMC? Well, there's a PDF file which tells me that this event is:

EMC 2009
WHEN EMC AND SIGNAL INTEGRITY MEET
A Tutorial and Exhibition

But it still doesn't tell me what EMC is. Electronic Manufacturers Consortium? Electro-Magnetic Charisma? Effervescent Magical Conundrums? What we have here is an incestuous jargon fest. Only those in the know will attempt to penetrate their outer shield of obfuscation. Idjits.

Google-ing EMC turns up a company called EMC, that doesn't bother to define their initials either. I look for an email contact that I can click on, but that seems a little excessive for obtaining the definition of an acronym. Eventually I notice at the bottom of the Google search results page EMC acronym which gets me to the eEngineer's Glossary, where I finally get a definition:

Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC)
The capability of equipment or systems to be used in their intended environment within designed efficiency levels without causing or receiving degradation due to unintentional EMI. EMC generally encompasses all of the electromagnetic disciplines.

All the electromagnetic disciplines? Turns out there are a bunch of them.

• Electromagnetic Disturbance (EMD)
• Electromagnetic Emissions (EME)
• Electromagnetic Environment (EME)
• Electromagnetic Environmental Effects (EEE) or (E3)
• Electromagnetic Field (EMF)
• Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
• Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Coupling Paths
• Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)
• Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR)
• Electromagnetic Vulnerability (EMV)

All of which are talking about radio waves. Might be interesting, but then there's the $225 fee. They will wave the fee for full-time students. I wonder whether they would accept that I am a full time student of life? I mean, I must be, I don't have a job.

Update January 2017 replaced missing picture.