As an electronics engineer (yes, someone gave me a degree! :o) I quickly learned that resisitors are mythical magical beasts that can fix anything.

In a circuits lab you would regularly hear the cry "grrr, it's not working! Fetch me the resistors". No one has quite worked out how they do it every time.

Or as one of my favourite lecturers put it "you can design the most impressive, streamlined, cut down, beautiful circuit in the world. But I bet it still has a resistor in it"

:)